Aging isn’t as linear as a number going up. Different parts of you age at different rates, and aging depends on a variety of factors. Your individual organs, for example, might age differently from one another, and the rate at which your, say, liver ages is probably different from everybody else’s.
A new study published in Nature Aging suggests the body’s aging process is even less orderly than that. Researchers at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute analyzed 25,306 microscope images from 40 types of tissue taken from 970 organ donors between ages 21 and 70.
Using a deep-learning tool called PathStAR, they looked at how the physical structure of tissues changed over time.
A New Study Shows Just How Unevenly the Human Body Ages
They found that different parts of the body are aging at different rates. Blood vessels moved steadily along until you’re in your 30s, at which point they start aging rapidly. The uterus and vagina were relatively stable, then began changing rapidly in the 50s. Most other tissues aged in two waves, with stretches of rapid change in the 30s and again in the 50s.
Ovaries saw their structural changes peak around 35 to 40, and then again at 55 to 60, which more or less lines up with fertility decline and menopause, respectively. Those changes were paired with inflammation and reduced cell growth activity, less energy production, and a reduced capacity to self-repair.
The researchers also found a weird connection between the aging of the digestive system and the aging of male reproductive organs. Faster aging in the esophagus and colon meant the prostate was more likely to show signs of accelerated aging. Maybe hormones or other biological signals connect these seemingly unrelated organs.
The point here is that aging is a more complex, much more nuanced idea than whatever age the linear flow of time suggests you are. When you get down to it, every organ in your body is doing its own thing, working on its own timeline.
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