Truth is many people also stop moving (exercising) significantly in their forties (reason being probably sitting lifestyle promotes posture and fascia degradation which makes moving less and less enjoyable).
I'd posit that another significant decline in moving occurs in the sixties when many go in rent.
Not sure if the biological clock is cause of abrupt changes or rather our scheduled lives. So, no significant changes from the sixties on? Then what's the genetic function of those programmations?
People who reach old age (100+) are mostly also comparatively healthy.
Without writing a book about it I'll just say that I think the most important thing is people shouldn't look at this info and conclude that their body's going to fall apart no matter what.
I'm in my mid 40s and in the best shape of my life, lots of energy, aches and pains from my late 30s have all disappeared, to get there it took diet and exercise changes that were surprisingly modest. For me it was mostly weights, a little bit of cardio, and cutting back on my worst episodes of caloric excess.
I have friends who didn't do any diet and exercise interventions, and are starting to look like hell and complain about the "inevitable" consequences of aging.
And then there are those jacked dudes in their 70s who are hitting the gym 5 times a week, I can only aspire to be as healthy as them at their age.
I also felt this way in my mid-40s. I still feel this way. But then after a lifetime of perfect vision, one day I was reading a book and noticed that everything was a little blurry. Now I need reading glasses. Not a big deal! I’m doing fine! But a gentle reminder that all the diet and CrossFit in the world isn’t going to save you from a (hopefully) gentle and inevitable decay ;)
Mid 20s here. Lived like shit until like 2 years ago. Started working out and eating right. In the best shape of my life.... then got diagnosed with an aortic anuerysm cant win
My vision had started to decline in my 30’s. Not a ton but needed glasses for distance vision to be crisp. When I hit 60 I started to operate without my glasses more. It forced my eyes to work more. I just had an eye exam and I can legally drive without glasses. My eyesight improved. It’s not crisp at distance but I can grab my glasses when I feel the need ( use when driving at night for extra layer of safety)
>after a lifetime of perfect vision, one day I was reading a book and noticed that everything was a little blurry
go to an ophthamologist and after testing you'll be told that you still have perfect vision! (the need for reading glasses after a certain age is considered normal, not a defect)
Presbyopia, atherosclerosis, even metabolic syndrome are normal consequences of aging. No one can stay young until they die of old age, the best outcome is preserving as much quality of life until the end.
Hah gentle, my vision distance also started degrading slowly but I had no issues otherwise. Text etc. was a bit blurrier but I could still read everything fine, except when it was too close to my eyes.
Then one day I pretty much hit a brick wall and went from 0 to 100% eye strain in about 2-3 days. Now I need constant eye drops, a humidifier, breaks every 20 minutes, time spent doing other things etc. to just be able to do what I did before.
I mean, of course exercise isn't going to fix your vision. But if your vision is going to degrade, you can still choose if you want to live as a fit and healthy person who needs reading glasses, or as a person who has aches all over, is in bad shape, feels tired and like shit all the time, and on top of all that needs reading glasses.
I am in my mid-40s, don't do regular exercise, and still dont feel like "shit".
Really, this "motivation trainer" rhetoric coming out of obesity-infested America is tiring.
You sound like there is only two extremes: Couch potatoes and people that run a marathon every weekend. There is actually a middle-ground. And a not-so-small group of people is actually comfortable in that middle-ground.
You can feel relatively healthy without running around like a wound-up monkey. Step on, don't eat too much. Then you don't have to burn calories to get rid of extra fat. It almost sounds like "uppers and downers"... Mind you, I am not arguing against sports in healthy doses. But whenever I read or talk to fitness fans, I feel like I am talking to a person following a cult.
It’s not that difficult to hit basic exercise targets as part of your lifestyle without realizing it. Going from an apartment to a two bedroom house involves a great deal of climbing up and down stairs per week. Taking a dog on a walk involves you yourself walking etc.
People talk about being a couch potato because there’s a massive difference between activities that involve passively sitting and things like gardening that require occasional movement that adds up over time.
most people who think they are in the "middle ground" are actually unhealthy, because they end up comparing themselves to the outliers of the morbidly obese or those with absolutely terrible diets
You are proving the original point by again focusing on the extremes.
Do you have any data/research to back up your claims that people who think they are in the middle are actually unhealthy or that they compare themselves to outliers?
The Dunning–Kruger effect should be in play here where people overestimate how fit they are. However, it really comes down to defining where the acceptable middle ground is. The majority of adult Americans are overweight (25+ BMI) and that’s been normalized with morbid obesity being considered excessive.
“Research suggests that changes in the social perceptions of what constitutes overweight and obesity may contribute to the increased prevalence of obesity (Burke et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2008; Johnson-Taylor et al., 2008). The growing prevalence of overweight and obesity could change the subjective threshold for what most people consider a “normal” weight level, thereby resulting in under-detection of overweight and obesity (Robinson, 2017). This explanation highlights the fact that social context affects weight perceptions (Hammond, 2010; Leahey et al., 2011b; Mueller et al., 2010; Robinson and Kirkham, 2014) because individuals adjust perceptions of their own weight based on the weight of those around them (Ali et al., 2011; Burke and Heiland, 2007; Maximova et al., 2008; Robinson, 2017)”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6304710/
The comically fat guy on some old shows looks reasonably normal today. However being overweight with a high fat person simply isn’t healthy. The healthy person who doesn’t exercise much should be quite thin rather than simply replacing muscle with fat and keeping the same weight.
I relate somewhat to this and those were two reasons I didn't exercise for a long time.
1) Feeling like shit: I found out that when I felt like shit it was a sign that I was going too hard. After falling off the wagon a few times because my workouts were so unpleasant, I decided that instead of quitting, this time I would keep going to the gym but just exercise like a pussy. Turns out light to moderate exercise is dramatically better than no exercise. Exercising like a pussy has eliminated all the aches and pains I used to have, fixed a wrist that was developing carpal tunnel, fixed a bad knee, lowered my blood pressure by 12 points, etc.
2) For me cardio is mind numbing, but weight training isn't bad. I mean weight training is basically doing a set, then sitting around for a few minutes messing with your phone or listening to a podcast or reading a book or whatever, then repeating. This is why most of my exercise is weight training, and my cardio sessions are 20min max. It works just fine, you get a ton of cardio from doing compound lifts. Also my gym has a jacuzzi where I can zone out after my workout and listen to podcasts, this turns the gym into the highlight of my day tbh.
"Pussy exercise" sounds like you're doing everything right for building your fascia!
As fascia stabilizes joints it explains your joints getting better. Focus on soft, bouncing movements if you want to regain, enhance or simply conserve fascia tissue.
Also, with time, it enables you to do with heavier weights and plainly brings back joy to moving. All the best.
Agree. There's lots you can do to slow the affects of aging. Most of us just don't try.
I'm 55 and found - much to my surprise - that 12 months of carefully progressively and intense running training has improved me from a slow plodder (jogging 5km a couple of times a week) to on track for a 3 hour marathon later this year. Along the way, I'm back to the weight I had in my early 20s, but now also am a lot faster and with way more endurance.
Of course, at 55, I now need to be more careful now about not getting injured. Which means being disciplined about stretching, strength training and recovery. Things I never needed to worry about when I was younger.
So absolutely:
> Use it (with proper care and feeding) or lose it.
It's so wild that in your 50s you can be more fit and in better health than you were in your 30s. No one ever told me this. My sedentary family bitched and moaned about how they were getting old and their bodies were falling apart every day. I'm so glad I discovered that exercise works in my early 40s. I hear you about injury though. When I get injured now it takes ages to recover. Something that would have gone away in 2 days in my 20s, can take weeks to heal. We're not immortal, but there's so much we can do.
I'm in my mid-40's and I'm in the best shape of my life. However it's taken a lot of hard work and sacrifice, that I weirdly enjoy:
* Cooking all meals from scratch (I try and reduce UPFs as much as possible).
* No bread or pasta ever. Fresh non-supermarket bread and pasta is probably OK for you...
* Less alcohol (only on special occasions). Modern no-alcohol beer is actually very enjoyable.
* Lift weights 3x a week. I built a home gym in my garage, with a TV mounted on a wall. It's a great time to unwind, watch YouTube and get fit. It's alone time I look forward to.
* Walk every lunchtime for 20 minutes, rather than browsing the Internet
The key thing about exercise, is that if you don't enjoy it then you won't do it. For me, the alone time watching Youtube or listening to a podcast is the pull-factor. For others it'll be a sport playing in a team.
Food is the major factor in your general health, and we really have fallen into a trap in the Western world with our food habits. Fortunately we have a choice in this regard.
Those dudes are almost certainly on some kind of testosterone. It obviously works for some. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, has almost certainly been "supplementing" for close to 60 years now. The trouble is we don't know for sure what these individuals have been doing, nor do we know the effects of such "cocktails" on the population at large.
You are 100% right, I don't see it as a negative though. Almost everyone in their 70's is on some form of medication. I'm mid 40's and have been on testosterone for ~4 years. Best shape of my life both physically and blood work wise. Testosterone (at sane doses), GLP-1s, etc are miracle drugs that dramatically improve ones' quality of life. While you are absolutely correct that "those dudes are almost certainly on some kind of testosterone" I see it as very positive.
My FIL, in his 70's is on a cocktail of pain killers, blood pressure medication and a hundred other things and has a hard time even getting out of a pool. I'll take being an old jacked dude over that any day
Indeed, but nobody can be quite sure that they will win the lottery and therefore can afford to kick back and do it the easy way. Moderate exercise, eating more of the good stuff, and letting go of some unhealthy habits have big impacts on overall well-being that are hard to describe. Simply put: not sick != healthy
> A healthy lifestyle improves outcomes pretty much regardless of genetics
to be able to afford a healthy life depends a lot on luck, much more than good DNA.
secondarily: modern western societies make it almost impossible for a large portion of the population to live such a lifestyle.
It's more probable than an African lives a healthy life style, even in poverty, than an American working 70 hours/week, with no paid holidays, trapped in stressful groundhog days in highly polluted cities.
That's why I never left my country, even though it costed me a lot monetarily wise.
The truth is, both things happen. People slow down — not just because they stop moving, but because life changes. They feel more tired, take on more responsibilities, and have less time and energy for themselves. And yes, sometimes the body begins to decline — gradually or even suddenly. It’s normal, and it happens to many.
If this were true then we'd see that people with active jobs like builders, mechanics, cleaners etc. would have different outcomes. I think many people here who have never done a physical job in their lives would be shocked at how physically demanding these jobs are. Going to the gym a few times a week does not compare to all day, every day on your feet for decades.
Indeed - and I would argue that despite that a lot of comments here and elsewhere anecdotally say that physical exercise helps to prevent signs of aging, some of these people who spend their entire time doing hard physical work do not look younger or healthier. They often look like they've lived pretty hard lives with really battered looking complexions and wrinkles etc - they almost certainly do NOT look "youthful" or "young for their age" - the opposite in fact, at least in my experience.
We in this industry live in quite a bubble in many ways. One of them is we get to chose when we go outside and exercise (mostly), but if you're a builder or a farmer or whatever you are usaully out there doing things, rain or shine.
Not only that, but in my experience most physical workers drink a lot and eat poorly. Not all, for sure, but it's pretty common at least in Spain. But rest is extremely important.
> people also stop moving (exercising) significantly in their forties
Also likely that people who never experienced the negative outcomes of a sedentary or unhealthy life style start doing so due to the biomolecular changes. Drinking more likely to hurt your liver, soda more likely to cause diabetes, smoking more likely to cause cavities despite having done all that for 20 years without visible problems.
Even with the most charitable steelman interpretation of "visible problems", 2 out of 3 things you've listed have strong evidence for being responsible for weight gain, and even smoking has some weaker evidence supporting it.
When I look into my biohacker bubble, the answer might be: enough sleep, regular workout routine with HIIT, healthy whole foods, no alcohol, socializing
I think the population they were referring to were active individuals who work out a little, eat well, and don’t drink alcohol. I didn’t see any mention of geographic area.
At some point you have to wonder about the costs. Denying yourself everything that's nice and pleasant, and exercising constant, total active control over yourself sure might prolong your life, but what's the point?
The thing is, drinking to excess, smoking, eating ‘badly’ just aren’t pleasures at all if you don’t do them all the time. It’s hard to take the perspective, but there is more to life!
Right, but that's the other extreme. Then there's everything in the middle, and most of that, unfortunately, do not form a kind of "healthy lifestyle" that has a chance to confer longevity benefits. So when people say, "just have a good diet and exercise regularly and sleep long enough and such" - it's a bit of a lie, because to do enough of these things to matter, you might be required to sacrifice the very things you value in life the most.
And I mean here both sacrifice the things you hold dear directly, or indirectly - which for us here is predominantly our careers and places of living.
Exaggerating a little bit to underscore the point: I could likely add years to my QALY lifespan if I moved to countryside, picked up more manual labor that required me to move my whole body, and went hiking in between going to the gym -- but, the things I value are found in cities, the work I like is white-collar, I hate hiking, and I also have people I love to support and lifespan-friendly labor generally doesn't pay enough.
Ultimately as much as we love individual responsibility, the truth is only the lucky few have the ability to freely choose their lifestyle. For the rest of us we have to conform to the unhealthy lifestyle that society demands of us.
To live a life that's even remotely healthy we have to dedicate a significant amount of the precious spare time we have just to undo some of that damage.
I do not believe we are predisposed to adopt sedentary lifestyles. As kids most of us are very active, but we are taught to be sedentary. Both academically and professionally we are most rewarded for sedentary activities: doing extra coursework, building your resume. Is it any surprise we develop a sedentary lifestyle when such a lifestyle is most rewarded?
I think rural life is too romanticized though. It will avoid the diseases endemic to sedentary life, but there will be different health issues instead. Preindustrial agriculture and generally jobs with lots of physical labor are not easy on the body. Coronary heart disease and maybe diabetes and dementia will be replaced by work-related injuries and arthritis. There is a reason many countries allow such people to retire earlier.
I don't get the contradiction? A healthy body will make it possible to enjoy all these things in moderation, be the company of your loved ones, and generally enjoy life for far longer. Making life just about the things that damage the body the most will have quite predictable consequences, no surprise there.
What are you talking about? Doing these things is the only way to increase your quality of life and healthy lifespan, no amount money nor medicine will make up for abusing your body for decades.
These things are quite literally the leading causes of death and impairments in the west...
> The real question here: how do we stop these shifts from happening?
Or what happens when we stop them? Perpetual adolescence seems mainstream now. But it would be nice to know if some of these changes should be brought up as well as pushed back.
>The real question here: how do we stop these shifts from happening?
We don't - people inevitably age and die. All you can hope to do is postpone these shifts, and I suspect a large component in the timing is genetic, so there isn't a magical solution that will work for everybody just because it works for the guy posting about the one guaranteed solution for preventing ageing, because it's worked so far for him.
If you throw some data at a clustering algorithm, the clustering algorithm is guaranteed to give you clusters back. So I'm not convinced about the results suggesting a precise pattern of rapid aging.
Anecdotally I feel I noticed a very fast ageing speed between 38 and 40. Suddenly got white hairs, feel more tired, more wrinkles, way harder to keep VO2max up (I run a lot), muscle sores after training suddenly lasting up to 3 days instead of 1, face looks older, etc.
I feel like that all happened real fast around this age.
I'm 38. We had three kids over a period of 8 years. Looking at old pictures I seemingly held on for a long while, until something hit me at 35-36?!
It's like there's two versions of me now, the one who was somehow moderately fit by biochemical decree, with a healthy amount of flesh to his face, voluminous dark blonde hair and a pleasant complexion...
... And the grey haired, weathered, lined, dessicated mummy I see in the mirror. I love my kids dearly but the constant caring really takes something out of you. That and the whole getting older thing in TFA.
I keep telling myself I'll get a gym membership soon to reclaim some of my dignity.
Like you I have kids, and it really takes a toll, and I definitely see myself aging in the mirror. But I cannot recommend training enough. I started working out regularly three years ago, after a long hiatus due to kids. And I feel stronger and fitter than ever as I approach 40.
The kids still need lots of care (they are 5–9 years old), so finding time and motivation is still a challenge. For me the trick is to do training I really like. That helps so much with motivation. So, find something you like!
What I happen to like is bouldering and hiking. I have a fixed day of the week for bouldering, just after work, and I never miss it, because I know if I start skipping I might fall off my training habit.
Then the rest of the training is motivated by getting better at what I love. I do pull ups to better my climbing etc…
I will fight hard to keep at it through my 40s, because it is such a quality of life improvement. I also attribute the fact that I haven’t been really sick the last few years to my exercise.
Thanks for writing this. The youngest is 1.5 years old, and going from two in the same age range to three (where the youngest throws you back into diaper world) has been pretty intense.
The oldest go to bed later and later & I also like to hang out with my wife for a few hours each week... finding the energy and motivation for "me time" has been tough indeed. I should just do something I like, and stick with that on a regular schedule. It's as simple as what you write.
Exactly. As a regular at a non-hardcore gym, I had never appreciated it until I saw the gym sell 12mo membership for the price of 4x 1mo, and then I tried to remember how many people sticked around for a meaningful period. Very few men. No women.
The nearest gym is truly the best gym for 90% of people, as everyone seems to look for excuses not to go. So just go, people there will not bite you or shame you.
Gym I go to is near to a university so always filled with college age kids. I find it super motivating. Lifting more than them has become life affirming for me :)
Spotted an 18 year old the other day that hit a PR at 315lbs on bench. I bench 405lbs and at that exact moment I decided I have to hit 495lbs. 405 had been my goal for decades. I went from I've hit the most I will ever need to "the journey continues".
"people there will not bite you or shame you" I have found the gym to be filled with the most grim looking people that transform into the kindest, happiest people as soon as you say hello. No one is there to judge anyone. You are 100% right
Looking back at pictures from really not that long ago (less than 5 years) to before kids or the first year of the first kid and one of the overriding comments both me and wife have are "We look so young!". We have two aged 3-to-5, and its been hard but not that hard, especially now that there are no nappies/diapers and they sleep 10-11 hours straight overnight and we pay for gardeners, cleaners etc and pretty much do our usual 9-5 as we did before kids.
FWIW though, I would say that you don't need a gym membership. I try to run/jog/saunter a couple of times a week - its free and easy to do. Getting started is as easy as putting some shoes on and stepping out your door - no set up, no memberships, no travel to get to the place to do the running etc. You don't need to go buy special shoes or anything - just something vaguely appropriate will be fine to get started with for short distances and steady pace.
Its what your body has evolved to do, and I think there is a good mental-health aspect to just going out on your own and running and letting the mind wander. I personally don't especially "enjoy" running, and it is sometimes hard to persuade myself to actually go do it, but once I have started and I am 5-10 minutes in, it's quite nice.
Im 46 now. I had my kids in my early 30's. I gained 30+ pounds over their first 10 years of life. Kids are hard :)
Now that they are older I have more free time. Once they get to the point where they can stay home alone things become much easier. For me that was around when they hit 10. I'm 46 now and in the best shape of my life. Keep pushing through, there is light at the end of the tunnel
I said I was skeptical of there being a precise pattern of rapid aging. I never said I was skeptical that rapid/non-linear aging can occur. If you did experience rapid aging in the way the paper measured this from 38-40 that is more evidence in support of my point that there is some broad random distribution of when rapid aging occurs and this paper and blog post overintepret the data to mean rapid aging occurs precisely in your mid-forties and at 60.
I'm well into my 40s. I've noticed aging in almost all my friends and work colleagues my age as well as those up to 10 years younger than me. I haven't noticeability aged myself yet though. Don't have any grey hairs, no wrinkles, don't look older than I did in my 20s.
It's not just my perception either, other people assume I'm early 20s.
I can't really relate to the physical stuff though because muscle sores after training was always 3 days for me and it was always difficult to keep VO2max up, even in my early teens. So I guess I just started out in middle age.
Sometimes I can't believe how low discussions on HN can fall. Did really nobody in this thread bother to check this? Are we fine disparaging research solely based on the fact that they used a method that gives bad results with bad inputs (which doesn't?) and their incentives could be misaligned (whose aren't?)?
If there are well justified concerns about the method or data then by all means let's talk about it, but please let's all try to keep low effort anti intellectual conspiracy theories away from here.
I read the paper before I made my original comment. They fit a clustering algorithm and then hand waved at intepreting the clusters. 'Omics papers get away with a lot of hand waving. Yeah they did some peak detection and found peaks, but you are going to find peaks in a random walk.
They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
Most importantly even if these peaks exist this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior
> I read the paper before I made my original comment.
That's good, now I'm wondering about the others in the thread.
> 'Omics papers get away with a lot of hand waving
Making assumptions and interpreting results is part of any type of analysis, especially for unsupervised learning approaches like clustering. Or maybe I am missing something: how do you not-handwave the results of a clustering analysis if you don't have any supervision signal?
In any case, I agree that omics in particular take many more liberties than usual with their interpretations. And yet, sometimes they come up with useful and important finding. Yes, a broken clock...2x a day, but maybe after working in the same field for many years one can gain some insights and intuitions.
> but you are going to find peaks in a random walk
I would hope so since a random walk has pretty obvious peaks, and it's not hard to test if the peak is significantly beyond the level expected due to chance.
Do you have actual concerns about the data and the peaks they found, or are we back at wondering about all the fallacies that they may or may have not committed?
> They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
This is a glaring omission, I agree.
> this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior.
True, but it dot make this paper worth any less. If anything, it's a great question for follow-up work.
Sounds like something someone < 40 would say. To anyone over, I feel like this study is pretty obvious. I'm in my early 40's and whatever change this is, has been discussed multiple times with my peers, active lifestyle or not, wealth or not, married or not, physical career or not. Everything starts to feel a little harder, whether it's exercise, problem solving, memory, sleep, sex drive, appetite, fuckin everything. Things change in your late 30s, for sure.
All young people think they are special and age is just a number. The rest of the population knows that isn't true. Spare me your weight lifting 80 year old, or "my grandpa worked the farm til he was 90" stuff, we all know those are extreme outliers.
Turning 44 this year and none of this has hit me at all? Still staying up all night on weekends, working harder than I ever did (not more hours, though), feeling more motivated to take on both paid and unpaid work outside of my job. And my sex drive just as strong (and just as unfulfilled!) as in my 20s and 30s.
I still stand by my claim that the most common cause of death is chronic iron poisoning, and living past 100 was a regular occurence in the bronze age.
The best explanation again seems that all the modern nutrition is nonsense fed by some double agent to the allies in WW2, (iron, and the toxicity of heavy metals) based supposedly on some secret concentration camp experiments, and nobody is allowed to question it in order to "not let their sacrifice go in vain" or some such bullshit.
Particularly interesting is that when they split the dataset by sex, the transitions were present and at a similar magnitude in both sexes. We make much in western culture of the (peri-)menopausal change in women. I read this as an indicator that at least significant parts of the transition in this age range for men - acknowledged for a long time now - are just as big as menopause.
I don't remember noticing that the last time this study came around, but then again, I am in my mid 40s. :)
> I read this as an indicator that at least significant parts of the transition in this age range for men - acknowledged for a long time now - are just as big as menopause
Sorry but your post as strong #notallmen vibes. The article itself mentions that part of those changes might just be explained by lifestyle changes at 40s. I quote:
> It's possible some of these changes could be tied to lifestyle or behavioral factors that cluster at these age groups, rather than being driven by biological factors, Snyder said.
Changes in women metabolism due to menopause are pretty known and proved, and men don't experience it. I'm a mid-40s male as well.
Probably the same study from this slightly older thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247085
Yep, both eventually link to https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00692-2 "Nonlinear dynamics of multi-omics profiles during human aging"
Truth is many people also stop moving (exercising) significantly in their forties (reason being probably sitting lifestyle promotes posture and fascia degradation which makes moving less and less enjoyable).
I'd posit that another significant decline in moving occurs in the sixties when many go in rent.
Not sure if the biological clock is cause of abrupt changes or rather our scheduled lives. So, no significant changes from the sixties on? Then what's the genetic function of those programmations?
People who reach old age (100+) are mostly also comparatively healthy.
Without writing a book about it I'll just say that I think the most important thing is people shouldn't look at this info and conclude that their body's going to fall apart no matter what.
I'm in my mid 40s and in the best shape of my life, lots of energy, aches and pains from my late 30s have all disappeared, to get there it took diet and exercise changes that were surprisingly modest. For me it was mostly weights, a little bit of cardio, and cutting back on my worst episodes of caloric excess.
I have friends who didn't do any diet and exercise interventions, and are starting to look like hell and complain about the "inevitable" consequences of aging.
And then there are those jacked dudes in their 70s who are hitting the gym 5 times a week, I can only aspire to be as healthy as them at their age.
Use it (with proper care and feeding) or lose it.
I also felt this way in my mid-40s. I still feel this way. But then after a lifetime of perfect vision, one day I was reading a book and noticed that everything was a little blurry. Now I need reading glasses. Not a big deal! I’m doing fine! But a gentle reminder that all the diet and CrossFit in the world isn’t going to save you from a (hopefully) gentle and inevitable decay ;)
Mid 20s here. Lived like shit until like 2 years ago. Started working out and eating right. In the best shape of my life.... then got diagnosed with an aortic anuerysm cant win
>then got diagnosed with an aortic anuerysm cant win
Sorry to hear that, but to my understanding at least this kind of malady is usually very treatable via surgery if it's large enough to justify it.
Honestly sad to hear... all the best.
Hey man somethins gotta get ya. I'll still live a pretty normal life probably, just got one hell of a surgery coming down the pike.
My vision had started to decline in my 30’s. Not a ton but needed glasses for distance vision to be crisp. When I hit 60 I started to operate without my glasses more. It forced my eyes to work more. I just had an eye exam and I can legally drive without glasses. My eyesight improved. It’s not crisp at distance but I can grab my glasses when I feel the need ( use when driving at night for extra layer of safety)
As I'm well past my mid-40s, so 100% :)
The best tech tool I've ever bought was a pair of dedicated computer glasses (focal length ~3ft) --for every computer I work at.
>after a lifetime of perfect vision, one day I was reading a book and noticed that everything was a little blurry
go to an ophthamologist and after testing you'll be told that you still have perfect vision! (the need for reading glasses after a certain age is considered normal, not a defect)
Presbyopia, atherosclerosis, even metabolic syndrome are normal consequences of aging. No one can stay young until they die of old age, the best outcome is preserving as much quality of life until the end.
Hah gentle, my vision distance also started degrading slowly but I had no issues otherwise. Text etc. was a bit blurrier but I could still read everything fine, except when it was too close to my eyes.
Then one day I pretty much hit a brick wall and went from 0 to 100% eye strain in about 2-3 days. Now I need constant eye drops, a humidifier, breaks every 20 minutes, time spent doing other things etc. to just be able to do what I did before.
Try autologous blood eye drops, and a warm eye mask and a big fish oil pill before bed.
I mean, of course exercise isn't going to fix your vision. But if your vision is going to degrade, you can still choose if you want to live as a fit and healthy person who needs reading glasses, or as a person who has aches all over, is in bad shape, feels tired and like shit all the time, and on top of all that needs reading glasses.
I am in my mid-40s, don't do regular exercise, and still dont feel like "shit".
Really, this "motivation trainer" rhetoric coming out of obesity-infested America is tiring.
You sound like there is only two extremes: Couch potatoes and people that run a marathon every weekend. There is actually a middle-ground. And a not-so-small group of people is actually comfortable in that middle-ground.
You can feel relatively healthy without running around like a wound-up monkey. Step on, don't eat too much. Then you don't have to burn calories to get rid of extra fat. It almost sounds like "uppers and downers"... Mind you, I am not arguing against sports in healthy doses. But whenever I read or talk to fitness fans, I feel like I am talking to a person following a cult.
It’s not that difficult to hit basic exercise targets as part of your lifestyle without realizing it. Going from an apartment to a two bedroom house involves a great deal of climbing up and down stairs per week. Taking a dog on a walk involves you yourself walking etc.
People talk about being a couch potato because there’s a massive difference between activities that involve passively sitting and things like gardening that require occasional movement that adds up over time.
most people who think they are in the "middle ground" are actually unhealthy, because they end up comparing themselves to the outliers of the morbidly obese or those with absolutely terrible diets
You are proving the original point by again focusing on the extremes.
Do you have any data/research to back up your claims that people who think they are in the middle are actually unhealthy or that they compare themselves to outliers?
The Dunning–Kruger effect should be in play here where people overestimate how fit they are. However, it really comes down to defining where the acceptable middle ground is. The majority of adult Americans are overweight (25+ BMI) and that’s been normalized with morbid obesity being considered excessive.
“Research suggests that changes in the social perceptions of what constitutes overweight and obesity may contribute to the increased prevalence of obesity (Burke et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2008; Johnson-Taylor et al., 2008). The growing prevalence of overweight and obesity could change the subjective threshold for what most people consider a “normal” weight level, thereby resulting in under-detection of overweight and obesity (Robinson, 2017). This explanation highlights the fact that social context affects weight perceptions (Hammond, 2010; Leahey et al., 2011b; Mueller et al., 2010; Robinson and Kirkham, 2014) because individuals adjust perceptions of their own weight based on the weight of those around them (Ali et al., 2011; Burke and Heiland, 2007; Maximova et al., 2008; Robinson, 2017)” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6304710/
The comically fat guy on some old shows looks reasonably normal today. However being overweight with a high fat person simply isn’t healthy. The healthy person who doesn’t exercise much should be quite thin rather than simply replacing muscle with fat and keeping the same weight.
I feel like shit when I exercise, and on top of that it's extremely mind-numbing. On par with watching paint dry.
I relate somewhat to this and those were two reasons I didn't exercise for a long time.
1) Feeling like shit: I found out that when I felt like shit it was a sign that I was going too hard. After falling off the wagon a few times because my workouts were so unpleasant, I decided that instead of quitting, this time I would keep going to the gym but just exercise like a pussy. Turns out light to moderate exercise is dramatically better than no exercise. Exercising like a pussy has eliminated all the aches and pains I used to have, fixed a wrist that was developing carpal tunnel, fixed a bad knee, lowered my blood pressure by 12 points, etc.
2) For me cardio is mind numbing, but weight training isn't bad. I mean weight training is basically doing a set, then sitting around for a few minutes messing with your phone or listening to a podcast or reading a book or whatever, then repeating. This is why most of my exercise is weight training, and my cardio sessions are 20min max. It works just fine, you get a ton of cardio from doing compound lifts. Also my gym has a jacuzzi where I can zone out after my workout and listen to podcasts, this turns the gym into the highlight of my day tbh.
"Pussy exercise" sounds like you're doing everything right for building your fascia!
As fascia stabilizes joints it explains your joints getting better. Focus on soft, bouncing movements if you want to regain, enhance or simply conserve fascia tissue.
Also, with time, it enables you to do with heavier weights and plainly brings back joy to moving. All the best.
Agree. There's lots you can do to slow the affects of aging. Most of us just don't try.
I'm 55 and found - much to my surprise - that 12 months of carefully progressively and intense running training has improved me from a slow plodder (jogging 5km a couple of times a week) to on track for a 3 hour marathon later this year. Along the way, I'm back to the weight I had in my early 20s, but now also am a lot faster and with way more endurance.
Of course, at 55, I now need to be more careful now about not getting injured. Which means being disciplined about stretching, strength training and recovery. Things I never needed to worry about when I was younger.
So absolutely:
> Use it (with proper care and feeding) or lose it.
It's so wild that in your 50s you can be more fit and in better health than you were in your 30s. No one ever told me this. My sedentary family bitched and moaned about how they were getting old and their bodies were falling apart every day. I'm so glad I discovered that exercise works in my early 40s. I hear you about injury though. When I get injured now it takes ages to recover. Something that would have gone away in 2 days in my 20s, can take weeks to heal. We're not immortal, but there's so much we can do.
I got a bad of case of tennis elbow recently from over-exerting during a light set of pushups!
The joint stuff you have to think about, where it was barely a consideration when I was younger.
I'm in my mid-40's and I'm in the best shape of my life. However it's taken a lot of hard work and sacrifice, that I weirdly enjoy:
* Cooking all meals from scratch (I try and reduce UPFs as much as possible).
* No bread or pasta ever. Fresh non-supermarket bread and pasta is probably OK for you...
* Less alcohol (only on special occasions). Modern no-alcohol beer is actually very enjoyable.
* Lift weights 3x a week. I built a home gym in my garage, with a TV mounted on a wall. It's a great time to unwind, watch YouTube and get fit. It's alone time I look forward to.
* Walk every lunchtime for 20 minutes, rather than browsing the Internet
The key thing about exercise, is that if you don't enjoy it then you won't do it. For me, the alone time watching Youtube or listening to a podcast is the pull-factor. For others it'll be a sport playing in a team.
Food is the major factor in your general health, and we really have fallen into a trap in the Western world with our food habits. Fortunately we have a choice in this regard.
> those jacked dudes in their 70s
Those dudes are almost certainly on some kind of testosterone. It obviously works for some. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, has almost certainly been "supplementing" for close to 60 years now. The trouble is we don't know for sure what these individuals have been doing, nor do we know the effects of such "cocktails" on the population at large.
>Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, has almost certainly been "supplementing" for close to 60 years now.
He's admitted it and advised younger bodybuilders not to.
Having access to the best sports medicine doctors in the world means you too can look great at nearly 80.
You are 100% right, I don't see it as a negative though. Almost everyone in their 70's is on some form of medication. I'm mid 40's and have been on testosterone for ~4 years. Best shape of my life both physically and blood work wise. Testosterone (at sane doses), GLP-1s, etc are miracle drugs that dramatically improve ones' quality of life. While you are absolutely correct that "those dudes are almost certainly on some kind of testosterone" I see it as very positive.
My FIL, in his 70's is on a cocktail of pain killers, blood pressure medication and a hundred other things and has a hard time even getting out of a pool. I'll take being an old jacked dude over that any day
I'm sure there's also an important component of luck and general health there.
Indeed, but I think that the point is that you shouldn't give up and let everything go.
Indeed, but nobody can be quite sure that they will win the lottery and therefore can afford to kick back and do it the easy way. Moderate exercise, eating more of the good stuff, and letting go of some unhealthy habits have big impacts on overall well-being that are hard to describe. Simply put: not sick != healthy
A healthy lifestyle improves outcomes pretty much regardless of genetics. Genetics just determines the ceiling.
> A healthy lifestyle improves outcomes pretty much regardless of genetics
to be able to afford a healthy life depends a lot on luck, much more than good DNA.
secondarily: modern western societies make it almost impossible for a large portion of the population to live such a lifestyle.
It's more probable than an African lives a healthy life style, even in poverty, than an American working 70 hours/week, with no paid holidays, trapped in stressful groundhog days in highly polluted cities.
That's why I never left my country, even though it costed me a lot monetarily wise.
> That's why I never left my country, even though it costed me a lot monetarily wise.
I suspect ignorance is bliss here as your post seems to be mostly weird stereotypes. I hope you didn’t make major life decisions on these bases alone.
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Regular whole body physical activity (not even gym level hard) is such a gem and a free one.
> Truth is many people also stop moving
The truth is, both things happen. People slow down — not just because they stop moving, but because life changes. They feel more tired, take on more responsibilities, and have less time and energy for themselves. And yes, sometimes the body begins to decline — gradually or even suddenly. It’s normal, and it happens to many.
If this were true then we'd see that people with active jobs like builders, mechanics, cleaners etc. would have different outcomes. I think many people here who have never done a physical job in their lives would be shocked at how physically demanding these jobs are. Going to the gym a few times a week does not compare to all day, every day on your feet for decades.
Indeed - and I would argue that despite that a lot of comments here and elsewhere anecdotally say that physical exercise helps to prevent signs of aging, some of these people who spend their entire time doing hard physical work do not look younger or healthier. They often look like they've lived pretty hard lives with really battered looking complexions and wrinkles etc - they almost certainly do NOT look "youthful" or "young for their age" - the opposite in fact, at least in my experience.
We in this industry live in quite a bubble in many ways. One of them is we get to chose when we go outside and exercise (mostly), but if you're a builder or a farmer or whatever you are usaully out there doing things, rain or shine.
Adequate rest is quite important to prevent the kind of injuries people in physical jobs get.
Not only that, but in my experience most physical workers drink a lot and eat poorly. Not all, for sure, but it's pretty common at least in Spain. But rest is extremely important.
"in the sixties when many go in rent" autocorrect from 'into retirement'?
Probably german, "Rente" = "retirement"
OP is probably German :)
i knew that day would come :)
> people also stop moving (exercising) significantly in their forties
Also likely that people who never experienced the negative outcomes of a sedentary or unhealthy life style start doing so due to the biomolecular changes. Drinking more likely to hurt your liver, soda more likely to cause diabetes, smoking more likely to cause cavities despite having done all that for 20 years without visible problems.
>20 years without visible problems.
Even with the most charitable steelman interpretation of "visible problems", 2 out of 3 things you've listed have strong evidence for being responsible for weight gain, and even smoking has some weaker evidence supporting it.
That's quite well-known already. The real question here: how do we stop these shifts from happening?
When I look into my biohacker bubble, the answer might be: enough sleep, regular workout routine with HIIT, healthy whole foods, no alcohol, socializing
and yet none of that makes even a dent
For you personally, maybe not, but statistically yes it does.
There are populations that consistently outlive and the only other thing I would add is stress removal in the form of relatively simple life styles.
If the populations that you're talking about are the famed "blue zones," then the most likely reason for it is poor record keeping: https://jheor.org/post/2682-ig-nobel-prize-winning-research-...
I think the population they were referring to were active individuals who work out a little, eat well, and don’t drink alcohol. I didn’t see any mention of geographic area.
and how do the effects of these interventions compare with normal variability of the lifespan in normal people?
At some point you have to wonder about the costs. Denying yourself everything that's nice and pleasant, and exercising constant, total active control over yourself sure might prolong your life, but what's the point?
The thing is, drinking to excess, smoking, eating ‘badly’ just aren’t pleasures at all if you don’t do them all the time. It’s hard to take the perspective, but there is more to life!
Right, but that's the other extreme. Then there's everything in the middle, and most of that, unfortunately, do not form a kind of "healthy lifestyle" that has a chance to confer longevity benefits. So when people say, "just have a good diet and exercise regularly and sleep long enough and such" - it's a bit of a lie, because to do enough of these things to matter, you might be required to sacrifice the very things you value in life the most.
And I mean here both sacrifice the things you hold dear directly, or indirectly - which for us here is predominantly our careers and places of living.
Exaggerating a little bit to underscore the point: I could likely add years to my QALY lifespan if I moved to countryside, picked up more manual labor that required me to move my whole body, and went hiking in between going to the gym -- but, the things I value are found in cities, the work I like is white-collar, I hate hiking, and I also have people I love to support and lifespan-friendly labor generally doesn't pay enough.
Ultimately as much as we love individual responsibility, the truth is only the lucky few have the ability to freely choose their lifestyle. For the rest of us we have to conform to the unhealthy lifestyle that society demands of us.
To live a life that's even remotely healthy we have to dedicate a significant amount of the precious spare time we have just to undo some of that damage.
I do not believe we are predisposed to adopt sedentary lifestyles. As kids most of us are very active, but we are taught to be sedentary. Both academically and professionally we are most rewarded for sedentary activities: doing extra coursework, building your resume. Is it any surprise we develop a sedentary lifestyle when such a lifestyle is most rewarded?
I think rural life is too romanticized though. It will avoid the diseases endemic to sedentary life, but there will be different health issues instead. Preindustrial agriculture and generally jobs with lots of physical labor are not easy on the body. Coronary heart disease and maybe diabetes and dementia will be replaced by work-related injuries and arthritis. There is a reason many countries allow such people to retire earlier.
Nice slip! Rock'n'Roll, baby!
I don't get the contradiction? A healthy body will make it possible to enjoy all these things in moderation, be the company of your loved ones, and generally enjoy life for far longer. Making life just about the things that damage the body the most will have quite predictable consequences, no surprise there.
If you want to live forever don't do any of the things that would make it worthwhile.
Amazing times we live in where addiction is woke and abstinence must be fascism?
What are you talking about? Doing these things is the only way to increase your quality of life and healthy lifespan, no amount money nor medicine will make up for abusing your body for decades.
These things are quite literally the leading causes of death and impairments in the west...
It does. Look up Brian Johnson
Bryan Johnson. Brian Johnson is the “Liver King”
Both dudes are equally cringe.
You should actually watch Bryan's videos, he's pretty funny and down to earth techie.
Are his therapies are over the top and lacking a bit of experimental rigor? Probably. Does he look healthy af? Definitely.
I actually have. Dude did a "family blood transfusion" with his dad and son. Ew gtfo.
And to me he doesn't look healthy af. His skin is good, sure.
Well, some time ago eating potatoes was freaky too.
This is the most idiotic argument I've ever encountered, bravo.
He looks older than he actually is.
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At what age?
These should be lifelong behaviors
> The real question here: how do we stop these shifts from happening?
Or what happens when we stop them? Perpetual adolescence seems mainstream now. But it would be nice to know if some of these changes should be brought up as well as pushed back.
Isn't perpetual adolescence a lifestyle description, not a biological one?
>The real question here: how do we stop these shifts from happening?
We don't - people inevitably age and die. All you can hope to do is postpone these shifts, and I suspect a large component in the timing is genetic, so there isn't a magical solution that will work for everybody just because it works for the guy posting about the one guaranteed solution for preventing ageing, because it's worked so far for him.
Possibly with a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
and blood of the young.
Only virgins
There's a subreddit for that
strength training
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I'm wondering if I'm currently hitting '60' early or '40' late.
34, 60, and 78 according to this other one: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2019/12/stanford-scie...
The study in the post agrees on 60, but mentions 44 as the (average? median?) age of another intense change.
If you throw some data at a clustering algorithm, the clustering algorithm is guaranteed to give you clusters back. So I'm not convinced about the results suggesting a precise pattern of rapid aging.
Are you at or over 40?
Anecdotally I feel I noticed a very fast ageing speed between 38 and 40. Suddenly got white hairs, feel more tired, more wrinkles, way harder to keep VO2max up (I run a lot), muscle sores after training suddenly lasting up to 3 days instead of 1, face looks older, etc.
I feel like that all happened real fast around this age.
I'm 38. We had three kids over a period of 8 years. Looking at old pictures I seemingly held on for a long while, until something hit me at 35-36?!
It's like there's two versions of me now, the one who was somehow moderately fit by biochemical decree, with a healthy amount of flesh to his face, voluminous dark blonde hair and a pleasant complexion...
... And the grey haired, weathered, lined, dessicated mummy I see in the mirror. I love my kids dearly but the constant caring really takes something out of you. That and the whole getting older thing in TFA.
I keep telling myself I'll get a gym membership soon to reclaim some of my dignity.
Like you I have kids, and it really takes a toll, and I definitely see myself aging in the mirror. But I cannot recommend training enough. I started working out regularly three years ago, after a long hiatus due to kids. And I feel stronger and fitter than ever as I approach 40.
The kids still need lots of care (they are 5–9 years old), so finding time and motivation is still a challenge. For me the trick is to do training I really like. That helps so much with motivation. So, find something you like!
What I happen to like is bouldering and hiking. I have a fixed day of the week for bouldering, just after work, and I never miss it, because I know if I start skipping I might fall off my training habit.
Then the rest of the training is motivated by getting better at what I love. I do pull ups to better my climbing etc…
I will fight hard to keep at it through my 40s, because it is such a quality of life improvement. I also attribute the fact that I haven’t been really sick the last few years to my exercise.
Thanks for writing this. The youngest is 1.5 years old, and going from two in the same age range to three (where the youngest throws you back into diaper world) has been pretty intense.
The oldest go to bed later and later & I also like to hang out with my wife for a few hours each week... finding the energy and motivation for "me time" has been tough indeed. I should just do something I like, and stick with that on a regular schedule. It's as simple as what you write.
Exercise is not optional.
Go for it!
And try not to be in the majority group of gym goers who pay the membership without attending ;)
Exactly. As a regular at a non-hardcore gym, I had never appreciated it until I saw the gym sell 12mo membership for the price of 4x 1mo, and then I tried to remember how many people sticked around for a meaningful period. Very few men. No women.
The nearest gym is truly the best gym for 90% of people, as everyone seems to look for excuses not to go. So just go, people there will not bite you or shame you.
Haha yes the pricing really tells you all you need to know about how many people struggle to make exercise a habit...
Gym I go to is near to a university so always filled with college age kids. I find it super motivating. Lifting more than them has become life affirming for me :)
Spotted an 18 year old the other day that hit a PR at 315lbs on bench. I bench 405lbs and at that exact moment I decided I have to hit 495lbs. 405 had been my goal for decades. I went from I've hit the most I will ever need to "the journey continues".
"people there will not bite you or shame you" I have found the gym to be filled with the most grim looking people that transform into the kindest, happiest people as soon as you say hello. No one is there to judge anyone. You are 100% right
Having kids greatly affects the quality and the amount of sleep, and the rest flows from that.
But! There's no shame in napping mid-day, even more than once. Even in the office :)
Reading the comments on this one, awhile ago, helped me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32176193
Similar here.
Looking back at pictures from really not that long ago (less than 5 years) to before kids or the first year of the first kid and one of the overriding comments both me and wife have are "We look so young!". We have two aged 3-to-5, and its been hard but not that hard, especially now that there are no nappies/diapers and they sleep 10-11 hours straight overnight and we pay for gardeners, cleaners etc and pretty much do our usual 9-5 as we did before kids.
FWIW though, I would say that you don't need a gym membership. I try to run/jog/saunter a couple of times a week - its free and easy to do. Getting started is as easy as putting some shoes on and stepping out your door - no set up, no memberships, no travel to get to the place to do the running etc. You don't need to go buy special shoes or anything - just something vaguely appropriate will be fine to get started with for short distances and steady pace.
Its what your body has evolved to do, and I think there is a good mental-health aspect to just going out on your own and running and letting the mind wander. I personally don't especially "enjoy" running, and it is sometimes hard to persuade myself to actually go do it, but once I have started and I am 5-10 minutes in, it's quite nice.
Good luck
Im 46 now. I had my kids in my early 30's. I gained 30+ pounds over their first 10 years of life. Kids are hard :)
Now that they are older I have more free time. Once they get to the point where they can stay home alone things become much easier. For me that was around when they hit 10. I'm 46 now and in the best shape of my life. Keep pushing through, there is light at the end of the tunnel
I said I was skeptical of there being a precise pattern of rapid aging. I never said I was skeptical that rapid/non-linear aging can occur. If you did experience rapid aging in the way the paper measured this from 38-40 that is more evidence in support of my point that there is some broad random distribution of when rapid aging occurs and this paper and blog post overintepret the data to mean rapid aging occurs precisely in your mid-forties and at 60.
I'm well into my 40s. I've noticed aging in almost all my friends and work colleagues my age as well as those up to 10 years younger than me. I haven't noticeability aged myself yet though. Don't have any grey hairs, no wrinkles, don't look older than I did in my 20s.
It's not just my perception either, other people assume I'm early 20s.
I can't really relate to the physical stuff though because muscle sores after training was always 3 days for me and it was always difficult to keep VO2max up, even in my early teens. So I guess I just started out in middle age.
Is it possible that scientists employed at Stanford will have also had this insight, and worked around it?
possible, yes. did they? that's the question
Yes they did, and published it all.
Sometimes I can't believe how low discussions on HN can fall. Did really nobody in this thread bother to check this? Are we fine disparaging research solely based on the fact that they used a method that gives bad results with bad inputs (which doesn't?) and their incentives could be misaligned (whose aren't?)?
If there are well justified concerns about the method or data then by all means let's talk about it, but please let's all try to keep low effort anti intellectual conspiracy theories away from here.
I read the paper before I made my original comment. They fit a clustering algorithm and then hand waved at intepreting the clusters. 'Omics papers get away with a lot of hand waving. Yeah they did some peak detection and found peaks, but you are going to find peaks in a random walk.
They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
Most importantly even if these peaks exist this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior
> I read the paper before I made my original comment.
That's good, now I'm wondering about the others in the thread.
> 'Omics papers get away with a lot of hand waving
Making assumptions and interpreting results is part of any type of analysis, especially for unsupervised learning approaches like clustering. Or maybe I am missing something: how do you not-handwave the results of a clustering analysis if you don't have any supervision signal?
In any case, I agree that omics in particular take many more liberties than usual with their interpretations. And yet, sometimes they come up with useful and important finding. Yes, a broken clock...2x a day, but maybe after working in the same field for many years one can gain some insights and intuitions.
> but you are going to find peaks in a random walk
I would hope so since a random walk has pretty obvious peaks, and it's not hard to test if the peak is significantly beyond the level expected due to chance.
Do you have actual concerns about the data and the peaks they found, or are we back at wondering about all the fallacies that they may or may have not committed?
> They didn't test the theory that rapid aging occurs at those two specific time points in an independent hold out set.
This is a glaring omission, I agree.
> this paper does not prove they are biological. They could correspond to common socially driven changes in behavior.
True, but it dot make this paper worth any less. If anything, it's a great question for follow-up work.
It is also very possible that they have big incentives to ignore those just to get something published, don't you think?
Sounds like something someone < 40 would say. To anyone over, I feel like this study is pretty obvious. I'm in my early 40's and whatever change this is, has been discussed multiple times with my peers, active lifestyle or not, wealth or not, married or not, physical career or not. Everything starts to feel a little harder, whether it's exercise, problem solving, memory, sleep, sex drive, appetite, fuckin everything. Things change in your late 30s, for sure.
All young people think they are special and age is just a number. The rest of the population knows that isn't true. Spare me your weight lifting 80 year old, or "my grandpa worked the farm til he was 90" stuff, we all know those are extreme outliers.
Turning 44 this year and none of this has hit me at all? Still staying up all night on weekends, working harder than I ever did (not more hours, though), feeling more motivated to take on both paid and unpaid work outside of my job. And my sex drive just as strong (and just as unfulfilled!) as in my 20s and 30s.
I'm turning 40 very soon and feel the same.
People also often tell me I look and seem younger than my age.
But I also prioritize sleeping 8 hours a night. Eating low carb. Regular exercise. Plus I have no kids. :-)
Sounds like I still haven't gone through the molecular shifts that would have made me forget when this was first posted.
Finally, science has confirmed what our grandparents told us for generations.
Ringo Starr even sang the song, "Life Begins at 40".
There is a very famous German song with the (translated) title "Life begins at 66".
So here we have it, 40s and 60s, no science required.
After a certain age, it's important not to give a shit about irrelevant things. Otherwise the stress catches up to you.
I still stand by my claim that the most common cause of death is chronic iron poisoning, and living past 100 was a regular occurence in the bronze age.
The best explanation again seems that all the modern nutrition is nonsense fed by some double agent to the allies in WW2, (iron, and the toxicity of heavy metals) based supposedly on some secret concentration camp experiments, and nobody is allowed to question it in order to "not let their sacrifice go in vain" or some such bullshit.
Particularly interesting is that when they split the dataset by sex, the transitions were present and at a similar magnitude in both sexes. We make much in western culture of the (peri-)menopausal change in women. I read this as an indicator that at least significant parts of the transition in this age range for men - acknowledged for a long time now - are just as big as menopause.
I don't remember noticing that the last time this study came around, but then again, I am in my mid 40s. :)
> I read this as an indicator that at least significant parts of the transition in this age range for men - acknowledged for a long time now - are just as big as menopause
Men emerge from it with their fertility intact.
Sorry but your post as strong #notallmen vibes. The article itself mentions that part of those changes might just be explained by lifestyle changes at 40s. I quote:
> It's possible some of these changes could be tied to lifestyle or behavioral factors that cluster at these age groups, rather than being driven by biological factors, Snyder said.
Changes in women metabolism due to menopause are pretty known and proved, and men don't experience it. I'm a mid-40s male as well.