Methylation is where your habits become measurable.
Your DNA sequence barely changes across your life. What changes is the chemistry sitting on top of it.
What we're reading
A methyl group is a small chemical tag that attaches to DNA at sites called CpGs and changes whether nearby genes are switched on or off. The pattern of those tags shifts predictably with age — and it shifts faster or slower depending on how you live. That makes methylation a clock you can actually read, and unlike your birth date, one you can influence.
How the clocks work
An epigenetic clock is a model trained on methylation data from tens of thousands of people whose real ages are known. It learns which CpG sites move with age and how much each one matters, then applies that model to your sample. The output is a biological age: the age of a typical person whose methylation looks like yours.
Second-generation clocks go further. Rather than predicting age alone, they are trained against health outcomes and mortality risk — so they capture not just how old your biology looks, but how fast it is moving. That rate is your pace of aging: biological years accrued per calendar year. Below 1.00 means you are aging more slowly than the calendar.
Your Delta
Delta is simply biological age minus chronological age. A negative Delta means your biology is running younger than your birth date. A positive Delta means it is running older. It is the cleanest available summary of a question that otherwise takes a full physical to approximate — and it is the number that responds when you change something.
Where the analysis happens
Delta Age does not run its own lab. Sample processing, array scanning, quality control, and clock computation are performed by TruDiagnostic, a CLIA-certified laboratory specializing in epigenetic analysis. We handle your ordering, kit registration, and results — they handle the chemistry. Every sample passes automated QC before a report is released, including checks that the predicted age and biological sex are consistent with what you reported.
What this is not
This is a wellness and research test, not a diagnostic. It will not tell you whether you have a disease, and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified provider. What it gives you is a quantitative baseline and a way to measure whether the things you change actually move it.