A blood test which reveals how long a person has left to live has been developed by scientists at Yale University. But it begs the question: would you really want to know how long you’ve got left on this planet? Or is ignorance truly bliss?
The test analyses nine biomarkers – such as genes, molecules and disease characteristics – which could be used to determine a person’s biological age.
Yale scientists said the test was better at predicting a person’s life expectancy than their chronological age (the one we all celebrate each year).
Morgan Levine, a pathologist at Yale, told The Guardian: “We showed that even among people who have no diseases, who are presumably healthy, we can still pick up differences in life expectancy.
“It’s capturing something preclinical, before any diseases present themselves.”
The good news is that this information can be used as a preventative measure for doctors. They could suggest lifestyle changes to reduce a person’s rate of ageing and therefore their risk of an early death.
Interestingly when they trialled the test, researchers discovered that on the whole women appeared to age more slowly than men.
They also found that if a person’s biological age was much higher than their chronological age their risk of an early death rose dramatically, and people who aged fastest had more diseases than those who aged slower.