Super interesting! Can you speak a little bit to the differences between the Elysium and Viome biological age tests? It seems that both purport to do similar things, but the Viome one is of course significantly cheaper!
Hi Anon! Thanks for your question! Elysium determines biological age based on your methylation data (which I've written about in my recent posts on Epigenetic clocks https://livelongerworld.substack.com/p/epigeneticclocks). Viome tests biological age based on transcriptomic data (basically measuring biological age using a different method). My posts have focused on Epigenetic clocks based on methylation data and I have to do more research into transcriptome based clocks, but I recall Dr. Steve Horvath (who designed the methylation epigenetic clocks) saying that the methylation based ones are more accurate than the transcriptomic clocks!
In short, that is to say that Elysium test (based on methylation) might be more accurate than Viome test. Also, once I do more research into transcriptome clocks, I'll let you know.
But I do think Elysium is overpriced and they've been good at branding - perhaps because they've signed up Dr. Morgan Levine (who does great work in epigenetic clocks) as one of their scientists. That is in fact a plus for the Elysium test as Dr. Morgan Levine is constantly improving on the clocks.
You might want to read my latest post on Epigenetic clocks as it talks about some of the limitations and variability in results to be aware of before getting tested. https://livelongerworld.substack.com/p/biologicalage
Hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions!
Super interesting! Can you speak a little bit to the differences between the Elysium and Viome biological age tests? It seems that both purport to do similar things, but the Viome one is of course significantly cheaper!
Hi Anon! Thanks for your question! Elysium determines biological age based on your methylation data (which I've written about in my recent posts on Epigenetic clocks https://livelongerworld.substack.com/p/epigeneticclocks). Viome tests biological age based on transcriptomic data (basically measuring biological age using a different method). My posts have focused on Epigenetic clocks based on methylation data and I have to do more research into transcriptome based clocks, but I recall Dr. Steve Horvath (who designed the methylation epigenetic clocks) saying that the methylation based ones are more accurate than the transcriptomic clocks!
In short, that is to say that Elysium test (based on methylation) might be more accurate than Viome test. Also, once I do more research into transcriptome clocks, I'll let you know.
But I do think Elysium is overpriced and they've been good at branding - perhaps because they've signed up Dr. Morgan Levine (who does great work in epigenetic clocks) as one of their scientists. That is in fact a plus for the Elysium test as Dr. Morgan Levine is constantly improving on the clocks.
You might want to read my latest post on Epigenetic clocks as it talks about some of the limitations and variability in results to be aware of before getting tested. https://livelongerworld.substack.com/p/biologicalage
Hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions!