Looking after your longevity might make you smarter. A preliminary study of over 250,000 people found that having a lower biological age compared to chronological age is associated with decreased risk of stroke and better cognitive performance
The longevity movement has changed how we think about aging, as how long you live is no longer about the number of years, but the quality of them, also known as your healthspan.
A key marker of how healthy you’re aging can be biological age, or how quickly your body is aging down to the cellular and tissue levels, which is ideally younger than your actual (chronological) age.
Widening that gap could be crucial to better brain health and lowering your risk of stroke, according to a new preliminary study to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in April.
Analyzing data from 258,169 people from a health care research database, researchers measured 18 blood biomarkers to determine biological ages, including cholesterol, average red blood cell volume and white blood cell count at the start of the study and again six years later for a subset of the participants.
Participants had an average biological age of 54 and a chronological age of 56 at the beginning of the study, with those numbers shifting to 58 and 62, respectively, six years later.
By the end of the study, people who had a biological age older than their actual age had less favorable brain scans, worse scores on cognitive tests and a 41% higher risk of stroke. But those who improved the gap between biological and chronological ages had a 23% lower risk of stroke.
Researchers also took into account other contributors that could heighten stroke risk and brain damage, such as high blood pressure, other vascular conditions and socioeconomic factors.
“It’s exciting to think that working to modify our biological age could be a pathway to preserving brain health,” said study author Dr. Cyprien Rivier of Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Lifestyle habits that support cardiovascular and metabolic health, like a healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep and good blood pressure control, may help narrow the biological age gap, though we did not evaluate lifestyle programs in this study.”
That is a crucial aspect to note, as the study itself does not prove that improving the age gap is the direct cause of lower stroke risk and improved brain health, but rather indicates a possible association, as it was not designed to show cause and effect.
“More research is needed, testing whether lowering people’s biological age gap can be demonstrated to reduce the risk of stroke and later-life brain injury,” Rivier said.
Biological age has shaped up to be one of the most crucial biomarkers for those invested in their longevity and healthspan, especially as we become firmly cemented in the blood-testing era.
While Function currently leads the booming market for personalized blood testing — raising $298 million in a Series B round that valued the company at a staggering $2.5 billion — it has some serious competition, including platforms like Superpower and telehealth giant Hims & Hers.
