ARE YOU AGING FASTER/SLOWER THAN THE AVERAGE POPULATION?

Dr Kalpana Gupta14 May, 2022Health

Chronological age is the number of years a person has been alive, while biological age refers to the physiological age i.e. how old your metabolic body is, based on a number of factors, like how your chromosomes have changed over time that depends on various factors including diet, exercise and sleeping habits, to name a few. Telomeres are the caps on the end of human chromosomes, similar to the caps on the end of shoelaces, these proteins protect the ends of DNA strands from shortening and fraying. The length of telomeres tends to shorten or degrade with age. A genetic test can measure the length of your telomeres and thus provide the biological age that is encoded in your DNA. The rate of telomere shortening may indicate the pace of aging in your cells of the body.