Health Line: How We Age???

The exact point at which the decline into advance aging begins is different for everybody. But without anti-aging intervention – a regimen of lifestyle change, diet, and supplements – here is what you can expect to happen to your fifty-year-old body.

But first, what do we mean by “age”?

We all know to age means to grow older in years. But to a biologist, a measurement of aging based on your birth date is not very useful. After all, we all know of people who look ten years younger (or older) than their actual chronological age would indicate. Aging is a physiological process that at times is only remotely connected to chronological age.

While the seeds of advance aging can be sown at any age, generally speaking the most noticeable changes take place between the ages of 40 and 50. Most physiological functions peak in the twenties, ride a plateau in the thirties, and begin to take a sharp descent in the forties. Various internal biological mechanisms function in synchrony until the onset of the middle age when they begin their downward march in lockstep.

Brain: The brain shrinks 6 percent in size, resulting in a loss of cognitive abilities. Forgetfulness increased, and it is more difficult to process simultaneous streams of information. The decline is offset somewhat by a greater accumulation of knowledge and experience which philosophers call wisdom.

Vision: Farsightedness among our aging baby boomer population made designer eye glasses fashionable in the eighties. The loss of elasticity in the eye’s lens make it difficult to focus on nearby objects. Older eyes are also slower to adjust to darkness (as the pupils have a decreased capacity to dilate) from a loss of the rods-photoreceptors in the retina. Color perception starts to decline after you hit forty 9especially for the yellow-blue color spectrum because the clear lens not only thickens but becomes more yellowish in color).

Hearing: While it is unusual for a fifty-year-old to wear a hearing aid, audiologist fear a tidal wave of advanced hearing impairment among the baby boomers because of their predilection in earlier years for very loud music. Usually sensitivity to the higher tones is lost first.

Smell and Taste: These two senses are inextricably linked. Taste buds and olfactory receptors lose sensitivity, which is a primary reason that older people enjoy food less (and eat less). Zinc deficiency of the elderly also contributes to a diminution in taste. Pollution and Smoking are two environmental factors thought to accelerate the aging of these senses.

Skin: How fast you wrinkle depends on a host of factors including genetics, nutrition and environment. But the skin begins losing its elasticity in the twenties as collagen decreases. By fifty, thinning outer layers of skin cause it to sag. Sun damage and clumping of melanocyte (pigment) cells produce all kinds of brown blotches, the so called liver spots, and abnormal growths.

Hair: Fifty percent of men have some balding by age fifty, and half of all men and women of European descent will have at least some gray hair. (The onset of graying appears a decade later in non-Europeans.)

Fat and Muscle: The ratio of muscle to fat begins its decline around thirty, with deposits of fat tissue peaking around fifty. More fat accumulates in and around the bell, buttocks and thighs. The abdomen begins to sag because of lost muscle tone. Maximum grip strength drops from one hundred pounds at age thirty to about seventy-five pounds. While weight may stabilize a age fifty, the muscle to fat ratio continues to decrease well into the eighties.

Bones: Progressive loss of mineral content and density, notably calcium, results in increasingly brittle bones. The decline in women after the onset of menopause is about twice as fast as in men. Not only are bones easier to break, but they are also harder to repair.

Urinary Tract: The kidneys begin to shrink in size and function at thirty, steadily losing the ability to remove waste products from the blood. The bladder, which collects the urine sent from the kidneys, loses its elasticity, which means less capacity and more trips to the bathroom.

Sex: Women experience menopause around fifty when their estrogen levels rapidly drop and ovulation ends. Men have a less pronounced sex hormonal decline, with testosterone concentrations diminishing gradually from the thirties. Intercourse for women can be painful as vaginal walls become thin and lubrication decreases. Sperm count in men dramatically decreases around fifty as tissues within the testes begin to thicken. It also takes about twice as much time to get an erection than at age twenty-five.

Heart: By age fifty the heart will have beat about 2 billion times. The heart muscle begins to enlarge to pump more blood to compensate for stiffening arteries. But the covering sheath around the heart thickens with age, leading to an overall decrease in output. This reduced output results in a decline in the supply of oxygen to muscle tissue, decreasing aerobic power and making it more tiring to climb stairs or walk up a hill.

Lungs: As lungs lose their elasticity, the capacity to breathe declines 20 percent by age fifty. Smokers, as you might guess, lose their lung function much earlier.

Source: Excerpts from the book Age Right by Karlis Ullis, M. D.