#506 Stanford Scientist: Why Aging Accelerates at 44 and 60 - Dr. Michael Snyder

Michael Snyder (0:00)

You can see it when people lose their mobility, their health just plummets. And so actually even people into their 80s can regain a lot of health by actually staying active. So if you're, you know, you look at your grandparents and they're sitting in a chair, you don't, you really shouldn't be saying, it's okay, grandma, grandpa, take it easy. You should actually say, no, get up off that chair and start schlepping around so that you can stay active and stay healthy.

Siim Land (0:26)

Dr. Snyder, welcome to the show.

Michael Snyder (0:29)

Oh, it's great to be here.

Siim Land (0:31)

Yeah, thanks for coming to the podcast. And a few years ago, you and your colleagues published a very interesting and headline grabbing a paper that discussed about how, you know, rather than just aging gradually every year, there appears to be some sort of dramatic drop in your health around the age of 44 and 60, which I think would also support a lot of people's subjective experience. At least that's what people say, that around their early 40s and especially later in life, things aren't as good as they used to be when they were younger. So maybe we can start with, you know, what did you find in that paper and like how significant it is to your overall aging of us as individuals.

Michael Snyder (1:22)

Yeah. So let me back up a little bit. Our lab, what we do is we do very deep data dives on people, meaning we study as many molecules as possible out of people's blood and urine and even their microbiome, which are these bacteria in your gut that are important for your health. So we profile these things very deeply and we've been profiling a set of people now for roughly a little over 13 years.

So from this, we could see how they're changing. I think the first important concept is that everyone changes differently. So meaning some people, their metabolism shifts for other people, their immune system shifts and so on and so forth. So we're all different and you can actually see these things and take action on it, meaning if you're metabolic age or you can lose weight or exercise, and that seems to improve things. We did report then in a paper that there's non-linear aging throughout your life, but there seem to be two bursts if you were where there were more changes. And we're actually trying to reproduce that now and look at it further.

And other people have certainly, as we've looked at it, clearly see the same thing, these ages at around 40, that there do seem to be drop-offs. And it's pretty clear there are obviously significant drop-offs as people hit their 60s, meaning their immune system declines and such.

Siim Land (2:56)

Yeah, so you saw like a significant drop in certain, I guess, health markers and proteomics and microbiome, I guess, integrity.

Michael Snyder (3:07)

Yeah, we did. And metabolites and such, such. Yeah, there are shifts. Again, there are shifts throughout your life. Like oxidative stress occurs throughout your whole life, but then as you hit your 60s, there's a big shift, if you will. And so we think this is why it's important to keep things up and be on the alert for this. Meaning you really want to be, you know, especially as you hit your 60s, you want to keep your muscle mass up. People got something called sarcopenia, where they'll have loss of muscle mass, they lose their mobility. If they fall, they can become a capacity. And then their health really plummets. So you want to keep your muscle mass up and you want to keep your immune system up as much as possible. Short chain fatty acids are good for that. Where do they come from? Fiber, actually. So eating your fiber keeps your short chain fatty acids up, keeps your immune system boosted. So we think these are important. And I think being on the alert for it, I think what's special about what we do is we do this detailed monitoring. So again, we can track all this.

And even though there are some general trends that occur, everybody is different. I can't emphasize that enough that, you know, how you're aging and how I'm aging are not the same. And so we call these aging patterns agotypes actually. So we think that, you know, knowing your agotype is important. And one analogy might be like a car.

You know, we have cars, they get older and they look older, but some parts were out first. And if you're on the alert for that, well, then you can replace that or fix it. But if you're just kind of like generally driving along and don't pay attention, well, someday, something's going to break down. And you'd like to know what that is first, so you can avoid it. And that's how I view our health. We want to keep ourselves healthy and avoid any catastrophes. We all want to live long, healthy lives. And then, you know, pass away when it's time.