Specialty Testing Guide › TruAge Biological Age Testing
DunedinPACE measures how fast you are aging right now, not how old you are. It reads DNA methylation in a blood sample and reports a rate, where 1.0 means about one year of biological aging per calendar year compared with a reference population.
A result of 0.9 suggests you are aging roughly 10 percent slower than that average, and 1.1 roughly 10 percent faster. In large studies, faster readings go with more illness, disability and earlier death. For one person, it is a useful signal to discuss with a clinician, not a diagnosis.
Key takeaways
- DunedinPACE is a speedometer, so it answers "how fast" rather than "how old".
- It was distilled from 20 years of repeated health measurements in one New Zealand birth cohort.
- Replicate testing of the same samples showed excellent reliability, better than many older clocks.
- In a randomized trial, two years of eating less slowed it by only a few percent, which shows how modest real changes are.
Where DunedinPACE comes from
The measure is named after the Dunedin Study, which has followed a group of people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973 since birth. Researchers tracked within-person change in 19 biomarkers covering the heart and blood vessels, metabolism, kidneys, liver, immune system, teeth and lungs, measured at ages 26, 32, 38 and 45.1
From those repeated measurements, they calculated each person's real pace of aging. Then they built a methylation formula from a single blood sample that best predicted that pace. To keep the measure stable, they left out DNA sites with poor test-retest reliability.
The underlying pace varied a lot. In the original cohort, the slowest person aged about 0.40 biological years per calendar year over the two decades and the fastest about 2.44.1
How to read your number
DunedinPACE is scaled so that 1.0 is the typical pace in the reference population. Values above 1.0 mean a faster pace, and values below 1.0 a slower one.
| Reading | What it suggests | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Below 0.9 | Slower pace than the reference average | Reassuring, but keep up standard screening |
| About 0.9 to 1.1 | Close to the average pace | Focus on your usual risk factors |
| Above 1.1 | Faster pace than average | Review blood pressure, glucose, weight, smoking, sleep and medications with your clinician |
The bands in this table are a reading aid, not clinical cutoffs. There are no official thresholds for DunedinPACE, and a reading of 1.05 is not meaningfully different from 1.0 for one person.
DunedinPACE also tends to be faster in older people.1 A 70-year-old at 1.05 and a 40-year-old at 1.05 are not in quite the same position, so read the number alongside your age and health history.
What the evidence shows
In its development paper, DunedinPACE showed high test-retest reliability and was associated with morbidity, disability and mortality across several datasets. It also added prediction beyond GrimAge, a widely used mortality clock.
In replicate blood samples, its intraclass correlation was 0.96, which the authors called excellent.1 That makes it one of the more stable methylation measures, though biological changes such as a recent infection can still move a result.
In the Berlin Aging Study II, which followed 1,083 adults aged 60 to 80 for an average of about 7 years, DunedinPACE was the strongest predictor of death among 14 aging biomarkers, ahead of grip strength, inflammation markers and cognitive tests.2
Even so, the combined prediction from all biomarkers in that study was moderate. DunedinPACE ranks risk across groups. It cannot tell you when or whether a particular disease will happen to you.
Can you change it?
In the CALERIE trial, healthy adults who cut calories for two years slowed their DunedinPACE by about 2 to 3 percent compared with controls.3 That is a small change from a demanding intervention, and the trial did not follow people long enough to show fewer diseases or deaths.
So treat a later improvement as encouraging rather than conclusive. The habits that lower your actual risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer are worth keeping whatever the number says.
DunedinPACE in the TruAge report
TruDiagnostic lists DunedinPACE as the pace-of-aging clock in TruAge, alongside OMICmAge for overall biological age and SymphonyAge for organ systems.4 At YoungerMeMD, TruAge is a $425 add-on ordered through the clinic and interpreted with your other labs.
Reading it next to standard labs matters. A fast pace with normal blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol leads to a different conversation than a fast pace with several of those out of range, where treating the known risk factors comes first.
Next step
To see how testing works through our Conshohocken clinic, including the at-home finger-prick sample and the results visit, read TruAge testing near Philadelphia. For the full set of guides, visit the TruAge guide hub.
Frequently asked questions
Is a DunedinPACE of 1.2 dangerous?
It is not a diagnosis or an emergency. It suggests faster aging than average in population terms, and it is a reason to review your standard risk factors with your clinician.
How often should DunedinPACE be retested?
Trials measured change over one to three years. Retesting after a few weeks is more likely to show noise than progress. Our guide to retest timing covers this in detail.
Is DunedinPACE the same as biological age?
No. Biological age clocks estimate how old your body seems. DunedinPACE estimates how fast it is aging now. The two can disagree.
Related reading
This article is for general education and is not medical advice. Decisions about testing and treatment should be made with your clinician. If you have severe symptoms, call 911. For a suspected poisoning, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222.
