Your choices determine how old you are, not your year of birth. And the good news is that it’s possible to turn down your biological age! What is the “aging clock (iAge)” that indicates the biological age developed by scientists? Why is it important to fight inflammation?
Scientists have developed an ‘age clock’ that shows your biological age. By measuring inflammation in the body, it is possible to find out if you are at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and developing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s in the future, thanks to the age clock that indicates your likelihood of developing health problems associated with aging.
The team that developed the age-time iAge analyzed blood samples from 1,000 people ages 8 to 96 in a comprehensive project (1,000 Immunomes Project) conducted by Stanford University that explored the relationship between aging and the immune system. So they had the opportunity to observe how the signs of chronic inflammation change as people get older.
The researchers combined the participants’ chronological ages, health status and the device’s algorithm to identify markers that most prominently indicate chronic inflammation. Among them, a protein called CXCL9 was found to be the strongest marker to indicate systemic inflammation. This protein, which is produced on the inner surface of blood vessels, is known for its association with the risk of heart disease.
Getting Old Without Aging
The most striking part of the study was that after scientists developed iAge, it was now the turn of the test phase. They tried their findings on 19 older people. The youngest of the participants was 99 years old. When iAge measured the biological age of the participants, they were all much younger in their biological age. According to the device, these centuries-old sycamores were about 40 years younger than they really were! The study’s researchers interpreted the data obtained as follows; those with low chronic inflammation markers lived much longer.
Scientists have long been thinking about the concept of age clock to understand how healthy a person is and to predict future diseases. Measuring biological age is actually a familiar concept, but the first age clock that uses inflammation as a marker is iAge. Age clocks developed in previous years were based on markers showing changes in gene expression.
The Rise of Preventive Medicine
“As the team developing iAge has highlighted, starting from epigenetic markers to measure biological age is an extremely complex and challenging way,” said Phytotherapy specialists, who identify chronic inflammation in the body and measure biological age as a much simpler, much easier method. More importantly, chronic inflammation is preventable, controlkable.
Thanks to this research, it can be determined who is at risk and the person can live a longer, healthier life with interventions that fight chronic inflammation.
Experts also say that it is not surprising that preventive medicine is becoming more important day by day, developing technologies to support this approach, adding: “It is clear that the intervention after the disease has appeared, especially in the case of chronic diseases, does not work, only the understanding of medicine shaped by prescribing medicines remains on the way! Technologies such as iAge are also very important in terms of showing the direction in which the medicine of the future is evolving. Now we want to stop the disease from developing, before it occurs, and we want to meet older ages with health.”
“Imagine a patient in his 40s who is going down the wrong path, when you show him that his biological age is actually 60 and you tell him that it is possible to turn it down, he will be much more willing to eat right and make the right choices,” the experts said.
“Yes, we may have an early warning system in the near future, but we already know the secret to preventing chronic inflammation, to reverse biological age, to live long and healthy; the secret of health passes through your table!”
Fitherapy experts list their recommendations for combating inflammation as follows:
8 effective recommendations to fight inflammation:
Avoid processed foods: Avoid all processed foods, from chips to ready-made soups to ketchup. The chemicals in these garbage foods inflame the immune system, causing chronic inflammation.
Give up bread, sweets: Carbohydrates such as bread and pasta, which the system perceives as sugar, cause more insulin hormones to be produced in the body. Insulin triggers inflammation. Keep in mind that the gluten molecule in genetically modified modern wheat causes chronic inflammation, first in the intestines, then throughout the system.
Remove trans fats from your life: Margarines are trans fats that are not found in nature, which the immune system does not recognize and perceive as an enemy. Stay away! Healthy fats such as moon flower oil and corn extract oil also contain trans fats and carcinogenic substances, as they are exposed to high temperatures during the production phase. There are tens of hundreds of scientific publications showing that these fats cause chronic inflammation in the body.
Olive oil is a health miracle: prevents inflammation with oleic acid in olive oil, protects cardiovascular health. Always opt for cold-squeeze olive oil.
Do not forget about the anti-inflammatory powers: Do not miss green leafy vegetables such as chard, spinach, onions, garlic, tomatoes and okra from your table. They’re all superpowers fighting chronic inflammation.
Feed rich in collagen: The collagen found in bone broth, trotter and tripe soup maintains intestinal integrity. So toxic substances can’t seep into the bloodstream. Deterioration of intestinal permeability paves the way for chronic inflammation.
Do not miss fermented foods from your table: Consume plenty of home yogurt, pickles, vinegar. Fermented nutrients and friendly bacteria that we take into our body and the immune system are in constant communication. Harmful bacteria that multiply in the absence of friendly bacteria cause inflammation in the body.
Increase your omega-3 consumption: Omega-3 fatty acids are your most effective weapon in the fight against chronic inflammation, and the richest source of omega-3 is oily fish. Take advantage of periods when sardines, acorn fish are abundant. Do not forget about vegetable omega-3s. Eat plenty of walnuts, almonds, nuts.
Source: Sayed, N., Huang, Y., Nguyen, K. et al. An inflammatory aging clock (iAge) based on deep learning tracks multimorbidity, immunosenescence, frailty and cardiovascular aging. Nat Aging 1, 598–615 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-021-00082-y