30 Things That Happen To Our Bodies As We Grow Older
Our brains shrink, men’s penises shrink, we lose our hair, and much more
If you want to know what will happen to you as you age, you have come to the right place. Here are the main 30 things that happen to our bodies as we age.
Disclaimer: before reading this remember, good things really do happen to us as we age… I’m not lying…
Your hair will get thinner
The average adult sheds around 50 to 100 hairs every day from their head, however, as we get older, this speeds up and we start shedding more each day, making our hair look thinner, especially at the crown.
To make matters worse, the rate at which our hair grows also slows and our hair follicles shrink, meaning it takes longer for new hair to grow and the hairs that do grow are thinner — further adding to the thinning look.
Also, many hair follicles start dying and so stop producing hair completely, which further still adds to the thinning look.
Every person, both male and female, will suffer these effects but through healthy living, if a person has the right genetics, they can be to an extent held off.
70 percent of men will go bald
95 percent of hair loss in men is caused by androgenetic alopecia, or as it is more commonly known as, male pattern baldness. What happens is something called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) — a byproduct of testosterone — causes hair follicles to get smaller until eventually, they stop producing hair.
This inherited trait causes both a receding hairline and a thinning crown, and it typically happens in two ways. The first way is with the hair starting to thin on the top and around the temples, the second way is with it starting to recede from the front and just keeps pushing further and further back.
Approximately 70 percent of men can expect to go bald, and 25 percent of those men would have started losing their hair before the age of 21. However, if a man hasn’t started losing his hair by the age of 50, odds are he won’t be going bald, but he will still suffer from hair thinning.
Your hair will go grey
As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. This is bad because if there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, it will no longer contain as much melanin and so will become a more transparent color — like gray, silver, or white. So basically, fewer pigment cells in our hair means less colour.
Everyone’s hair will eventually go grey, with some people’s starting from to turn from as young as their 20s but most people will not start seeing greys until they hit their 30s, with them starting to become prominent in their 40s and 50s onwards. The only real options are to embrace the grey or use hair dye.
Some of your hair will become coarser
It is not just the hair on our heads that we lose as we age, it is everywhere. As we age due to many of the hair follicles on our body thinning and in some cases dying, most people can expect that they will lose most of the hair on their bodies.
For women, this can be highly beneficial to an extent because it means no more need for shaving because there’s nothing left to shave.
However, some of the hair that remains can become troublesome mainly because it has a habit of becoming coarser. This effect can become especially prominent on our faces.
For example, women can expect their facial hair to become coarser, most often on the chin and around the lips, while men typically to grow longer and coarser eyebrow hair, ear hair, and nose hair.
This happens due to age-related hormonal changes along with the fact that our bodies, as we age, simply finds it more difficult to repair and replace our hair follicles — think of it like a repairman who keeps getting worse at his job.
Your skin will go wrinkly and become less elastic
As you age, due to the communication in your skin cells deteriorating, which amongst other factors causes your skin cells to replace themselves and heal at a slower rate, your skin thins and becomes less elastic.
This means you will bruise more easily, get more wrinkles, have drier skin, and suffer from age spots and small growths called skin tags.
This process begins once you hit your 30s but does not become prominent until you hit your 70s. A good moisturising routine can help protect against the worst of these effects — at least to an extent.
Your nose and ears will get bigger
Once we hit adulthood, it is true that as we age our noses and ears continue to get bigger. However, unlike popular belief, they do not keep growing. What happens is gravity takes hold. Our nose and ears are made mostly of cartilage which begins to break down as we age. This leads to drooping.
So our earlobes sag and so look larger, the same happens with our nose. What further adds to the increase in the apparent size of our nose is the age-related loss of volume to the cheeks and lips that we suffer which makes everything look comparatively larger.
In total, people can expect to see their noses appear 15 percent larger by the time they hit their 70s versus their 20s. Earlobes typically increase in size at a rate of 0.22 millimetres a year. The only way to defend against this is to move to a zero-gravity environment. Crazy but true.
Your feet might get bigger
It’s often said that some people’s feet get bigger as they age, it is also said that pregnancy can cause women’s feet to get bigger.
However, all is not what it seems, what happens is as we age — or put on a lot of weight which happens during pregnancy — the tendons and ligaments in our feet grow weaker and so the arch flattens.
So our feet don’t get bigger per se they just get flatter, which in some people makes them look bigger.
You will shrink
Typically, once we hit 40, we start shrinking and people can expect to lose between 1 and 3 inches in height in their later years.
This happens for two reasons. Firstly, and this is a modern phenomenon, we lose height due to spinal curvature caused by poor posture. If a person retains a poor posture over a long period it can lead to permanent height loss — this form of height loss is avoidable through practicing good posture.
The second reason is unavoidable. Between your bones, there is a cushion that keeps them from rubbing together. However, as we age this cushion retains less water and so deteriorates. This leads your bones to start settling closer together, which causes you to lose height in later life.
Your bones will become brittle
The cells in your skeleton system regenerate almost constantly, but it takes 10 years or more for every cell to have been replaced with a new one. However, as we age the renewal process slows down which makes our bones get thinner.
That’s why as we age our bones become more brittle i.e. our bone cells start to die faster than they can be replaced.
You will sweat less
Basically, as we get older our sweat glands shrink. This can be especially pronounced under the armpits.
Less sweat may seem like a plus and on the smell front it is; however, the problem is our sweat grants help regulate our body temperature, but because we sweat less inevitably our fitness levels are hit i.e. because our body can’t cool itself down as well, we burn out faster.
That means a plus side is as we age we smell less, but the downside is that the price for smelling less is poorer fitness levels.
Your cardiovascular levels will fall
As we get older, for various reasons, the least of all being simple age degradation, our blood vessels and arteries start to stiffen. This causes our heart to work harder to pump blood through them, meaning our heart has to work harder just to beat at the same rate it used to beat at.
Because of this, it is unable to increase as much during activities as it used to, meaning inevitably your cardiovascular performance levels will drop. Healthy living along with regular exercise can help to an extent delay these effects.
You will lose muscle mass
Up until the age of 30, our muscles grow larger and stronger naturally. However, once we hit our 30s we start to lose muscle mass and function, and people who are physically inactive can expect to lose as much as 3 to 5 percent of their muscle mass each decade from this point on, with this increasing rapidly once we hit 65 and even more rapidly once we hit 75.
Again, this can be held off to an extent through a healthy lifestyle, but not forever due to something called sarcopenia. The way our muscles grow and are maintained is through signals that control muscle cell growth and muscle cell teardown.
When things are in balance i.e. growth and teardown signals are equal, muscles remain as they are; however, as we age our body becomes resistant to normal growth signals, which tips the balance to muscle degradation.
This imbalance in favour of muscle degradation is called sarcopenia. The consensus is it’s likely caused by the deterioration in nerve signals that comes with ageing along with the reduction in natural hormone production.
But it should be remembered that through exercise, your body will retain the capability of growing muscle for as long as you live. That means to retain muscle mass and good fitness levels, exercise becomes increasingly important the older you get.
It will become harder to keep your weight down
Your metabolism slows down with age which makes it easier to put weight on but more difficult to lose weight. The reason your metabolism slows down is due to a loss of muscle mass.
As you age, as said you lose muscle mass, less muscle means you burn calories at a lower rate. Inevitably, if you burn calories at a lower rate it becomes more difficult to keep weight off and lose weight.
This is why again, as you age, exercise becomes increasingly important.
Your teeth might become more sensitive
Your teeth become less sensitive as you age but at the same time more sensitive. Basically, over time the hard inner tissue of your teeth — which is called dentin — builds up which creates more distance between the outer enamel of your teeth and its central nerve.
The greater distance between your outer teeth and your nerve centre means that you get less sensitivity.
However, unfortunately due to a mixture of receding gums and dry mouth — saliva helps protect your teeth from sensitivity — sensitivity more often increases with age. Brushing your teeth regularly — using the correct technique — with an electric toothbrush, regular flossing, and a good dental health care plan can help protect against the worst of these effects.
You will become increasingly susceptible to viruses
Your immune system starts to deteriorate once you hit your 30s, and the rate of deterioration increases substantially once you hit 70. Basically, as we get older we start producing fewer immune cells — including white blood cells and more importantly T cells.
This means despite the fact that our immune system gets smarter as we age, we have an ever smaller army protecting us. Not just that, but as we get older the communication between our cells deteriorates meaning it takes longer for them to react to harmful viruses and bacteria and other germs.
However, it’s not all bad, genetics aside, so as long as you keep fit and healthy your immune system should — due to being much smarter than a younger person’s (a lifetime of viruses and infections has its upsides) — be strong enough to protect you — not as well as a younger person’s, but well enough.
Also, thanks to vaccines like the flu jab, the pneumonia jab, the shingles jab, and the more recent covid-19 jab amongst others, added to taking adequate precautions to protect yourself, the effects of a deteriorating immune system can be largely held at bay. It is just as you age, you have to remember to be a lot more cautious and do your best to avoid catching viruses.
You may start getting fewer migraines and headaches
Many people get fewer migraines and headaches as they get older, the reason is due to decreases in the release of hormones. This can be especially pronounced in women due to hormonal changes after menopause.
Basically, research suggests that once women have gone through menopause, they suffer far less from headaches and migraines — at least the kind brought on by hormonal reasons. One study showed that 67 percent of women who suffered from migraines, once they had gone through menopause, stopped getting them at all.
So if you suffer from headaches and migraines, once you hit your 50s — and especially your 60s — you can expect them to start slowly disappearing. Though it should be said this is only for those who get headaches and migraines due to hormonal factors.
Food won’t taste as nice
Once we hit 30, our taste buds start to deteriorate and by the time we reach the age of 60, most will have lost as many as half their taste buds.
This is why it’s believed that older people have a tendency to eat foods high in sugar, salt and fat i.e. because older people have fewer tastebuds, they need a higher kick from the higher sugar, salt and fat contents.
The plus side is you can handle food that previously you may not have been able to stomach.
Your hearing will deteriorate
Due to the modern world of loud music and other loud noises, which includes loud music in cars, in homes, through earphones, at concerts, in nightclubs and bars and other places, most people can expect to start losing their hearing in the 20’s.
However, with the right protection, it is possible to protect your ears and thus your hearing into old age, which means, outside of genetic problems, it is possible to still have good hearing even beyond the age of 75.
That means yep, if you don’t want to go deaf, turn the volume down.
Your vision will deteriorate
Once we hit our 40s our vision starts to deteriorate mainly because the lenses of our eyes become less flexible. The loss of flexibility has a name, Presbyopia. This is where the lens inside your eye hardens and as a result becomes less flexible.
This is bad because a flexible lens allows your eye to change focus from far away objects to those nearby, a non-flexible lens means you can’t focus on things close to you because your lens is set in the far away place.
If that was not bad enough, more problems are still to come. Once we hit our 50s our vision starts to further deteriorate due to something called age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This causes our vision to blur by hindering the macula — the part of our eye that allows us to see fine detail.
Alas, that is still not the end of it. Your 60s bring the risk of cataracts, which is a buildup of proteins in your eye which is like having a cloud in your eye blocking your vision; your 70s brings the risk of glaucoma, which is where fluids in your eye can’t drain away. Without treatment, glaucoma can rob you of your peripheral vision and even lead to blindness.
There’s not a lot you can do to protect against these problems, but if they are identified swiftly, the effects can be greatly limited and through surgery, many problems can be reversed to an extent. This is why regular trips to an optician as you age are so important.
You will need the bathroom more, but may start having problems going
Due to age-related structural changes in your large intestines, as you age you become constipated more often. Yep, sorry. Also, because your bladder gets weaker you need to go to the bathroom more often.
This can be especially troublesome in men and women but for different reasons. For men, it can be especially troublesome because many men can suffer from an enlarged prostate as they get older which makes them more likely to suffer problems such as urinary hesitancy — difficulty in peeing.
For women, it can be especially troublesome because many women, especially from the age of 50 onwards, frequently start suffering from a form of chronic incontinence — the loss of bladder control.
Regular health checks can help protect against the worst effects of these problems.
If you’re a woman, your breasts will shrink
This happens due to two factors, firstly, as women age their levels of estrogen production fall, which leads to a decrease in the amount of fat and tissue in their breasts, causing them to lose size; the second reason is the fact that the skin and flesh that makeup women’s breasts typically lose elasticity with age, causing them to further lose size.
Due to these factors, women can expect to lose anywhere between half a cup size and a full cup size over the course of their adult lives.
If you’re a man, you may start struggling to hold an erection
As men age, their testosterone levels start to decrease, and they start to suffer from more blood flow problems. Because of this, they are more likely to find it difficult to get an erection and keep an erection. Also, it is likely that the erection may not be quite as hard as it once was.
The most common cause of this problem in men is a blood flow one called atherosclerosis — a buildup of plaque in the arteries. Genetics aside, by keeping fit and healthy — along with seeking medical aid if necessary — many men will be able to hold off the worst of these problems, potentially indefinitely.
However, those who don’t keep fit and healthy may start seeing problems from as young as their 30s and 40s — though most will start seeing problems from their 60s and 70s onwards.
If you’re a woman, you will start suffering vaginal dryness
As women age, their estrogen levels decrease, and they begin to suffer from vaginal dryness, this can become especially pronounced during and after menopause.
In terms of when women can expect these effects to start happening, to a low level in their 30s, but so long as there are no genetic problems and a person stays fit and healthy, they won’t become pronounced until menopause hits.
Even then, all is not lost for those who do have problems, healthy living along with a good lube allows women to overcome most bedroom problems.
You might lose your desire for sex
Many people will see a decrease in their desire for sex, this can be caused due to a decrease in testosterone in men and estrogen in women — as said, both start declining gradually once we hit 30.
This decrease in desire does not happen to everyone, but it does happen to most people, and some people mistakenly mistake these effects for meaning they are no longer attracted to their partners sexually.
This is why as you age, if you do lose interest in having sex with your partner but are still happy with them — even if you still think you find others sexually attractive — it is always important to go to the doctor to talk about this issue because it might not be for the reasons you think.
Also, like said in previous points, all is not lost as there are options out there to help deal with the problem.
If you’re a woman, you will become infertile; if you’re a man, you might do
As we age, most people will eventually become infertile. Because women’s peak fertility age is between the age of 20 and 25, they typically reach this point by the time they hit 40, but most will start seeing deteriorating fertility past the age of 25, and many will struggle to conceive naturally past the age of 35.
For men, they hit peak fertility between the ages of 30 and 35, with fertility starting to decline past that point and most men will become infertile once they hit 55.
In terms of how to protect against this, for women, other than freezing eggs there is not much they can do. For men, staying fit and healthy can lead them to retaining their fertility for their entire lives — genetics dependent. But also, they can freeze sperm.
Note: freezing sperm and eggs leads to very hit and miss results as does IVF. When it comes to having kids, for women it is best to have them at the latest by 35 and for men at the latest by 45.
If you’re a man, your penis and testicles will shrink
It’s well known that as men grow older due to a reduction in the elasticity of the skin, the testicles start to hang increasingly lower. However, what is not well known is that once men hit 20 typically their penises and testicles start to shrink, and by the age of 40 most men can expect to have lost approximately half an inch — though many may lose up to an inch or more.
This happens for numerous reasons but the two main factors are firstly, a buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries which reduces blood flow to the penis — the lack of blood flow leads to a smaller erection.
The second main factor is due to scarring. Repeated small injuries — which can be caused by masturbation, sex, sports injuries and other things — can lead to a buildup of scar tissue. This scar tissue hinders the elasticity of the tissue in the penis, reducing the overall size of erections.
These combined effects mean that most men start seeing shrinkage once they hit their mid to late 20s and by old age, most will have lost an inch or more.
If you’re a man, your penis may curve
People often talk about curved penises, in some ways fetishising them. However, a curved penis is typically the result of scar tissue. Basically, some men once they hit their 50s or 60s, through use, have built up enough scar tissue that it has caused them to have a curved erection.
This actually has a name and is a recognised health condition called Peyronie’s disease. It’s often painful, and it can make sex highly uncomfortable for the man i.e. it might be funny in films to flaunt a curved penis, but in real life, for people who have one, they typically require medical help to be able to continue having sex.
Your brain will shrink, yet despite this, you will become better at making decisions
Once you hit your 30s your brain starts to shrink, with the rate of shrinkage increasing once you hit your 60s, and rather ironically, the first parts of your brain to start shrinking are the ones that developed latest in your adolescence growth. So the newest parts of our brain start shrinking before the oldest parts.
Brain shrinkage mainly happens because as we age, firstly, neurons shrink and retract their dendrites, and secondly, the fatty myelin that wraps around our axons deteriorates. The most notable part that shrinks is the frontal lobe — which processes memory, emotions, impulse control, problem-solving, social interaction, and motor function. This is why as we age we start to slow down and suffer from memory problems.
However, it’s not all bad, due to this shrinkage our brain becomes more efficient, which when added to our life experience means that though we may suffer more on the memory loss side of things we actually become better at managing our emotions and at making decisions.
That means the older we get, so long as our health holds up, the better we become at analysing situations and making decisions. Yep, the saying listen to your elders exists for a reason.
You will become kinder
Oxytocin is known as the love hormone mainly because one of its main functions is to help couples and mothers and babies to bond. Of interest though, research has shown that this hormone is released at higher levels in the elderly.
This matters because it has been shown that those who have higher levels of this hormone typically are not only more generous, but are more giving, compassionate, and show a higher level of sympathy for others.
It is believed that this is because greater life experience allows people to better manage their emotions, allowing them to focus more on compassion rather than negativity.
But not just that, when we are young, from an evolutionary standpoint it’s better to focus on hoarding resources — men to attract women, and women for childraising purposes. However, when we get older, it becomes more logical from an evolutionary standpoint to start passing on what we have to others.
So the young are a bit more selfish because it helps them build a footing in life, and the elderly are typically generous because it helps the young build a footing in life.
That means as you get older, what you have to look forward to is getting kinder.
You will become happier
There is resounding evidence out there that says that despite all the things that happen to us physically as we age, as we age we become happier and more content.
It’s believed this happens due to the reduction of hormonal production i.e. because we have fewer hormones running us ragged we are able to calm down and start seeing things as they are, and as such become better at embracing things for what they are instead of what they are not.
That means age brings with us not only wisdom, not only experience, not only improved decision-making, not only greater management of our emotions, but contentedness and happiness.
If that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is. Though I’m not going to lie, I’d rather get that without all the other things ;-)
That’s all from me, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the following:
52 Fascinating Facts About Sex That You Probably Didn’t Know
Five Fascinating Facts about Human Nature That Will Blow Your Mind
Seven Ways to Stay Fit and Healthy If You Don’t like the Gym
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