Slowing down ageing is wonderful, but can we rewind it?
The chronological age is just a digit that reflects how many circles you have made with the Earth around the Sun. In contrast, biological age precisely mirrors your body's physiological stage. Remarkable recent research advancements have made people wonder: can we rewind our biological age? The answer starts with methylation.
What is methylation?
There are many methods for measuring biological age, but the methylation clock is the most scientifically validated and relevant.
We are born and we die with the same set of genes encoded in the DNA sequence. But the program of our development changes because of gene methylation. It is a process that can “turn off” some of the genes, making them inactive. If any gene is marked with a “flag” of the methyl group, it is “turned off” or silent.
In the late 2000th, big data and machine learning allowed scientists and their leader, Steve Horwath, to analyze thousands of people’s genomes of different ages. And they found that methyl label positioning in our genome changes with age, always in the same manner. The 353 age-related methyl labels precisely predict human age from the embryo to death.
Methylation is a bit like a tear-off calendar of our years, but the sheets are not torn off but are glued to DNA instead. The methylation clock is used by longevity scientists worldwide.
"We cannot change our chronological age, but we can change our biological age."
Is it already possible?
Methylation is a dynamic biomarker. Since it is a reversible process, you can become younger, which will be reflected by the clock. Scientists worldwide seek how to slow, halt or rewind ageing, and now we can measure the success of such interventions!
When rejuvenation worked
At least for animals, it was clearly shown that time can be turned back with epigenetic clocks by several interventions: calorie restriction, stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles, and parabiosis. And recent human clinical trials have shown rejuvenation with young plasma usage.
Second-generation clocks, like GrimAge, are also even better at predicting diseases. Compared to the previous one, it also considers epigenetic marks of your lifestyle, like cigarette smoking. Unbelievable, but almost every cigarette smoked remains an epigenetic mark on our DNA, and shortens our life!
Rejuvenation in terms of completely rewinding your ageing process might not be available just yet. Research on complex topics like this definitely takes a lot of time, brainpower, and money. But with the current pace of advancements and the public’s interest in this topic, such a miraculous technology may be just right around the corner.
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