A minority of people age like wine. Most of us won’t (although I do hope that you, the readers of my blog will count among the chosen few!). Yet despite the different aging rates, people mostly age the same.
Here is the basic order in which organs fail (according to my limited clinical experience and knowledge).
The first organ to fail is the humble joint. Ostheoarthritis is often the first age-related disease people succumb to. People in their 50s-60s experience it for the first time. Joints are nourished by diffusion only, as the cartilage has no blood vessels leading nutrients towards it and wastes from it. As we get more dehydrated as we age, joints are the first to fail. We’re talking about pure mechanical senescence here.
The second organ’s fail is mostly silent, unless one has easy access to abdominal ultrasound exams. The liver processes most fats and since they are easily oxidated, they are more difficult to eliminate. The liver will become fatty – liver steatosis is a common medical diagnosis in people over 50-60 (especially in obese and diabetic ones).
The lens gets clouded and the hearing declines, especially for higher frequencies. People develop presbyopia in their 50s, presbyacusia around 60s-70s and cataracts is already annoying in their 70s.
The vascular system is the next to fail. Atherosclerosis may be silent up to your 70s, but afterwards you will notice its symptoms in terms of thrombosis of any kind. The heart gets bigger (especially the left ventricle), its valves get calcified (especially the aortic one), and its collagen gets cross-linked. Atherosclerosis will show on your regular blood test through an increase in creatinine with age, indicating the physiological kidney decline.
The lung gets slightly smaller and loses some of its alveoli (senile emphysema).
In normal, usual aging, the last to fail is the brain. Unless one had bad genes to start with, or had a “toxic” lifestyle, degenerative brain diseases become symptomatic around 80s. Sure, people may forget slight things when in their 50s, 60s, or 70s, but it is usually in the 80s when dementia becomes dangerous for them and for those around them.
This is the average in human aging. I’ve met plenty of brilliant people in their 90s and 100s and I’m amazed by their wisdom and verbal flow skills. Yet I’ve seen way too many diabetic people with cataracts in their 50s.
What are you doing today to slow your rate of aging?
Anca Ioviţă is the author of Eat Less Live Longer: Your Practical Guide to Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition , The Aging Gap Between Species and What Is Your Legacy? 101 Ideas on Getting Started to Create and Build One – all available on Amazon and several other places.
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Thanks for the article.
You’re welcome. It’s not a peer-reviewed clinical study based on thousands of patients, but it’s what I noticed during clinical practice.