The global population is aging, driving up age-related disease morbidity. Antiaging interventions are needed to reduce the burden of disease and protect population productivity.
Young people are the most attractive targets for therapies to extend healthspan (because it is still possible to prevent disease in the young). However, there is skepticism about whether aging processes can be detected in young adults who do not yet have chronic diseases.
Scientists have found a way to measure the aging process in young adults -- a much younger population than is usually tested in aging studies.
In a paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers showed that even among young adults, a person's biological age (declining integrity of multiple organ systems) may differ by many years from their actual chronological age.
Those who were biologically older at age 38 also appeared to have been aging at a faster pace. A biological age of 40, for example, meant that person was aging at a rate of 1.2 years per year over the 12 years the study examined. The participants who were biologically older on the inside also appeared older from ouside.
Thus, measured biological aging in young adults can be used to identify causes of aging and evaluate rejuvenation therapies.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/27136