When I’m 64

I haven’t been 64 for years, but the Beatles song still resonates. I was 64 when I started on phased retirement. 


According to a Nature Aging article*, we don’t age uniformly over time, but experience saltatory changes in our mid-40s and early 60s. I didn’t read the article. I have no reason to doubt the conclusions, other than it was based on only 108 volunteers (how representative of their age demographic—sex, race, etc—were they?). 

There are plenty of age-related changes that deserve our attention: age-dependent sarcopenia, age-related increase in blood pressure. Age is a risk factor for cancer. Increased inflammation is so well associated with aging that it’s spawned the term “inflammaging.”

Obviously, aging increases the probability of death. That’s nether surprising nor interesting. But what we geriatrics should care about is not lifespan but healthspan. How to stay as healthy, ambulatory, independent for as long as possible.

*the senior author, Mike Snyder, was a postdoc at the same time I was, also working on fruit flies. He sent me some clones I needed for a project at the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/aug/14/scientists-find-humans-age-dramatically-in-two-bursts-at-44-then-60-aging-not-slow-and-steady?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawEvW39leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWdx7kpAZXQwqxn0D2jfTz2eIDc0rKOGzmPV0hiTkObm35U1kb1a1e3akg_aem_Wuy3JYQNNN-65ViY5txXxw#Echobox=1723650374

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