Growing Older Doesn't Automatically Mean You'll Get Fat, According to Science Rather, both sexes gain, but
gain, but weight tends to redistribute in women more quickly
MARLENE CIMONS, THE WASHINGTON POST
29 OCT 2019
One of the most frustrating things about getting older is when the pounds pile up
along with the years. Keeping weight off can be a challenge, even when you aren't
eating more or exercising less.
But don't be discouraged. Aging may be inevitable, but getting fatter need not be.
Obesity affects about 40 percent of American adults, including the young and
middle aged, an estimated 93.3 million adults, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
It is a serious public health problem, raising the risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart
disease, stroke and certain cancers.
One big reason we gain weight as we get older is because we gradually lose muscle
mass, about 1 percent every year, says Donald D. Hensrud, associate professor of
preventive medicine and nutrition at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
This causes a decrease in our basal metabolic rate, that is, the process of burning
calories while we are at rest. The lower the metabolic rate, the fewer calories we
burn.
"It may be imperceptible year to year, but compare the amount of muscle mass
with the average 80-year-old to the average 20-year-old and it becomes more
apparent," says Hensrud, also medical director of the Mayo Clinic's Healthy Living
Program.
"The greater the amount of muscle mass we have, the greater our resting metabolic
rate."
Also, spontaneous physical activity - separate from exercise - often ebbs with age,
he says.
"In general, the average 80-year-old will move less in small and big ways throughout
the day compared to the average 20-year-old," Hensrud says.
"And exercise, separate from daily activity, probably declines, although that only
affects in a large way the smaller proportion of people who exercise regularly."
Bethesda dietitian Jessica Murgueytio agrees.
"Many of my patients admit to moving less overall as they get older, and the first
thing I recommend for weight loss is to add weight training - at least two to three
days per week - to slow down sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), along with an
additional day or two of cardiovascular exercise," she said in an email.
She suggests working with a personal trainer, especially on weights, to learn to lift
safely and effectively.
"On top of this, I encourage my patients to meet the 10,000 steps per day goal, so
they are taking walks throughout the day or doing house or yard work, vs. getting
home from the gym and sitting all day," she said.
"This will also impact metabolic rate."
Changes in hormones - declines in testosterone in men and estrogen and
progesterone in women - also can affect weight. But it's a false assumption that
postmenopausal women gain more weight than men, Hensrud says.
than in men, often ending up in the abdomen - one reason for this misperception.
"Weight gain seems to affect men and women similarly," he says, typically about a
pound or more annually, often between Thanksgiving and New Year's.
"This doesn't seem like much, but on a population-wide basis it adds up to quite a
bit," he says.
"It is cumulative. It stays on. So, after 20 or 30 years, it adds up. During menopause,
weight gain [in both sexes] is about the same. But [in women] weight shifts more
toward the abdominal region, so it appears to be greater weight gain. The same
thing happens in men - greater weight gain with age in the abdominal region - but it
occurs more gradually."
There also may be physiological influences at work. A recent study suggests that
lipid turnover in adipose tissue (where the body stores fat) decreases during the
aging process, meaning the removal of fat from fat cells slows down, contributing to
weight gain.
Researchers studied the fat cells in 54 men and women during a 13-year span, and
all of them showed declines in their rate of lipid turnover.
The results indicate that processes in the fat tissue "regulate changes in body
weight during aging in a way that is independent of other factors," says Peter Arner,
of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and one of the study's main authors, along
with collaborators from Uppsala University in Sweden and University of Lyon in
France.
Experts suggest people keep exercising regularly, monitor calories, lift weights and
move throughout the day, avoiding sitting as much as possible.
"All types of physical activity burn calories and are important," Hensrud says.
"Resistance training [weightlifting] helps lose abdominal fat. Exercise is the most
efficient way to burn calories," especially high-intensity interval training, or HIIT,
that is, short bursts of intense exercise followed by brief recovery periods.
"[HIIT] has also been shown to help lose abdominal fat," he says. "Moving
throughout the day instead of sitting can also help burn a relatively large amount of
calories."
Murgueytio warns that if exercise and muscle mass wane, it's important to
compensate by cutting calories.
"I encourage my patients to work on portion control and eating a higher volume of
lower calorie foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, since they will fill us up with
less total calories and are important for aging, vitality and disease prevention," she
says.
The good news is that weight gain seems to stabilize after the mid-60s, in part
because people often eat less when they get older, Hensrud says.
Obesity among those older than 60 is about 41 percent, compared with nearly 43
percent for people ages 40 to 59, and 36 percent for those 20 to 39, according to
the CDC.
"Although physical activity probably continues to decline throughout the life span,
energy [calorie] intake also tends to decline in the elderly," he says.
Extremely Rare Case Sees Woman Give Birth to 2 Babies Born 11 Weeks
Apart
PETER DOCKRILL
28 AUG 2019
More often than not, human twins are born within minutes of one another.
But sometimes, the delay between baby arrivals can get extended to days,
weeks… or even much longer.
In an extremely rare case in Kazakhstan, a woman gave birth to twins who
were born almost three whole months apart – with 11 weeks passing
between the births of a baby girl, Liya, on May 24, and her brother Maxim,
who eventually turned up this month on August 9.
Thankfully, the health of the mother, 29-year-old Liliya Konovalova, and her
two babies is reported to be fine, but the Kazakh Health Ministry, who
shared the news of the births on social media, estimates this unusual and
rare case was a one-in-50-million chance.
One of the factors behind the incredible time interval between Liya and
Maxim's births is that Liya was born very prematurely, weighing just 850
grams when she was born after a gestational period of only 25 weeks.
By contrast, when Maxim arrived almost three months later, that extra time
in the womb saw him delivered with a healthy birth weight of 2.9 kilograms
– more than three times heavier than his 'big' sister.
But Liya's premature arrival is only one part of the story. The fundamental
reason explaining the twins vastly different birthdays is that their mother
Liliya has an extremely rare anatomical condition called uterus didelphys – a
uterine malformation that effectively results in a double uterus.
When this occurs – which is in less than 0.5 percent of American women –
each foetus develops separately in its own uterus, but premature births
(and other events, including miscarriage) are a common complication
stemming from the abnormality.
Fortunately for Liliya Konovalova's growing family, which includes an elder
seven-year-old sister, none of the complications turned out to be fatal.
Liya's birth weight and size were very small, but the little girl is reported to
be developing well at about three months of age.
"My son was in no rush to come out into the world," Liliya told regional
media outlets.
"Thanks to our doctors, we prevailed… what they did is a miracle. My kids
now weigh around 3 kilograms and we're getting ready to be discharged
from the hospital."
Often, women with uterus didelphys are unaware they have a double
uterus, and when they become pregnant, may be unaware that they are in
fact pregnant with twins.
Such was the case for a Bangladeshi woman with the condition who gave
birth to twins 26 days apart earlier in the year, and whose doctor said he
had never "seen any case like this in my 30-year plus medical career".