How Age Is Determined
We determine age in a couple different ways. The most common is through chronological age: the number of years since your birth. Your chronological age is also called “lifespan.”
Another more accurate way is known as biological age, which considers many more factors than just which day you exited the womb.
Your biological age addresses the age which reflects how your body functions and accounts for the age you feel. This is known as your “healthspan.”
What Is Chronological Age?
Our chronological age, or lifespan, only tells us how long we’ve existed on Earth. You can determine a person’s chronological age with a quick glance at their driver’s license.
Every person’s chronological age progresses at the same rate, no matter who they are, where they live, how they eat, or move.
The problem with chronological age is that it doesn’t take into account our functional abilities. How do we react to the world around us? What kind of epigenetic alterations are we dealing with?
The number on your birth certificate simply can’t label how you feel.
Chronological age isn’t a good predictor of mortality either. Of course, mortality risk increases as a person ages. But there are much more accurate ways of predicting how long someone will live than by looking at someone’s date of birth.
What Is Biological Age?
Your biological age is your healthspan. It’s how you feel and function at your chronological age due to all your unique epigenetic interactions.
Biological age has a number of different components, such as your cellular functioning, the rate of deterioration of your body, lifestyle factors, and genetic predispositions. It considers the chemical changes in your DNA, cells, and telomeres.
Biological age does not increase at the same rate for everyone. We can feel or function older or younger than our chronological age.
Have you ever wished you could age in reverse? Though your chronological age gets ever higher, your biological age can decrease with a few changes! Our healthspan can be higher or lower based on many factors.
Determining your biological age provides a much better understanding of your mortality risk and aging rate. It’s NOT about the day you were born.
How Do We Measure Biological Age?
When doctors determine a patient’s biological age, they look at several factors including telomere length and other biomarkers of DNA methylation (MTHFR). The goal is to determine how fast our cells are deteriorating and conversely, how able and functioning we are.
Lifestyle factors epigenetically influence our genetic expression and thus, our biological age. Sleep quality, pollution, alcohol intake, stress level, social-emotional experiences, and eating habits are just some of the highly impactful elements that play roles in determining biological age.
Biological age is not static. It’s possible to arrive at a number and then see it decrease or increase a short time later. This usually happens after changes occur such as starting or stopping smoking, engaging in new healthy or unhealthy relationships, or stopping or starting nutritional supplementation.
Making a habit of healthy lifestyle choices is the best way to turn back the biological clock.
What Can I Do To Slow or Reverse the Aging Process?
What do you need to change your biological age? That’s something that can only be determined by looking at your individual body.
Your unique needs determine the approach that’s right for you. Nature and nurture are both at play here.
You can’t change your chronological age. And you can’t change your genetic inheritance, either.
But you can take care to fuel your cells in a way that promotes a long and healthy life!
The best way to slow or reverse biological aging is to understand your genetic predispositions and use your lifestyle choices to nurture yourself accordingly.
This process starts with genetic testing, which can reveal your genetic predispositions.
Once you better understand your blueprint, you can make changes necessary to improve your biological age.
Healthy Nutrition
You fuel your cells through the foods you eat day in and day out. Including a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, proteins, and healthy fats in your diet provides an excellent foundation for reversing your biological age.
Choosing organic foods (over conventional) can decrease the amount of toxins your body will need to detoxify, thus furthering your efforts to reduce your biological age.
Staying hydrated with plenty of water throughout the day is vital in keeping your cells healthy.
Supplementation
Adding nutritional vitamin and mineral supplements when gaps exist in your daily nutrition can significantly decrease biological age.
Which supplements you need depends largely on your unique biology and SNPs.
First, find out about your genetic strengths and vulnerabilities. Then supplement with nutrients shown to help offset your genetic weaknesses.
Taking a supplement with ac-11® also greatly boosts biological age reduction through its ability to repair DNA and support telomere length.
Adding Movement
Adding an evening walk, heavy lifting, or a yoga class to your day can benefit your biological age in many ways!
Exercising regularly for at least six months is shown to lengthen telomeres, thus protecting cells from biological aging. Aerobic exercise seems to have the highest impact. One study found that people who exercised vigorously were up to nine years biologically younger than people who were sedentary.
Of course, exercise can add strength, flexibility, endurance, energy, and balance to carry you through life as time goes on. All have benefits for living longer well.
Healthy Relationships
When we think about a healthy lifestyle, we often fail to address our relationships. But we know that stress is associated with premature aging. Having healthy close relationships are key to living longer and loving well. The Blue Zone study highlights the importance of healthy social connectedness for healthspan, where centenarians spent a lot of time and effort nurturing relationships with their children and grandchildren. A sense of belonging and community were also named as important pillars.
Nourish the relationships that nourish you and be aware of the relationships that are a continual source of stress.
This isn’t to say you should bail whenever you have a little spat with a friend. But consider setting boundaries in your close relationships for the sake of your mental health and stress level. And be sure to make time for fun and laughter! Though they may contribute to “laughter lines,” a regular dose of humor decreases stress, reduces blood pressure and increases immune cells and antibodies, all of which reverse biological aging.
Sleep Hygiene
Staying up late can be so tempting. You know you’ll regret it in the morning, but this might be the only time you get to yourself all week!
Adequate sleep is an essential part of your overall health. If Netflix is calling, or a good book, set limitations for yourself (one episode, chapter, or crossword puzzles only!) that help you sleep sooner. Remember, the blue light emanating from device screens keeps the brain awake. Set your screen(s) to nighttime mode which has a red hue so your brain can settle when it’s time to rest Or better yet, unplug two hours before bedtime.
Create an environment conducive to sleep — a cool room, some darkening shades, and a little quiet white noise — to help you get drowsy faster and sleep more peacefully.
Try making aesthetic changes to your bedroom so you look forward to slipping under the covers each night.
Here and here are additional hacks to help slow or reverse your biological aging process while sleeping.
Maintenance Matters
If you’re a car fanatic, you know that the chronological age of a car doesn’t tell the whole story.
You can buy an amazing new car off the lot, but if you fill the tank with diesel or never change the tires, it’s not going to last long.
On the other hand, we’ve all known someone whose car is thirty years old and still chugging right along The owner likely closely monitors the oil level, rotates the tires regularly and never skips a tune-up!
Many factors influence how long a person will live, and many more factors influence how long a person will live well.
Most of us would agree that aging well means feeling well while aging, so it’s important that we care for our bodies by making health maintenance a lifelong habit.
You Can’t Change Your Chronological Age
…but you CAN change your biological age through the right combination of lifestyle and nutrients. And SNiP Nutrigenomics is here to help support you every step of the way.
