Just like beauty, age can also be in the eye of the beholder, as looking and feeling young can truly vary from person to person. According to a study in the journal Nature Communications, a new iPhone app proves that you might not just feel young—you could also live twice as long as general assumptions would suggest. "Calculation of resilience based on physical activity data streams has been implemented in GeroSense iPhone app," Dr. Tim Pyrkov from Gero and lead study author said in a press release.
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The team of scientists used thousands of blood samples from volunteers in the United States and the United Kingdom. From there, they used a dynamic organism state indicator (DOSI), which is an artificial intelligence tool that tests age, illnesses, and lifestyle, to assess life expectancy. Based on their findings, the body doesn't lose its resiliency until the ages between 120 and 150. "Aging in humans exhibits universal features common to complex systems operating on the brink of disintegration," Dr. Peter Fedichev, the co-founder of Gero, said. "This work is a demonstration of how concepts borrowed from physical sciences can be used in biology to probe different aspects of senescence and frailty to produce strong interventions against aging."
Related: Science Says the Average Person Feels Seven Years Younger Than They Really Are
"This work, in my opinion, is a conceptual breakthrough because it determines and separates the roles of fundamental factors in human longevity—the aging, defined as progressive loss of resilience, and age-related diseases," Andrei Gudkov, a study co-author and professor from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, said. "It explains why even most effective prevention and treatment of age-related diseases could only improve the average but not the maximal lifespan unless true anti-aging therapies have been developed."
Plus, according to the scientists, this research can help doctors who are working to create life-extending therapy practices. "The research will help to understand the limits of longevity and future anti-aging interventions," Professor Brian Kennedy, a physiologist at National University Singapore, said. "What's even more important, the study may help to bridge the rising gap between the health- and life-span, which continues to widen in most developing countries."
