OK, so we’re all trying to turn back the clock on aging and live the longest, healthiest life possible, right?
But how do we measure that? Are we actually making any progress at all?
Are we managing to slow the aging process, or extend our lifespans? How can we gauge that?
One way is to wait decades until we’re about to kick the bucket, and then look back and decide…how’d we do?
Well, I for one don’t want to wait that long, I want to know now.
A much better option is to get tested to find out what your biological age is, right now.
And in today’s video, I share with you guys a variety of tests that are available to do just that.
What’s one of the best ways to discover whether or not you’re making any progress with any program?
You need to track your progress. You need to test where you are when you start and establish a baseline.
Then do whatever you want to effect change.
Then test again, to see if any of the baseline parameters have moved.
If they’ve improved, then you KNOW that you’re making real progress, not just hoping.
If you haven’t made any progress, or not the kind of progress that you were hoping for,
then the test results inform you of that and you can adjust what you’re doing to get better results.
And sometimes, testing will even point you in the right direction so that you know how to change the program to get the results that you’re looking for.
For those of us trying to live radically longer and more healthy lives, frequent testing is vital.
And the tests that I’m talking about are tests that reveal how well we’re aging,
usually as a biological or functional age.
Our chronological age is simple a measure of how long we’ve been on this planet.
But our biological age is a measure of how much we’ve aged, biologically.
Our functional age is a little different, it determines the age at which our bodies are functioning.
There’s also our cognitive age…which measures how well our brains are holding up to the ravages of time.
I believe that testing as many parameters as possible
and comparing those tests will give us a really good snapshot of where we are in the aging process.
And getting those tests done on a regular basis will provide us with with a series of snapshots.
We can then use those snapshots to track our progress in slowing aging
and help us to decide whether the strategies that we’re employing are working, or not.
They can also inform us as to which areas need more work.
Here’s the thing.
Most of the strategies that we could employ have been tested, and we know they work on the test subjects
…or at least, most of them.
But once we decide to use those strategies, how do we know that they’re working on us?
Without getting tested, we’ll never know.
So lately, I’ve been investigating a lot of tests that measure biological, functional and cognitive age.
Now, before we start, I just wanna say that I have not conducted an exhaustive search,
and this is by no means a comprehensive list.
Nor does is necessarily cover the most important, or the most popular, tests.
I might have missed some tests, maybe even some really important ones.
If I did, leave me a comment and let me know what tests I missed, or you'd like to see included.
Now, I tried to break down these tests into categories.
First off, some of them are free…and some of them are not.
There’s tests that are free, but you have to enter data from the results of blood panels… which you have to pay for.
There’s tests based on lifestyles, where you answer a bunch of questions online.
There’s tests based on analysis of biological samples that you submit.
So, I’ve decided to categorize them by what aspect of aging they test for, and how they’re administered.
And then, for each test, I’ll tell you how much they cost, if anything.
Links to either take the online tests, or order the lab work are in the description below.
Alright, first out of the chute are biological aging tests that are simply online calculators
that are based on a questionnaire of some type.
All of these tests are free. I’ve taken all these tests, and I’ll let you know how I scored.
Now, the first of these is called the Biological Age Calculator, and it’s from a site called CalcuWorld.
They have all types of calculators, some of them quite useful.
This one ask a lot of questions, from personal and family health history, to activity levels, to risk factors.
You’ll need to have some lab results for this one;
specifically your blood pressure and your LDH cholesterol levels.
And this one not only gives you your biological age, but also your own personal life expectancy.
This test gave my biological age as 47.6 years and my life expectancy as 107.6 years.
You know what, at 70, I’ll take that.
The next calculator is from Biological-Age.com.
It’s much like the last one, asking for similar information, but not as in-depth.
The result was a little wonky though.
It said that I had knocked 17 years off my chronological age and that my biological age was 45.
But 17 years off of 70 is 53. But to be honest, I’ll take either one.
The last of these online tests is from World Fitness Level, and it’s much like the previous tests,
but goes into even more detail. It gives my biological age as 48.
So, I got results of 45, 47 & 48. Pretty close, actually.
The next category of biological age tests that I’d like to talk about require that
you submit a biological sample, usually blood or saliva, to a lab.
Sometimes, the sample can be collected at home,
sometimes you have to go to another, local lab, to have the samples collected.
The first of these is the Phenotypic Age Test.
This test comes in the form of a spreadsheet.
You get some blood drawn at a local lab, or your doctor and then send it to another lab to get it tested.
From the results of that test, you enter nine different biomarkers into the spreadsheet,
and the sheet calculates your biological age.
Now, I've put a link in the description below to a site where you can download that spreadsheet.
So the test is free, but you have to pay for the lab work.
There’s two blood panels that you need to get, and they’re both available from LifeExtension.com,
and I’ve put links to them in the description.
One is the C-Reactive Protein test, and it costs about $31.50.
The other is a Chemistry Panel & Complete blood count test, or CBC, and it costs around $26.
But instead of the CBC, I chose to get the Male Panel Blood test,
which cost $224 and it includes the CBC test, plus some others.
Next up is something called Aging AI.
It’s a lot like the last test, in that you need to get some blood work done and enter the results into a form.
But it examines a lot more biomarkers.
Aging AI offers 3 different tests, Aging.AI 1.0 which requires 41 parameters,
Aging.AI 2.0 which requires 33 parameters, and Aging.AI 3.0 with just 19 parameters.
This is why I got the more expensive Male Panel Blood test from LifeExtension.
It’s got the other biomarkers that I need for Aging.AI.
Now, I’ve read some reviews which stated that the Aging.AI 3.0 test doesn’t seem to be very accurate…
I’m guessing that's because it doesn’t use as many biomarkers. And by the way, Aging.AI is free.
Next, we’re going to talk about biological aging tests
that are based on epigenetic testing of your blood, urine or saliva.
These tests measure the amount of DNA methylation in your genome and predict your epigenetic age.
By and large, these test are considered the gold standard of biological age testing.
The best of these is the Horvath Clock, developed by Steve Horvath.
And the only place that I know of that you can get tested using the Horvath Clock is at myDNAge.
You can purchase either a blood test or a urine test for $299 and both can be collected at home.
Another epigenetic aging test is offered by EpiAging.
This is another kit that is for testing at home, but this one uses a sample of saliva.
I have no idea how it stacks up against the test from myDNAge, but it’s about half the price, at $145.
Now, while epigenetic testing is one scientifically accurate way of testing your biological age,
another is to test the lengths of your telomeres.
TeloYears does just that.
They offer a test that measures the length of your telomeres and predicts your biological age.
This is another blood test that you can collect at home and then send in for testing.
You can purchase either a single test for $89 or two tests,
one for now and another for testing in 6 months, for $145.
So, if you’re doing some type of protocol to lengthen your telomeres,
if you get both tests, then you can track your progress.
There are a couple of other tests that you can take.
The first of these is from Food For the Brain.org and the test is called the Cognitive Function Test.
It tests your memory, your ability to identify differences between similar sequences, stuff like that.
It also asks for a blood test that measures homocysteine levels,
but that not required to get the results.
This is another free test, and when I took it I tested at about 62, but I haven’t got my homocysteine levels yet.
The last test measures your functional age, rather than your biological age.
This test is called AgeMeter and it measures at what age your body is functioning.
I don’t know where you can get this test or how much it costs. I got it at RAADFest last fall.
I know that they’re planning on providing a consumer version of the test,
which you’ll be able to get from the App Store, and it’s for downloading onto an iPad.
I contacted AgeMeter and asked them when they were planning on releasing the consumer version,
and they said “later this year”.
Like I said, I’ve taken all of the free tests, and I’ve also purchased the myDNAge test, and the TeloYears test.
I’ve also purchased blood tests so that I can do the Phenotype Age test and the Aging AI test.
At some point in the future, when I’ve received all the test results,
I’ll maybe do another video and report on that those results are.
Getting tested to determine your biological age is the first step in any longevity plan.
If you’d like to know how to put together the rest of a longevity plan,
check out this series I did on how I put together my own plan.
That’s it for me, I’m outta here. I’ll catch ya next time.