Grant: Project Grant

All humans have two types of age: chronological, or age in years, and biological, or age according to your body that we can measure by looking at marks on DNA. Sometimes in people these two types of ages are the same, but sometimes they are different. Until recently, we couldn't measure the difference between chronological and biological age in children accurately enough, but thanks to a new tool, called the PedBE clock, we can. Therefore, because these two types of age exist, we will look at potential differences between chronological and biological age in children. We want to know which direction this difference is in, and how big the difference is, depending on if and when children are hitting their milestones throughout early life. This might also be affected by the sex or ethnicity of a child or if they have developmental differences like Autism Spectrum Disorder. We also want to know if there is any change in this age difference if we give children different things to eat or have people come in to help parents. We will explore these differences and when they happen in order to help children and families in the future by testing biological ages.