Overview
- Researchers report long periods of stability in blood proteins punctuated by abrupt changes around ages 34, 60 and 78.
- The study cataloged 1,379 age-associated proteins, and a 373-protein panel predicted participants’ ages with high accuracy.
- Published in Nature Medicine, the work links aging shifts to reduced DNA repair and declining production of key proteins associated with common symptoms.
- The cohort spanned ages 18 to 95, enabling calculations of a biological age gap that compares an individual to chronological peers.
- The framework reframes aging into discrete phases and sets a biological threshold for old age near 78, challenging social cutoffs such as 65.