Medical researchers in Chicago are studying the difference between a person’s chronological age — how many years they’ve lived — and their biological age, how old their body actually is.
“We are in a place where the biology of aging has been demystified,” said Dr. Douglas Vaughan, director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and the head of the study. “…If we can slow down aging, just a little bit, we can push back the onset of disease, and we can give people a longer health span.”
The researchers use a series of tests to calculate biological age, including a scan of the retina and an analysis of participants’ physical movement.
They also measure body mass in a machine called a Bod Pod. They do an electrocardiogram for heart function. They then use artificial intelligence to scour the mountain of data to come up with a number for a participant’s biological age.
Share this article
“Artificial intelligence gives us the opportunity to find patterns in the data that we can’t find with our eyes, that we can’t detect with a human brain,” said Dr. Josh Cheema, a cardiologist with Northwestern Medicine involved in the project.
