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Scientists Show Human Aging Rates Vary Widely

HughPickens.com writes: Ever notice at your high school reunions how some classmates look ten years older than everybody else — and some look ten years younger. Now BBC reports that a study of people born within a year of each other has uncovered a huge gulf in the speed at which human bodies bodies age. The report tracked traits such as weight, kidney function and gum health and found that some of the 38-year-olds in the study were aging so badly that their "biological age" was on the cusp of retirement. "They look rough, they look lacking in vitality," says Prof Terrie Moffitt. The study says some people had almost stopped aging during the period of the study, while others were gaining nearly three years of biological age for every twelve months that passed. "Any area of life where we currently use chronological age is faulty, if we knew more about biological age we could be more fair and egalitarian," says Moffitt. The researchers studied aging in 954 young humans, the Dunedin Study birth cohort, tracking multiple biomarkers across three time points spanning their third and fourth decades of life. They developed and validated two methods by which aging can be measured in young adults, one cross-sectional and one longitudinal. According to Moffit the science of healthspan extension may be focused on the wrong end of the lifespan; rather than only studying old humans, geroscience should also study the young. "Eventually if we really want to slow the process of ageing to prevent the onset of disease we're going to have to intervene with young people."

4 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. take care of yourself and you will look good by known_coward_69 · · Score: 2, Informative

    i'm 41. and people who meet me for the first time think i'm in my mid 20's. same with my wife. don't drink more than once or twice a month, exercise, avoid eating out all the time and avoid processed foods. stay away from milk, sugar and gluten. cook for yourself and don't buy the prepared foods

    1. Re:take care of yourself and you will look good by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Informative

      stay away from milk, sugar and gluten.

      You were doing pretty well right up until you mentioned gluten. This near fanaticism with avoiding gluten is approaching the same level of thinking organic foods are more nutritious.

      Gluten comes from certain grains. Despite this fact, I have seen products, including fruit itself, labeled as "gluten free" which do not use grain in their production. This article spells it out very nicely:

      The researchers noted that many symptoms attributed to gluten may actually be caused by sensitivity to other components of wheat flour or other ingredients found in wheat-based foods like bread, pasta, and breakfast cereals.

      Symptoms that have been attributed to gluten sensitivity include diarrhea, abdominal cramping, bloating, headaches, fatigue, and even those associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

      Di Sabatino and Corazza write that some people may experience these symptoms when they eat foods containing gluten simply because they believe these foods will make them sick.

      They conclude that common sense must prevail to "prevent a gluten preoccupation from evolving into the conviction that gluten is toxic for most of the population."

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    2. Re:take care of yourself and you will look good by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Informative

      generally eating gluten free is better for your digestive system,

      What utter unscientific bullshit*.

      *unless you have actual celiac disease.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  2. Unsupported assertions by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    generally eating gluten free is better for your digestive system

    There is no credible scientific study I am aware of that supports this statement. If you wish to assert this you need to provide non-anecdotal evidence, preferably in the form of a double blind study supporting this assertion. I am not aware of any evidence that gluten is measurably harmful to individuals without celiac disease, an allergy or other form of gluten sensitivity. This is a very small portion of the population (somewhere between 0.5% and 1%) that is known to be affected. The best available evidence appears to clearly show that if your aren't part of that population then avoiding gluten is a waste of effort.

    if you want to stay young, avoid as many processed foods as you can.

    Again you are asserting that "staying young" is linked to avoiding processed foods. While there is evidence to support that processed foods are frequently harmful if consumed regularly over time, you cannot automatically generalize this to link it to biological aging (versus chronological aging) without evidence. There may very well be a link but it is unproven at this time. I understand that it sounds reasonable but lots of things sound reasonable that aren't actually true.