Would you want to know how fast your body is ageing?

NOT a week goes by without some story hitting the headlines in which new scientific developments reinforce what we already know about the links between lifestyle and health.

Obesity, lack of exercise, overindulgence in rich food and alcohol, smoking, drugs and high stress levels are all proven life-shorteners, and doctors routinely spell out the dangers to patients. Sometimes it seems as though everything we enjoy, barring fresh air, is bad for us. The key word is moderation – but hey, moderation is relative to many people, who think their habits are not bad compared to the person next door.

Maybe our endless procrastination about lengthening a healthy life by making lifestyle changes would be ended if a simple blood test could tell us categorically that, for our years, we are ageing faster than we should be. That test could be available in Britain within a year.

In 2009 three American scientists won a Nobel Prize for their work in identifying telomeres – structures on the end of chromosomes, which act like plastic tips on the end of shoelaces and stop them fraying, which provide a clock mechanism and indicate how the cells in the body are ageing. That research has provided doctors and researchers worldwide with vital help in the diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening diseases. A clinical test based on the science of telomeres was developed and a laboratory in Spain is looking for partners in the UK to market a test to the public at a cost of £435.

The respected scientists involved say the test will make it possible to tell a person’s “biological age” (as opposed to their chronological age) by looking at the length of the telomeres, which are revealed in a sample of blood by use of fluorescent dye. Telomeres naturally shorten as we grow older, but having abnormally short telomeres for your age can implicate damage done by environmental or lifestyle factors which could be changed and potentially slow down the process.

“We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres than normal also have a shorter lifespan,” says Dr Maria Blasco of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, who has invented the new commercial test. “But we don’t know whether longer telomeres are going to give you a longer lifespan, that’s not really known in humans.” She says the new test is very precise, and its most important use is in determining the presence of the most dangerous, very short, telomeres.

Several companies in the UK are interested in working with the company Dr Blasco has set up in Spain to process the samples taken using the test.

There are fears already that testing will open the door to unscrupulous marketing of products claiming to counter the effects of shortened telomeres, and some fear companies selling life insurance might be interested in using the tests in the future.

However, many scientists are highly enthusiastic about the testing of telomeres in a wide sample of people, so that more can be learned about the risks of dying from a range of age-related disorders including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer.

The test can not predict the exact number of years and months a person will live, but people with telomeres shorter than the norm for their age are likely to die younger than those whose telomeres are in the normal range. More interesting to Dr Tom Vulliamy would be repeat testing with intervals of several years, to indicate the actual rate of decline in the telomeres. He is a senior lecturer in molecular biology at Queen Mary University London, and has had his telomeres tested as part of world-leading research into life-threatening bone marrow diseases. The test indicated that his were a little on the short side for his age.

“I’m not bothered by the information because I am still within the normal range, and I don’t look or feel as though I am ageing prematurely. To be honest, I can’t see a lot of healthy people rushing to get this test, although I could imagine that a result showing your telomeres are quite short for your age could give you a jolt into getting fitter and eating better.

“In my work, breakthroughs in knowledge about telomeres have been absolutely vital as a key part of diagnosis of bone marrow failure. Very short telemores identified by the test help us to diagnose and start appropriate treatment sooner. For the general population, a detailed knowledge of your extended family’s medical history is perhaps the most useful tool in predicting how long you’ll live and how healthily.”