Announced on the AP Newswire on January 20th, a study validating the scientific basis for the health risk assessment created by ShareCare founders Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold, has been published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, 1 well-regarded publication that publishes primary scientific and medical research.
Author of the study, James Fowler M.D., professor in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and his PhD student, William Hobbs, set out to determine the validity of ShareCare’s RealAge test, which identifies your biological age or “real age,” based on an online questionnaire that examines your health status, and specifically your good and bad habits. Dr. Fowler was motivated to evaluate the assessment test, because of the concern of health professionals about the myriad of tests and information online that might or might not benefit the average consumer seeking well-vetted health information. He wanted to know if the RealAge Test truly delivered factual information to its test subjects.
In the resulting study called Prediction of Mortality Using On-line, Self-Reported Health Data: empirical test of the RealAge score, the researchers matched 190,000 California-based RealAge test respondents, to death records in California, to see if the online test correctly matched the participants to their health outcomes and specifically, to their risk of dying. Dr. Fowler found that the test matched the actual mortality rates with surprising accuracy. So for example if you are 50, but have a lifestyle that results in your “real age” calculation of five years older, or fifty five, then you would have a life expectancy that is reduced by five years. Healthier lifestyle habits would improve your real age, possibly making a 50 year old closer to 46 years old, with a life expectancy of four extra years. Dr. Fowler found the RealAge test more accurate than calendar age alone, and even more accurate than a widely used and respected health score, the Framingham ATP-III.
The study was conducted independently by Fowler and Hobbs at UC San Diego, in cooperation with Sharecare. To learn more about Dr. Fowler’s findings, watch this video on Sharecare; and to find out your body’s true age, take the RealAge Test at www.sharecare.com/realagetest.
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