A woman's breast tissue ages faster than the rest of her body

Steve Horvath has discovered that a woman's breast tissue ages faster than the rest of her body.

"Healthy breast tissue is about two to three years older than the rest of a woman's body," said Horvath. "If a woman has breast cancer, the healthy tissue next to the tumor is an average of 12 years older than the rest of her body."

The results may explain why breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Given that the clock ranked tumor tissue an average of 36 years older than healthy tissue, it could also explain why age is a major risk factor for many cancers in both genders.

Source: Steve Horvath. DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types. Genome Biology, 2013; 14 (10): R115 DOI: 10.1186/gb-2013-14-10-r115