Take the Real Age Test and Discover Your Biological Age

real age test

Take the real age test and find out if your body is older or younger than your chronological age. This test is based on scientific studies and abstract math, but all you need do is plug in some numbers from your blood work lab report or answer a few lifestyle questions.

real age test

THIS IS an opportunity to take a “real age test” that measured your biological age. Yes, you know your actual age (your calendar age), but how about old is your body? As you might expect, some people are biologically younger or older than their actual years; surprisingly, this is mostly to do with lifestyle choices as opposed to genetics. (Only “about 25 % of the variation in human longevity is due to genetic factors”, says this study.)

In late May, 2019, I send Google Sheets and Excel versions of a spreadsheet to my Subscribers that estimates biological age devised by John G. Cramer, Jr., a Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and based on the scientific studies of Drs. Morgan Levine, Steve Horvath and others.

The spreadsheet calculates your “real” age, the age of your biology, as opposed to how old you are chronologically.

The response to the bioage spreadsheets was robust. Several people sent me their results.  Two among them were Steve and Jean. You’ll see their results in a minute.

The three things I’m going to cover here are:

  1. A quick review of the Horvath real age test, which you can read all about here.
  2. The so-called “Age-Test” that predicts your real age just by asking you some questions.
  3. The Aging.ai real age test, which like that of Horvath’s, is deeply rooted in science and math.

 

The “Horvath” Real Age Test

You can find out about this test on the Test Your Bioage page, so I’m going to jump right into it and show you the results of two of the many of my Subscribers who sent me their results. As you can see below, Steve, whose age is 66, had a real age of 51; and Jean, aged 40, had a real age of 45.

As mentioned above, some of us have bodies that are older than our chronological years, and others are younger — AND, it mostly has to do with lifestyle choices.

 

Steve is 66, but his real age test shows a bioage is 51:
bioage test

(click to enlarge)

 

Jean is 40, but her real age test shows a bioage is 45:
real age test

(click to enlarge)

 

Go Get This Spreadsheet

 

Given the interest people have in knowing how well their biology is responding to chronology (bioage vs actual age), I want to show you my real age results from two other remarkably different bioage estimators — one from Age-Test and the other from Aging.ai — in case you’d like to check your results as well.

 

The Age-Test Based on A Survey

Age-Test is basically a survey that asks a bunch of questions, such as:

  • how old are you?
  • are you a realistic person?
  • what’s your favorite food?
  • do you have a high tolerance level?

I can tell there’s some science lurking behind these questions. For instance, “tolerance” is a measure for stress level, “favorite food” to measure junk food, meat and veggies, all of which have been quantifiable associated with bioage.

Surprisingly, my answers to the Age-Test questions resulted in nearly the same bioage for me as did the highly mathematical test based on the research of Drs. Morgan Levine, Steve Horvath, et al, the two examples of which are above (for Steve and Jean) and my example here.

A Screenshot of Joe’s “Survey” Age-Test

an age test based on lifestyle questions

So, the Horvath test calculated my bioage at 44 based on deep math and scientific research, and the Age-Test pegged me at 43 simply by asking a few questions. Intrigued, I sought out another bioage test that, like Horvath’s, is based on some abstruse stats and scientific inquiry.

If you don’t have any blood numbers from a past lab test, but are curious about how you’d fare taking a real age test, go check out the Age-Test. If you do have blood numbers, keep reading.

 

The Aging.ai Real Age Test

The Aging.ai test comes in three forms:

  • 1.0 is based on 41 blood test metrics and has the highest degree of accuracy;
  • 2.0 is based on 33 blood test metrics and has the lowest degree of accuracy (but still relatively accurate); and
  • 3.0 is based on 19 blood test metrics and has the second-best degree of accuracy among the three.

The Aging.ai test is a deep-learned predictor of your age made with a deep neural network trained on hundreds of thousands anonymized human blood tests, as studied by a group of esteemed scientists. You may review their research here.

I took the 3.0 test. Oddly, even though it uses fewer blood biomarker parameters than the other two Aging.ai tests, it is the biggest bang for the buck, because using just 19 parameters, the results have a higher probability of estimating your bioage than the one using 33 parameters. Most of us don’t have 33 or 41 blood markers from our annual blood test panel that our doctors often prescribe, but we do get the 19, even if most of them you’ve never heard of before.

I was curious about this test, because unlike the Horvath test, it requires a biomarker for cholesterol, a metric highly associated with healthspan and aging.

Click here for more about cholesterol

LDL stands for “Low Density Lipoprotein” and is often referred to as the “bad cholesterol” in contrast to HDL, High Density Lipoprotein, referred to as “good cholesterol”.

According to Dr. Michael Greger of NutritionFacts.org, you want your LDL to be between 50 and 70 mg/dL and Healthline puts the good HDL at over 40 mg/dL. See Recommended Cholesterol by Age, which shows this table:

 

 

A Screenshot of Joe’s Aging.ai Bioage Test Inputs
real age test

(click to enlarge)

Take Your Aging.ai Test

 

To cut to the chase, the Aging.ai bioage test result for me was a bioage of 28, whereas my actual age is 63! Interestingly, unlike the other two tests presented above, this one didn’t ask for my actual age or gender.

That it would estimate by biological age to be 35 years below my actual age is very confusing, because the math and science behind this test, like for Horvath’s, is solid, and yet… come on… 35 years younger is a stretch.

“If my bioage is 28, why can I no longer dunk a basketball?”, I muttered to myself when I first saw this result.

A Screenshot of Joe’s Aging.ai Bioage Test Results

age predicted by math and science

Some guidance on inputting Aging.ai numbers

When checking your lab test results make sure you’re inputting the right biomarker, number and units:

  • At the top of the Aging.ai blood test input page choose European or US metrics
  • Make sure that the “Blood Marker” on Aging.ai is the same as on your lab report
  • Make sure that the units asked for are the same as what’s on your lab report. For instance:
    • The Blood Marker, “Globulins” has a reference range of 14 – 49 g/l; whereas my blood test presents it in 1.9 – 3.7 g/dL, so I simply had to multiple my number (2.7) by 10 to get from l (liter) to dL (decaliter) to get 27, which is within the reference range of 14 – 49 g/l.
    • The Platelets shows U.S. units 103/uL, which corresponds to Thousand/uL.
    • The Erythrocytes (RBC) measured in 106/uL may show on your lab results as Red Blood Cell Count measured in Thousands/uL

You’ll see that the LDL number the test requires is called, “LDL cholesterol (by Friedewald)” (go here for online calculator),

The equation is:

Total Cholesterol – HDL – (Triglycerides/5) in mg/dL units

In my case, it’s: 173 (TC) – 50 (HDL) – 15 (Triglycerides of 60 divided by 5) = 111 mg/dL

At 111 mg/dL, my Friedwald LDL number is higher than my LDL blood test result of 108. At 108, my doctor has advised that I actively try to lower it or go on a very low dose statin. Strangely, and perhaps alarmingly, the Aging.ai reference range for Friedwald LDL is 0 – 99 mg/dL (U.S. measurement units), below my 111 number. And yet I still scored a remarkably low real age number of 28.

Don’t worry, I won’t take that to the bank.

 

Last Updated on June 15, 2019 by Joe Garma

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Joe Garma
 

I help people live with more vitality and strength. I'm a big believer in sustainability, and am a bit nutty about optimizing my diet, supplements, hormones and exercise. To get exclusive Updates, tips and be on your way to a stronger, more youthful body, join my weekly Newsletter. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 2 comments
Steve - June 16, 2019

Hi Joe, excellent article on bio-age testing. I’m planning on getting bloodwork done but have a quick question about another topic.
I take both Pro Health NMN and Elysium NR as precursors for NAD+. My question is do I need to take both for improved NAD+? I understand that NMN might be more bio-available than NR. Also, saw a podcast where David Sinclair (geneticist)said he takes both.
Do you have any insights if both are needed, or perhaps stimulate NAD+ via different mechanisms? Taking both obviously requires a higher monthly cost.

Thanks again, Steve in Denver

Reply
    Joe Garma - June 16, 2019

    Steve, I also take the ProHealth NMN + Elysium’s Basis (NR). To my knowledge there have only been two human trials completed, one sponsored by Elysium and one done in Japan. The Elysium study showed a 40% increase in NAD+ from taking 250 mg of Basis per day and a 90% increase taking 500 mg. The Japan study has not been published. From my readings, NR and NMN are absorbed differently and take different biochemical routes to boost NAD+. I figured, why not take both. My dose of both of them together is one gram per day, which is what Dr. David Sinclair takes, he being among the top researchers of NMN. Re cost, seems about the same if whatever dose you desire is split between NR and NMN, as their respective prices are similar, if memory serves.

    Reply

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