Science Behind Glycans

GlycanAge is a biological age test that measures chronic inflammation by analyzing complex sugars called glycans. The test reflects the health of your immune system, which is influenced by your genetics, environment, and lifestyle.

Glycans are complex sugars which make up one of the four main building block of life next to proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. They are important for many different things, and although you might not know them by name, you know them by function. For example, your blood groups are determined by glycans attached to your red blood cells. GlycanAge focuses on glycans attached to Immunoglobulin G antibodies, which are key players in our adaptive immune system. Some glycans cause antibodies to over-activate immune pathways, promoting inflammation, while others help to reduce the activation of these pathways, thereby suppressing inflammation.

GlycanAge measures low-grade, chronic inflammation by looking at the balance between the pro- and anti-inflammatory glycans. Unlike acute inflammation, which helps us to fight off infections and injuries, chronic inflammation acts as our enemy. It is one of the main drivers of disease development as we get older, and it is shaped by our genetics, environment, but also lifestyle. Unhealthy lifestyle choices can fuel inflammation and make us more susceptible to diseases, whereas healthy choices can lower inflammation and slow down the process of inflammaging.

GlycanAge can help you understand how your everyday choices are affecting your overall health. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to health - your diet, physical activity, sleep quality and stress levels can either drive or suppress inflammation. Higher biological age reflects elevated levels of chronic inflammation, which can indicate an unoptimal lifestyle. Due to the nature of chronic inflammation, high results can also be associated with higher risk of chronic disease development, so GlycanAge can serve as an early warning system prompting you to change your lifestyle before it’s leads to more serious health problems.

Yes, you can. Unlike your chronological age, biological age is reversible. Adopting healthier lifestyle choices and discovering what works best for you as an individual can lower inflammation and reduce your biological age. GlycanAge is responsive to various factors, from dietary and exercise changes to sleep and stress management. But don’t forget - nothing happens over night. Just like one day of unhealthy choices won’t affect you overall health, in order to see positive changes you have to stay consistent.

GlycanAge is unique among aging clocks. It is an information-rich biomarker that integrates multiple factors such as genetics, epigenetics, and the environment. It also responds to lifestyle changes, making it a great tool for tracking individual responses to everyday choices. Other inflammation tests, like C-reactive protein (CRP) tests, primarily measure acute inflammation. These molecules are short-lived and dynamic, requiring multiple measurements over time to assess average chronic inflammation levels. In contrast, IgG antibodies, which GlycanAge focuses on, have a half-life of about three weeks, reflecting chronic inflammation over that period. When considering other biological age tests, the most common ones include telomere and epigenetic tests. Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of DNA that shorten with each cell division, limiting a cell's lifespan. While they are excellent aging biomarkers at the cellular level, our bodies are composed of trillions of cells, each with a different age and lifespan. Additionally, telomeres cannot be renewed, so your telomere age cannot be reversed. The most popular biological age tests are epigenetic tests that look at DNA methylation, a form of cellular memory that affects gene expression. Although epigenetic tests have significant biomarker potential, it isn’t always clear what they measure. For example, GlycanAge analyses glycans, but it measures chronic inflammation, which is influenced by genetics and epigenetics, and also lifestyle. GlycanAge is very responsive to any lifestyle changes, allowing you to track inflammation changes over time in response to any changes in your lifestyle you implement.