An artificial intelligence developed by Chinese researchers could establish the biological age which illustrates the health of our cells as well as our organism, and which can be different from our real age.
- Biological age reflects the physiological or functional state of a person.
- Lifestyles greatly influence our cellular aging.
Over the years, our face changes: small wrinkles appear at the corner of the eyes, the cheeks sag or the forehead wrinkles. However, not all of us age at the same rate. We sometimes have the impression that a 40-year-old looks much older, or that a 60-year-old looks younger than his age. This phenomenon corresponds to the biological age which characterizes the health of our body and evolves differently according to lifestyles (diet, physical activity, tobacco consumption, etc.). It is therefore more difficult to detect than our chronological age, otherwise the age that corresponds to our birth certificate.
Clocks that estimate chronological age and biological age
In research published in 2020 in the journal Nature MetabolismJing-Dong Han, digital biologist from Peking University, and his team analyzed 3D face photos of 5,000 people living in Jidong (China) to develop a tool to calculate biological age.
The researchers then created a clock that estimates chronological age and a second that predicts biological age using artificial intelligence (AI). These aging clocks make it possible to observe the changes present on the face over the years.
“Accelerated aging is highly associated with infections and inflammation”
During the research, a difference of three years was found between the AI’s predictions and the participants’ actual ages. The researchers then estimated that the volunteers who looked three years older aged more quickly, while the subjects who looked three years younger aged more slowly.
During the study, scientists also looked at participants’ lifestyles and took blood samples. According to the results, smoking, snoring or high levels of bad cholesterol were linked to faster physical aging. For Jing-Dong Han, “accelerated aging is highly associated with infections and inflammation”. These disorders result in changes in physical features such as sagging skin and narrowing of the forehead. Conversely, people with healthier lifestyles aged more slowly.
“Overall, we find that humans age at different rates, both in the blood and in the face, but consistently and with a heterogeneity that peaks with middle age. Our study provides an example of how whose artificial intelligence can be exploited to determine the perceived age of humans as a marker of biological age, while no longer depending on chronological age prediction errors, and to estimate the heterogeneity of rates of aging in a populationadded the researchers.