Early aging, in the 20s through 40s in our species, is poorly studied. This is likely because aging causes few serious problems and minimal mortality in this age range. Nonetheless, a 35 year old is not the same as a 25 year old, and visibly so in many cases. The same processes of damage accumulation that cause the dramatic mortality of late life are at work, slowly, in early life, but which of them are more significant, and how do they interact to produce the observed, often subtle changes of early aging? Studies such as the one here remind us that this early aging does exist, and that it sets the foundation for the accelerated process of late life aging that is to come.
Athleticism and the mortality rates begin a lifelong trajectory of decline during early adulthood. Because of the substantial follow-up time required, however, observing any longitudinal link between early-life physical declines and late-life mortality and aging remains largely inaccessible. Here, we use longitudinal data on elite athletes to reveal how early-life athletic performance predicts late-life mortality and aging in healthy male populations.
Using data on over 10,000 baseball and basketball players, we calculate age at peak athleticism and rates of decline in athletic performance to predict late-life mortality patterns. Predictive capacity of these variables persists for decades after retirement, displays large effect sizes, and is independent of birth month, cohort, body mass index, and height. Furthermore, a nonparametric cohort-matching approach suggests that these mortality rate differences are associated with differential aging rates, not just extrinsic mortality. These results highlight the capacity of athletic data to predict late-life mortality, even across periods of substantial social and medical change.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf1294
View the full article at FightAging
