How I Reversed My Biological Age at 52 to 42 (The Easy Way!)

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]My lab results, they came back, and I found out that my biological age was actually 42, and I'm 52. Most people would close report right there. I almost did. Then there was one lab marker at the bottom of the page that stopped me.

[00:00:15]It wasn't flagged. It wasn't in red. It was just sitting there looking normal in black ink within the range.

[00:00:22]That number is the reason I'm changing my diet, adjusting my supplement stack, and adding two training sessions a week.

[00:00:29]If I get it right, I believe I can drop my biological age another 2 years within 12 months.

[00:00:36]But if I ignore it, the research says I'm sitting in a risk zone that most doctors would actually miss.

[00:00:42]I'm Dr. Ben Lynch, and in this video, I'm going to share with you exactly how I read my own lab report, what I found, and how you can apply the same thing to your own lab results. Before I show you what I found, I want you to realize something.

[00:00:56]Lab reports get their reference ranges in not-so-good way. So, let me tell you, every lab result comes back in one of two ways: in range or out of range, green or red. Your number is either in the range or it isn't. The idea, principally, it makes sense.

[00:01:15]But here's what the system is actually built to do.

[00:01:18]Detect [music] disease.

[00:01:20]Reference ranges come from the population averages.

[00:01:23]If 95% of people fall within a given band, that band is normal.

[00:01:30]Your result gets compared to that population, and it looks okay if it fits within their range.

[00:01:36]That population includes people who are tired, inflamed, and aging faster than they should.

[00:01:42]Their numbers help build the range that you are being measured against.

[00:01:47]Fitting inside that band doesn't mean you are okay. [music] It doesn't mean that you're optimized.

[00:01:54]It means that you resemble the sick, and tired, and aging faster, average.

[00:02:01]For biological aging, resembling the average is not the target. There's a huge gap between being not deficient and optimal. It shows up on almost every lab panel. Vitamin B12, it's technically in range, but yet your nerves can still starve. Homocysteine, it's typically in range, but can still drive cardiovascular risk over a decade.

[00:02:26]Fasting glucose, good enough, it's inside the band, but it can drift towards insulin resistance and trigger type 2 diabetes without triggering a single alarm. The lab test flagged 19 markers on my panel out of 161.

[00:02:42]From this perspective, I was looking pretty good. But the number I'm going to share with you wasn't one of the 19.

[00:02:50]It was sitting clean and green at 242, and I knew enough to question it.

[00:02:57]It was methylmalonic acid, also known as MMA. My result was 242 nanomoles per liter. The lab's upper limit, 335. Clear, no flag. 335, 242, not bad.

[00:03:14]But MMA [music] has been studied in aging populations, and the picture looks really different from the reference ranges.

[00:03:21]The average MMA in healthy adults sits around 170.

[00:03:25]A study tracking diabetic patients found that those with MMA levels at 250 or above had 2 and 1/2 times the all-cause mortality risk compared to those below 120. Cardiovascular mortality risk tripled. Cancer mortality risk more than [music] quadrupled. Here's what high MMA actually does to your body. Those mortality numbers are not random. There is a mechanism behind them, and once you see it, the risk [music] makes sense.

[00:03:55]When an enzyme called mut, m u t, falls behind, two molecules pile up.

[00:04:02]Methylmalonyl-CoA and propionyl-CoA.

[00:04:05]Both bind to another compound that you need, and that compound is called coenzyme A, and it literally pulls that coenzyme A out of your circulation. But, the problem is, your cells need coenzyme A to burn fat and produce [music] energy. When coenzyme A is tied up, those processes, they don't work. You don't feel it as one thing. You feel it as everything being slightly harder. Lower energy, poor recovery, slower cognition. Then, there's even more damage to your brain.

[00:04:40]MMA is toxic to your neurons.

[00:04:43]Chronically elevated levels are linked to brain fog, peripheral neuropathy, cognitive decline, and over time, your brain shrinks.

[00:04:51]My level isn't quite there, thankfully, but the damage doesn't start at severe.

[00:04:57]It starts where I am, and then it gets worse. Your kidneys can take a hit, too.

[00:05:03]Because they're responsible for filtering and eliminating MMA. [music] In people with chronically elevated levels, that chronic underlying exposure is associated with progressive kidney damage over time, slowly, without symptoms until it becomes significant.

[00:05:22]The cancer connection and that mortality data comes down to this.

[00:05:26]When your mitochondria are chronically suppressed, your cells lose the ability to clean house.

[00:05:32]Cells that should die keep living and dividing.

[00:05:37]That is the environment where cancer gets a foothold.

[00:05:41]One marker, multiple body systems, but none of this triggers a lab flag until the damage is already significant. At 242, I was only nine points below the 250 threshold. That is not comfortable.

[00:05:56]That's too close for my comfort. When you find lab values near the lowest or the highest range, question it. Dig deeper.

[00:06:05]I want to be precise about what MMA is and isn't. It is not a downstream marker. Elevated MMA tells you something is backing up inside your mitochondria.

[00:06:16]It doesn't immediately tell you why.

[00:06:19]Unfortunately, you have to look further.

[00:06:21]When I looked further, a pattern emerged. My omega-3 levels were only 5%.

[00:06:27]That's low. My omega-6s were high at 32.5%.

[00:06:33]My LDL particle number sat at almost 2,000, almost double the optimal threshold of 1,138, with the smaller, denser types overrepresented, which are the more harmful types.

[00:06:48]Four markers, three flagged, >> [music] >> one not. But once I saw them all together, they were all saying the same thing. So, I got started.

[00:06:58]Most people read labs the wrong way.

[00:07:01]They scroll through looking for red.

[00:07:03]They fix what's flagged, >> [music] >> and then they stop. That's not wrong. It just misses the most important [music] skill.

[00:07:10]The skill is reading how the markers influence [music] each other. My MMA, my omega-3, my omega-6, my LDL particle type, each one pointed back to the same [music] metabolic problem. How my body was processing certain [music] fats. The unflagged marker, MMA, was actually the cleanest signal.

[00:07:33]The flagged markers were downstream consequences of the same one root cause.

[00:07:39][music] Once I found the connecting thread, the protocol became obvious. I wasn't chasing four problems, [music] I was going to address one problem that showed up in four places. That thread was traced back to a single nutrient cofactor. It's a form of vitamin B12 that almost nobody takes. The form that my mitochondria were quietly running short on and I had no idea. They were running short on it because I was overwhelmingly the enzyme. I was giving it too much odd chain fat. I was giving it too much protein and most of it coming from goat milk, goat cheese, [music] and goat yogurt. I was creating dirty genes. And I love all of it. The goat milk, the goat cheese, Manchego.

[00:08:26]Oh, wait a minute. That's sheep cheese.

[00:08:28]But it's [music] still hits damn good.

[00:08:30]But all of it was quietly draining the one form of B12 that my mitochondria actually needed.

[00:08:36]I couldn't shake a slight mental and physical fatigue. That's honestly why I ordered this test. I haven't looked at my own labs in over five years.

[00:08:47]Each morning and throughout the day, I evaluate how I felt. I supplement with what I thought I needed and I moved on.

[00:08:55]But at 52 years old, I pretty much said, "Mhm, it's probably not a good idea to keep using this system because you can't always feel dysfunction." [music] Most people who supplement with vitamin B12 take one of two forms.

[00:09:10]Cyanocobalamin is the cheapest. It shows up in most multivitamins, energy drinks, and grocery store B12 bottles. Your body has to convert it before it can use it.

[00:09:19]That conversion is inefficient and even when it works, you never actually end up with what your mitochondria need. I don't touch that crap. The second form is methylcobalamin. This one gets attention in naturopathic and functional medicine because it supports methylation, neurotransmitter production, DNA repair, and homocysteine recycling.

[00:09:40]If you have an MTHFR variant or you're focused on methylation, methylcobalamin is the form most practitioners reach for. There's a third form.

[00:09:48]Nobody talks about this form. This form of vitamin B12 clears your elevated MMA.

[00:09:54]It's not cyanocobalamin, and it's not methylcobalamin. Yes, technically, cyanocobalamin and methylcobalamin can convert to this other form, but very, very marginally, and it's not sufficient in meaningful amounts.

[00:10:07]>> [music] >> This form is called adenosylcobalamin.

[00:10:11]This is a form of B12 required by your mitochondrial enzyme called methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, or I like to call it MUT.

[00:10:20]MUT's job is to clear methylmalonyl-CoA, aka MMA, out of your mitochondria.

[00:10:27]Without adenosylcobalamin, MUT can't function. The result? Your mitochondria cannot clear the backlog of elevated MMA.

[00:10:35]Your energy production drops, and your fatigue shows up, and it stays. [music] And I've been supplementing with methylcobalamin for years. My methylation is working. I know that because my homocysteine came back at a healthy 8.4. Ideal? No, but healthy.

[00:10:52]Should be around seven, but I'll take 8.4. But, my mitochondrial pathway was under-supplied, and I knew that [music] because my methylmalonic acid levels were elevated. Not because I was ignoring vitamin B12. I was taking vitamin B12, but I was taking the wrong form for the wrong job. But, hey, I didn't know that because I didn't know that my methylmalonic acid levels were elevated. But, I did know once I got my lab results back. And once I did, it made so much sense. I had forgotten about adenosylcobalamin. And then I was flooding the pathway with more fat and protein than the MUT enzyme can handle.

[00:11:33]Methyl B12 doesn't fix it. Cyano B12 doesn't fix it. Hydroxocobalamin doesn't fix this. The MUT enzyme specifically needs adenosylcobalamin, and I wasn't giving it.

[00:11:45]When I saw that my MMA levels were higher than I wanted them to be, I went over to my supplement drawer, I grabbed a bottle of adenosylcobalamin, I popped in a lozenge, I bit it a couple times, and then I let it dissolve slowly.

[00:11:58]I'll tell you, I felt a part of my head clear that I hadn't felt clear in a long time. It was actually in a specific spot, and it kind of hurt. It definitely was a missing link for me. And then the amount of energy that I had for the next week was pretty impressive. As I took one lozenge each morning. As promising as this sounds, I knew adenosylcobalamin wasn't going to be sufficient.

[00:12:21]>> [music] >> Knowing the missing cofactor was a big part of the answer, but a cofactor alone does not fix a traffic jam if the road keeps piling up.

[00:12:31]MMA elevation happens for two reasons.

[00:12:33][music] First, the MUT enzyme lacks its cofactor.

[00:12:38]Basic, simple, obvious. Second, too much substrate floods in faster than the enzyme can clear it.

[00:12:45]I had to address both. Goat dairy was the biggest driver. I consumed it every day. [music] A quart of goat milk, easily. Oftentimes, more.

[00:12:56]Then the cheese, and then the yogurt on top of it. Goat dairy is rich in odd chain fatty acids that feed directly into the MUT enzyme, requiring adenosylcobalamin.

[00:13:08]That pathway was already struggling, so I cut it cold turkey. No goat dairy for me. Do I miss it? Honestly, yeah. I I do. [music] But knowing that I'm supporting my mitochondria is more satisfying than drinking another glass of goat milk.

[00:13:25]And that's not me just being tough.

[00:13:27]That's what happens when you understand what's going on inside your body. And more importantly, when you respect it.

[00:13:33]On the supplement side, I'm using three nutrients. [music] Adenosylcobalamin, so the mud enzyme can function. Pantothenic acid to support the sluggish pathway that traps the coenzyme A. You need the coenzyme A to move the fat. Acetyl-L-Carnitine also helps clear the metabolic backup and support mitochondrial energy production by shuttling fat into the mitochondria.

[00:13:58]Three supplements, three separate jobs, one pathway. And then I also added zone two cardio. Yeah, I walk 10,000 steps a day.

[00:14:08]Most of the time. And in the winter, I ski really hard. But it's not winter anymore. So I haven't been doing enough low-intensity structured aerobic activity enough. Zone two builds your mitochondrial density. So for me at 52, that's being in a heart rate zone of about 115 beats per minute to 145 beats per minute for 45 minutes a time a few days a week. That's pretty easy for me to do. I just need to go on a hike with my dog up a steep hill and I'm good.

[00:14:38]Nothing here requires an extreme protocol. [music] These changes are targeted. They're matched directly to what the labs showed me and [music] I put the system together. If you want a deeper map of how to think across multiple genetic pathways, I teach you how to do this in my book 30 Genes. That's the full beginner's framework. Now, you can start. Your most important unflag marker almost certainly isn't MMA, but it might look exactly like mine did.

[00:15:06]>> [music] >> In range. Park near the upper or the lower limit. Now, that marker can be connected to two or three other laboratory findings >> [music] >> quietly telling you a similar story.

[00:15:19]Start with a comprehensive panel. The one I use is Function Health. It runs over 100 lab markers through Quest or LabCorp. There's no doctor's order required. When your results come back, don't just look at what's flagged. Look at every marker. Notice which ones are in range but parked near the edges, near the top or the bottom.

[00:15:41]Then look for the theme. Multiple out-of-range markers typically share a root cause. For me, the theme was fatty acid metabolism. It was too much goat dairy. For you, it might be inflammation, high blood sugar, methylation, elevated cortisol, or something else entirely.

[00:16:00]Once you find the theme, focus on what actions you can stop doing more than what you can start doing. Stopping something is way easier than adding something else to your plate. For me, I stopped consuming dairy. Then I added more exercise and basic supplements. In fact, I want to be direct about what this approach is not. It's not the Bryan Johnson model. I'm not an extremist. I like living. What separates my approach from those who are more stringent and strict is that I'm honestly just more casual. I'm working on supporting my genetic expression from the choices that I make each day. That's it.

[00:16:42]I evaluate how I'm feeling. I connect it back to the various genes or pathways that are either dirty or functioning well, and then I support them. I clean my dirty genes. I fix them specifically and then I move on.

[00:16:56]Yes, I should run a comprehensive panel once or twice a year, and I'm starting to do that now. For a long time, I was just comfortable evaluating how I felt and correcting course, and I did pretty well with that.

[00:17:08]I can't rely on that anymore. The lab showed me things that I wasn't able to feel or pinpoint. Living should be living. It should not be living in fear [music] of dirtying your jeans. Go dirty your jeans. Have fun. Just don't be an idiot when you do it. Now, I feel horrible when I eat gluten or avocados, so I avoid them all the time. But, periodically, like once every 3 months or so, I'll have a cider with some friends. [music] Then I'll wake up in the morning, and I'll look at my sleep score, and my HRV drop.

[00:17:41]And then I accept that. Like, ah, I had the cider last night. And then I won't have a cider for a long time because I don't want to see my sleep score dropping, and I don't want to see my HRV dropping. It's that simple. Are you okay with a lower HRV? Are you okay with a low sleep score?

[00:17:58]Well, then you keep enjoying your cider.

[00:18:00]For me, I like living [music] life feeling good. A few rules for using this approach well.

[00:18:06]If a marker is in the disease range, take it really seriously. [music] Talk with your doctor. The conventional system is built to catch pathology and disease. So, if you're already elevated, then you need to take action on it right away.

[00:18:21]Now, if your markers are borderline and you have symptoms, that's where the pattern reading earns its value. The fatigue, the brain fog, the slow recovery, the inflammation that won't resolve, you got to look at the markers that are near the top or the bottom of the range. Don't miss those.

[00:18:39]Most doctors are not trained to look at labs this way. That's not a criticism.

[00:18:43]It's just not what conventional medicine was built for. This kind of pattern reading is what I do and what I'll keep teaching here.

[00:18:51]If your markers are solid and you feel good, don't manufacture a problem. Not every panel needs a solution. So, let me tell you, in 6 months, I'll run this panel again.

[00:19:03]Specific targets.

[00:19:04]My methylmalonic acid closer to 170, ideally even lower.

[00:19:09]My biological age score moving from 42.2 down towards 40. That would be awesome.

[00:19:15]And I'm going to document the results.

[00:19:17]New panel, new numbers, new biological age.

[00:19:21]Either the protocol works or it doesn't. And I'll show you exactly what happens and why.

[00:19:26]If you want to follow along, the most useful thing that you can do right now is run your own lab panel. Look what it's in range, but sitting in the wrong quarter. Is it the upper third or the lower third? Find the two or three markers telling the same story. Trace that story back to a root cause.

[00:19:44]It takes some investigation. I do recommend timelines. The marker that matters in most for you is sitting on a report that you probably haven't run yet. Or it may already be on a report that you have in your drawer. Go find it. If you want to understand how your genetic variants affect many things that we covered today, watch my next video on the seven dirty genes. Everyone needs to know about these. That's where this framework starts.