Scientists have proposed a new approach to understanding healthy ageing by creating a personalised “digital twin” that could track how an individual’s body changes over time.

The study by researchers at UWS aims to build a virtual model of a person using information from blood tests, fitness measurements, wearable devices, sleep, lifestyle, inflammation and other health data.

Rather than focusing on a single measurement, the digital twin would bring all these signals together to create a picture of how the body is ageing.

The research highlights an important problem in modern longevity science: improvements in health measurements does not necessarily mean that ageing itself has slowed down.

Cholesterol, inflammation, blood sugar and fitness can improve within weeks or months when people change their diet, exercise more or make other lifestyle changes. These improvements are important and can reduce health risks, but they do not necessarily mean that the underlying ageing process has slowed. A lower cholesterol level, for example, may show that the body is responding well to an intervention at that moment, but it does not tell us whether physiological resilience, tissue function or the long-term trajectory of ageing has changed. The proposed digital twin is designed to distinguish between these short-term improvements and more durable changes that may genuinely alter how a person ages over time.

Dr Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science at University of the West of Scotland, said: “Healthy ageing is much more than improving individual biomarkers. Our proposed digital twin brings different types of health data together to help us understand the underlying changes taking place in the body over time. This could help distinguish temporary improvements from changes that may have a lasting impact on healthy ageing.”

The model would track hidden processes that cannot be measured directly, including biological damage, the body’s ability to recover from stress, immune ageing, tissue repair and how different body systems interact. These would be inferred from measurable indicators such as cholesterol, blood sugar, inflammatory markers, heart-rate variability, fitness measures, epigenetic age and changes in physical function over time.

Dr Siddiqui added: “This tracking is important because different parts of the body change at very different speeds. Some biomarkers can change within days or weeks, while structural changes in bones, blood vessels and organs may take years to develop. A single measure of biological age therefore cannot capture the full picture.”

Healthy ageing is much more than improving individual biomarkers. Our proposed digital twin brings different types of health data together to help us understand the underlying changes taking place in the body over time. This could help distinguish temporary improvements from changes that may have a lasting impact on healthy ageing.

Dr Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui, UWS

The digital twin would continuously update as new information becomes available, allowing researchers to build a more detailed picture of an individual’s ageing trajectory and simulate different interventions to compare their potential long-term effects. It could model how an individual’s health might respond to changes in exercise, diet or other interventions, while estimating whether any improvements are likely to be temporary or sustained. 

The ultimate aim is to move healthy ageing research beyond making biomarkers look better, towards understanding whether interventions can help people maintain resilience, preserve function and stay healthier for longer. 

The research provides a proposed scientific framework for making that distinction, turning ageing from a collection of health measurements into a dynamic, personalised process that can be studied and modelled over time. The next step is to translate the framework into a working digital twin and test it prospectively using long-term biomarker, functional, lifestyle and wearable data. 

This research aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing.