Heidi Ledford in Nature:
If the number of on-camera screams is any indication, Kim Kardashian’s first encounter with epigenetics was a thrilling one. The reality-television star and her family shrieked and squealed in the season finale of The Kardashians in Los Angeles, California, last July as they each learnt the results of a commercial blood test that purportedly assessed their “biological ages”. Although Kardashian was 43, the placement of chemical markers on her DNA — her ‘epigenetic profile’ — matched that of a 34-year-old, according to the test. Her body, moreover, was ageing 18% more slowly than most people of her age. “You should give yourself a pat on the back,” said Matthew Dawson as he relayed the results. (Dawson is chief executive of TruDiagnostic in Lexington, Kentucky, the company that sells the test.)
On the other side of the country, neuropsychologist Terrie Moffitt says she was “mortified” when she saw the segment. Moffitt, who works at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, had spent decades with her colleagues collecting data from around 1,000 people to create the basis for one of the tests provided by TruDiagnostic. She had hoped that her work might one day inform medical decisions or provide a way for researchers to assess whether an anti-ageing treatment is having a positive effect on health. A stunt on a reality-TV show was not the kind of publicity she was aiming for. “I have a snob’s view of reality TV,” she adds.
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