One of the things I find troubling are the # of good aging markers that we have (unless I am really missing something). Telomere length seems good for example, but how many others are there? Looks like they may be onto something here tho:
https://www.nih.gov/...dict-longevity
Also, notice that this is immune cell related. It always seems to go back to the immune system, eh?
"The researchers tested different models of epigenetic age. Different cell types—even similar ones like various blood cell types—have different epigenetic patterns. As people get older, the mix of immune cells in their blood shifts. When these age-related changes to blood cell composition were factored in, the researchers’ epigenetic age model predicted mortality from all causes better than previous measures of epigenetic age. The relationship between epigenetic age and mortality was significant within both sexes and across all the ethnic groups in the study.
“Our findings show that the epigenetic clock was able to predict the lifespans of Caucasians, Hispanics, and African-Americans in these cohorts, even after adjusting for traditional risk factors like age, gender, smoking, body-mass index, and disease history,” says NIA’s Dr. Brian Chen, the study’s first author."