By Sree Roy
According to consumer longevity company Tally Health, my TallyAge—an epigenetic age estimate based on a swab of my cheek and the company’s computational model—is older than my biological age.
What could have aged me this extra year and a half? According to Melanie Goldey, Tally Health CEO, and the company’s team of longevity scientists, several health factors contribute to aging: diet, fitness, sleep, mental health, and habits (smoking/drinking). “These are five categories everyone can understand and make choices around,” Goldey says.
The core premise of consumer longevity companies is that people can lower their epigenetic age with a little guidance. At Tally Health, a membership (starting at $129/month) includes epigenetic testing every six months, a lifestyle quiz to get a customized action plan, and supplements.
Selling Sleep-Longevity Supplements
Tally Health now markets a sleep supplement, Restore, available to consumers (in addition to Vitality, the company’s pro-longevity foundational supplement—included in the membership— and Amplify, its metabolism/energy supplement).
Unlike most supplements, Tally Health’s ingredients are chosen not only for their purported sleep benefits but also for their potential to target aging and healthspan.
According to Tally Health, the science behind Restore includes:
Sleep Quality & Aging
I applaud Tally Health for emphasizing sleep as a standalone category. So when the New York City-based company invited me to a media dinner in Los Angeles to celebrate the launch of its Restore supplement to support better sleep, I was intrigued enough to attend.
“Sleep is incredibly important to aging,” Goldey told me. “It’s not just about the number of hours you sleep, but it’s really about sleep quality as well.”
Tally Health has compiled a “huge list” of citations providing evidence that sleep quality can impact the chance of developing chronic diseases, Goldey says, mentioning a Frontiers in Genetics paper that found nearly 15% of healthspan termination events in a longitudinal cohort of 328,850 participants would have been prevented if they’d adhered to a healthy sleep behavior pattern.7
Trinna L. Cuellar, PhD, MBA, head of R&D/vice president of biology at Tally Health, adds that self-reported sleep quality significantly correlates with epigenetic age results in the TallyAge test.8 “Users with poor sleep quality are more likely to be epigenetically older,” Cuellar says. “That was reassuring data about our clock.”
My Concerns About Selling Longevity
While I agree that science links sleep and other lifestyle factors to healthspan, I have concerns about whether longevity companies can guide consumers safely and efficaciously.
My biggest concern regarding Tally Health is it doesn’t screen for medical disorders. While it recognizes the importance of improving, for example, sleep or mental health, it does not flag potential sleep disorders, mental health disorders, or any other medical conditions. “This is not a replacement for your annual exams from your physicians,” Cuellar says in response to my concern. “We are broadly studying aging. We’re here for coaching for lifestyle change. We also recommend that people who take supplements consult with their doctor.”
Also, while the cheek swab test is objective, the lifestyle factors quiz is too subjective for my liking. For example, it asked me to self-report “how much of your diet is plant-based?” and “in general, how would you rate your overall dental health?” Personally, I don’t think I’m reliable in reporting what I ate from memory, nor do I have benchmarks for “excellent” versus “good” dental health.
No food diaries or other objective measures are incorporated for longitudinal tracking in its membership program, according to Goldey. She also responds, “We consulted with various physicians on how to get self-reported data. We tried to remove confounders. In the aggregate, it’s accurate.”
Finally, I’m concerned that Restore and Tally Health’s other supplements have not undergone clinical trials. “For each formulation we create, we’re leveraging clinical trial research that has been done by others,” Goldey says. “People contribute their work, and we provide that info to our customers.”
My TallyAge Results
According to Goldey and Cuellar, my TallyAge falls nicely into their bell curve. Most people fall within two to five years on either side of their chronological age. The test’s margin of error is plus or minus one year.
My sleep, incidentally, was “moderately healthy” according to Tally Health’s lifestyle quiz. My habits are “very healthy.” The category I flunked is fitness, where the quiz magnanimously declared I am “less healthy” (less than 50 out of 100 points).
It wouldn’t surprise me if deficiencies in the fitness category are where I’m epigenetically aging. Though I get plenty of cardio, I also sit at a computer for more than eight hours each weekday. What’s more, I have yet to take my primary care physician’s advice on incorporating strength training into my life.
But therein lies the main reason I’m not currently sold on a longevity company membership: While I’m impressed with the apparent correlation between my biological age plus my lifestyle with my TallyAge results, I don’t trust supplements, repeated epigenetic tests, or automated accountability check-ins to motivate my behaviors to change. (For the record, I also don’t think the membership will harm healthy people.) I’d rather spend money on specialists with expertise in the categories where I’d already recognized a desire for change—such as a personal trainer or a nutritionist—and then I figure the lure of longevity, while not the goal, is a potential perk.
References
1. Mah J, Pitre T. Oral magnesium supplementation for insomnia in older adults: a systematic review & meta-analysis. BMC Complement Med Ther. 2021 Apr 17;21(1):125.
2. McIntyre RL, Rahman M, Vanapalli SA, et al. Biological age prediction from wearable device movement data identifies nutritional and pharmacological interventions for healthy aging. Front Aging. 2021 Jul 15;2:708680.
3. Hidese S, Ogawa S, Ota M, et al. Effects of l-theanine administration on stress-related symptoms and cognitive functions in healthy adults: a randomized controlled trial. Nutrients. 2019 Oct 3;11(10):2362.
4. Hidese S, Ota M, Wakabayashi C, et al. Effects of chronic l-theanine administration in patients with major depressive disorder: an open-label study. Acta Neuropsychiatr. 2017 Apr;29(2):72-9.
5. Escande C, Nin V, Price NL, et al. Flavonoid apigenin is an inhibitor of the NAD+ ase CD38: implications for cellular NAD+ metabolism, protein acetylation, and treatment of metabolic syndrome. Diabetes. 2013 Apr;62(4):1084-93.
6. Mao JJ, Xie SX, Keefe JR, et al. Long-term chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) treatment for generalized anxiety disorder: a randomized clinical trial. Phytomedicine. 2016 Dec 15;23(14):1735-42.
7. Sambou ML, Zhao X, Hong T, et al. Associations between sleep quality and health span: a prospective cohort study based on 328,850 UK Biobank participants. Front Genet. 2021 Jun 15;12:663449.
8. Shokhirev MN, Torosin NS, Kramer DJ, et al. CheekAge: a next-generation buccal epigenetic aging clock associated with lifestyle and health. Geroscience. 2024 Jun;46(3):3429-43.
Images courtesy Tally Health
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