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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:45PM (#206259)

    aging is studied in the 30's already

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:11PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:11PM (#206267) Homepage Journal

    I once openly defied an "age guesser" at an amusement park. He still got it wrong so I won a stuffed animal for my girl.

    There are many reason for accellerated aging. "The Noonday Demon, an Atlas if Depression" points out that depression often makes one wise bryond one's years. Even little children.

    In my case Inhave reason to believe that inhaling mercury vapor when I was twelve led to my receding hairline when I was fourteen, with total baldness when I was twenty one. That made it hard to get dates with college girls but now that I am fifty-one, even balder and also grey, I have no trouble whatsoever at getting dates with college girls.

    My friend Regan F. Gill was once a nutritionist, ans worked as a lab assistant for a berkeley researcher who studied the effects of aging on digestion in lab rats. Aging has many effects which are not readily apparent.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:18AM (#206282)

      but now that I am fifty-one, even balder and also grey, I have no trouble whatsoever at getting dates with gold diggers.

      FTFY

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by acp_sn on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:37PM

      by acp_sn (5254) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:37PM (#206454)

      inhaling mercury vapor when I was twelve led to my receding hairline when I was fourteen, with total baldness when I was twenty one

      Sounds like a supervillain origin story, are you Lex Luthor?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:21PM (#206271)

    My Korean wife still seems in her 30s.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by tibman on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:51PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 07 2015, @11:51PM (#206278)
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      • (Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:19AM

        by arslan (3462) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:19AM (#206305)

        SFW or NSFW?....

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:15AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:15AM (#206324)

          safe

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:20AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:20AM (#206326)

        Oh shit.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 08 2015, @08:04AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday July 08 2015, @08:04AM (#206382) Homepage
        I was just about to ask "Is the distribution (in rates of ageing) they are finding any different (apart from the obvious reversal) from the distribution in menopause ages?", so it's funny you should bring up that classic.

        One problem with this story is that it's hard to define "aging" (sic). Or should I say it's too easy to define it in different ways.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:34AM (#206329)

      > My Korean wife still seems in her 30s.

      Probably because she is 36.

  • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:59AM

    by throwaway28 (5181) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:59AM (#206302) Journal

    Memories sometimes seem to advance my internal imaginary accounting of time, in large discrete jumps. My internal imaginary accounting, is 3 and 1/2 years older than my calendar age, due to +1/2 year, +1 year, and +2 years; jumps.

  • (Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:22AM

    by arslan (3462) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:22AM (#206309)

    Everyone I know... those that lead a healthy lifestyle or doesn't have some predisposed illness tend to look younger than their age..

    • (Score: 2) by timbim on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:39AM

      by timbim (907) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:39AM (#206314)

      What do you define as a healthy lifestyle?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:47AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:47AM (#206316) Homepage

        Biggest thing? Don't smoke. And limit exposure to smoke.

        After age 50, get thyroid checked (T3, not TSH test). Makes a huge difference. Most of what we think of as "diseases of aging" are just decline in conversion of T4 to T3.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:07PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:07PM (#206441)

          Don't forget to avoid sunlight. I remember when I first started noticing the "hot women my age who were always suntanned" now look like they're permanently wearing leather. Gross.

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:11PM

            by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:11PM (#206464) Homepage

            Yeah. A photographer friend says you can actually see this damage quite directly with a UV lens filter. Shows up as patches on the skin.

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:22AM (#206410)
        Don't smoke, avoid sugar, get enough sleep, take breaks every now and then (avoid burnout).

        May also help to learn how to relax (what helps for me is to slowly breathe in and out deeply three or more times every now and then).
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:04AM (#206417)

          You forget alcohol consumption. I consider avoiding alcohol as part of my healthy lifestyle. I never actually had a full drink, but I had sipped some champagne and beer when I was younger.

          • (Score: 2) by timbim on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:13PM

            by timbim (907) on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:13PM (#207031)

            It's true, alcohol is a solvent. I drink though.

    • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:42AM

      by jimshatt (978) on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:42AM (#206412) Journal
      So maybe your opinion of how one should look at a certain age is wrong?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:01AM (#206416)

      Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they tend to look like their age, while everyone else looks older?

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @07:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @07:58AM (#206380)

    Figure 1 shows exponentially increasing age-specific incidence of mortality and disability. This is an artifact of truncating at 80 years old. While you are more likely to *have* died or *have* developed a given disease as you age (ie cumulative probability), the probability of it happening *at* a given age will not keep increasing, it will peak. This error has lead to much nonsense regarding cancer, btw.

    Figure 2 shows their calculation of biological age was normally distributed around the chronological age. Normal distributions arise when you are measuring something resulting from multiple independent additive events (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincunx). [wikipedia.org] The presence of this normal distribution indicates their measure of biological age is nothing but chronological age+ independent sources of random noise. Almost nothing in biology is normally distributed.

    Figure 3-7 are so binned, averaged, and standardized that they mean nothing to me. Maybe someone else can make something of those but I find them impossible to sanity check. They don't mention anything stopping them from sharing the raw data, or why they chose to do all that processing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:26AM (#206411)

      Sorry, the quincunx link should have pointed here:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_machine [wikipedia.org]

      Also, in the supplements they say how they calculated this. I can't copy/paste the equation but it is essentially adding up how much all of these differed from the average:

      We calculated each Dunedin study member’s Biological Age at age 38 years using the Klemera‐ Doubal equation...The biomarkers are: Glycated hemoglobin, Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), Blood pressure (systolic), Total cholesterol, C‐reactive protein, Creatinine, Urea nitrogen, Albumin, Alkaline phosphatase, and Cytomegalovirus IgG... Biological Age took on a normal distribution, ranging from 28‐61 years (M=38 years, SD=3.23).

      The problem is that as you add in more and more irrelevant things the distribution will approach normality.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:58AM (#206415)

    if we knew more about biological age we could be more fair and egalitarian

    Visions of Gattaca come to mind. Could you imagine having to pay life insurance of a 70 yr old at age 40? Or just outright denied.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:40AM (#206422)

      Or just outright denied.

      Thanks to RomneyCare, at least that won't be a problem, unless they try another 50+ times to repeal it and end up finally succeeding.

  • (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.

    • (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.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:39PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:39PM (#206664) Journal
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