If you are in your later years in life, you might be forgiven for occasionally forgetting quite how old you are! But actually, your chronological age is not the full story anyway. It is when you look at the biological age of your individual organs that things start to get really interesting, according to this article.
It is possible to remain much younger than your birth age, in terms of your biological age, if you look after yourself. Equally, you can develop age related disease far younger than you otherwise would if you smoke, drink alcohol and eat unhealthy food, according to Dr Lipkin, Priory Hospital, Birmingham.
So what can this mean for you?
What's your eye health?
Eyes: People gradually lose the ability to focus close up, which is why those over 45 may need to wear reading glasses. An average 20 year old can focus on objects held 3inches from their eyes, a average 45 year old can only focus on objects 8 inches away. So depending on how well your eyes can focus, that will determine what you eye ages is…
Liver: Unlike organs such as the lungs, the tissue of the liver can regenerate, meaning it can still be pretty healthy as you get older. However, you can age your liver if you really abuse it with excessive and long term drinking. A fibroscan can measure the damage of the liver, and how well it can regenerate, or whether the damage is permanent. A fibroscan at the
London Clinic Liver Centre costs £230. If the level of fibrous tissue is low, your liver age is low.
Hearing: With age, cells in the inner ear that enable us to hear high-pitched sounds die. The result is hearing loss. This usually begins around age 55, but excessive exposure to loud noises for long periods can mean this loss occurs at a younger age.
Heart: With age, factors such as higher blood sugar and higher levels of bad LDL cholesterol will raise your risk of cardiovascular diease, and vice versa. A heart health check at London Medical Chambers costs £100.
Kidneys: Smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure can all damage the kidneys, and so speed up their ageing process. Blood tests to assess kidney function are available through your GP.
Lungs: A spriometry test, which measures lung capacity, can determine your lung age. The test involved full inhalation and exhalation into a measuring device. The spirometer measures how springy your lungs are, you lose this with age, but it is also made worse by smoking. Once you lose lung elasticity, you cannot get it back, but you can look after your lungs by not smoking and by keeping fit.
Ovaries: With age, the number of eggs, and the quality of those eggs, declines. Ovary size can also diminish with age, while the risk of other problems, such as ovarian cysts increases. All women are born with 1 to 2 million eggs but most of these waste away, and by puberty women only have about 300,000 left. After 30, you may only have a few thousand eggs left. Blood tests can indicate levels of AMH, a hormone that indicates the number of eggs you have left. Smoking, alcohol and stress all significantly speed up your fertility loss. A fertility MOT at the Centre for Reproduction and Advanced Technology costs £200.
This gives a lot of stuff to think about, don’t you think? What do you think your biological age would be? Do you know?
