We’re all getting older – but it’s apparently not just a gradual process, as researchers at the elite US university Stanford have discovered.
Basically, there are two types of people: those who have no problem with getting older – and others who do everything they can to look as young as possible for as long as possible. They often use any means to achieve this: nutritional supplements, expensive serums and anti-aging creams, and they don’t even stop at cosmetic procedures.
When and how much you age, when the first gray hairs or wrinkles appear, depends partly on your genes, but also on your lifestyle. Anyone who thinks that this all happens gradually until you are noticeably older on the outside at some point in your late 60s is wrong. At least that’s what the research results from doctors at Stanford University, which were published in the journal “Nature Aging”, prove.
But first we are really interested in:
Biology of aging: Two points of life are crucial
For their study, the doctors accompanied a total of 108 adults from different population groups. Biological samples were evaluated every three to six months for several years. This allowed the researchers to identify certain molecular changes that are associated with aging. The researchers came to an astonishing result.
“Not only do we change gradually over time, but there are also some really dramatic changes,” as Michael Snyder, a geneticist involved in the study, explains in a press release.
Two points in life are therefore particularly crucial: those at 44 years of age and those at around 60 years of age. At this age, most study participants experienced the greatest leaps in aging, regardless of gender. For example, the risk of Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease does not increase gradually with age, but rather accelerates at certain points, such as age 60 for Alzheimer’s. To prove this, the researchers examined various biomarkers in the cells and identified related changes, for example in RNA, proteins, lipids and in microbiome samples from the intestines, skin, nose and mouth. In total, the researchers looked at 135,239 biological characteristics.
Getting older: This is what happens to your body
Participants submitted an average of 47 samples over a period of 626 days. This wealth of data resulted in more than 246 billion data points, which the researchers then evaluated. About 81 percent of all molecules examined showed changes during one or both phases. The changes peaked in the mid-40s and again in the early 1960s, with profiles differing slightly.
At around the age of 44, the metabolism in particular changes. Lipids, i.e. fats, as well as caffeine and alcohol, are no longer processed as efficiently by the body. This is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and skin and muscle dysfunction. The skin becomes slacker and more wrinkled and muscles develop more slowly. In your early 60s, further problems arise. The metabolism of carbohydrates and caffeine changes again, cardiovascular diseases occur more frequently, skin and muscles continue to change, and the immune system and kidney function also deteriorate.
Causes of physical changes have not been conclusively clarified
The changes in biomarkers identified by the researchers coincide with a fundamental shift in a woman’s life. Most women begin menopause or perimenopause in their mid-40s. However, this is not the only trigger, as men of the same age also undergo significant molecular changes. Which gender-independent factors are responsible for these aging processes should be the subject of further research.
At the same time, the researchers point out that their sample size is relatively small and only a limited number of biological samples from people between the ages of 25 and 70 were examined. Future studies could delve deeper into this phenomenon and examine it in more detail and on a broader range of subjects to better understand how the human body changes over time. In addition to biological causes, the researchers also do not rule out that changed lifestyles contribute to the phenomenon.
So aging still remains a mystery – how do you deal with getting older? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments.
As a freelance author for WELT, Sabine Winkler regularly reports on family topics, travel and pop culture. Her newsletter appears twice a month on Mondays.We run it – the family newsletter“in which she writes about her life as a mother.