Invisible Signs of Aging?

The only things I can come up with aren't exact: wear on the teeth and wear on the joints, especially if any arthritis is setting in. But a doctor could only measure this in a relative way by comparing to data he had from before.

Another way would be to measure the lengths of the telomeres on his chromosomes. These are thought to act as molecular clocks and these get shorter each time a cell divides. When the telomeres shorten to a certain length, the cell dies. Some people believe (or at least that was the theory about 10 years ago) that if you could keep the telomeres from getting shorter you could effectively have immortal cells, and therefore immortal organisms. I don't think this is an exact science, but it might be worth looking into and might be close enough for the purposes of your story.

I remember the telomeres thing. Check out this article:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101003205928.htm

It says you can clearly see the difference in cells from a 9-year-old vs a 90-year-old. You could probably constrict that down to the timeframe you need with convincing writing, especially if you give your guy a set of baseline measurements from before the episode, like Chris was suggesting, that could all add up to the same conclusion: the guy's body isn't wearing out.

Telomeres, though, shorten less in highly active people...

Other ideas might be loss of muscle mass, hearing loss (esp. to high pitched noises), loss of eyesight (esp. close vision), receding gum line (hence the phrase "long in the tooth"), less elasticity and firmness in the skin, lower flexibility. Lower reproductive function (in women reduced fertility then menopause, in men lower sperm count).

Admittedly, most of these are "comparison" things. (Other than hearing. I'd be astonished to find a 40 year old who could still hear that horrible high pitched whistle that supposedly only teens can hear. Then again, I'm in my 30s who can hear it, so I guess I'm on one extreme of natural variation. Oh lucky me...)

Maybe give him a degenerative problem of aging, like knee osteoarthritis, and the doctor tells him he will need knee replacements in a year, but his x-rays look exactly the same after five years. Or non-progressive prostate cancer? Most men get prostate cancer as they age (but most of them will die of something else first). 40 is a bit young but it can be diagnosed that early.

Most people are not going to get their telomeres measured as part of a medical procedure, but it really is the only highly reliable method given that people age differently. Once into middle age the stable measures (lung capacity, blood parameters, weight) and lack of usual signs of aging (gray hair, cloudy eye fluid) would start to add up. but even if he is not aging I would expect him to be wearing stuff out like teeth and joints and even getting a bit short sighted unless he is also a super-healer.

You might also look at natural energy levels. There seems to be a certain age period where you are extremely tired for no particular reason, then once you're passed it, you're full of energy again.

Mutive said:

I'd be astonished to find a 40 year old who could still hear that horrible high pitched whistle that supposedly only teens can hear.

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Be astonished My step son and I would drive my wife crazy because she couldn't hear it but we could. I also thank the stars for LCD tv screens and monitors. The CRT ones hummed at a frequency that drove me crazy and nobody else could hear. The TV section of Wal-Mart was torture.

Five years is not enough to make a difference. You would need more like 20+ to start seeing something was not aging. If an athlete can have the heart of a 20 year old just because they work out then it stands to reason that five years would not be much.IMHO

Speaking from personal experience, I could tell I was aging when I started to have pain getting out of a chair. I made noises...the same kind of noises my grandparents used to make that embarrassed me as a child. LOL EEK. My eyesight started to go and I developed cataracts. I could no longer drive at night and in sun glare. People who didn't previously need eye correction often need reading glasses.
For women doctors can do a test to see if they're in perimenopause or menopause, but that wouldn't apply to men. I'm not sure about changes in sperm. Hollywood has a lot of ancient fathers, but that's anecdotal .
Memory takes a hit in the early 40s, especially short term memory. Part of this is change in hormones, and I'm not sure about guys.
For women bone density tests often change and in the 40s more women develop osteopenia and osteoporosis. This is a hormone thing, but I can't believe women are hit with all these medical changes and men escape scott free .

Chris P said:

Be astonished My step son and I would drive my wife crazy because she couldn't hear it but we could. I also thank the stars for LCD tv screens and monitors. The CRT ones hummed at a frequency that drove me crazy and nobody else could hear. The TV section of Wal-Mart was torture.

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Hey, the human body is a strange, strange thing. It's part of why I crack up at scenarios where something happens to "all" people of a certain gender/race/age/whatever but no one else. I mean, hell, we can't even kill all rabbits with a virus that doesn't also take out all other mammals. Natural variation is *huge*.

I think you should look at the concept of biological age vs. chronological age.

http://www.antiaging-magazine.com/articles/article_2_2.html

I'm not a doctor and haven't really looked into it so please someone correct me if I'm wrong. But from what I understand each of us has a biological age that can be determined from a number of factors such as: BMI, lung capacity, hormone levels, and other biomarkers. Then these factors are compared to what is typically seen at different ages.

A 40 year-old could have a biologial age of a 30-year-old or vice versa. I don't know if doctors typically do this on patients, but it seems like a good idea to do in preventative care since (from what I understand) you can lower your biological age by taking better care of yourself.

As for you story, I don't think the doctor would blink an eye if his biological age didn't change or was even decreased, but the character might be confused if it decreased if he hadn't done anything different.

Hope this helps.

I have a disease that my doctor completely missed back in the day because it's common (eta: among folks who have it) in the elderly, not girls in their 20's (he was a horrible doctor, too, but I'm simplifying things ). It's called Pernicious Anemia.

You might be able to find more full-on diseases that have strong age correlations like that. If someone had a handful of rare ones like that, that would have to be very, very odd.

If I'm understanding right, he hasn't aged in five years?
He stopped aging five years ago?
I don't think there would be any way a doctor could tell that, since people age at different rates.

I have to agree, a normal person could not age noticeably in five years.

Bracken said:

If I'm understanding right, he hasn't aged in five years?
He stopped aging five years ago?
I don't think there would be any way a doctor could tell that, since people age at different rates.

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Oh, yeah. I see the exact setup now, and that is different than I ran with. Sorry

Missing 5 years of aging would be quite hard to spot, I'd think.

When you're in your forties, you usually have a sort of line about halfway up your teeth where the enamel below the line is turning clearer.

There's always the penchant for buying muscle cars...

MAP said:

I think you should look at the concept of biological age vs. chronological age.

http://www.antiaging-magazine.com/articles/article_2_2.html

I'm not a doctor and haven't really looked into it so please someone correct me if I'm wrong. But from what I understand each of us has a biological age that can be determined from a number of factors such as: BMI, lung capacity, hormone levels, and other biomarkers. Then these factors are compared to what is typically seen at different ages.

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That's pretty much what I got from this book which discusses such biomarkers in depth:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568581572/?tag=absowrit-20
A 40 year-old could have a biologial age of a 30-year-old or vice versa. I don't know if doctors typically do this on patients, but it seems like a good idea to do in preventative care since (from what I understand) you can lower your biological age by taking better care of yourself.[/quote]
Exactly - for example, many "bad" things such as blood glucose and cholesterol levels on average go up with age, and it's the combinations of these values that are used for "biological age." Doctors may do such tests and look at the results individually, but may not think of a "biological age" from a combination of the test results.

And yes, eating a better diet and getting proper exercise can and almost certainly WILL lower one's biological age as measured by these markers. You'll actually feel better, too.

I've really wanted to do that diet for a long time, but it hasn't been easy for me. Even so, I've learned a lot from it and my diet is substantially improved over what it was decades ago.

As for you story, I don't think the doctor would blink an eye if his biological age didn't change or was even decreased, but the character might be confused if it decreased if he hadn't done anything different.

Hope this helps.

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Again, I agree here.

There's a popular book titled "Younger Next Year" and I see it as a good motivational book, but it's pretty general about diet with the main advice being "don't eat junk" or "don't eat crap" (it's been years since I read it). Walford's books (and Ray Kurzweil's "Ten Percent Solution" and later books on health) are much more specific if you want to know exactly what and how much to eat, and why, to optimize your health.