Scientists have developed a new biological age test that measures your age, not just your age.
The IC clock analyzes DNA patterns in blood or saliva to assess intrinsic abilities – the sum of six key functions, including mobility, cognition, mental health, vision, hearing, and vitality. Unlike existing aging clocks that focus on disease risks, the tool evaluates functional declines and can help doctors tailor treatments to stay healthy rather than simply treating the disease. This study published in natural aging represents a shift to measuring what is most important to older people: maintaining independence and quality of life.
Functions of disease treatment
“It is crucial for older people to maintain function during aging,” said David Furman, PhD, associate professor at Buck and senior writer at Buck BioInformatics and Data Science Core.
The World Health Organization regards its inherent capacity decline as a medical condition in 2022 and adds it to the International Classification of Diseases. This official recognition verifies what researchers have long suspected – functional aging is more important than age in predicting healthy outcomes.
The emergence of IC clocks from this paradigm shift provides a molecular-level assessment to evaluate how someone’s body system remains in its own state over time.
Superior mortality forecast
When the established aging clock was tested using data from the Framingham Heart Study, the IC clock outperformed all previous generations in predicting overall mortality. The study shows that those with high IC clock scores average 5.5 years longer than those with lower scores.
This excellent predictive capability stems from the clock’s focus on functional abilities rather than disease markers. Although other tests may detect cell damage or inflammation, the IC clock captures whether this damage translates into a real-world limitation.
The tool exhibits a particularly strong link to cardiovascular disease, congestive heart failure and death from stroke, which significantly affect daily function before being fatal.
IC clock measurement
This test evaluates six areas that determine healthy aging:
- Mobility: Body movement and coordination
- know: Memory, thinking and psychological processing speed
- Mental Health: Mental health and emotional stability
- imagine: Vision and eye health
- hearing: Auditory functions and sound processing
- Nutrition/Violence: Energy levels and physiological reserves
Immune system connection
One of the most revealed findings of the study involves the relationship between functional aging and immune system health. The IC clock detects specific patterns in the immune cell population that can predict a person’s aging condition.
People with higher IC clock scores show increased CD28 expression, a protein essential for T cell activation, which usually decreases with age. They also have more naive CD8+ T cells, depleting fewer immune cells, suggesting that their immune system retains youthful traits.
The study identified 578 genes whose expression was correlated with IC clock scores. Many of these genes regulate immune function, especially T cell activation, which causes the immune system to closely track overall function decline.
Gender-specific aging patterns
This study reveals how men and women age differences in different functional areas. Men score higher in mental health and vitality, while women maintain better sensory function.
Even more surprisingly, the timing of decline varies by gender. Compared with men (67 years old), women showed a decrease in sensation (around 42 years old), while men showed an earlier cognitive decline (72 years old) with women (86 years old).
These patterns suggest that aging interventions may require customization of different quantifications for men and women, targeting different systems at different stages of life.
Diet and lifestyle factors
The study found specific dietary patterns associated with better functional aging. People with higher IC clock scores consume more deep meat fish (including mackerel, salmon, and sardines), and blood levels of marine aborigin protein omega-3 fatty acids are elevated.
Following sugar intake guidelines is also related to better IC clock scores. Those who consume less than or below the total energy intake show better functional aging than those who exceed the recommendation.
Interestingly, although the researchers warn that this does not necessarily prove causal, so moderate beer consumption is associated with higher scores and requires further investigation.
Domain molecular mechanism
In addition to overall intrinsic capabilities, researchers have created domain-specific clocks that reveal how different aging signs affect various functions. Higher vitality scores were associated with mitochondrial electron transport chain activity, while better exercise scores were associated with myocardial adaptation pathway.
Cognitive function shows unexpected patterns – high cognitive scores associated with lower neuronal developmental gene expression, suggesting that cognitive resilience may involve different mechanisms rather than simply maintaining more neurons.
Mental health is associated with DNA repair pathways, suggesting that genomic stability plays a crucial role in mental health during aging.
From research tools to clinical applications
The IC clock uses a DNA methylation pattern (which does not change the DNA sequence but rather chemical modifications that affect gene expression) from 91 specific sites in the genome. This relatively small number makes testing possible for widespread use.
Furman’s team is developing a dry blood spot version that will eliminate the need for clinic visits, making functional aging assessments in low- and middle-income countries accessible.
“If we can provide scalable, affordable molecular level tools to assess functional decline, the IC clock can help clinicians, researchers and policy makers better identify dangerous individuals and tailor-made interventions that promote longer healthy lifespans,” he said.
Regulatory and research applications
IC clocks solve major regulatory challenges in aging research. Although the World Health Organization regards intrinsic capacity decline as a medical condition, the FDA has not approved aging as a treatment target.
Furman believes that IC clocks can provide a way to end long-term arguments about whether aging should be classified as disease. “We hope that the IC clock will eventually enable the FDA to approve treatments that can improve health and function in older people.”
The tool has been implemented in the Xprize HealthSpan competition, where the Buck Institute team will use it to track the responses of interventions designed to restore muscle, cognitive and immune function.
What makes the situation different?
Unlike the aging clock that previously focused on predicting age or disease risk, the IC clock directly measures functional capabilities. This difference is important because two people of the same age have very different abilities to live independently and enjoy life.
The clock can be calculated from a blood or saliva sample with equal accuracy. This flexibility makes it suitable for research, clinical evaluation and possible home testing protocols.
Perhaps most importantly, the IC clock provides a unified metric that healthcare providers can use to guide treatment decisions, beyond traditional models of waiting for disease to develop before intervention.
As the population ages rapidly worldwide, tools such as IC clocks can change the way we age, thus bringing attention to the development of the disease to maintain function and independence throughout the life cycle.
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