There is Still Room to Improve Upon Epigenetic Clocks

Researchers here demonstrate that there is still room to improve the accuracy of epigenetic clocks based on patterns of DNA methylation. It could be argued that more effort should go towards generating a sufficient understanding of DNA methylation to allow the use of existing clocks to assess potential rejuvenation therapies, however. The long-term promise of epigenetic clocks is to provide a way to rapidly determine whether or not a given intervention is producing a meaningful reversal of aging, a replacement for time-consuming, expensive life span studies. Because researchers do not at present understand how underlying processes of aging are reflected in specific DNA methylation changes, it is impossible to take clock data at face value for any given intervention that targets only one aspect of aging. A clock may be insensitive to that mechanism of aging or it may give it too much weight. There is no way to know without undertaking life span studies to calibrate the clock against the intervention, defeating the point of the exercise. "First generation" epigenetic ageing clocks, including those by Horvath and Hannum, were trained on chronological age (cAge), with near-perfect clocks expected to arise as sample sizes grow. However, cAge clocks hold limited capability for tracking and quantifying age-related health status, also termed biological age (bAge). To address this, "second generation" clocks have been trained on other age-related measures, including a phenoty...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs