An unexpected way to find out how long you will live has been discovered

An international team of scientists has presented a fundamentally new method for determining biological age — this time based on gene activity. The developers claim that their approach allows for significantly more accurate tracking of aging processes and predicting the risk of death and chronic disease development. The work has been published in the journal Nature.

Chronological age is simply the number of years lived. Biological age, on the other hand, reflects the actual state of the body and the rate of its deterioration. Until now, scientists most commonly relied on epigenetic clocks for this assessment, which read chemical marks on DNA. But this approach has a serious limitation: it does not always work equally reliably across different organs and animal species.

The new method works differently. It relies on the analysis of RNA — molecules that transmit instructions from genes to the cellular machinery that produces proteins. By tracking which specific genes are active at a given moment, the researchers constructed what are known as transcriptomic aging clocks.

To do this, the team studied more than 11,000 tissue samples from four mammalian species — humans, macaques, rats, and mice. This scale made it possible for the first time to directly compare the dynamics of aging across different organs and even between biological species.

It turned out that certain groups of genes reflect the rate of aging with high accuracy. Elevated activity of genes responsible for cell division, tissue repair, and wound healing corresponded to slowed biological aging. Conversely, increased activity of genes associated with inflammation and cell death signaled accelerated deterioration of the body.

Based on these patterns, the scientists created an algorithm capable of assessing biological age and predicting the risk of death. When tested on human blood samples, the new system predicted life expectancy no worse than the best existing epigenetic clocks. Moreover, the method reliably identified signs of accelerated aging in laboratory animals with chronic diseases and in patients with various pathologies.

According to the authors, the development could become a powerful tool for testing the effectiveness of potential rejuvenating drugs and therapies aimed at slowing aging. Instead of years-long observations, scientists will be able to determine much more quickly whether a given intervention can truly affect biological age.