A new study reveals that as we age, we can control how young or old we feel, at least to an extent.
The report, published in the medical journal Nature Aging, was conducted to determine the correlation between chronological aging and biological aging, and the findings show they don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
“People don’t age linearly,” Dr. Michael Snyder of the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine told KCBS about the research at the heart of the study, which he co-authored.
“There are times when there seem to be a lot of things happening and going off,” he continued. “And one of those is when people are in their 60s. I think we expected that because, you know, diseases show up, your immune system declines. The one in the 40s was a bit of a surprise. Maybe not for some people who suddenly get muscle aches and things like that or muscle problems, but we do notice tons of biochemical changes that occur in in the 40s as well as in the 60s.”
Snyder said changes to the way the body metabolizes things like caffeine, carbohydrates and alcohol as well as degeneration of the cardiovascular system, skin and muscles are all common shifts past the age of 40.
“I think what you do is as you start heading towards these periods,” he said, “you probably want to take a little better care of yourself. Your physician probably wants to keep a better eye on you to see, if any of these shifts are happening so you can act on them.”
You can hear the whole segment by clicking the link above.