Work on ‘genetic blueprint’ of long life: Longevity India is creating ‘indigenous measure’ of health for Indians

When you get a blood test done and your values ​​come back normal, are you really safe? The health standards used in India till now are either copied from Western countries or based on very old data. But now the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru is running a mission to correct this discrepancy – the Longevity India Project. The body, genetics, eating habits and pollution of Indians are completely different from those of western countries. Therefore, the scale to measure our health should also be different. The normal values ​​that we currently treat as a basis are not accurate for Indians. For example, women in India are often found to have low hemoglobin levels. If we do a scientific analysis of a sample of 20 thousand healthy Indians, it is possible that a new and more accurate normal value may emerge for India. This project is an attempt to create an indigenous baseline. Researchers are finding out what changes occur in the immune system with increasing age. Two major researches are going on under this mission. One is – BHARAT Study. This stands for Biomarkers of Healthy Aging, Resilience, Adversity and Transition. Through this, molecular data of healthy Indians is being analyzed to understand what changes occur in our immune system as we age. The second research is – Organ Aging Project: Under this, research is going on to find out the speed at which different parts of the body age. These projects aim to collect samples of 10,000 healthy Indians by 2030 (the ideal target is 1 lakh). Along with IISc, institutions like IIT Delhi, AIIMS and IIT Hyderabad are also joining this project. Although it is still in the data collection stage, scientists hope that between 2027 and 2030 it will yield results that will change the direction of the medical world. This is not a claim to find any ‘elixir’. Aging cannot be stopped, but helplessness in old age can be reduced. The ultimate goal of this research is to improve the quality of life of Indians, so that we remain active and healthy till the last stage of our life. The benefits of this research will be – it will be easier to understand the pattern of cancer – the rate of organ failure will be reduced. – The average age of Indians will increase.