Telomere length is a poor predictor of disease onset and lifespan compared to epigenetic clocks like GrimAge.

“telomere length per se is actually not a good biomarker for predicting onset of various diseases most diseases don't have a strong relationship with telomere length in particularly in particular when it comes to predicting lifespan you know um telomere length is actually a shockingly weak predictor of lifespan for many years people wrote articles where they claimed there is no relationship to lifespan by now the field has moved on to say well if you have very large data you do see in a relationship to lifespan but if we compared telomere length versus an epigenetic clock such as grim age when it comes to predicting lifespan time to cancer time to coronary heart disease i mean there would be no comparison”