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[@PeterAttiaMD] Biological Age vs. Real Age: Which Matters More? | Brian Kennedy, Ph.D.

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@PeterAttiaMD - "Biological Age vs. Real Age: Which Matters More? | Brian Kennedy, Ph.D."

Link: https://youtu.be/GqooAZ48TIM

Short Summary​

Here's a breakdown of the provided transcript:

  • Number one most important action item or takeaway: The clinical chemistry clock, based on routine blood tests and AI analysis, is more useful and actionable for doctors than epigenetic clocks because it provides specific, treatable markers to improve patient health and potentially predict mortality.

  • Executive Summary: While epigenetic clocks show promise, a clinical chemistry clock using standard blood tests and AI can predict mortality better than some epigenetic clocks and offers actionable insights for doctors. This approach resonates with clinicians because it identifies specific, treatable markers that contribute to increased biological age and mortality risk, leading to more aggressive interventions and lifestyle modifications.

Key Quotes​

Here are four quotes extracted from the YouTube video transcript that I found particularly insightful:

  1. "Some of the first generation clocks are worse than chronologic age. Your passport is better than they are at predicting mortality, which to me means that they're not useful because, you know, even if they're not designed to predict mortality, if they don't capture some element of that, what are they measuring?"

  2. "But our clinical chemistry clock does better than that." (Referring to the prediction of mortality when compared to methylation clocks)

  3. "And so, yeah, I I don't know how they're doing that, so I can't comment. And nobody does, right? But my point is they're looking at age. They're looking at a whole bunch of things in your medical history. They're looking at a whole bunch of blood tests, your blood pressure, your weight, your waist, your circumference, all those things. and they're coming up with an exceptional prediction of remaining years on life. The real question is do you believe that they will incorporate a second generation uh epigenetic clock or do you believe that they've already got that captured in their data set?"

  4. "One is we find cases where nothing's out of the reference range. Okay. So, a doctor that's looking at things, especially if they have a few minutes to look at, they're not going to prescribe anything for this person. Yeah. But these four parameters in this principal component are increasing, you know, their their biologic age by four years, which means it's increasing their uh it's 50% increase in mortality risk. So, that's these are actionable things. you know, you can treat LDL, you can treat high blood pressure, you can treat these markers, right? And so clinicians are actually willing to then be a little bit more aggressive and try to prescribe something or lifestyle modification or something to treat these markers."

Detailed Summary​

Okay, here is a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript, focusing on the key topics, arguments, and information discussed, excluding advertisements.

  • The Value of Biological Clocks: The discussion centers on the utility of biological clocks (specifically epigenetic and clinical chemistry clocks) in predicting lifespan and guiding medical interventions.

  • Traditional Age vs. Biological Age: The speaker introduces the concept of chronological age as a baseline predictor of lifespan. The key question is whether biological clocks can surpass chronological age in accuracy for predicting mortality and providing actionable health information.

  • Ideal Standard for Biological Clocks: To justify their use, biological clocks should predict future lifespan more accurately than chronological age alone. Also, they should give doctors insights to a patient's health that other biomarkers couldn't already provide.

  • Study Using NHANES Data:

    • Researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) collected around 1999-2000 with mortality data tracked for 200 months.
    • They employed AI (linear model) to predict mortality based on various parameters available in NHANES.
    • This approach focused on predicting mortality directly (second-generation clocks) rather than trying to predict chronological age (first-generation clocks).

  • Findings on Methylation Clocks:

    • Some first-generation methylation clocks performed worse than chronological age in predicting mortality.
    • Second-generation methylation clocks (e.g., GrimAge, PhenoAge) do perform better than chronological age in predicting mortality.

  • Clinical Chemistry Clock:

    • Researchers developed a "clinical chemistry clock" using around 50 parameters from standard blood tests (complete blood count, LDL, inflammatory markers, etc.).
    • This clock outperformed both chronological age and methylation clocks in predicting mortality within the NHANES dataset.

  • Actionability as a Key Advantage:

    • The clinical chemistry clock's parameters are readily understandable by doctors and, crucially, actionable.
    • The clock can identify individuals who appear healthy (within reference ranges) but have elevated biological age due to specific parameter patterns.
    • This allows doctors to be more proactive in prescribing lifestyle changes or medical interventions (e.g., addressing high LDL, blood pressure) to improve health and potentially extend lifespan.

  • Why Hospitals Prefer Clinical Chemistry Clocks: They resonate more with doctors who aren't epigenetic experts, and their actionable insights lead to direct intervention.

  • Life Insurance Companies as the Gold Standard:

    • The best life insurance companies are the current benchmark for predicting mortality, using age, medical history, and blood tests.
    • The unanswered question is whether they already incorporate or will eventually incorporate second-generation epigenetic clocks into their risk assessment models.