Episode 108
Is Whoop Predicting My Death?
Is Your Watch Predicting Your Death?
What Biologic Age Really Means — and What It Doesn’t
My Whoop tells me I’m eight years older than I actually am.
Naturally, that raises a question.
Does that mean I’m going to die eight years sooner?
Is my watch quietly chiseling a new date onto my tombstone?
Fortunately, the answer is no.
Still, confusion around biologic age has exploded.
Wearables promise insight.
Apps offer scores.
Some even whisper about your future health, as if destiny lives on your wrist.
So let’s slow this down and talk about what biologic age really is — and why it matters far less than you think.
The Two Numbers and the Dash
Every tombstone has two numbers.
One marks when you were born.
The other marks when you died.
However, the most important part isn’t either number.
It’s the dash in between.
That dash represents your life.
It reflects your health, mobility, independence, and curiosity.
When we talk about longevity, we shouldn’t obsess over the second number.
Instead, we should focus on making those two numbers far apart — and keeping the dash strong for as long as possible.
That’s healthspan.
Why Biologic Age Sounds Scarier Than It Is
Biologic age is not a prophecy.
It isn’t a death clock.
It doesn’t predict how long you’ll live.
Instead, biologic age is a model.
It estimates how your body is functioning right now based on things like:
- resting heart rate
- heart-rate variability
- sleep duration and consistency
- activity and recovery patterns
- sometimes weight or blood pressure
Different devices use different inputs.
As a result, they often give different answers.
In other words, biologic age reflects recent stress and behavior, not your destiny.
Think of it as feedback — not fate.
Why Your Watch Isn’t Measuring “Real” Aging
Earlier in the Fork U longevity series, we talked about telomeres.
Those shorten slowly over decades, one cell division at a time.
Your wearable isn’t tracking that.
Instead, devices like Whoop measure physiology, not DNA.
They detect how hard you’ve been living lately, not how much time you have left.
A bad week of sleep, travel, stress, or alcohol can push your biologic age higher.
A calm, consistent routine can bring it back down.
That’s not aging.
That’s load management.
A Simple Experiment That Tells the Whole Story
Here’s a trick I tried.
I told Whoop I was younger than I actually am.
Guess what happened?
Suddenly, my biological age dropped below my real age.
That alone tells you everything.
Whoop isn’t predicting where you’re going.
It’s comparing how you’re doing relative to the age you told it you are.
Once again, that’s feedback — not destiny.
Why I Prefer Withings
I use multiple devices because, frankly, I’m a nerd.
However, I tend to prefer Withings for one simple reason.
They don’t try to scare you.
Instead of telling you how old you “really” are, Withings focuses on things that actually improve your life today:
- blood pressure trends
- body weight and composition
- heart rhythm
- sleep duration
- long-term consistency
More importantly, they ask better questions.
Are you sleeping better?
Is your blood pressure improving?
Are your habits trending in the right direction?
That’s medicine.
Not numerology.
And no — Withings didn’t pay me to say that.
The Biggest Mistake People Make
Many people treat biologic age like a grade.
Others see it as a moral judgment.
When the number drops, they feel virtuous.
When it rises, they panic.
That framing misses the point.
The only question that matters is this:
Is it moving in the right direction over time?
One bad week doesn’t define you.
One good week doesn’t either.
Trends matter.
Moments don’t.
What No Device Can Tell You
No wearable can tell you:
- when you’ll die
- whether you’ll get cancer
- if you’ll have a stroke
- how many years you have left
Anyone claiming otherwise is selling fear — or subscriptions.
Technology can guide behavior.
It cannot predict destiny.
New Year’s Resolutions That Actually Improve Healthspan
If you want to improve your biologic age — and more importantly, your healthspan — start here:
Sleep better and more consistently.
Build and maintain muscle.
Move your body every day.
Eat a Mediterranean-style diet.
Lower stress where you can.
Spend time with people you enjoy.
Do those things, and most metrics improve on their own.
The Bottom Line
Your watch is not your destiny.
Chronological age is fixed.
Healthspan is not.
Biologic age is adjustable, responsive, and reversible.
Use it as feedback.
Ignore it as prophecy.
And remember — the goal isn’t to beat time.
The goal is to live well while time keeps moving.
References
- Levine ME. Modeling the rate of senescence: Can estimated biological age predict mortality more accurately than chronological age? J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2013.
- Belsky DW, et al. Quantification of biological aging in young adults. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015.
- Blackburn EH, Epel ES, Lin J. Human telomere biology: A contributory and interactive factor in aging, disease risks, and protection. Science. 2015.
- WHOOP Team. Understanding Recovery, HRV, and Physiological Load.
- Withings Health Institute. Longitudinal tracking of cardiometabolic health markers.
Transcript
>> Dr. Terry Simpson: So I have this WHOOP device on my wrist. And you
Speaker:know what? When I look at what it says, my whoop
Speaker:says that I'm eight years older than I actually
Speaker:am. So let me ask the question that I know some of
Speaker:you are asking right now. Does that mean I'm going
Speaker:to die sooner? Is my little whoop device
Speaker:predicting my fate? You know, on every tombstone,
Speaker:there's two numbers. The year you were born and
Speaker:the year you died. But the most important part of
Speaker:your life isn't either number. It's the dash
Speaker:between. The dash represents your life, your
Speaker:health, mobility, independence, your curiosity.
Speaker:And when we talk about longevity, what we really
Speaker:care about isn't stretching the second number as
Speaker:much as making sure those two numbers are far
Speaker:apart. And the dash in between, the strong, active
Speaker:and meaningful, as long as possible. What we call
Speaker:healthspan. A lot of you are thinking about
Speaker:improving things in the new year. Better sleep,
Speaker:more movement, less stress, fewer bad habits. And
Speaker:if you're like many people, you might be thinking
Speaker:about buying one of the many devices that promise
Speaker:to monitor you, score you, rank you, and tell you
Speaker:how you're doing, and maybe motivate you to game
Speaker:the system and push along to a better you. So,
Speaker:full disclosure, I'm a nerd. I have several of
Speaker:these devices. I wear a whoop, which, by the way,
Speaker:isn't actually a watch. It doesn't tell time, but
Speaker:it does tell how hard I've been living. I also use
Speaker:a Withings watch, which tells a very different
Speaker:approach. And when one of these devices tells you
Speaker:that your biologic age is older than your calendar
Speaker:age, it's easy to panic. It feels like someone
Speaker:just etched a new date on your tombstone. But
Speaker:here's the truth. Your wearable is not carving
Speaker:anything in granite. It's giving you feedback, not
Speaker:fate. Today on 4Q, we're going to make sense of
Speaker:the madness of biologic age, what these numbers
Speaker:really mean and what they absolutely do not mean,
Speaker:and how to use them to improve your life. Right
Speaker:now, instead of worrying about the date on a
Speaker:tombstone you haven't earned yet. M, I am, um,
Speaker:your Chief Medical Explanationist, Dr. Terry
Speaker:Simpson, and this is. This is Fork U. Fork
Speaker:University, where we bust myths, make sense of the
Speaker:madness of biologic age, and teach you a little
Speaker:bit about food and medicine. Let's start with the
Speaker:obvious. Biologic age is not a prophecy. It is not
Speaker:a countdown clock, and it's definitely not the
Speaker:date you're going to die. And it's also not like
Speaker:telomeres that we talked about in a previous
Speaker:episode. This is not time unraveling one
Speaker:chromosome at a time. No DNA caps are shortening
Speaker:in real time because of what your watch or WHOOP
Speaker:says about you. Biologic age is a model, an
Speaker:estimate built from physiologic signals like
Speaker:resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep
Speaker:duration and consistency, activity and recovery
Speaker:patterns, and sometimes weight or blood pressure.
Speaker:Different devices measure different things. Then
Speaker:they average them into a number or a model. And
Speaker:that number reflects how your body is functioning
Speaker:recently, not where you're headed or how long you
Speaker:live. Think of biologic age like a check engine
Speaker:light, not like a crystal ball. Why does WHOOP say
Speaker:that I'm older? And here's a little trick. So
Speaker:WHOOP leans heavily on heart rate variability,
Speaker:recovery timing, strain, sleep debt. So if you've
Speaker:traveled, slept, uh, poorly, trained hard, been
Speaker:stressed, or had alcohol, your biologic age goes
Speaker:up. In my case, it doesn't mean that I aged eight
Speaker:years or I don't look good for my age or look
Speaker:really good for my age. It just means that my body
Speaker:was under load when it was checked. Oh, here's a
Speaker:little trick that I did for myself. If you don't
Speaker:like what WHOOP says about your age, lie. Lie to
Speaker:whoop. Tell your whoop you're younger than you
Speaker:actually are and guess what happens. All of a
Speaker:sudden your whoop biologic age is younger than
Speaker:your real age. That tells you everything you need
Speaker:to know. Whoop isn't measuring where you're going
Speaker:to end up. I'm telling you how that this is a, uh,
Speaker:relative to the age you are told you are. It's
Speaker:feedback. It's not destiny. It's telling you how
Speaker:you are doing relative to what age you tell WHOOP
Speaker:you are. You may doing poorly, you may doing
Speaker:better, but if you say you're 70 years old and you
Speaker:have party hardy and you're 30 years old, guess
Speaker:what? Who's going to say your biologic age might
Speaker:be 80? If you say you're 20, it might say your
Speaker:biologic age is 30. It's just giving you a number.
Speaker:It's a model. And like the old person used to say,
Speaker:all models are flawed and some are useful. Now why
Speaker:do I prefer withings?
Speaker:Let's talk about withings. And no, withings didn't
Speaker:pay me to say this. And they're not sponsoring me.
Speaker:No affiliate code, no kickback. But here's why. I
Speaker:like their approach better. And I have the
Speaker:withings ecosystem. I have their blood pressure
Speaker:cuff, I have their Watch. Which is lovely, by the
Speaker:way. You know, I've talked about this before, but
Speaker:Withings doesn't try to scare you with a single
Speaker:age number. They don't imply fate. They don't
Speaker:whisper about your funeral. They focus on things
Speaker:that actually improve your life today. The trends
Speaker:in blood pressure, the weight and body
Speaker:composition, your heart rhythm, sleep duration,
Speaker:consistency over time. They simply ask, in my
Speaker:opinion, better questions, like, are you sleeping
Speaker:better? Is your blood pressure improving? Are your
Speaker:habits trending in the right direction? It's
Speaker:medicine. It's not numerology. Telomeres,
Speaker:epigenetics, and wearables. Earlier in the
Speaker:longevity series, we talked about telomeres. These
Speaker:are these little egglets on chromosomes that
Speaker:shorten slowly over decades. Unless you have
Speaker:certain diseases, wearables do not measure the
Speaker:length of the telomere. Now, some blood tests
Speaker:measure epigenic clocks, which are more stable but
Speaker:still imperfect. Wearables measure physiology and
Speaker:behavior. And your diary gives them even more
Speaker:information. They're snapshots. They're not
Speaker:archives. They're weather reports. They're not
Speaker:climate change. Now, here's the biggest mistake a
Speaker:lot of people make. They treat biologic age like a
Speaker:grade or a score or a moral judgment. They feel
Speaker:virtuous when it's low, and they panic when it's
Speaker:high. That's the wrong frame. The only question
Speaker:that matters is, are you moving in the right
Speaker:direction over time?
Speaker:Now, uh, as the New Year comes in, let's talk
Speaker:about some New Year's resolutions that actually
Speaker:improve healthspan. Here's the things for New
Speaker:Year's resolutions. I'd like you to think about
Speaker:focusing on this year. Sleeping better and more
Speaker:consistently, building and maintaining muscle,
Speaker:moving daily, eating better Mediterranean style,
Speaker:enjoying friends and community, and lowering
Speaker:stress where you can. Those are things that
Speaker:actually extend your health span, the quality of
Speaker:the years you have. Here's my takeaway. My goal
Speaker:for this year is to improve those things that will
Speaker:help my health span. I want to sleep better. I
Speaker:want to do all of those things. That's where
Speaker:biologic numbers improve on their own. Your watch,
Speaker:your wearable, is not your destiny. Your
Speaker:chronologic age may or may not be fixed. I don't
Speaker:know. It may be your time to be or die. I can't go
Speaker:into that. But I can tell you that healthspan is
Speaker:absolutely controlled by your life's battle. Uh,
Speaker:and when you see that Woohp says you're eight
Speaker:years older. That's not a sentence, that's
Speaker:feedback. Use it as such. This episode was written
Speaker:and directed by me, Dr. Terri Simpson. And while I
Speaker:am a doctor, I am not your doctor. And this is
Speaker:purely for educational information. If you're
Speaker:going to start making changes and want to make
Speaker:changes in your life, please see your board
Speaker:certified physician. Maybe talk with a registered
Speaker:dietitian and a certified personal trainer. And if
Speaker:you're thinking about making more sense of madness
Speaker:of longevity, know that we are considering having
Speaker:a cruise the second week of August in the
Speaker:Mediterranean to talk about longevity and have
Speaker:some great speakers there and presentations and
Speaker:wonderful shore excursions. You learn about
Speaker:longevity from the real science of it, not from
Speaker:the woo. If you like the series, please subscribe
Speaker:to Fork you wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker:All things audio were done by my friends at
Speaker:Simpler Media and the pod got himself Mr. Evo
Speaker:Terra. Thank you everybody. Have a great week. And
Speaker:don't worry about that age number. Age is just a
Speaker:number. In my case, it's a big number. To evil.
Speaker:You know, my biologic age keeps drifting down, but
Speaker:my actual age keeps going up. I guess I'll take
Speaker:that as a trade. It turns out the secret to
Speaker:longevity isn't beating time. It's treating your
Speaker:body well enough that time doesn't beat you up. Of
Speaker:course, some people treat their body like a
Speaker:temple. Uh, I probably treated mine more more like
Speaker:a tent. Yeah, I hear you there. Mine is more like
Speaker:the Temple of Doom. Happy Holidays, my friend.
