Glycans – True Measure of Longevity
Julija Juric
JULIJA JURIC (UK): Ph.D. & Senior Researcher
Glycans are a game-changing biomarker and a warning system for chronic inflammation. They are the true measure of longevity, allowing us to see the impact of our lifestyle choices and learn how to optimize our biological age.
Summary
- Glycans are complex carbohydrates on cell surfaces that regulate function and provide a precise measure of chronic inflammation through the analysis of immunoglobulin G antibodies.
- As a highly responsive biomarker, glycans can predict the onset of chronic diseases like insulin resistance, hypertension, and rheumatoid arthritis up to ten years before clinical diagnosis.
- The GlycanAge test calculates biological age by analyzing 29 glycan structures from a simple at-home blood sample, offering a clear picture of an individual's current immunological health.
- Glycan levels are sensitive to lifestyle interventions, making it possible to track how specific changes in diet, exercise, or therapies like HRT affect biological aging and inflammation.
- Monitoring glycans allows for the optimization of health habits, helping to identify when certain practices are being overdone and providing a data-driven path to lowering biological age.
Article
Glycans As The Early Whisper Of Disease
Julija Juric At Biohacker Summit 2022 Amsterdam Made The Case For A New Measure Of Aging
In a wellness world crowded with trackers, blood panels and longevity promises, Julija Juric offered something rarer at Biohacker Summit 2022 Amsterdam: a biomarker that, she argued, could see trouble coming long before the body raised the alarm in symptoms or diagnosis.
Her presentation, *Glycans – True Measure Of Longevity*, focused on a class of complex carbohydrates that coat the body’s cells and, in particular, shape the behavior of immunoglobulin G, one of the most abundant antibodies in human blood. These sugar structures, Juric said, do more than sit quietly on the cellular surface. They regulate function, reflect the immune system’s state and reveal the slow burn of chronic inflammation, the hidden process that underpins so much of modern disease.
“Glycans are the main building blocks of life that exist on every cell in the body,” Juric said. “By regulating cell function, they serve as a critical indicator of your overall immunological health.”
A Biomarker That Looked Beyond The Standard Tests
The promise of glycans, in Juric’s telling, lay in their timing. Many health markers, she suggested, were either too noisy, too insensitive to lifestyle change, or too late to be truly preventive. Glycans, by contrast, functioned as an early warning system.
According to the research behind GlycanAge, the testing platform she presented, glycan changes could emerge years before formal diagnosis. Juric said they may shift seven years before insulin resistance is identified, and as much as ten years before cardiovascular events such as hypertension or before a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
That framing gave glycans a striking role in the longevity conversation. They were not merely a retrospective scorecard of health decline. They were presented as a preview.
“Glycans can change up to ten years before cardiovascular events or a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis,” Juric said, “providing a vital warning system to help protect your future health.”
The Sugar Code Of Inflammation
To the lay ear, carbohydrates often belong to the vocabulary of food, not molecular signaling. But glycans occupy a different biological universe. They are complex sugars attached to proteins and lipids, decorating the surfaces of cells and influencing how those cells communicate and respond.
Juric’s focus was specifically on glycans attached to immunoglobulin G. These structures, she said, provide a precise window into chronic inflammation, which remains one of the most destructive and least visible forces in long-term health. Chronic inflammation is implicated in metabolic disease, cardiovascular decline, autoimmune disorders and the broader biological wear we shorthand as aging.
The GlycanAge test, she explained, analyzed 29 glycan structures from a simple finger-prick blood sample collected at home. From that, the company calculated a biological age, intended to reflect not how many birthdays a person had celebrated, but how old their immune and inflammatory profile appeared to be.
Science, Recognition And A Field Coming Into View
Juric grounded the presentation in the credibility of glycobiology, a field that had often lived outside public attention. In 2022, that changed dramatically when Carolyn Bertozzi received the Nobel Prize, the first such recognition for a researcher in glycobiology. For Juric, that moment offered more than prestige. It marked a cultural turning point for a science whose implications had been building for years.
She also pointed to the platform’s research base: more than two decades of work, collaborations with leading universities and over 200 published papers.
The argument was clear. Glycan measurement was not an experimental curiosity dressed up in consumer language. It was being positioned as a rigorous, clinically meaningful tool, ready to move from laboratory insight to personal health strategy.
The Radical Message: Biological Age Could Move
Perhaps the most seductive claim of the session was also its most hopeful. Biological age, Juric insisted, was not fixed.
“Your biological age is not fixed,” she said. “Through the right lifestyle interventions, it is possible to significantly lower your biological age and give yourself extra years of healthy life.”
That idea has become almost a creed in biohacking circles, yet Juric gave it sharper edges by tying it to a measurable immune marker. The test, she suggested, did not simply flatter people already committed to health optimization. It could also expose where optimization had become obsession.
By measuring glycans, she said, individuals could tell whether they were overdoing or underdoing their habits, allowing them to fine-tune diet, exercise and recovery with greater precision.
When Healthy Living Turned Counterproductive
One of the most revealing anecdotes in the presentation involved a client named Anastasis, a yoga teacher and nutritional therapist who seemed, on paper, to be doing everything right. He followed a ketogenic diet, fasted daily and trained up to eight hours a week.
Yet his GlycanAge result suggested otherwise. At a chronological age of 37, his biological age appeared older.
The problem, Juric argued, was not laziness or neglect but excess. Too much fasting, too much restriction, too much physiological stress disguised as discipline.
After adjusting his routine by adding lean animal protein, broadening his intake of fruits and vegetables, reducing the frequency of fasting and emphasizing strength-based training, his result changed dramatically. Two years later, Juric said, his biological age had dropped by 20 years.
It was a story perfectly calibrated for the summit audience: not a warning against self-improvement, but against mistaking intensity for wisdom.
Metformin, Microbiome And The Small Levers That Mattered
Juric also described how interventions could register in glycan patterns with remarkable clarity. She cited Professor Tim Spector, who, after observing his blood sugar spikes through glucose monitoring, introduced metformin and saw what she described as a ten-year drop in biological age.
Diet, too, emerged as a central actor. Juric said the gut microbiome responded acutely to dietary diversity, and even modest changes could shift biological aging in a favorable direction.
“Our gut microbiome is sensitive to what we eat,” she said. “Even a simple change like introducing a wider variety of plant foods into your diet can have a significant impact on making you biologically younger.”
She offered the example of a biohacker named Nick, who changed little except adding 30 different plant foods to his diet, a move that reportedly made him six years younger biologically.
The message was striking in its simplicity. Longevity did not always demand futuristic interventions. Sometimes it began in the grocery aisle.
The Gendered Biology Of Aging
Juric also drew attention to a subject often flattened in mainstream longevity discourse: women age differently than men. Before menopause, she said, women often maintain a more favorable biological age profile, protected in part by sex hormones. But perimenopause and menopause can trigger a surge in inflammation as that hormonal shield diminishes.
She described the case of a university professor who identified this inflammatory transition early and used hormonal replacement therapy to regain control over it.
In an arena still dominated by universal prescriptions, the point mattered. Aging, as Juric presented it, was not a single road. It was shaped by sex, hormones, metabolism and timing.
A New Language For Prevention
At Biohacker Summit 2022 Amsterdam, Julija Juric did not merely promote a test. She offered a framework for reading the body before illness became undeniable. Glycans, in her account, stood at the intersection of immunity, lifestyle and longevity, translating invisible inflammation into something measurable and actionable.
“By measuring your glycans, you can determine if you are overdoing or underdoing your lifestyle habits,” she said, “allowing you to fine-tune your biohacking approach for better longevity.”
That may be the deepest appeal of glycan testing in an age obsessed with self-knowledge. It promised not immortality, nor even certainty, but something more practical and perhaps more profound: the chance to hear the body’s quieter signals before they hardened into fate.
Part of Biohacker Summit 2022 Amsterdam