Two 65-year-olds may look identical on paper, but one will live to 90 while the other dies at 72. Columbia University scientists have developed a revolutionary ageing tool that can predict who’s who, using nothing more than basic medical tests.
The breakthrough method measures how fast you’re ageing, not just how old you are. Tested on nearly 20,000 adults over 50, it uses nine everyday measurements: blood pressure, grip strength, walking speed, balance, waist size, lung capacity, blood sugar, kidney function and inflammation levels.
“The differences in aging speed we found weren’t just statistically significant—they were meaningful,” said Dr. Daniel Belsky, associate professor at Columbia Mailman School. “People aging faster were much more likely to get sick, become disabled, or die sooner, even if they were the same age on paper.”
The most shocking discovery? Your education level affects ageing speed more than many lifestyle factors doctors typically warn about.
“These metrics consistently predict future health outcomes, including disease onset, disability, and death. And they reveal important differences in aging trajectories across population subgroups. For example, the study reported signs of accelerated aging in people with lower levels of education,” explained lead author Dr. Arun Balachandran.
Think of it as your body’s speedometer. Some people age at 0.8 years per calendar year—aging in slow motion. Others race ahead at 1.2 years per year. A simple grip strength test could be a more predictive of lifespan than family history.
“Our existing toolkit doesn’t include methods that can separate out the legacies of early life from the changes caused by aging,” Belsky explained.
The method could revolutionise everything from insurance premiums to retirement planning. “We originally developed the Pace of Aging method to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions targeting the biology of aging. The new approach introduced in this paper is designed to do the same for social policies and public health programs,” Belsky said.
“The Pace of Aging method is an important approach for understanding population aging,” Balachandran noted, with applications extending far beyond healthcare.
“Our method will enable researchers and public health professionals working with population data to better understand how policies, social structures, environments, and individual behaviours shape ageing trajectories across populations worldwide,” Belsky added.
Most encouraging? If scientists can measure ageing speed, they might eventually learn how to slow it down. The age of truly personalised medicine based on biological ageing has officially begun.
Ritchelle is a Content Producer for Healthcare Channel, Australia’s premier resource of information for healthcare.
