Any sufficiently complex set of biological measures can be used to produce an aging clock: researchers establish a database of the measures in people of different ages and apply machine learning techniques to produce an algorithm that maps an individual’s measured data to a predicted age. That doesn’t mean it is a good clock, however. One then has to validate the algorithm against data from other populations and see how well it does in predicting disease, mortality, and other outcomes of interest. Much of the development of clocks is focused on epigenetic data, but distinctly from that line of research, the scientific community is also exploring clocks built on clinical measures, such as blood chemistry, physical performance, and so fo…
The Physiological Aging Index Only Slightly Improves on the PhenoAge Clock
Any sufficiently complex set of biological measures can be used to produce an aging clock: researchers establish a database of the measures in people of different ages and apply machine learning techniques to produce an algorithm that maps an individual’s measured data to a predicted age. That doesn’t mean it is a good clock, however. One then has to validate the algorithm against data from other populations and see how well it does in predicting disease, mortality, and other outcomes of interest. Much of the development of clocks is focused on epigenetic data, but distinctly from that line of research, the scientific community is also exploring clocks built on clinical measures, such as blood chemistry, physical performance, and so fo…