How Old Is Your Body? Stand On One Leg and Find Out
According to new research, the time you can stand on one leg is the best marker of physical aging.
So I was lying in bed the other night, trying to read my phone, and started complaining to my wife about how my vision keeps getting worse, and then how stiff I feel when I wake up in the morning, and how a recent injury is taking too long to heal and she said — “well, yeah, you’re 44. That’s when things start to head downhill.”
And I was like “44? That seems very specific. I thought 50 was what people complain about”. And she said, “no — it’s a thing. 44 years old and 60 years old. There’s a drop off there.”
And you know what? She was right.
This study, published in Nature Aging in August of 2024 analyzed a ton of proteins and metabolites in people of various ages and found, when you put it all together, that there are some big changes in body chemistry over time — and those changes peak at age 44 and age 60. I should know better than to doubt my brilliant spouse.
