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If you feel "old" practically overnight, there may be a good reason for that.

Aging is weird. You're trucking along, enjoying your middle-aged life, finally feeling like a real adult, when you look in the mirror one day and gasp. "Where did those wrinkles come from?" "Is that skin on my arm…crepey?!?" "Why am I aching like that?"

Somewhere in your mid-40s, you start noticing obvious signs of aging that seem to arrive overnight. You assumed it was a gradual process that you just hadn't noticed, but it sure as heck felt like it happened really fast.

New research indicates that may very well be the case. A 2024 study from researchers at Stanford tracked thousands of different molecules in people age 25 to 75 and found that people tend to make two big leaps in aging—one around age 44 and another around age 60. These findings indicate that aging can actually happen in bursts.

 aging, age, old, growing up, growing old, 40s, 60s Simpsons Gif y.yarn.co  

“We’re not just changing gradually over time. There are some really dramatic changes,” said senior study author Michael Snyder, Ph.D., a geneticist and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University. “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.” The researchers assumed the mid-40s changes would be attributed to menopausal or perimenopausal changes in women influencing the overall numbers, but when they separated the results by sex they saw similar changes in men in their 40s.

@suddenly_susan_

The accuracy 🤣 #40s #genxtiktok #womenover40 #relatable

"“This suggests that while menopause or perimenopause may contribute to the changes observed in women in their mid-40s, there are likely other, more significant factors influencing these changes in both men and women. Identifying and studying these factors should be a priority for future research,” said study author Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar who now teaches at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

 elderly couple, aging, age, growing old, aging in bursts Aging happens in bursts, scientists find.Canva Photos

The study included 108 participants who submitted blood and other samples every few months for several years. The scientists tracked age-related changes in 135,000 different molecules—nearly 250 billion distinct data points—to see how aging occurs.

The study may shed light on the reasons for jumps in certain diseases and maladies at certain ages. For the 40-somethings, scientists found significant changes in molecules related to alcohol, caffeine, and lipid metabolism, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle. For those in their 60s, changes related to carbohydrate and caffeine metabolism, immune regulation, kidney function, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle were found.

 body, human body, anatomy, study, aging Research shows the body goes through specific changes in our 40s and 60s.Canva Photos

The study authors did note that lifestyle might play a role in some of these changes. For instance, alcohol metabolism may be influenced by people drinking more heavily in their 40s, which tends to be a period of higher stress for many people. However, the researchers added that these bursts of aging in the mid-40s and early 60s indicate that people may want to pay closer attention to their health around those ages and make lifestyle changes that support greater overall health, such as increasing exercise or limiting alcohol.

The research team plans to study the drivers of these aging bursts to find out why they happen at these ages, but whatever the reasons, it's nice to know that the seemingly sudden onset of age-related woes isn't just in our imaginations.

It's understandable that we worry about aging, as physical signs of aging remind us of our own mortality. We also have all kinds of social messaging that tells us youth is ideal and beautiful and old is bad and ugly, so of course we give aging the side-eye. But none of us can avoid aging altogether, so the more positive and healthy we are in our approach to aging, the better off we'll be, no matter when and to what degree aging hits us.

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

Family

James Gaines explains: 4 epically wrong myths about the HPV vaccine.

America is a bit behind on the HPV vaccination trend. I'll explain why that's a problem.

Remember when I explained how polio isn't really a thing anymore in the U.S.?

A polio victim in 1947. Photo by Sonnee Gottlieb/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

That's because we invented and then distributed vaccines to as many people as possible. Today, polio's gone from a modern scourge to a hazy shadow, infecting fewer than three dozen people in 2015. And even with a recent set back in Nigeria, we're incredibly close to making polio a thing of the past.


Well, thanks to another vaccine, we might be able to drive another disease into the shadows, too.

HPV, also known as the human papillomavirus, is a big family of viruses that live in human beings. Some strains are relatively harmless, causing problems like common warts. Others, however, are much more serious.

Some strains of HPV can be spread through sexual contact and are known to cause several different kinds of cancer, including almost all cases of cervical cancer.  And these cancer-causing strains are incredibly common: About 14 million Americans catch them every year. HPV is basically the common cold of sexually transmitted infections.

10 years ago, however, we got a vaccine for HPV. And the latest numbers show it's been incredibly effective.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

The vaccine, which is meant to be given to kids sometime between their pre-teen years and early 20s, specifically targets some of the strains of HPV known to cause cervical cancer (from here on, I'm going to use "HPV" to specifically refer to these strains, by the way). Early tests on the vaccine showed a lot of promise, and this year those numbers have been seriously backed up.

Earlier this year, a worldwide study suggested an up to 90% drop in infection rates in countries with a high level of immunization.

They also showed an 85% drop in the kinds of pre-cancer signs associated with cervical cancer in those populations.

In the U.S., however, pickup on the HPV vaccine has been a little slow, possibly because of stigma and a few common misconceptions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015, only about 50% of U.S. boys ages 13-17 and about 62% of girls got at least one round of the vaccine (it takes three shots, spaced a few months apart, to become completely immunized). This is great compared to other years — the numbers are rising — but compared to other countries, we're still a bit behind.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

What are some of those misconceptions?

1. "HPV isn't common enough to worry about."

Actually, we know that HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. Like I mentioned above, each year about 14 million people catch it and about 27,000 cases of HPV-caused cancer are diagnosed.

2. "Vaccines are risky."

Actually, we know that vaccines — including the HPV vaccine — are on the whole pretty damn safe.

3. "You only need the HPV vaccine if you're sexually active, so I don't need to give it to my kids."

It's true that people who've never been sexually active aren't really at risk of HPV, but immunizing a teenager can protect them well into their adult life. Plus, the best time to prevent infection is before they've ever been potentially exposed, so giving it to kids actually makes a lot of sense.

4. "It's only for girls. My son doesn't need it."

Boys can benefit from it too. While it's most well-known to cause cervical cancer, HPV can cause other kinds of cancer too as well as genital warts. Plus, by getting vaccinated, a man can protect any sexual partners he might have!

(This reluctance may also have a bit to do with the stigma surrounding the fact that HPV is an STI, too, but talking about STIs is an important part of sex education and something we shouldn't shy away from.)

We're on our way to putting HPV on the same bookshelf as other extinct diseases, like polio and smallpox.

A girl gets an HPV shot in Honduras. Photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images.

In an article by the BBC, professor Ian Frazer, one of the scientists who created the first HPV vaccine, was quoted as saying, "If we vaccinate enough people, we will eliminate these viruses."

A world without the single greatest cause of cervical cancer? And we get a whole lot of other cancers down at the same time?

Yeah, that sounds pretty great.

You know that moment when you KNOW you should break up with that person you're dating, but you just can't seem to let go?

Imagine how Earth feels. About humans.

Needless to say, there are a bunch of red flags we humans are sending that would make any friend of Earth say, "Earth, I think they're just not that into you."


Every relationship has ups and downs. Even our relationship with our own planet. You've read articles and you've watched documentaries, but we all know the truth comes out strongest in ... text messages.

1. Earth has thing for bad boys.

2. Mixed signals.

Tomato, tomahto — pattern, anomaly — potato, potahto? Let's call the whole thing off.

3. Ghosting.

4. Fear of commitment.


It's like, "I'll look at the rainbow, but don't make me conserve too much water, OK?"

5. Low standards!

6. Burn me once, shame on you...

...burn me twice, shame on Earth?

7. Lack of communication.

Not the text bubble thingeeeee!!!!

8. Lack of boundaries.

9. The final burn.

"What's love got to do with it?" — Earth/Tina Turner

Burn!

The state of Earth-human relations is tough.

 Global carbon dioxide levels are the highest they've been in 3 million years, and some climate scientists are saying that global warming has "supercharged" El Niño, making the winter of 2016 a warm and extra weird one. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Things are bad. But it's not too late to make things better.

One "text" at a time.