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Biomolecular shifts occur in our 40s and 60s (2024)

(med.stanford.edu)
170 points fzliu | 5 comments | 27 Jun 25 03:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.006s | source
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nakedneuron ◴[27 Jun 25 06:19 UTC] No.44394139[source]▶
Truth is many people also stop moving (exercising) significantly in their forties (reason being probably sitting lifestyle promotes posture and fascia degradation which makes moving less and less enjoyable).

I'd posit that another significant decline in moving occurs in the sixties when many go in rent.

Not sure if the biological clock is cause of abrupt changes or rather our scheduled lives. So, no significant changes from the sixties on? Then what's the genetic function of those programmations?

People who reach old age (100+) are mostly also comparatively healthy.

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safety1st ◴[27 Jun 25 07:45 UTC] No.44394645[source]▶
Without writing a book about it I'll just say that I think the most important thing is people shouldn't look at this info and conclude that their body's going to fall apart no matter what.

I'm in my mid 40s and in the best shape of my life, lots of energy, aches and pains from my late 30s have all disappeared, to get there it took diet and exercise changes that were surprisingly modest. For me it was mostly weights, a little bit of cardio, and cutting back on my worst episodes of caloric excess.

I have friends who didn't do any diet and exercise interventions, and are starting to look like hell and complain about the "inevitable" consequences of aging.

And then there are those jacked dudes in their 70s who are hitting the gym 5 times a week, I can only aspire to be as healthy as them at their age.

Use it (with proper care and feeding) or lose it.

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matthewdgreen ◴[27 Jun 25 07:59 UTC] No.44394738[source]▶
I also felt this way in my mid-40s. I still feel this way. But then after a lifetime of perfect vision, one day I was reading a book and noticed that everything was a little blurry. Now I need reading glasses. Not a big deal! I’m doing fine! But a gentle reminder that all the diet and CrossFit in the world isn’t going to save you from a (hopefully) gentle and inevitable decay ;)
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mhfu ◴[27 Jun 25 08:51 UTC] No.44395063[source]▶
I mean, of course exercise isn't going to fix your vision. But if your vision is going to degrade, you can still choose if you want to live as a fit and healthy person who needs reading glasses, or as a person who has aches all over, is in bad shape, feels tired and like shit all the time, and on top of all that needs reading glasses.
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1. lynx97 ◴[27 Jun 25 09:47 UTC] No.44395370[source]▶
I am in my mid-40s, don't do regular exercise, and still dont feel like "shit".

Really, this "motivation trainer" rhetoric coming out of obesity-infested America is tiring.

You sound like there is only two extremes: Couch potatoes and people that run a marathon every weekend. There is actually a middle-ground. And a not-so-small group of people is actually comfortable in that middle-ground.

You can feel relatively healthy without running around like a wound-up monkey. Step on, don't eat too much. Then you don't have to burn calories to get rid of extra fat. It almost sounds like "uppers and downers"... Mind you, I am not arguing against sports in healthy doses. But whenever I read or talk to fitness fans, I feel like I am talking to a person following a cult.

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2. oldpersonintx2 ◴[27 Jun 25 12:15 UTC] No.44396183[source]▶
most people who think they are in the "middle ground" are actually unhealthy, because they end up comparing themselves to the outliers of the morbidly obese or those with absolutely terrible diets
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3. Retric ◴[27 Jun 25 12:45 UTC] No.44396383[source]▶
It’s not that difficult to hit basic exercise targets as part of your lifestyle without realizing it. Going from an apartment to a two bedroom house involves a great deal of climbing up and down stairs per week. Taking a dog on a walk involves you yourself walking etc.

People talk about being a couch potato because there’s a massive difference between activities that involve passively sitting and things like gardening that require occasional movement that adds up over time.

4. supplied_demand ◴[27 Jun 25 12:59 UTC] No.44396463[source]▶
You are proving the original point by again focusing on the extremes.

Do you have any data/research to back up your claims that people who think they are in the middle are actually unhealthy or that they compare themselves to outliers?

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5. Retric ◴[27 Jun 25 14:08 UTC] No.44396931{3}[source]▶
The Dunning–Kruger effect should be in play here where people overestimate how fit they are. However, it really comes down to defining where the acceptable middle ground is. The majority of adult Americans are overweight (25+ BMI) and that’s been normalized with morbid obesity being considered excessive.

“Research suggests that changes in the social perceptions of what constitutes overweight and obesity may contribute to the increased prevalence of obesity (Burke et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2008; Johnson-Taylor et al., 2008). The growing prevalence of overweight and obesity could change the subjective threshold for what most people consider a “normal” weight level, thereby resulting in under-detection of overweight and obesity (Robinson, 2017). This explanation highlights the fact that social context affects weight perceptions (Hammond, 2010; Leahey et al., 2011b; Mueller et al., 2010; Robinson and Kirkham, 2014) because individuals adjust perceptions of their own weight based on the weight of those around them (Ali et al., 2011; Burke and Heiland, 2007; Maximova et al., 2008; Robinson, 2017)” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6304710/

The comically fat guy on some old shows looks reasonably normal today. However being overweight with a high fat person simply isn’t healthy. The healthy person who doesn’t exercise much should be quite thin rather than simply replacing muscle with fat and keeping the same weight.