Earlier this week, a Stanford University study published in the journal Nature Aging, revealed an odd thing about growing older . According to their study, which had 108 participants, humans don’t necessarily age gradually. We’re not like fine bottles of Chateauneuf du Pap in the cellar.
Instead, we’re more similar to butter with the lid temporarily left off in a steamy kitchen. One minute, we’re silky and spreadable. The next, clotted and slightly stinky.
Apparently, there are spikes, around the age of 44 and 60, when the molecules within us undergo sudden but extreme changes that contribute to our biological age. They studied 11,000 of these molecules, and 81 per cent were affected at these points of a lifespan. Among many other things, these changes can influence our immunity, ability to metabolise certain substances, like caffeine and alcohol, and cause the build-up of proteins that are related to atherosclerosis.
They also found that, if you’re hitting those ages, it becomes almost impossible to pronounce atherosclerosis. (I made that bit up). I can’t speak for 60, yet, but I certainly felt something going skewiff in my mid forties.
Turning 40 was a breeze. I’d worried about that milestone for ages but, pop, it arrived and I felt great. The heavy-duty sharpei-level wrinkles and Deputy Dawg jowls started to creep in a few years later.
Not to mention the grumps. Never sleeping well again. Joints that feel as if they’re made of those cuttlefish bones that budgies have in their cages.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but there is definitely no caffeine allowed past 4pm. These days, my body struggles to rid itself of every last jingling vestige of the buzz. If I’m counting sheep, after a late night latte, those beasts are doing crazy stunts, like backflipping over hay bales and breakdancing in the style of that Australian woman who scored zero at the Paris Olympics.
I don’t do Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows after 9pm either. As Franz Ferdinand sang; “You will find me in the matinee, the dark of the matinee”. I mean, I don’t even start watching a film at home, unless we can press play before 8pm.
Most people also find that they need reading glasses at the age of 44. I think I’ve dodged that bullet so far, though my short-sighted specs have lenses that are as thick as a traybake. Those are a few of the ageing joys that have stayed with me since my mid-forties.
That, and the perimenopausal brain fug. My cranium is as messy as my kitchen drawer. I feel that I spend half my time rummaging for a word, phrase, idea, recipe, or my husband’s name.
Is it Arthur Sclerosis? Or am I thinking of something else? The study accounted for these midlife hormonal changes in women, and found that the 44 ageing hit is an equal opportunity for both sexes. Thus, the ‘manopause’ is real. Still, according to the study, I should be cruising along now, as there are 11 years to wait until the next major gerontological landmark.
(Only the free bus travel will make that milestone any sweeter, so I hope that hasn’t been cancelled by the time I get there). However, in my case, 49 is feeling like an ageing event too. It’s probably psychological, as I get to the end of the last summer of my forties.
Or maybe my molecules are getting restless, and can’t wait a decade to cause a bit of mayhem. They’re not into the boring chronological thing. I imagine them as roadmen.
For those who aren’t up on teenage parlance, they are the naughty boys who go around riding electric scooters, while wearing black balaclavas and calling the police the ‘feds’, even though we’re not in the US. N'ere-dowells, we’d call them, in my day, when my 11,000 or so molecules were box fresh and enthusiastic, and I could still go to the cinema at 10pm. Their equivalents are to blame for my brows thinning out, while there remains the occasional dogged strand that appears ready to grow as fast and long as the ivy up the outside of my tenement.
Rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your eyebrow. I am also new to the hollowing eye socket and temple thing. It’s novel, and makes me look like a mummified cat.
And my neck! It actually resembles an armpit. I’ve thought about Sellotaping the sides back, or maybe this will be the winter of channelling Andy Warhol by wearing a polo neck. Vanity aside, I’ve noticed some upsides to my real (and probably partially imagined) ageing spurt.
I am definitely enjoying using old-fashioned words these days. A friend said ‘drivel’ the other day. It seemed so quaint and beautiful.
I just rolled that rare sound around in my head, and it gave me lots of pleasure. I like to know what all the modern slang phrases are, but I love the archaic too. I am always looking for the opportunity to use the euphemism ‘bally’, when swearing might be inappropriate.
That was always my dad’s favourite, always in the context of ‘that bally cat’ or ‘those bally children’. Unfortunately, I have no pets or kids, so there are fewer opportunities to experiment with that word’s revival. This bally age though, it’s a load of drivel.
Never mind 44 and 50, I think those scientists need to take another look at 49. We're offering 40% off an annual digital subscription to The Scotsman, so you can enjoy a summer of amazing content for less. Checkout using promo code SUMMER40.
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