‘I'm pushing 60 but my biological age is 26': These 5 tests reveal how old you really are

If there’s one certainty in life, I’d always assumed it was my age - 59, if you must know. Whatever life’s twists and turns, that seemed set in stone. An irrefutable fact that just couldn’t be argued with.

Until, that is, I got some information that dramatically changed my whole perception: the results of a finger-prick test that measured inflammation. Plenty of respected science now suggests that measuring chronic ‘inflammaging’ in the immune system can reveal how fast we’re really ageing, and when the results popped up on my email, I stared at it in disbelief. While my birth certificate says I’m pushing 60, my biological age came up as 26 – less than half that.

According to a follow-up consultation with a nutritional therapist, this was likely due to some lifestyle changes I made a decade ago: giving up all animal products, ditching processed and sugary foods and taking up weight training. The fact that I started HRT a few years ago is also helping, she added. In a flash, all my misgivings about my looming big birthday disappeared.

And today, a growing body of serious research suggests that only around 20-50% of longevity is genetic, and that ageing doesn’t affect every part of us in the same way. While there’s no single test – yet – that can definitively replace the age on your birth certificate, a plethora of others aim to give us information so we can change the dial on our ageing dashboards. Which are worth it? I set out to find out.

Hearing age (my result: 62)

My immune system may be ticking along like that of a 26-year-old but, sadly, another body part didn’t get the memo. Over the past few years, I’ve found myself scanning restaurants for the quietest tables, mainly so I don’t have to rely on lip-reading to hear clearly what my friends are saying.

So, what’s my hearing age? To get a meaningful idea of how young my hearing is, a soundproof environment with calibrated headphones is required. Larger high-street pharmacies offer such hearing services for free. Mine involved sitting in a glass booth and pressing a clicker every time I detected the faintest tone – simple, but surprisingly revealing.

Wear and tear to the delicate hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear means that our hearing starts to decline gradually over the years. That will speed up if we don’t protect our ears from loud noises. But years spent standing too close to speakers at gigs in my mid-20s seem to have taken their toll on my ability to hear higher frequencies, including the sounds that make speech clear, like ‘s’, ‘f’ and ‘th’. My overall hearing age comes out at 62, three years older than my chronological age – a small but definite reality check.

The reassuring news is that catching these changes early helps. I can slow any further decline by protecting what I still have, paying attention to the warnings on my phone that my headphone volume is too high and wearing earplugs at loud events.

Consultant ENT surgeon Mr Anil Joshi (londonentsurgeons.com) commonly sees hearing that doesn’t match chronological age in his clinics because, he says, hearing “simply doesn’t age in a uniform, predictable fashion”. So, how useful does he think a hearing score is? “It can occasionally serve as a behavioural nudge,” he says. “If a result encourages safer listening or earlier assessment, then I’m all for it.”

"Balance is vital for moving confidently as we age"

Balance age (my result: 30)

It might not sound like the sexiest health check, but balance is vital for moving confidently as we age and for avoiding falls, one of the major causes of serious injury in later life. To see where I, erm, stand, I tried two easy, physio-approved tests at home.

First, the flamingo challenge: seeing how long I could stand on one leg with my arms crossed and my eyes closed – surprisingly hard because you have to rely on your muscle strength.

I lasted 27 seconds on my right leg and 37 on my left before toppling over. Next came the sit-to-stand test. I managed to get up and down from a straight-back chair 24 times within the test limit of 30 seconds. The verdict? Compared with the rest of the population, my balance age is 30, which I’m thrilled about and may be due to my habit of doing 20 squats each night while brushing my teeth. So, are these tests helpful?

Leading physiotherapist Tim Allardyce (surreyphysio.co.uk) says: “Absolutely. The beauty of them is that they’re quick, non-invasive and easy to do at home, with results that can be compared to research-based charts for context.”

To keep your balance age low, Tim recommends integrating exercises such as squats, hops and lunges into your daily routine: “For example, walk heel to toe in a straight line every morning when you get out of bed. This challenges balance and coordination.”

Gut age (my result: 57)

The trillions of microbial species living in our intestines regulate our immunity, determine our mood and our inflammation levels and, yes, affect how we age. Over the years, however, we tend to lose helpful strains due to factors like chronic stress, hormonal changes, pollution and antibiotics use.

“Our microbiome starts to show its age,” says nutritionist Sarah Osborne, founder of So Nutrition (@sonutrition). “Studies show that older adults tend to have less diversity in the microbiome. This imbalance, known as dysbiosis, has been linked to an increased risk of various health problems.” These can include everything from immune issues to low mood, since our gut is where most of our key happiness chemicals are made.

To discover my own ‘gut age’, I took a £449 test. I’m sent a kit to collect a faecal sample, which I send off to a lab in a special envelope, to analyse the various kinds of bugs I have inside me via their DNA. When the result comes back as 57, I’m disappointed.

I conscientiously eat fibrous foods and avoid gluten, which has been found to reduce microbiome diversity, and processed foods. However, Sarah says the antibiotics I’ve taken over the years to deal with nagging bladder infections may have killed off certain species and allowed others to proliferate, throwing my gut out of balance.

The good news? Gut age is one of the easiest biological ages to improve, says Sarah, by using a faecal analysis test to find out which species you’re missing and adding in certain foods to replace them. “Kimchi and sauerkraut are great examples – and opt for sourdough bread where you can. Certain foods, such as berries, olive oil and green tea, can also promote beneficial bacteria.”

"While my birth certificate says I’m pushing 60, my biological age came up as 26 – less than half that" said Tanith.

Skin age (my result: 35)

It’s one thing to be told my organs are younger than my years, but how old do I actually look?

I tried a screen-based test offered by an upmarket spa, along with several from major skincare brands. Within seconds, my on-screen face was overlaid with a geometric grid that made me look like Spider-Man. My face was no longer my face. It was a data map, measured against tens of thousands of other women for wrinkle depth, radiance, redness, pigmentation, pore size, texture and sagging. The verdict? An average skin age of 35.

Not bad, perhaps due to the fact I’ve worn sunscreen every single day since I was 17 and have never smoked. But while these skin-age tools may be more honest than a tactful friend, they’re ultimately commercial, frequently linked to a new foundation, retinoid or collagen-boosting treatment.

According to aesthetician Dr Kuldeep Minocha (minochahealth.co.uk), results vary between AI platforms and many datasets are weighted towards Caucasian skin. “Gold-standard devices with quantifiable, evidence-based data, such as Visia and Observ, are the most reliable,” he says. “But they’re generally only available in professional settings.” So, take the results with a big pinch of salt.

Heart age (my result: 61)

The gold standard for measuring your heart age is a pulse wave velocity test, which measures how quickly the pressure wave from each heartbeat travels along your arteries – a sign of how stiff, and therefore how ‘old’, your cardiovascular system is. An echocardiogram – an ultrasound scan that uses soundwaves to see how well your heart chambers, valves and muscles are working – is another option.

I decided to dip a toe in first by taking the free NHS 10-minute online heart age test, plus one offered by the Cottage Heart & Vascular Center in Santa Barbara, California, for good measure. Both asked about my body mass index, health and family history, then compared them to data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study to work out my risk.

As I exercise daily on my Peloton bike, I was confident that I’d come out younger. Wrong. I got 61. Feeling faintly annoyed, I read in the analysis that accompanied my results that this is because being a postmenopausal 58-year-old woman already puts me in a higher-risk age bracket. Heart and stroke risk rises sharply after 55, when oestrogen’s protective effect on our blood vessels (it helps keep the walls elastic) wears off. I also have the gene for atrial fibrillation – a type of irregular heartbeat that can trigger strokes – according to a 23andMe genetic test I took a few years ago. This nudges my risk higher still. All in all, my heart age puts my risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years at just under 10%.

I welcomed the wake-up call, but how seriously should I take it?

Consultant rheumatologist and longevity expert Dr Kerry Aston, based at Belfast’s Beechill Clinic, says tests like these are vital for women. “We often assume heart disease happens to others,” she says, “but these issues start years in advance. A simple test can show you the direction you’re heading in before problems appear.”

Dr Aston suggests using results like this to understand overall cardiovascular health, including checking blood pressure, cholesterol and other metabolic markers – all tests you can ask for from your GP.