Researchers claim to have developed a new controversial “lifespan” test that can tell how long a person will live by determining their rate of ageing. The blood test estimated how fast someone was ageing by measuring the length of microscopic structures at the ends of each chromosome called telomeres, which kept each chromosome from falling apart when the cells would divide, the researchers said.
Telomeres shortened after each cell division and animal studies have shown that a high percentage of short telomeres in blood cells were associated with a shorter-than-normal life expectancy, which was why blood tests could provide a guide to ageing and life expectancy in animals.
More than a 100 Britons have already taken the revolutionary blood test to see how fast they were ageing, while the importance of the test in the future could not be ignored as it would indicate statistically as how long a person had before he/she dies, The Independent reported.
The company behind the test believed that thousands would further take the 650 pounds blood check in the United Kingdom (UK) next year, and millions more worldwide would be tested by the end of the decade.
It also expected that the test would be used as part of the standard medical check-up required by insurance companies, just like they now ask about family history of disease and whether someone was a smoker or obese person.
“We consider that this will become as standard a medical diagnostic test as cholesterol testing is now,” said Stephen Matlin, chief executive of Life Length, which is based in Madrid. “If you look at cholesterol testing since the early 1980s, in a period of 15 years testing volume went from nothing to about 100 million a year,” Matlin said.
However, some experts have warned that there was still not enough known about telomere testing to provide people with any meaningful medical advice, and one Nobel prize-winner had also warned that 99 per cent of people who took the test would not gain any benefit.
Meanwhile, Matlin said, “Today there are 500 million cholesterol tests a year. If we do one percent of this, we are doing well. We hope to be testing millions of people by 2020.” The company was planning to lower the price of the test by 20 percent a year for the next five years so that it would cost no more than 65 pounds by 2017, bringing it within the price range of millions of new customers.