Question 1

What is GlycanAge?

Accepted Answer

GlycanAge is a biological age test paired with expert advice to help guide your wellness. It determines your biological age by measuring chronic inflammation in your system - which is directly related to your lifestyle.

Question 2

What are Glycans?

Accepted Answer

Glycans are sugar molecules that surround and modify proteins in your body. They respond to your lifestyle choices and indicate the inflammatory state of your immune system, which in turn determines your biological age.

Glycans have a large influence on your unique biology and are regulated almost equally by our genes on one side and environment and lifestyle choices on the other.

Question 3

Are biological age tests accurate?

Accepted Answer

Accuracy of biological age tests is measured in three ways. Are the results relevant for long term health outcomes? Are they reliable with low repeat measurement error? Are they personalised and relevant to me as an individual based on my age, gender and ethnicity?

GlycanAge meets all three criteria. It associates well with prediction of future health conditions and future risk of hospitalisation, performing better than the majority of other ageing clocks and traditional clinical biomarkers.

We place quality and accuracy over profit, performing multiple tests on each sample to ensure your results are the most trustworthy measure of biological age available, with an error margin of less than 1%. Any change in your score is a reflection of a true biological change, not an error margin.

GlycanAge was developed from over 30 years of research, results in 200+ supporting peer review publications and a robust baseline of 200,000 samples from some of the world's best biobanks with comprehensive representations of different ages, genders and ethnicities.

Question 4

How do I calculate my body age?

Accepted Answer

Whilst there are different ways to 'calculate' your body age, true biological age is measured on a molecular level. Here GlycanAge is unique amongst ageing clocks. Unlike other clocks, we integrate genetic, epigenetic and environmental aspects of ageing, making it an ideal measure of what's happening in your body through time.

Question 5

How does GlycanAge compare to other biological age tests?

Accepted Answer

GlycanAge is unique amongst ageing clocks.
Unlike other clocks, it integrates genetic, epigenetic and environmental aspects of ageing AND responds to lifestyle interventions. Epigenetic clocks for example don’t respond to caloric restriction or weight loss. GlycanAge does. Our studies demonstrate that lifestyle interventions known to be beneficial for health and ageing, measurably reverse glycan ageing. This makes it an ideal measure for the assessment of longevity interventions.

Telomere shortening for example is the DNA timer that limits the lifespan of a single cell. On an individual cell level, telomeres are an excellent marker of ageing. But, we are all composed of trillions of cells, each of them with a different age and expected lifespan. A large study recently concluded that Telomeres are not a good predictor of age-related health status. Many epigenetic clocks of ageing have recently come to market - all based on Steve Horvath's discovery that some aspects of DNA methylation correlate strongly with chronological age.

Epigenetics is a form of cellular memory, a field which has significant biomarker potential. There is little research demonstrating what these epigenetic clocks are actually measuring though. The Horvath clock, with which they correlate, is also too linked to chronological age to be useful.
GlycanAge measures composition of the IgG glycome (glycans attached to IgG). The IgG glycome not only changes with age, but also affects inflammation at many levels. Glycans are not only biomarkers, but also functional effectors of ageing. Many studies show accelerated glycan ageing is associated with both unhealthy lifestyle and diseases. In some cases glycans were also shown to be causal for disease development

Question 6

Does GlycanAge measure glycation?

Accepted Answer

No, GlycanAge doesn't measure glycation. Instead, it measures glycosylation. Glycation happens when glucose attach to proteins as a random chemical process, while glycosylation is a highly regulated process that adds a specific type of sugar to a specific part of a protein during protein synthesis.

Sometimes, different types of sugars can be added to the same part of a protein. This is like how different words can be spelled with the same letters, or how people with different eye colors can have the same vision. This variation in sugar types is a bit like how genetic mutations can create different versions of genes. But with sugar structures, this variation is inherited from multiple genes, not just one.

Infographic explaining the glycation and glycosylation

Infographic explaining the glycation and glycosylation

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What is GlycanAge?

What are Glycans?

Are biological age tests accurate?

How do I calculate my body age?

How does GlycanAge compare to other biological age tests?

Does GlycanAge measure glycation?

Biohacking and pioneer science

Health, wellness, and longevity

Menopause Journey