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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."
What you do/experience when you are young (smoking, drinking to much, too little sleep, bad excercise, bad housing ... etc. ) comes back to haunt you.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
I have some old friends that are meth addicts that look like my grandparents.
Are your grandparents on meth?
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
From the summary: "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,"
That depends. Should people with a higher biological age retire earlier? Kinda unfair to people who looked after themselves.
Of course I can also see ways to make good use of this: It would be interesting to see if certain jobs are linked to people ageing faster. Maybe (maybe) people in those jobs should be give the option of retiring earlier, with pensions adjusted somehow.
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I guess raising kids takes a toll on your health as well as your bank account.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I've heard a theory that once one's biological imperative is met, one's body may indeed start to change. This could be just an old wives' tale, but on the other hand if the 'family unit' tends to make for physiological changes in both parents (as opposed to the male leaving after conception) then maybe there's a bit of truth to it.
We really don't have enough information at this point though.
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Well even if you are allowed to retire earlier, you would make less money than a person who was healthy enough to work another decade. So I feel that there is a built in incentive there.
Unless one adjusts for that too, giving preferential treatment to those who age faster, giving them greater fianancial benefits in retirement.
Mind you, I don't agree with that, mainly since in my experiences with my extended family (my paternal grandparents had a LOT of children) there's huge variation in how people have aged, so it's clearly not simply a matter of biology. Choice plays a rather large part and those that have engaged in fewer self-destructive habits have generally aged better.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Getting back in touch with high-school classmates was a huge eye-opener for me. I'm 47 now, graduated in 1986. Many of my classmates look like they're in their 60s. I'm not exaggerating. It's just amazing to me how differently people age.
Do you have ESP?
It's stress; be it from the hard work in raising a family or a single person pushing 60+ hours a day with 5 hours of sleep or less. This kills the body, literally! Mental stress also shrinks the brain. I'm in my late 30s, and I can tell how much work related stress (you either have a job, or don't. There's no fucking balance in this world anymore to pay the mortgage/rent) has altered my health. I feel I've aged twice what I should have. I'm the only one in my family that has a few gray hairs early. 10 years go, people thought I was under 21.
FUCK!
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
I don't doubt it. Ask anyone in rural Maine. The farmers are all perfectly healthy right up into they decide to retire and get a place in town. Then they go down fast. Being up and moving a large part of each day clearly is good for longevity. At least for most people.
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*raises hand* I'd like to join your congregation.
Father of two, sole income-maker in my family, average sleep time is 6 hours a day. I work more than it's healthy, and that's because I have no choice. Still, many people think I'm younger than I actually am. I guess at some point I'll start aging really fast, like it's often seen in Asian people. This year they look like they're 25, next year they look like they're 50 and their actual age is 35-36.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
It's stress; be it from the hard work in raising a family or a single person pushing 60+ hours a day with 5 hours of sleep or less.
That is a long freaking day.
How the heck does a mans body know when his imperative is met?
Pheromones? If the women around him have had their imperative met? As plausible as any other made-up bullshit, probably moreso
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
An extreme case is the genetic disease progeria, which causes very rapid aging and early death. It seems reasonable that there are other genetic defects that speed aging to a lesser degree.
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Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
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This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Not sure about that. One of my best friends leads a very relaxed lifestyle in Berlin. Only works 4hrs a day, 4 days a week, no kids, no family, just his very own, slow-paced life and hobbies. He manages that because he lives in a cheap room in a shared appartment without a car and has in general a very frugal lifestyle. He is two years younger than me, in his early thirties but he has lost almost all of his hair, and what is left around the sides has turned grey.
White Trash is basically the Caucasian equivalent of nigger, right?
Why is that post not getting down modded as fast as this one is...to be due to the utterance of the dreaded "N" word?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Really, it's the opposite at my class reunion, the single people who led "hard life" (excessive drugs and boozing and other types of 'partying') looking the oldest
I'd rather think taking care of one's' self plays the biggest factor
An opposite anecdote. My wife and I have 7 children, and people are always commenting on how young we look (most say we look about 10 years younger than we are) and are shocked when they find out we have any children, much less 7. Of course, other than the children themselves we don't have too much stress. I have a fantastic well paying job, we have great health insurance, we have little to no debt, we live in a great community in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, etc.
Yankees first baseman just gave up milk as well and says he's never felt better.
Good for him. That has nothing to do with me or millions of other people. I drink milk daily and I feel great. Times when I've gone without it had no effect on me positive or negative. So what exactly am I to learn from your anecdote?
even if you're not allergic to milk like I am, it's not very good for you after a while
And your evidence for this is what exactly? Unless you have a specific digestion problem with dairy (and many people do) every bit of evidence suggests it is a fine part of a balanced diet. It's on the food pyramid and every dietician I've ever met will tell you dairy is just fine. We're mammals so milk is one of the things that sort of defines us. It's basically the perfect food for a mammal nutrition-wise so long as you can digest it safely.
Grandparents manufacture the meth. Sell it to friends.
Seven! That's such a rarity now... If you don't mind my asking, how do you like it? My wife and I both came from two-child households, and we have three kids (all under the age of 6). Our parents all thought it was bizarre and that we were crazy to have three kids. I kind of want more while my wife--who admittedly has to do most of the work of creating the child!--is not so sure right now. I'm always curious to hear other people's takes.
In our latest studies on various diseases associated with aging, many are now following younger subjects. The major problem is that annual followups tend not to work as well, since younger people are busy, so you have to go from an annual cycle to an every 2-3 year cycle. However, this makes changes more noticeable. Following subjects when they're very young is more difficult, as they tend to move a lot more. So most studies now are shifting to a 35-40 lower age range.
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