Aging is strange. You’re going along, enjoying your middle-aged existence, finally feeling like a proper grownup, until you glance in the mirror one day and gasp. “Where did those wrinkles come from?” “Is that skin on my arm…crepey?!?” “Why am I aching like that?”

Around your mid-40s, you begin to see noticeable signs of aging that appear overnight. You imagined it was a slow process that you hadn’t observed, but it certainly seemed like it happened quickly.

A new study suggests that this might be the case. A 2024 study by Stanford researchers studied hundreds of different chemicals in individuals aged 25 to 75 and discovered that people typically make two major leaps in aging—one around age 44 and another around age 60. These data suggest that aging might occur in spurts.

“We’re not merely evolving gradually throughout time.” There are some really dramatic changes,” said senior research author Michael Snyder, Ph.D., a geneticist and head of Stanford University’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. “It turns out that the mid-40s, like the early 1960s, are periods of significant transformation. And this is true regardless of the kind of molecules under consideration. The researchers thought that the mid-40s alterations were due to menopausal or perimenopausal changes in women, which influenced the total figures, but when they split the findings by gender, they discovered comparable changes in males in their 40s.

“”This shows that, while menopause or perimenopause may contribute to the alterations found in women in their mid-40s, other, more substantial variables are likely to influence these changes in both men and women. Identifying and researching these characteristics should be a focus for future research,” stated study author Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral fellow who currently teaches at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The study comprised 108 people who provided blood and other samples every few months over several years. To understand how aging happens, the scientists studied age-related changes in 135,000 different molecules, totaling roughly 250 billion data points.

The findings might shed light on the causes of increases in various illnesses and ailments at specific ages. Scientists discovered substantial alterations in molecules related to alcohol, caffeine, and lipid metabolism, as well as cardiovascular disease, skin, and muscle in people in their forties. Researchers discovered changes in glucose and caffeine metabolism, immunological control, renal function, cardiovascular disease, skin, and muscle in people in their 60s.

The study’s authors did acknowledge that lifestyle may have a role in some of these changes. People who drink more heavily in their 40s, for example, may have an impact on alcohol metabolism, as this is a time of increased stress for many. However, the researchers stated that these spurts of aging in the mid-40s and early 60s suggest that people should pay more attention to their health at those ages and implement lifestyle adjustments that promote better general health, such as increasing exercise or decreasing alcohol use.

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The research team plans to investigate the causes of these aging bursts to understand why they occur at these ages, but regardless of the reasons, it’s reassuring to know that the seemingly rapid onset of age-related problems is not just a myth.

Logically, we are concerned about aging, as bodily indicators of age remind us of our mortality. Additionally, societal messaging often portrays youth as ideal and beautiful, while aging is viewed as awful and ugly, leading us to disregard aging. However, we cannot completely avoid aging, so cultivating a positive and healthy attitude towards aging will benefit us, regardless of the timing or severity of aging.