Can you cheat the clock? Can you age more slowly or even reverse the process? One plausible definition of “age” would say yes, definitely.

One’s health is strongly engraved in one’s blood test numbers. These numbers form the definition of many chronic diseases, adult onset diabetes being the prime example. Further, as one ages (chronically—year by year) these numbers tend to deteriorate. This is due to several causes. But on average a set of numbers can be assigned to most ages. Most fit, sensible 25-year-olds will tend to have the numbers found in our app, here, that appear if the “Ideal” button is pressed.

We don’t have numbers for other ages, but there is a definite trend. We will say here that these numbers determine one’s biological age. This age could be older than a person’s chronological age, or younger. Anyone over 50 who has been to a school reunion has seen the spread. If you went to such a reunion and gathered blood samples you would find that those that appeared younger and more energetic had numbers closer to out ideal 25-year-old. To a large extent, the numbers are your health, are your biological age.

The numbers can be changed

As is propounded at length on this site and in the book Quantitative Medicine, these numbers can (and should) be changed. This will change one’s biological age, pure and simple.

Does biological age matter?

We take a normal 60 year old,. Let’s call him Bruce. We will suppose Bruce exercises, but not very effectively, and we will make the same suppositions about his diet and stress management. We have defined him as average, and so his chronological age equals his biological age. He will head into one degenerative disease or another and after prolonged illness will die in his late seventies or early eighties. Rest in peace Bruce.

But suppose Bruce had optimized dietary, physical, and stress components of his life. How to do this, of course, is the essence of Quantitative Medicine, and we needn’t wax lyrical on that topic in this post. However if Bruce had done all these things, he would have decreased his biological age around 10-12 years. This would mean that, on average, he would have lived 10-12 years longer, and what may be more important to many, he will have lived in in full health, have lots of energy and zest, and retain all his marbles. A double treat here. This incarnation of Bruce dies in his nineties, or maybe makes it beyond. As happy as endings can get.

On the other hand, someone that has neglected diet and exercise, and particularly, who has neglected stress management, will have a much older biological age. Such people are apt to die 10 or more years younger. In their sixties or early seventies.

We all know people in all three categories, and while genetics is part of the story, almost anyone can do the work and add the healthy years. At the most, genetics only determines how much work is necessary.

Is there really a 25-year spread here?

Think about it. We all know people that were in serious medical trouble by their sixties, even their fifties, and we know others who just keep on ticking into their nineties and beyond. Almost everyone wonders why one and not the other, but few understand that any individual can control this. By pushing the numbers to their optimum, biological age is pushed to its youngest. Someone in serious medical trouble at 60 can, with appropriate knowledge and discipline, so fully reverse the clock that at chronological age 70, she is biologically in her 50s.

Dr. Mike has had numerous examples in his clinical practice. In fact nearly all his patients that have put forth a reasonable effort have reduced their biological age, many significantly.