Mesothelioma | Mesothelioma

... Life begins to go downhill at 30 - World - smh.com.au NEWS register www.smh.com.au Home » World » Article Life begins to go downhill at 30 Email Print Normal font Large font March 31, 2006 There was a time when biologists believed ageing was controlled by some inner mechanism that imposes an upper limit on life span.

But this explanation has fallen out of favour, replaced by the idea that it is simply a build-up of tiny faults and waste products as our cells go about their business.

In addition, the body starts to streamline itself after 30.

Between the ages of 30 and 80, a person will lose 40 per cent of muscle mass, for example.

Not only do we lose muscle fibres, but those left are weaker.

The story is similar with bones: the strength and mass of the skeleton rises until the early 30s, after which men lose about 1 per cent of their bone mass a decade.

Women lose bone at the same rate in the decade before menopause, but, on reaching menopause, the loss jumps to about 1 per cent a year for several years before going back to the same rate as men.

"In five years, women's skeletons age by 50 years compared with men," says Tim Skerry, a professor of ...

Read more...