How Old Are You, Really?
Reported April 4, 2005
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — Everyone knows their chronological age, but what about your body’s biological age? How fast your body and brain age may be different than how fast you age. A simple test could help you figure that out.
Heather Wright fears getting old before her time. “I am 34,” she says. “I feel about, I like to say 26 or 27. I’m not having anymore birthdays.”
Scott Bradley worries about aging, too. He says, “I am 58, and I feel a lot younger than that.”
Both Bradley and Wright took a biological age test to see how quickly their body has aged.
Terry Grossman, M.D., an anti-aging physician at Frontier Medical Institute in Lakewood, Colo., says, “Everyone gets older, but not everyone ages.”
Dr. Grossman says the computerized test measures 12 biomarkers of aging such as memory, hearing, lung capacity and reaction time. The results are compared to the average of those from the same age group. “There is nothing we can do about the chronological age,” he says, “but the biological age, we can treat.”
That may include changing diet or adding exercise. But not all doctors agree that the test should be taken so seriously.
Internist Manning Pickett, M.D., of Western Medical Center in Lakewood, Colo., says, “I think the thing to do would be to actually compare them to recognized standards and see how valid they are.”
Bradley, who is 58, tested at 63. But Wright, who is 34, tested a year younger. Maybe not counting those birthdays has paid off.
There are many types of biological age tests. This particular one costs $150. These tests are not covered by most insurance companies.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Ardis Boyd
Frontier Medical Institute
(303) 233-4247