3 ms·

I agree, it doesn’t fit the definition. I still call it that in casual conversation when getting the point across while being more precise would be more wordy.

garmaine 7y ago
It is fundamentally not the same though. You are saying that there isn’t any reliable bio marker other than “age,” but you can’t measure age. So what reliable bio marker are you talking about? What would be measured? If you mean there are no reliable bio markers, period, it would be more clear to just say that.
- Amygaz 7y ago
  I tend to disagree. We actually can measure the biological age. There are clinical biomarkers for that. It is not commonly done. The best one, epigenetic signature, is yet to be clinically approved or widely available. Now, in that paper, they use broad range of age as a descriptor, confounding many age-associated phenotype and genotypes, which also translate into risk factors. You can definitely say that the 18-34 cohort is different 45-54, and that the later as more risk factors, the same a specific mutation might be associated with higher or even guaranteed chance of developing a disease, and hence will be use as a biomarker. That being said, it is not typical to measure the biological age of healthy individuals. Actually, we don't know what an healthy individual is. We know a great deal more about diseased individuals. The current status seems to be that if you are not diseased you are healthy. I don't agree with that. That's how science is done. And that is how we end up with half-baked studies in one of the most impactful journal .
  - naasking 7y ago
    > We actually can measure the biological age. There are clinical biomarkers for that. It is not commonly done. The best one, epigenetic signature, is yet to be clinically approved or widely available. What is the precision and accuracy of the best biomarker? ie. if I gave you the necessary sample, how close can you get to the correct age and what are the error bars?
- carbocation 7y ago
  That's not what I said, though. There are plenty of reliable biomarkers. They consistently relate with disease in an expected way across populations. They just aren't, individually, powerful. They don't do a great job discriminating who will get disease and who won't - but using them is still much better than not using them.

garmaine 7y ago

It is fundamentally not the same though. You are saying that there isn’t any reliable bio marker other than “age,” but you can’t measure age. So what reliable bio marker are you talking about? What would be measured? If you mean there are no reliable bio markers, period, it would be more clear to just say that.

Amygaz 7y ago
I tend to disagree. We actually can measure the biological age. There are clinical biomarkers for that. It is not commonly done. The best one, epigenetic signature, is yet to be clinically approved or widely available. Now, in that paper, they use broad range of age as a descriptor, confounding many age-associated phenotype and genotypes, which also translate into risk factors. You can definitely say that the 18-34 cohort is different 45-54, and that the later as more risk factors, the same a specific mutation might be associated with higher or even guaranteed chance of developing a disease, and hence will be use as a biomarker. That being said, it is not typical to measure the biological age of healthy individuals. Actually, we don't know what an healthy individual is. We know a great deal more about diseased individuals. The current status seems to be that if you are not diseased you are healthy. I don't agree with that. That's how science is done. And that is how we end up with half-baked studies in one of the most impactful journal .
- naasking 7y ago
  > We actually can measure the biological age. There are clinical biomarkers for that. It is not commonly done. The best one, epigenetic signature, is yet to be clinically approved or widely available. What is the precision and accuracy of the best biomarker? ie. if I gave you the necessary sample, how close can you get to the correct age and what are the error bars?
carbocation 7y ago
That's not what I said, though. There are plenty of reliable biomarkers. They consistently relate with disease in an expected way across populations. They just aren't, individually, powerful. They don't do a great job discriminating who will get disease and who won't - but using them is still much better than not using them.