Sara Hägg, PhD is an associate professor at Karolinska Institutet, where she leads the Molecular Epidemiology of Aging Group. Her work focuses on human biomarkers of aging - especially biological age “clocks” built from epigenetic, proteomic, and metabolomic data - and on turning Nordic registry resources into clinically useful aging measures.

In this episode:

* What biological/epigenetic age clocks actually measure (and what they don’t)

* Accuracy, error bars, and why clocks aren’t clinic-ready yet

* Epigenetic vs. proteomic vs. metabolomic clocks - strengths and trade-offs

* Organ-specific clocks (liver, ovary, kidney) and what they reveal

* Why uncertainty spikes at life transitions; menopause as a natural “stress test”

* PC (principal-component) clocks and noise reduction

* Nordic registry & Swedish Twin Registry advantages; UK Biobank use

* Direct-to-consumer tests: interpreting results and common pitfalls

* AI’s role in building/validating clocks and handling uncertainty

* What would move the field fastest (data, standards, trials) and where Sweden stands

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LEVITY is co-hosted by Patrick Linden, philosopher and author, and Peter Ottsjö, journalist and author.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

03:27 Why Sweden lags behind in longevity science

08:04 Nordic registry & Swedish twin registry advantages; UK Biobank use

10:05 What is biological age?

16:33 The rise of epigenetic clocks

24:22 The importance of aging clocks

32:04 Beyond methylation: proteomic and metabolomic clocks

35:12 Organ clocks

39:37 Do aging clocks generalize?

54:37 The cost of aging clocks

01:03:18 Uncertainty and AI

01:17:10 Solving aging - where do we stand?

01:28:10 Book recommendations

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