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Telomere length testing — useful or a waste of money?
I got my telomere length measured through TeloYears. Results say I'm "average for my age." But I've read that telomere length is highly variable, poorly correlated with health outcomes, and the tests have terrible reproducibility. Should I care about this number at all? Or should I focus on epigenetic clocks instead?
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Telomere testing is mostly useless for individuals. The measurement error is enormous — you can get wildly different results from the same blood sample.
Epigenetic clocks are much more informative. DunedinPACE in particular gives you actionable information about your rate of aging.
The only scenario where telomere length matters is if it's extremely short, which can indicate a telomere biology disorder. For most people, it's noise.