Daniel Zahler offers an encouraging post to look past the mirror and fast-rolling birthdays, and focus on the numbers that matter.
I got a pleasant surprise at my gym last month. According to the latest fitness assessment at Fred Fitness, my biological age had dropped from 36 to 27. Nine years younger! (My actual age is 46.)
Fred Fitness, a new AI-powered gym in Santa Monica, calculates biological age based on four key factors: strength, flexibility, metabolism, and cardio fitness. I’d improved across the board.
Still, when I looked in the mirror, I had the same receding hairline. I wasn’t sure what I’d really changed — or whether any of it mattered.
That’s the strange, slightly thrilling promise of biological age: a number that says you’re getting younger, even if your reflection disagrees.
What is Biological Age?
In the not-so-distant past, you had one age: the number of candles on your birthday cake. Today, you might have three or four—depending on which app, wearable, or lab you’re using.
Welcome to the era of biological age, a metric that aims to measure how well you’re aging on a cellular level. These tools use various biomarkers and methods to estimate the functional capacity and health of an individual’s tissues and organs.
Apps like Humanity and GeroSense estimate biological age by analyzing data from wearables, smartphones, and even blood tests. Humanity gives you a daily “Humanity Score” to nudge you toward longevity-friendly behaviors.
Direct-to-consumer lab services like Function Health look at blood biomarkers that reflect how efficiently your cells repair damage, maintain function, and defend against age-related decline.
Key points include:
- More than a health metric
- The intersections of biological age
- Consumer tools to measure biological age
Read the full article, How Biological Age Became the New Status Symbol, on LinkedIn.