Bio-Age vs Calendar Age: Which Predicts Dementia?

A new study finds a significant risk if you are aging faster than expected.

There is a running joke in med school where if some professor asks you what the number one risk factor for a disease is and you have no idea, the best bet is just to say “age”.

It’s not universal, but age really is the common thing underlying most chronic diseases. Cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver and kidney problems — all of these increase with age. And then of course, there is dementia, the archetype of the age-related chronic disease, and the one many of us fear the most due to the lack of adequate treatment.

But… what is age? I mean, really, why should the number of times you’ve circled around the sun make any difference at all? Is there some cellular clock inside us tick-ticking away, incessantly, irredeemably, like the telltale heart? Is the rate at which we age fixed by genetics or is it changeable? Can we slow it down? And if we could, would those age-related diseases, if not disappear, regress into the distance?

These questions have led to the concept of “biological age”, the idea that, by measuring something (and that thing differs depending on who you ask), we can assign a more accurate value to your age than the number of candles that appeared…