Your Body Might Be Older Than You: How to Find Out and What to Do About It
You're 45, but your body might be 35. Or maybe it's 60. The truth is, you have no idea.
Most people walk through life completely blind to one of the most underutilized health metrics that determines not just how long they'll live, but how well they'll live those years. Even if you're tracking steps, monitoring sleep, and checking cholesterol levels, your cells are quietly accumulating damage that standard medical tests can't detect.
Traditional healthcare has failed us by focusing exclusively on chronological age, a number that increases every year regardless of how well you're taking care of yourself. Your doctor will ask about your family history and run basic blood panels, but these surface-level assessments won't come close to capturing the deeper biological processes that determine your true health trajectory.
Consider this: two 45-year-old men can have identical BMIs, blood pressure readings, and standard blood work results, yet one might be functioning at the level of a 40-year-old and the other might be functioning at the level of a 50-year-old.
The difference lies in their biological age. Specifically, the epigenetic markers that reveal how quickly their bodies are accumulating damage at the cellular level.
This invisible aging process is happening right now, within your cells, regardless of how healthy you feel. And traditional medicine isn't equipped to measure it, let alone address it.
Changing your health trajectory
Your chronological age is just a number derived from your birthdate. Your biological age reveals how well your body is actually functioning.
If you want to take control of your health and add quality years to your life, understanding your biological age through epigenetic testing is an invaluable tool.
Imagine having a precise measurement of how your lifestyle choices are affecting your aging process. Rather than guessing whether your exercise routine or nutritional approach is working, you could objectively track your biological age and make evidence-based adjustments to slow or even reverse certain aspects of your aging.
This advanced form of preventative medicine might sound like sci-fi, but it's already here, though conventional doctors aren't utilizing it. At Velocity Health, we're leaning into this approach because we understand that waiting for disease to manifest before taking action is an outdated and dangerous model of healthcare.
By measuring your biological age and speed of aging now, you can identify potential health risks years before they would show up on standard tests, giving you the opportunity to make targeted interventions while there's still time to change your trajectory.
In the rest of this post, you'll learn how this process works.
Measuring your biological age
So how does one measure their biological age? The answer lies in epigenetic clocks.
Epigenetic clocks measure specific patterns of DNA methylation, which are chemical modifications to your DNA that change over time. These patterns serve as biological timestamps that indicate how quickly your cells are aging. Unlike genetic testing, which shows what might happen based on your genes, epigenetic testing shows what is actually happening in your body right now.
For a health-conscious individual, this information is invaluable. You might discover that while your chronological age is 45, your biological age is 50, indicating accelerated aging and increased risk for age-related diseases. Or you might find your biological age is 40, suggesting your lifestyle choices and habits are paying off.
Why does this "age gap" matter?
Studies show that when your biological age is higher than your chronological age (a positive "age gap"), your risk of mortality increases. This increased risk can be dose-related, meaning a larger age gap can lead to a greater increase in mortality risk. This makes biological age a strong predictor of longevity and disease risk, potentially even more powerful than many traditional biomarkers.
Despite this, your PCP will not test your biological age. Your insurance company will not cover it.
The traditional medical system waits until you develop symptoms or abnormal lab results before intervening. By then, the underlying cellular damage has often progressed for years or decades.
Different types of epigenetic clocks
Different epigenetic clocks measure different aspects of aging, and understanding these differences is helpful to making informed health decisions.
Here is an overview of the most established ones to date:
Horvath Clock: The original epigenetic clock developed by Dr. Steve Horvath examines 353 specific CpG sites (locations where methylation occurs) across the genome. It was groundbreaking because it works across multiple tissue types and provides a "pan-tissue" biological age estimate. The Horvath Clock has been validated in numerous studies and serves as the foundation for subsequent epigenetic clocks.
GrimAge: GrimAge represents a significant advancement in mortality prediction. Rather than simply measuring biological age, it specifically forecasts time-to-death and disease development. It was trained using mortality data and incorporates methylation-based surrogate biomarkers for smoking history, plasma proteins, and various health risks. GrimAge can identify specific health vulnerabilities 5-10 years before they manifest as clinical disease, making it particularly valuable for preventive intervention.
PhenoAge: PhenoAge combines DNA methylation patterns with clinical biomarkers (including albumin, creatinine, glucose, C-reactive protein, and white blood cell count) to create a more comprehensive aging measure. It was specifically designed to predict age-related diseases and healthspan rather than just lifespan. PhenoAge is particularly sensitive to lifestyle factors and metabolic dysregulation, making it useful for tracking improvements from health interventions.
DunedinPACE: Unlike other clocks that provide a point-in-time biological age, DunedinPACE (Pace of Aging Calculated from the Epigenome) measures the rate at which you're aging. Developed using longitudinal data from the Dunedin study, it quantifies whether someone is aging faster or slower than the chronological norm. This makes it valuable for measuring the effectiveness of interventions in real-time, without waiting years to see if biological age has changed.
Examples of clinical interventions using epigenetic clocks
Here are a couple of hypothetical examples of how a proactive care partner like Velocity Health might use epigenetic testing to help formulate clinical interventions for their patients:
A 45-year-old male patient comes in with normal blood work but shows a GrimAge seven years older than his chronological age. More detailed lab work reveals early insulin resistance and inflammation that conventional testing would have missed. Through targeted nutritional interventions and stress management, we help reduce his biological age by five years in just eight months, confirmed through follow-up testing.
A 34-year-old female patient presents with fatigue and mild anxiety but has "normal" lab results from her primary care physician. Her epigenetic testing revealed a DunedinPACE score indicating she was aging 1.4 times faster than average, and her PhenoAge was six years older than her chronological age. Deeper investigation uncovers subclinical thyroid dysfunction, micronutrient deficiencies, and significant HPA axis dysregulation from chronic stress.
After implementing a personalized protocol addressing hormone balance, targeted supplementation, and stress resilience training, her follow-up testing four months later shows her DunedinPACE had normalized and her PhenoAge had decreased by three years. Her energy levels and anxiety have improved dramatically.
Both of these examples demonstrate how epigenetic testing can identify and help address health issues years before they would appear on standard medical tests.
How to leverage epigenetic testing
As you can see, knowing your biological age is just the beginning.
The real power comes from using this information to make targeted lifestyle changes that can reverse aspects of aging.
Research published in the journal Aging Cell demonstrated that a combination of diet, exercise, sleep optimization, and supplementation could reduce biological age by an average of 3.23 years over just eight weeks. This represents a paradigm shift in how we think about aging: from an inevitable decline to a modifiable process.
Here's how to leverage epigenetic testing for real health transformation:
Baseline assessment: Establish your current biological age across multiple epigenetic clocks
Identify key drivers: Determine which factors are accelerating your aging (inflammation, glycation, oxidative stress)
Targeted intervention: Implement personalized protocols addressing your specific aging accelerators
Regular reassessment: Track changes in your biological age to refine your approach
At Velocity Health, we pair advanced epigenetic testing with personalized coaching to ensure you're not just making changes, but making the right changes for your unique biology. We've helped patients significantly reduce their biological age through this precision approach.
Recap: Taking control of your aging
The disconnect between how old you are and how old your body thinks it is represents one of the greatest blind spots in conventional healthcare.
If you continue with traditional healthcare, at best you'll get generic advice about diet and exercise without the ability to measure their impact on your aging process. This leaves you flying blind, hoping your efforts are making a difference at the cellular level.
Epigenetic testing offers a window into your future health that allows for proactive intervention. Every day you continue without this information is another day your cells may be aging faster than necessary.
To take control of your biological aging:
Get comprehensive epigenetic testing that utilizes multiple aging clocks
Work with experts who can interpret these results in the context of your overall health
Implement targeted, personalized interventions based on your specific aging profile
Regularly reassess to ensure your efforts are effectively slowing or reversing biological aging
Don't wait for disease to manifest before taking action. Your future self deserves better than a "wait and see" approach.
Ready to discover your true biological age and take control of your aging process? Book a free consultation with Velocity Health today to learn how our precision approach to biological aging can help you live longer and better, starting right now.
