There are huge changes in your 40s and 60s.

If you’ve ever felt like the years are catching up with you and your body isn’t the same, you may be right. New research out this week reveals thataging The living organism does not occur in a linear and gradual way, but we pass through it. Two periods of rapid change During adulthood: In our 40s and 60s, these are the times when our number of molecules and microorganisms increases or decreases dramatically.

“We don’t change gradually over time; there are moments of radical change,” he says. Michael Snyderprofessor of genetics and director of genomics and personalized medicine at Stanford University and lead author of the study. According to Snyder, these key moments of change occur in the mid-40s (44 on average) and early 60s, “and that’s true no matter what kind of molecules we look at.”

Changes

In people aged 40 and over, researchers observed significant changes in the amount of molecules linked to blood metabolism.Alcoholthe Caffeine and FatsCardiovascular, skin and muscle diseases.

In people aged 60, the dramatic biomolecular changes they discovered were related to carbohydrate and caffeine metabolism, immune regulation, kidney function, cardiovascular disease, skin and muscle.

In his presentation of the study, Snyder noted that some of these changes could be related toLifestyle Or behaviors that are concentrated in these age groups rather than being driven by biological factors. For example, impaired alcohol metabolism could be the result of higher alcohol consumption among those in their 40s because this is an often stressful life stage.

For this reason, the team that conducted the study published in Nature’s agingNow, he wants to investigate the factors driving these clusters of changes. But regardless of the reasons for these dramatic changes, the researchers believe that the fact that they are happening raises the need for people to pay attention to their health, especially when they reach the age of 40 and 60. For example, they point out that when you reach 40, you should reduce your alcohol consumption, as the ability to metabolize it has been observed to slow down, and you should also increase your exercise to protect the heart and maintain muscle mass.

“I strongly believe that we should try to modify our lifestyle while we are still healthy,” Snyder said in announcing his findings.

The results of this study represent a major change in the concept of the aging process that doctors have adopted. “We had the impression that the organism finishes maturing at around the age of 30, and from that point on, we start aging in a fairly linear way. What this research reveals is that there are two critical stages in life – at 40 and at 60 – when frailty increases and the body deteriorates more because the metabolites associated with aging change a lot at these two points.” Jose VinaProfessor of Physiology at the University of Valencia, who has been studying aging and longevity for more than 30 years.

The doctor says that, after retrospective analysis, Snyder’s team’s findings are consistent with much of his clinical experience. “There are diseases, like cardiovascular disease, that appear suddenly at age 40, and others, like neurodegenerative diseases, that appear at age 60. As a physician, I’ve seen this in many patients,” says Vinya.

He adds that after identifying these two critical stages, the key is to try to take good care of yourself at these ages to delay aging. He stresses that “care is an individual responsibility.”