Organ Grinder

You’re getting older. That won’t come as a surprise. But what you may not know is that statement could be more true for some of your parts than others. Scientist have learned that the aging process is “not solely about minutes and years passing. Once considered a steady, predictable decline, affecting everything in our bodies, everywhere, all at once, aging is much more haphazard than we once thought, starting in different parts of our bodies at different times, possibly long before we’re even thinking about aging.” Gretchen Reynolds in WaPo (Gift Article): Inside your body, aging unfolds at remarkably different rates. “By using advanced molecular biology, genetics and big data to analyze blood samples from people, scientists can tell that some of us are ‘heart agers,’ meaning our hearts appear much older than the rest of our bodies, or we’re ‘brain agers,’ with a relatively old brain in our skulls, or if we’re fortunate, we might be ‘brain youthers,’ with a brain relatively younger than any other organ we possess. Or we could be ‘muscle agers’ or ‘liver youthers.’ Almost any organ can be the first to show signs of extreme aging.” (This confirms the rationality of the lifelong strategy I’ve applied to all of my organs: I’m pacing myself.)

+ In an effort to slow what has become my recently accelerating aging process (I’m already about 300 years older than I was on November 5), I’m going to take a few days off for some Thanksgiving family time, assuming nothing really weird happens in the news (Ha ha ha ha … ha ha ha ha…) Have an excellent holiday weekend.