{"id":18303,"date":"2015-02-04T11:56:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T11:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/a-study-finds-link-between-dna-methylation-and-human-life-span\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T05:28:09","slug":"a-study-finds-link-between-dna-methylation-and-human-life-span","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/a-study-finds-link-between-dna-methylation-and-human-life-span","title":{"rendered":"A study finds link between DNA methylation and human life span"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied 5000 individuals over 14 years for chemical changes in their DNA that accumulate over a lifetime, and found a new indicator of aging. The chemical changes the researchers studied consist of methylation marks in DNA, which alter the activity of genes. DNA methylation predicts mortality independently of health status, lifestyle factors, and known genetic factors. With the use of standard measures that compare a person\u2019s chronological age to the age predicted by DNA methylation, the researchers discovered that when a person\u2019s DNA methylation age was five years older than his or her chronological age, the person\u2019s chance of dying sooner than others without that profile rose.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14px; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">The research team thinks of DNA methylation as an \u2018epigenetic clock\u2019 that measures biological age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Read more in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.the-scientist.com\/?articles.view\/articleNo\/42042\/title\/Methylation-Predicts-Mortality\/\">The Scientist<\/a><\/em> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/geneticliteracyproject.org\/2015\/02\/03\/epigenetic-markers-predict-mortality-better-than-biological-age\/\">Genetic Literacy Project<\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2976,2974,2975],"class_list":["post-18303","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-and-molecular-biology","subject-biochemistry","subject-genetics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A study finds link between DNA methylation and human life span | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied 5000 individuals over 14 years for chemical changes in their DNA that accumulate over a lifetime, and found a new indicator of aging. 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