If it’s true that you’re only as old as you feel, you might want to stay 43 in your mind for a long time. New research from Stanford University suggests humans age rapidly in two bursts—one around age 44 and another around 60.
While many guys say they feel older around these ages, “we’re pulling the curtain back a little more on exactly what’s going on,” says study author Michael Snyder, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University.
For this research, scientists collected and analyzed more than 135,000 substances, like RNA, proteins, metabolites, lipids, and bacteria, from 108 study participants. Around age 44, people had a dramatically different mix of molecules than people just a few years younger, indicating a spike in cardiovascular risk, slowed alcohol and caffeine metabolism, and faster skin and muscle aging.
Another wave of aging happened around age 60, with more bad news for the heart, skin, and muscles. Entering the seventh decade, the molecular milieu also suggested weakened immune systems, reduced kidney function, and decreased carbohydrate metabolism that could portend type 2 diabetes.
“Clock time is immutable and linear, but biological aging is far from linear,” says Elissa Epel, Ph.D, a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. “We spend our first decades in development, then there is a maintenance phase in young adulthood when we feel invulnerable to aging. And then there is the non-linear decline in our biological systems, depending on lifestyle, primarily, and genetics, secondarily, and of course, their interactions.”
For many people, the early 40s and 60s align with major life changes, like your kids leaving for college, partnerships ending, or downsizing your home, says Allison Aiello, PhD, James S. Jackson Healthy Longevity Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. Those shifts might influence our diets, social exposures, and other factors that affect how our bodies work. “I think the social, psychosocial part is really important,” she says.
How Much Can You Change the Rate of Aging?
The good news is that you can slow down the clock on biological aging, which represents wear and tear on your body. Your biological age doesn’t have to match your chronological age, or the number of candles you blow out on your birthday. By adopting healthy lifestyle habits and ditching bad ones, guys might be able to delay the dramatic onslaughts of aging in the 40s and 60s. “Maybe they can actually keep themselves in good shape and push that off even further,” says Snyder.
Lifestyle and environmental factors are known to influence biological aging. For example, Aiello’s research suggests lower education, lower income, obesity, lack of exercise, and tobacco use are all associated with a faster decline. In her research, she has seen shifts in heart and brain risk factors starting as young as 19, suggesting it’s never too early to fight aging. It’s also never too late.
“While aging may follow a non-linear path, the good news is that at any age, we can still improve our biological aging,” says Epel. “Our daily habits and emotional wellbeing affect our biochemical makeup and cellular functioning—positive habits add up over time.”
What to Do to Stop the Acceleration
Do this before your 40s:
Get serious about your heart before your risk ticks up. If you can’t remember your last cholesterol check, you’re probably due. Depending on the results, your doctor might recommend cholesterol-lowering statins as you approach your 40s, says Snyder. Start paying attention to heart-healthy habits, too (check out the 25 best ways to protect your heart now). A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association showed that people who scored well on the AHA’s Life Essential 8—a rubric that takes into account healthy diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body mass index, cholesterol and triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure—had slower biological aging than those who didn’t.
• Consider cutting your calorie budget. Anti-aging scientists have studied calorie restriction—eating less than normal without depriving yourself of essential nutrients—for decades. Research suggests calorie restriction might protect health and longevity by protecting DNA from age-related changes. In a study published in Nature Aging, people who cut calories by an average of 12 percent slowed down their rate of aging by 2-3 percent. Consult a dietitian to see if cutting calories makes sense for you.
• Sleep now for more energy later. Bad sleep doesn’t just make you look old and haggardly — it could age you. Research from UCLA suggests that sleeping less than six hours per night adds about 15 months to your biological age and speeds up the pace of aging, too. Insomnia was also associated with aging. (Here’s how to improve your sleep efficiency.)
• Stay active.
Snyder was surprised by the muscle aging markers in 40-somethings. “My guess is that it’s due to rather poor habits leading into that time,” he says. People are often active when they have small children, for example, but start slowing down by their late 30s. “They’re not quite as active by the 40s, and so maybe it’s catching up with them,” he says. Sound familiar? Get moving. A study published in Aging Cell suggested that people who logged 11,247 steps per day aged slower than those who moved less.
• Back off alcohol. Slowdowns in alcohol metabolism might mean you can’t knock ‘em back like you used to without feeling terrible. So don’t. “Knowing that you’re becoming more susceptible to alcohol as you hit your 40s, maybe take one less drink,” says Snyder. This plan can help you cut back on alcohol over the next month.
Do this before your 60s:
• Recommit to strength training. Age-related muscle loss, caused by factors like inflammation and dysfunction in your cells’ mitochondria, gets serious at this age. “People lose something like one to two percent of their muscle mass every year, and so they lose their mobility, and their health just plummets,” says Snyder. Strength training can help you keep your muscle where it belongs. (Snyder’s in his 60s and lifts daily.) In a recent study from Brazil, middle-aged and older adults who did 12 weeks of progressive strength training delayed or even reversed age-related muscle loss.
• Protect your immune system. “We expected changes in the 60s, because we know that some people’s health, risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, all goes up—their immune system declines,” says Snyder. “Of course, that’s why you try to get vaccinated when you hit your 60s, so that you’ll be protected, because your immune system isn’t as good.” Stay up to date on your flu shots and other preventive vaccines and on cancer screenings like colonoscopies. Declines in immune system health can make you more prone to cancer, Snyder says. Your immune system clears out cells and tissue that shouldn’t be there before they can multiply.
• Stay hydrated. To protect yourself from declines in kidney function around age 60, drink plenty of water, says Snyder. Water helps your kidneys filter waste from your blood and make pee.
