You know how many birthday candles are on your cake, but a new blood test may be able to tell whether you're aging faster, or slower, than you think.
That blood test is described in a new study, published in Aging Cell. It measures a protein called p16 that rises with age, and rises particularly fast if you smoke and don't exercise.
Researcher Norman Sharpless, MD, an associate professor of medicine and genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, N.C., says other scientists identified the p16 gene years ago as a gene that helps prevent cancer. Later research showed that the p16 gene becomes more active as mammals age.
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