Analysing blood markers (the biggest indicator of biological age) from over 150,000 adults in the UK biobank, the researchers were able to cross-check their findings across three generations: people born in the early 1950s, the late 1960s and early 1970s.
To compare the findings with data outside of the UK, the blood markers of over 10,200 adults in the US were analysed too, of people born in either the 1960s or 1990s.
Comparing the participants’ chronological age against nine blood biomarkers, such as inflammation, glucose and white blood cell counts, researchers were able to accurately identify how well or poorly adults of different generations have biologically aged over the years, calculating an ‘age gap’ score to determine how different their chronological and biological ages are.