Pace of Aging: What DunedinPACE Measures

Most aging tests answer the question “how old is my body?” DunedinPACE asks a different and arguably more useful question: “how fast is my body aging right now?” That distinction is the whole point of measuring your pace of aging. Instead of estimating biological age as a single snapshot, DunedinPACE estimates the rate at which you are accumulating biological aging — think of it less like reading an odometer and more like glancing at a speedometer. For anyone trying to slow down the aging process and actually verify whether their efforts are working, a rate metric can be far more actionable than an age estimate alone (1).

Why “pace of aging” is different from biological age

Epigenetic clocks read DNA methylation — chemical tags that sit on top of your DNA and shift in predictable patterns as you get older. The first generation of these clocks, such as the Horvath clock published in 2013, was trained to estimate biological age: a number meant to capture how old your tissues look at the moment of the test (2). That is genuinely useful, but it is a snapshot. If your biological age comes back a few years younger than your chronological age, that’s encouraging — but it doesn’t tell you which direction you’re currently heading.

DunedinPACE was designed to fill that gap. Rather than asking “how old am I?”, it asks “how quickly am I aging per year?” The result is reported as a rate, which makes it easier to interpret as a real-time signal you can potentially influence.

These bands are simplifications. The number is continuous, and where a given person falls is best discussed with a clinician rather than read off a chart in isolation.

How DunedinPACE was built

What makes DunedinPACE notable is the dataset behind it. It was developed from the Dunedin Study — a long-running longitudinal cohort in New Zealand that has followed roughly a thousand people born in the early 1970s across their entire adult lives (3). Researchers tracked dozens of organ-system biomarkers (cardiovascular, metabolic, kidney, liver, immune, dental, and more) at multiple ages and measured how fast each participant was changing over time.

That gave the algorithm something earlier clocks didn’t have: an actual measured rate of physiological decline to train against, rather than just a cross-sectional age label. The 2022 paper introducing DunedinPACE, published in eLife by Belsky and colleagues, reported that the measure was associated with morbidity, disability, and mortality risk, and that it showed reasonable reliability for repeated testing — a practical requirement if you want to track change (1)(4).

Why a rate is more actionable for tracking interventions

Here’s the practical case for a speed-of-aging test. Suppose you start a new program — improved nutrition, structured exercise, better sleep, hormone optimization, or a broader longevity protocol — and you want to know whether it’s doing anything. A biological-age snapshot taken six months later is hard to read: small movements can be noise, and “younger than chronological age” doesn’t isolate the effect of your recent changes.

A pace metric is more naturally suited to before-and-after comparison. If your DunedinPACE drifts from, say, above 1.0 toward 1.0 or below across repeat tests, that’s a directional signal that your current rate of aging may be slowing. It still has to be interpreted carefully and over multiple data points, but the framing — a rate you might move — maps onto how interventions actually work.

This is also why DunedinPACE complements rather than replaces age-based testing. Many people pair it with a biological-age estimate like our TrueAge biological age testing: the age number gives you a “where am I now” baseline, and the pace number gives you a “which way am I heading” trend. Read together, they tell a fuller story than either does alone.

What appears to drive your pace of aging

Research into the modifiable drivers of pace-of-aging measures is active and still maturing, so the honest summary is “associations, not guarantees.” That said, the factors that repeatedly surface in this literature are the same ones that show up across most healthspan research:

• Metabolic and cardiometabolic health — blood sugar regulation, blood pressure, lipids, and related markers.
• Body composition — particularly excess adiposity versus preserved lean mass.
• Physical activity — both structured exercise and general daily movement.
• Diet quality — overall dietary patterns rather than any single “superfood.”
• Sleep and stress load — chronic sleep deprivation and sustained stress appear to track with faster aging measures.
• Smoking and heavy alcohol use — consistently associated with a faster pace.

None of this is a prescription, and none of it means a single test result locks in your trajectory. It does suggest that the levers people can actually pull — the same ones we examine through comprehensive diagnostic testing — overlap heavily with what the pace-of-aging research highlights. If you’d like a broader primer on the underlying idea, our posts on biological age vs chronological age and how to slow biological aging cover the foundations in more depth.

How to think about your results

A few principles tend to keep expectations realistic:

1. One test is a baseline, not a verdict. The real value of a rate metric shows up over repeated measurements.
2. Context matters. A pace number is most meaningful next to your conventional labs, body composition, symptoms, and history — not in a vacuum.
3. The science is still evolving. Epigenetic aging measurement is a young and fast-moving field. Different clocks can disagree, methodology continues to be refined, and no current test should be treated as a precise crystal ball (5).
4. Direction beats decimals. Whether your number is trending in the right direction over time generally matters more than obsessing over a small absolute value.

Used this way — as one informative signal among several, tracked over time, and interpreted with a clinician — a pace-of-aging test can be a genuinely useful part of a longevity strategy rather than a novelty number.

Where Rewind fits in

At Rewind Anti-Aging of Miami, we look at the whole picture: hormones, metabolic markers, body composition, and emerging tools like epigenetic pace-of-aging and biological-age testing. The goal isn’t to chase a single score; it’s to build a personalized plan, measure it over time, and adjust based on what your data actually shows. If you’re curious whether a pace-of-aging measure like DunedinPACE belongs in your own longevity workup, the next step is a conversation about your goals and your baseline.

Interested in epigenetic and biological-age testing as part of a longevity plan? Schedule a consultation with our Miami team to talk through what makes sense for you.

---

Medical disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Epigenetic aging measures are research-derived wellness tools, not diagnostic tests. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about testing or treatment.

Sources

1. Belsky DW, et al. “DunedinPACE, a DNA methylation biomarker of the pace of aging.” eLife, 2022.
2. Horvath S. “DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types.” Genome Biology, 2013.
3. Poulton R, et al. “The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study: overview of the first 40 years.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2015.
4. Belsky DW, et al. “Quantification of the pace of biological aging in humans through a blood test.” eLife / related cohort analyses, 2020–2022.
5. Bell CG, et al. “DNA methylation aging clocks: challenges and recommendations.” Genome Biology, 2019.