Did a Study Prove We Age Dramatically at 44 Years Old? Not Exactly.

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I’ve been making YouTube videos for 18 years. And I know that sounds like a joke but I want you to know that I went back and checked and yeah, it’s really been that long. And in a way, I’m the perfect person for YouTube, because when I first started making videos, I genuinely did not care how I looked. Like, I guess I had some insecurities but for the most part the mean commenters actually ended up making me feel better about myself. I guess it’s like exposure therapy: when I was in my early 20s I definitely was a little self conscious about my janky teeth, but having a bunch of people point them out in YouTube comments very quickly led me to realizing it doesn’t matter. So I stopped worrying about that, and I stopped worrying about what people thought of my haircut or my (lack of) makeup and whatnot because when you get the amount of hate that I got over the years, you just realize that sad dudes will pick any feature to mock in the hope that it lands, often just making up features out of whole cloth.

I remember just a few years ago a guy sent me a bunch of messages about how my grey hair was showing in a video, and I was so utterly confused, because at the time I had been dying my hair bright red for so long that I had no idea if I had any grey hairs yet.

As you may have noticed, this year I decided to stop dying my hair and grow it out and honestly a big reason was because I wanted to see if my hair was turning yet, because I wanted to know if I was going to be a white witch, a grey witch, or a silver witch. I was hoping for silver, but honestly at this point it’s so slight I can barely tell. I think it’s just grey? Not sure. Needs some more time I think.

But that one guy’s weird obsession with the exact shade of my hair highlighted another way the mean commenters actually make me feel better about myself: because while they do randomly pick physical features to critique, just about zero of them have mentioned that I look old. That’s what the hair guy was going for and failed, obviously, but it’s funny that you can go back and see me aging for 18 years on camera, now in 4K(!), with no fillers or Botox or facelifts (thus far), and yet even the assholes don’t think to tell me I look old. And that must be because, frankly, I look awesome. Awesome in general, and yes, even “awesome for my age.”

I’ve been thinking of all this recently because this week I read an article that made me realize the days of the trolls ignoring my graceful aging are numbered. Not because I’m making this video, which will give them the false idea that commenting on my age is what will finally make me have a breakdown, but because in two months I will turn 44. And scientists have revealed that 44 is the age when it all falls apart.

“Scientists find humans age dramatically in two bursts – at 44, then 60,” proclaims the Guardian, accompanied by a dramatic close-up of an OLD. An elderly crone, with her disgusting witch lines.

Fun aside, I distinctly remember when I was very young, my mom was staring in the bathroom mirror and bemoaned her “laugh lines.” I had never heard that phrase before and asked what she meant. She pointed to some of her wrinkles and said they’re called that because you get them from laughing too much. I asked why she would be upset about that. She said because the wrinkles made her look old. I said, “But you got them from laughing, so isn’t that a good thing?” She told me I’d understand when I get older. I guess I have to get a little older because I still don’t get it. Like, if I’m supposed to be ashamed of them, please don’t call them “laugh lines.” Call them “shame divots” or something. My mom said they’re also called “crow’s feet” which also sounds cool. But whatever!

Anyway, according to the Guardian, there’s now scientific evidence that I will surely become personally familiar with the visible signs of aging any moment now:

“Research suggests that rather than being a slow and steady process, aging occurs in at least two accelerated bursts.

The study, which tracked thousands of different molecules in people aged 25 to 75, detected two major waves of age-related changes at around ages 44 and again at 60. The findings could explain why spikes in certain health issues including musculoskeletal problems and cardiovascular disease occur at certain ages.

“We’re not just changing gradually over time. There are some really dramatic changes,” said Prof Michael Snyder, a geneticist and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University and senior author of the study.

“It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s – and that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.”

Oh my gosh, my molecules!! ALL MY MOLECULES! I can feel them dying!

Okay, let’s do some real talk: I’m probably not going to suddenly evolve into my true “elderly witch” form on my 44th birthday. This study is interesting, but absolutely not deserving of these breathless headlines that do nothing besides give people new things to be self-conscious about.

The actual study was published this month in Nature Aging: “Nonlinear dynamics of multi-omics profiles during human aging” is available in full online and as always, links to everything I talk about in every video are found in the transcript, which is always linked in the description box and found at patreon.com/rebecca or on Skepchick.org.

The most important takeaway of this study for you and me, average laypeople mildly concerned about the state of our aging molecules, is that while the researchers collected a lot of data, it came from only a handful of people they found in and around Stanford University. There were 108 subjects, all between the ages of 25 and 75, and only eight of those were under the age of 40. The subjects gave samples of blood, stool, and swabs only over the course of less than two years on average, and the results weren’t compared to earlier draws from the same subjects but between subjects of different ages, all without controlling for any lifestyle factors.

So, this paper absolutely does not tell us that each of us will experience a huge, unavoidable, biological jump in aging-related problems on our 44th and 60th birthdays. The authors acknowledge the study’s limitations at length: “For example, we identified a notable decrease in oxygen carrier activity around age 60 (Figs. 2c and 3a) and marked variations in alcohol and caffeine metabolism around ages 40 and 60 (Fig. 3a). However, these findings might be shaped by participants’ lifestyle—that is, physical activity and their alcohol and caffeine intake.”

They also acknowledge that the sample size is too small and homogenous and the subjects observed for too short of a time, making it impossible to generalize their findings to a larger population.

The Guardian, obviously, fails to mention any of that, because fear of aging sells newspapers and good science does not.

So considering those limitations, what’s the point of this study? Well, like most good research that gets published but never gets Guardian headlines, it adds a bit of evidence to a larger hypothesis that other research has hinted at: simply put, that “aging” isn’t one smooth continuous process, but a kind of punctuated equilibrium in which we cruise along at more or less the same biological age until some big spurt hits.

This is something that seems pretty obvious from a lay standpoint. Babies can go from useless loafs of bologna to walking talking humans in the blink of an eye. We all went through puberty, and that was absolutely not a smooth and easy process of aging! But once we reach adulthood, we tend to think of it as a steady process. 

Now that I’m older, and I have even older friends and relatives who I have helped care for, I’ve seen that that’s simply not true in old age: one day I’m chatting with my friend about a musical she just saw, and she has a little trouble remembering the lyrics to her favorite song. A month later she can’t remember my name. A week after that she doesn’t recognize my face.

It’s the same with physical health: an elderly relative spends years moving around his retirement community with no problem, but one day he unexpectedly falls, and he never gets out of bed again.

Even though I can point to these anecdotes to show why it makes sense that aging is an uneven path of stumbles and spurts, scientists still need to collect data to see if that’s true. And that’s what this is: a little extra confirmation, plus a sketched out roadmap for where researchers should look next: are the mid-40s and early-60s important moments for many, most, or all people? Is it biological, behavioral, or both? And crucially, can we eventually plan for aging bursts in a way that mitigates them, by adjusting diet, exercise, or other interventions? THAT is the point of this. NOT to freak me out about my incoming birthday.

For my part, honestly I just don’t worry too much about aging. There was definitely a part of me who wasn’t sure I’d make it out of my 20s, and now not only have I made it to my 40s, but my life has objectively never been better. And so yeah, I am that bitch who celebrates my birth month. I don’t make everyone else do it: I just feel slightly happier for all of October. I treat myself a little more often. I have a little more fun. I smile a little more. I get a few more of those laugh lines. And I will continue to not be affected by trolls pointing out that I’m aging. You’re damn right I am! As they say, it sure beats the alternative!