How Long Will You Live Test

Can a simple blood test tell you how long you will live? One company says yes. But others say... "not so fast."

This is definitely one of those read the fine print before relying on a test like this.

There is a company out of England offering a simple blood test that will tell you how old your body is. And as most of us know, our body could be a lot older or a little younger than our actual age, depending on how well we've taken care of it.

This company's blood test looks at something we all have called telomeres. These are bits of dna at the ends of our chromosomes, like the x and y chromosomes that decide whether we are boys or girls. As we get older, these telomeres start to shrink and the older we are, the smaller they are. This blood test looks at how long they are and uses that to tell us how old our bodies are. According to the manufacturer of this test, it can tell you within about a decade what your biological age is.

This currently costs around $700 and most experts don't think it's something you need. They pretty much feel that more testing needs to be done to figure out how valuable this information is. But at the same time, the company making this test says that with the results you can see if your telomeres are much shorter than they should be for your age and take steps to improve your health. But other experts point out that you probably don't need an expensive blood test to tell you you need to eat better and exercise more.