The Two Ages When You’ll Start Feeling Older, According to Science

Comparison. Portrait of beautiful woman with problem and clean skin, aging and youth concept, beauty treatment and lifting. Before and afterPhoto bymaster1305 / Adobe Stock

When it comes to aging, people like to fall back on vague but positive aphorisms like “age is only a number.”

The joke may be on them when they find out that scientists have recently found there are in facttwo numbers — two ages— at which you might notice (and feel) your aging is accelerating.

If you’re in your late thirties or your late fifties, beware.Science has determined thetwo ages when you’re going to start feeling older to be 44 and 60.

Why 44 and 60?

Researchers at Stanford Medicine recently announced their finding that the human body doesn’t age at a “steady pace.” Rather, they suggested, the molecules in our bodies undergo “rapid shifts” in aging around the (average) ages of 44 and 60.

The researchers were nothing if not thorough.They examined different molecules in people between the ages of 25 and 75, as well as the microbes we live with (“the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live inside us and on our skin”).In all, they examined more than 135,000 such molecules and microbes.

They concluded that those molecules and microbes don’t age in a straightforward or linear manner.Instead,they tend to undergo large changes all at once, during the mid-40s and early 60s.

One interesting and more specific finding was that molecules related to cardiovascular issues experience more drastic change around 44, whileimmune function changes accelerate in the period at the beginning of one’s 60s.

How the Study Came About

It’s tempting to think that any one of the authors of the study woke up on their 44th or their 60th birthdays with sudden aches and pains, and then decided to research whether anyone else was sharing that experience.

According to a news release announcing the study’s results, however, the study’s authors were instead “inspired” by plain old scientific observation.Starting from the realization that the risk of many age-related conditions don’t rise in a linear, incremental fashion, the scientists decided to study more than 100 people (108, to be exact) to try and better understand “jumps” in risk at certain ages.

In 2020, the same authors reported their findings that there arefour distinct “ageotypes,” or biological pathways people follow when aging.Based on what they learned in that study, the researchers decided they wanted to continue looking for more factors that really drive our individual aging processes.

Even the Experts Were Surprised by Their Findings

One finding that surprised the researchers was that “clusters of changes” in the body’s molecules and microbes occurred in a similar fashion in both men and women in their mid-40s. At first the study authors had thought changes at that age might have been driven faster by the perimenopausal and menopausal hormone shifts in women. That theory was disproved when they looked closely at the data and realized thatthe mid-40s were a period of vast changes in all their subjects’ health metrics.

One of the study’s main authors, genetics professor Michael Snyder, has also said that his research on this topic (and earlier research on the “ageotypes”) led him to the realization that he wasn’t immune from aging himself.He participated in his own ageotype study, and although he had been confident about his healthy lifestyle, he “was a bit disappointed to see that I was aging at a pretty average rate.”

What We Should Learn From This Study

In sharing the news of their research, the scientists who discovered these two ages are urging individuals not to despair.Instead, they’re choosing to focus on the power this knowledge might give people to plan for their own optimal healthspans.

Another of the more specific findings of this study was that the way we metabolize substances like alcohol and caffeine also change drasticallyaround the average ages of 44 and 60.Based on that knowledge, individuals could strive to instill good health habitsjust before their mid-forties and early sixties for maximum results.

These research advances are also crucial to pave the way for future treatments and therapies.According to the researchers, these new insights “could lead to the development of early diagnosis and prevention strategies.”

That seems like good news for people of all ages!