The research suggests that biological age is measurable via epigenetic clocks and correlates with the risk of disease and death, but evidence that you can actually lower that age in a meaningful and lasting way is still absent. The available studies are small, methodologically immature, or conducted in mice. Anyone wishing to improve their biological age today has no single intervention with solid clinical backing to rely on.
Measuring biological age is now possible through so-called epigenetic clocks: tools that examine DNA methylation patterns, small chemical tags on the genetic material that change as you grow older. Clocks such as those of Horvath, PhenoAge and GrimAge do not measure calendar age but produce a biological profile, and they demonstrably correlate with the risk of disease and death. That makes them useful as a risk predictor, although they are not yet a proven steering instrument that lets you say: 'do this, and your biological age will drop by this many years.'
Whether you can actually lower that biological age is a question under active investigation but not yet answered. A review of the field1 describes the results as promising, but the authors are explicitly cautious: the quality of evidence is still too low, the studies are often small or methodologically weak, and firm conclusions about specific interventions with concrete effect sizes cannot yet be drawn. There are thus indications that it is possible, but no solid clinical evidence that a particular supplement, diet or treatment reliably lowers biological age in humans.
A striking example of experimental research comes from an animal study in mice2. Researchers used temporary mRNA therapy targeting the liver to restore immune signals, which led to improved T-cell production, a stronger response to vaccines and enhanced antitumour immunity. The effects were reversible after stopping treatment and did not cause autoimmune diseases, which is a safety advantage over existing cytokine treatments. However, this has been demonstrated in mice only. Whether this works in humans, and whether it also lowers biological age on epigenetic clocks, is entirely unknown.
What does this mean in practice? There is currently no intervention for which it has been clinically proven that it significantly and durably lowers biological age in humans, as measured by validated epigenetic clocks. The science is at an early stage: the measurement tools exist, the first mechanistic indications are there, but the step towards firm clinical confirmation has not yet been taken. Anyone who buys products or programmes today with the promise of lowering biological age is getting ahead of what the research justifies so far.
Based on two PMIDs: one review on epigenetic clocks and lifestyle interventions (PMID 36206857) and one animal study on mRNA immunotherapy in mice (PMID 41407851). No RCTs or meta-analyses available in the supplied sources.