How to Construct Measures of Biological Age

This paper provides an introduction to the several different methodological approaches that can be used to assemble a measure of biological age from data sets that exhibit changes with age. In recent years, many varied aging clocks have been produced and tested. Where such clocks are derived from epigenetic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and similar data, it remains unclear as to which processes of aging they reflect, and to what level of sensitivity. Clocks that use very few data points can produce good measures in a naturally aging population, but are unlikely to be useful when assessing the outcome of a potential rejuvenation therapy that targets only one or a few specific mechanisms of aging. Aging is accompanied by a progressive decline in physiological functions and an accumulation of damage to the body, leading to an increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Based on birth date, chronological age (CA) is the traditional criterion for assessing aging. However, the degree of aging may vary significantly between individuals with the same CA. Therefore, CA is not the best indicator for evaluating the degree of aging in human individuals. To seek a better index to assess the degree of aging of individuals, biological age (BA) are used as alternatives to CA to estimate aging status. BA is the most popularly used model. Aging markers are the basis for constructing biological age, and in this article we summarize the markers used in constructing biological age. ...
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