Friday 27 May 2022 10:10 PM DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Why a bus pass isn't the only perk of getting older! trends now
There are lots of things that get worse as we age, from eyesight to reaction time, but I am delighted to say that there are also things that get better.
And there are plenty of older people out there showing what is still possible, from the Rolling Stones, who next week begin another worldwide tour (Mick Jagger is 78), to Anneka Rice, 63, who’s about to reprise her action role in a new version of Challenge Anneka.
But there are also scientifically proven reasons to celebrate getting older.
Allergies improveI used to be really sensitive to grass pollen, so much so that at this time of year I would have found it impossible to go walking in the fields without taking antihistamines.
But as I get older (I’m now 65), my hay fever has got better to the extent that I can now go into the fields without using the medication, or sneezing.
There are lots of things that get worse as we age, from eyesight to reaction time, but I am delighted to say that there are also things that get better
And this seems to be true for quite a number of those with allergies.
A few years ago, researchers at University Hospital in Lund, Sweden, followed up on a group of more than 4,000 people, ranging in age from 20 to 59, who had allergic rhinitis (inflammation of the inside of the nose, triggered by pollen, dust or mould).
Over the eight-year study period, as the older participants got older, one in five stopped having allergic attacks.
No one knows why some allergies get better with age but it may be because the immune system becomes less powerful as we get older, so your immune response to some allergens also reduces.
You sweat lessAnother thing I’ve noticed is that I sweat less than before. That’s because, as we get older, our sweat (or eccrine) glands become smaller and less active.
This was first demonstrated in 1987 in a study by Pennsylvania State University in the U.S., where older (aged 52 to 62) and younger women (aged 20 to 30) were asked to walk briskly on a treadmill in a hot, dry environment.
The older women, though working just as hard, sweated a lot less, which the researchers attributed to ‘an age-related structural alteration in the eccrine glands or surrounding skin cells’.
So one advantage of getting older is less sweaty T-shirts. As we also know, it’s the reaction of bacteria with sweat that causes body odour, so you’ll need less deodorant.
But bear in mind that we sweat for a reason — it helps us cool down — so you’re also more likely to overheat when you’ve over 50.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I sweat less than before. That’s because, as we get older, our sweat (or eccrine) glands become smaller and less active
Here’s another reason for me to be cheerful at 65: I experience far fewer hangovers.
Admittedly, that’s mainly because I drink less. Yet a recent Dutch study, published in the medical journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, found that even when older people drink as much as youngsters, they report less severe hangovers.
Based on the hangover experiences of 761 drinkers, aged between 18 and 94, the researchers concluded that the amount people drank, not surprisingly, was the best predictor of who would suffer most. But they also found that ‘hangover severity declines with age, even after controlling for the amount of alcohol consumed’. This could be because we become more tolerant to alcohol’s effects — but researchers also suggest that it may be due to older people’s higher pain threshold, at least to short-term pain.
Brain imaging studies suggest that older people have reduced connections in pain-sensing areas of the brain, which could help with hangovers but, sadly, we also have less activity in the parts of the brain that help switch off chronic, long-term pain.
Fewer MigrainesAnother form of headache, migraines, also become less common as we get older.
A few years ago, the Gothenburg Migraine Clinic in Sweden published a study looking at
