How reliable is the TallyAge™ Test?Updated a month ago
The TallyAge™ Test is at the forefront of buccal (cheek swab) epigenetic testing. We have worked hard to develop a reliable test that can give you an indication of your overall aging. Our next-generation aging clock was developed using an extremely large and diverse sample set of individuals, and our computational methods are extremely sophisticated to ensure that our test can pick up signals from health and lifestyle factors. Our test was also designed to be used to track progress over time, where one can begin to see a trend line of the impact of the changes you’re making.
Like any diagnostic tool, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Aging biology is an incredibly complex science, and there are multiple tests that provide insights into aging at the molecular level. This means there will inherently be variability between tests, and each prediction tool represents one view into your molecular aging profile.
The TallyAge™ Test result interprets your DNA methylation profile using only the factors it was trained on, so it will not know how to calculate factors it doesn’t know (e.g., a specific health factor, a particular detail about your lifestyle, transient changes to your biology, such as the time of day or if you drank something beforehand).
Other factors beyond DNA methylation, such as gene expression, protein modifications, and environmental exposures, also contribute to health and aging. These factors are not captured by the TallyAge™ Test, which only analyzes DNA methylation.
While the difference between your predicted and chronological age is significantly correlated with lifestyle and health factors, the correlation is not high for any one lifestyle or health factor. DNA methylation patterns can vary among different populations due to genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. While the TallyAge™ Test was trained on a cohort of more than 8,000 diverse individuals, it may not provide results tailored to you if your specific health history or behavioral and environmental factors (including underlying health conditions) were not represented in the original training cohort.
Due to test-to-test variability caused by technical and biological variability, fluctuations of around two years are normal, and we recommend that you take at least five to nine tests while also consistently incorporating recommendations from your Action Plan to see a more reliable trend emerge.
Additional information about the science behind our epigenetic age test, including statistical details, can be found in our open-access paper published in GeroScience: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-024-01094-3