Latest news with #biologicalAge
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How Old Are You Really? New Test Calculates Biological Age and Longevity With 90% Accuracy
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." You've heard it for years: Age is just a number. But there's been a huge focus lately on biological age, which is how old your cells are. There are a bunch of different ways to calculate this number, including tests you can order online. But researchers have just discovered a new way of calculating your biological age—and they say it's the most accurate one you'll find. It's called the Health Octo Tool, and it uses a slew of different metrics to figure out your biological age. Meet the experts: David Cutler, M.D., a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Parul Goyal, M.D., a geriatrician at Vanderbilt Health in Nashville; Shabnam Salimi, M.D., Ph.D., physician-scientist and an investigator at the University of Washington Medicine Healthy Aging & Longevity Research Institute Here's why there's so much buzz around it right now, plus why knowing your biological age may help you live longer. The Health Octo tool is a new health assessment tool that uses several metrics taken from a physical exam and routine lab tests. When used together, it can help determine a person's biological age and predict their risk of disability and death, according to a scientific paper published in Nature Communications. The tool centers around an aging concept called health entropy, which is how much molecular and cellular damage the body accumulates over time, as well as how that damage impacts organs and bodily systems. To create the tool, the researchers analyzed data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, analyzing participants' medical history as well as data from physical exams and other medical tests. The researchers also included data from two other large studies on more than 45,000 adults. The scientists created what they called a Body Organ Disease Number, which was based on the number of organ systems, like the cardiovascular, respiratory, and central nervous systems, that were impacted by disease. They also factored in whether a person had a history of cancer or stroke to get a score between one and 14. The researchers also created something called a Speed-Body Clock and Speed-Body Age to break down how a person's biological age impacts their walking speed (which is a common measure of function in older people). Also in the mix: Disability-Body Clock and Disability Body Age, which analyzes how getting older impacts the risk of developing cognitive and physical disability. All of those metrics can be gathered from a person's medical history, physical exam, and test results to calculate a person's aging process. Ultimately, the researchers say that the Health Octo tool is better than major tests used for assessing biological age, including the frailty index, a widely-used test that looks at a person's susceptibility to age-related health issues. The researchers found that the test can predict the odds of developing disability and death with 90% or higher accuracy. The Health Octo tool uses some of the same data from existing biological tests, but takes things a step further. Many of the tests that are currently used focus on the impact of certain diseases, but don't consider how those diseases and minor disorders impact a person's overall health, the researchers explained in the paper. 'Health decline is multi-dimensional,' says lead study author Shabnam Salimi, M.D., Ph.D., physician-scientist and an investigator at the University of Washington Medicine Healthy Aging & Longevity Research Institute. 'So, we decided to develop a multi-dimensional health metric that captures intrinsic aging and rate of aging.' Knowing your biological age has become more of a fun health flex lately, but doctors say it's important to know this number beyond bragging rights. 'There is some value to seeing the things you should be doing,' says David Cutler, M.D., a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. Meaning, if you know your diet isn't as clean as it should be, and your biological age is older than your chronological age (i.e. how many years you've been alive), it should be a wake-up call to do things differently. 'Biological aging mechanisms underlie accumulation of chronic diseases,' Dr. Salimi says. 'So, translating health to rate of aging can help to better understand biological aging mechanisms and response to interventions that target biological age.' Parul Goyal, M.D., a geriatrician at Vanderbilt Health in Nashville, agrees. 'Knowing your biological age is a good tool so that patients are more aware of what their health looks like,' she says. 'They can then make proactive, positive changes in their health to be more physically fit and emotionally engaged.' While Dr. Cutler points out that 'you probably know that you should be doing things differently anyway,' if you're not on top of your health habits, he notes that a higher biological age may motivate some people to make changes. Of course, that doesn't mean that it will. 'Is that going to make people drink less, avoid smoking, and eat better? We don't know,' Dr. Cutler says. Doctors recommend doing a lot of different things to age in a healthy way, although none are shocking. Here's the advice Dr. Cutler and Dr. Goyal share with their patients: Eat a healthy, varied diet—ideally the Mediterranean diet. Limit alcohol or avoid it entirely. Don't smoke or quit smoking. Try to be active on a daily basis. Stay on top of routine healthcare, including cancer screenings. Wear a helmet when you ride a bike. Use your seatbelt in the car. Try to minimize stress in your life. Focus on getting good sleep. Try to stay mentally stimulated. Socialize with friends and family. Dr. Salimi says that she and her fellow researchers are now working on developing an app to make the Health Octo Tool easier to use. You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
AI can tell how old your body really is and how quickly you're aging using just a selfie
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A new artificial intelligence (AI) model can predict a person's biological age — the state of their body and how they're aging — from a selfie. The model, dubbed FaceAge, estimates how old a person looks compared to their chronological age, or the amount of time that's passed since their birth. FaceAge's makers say their tool could help doctors decide on the best course of treatment for diseases like cancer. But one outside expert told Live Science that before it is used that way, follow-up data needs to show it actually improves treatment outcomes or quality of life. When a doctor is treating a cancer patient, "one of the first things they do is they try to assess how well the individual is doing," Hugo Aerts, director of the AI in Medicine Program at Mass General Brigham, said in a news briefing on May 7. "This is often a very subjective assessment, but it can influence a lot of future decisions" about their treatment, including how aggressive or intense their treatment plan should be, he added. For example, doctors may decide a patient who looks younger and more fit for their age may tolerate an aggressive treatment better and eventually live longer than a patient who looks older and more frail, even if the two have the same chronological age. FaceAge could make that decision easier by turning doctors' subjective estimates into a quantitative measure, the study authors wrote in the new study published May 8 in the journal Lancet Digital Health. By quantifying biological age, the model could offer another data point in helping doctors decide which treatment to recommend. Aerts and his colleagues trained the model on more than 58,000 photos of people ages 60 years and older who were assumed to be of average health for their age at the time the photo was taken. In this training set, the researchers had the model estimate chronological ages and assumed that the people's biological ages were similar, though the scientists noted that this assumption is not true in every case. The team then used FaceAge to predict the ages of more than 6,000 people with cancer. Cancer patients looked about five years older, on average, than their chronological ages, the team found. FaceAge's estimates also correlated with survival after treatment: The older a person looked, regardless of their chronological age, the lower their chances of living longer. By contrast, chronological age was not a good predictor of survival in cancer patients, the team found. FaceAge isn't ready for hospitals or physicians' offices yet. For one, the dataset used to train the model was pulled from IMDb and Wikipedia — which may not represent the general population, and may also not account for factors like plastic surgery, lifestyle differences, or images that have been digitally retouched. Further studies with larger and more representative training sets are needed to understand how those factors impact FaceAge estimations, the authors said. And the researchers are still improving the algorithm with additional training data and testing its efficacy for other conditions besides cancer. They're also investigating what factors the model draws on to make its predictions. But once it's finalized, FaceAge could, for example, help doctors tailor the intensity of cancer treatments like radiation and chemotherapy to specific patients, study co-author Dr. Ray Mak, a radiation oncologist at Mass General Brigham, said during the briefing. A clinical trial for cancer patients, comparing FaceAge to more traditional measures of a patient's frailty, is starting soon, Mak added. RELATED STORIES —Sped-up 'biological aging' linked to worse memory —New tool estimates your immune 'age,' predicts risk of disease —Will humans ever be immortal? Ethical guidelines surrounding how FaceAge information can be used, such as whether health insurance or life insurance providers could access FaceAge estimates to make coverage decisions, should be established before rolling out the model, the researchers said. "It is for sure something that needs attention, to assure that these technologies are used only for the benefit of the patient," Aerts said in the briefing. Doctors would also need to carefully consider when and how they use FaceAge in clinical settings, said Nicola White, a palliative care researcher at University College London who was not involved in the study. "When you're dealing with people, it's very different to dealing with statistics," White told Live Science. A long-term study assessing whether involving FaceAge in treatment decisions improved patients' quality of life is needed, she said. The researchers noted the AI tool wouldn't be making calls about treatment on its own. "It's not a replacement for clinician judgement," Mak said. But FaceAge could become part of a physician's toolkit for personalizing a treatment plan, "like having another vital sign data point."
Malay Mail
10-05-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
How old are you, really? AI uses headshots to predict biological age and health risks
WASHINGTON, May 10 — Doctors often start exams with the so-called 'eyeball test' – a snap judgment about whether the patient appears older or younger than their age, which can influence key medical decisions. That intuitive assessment may soon get an AI upgrade. FaceAge, a deep learning algorithm described Thursday in The Lancet Digital Health, converts a simple headshot into a number that more accurately reflects a person's biological age rather than the birthday on their chart. Trained on tens of thousands of photographs, it pegged cancer patients on average as biologically five years older than healthy peers. The study's authors say it could help doctors decide who can safely tolerate punishing treatments, and who might fare better with a gentler approach. 'We hypothesize that FaceAge could be used as a biomarker in cancer care to quantify a patient's biological age and help a doctor make these tough decisions,' said co-senior author Raymond Mak, an oncologist at Mass Brigham Health, a Harvard-affiliated health system in Boston. Consider two hypothetical patients: a spry 75-year-old whose biological age clocks in at 65, and a frail 60-year-old whose biology reads 70. Aggressive radiation might be appropriate for the former but risky for the latter. The same logic could help guide decisions about heart surgery, hip replacements or end-of-life care. Sharper lens on frailty Growing evidence shows humans age at different rates, shaped by genes, stress, exercise, and habits like smoking or drinking. While pricey genetic tests can reveal how DNA wears over time, FaceAge promises insight using only a selfie. The model was trained on 58,851 portraits of presumed-healthy adults over 60, culled from public datasets. It was then tested on 6,196 cancer patients treated in the United States and the Netherlands, using photos snapped just before radiotherapy. Patients with malignancies looked on average 4.79 years older biologically than their chronological age. Among cancer patients, a higher FaceAge score strongly predicted worse survival – even after accounting for actual age, sex, and tumor type – and the hazard rose steeply for anyone whose biological reading tipped past 85. Intriguingly, FaceAge appears to weigh the signs of aging differently than humans do. For example, being gray-haired or balding matters less than subtle changes in facial muscle tone. FaceAge boosted doctors' accuracy, too. Eight physicians were asked to examine headshots of terminal cancer patients and guess who would die within six months. Their success rate barely beat chance; with FaceAge data in hand, predictions improved sharply. The model even affirmed a favorite internet meme, estimating actor Paul Rudd's biological age as 43 in a photo taken when he was 50. Bias and ethics guardrails AI tools have faced scrutiny for under-serving non-white people. Mak said preliminary checks revealed no significant racial bias in FaceAge's predictions, but the group is training a second-generation model on 20,000 patients. They're also probing how factors like makeup, cosmetic surgery or room lighting variations could fool the system. Ethics debates loom large. An AI that can read biological age from a selfie could prove a boon for clinicians, but also tempting for life insurers or employers seeking to gauge risk. 'It is for sure something that needs attention, to assure that these technologies are used only in the benefit for the patient,' said Hugo Aerts, the study's co-lead who directs MGB's AI in medicine program. Another dilemma: What happens when the mirror talks back? Learning that your body is biologically older than you thought may spur healthy changes – or sow anxiety. The researchers are planning to open a public-facing FaceAge portal where people can upload their own pictures to enrol in a research study to further validate the algorithm. Commercial versions aimed at clinicians may follow, but only after more validation. — AFP
Malay Mail
09-05-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
Snap a selfie, spot your real age: How new AI could transform the way doctors treat cancer
A new AI tool called FaceAge can estimate a person's biological age from a selfie, offering doctors a sharper lens to assess frailty and guide treatment plans. Cancer patients identified as biologically older by FaceAge had poorer survival outcomes, making it a potential tool for personalising care. While promising, the technology raises ethical concerns around data use, bias, and how knowledge of one's biological age could affect mental health. WASHINGTON, May 10 — Doctors often start exams with the so-called 'eyeball test' — a snap judgment about whether the patient appears older or younger than their age, which can influence key medical decisions. That intuitive assessment may soon get an AI upgrade. FaceAge, a deep learning algorithm described Thursday in The Lancet Digital Health, converts a simple headshot into a number that more accurately reflects a person's biological age rather than the birthday on their chart. Trained on tens of thousands of photographs, it pegged cancer patients on average as biologically five years older than healthy peers. The study's authors say it could help doctors decide who can safely tolerate punishing treatments, and who might fare better with a gentler approach. 'We hypothesise that FaceAge could be used as a biomarker in cancer care to quantify a patient's biological age and help a doctor make these tough decisions,' said co-senior author Raymond Mak, an oncologist at Mass Brigham Health, a Harvard-affiliated health system in Boston. Consider two hypothetical patients: a spry 75-year-old whose biological age clocks in at 65, and a frail 60-year-old whose biology reads 70. Aggressive radiation might be appropriate for the former but risky for the latter. The same logic could help guide decisions about heart surgery, hip replacements or end-of-life care. Sharper lens on frailty Growing evidence shows humans age at different rates, shaped by genes, stress, exercise, and habits like smoking or drinking. While pricey genetic tests can reveal how DNA wears over time, FaceAge promises insight using only a selfie. The model was trained on 58,851 portraits of presumed-healthy adults over 60, drawn from public datasets. It was then tested on 6,196 cancer patients treated in the United States and the Netherlands, using photos taken just before radiotherapy. Patients with malignancies looked on average 4.79 years older biologically than their chronological age. Among cancer patients, a higher FaceAge score strongly predicted worse survival — even after accounting for actual age, sex, and tumour type — and the hazard rose steeply for anyone whose biological reading tipped past 85. Intriguingly, FaceAge appears to weigh the signs of ageing differently than humans do. For example, being grey-haired or balding matters less than subtle changes in facial muscle tone. FaceAge boosted doctors' accuracy, too. Eight physicians were asked to examine headshots of terminal cancer patients and guess who would die within six months. Their success rate barely beat chance; with FaceAge data in hand, predictions improved sharply. The model even affirmed a favourite internet meme, estimating actor Paul Rudd's biological age as 43 in a photo taken when he was 50. Bias and ethics guardrails AI tools have faced scrutiny for underserving non-white people. Mak said preliminary checks revealed no significant racial bias in FaceAge's predictions, but the group is training a second-generation model on 20,000 patients. They are also probing how factors like makeup, cosmetic surgery or room lighting variations could fool the system. Ethics debates loom large. An AI that can read biological age from a selfie could prove a boon for clinicians, but also tempting for life insurers or employers seeking to gauge risk. 'It is for sure something that needs attention, to assure that these technologies are used only in the benefit for the patient,' said Hugo Aerts, the study's co-lead who directs MGB's AI in medicine programme. Another dilemma: what happens when the mirror talks back? Learning that your body is biologically older than you thought may spur healthy changes — or sow anxiety. The researchers are planning to open a public-facing FaceAge portal where people can upload their own pictures to enrol in a research study to further validate the algorithm. Commercial versions aimed at clinicians may follow, but only after more validation. — AFP
Telegraph
09-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Selfies can be used to predict cancer patients' survival rate
Selfies could predict a person's chance of surviving cancer, a study has suggested. Doctors believe a new artificial intelligence tool that measures the 'biological age' of a patient based on a photo of their face, could inform the type of cancer treatment they receive. Knowing someone's biological age, rather than their actual age, is a better predictor of someone's overall health and life expectancy, a team from Mass General Brigham, a non-profit research group in the United States claims. The FaceAge AI tool scans an image of a person's face to estimate their biological age, which is based on factors including lifestyle and genetics. It is akin to what doctors call an 'eyeball test', in which doctors make judgements about overall health based on appearance, which in turn informs decisions about whether a person is strong or fit enough to undergo intensive cancer treatment. Researchers said they wanted to see whether they could 'go beyond' the 'subjective and manual' eyeball test by creating a 'deep learning' AI tool that could assess 'simple selfies'. The new AI algorithm was trained using 59,000 photos. Dr Hugo Aerts, one of the authors, said it was the first study to show 'we can really use AI to turn a selfie into a real biomarker source of ageing'. He said the tool is low cost, can be used repeatedly over time and could be used to track an individual's biological age over 'months, years and decades'. 'The impact can be very large, because we now have a way to actually very easily monitor a patient's health status continuously and this could help us to better predict the risk of death or complications after, say, for example, a major surgery or other treatments,' he added. Explaining the tool, academics showed how it assessed the biological age of actors Paul Rudd and Wilford Brimley based on photographs of the men when they were both 50 years old. Mr Rudd's biological age was calculated to be 42.6, while Mr Brimley, who died in 2020, was assessed to have a biological age of 69. The new study, published in the journal Lancet Digital Health, saw the FaceAge tool used on 6,200 patients with cancer using images taken at the start of their treatment. The academics found that the biological age of patients with cancer was, on average, five years older than actual age. They also found that the older biological age the tool gave them, the worse survival rates the cancer patients had, especially if FaceAge gave them a reading of more than 85. The authors concluded: 'Our results suggest that a deep learning model can estimate biological age from face photographs and thereby enhance survival prediction in patients with cancer.' Dr Ray Mak, another author of the research, said turning the photo into a measure of health was 'like having another vital sign data point' and said it was 'another piece of the puzzle like vital signs, lab results or medical imaging'. But he added: 'We want to be clear that we view AI tools like FaceAge as assistance to provide decision support and not replacements for clinician judgement.' More studies assessing FaceAge are under way, including whether it could be used for other conditions or diseases and what impact things like cosmetic surgery or Botox have on the tool.
