It’s not a neck! 5 body parts that age first and what they threaten

Alarm bell: brown and white spots, they are also called “senile”.

Normal: after 40 years

What is it: melanoma

UV exposure is the main cause of premature skin aging. And if you have more and more of these “senile spots” (ie areas of skin with damaged pigment cells), it means that you are spending a lot of time in the sun. Or, oh boy, voluntarily visit the solarium.

What to do: According to the WHO, those who regularly visit the solarium have a 75% higher risk of developing melanoma, so we advise you to stop this habit once and for all. And when you go out in the sun, apply sunscreen with an SPF of at least 30 to exposed skin.

Alarm bells: joint pain (most often in the knee and hip) during intense physical activity or immediately after it. At rest, the joint almost does not bother.

Normal: after 40 years

What is it: osteoarthritis

Over the years, the cartilage tissue begins to wear out faster than it can be restored. The joint suffers without protection: at first it just hurts under the load, then the inflammatory process begins, then the whole joint, including the bones, begins to collapse. The legs are the most stressed, the knees and the hips are therefore the first to suffer from osteoarthritis. In developed countries, osteoarthritis is the leading cause of early disability. For example, in America, according to the US Department of Health, in 2005, 13.9% of the population over the age of 25 suffered from osteoarthritis.

What to do: The main causes of osteoarthritis are injuries and excess pounds. In people with 1st degree obesity, the risk of contracting this degenerative-dystrophic joint disease is 5 times higher than in people of normal weight. If the diagnosis has already been made, physiotherapy will help slow down the pathological process and reduce pain. A 12-week course of exercise therapy reduces pain by 46%.

An alarm bell: you started to see worse at dusk.

Normal: after 45 years

What is it: farsightedness

Vision deteriorates due to the fact that over the years the lens thickens and the ciliary muscle weakens. However, prolonged and regular eye strain can lead to the development of farsightedness around the age of 30 to 40.

What to do: inFirst of all, do not waste time in gymnastics for the eyes. A Harvard University study showed that no amount of exercise can save you from farsightedness. On the contrary: the less you strain your sight (for example, spend less time behind screens of all kinds), the longer it will remain good. At work, increase the font size in the texts you write: increasing the letters by 2.8 points reduces eyestrain by 8% on average.

Wake up: you feel weaker and you tire more quickly on a daily basis.

Normal: after 50 years

What it is: age-related skeletal muscle breakdown

In children and adolescents, muscles develop on their own, without training in a rocking chair. At the age of 20-30, the processes of anabolism and catabolism, that is, the accumulation of muscle tissue and its destruction during metabolism, are in balance – you cannot go to the gymnasium and muscles will always stay with you, although they can swim big. After 30, if you don’t exercise, you start to lose muscle. The speed of this process depends on heredity, state of health and lifestyle, but the average value is 10-15% less muscle every 10 years. If this process is not slowed down in any way, then at 50 it will be difficult for you to carry bags from the supermarket, and at 70 you will have the characteristic shuffling gait of an old man and lean back .

What to do: unlike early gray hair, early loss of muscle mass is difficult to notice with the naked eye. Scientists at Tufts University have found that the first 40-50% disappears, usually imperceptibly, as this muscle is usually replaced by fat. Don’t want to lose an ounce of muscle? It will not be possible to completely stop the process of age-related muscle breakdown, but it can be slowed down. For this purpose, strength training (especially those that include elements of high-intensity training) are ideal, as they slow the atrophy of fast muscle fibers, the very ones that die most quickly with age. . And this method works even for very old people. For example, in a study conducted at the University of Washington, people between the ages of 78 and 84, doing strength training for 2 weeks, achieved an average increase in muscle growth of 182%. Also, over the years, you need to increase your protein intake. First, the older we get, the less it is absorbed from food. Second, with age, protein synthesis inside the body slows down. Dairy protein is particularly helpful because it contains a lot of leucine, an amino acid needed for better protein absorption.

Wake-up call: You think people aren’t speaking clearly.

Normal: after 70 years

What is it: deafness

We start to lose our hearing after 30 years. But hearing loss, that is, the loss of the ability to distinguish human speech in its entirety, usually does not occur until very old age. A person stops hearing high frequencies, the very ones that make someone else’s speech clear, so it seems to him that everyone around him suffers from diction defects. The reason for this is the death of hair cells in the cochlea of ​​the inner ear. But notorious hairs can be destroyed long before 70 years, if you hammer them with loud sounds. In the United States, for example, according to the National Institute of Deafness, 26 million people between the ages of 20 and 69 suffer from “noise-induced” deafness.

What to do: wear earplugs or hearing protection if your job or hobby involves constant noise. And forget about listening to “full” music. According to a study by the Irish company Hidden Hearing, 40% of MP3 players can play content at a volume of up to 100 decibels – such noise begins to paralyze your inner ear within half an hour. Set the playback level to no more than 80% of maximum and periodically pause the sounds and rhythms.

The main reason for early gray hair is heredity. In some people, colorless hair can appear under the influence of genes even in their twenties. There are also external factors, such as vitamin B12 deficiency or thyroid disorders, but these cases are extremely rare. And another fact: it is impossible to turn gray instantly, as in a horror movie – the pigment of already grown hair under the influence of emotions will not disappear overnight, no matter what people say. This is only possible under the action of chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide.