What do you do with the result of a biological age test?

Epigenetic clocks measure patterns in your DNA to estimate a biological age that correlates with disease risk and mortality. There are several types of clocks, they differ from one another, and none has been established as the gold standard. That makes the result difficult to interpret: you cannot say that one clock is 'right' and another is not.

An AI model that used only routine health reports outperformed telomere length and eight epigenetic clocks in predicting mortality. Every year that your biological age was ahead of your calendar age was associated with approximately 5.5% higher mortality risk. This is promising, but it remains an association, not a proven cause. Working out what to actually do with it in the consulting room is the next step, and that step has not yet been taken.

Epigenetic scores can add information on top of known risk factors. They are associated with future diagnoses such as diabetes, stroke, depression and cancer, and that association held up when researchers corrected for lifestyle. But 'associated with' is not the same as 'predicts with certainty', and clinical application has not yet been demonstrated.

What can you practically do with such a result right now? Lifestyle factors such as nutrition, sleep and a regular day-night rhythm appear to influence epigenetic ageing, although cause and effect have not been firmly established there. That is at the same time the most useful handle available: a result that comes out higher than your calendar age is not a diagnosis, but it is a reason to look critically at your sleep, diet and exercise. Tailoring treatments on the basis of biological age measurements is something scientists expect for the future, but it is still awaiting the results of clinical trials and regulatory approval.