When Does Your Body Age The Fastest?

Picture by Steven Gregor from The Guardian

I always thought that age was just a number. How you feel is more important. Definitely being young at heart helps too. Mentioned this to my friend who's in his 60's while cycling this morning and he said that's the problem when you are young at heart. He said that he feels young at heart but the problem is that his heart is not that young.

Newly published research from Stanford University suggest that humans age very quickly in 2 periods, once around age 44 and the other around 60 (Shen et al, 2024).

Researchers in this study collected and analyzed more than 135,000 biological samples from 108 subjects ranging from 25 to 75 years. Cytokines, skin, oral, nasal microbiome, proteins, lipids, bacteria, ribonucleic acid etc were studied. They found that at around 44 years, those studied had a dramatically different mix of molecules than others just a few years younger. This indicates a spike in the risk of a heart attack, faster skin and muscle aging and slower alcohol and caffeine metabolism.

The next period of acclerated aging happened around age 60. More signs of aging for the heart, skin and muscles. Once into the 7th decade, our immune systems are weakened, kidney function reduces and decreased carbohydrate metabolism that can lead to Type II diabetes.

This shows that biological aging is not linear. It depends on our lifestyles primarily and genetics secondarily and how they interact. For many people, the early 40's and 60's tend to align with major life changes. Your children leaving for university, stopping work, downsizing your home etc.These changes may influence your diet, exercise, social exposure and other factors that affect how your bodies work.

Can we slow the biological aging? The researchers suggest adopting healthy lifestyle habits and ditching the bad ones to delay the aging in the 40's and 60's. If you are not yet 40, start paying attention to heart healthy habits, monitoring especially your cholesterol and triglycerides levels. Have a healthy diet, get enough exercise, minimise smoking and sugar.

Research suggests calorie restriction may protect health and longevity by protecting DNA from age related changes. Subjects who ate less calories by an average of 12 percent slow down their rate of aging by 2-3 percent (Waziry et al, 2023).

Bad sleep does not only make you tired, but makes you look old and haggard. Sleeping less than 6 hours each night can add about 15 months to your biological age and speed up the pace of aging (Kusters et al, 2024). Make sure you get enough shut eye.

Steven Gregor from The Guardian

Those who are yet to hit their 60's definitely need to strength train since muscle loss accelerates. Losing 1 to 2 percent of your muscle mass every year causes you to lose your ability to move freely and easily. Your health plummets as a result. A recent study by Da Silva et al (2024) showed that middle aged and older adults who did 12 weeks of progressive strength training delayed or even reversed sarcopenia (age related muscle loss). 

Now you know.

References

Da Silva AC, Mapa V, Ferreira-Junior JB et al (2024). Progressive Strength Training Can Reverse Sarcopenia Stage In Middle-aged And Older Adults Regardless Of Their Genetic Profile. Arch Geron Geriatrics. Vol 117. DOI: 10.1016/j.archger.2023.105182

Kusters CDJ, Klopack ET, Crimmins EM et al (2024). Short Sleep And Insomnia Are Associated With Accelerated Epigenetic Age. Pysch Med. 86(5): p453-462. DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000001243

Shen X, Wang C, Zhou X et al 92024). Nonlinear Dynamics Of Multi-omics Profiles During Human Aging. Nat Aging. DOI: 10.1038/s43587-024-00692-2

Waziry R, Ryan CP, Corcoran DL et al (2023). Effect Of Long-term Caloric Restriction On DNA Methylation Measures Of Biological Aging In Healthy Adults From The CALERIE Trial. Nat Aging. 3(6): p249-257. DOI: 10.1038/s4357-022-00357-y