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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the ponce-de-leon dept.

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 aging to prevent the onset of disease we're going to have to intervene with young people."


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:29PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:29PM (#206452)

    This is a boomer story, that's why its about old people. Younger people have a huge variation too.

    As a 14 year old boy, having discovered girls, I was WELL aware that girls my age varied in appearance from approximately 10 to 22 std years yet I know darn well she's my age. Highly non linear curves, also in the age appearance vs chronological age graphs.

    Once, at a shitty retail job in the early 90s as a starving college student, I met his hot junior who was a new cashier, asked her out to a local bar after work, she turned me down because she said her parents wouldn't let her date older guys especially not at a bar, I was like WTF I'm only a college senior and she's a junior its probably not even a full 12 months difference, she explains she's a junior at the local high school, not at the uni. I think every young guy has had a similar experience. Honest to god she looked older than me. After working with her and getting to know her she was definitely just a high school girl in behavior and experience so its just as well it didn't work out, aside from the jail bait issues.

    Anyway if this were a story aimed at millennials then we'd be reading stuff like my above paragraphs, not boomer stories about old people.

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  • (Score: 1) by ese002 on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:00PM

    by ese002 (5306) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:00PM (#206624)

    This is a boomer story, that's why its about old people. Younger people have a huge variation too.

    As a 14 year old boy, having discovered girls, I was WELL aware that girls my age varied in appearance from approximately 10 to 22 std years yet I know darn well she's my age. Highly non linear curves, also in the age appearance vs chronological age graphs.

    Different process. In the very young, it is a difference in maturation rate. The decay that is aging is not apparent yet and there is no particular reason to think those that mature earlier will live shorter lives.