You’re not imagining it. People are ageing so much better today
Why do people of a certain age look far younger than past generations? Diet, lifestyle, medicine and even our perception are key. But what more can be done to feel good too?
Have you noticed that people today look far younger than previous generations did at the same age? A transformation in healthy lifestyles appears to have also transformed how we look as we age compared to prevous generations.
Take 56-year-old Australian actor Hugh Jackman.
Sure, he’s a product of Hollywood with the benefit of discreet doctors (should he choose), the means to eat well and to hire help to do mundane chores. And working out is a necessity for his employment. But there’s more to it than that.
Now look at, say, Sir Robert Menzies at the same age.
To be fair, acting and running a country do seem like they would come with different stress, so perhaps we need to look at a few other examples.
Let’s compare Pat Cummins and Sir Donald Bradman at similar ages. Both are young men in these images, but there’s also a general aura that appears to be different and not explained by a two-year age gap.
It’s not just the men, either, who show the differences between generations.
And if we are matching like for like in their professions, as well as their ages, here are some politicians at the top of their game in different eras.
What are the differences we see?
So what’s happening here? Is there something going on that’s greater than our inability to reconcile with our own ageing? Are we truly ageing better now than in the past? The answer is mostly yes, but there are multiple factors at play.
Part of what we are seeing is simply skewed by modern context.
“There is a social construct to ageing, which is about the context of someone’s hairdo, makeup choices, the clothes they wear, the type of built environment that they’re living in,” says Dr Kieran Le Plastrier.
“Those things actually code ageing in a particular way culturally.”
Le Plastrier is an assistant professor at Bond University on the Gold Coast and an integrative general practitioner, which he describes as considering relationships, stress management and physical activity alongside traditional healthcare.
Le Plastrier says improved nutrition has also helped to make people, on average, taller than the past which can create the illusion of a more youthful appearance.
“Baby boomers, on average, are taller than their parents because they have better nutrition.
“There are certain markers of ageing such as skin discolouration, wrinkling and even the stature of the person; these things have actually changed over time and (older people today) look more youthful.”
Then there is the increased awareness and accessibility of skincare interventions both at home and at clinics where everything from lasers to high intensity facials and non-surgical injectables are offered.
Dr Stephen Crimston is the medical director of Saint Clinic Group, which oversees doctor-led cosmetic clinics in Sydney. He says alongside the increased accessibility to skincare and interventions has come a rise in social acceptance of such things.
“When I first started in cosmetic medicine my patients would say, oh, Steve, I love what you do, but I can’t tell any of my friends. Whereas now, it’s completely different,” he says.
“I think there’s a lot of different factors that play into why this is the case. Chief among that is social awareness of ageing and all the things that we can now do to reduce the ravages of ageing in many ways.”
Lifestyle changes
As well as modern context, the main contributor to the difference in ageing is lifestyle, particularly how we have changed our habits in smoking, alcohol consumption, restricted diets and excessive sun exposure.
We are more sun-safe and understand the importance of protecting our skin from the harmful effects of UV. The rise of machines, robotics and automation have reduced the amount of physical labour we need to do, especially outside.
Taken together, more people are living healthier lives.
“We’ve been aware for decades now about the importance of maintaining physical activity, moderate diets, and minimising alcohol,” says Le Plastrier.
“There’s good evidence that the sun-smart messages since the 1970s have actually reduced the amount of damage done to people’s skin, and as a result that they do have fewer wrinkles (and) they often have fuller complexions, less ruddy complexions.
“Now we’re seeing the benefit of that through generations, notwithstanding that there are ongoing issues with lifestyle illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.”
Likewise, quitting smoking has had a significant impact on our health and how we age.
While the health dangers of tobacco had been suspected for decades, the first major reports to make their mark dropped in the 1950s and 60s. However, it was not until more targeted public health messaging and tobacco controls began in the 1980s that Australia started to see a significant decline in smoking rates.
According to the group Tobacco in Australia, the proportion of people regularly smoking has dropped from 35.5 per cent in 1980 to around 20 per cent in 2010. Today, it is estimated fewer than 10 per cent of people smoke daily, although vaping is an issue.
Like too much sun exposure, smoking damages and prematurely ages the skin. It can also discolour teeth which can contribute to a more aged appearance. Previously, twin studies have been used to show the impact of smoking on physical appearance, showing the sibling who smoked the longest looked older.
Improved sun protection, a healthy diet and no smoking are good for collagen production too.
Collagen is a fibre-like structural protein found in connective tissue, skin, tendons, bones and cartilage throughout our bodies. It’s the most abundant protein in the body and keeps our skin firm.
Collagen peaks at around the age of 25 and its loss is inevitable as we age because our bodies produce less of it. It’s part of the reason our skin gets thinner, more prone to wrinkles, and takes longer to heal.
That loss can be further accelerated by damage from UV exposure, and lifestyle factors including excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, diets high in sugar and processed foods, poor sleep, and a lack of exercise.
We get most of our collagen from our diet but a good skincare routine that includes sunscreen is also considered to be the gold standard for slowing its loss.
“There are some ways we can modify that ageing process, and some ways we can’t,” Crimston says.
He explains that how we age can be defined by genetics, but also external elements such as sun exposure and smoking. “So, looking after your skin is of prime importance,” he says.
“In the context of skin, things like sunscreen two to three times a day are really important because the UV will break down your collagen.”
He says more intense skin treatment options may be offered to some patients, including the use of bio modulators tailored to individual needs.
“When we talk about those sorts of treatments, we’re really talking a lot about lasers, energy-based devices that could really help. There are certainly bio-stimulators and bio-modulators. “It’s really best that you’re approaching each patient individually and managing their expectations of what they want to achieve.”
Longevity … and the rise of daddy and cougar culture
Australians are also living and working for longer, which can affect healthy ageing.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a boy born between 2021 and 2023 can expect to live to 81.1 years and a girl 85.1 years, compared to just 51.1 years for boys and 54.8 years for girls born between 1891 and 1900.
Life expectancy has dropped slightly for the past two years, by 0.1 years for men and 0.2 years women, attributed largely to the pandemic. However, concerns are also rising about rising rates of chronic disease due to lifestyle factors such as highly processed foods.
As we live longer, we are also expected to stay in the workforce for longer. For some people, that means maintaining their health and fitness for longer too.
Some opt for interventions, such as those provided in longevity clinics and skin treatment clinics.
“I have patients who are men in the workplace too who have been made redundant and say they need a spruce up because they’re doing interviews,” Crimston says.
“That works into ageism but also how confident they are. It’s not the main thing that leads them through the door, but it does happen all the time.”
Le Plastrier says projecting youthfulness is far from new and even dates back to the Egyptians. But he thinks change may be afoot, with newer trends embracing the wisdom and beauty of ageing.
Some of those changing trends are a little different, he says, pointing to the “daddy complex” and the “cougar complex”.
“That’s really interesting, that we now fetishise and celebrate age, in terms of sexual appetites and sexual desires, in some parts of culture. For example, in the LGBTIQA+ culture, there’s a real celebration of ageing. Ageing doesn’t mean you’re any less sexually desirable or virile.”
It’s a trend he suspects is growing.
Keys to ageing
It is important to recognise some other trends when it comes to age and health.
While life expectancy has grown, so has the incidence of chronic disease which can lead to disability and premature death.
Data shows that in 2022, 61 per cent of people were living with at least one long-term health condition, with anxiety and back problems the most common.
Diseases influenced by lifestyle choices such as substance use, diet and exercise are considerable concerns of policymakers, doctors and a growing number of patients.
In Australia, coronary heart disease was the leading underlying cause of death for men in 2023, accounting for 10.8 per cent of deaths. For women, dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease was the leading underlying cause of deaths in the same year, accounting for 12.2 per cent of deaths.
Advances in medicine have contributed significantly to longevity but there is a difference between life span and healthy life span.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that in 2023, Australians lost an estimated 4.4 million years of healthy life due to chronic conditions, equivalent to 85 per cent of the total disease burden in that year.
It is why so much attention is now focused on modifiable lifestyle changes we can all make.
Cardiologist Professor Jason Kovacic recently wrote in The Australian that without medications such as statins, “no doubt many of my patients would have suffered entirely preventable heart attacks or strokes”.
Social status is also considered to play a role in a person’s life expectancy, with lower education and income levels linked to worse health outcomes.
Dr Daniel Blackmore works with the Queensland Brain Institute which sits within The University of Queensland. His primary research focuses on neuroscience, biotechnology and cell biology, and he led a team that recently published a paper examining the influence of exercise on brain health and it included some important findings.
They started by looking at how different exercise intensities influenced cognitive performance in healthy people aged 65 to 85 years.
“We wanted to look really, really specifically in depth at how different intensities of exercise could influence cognition,” he says.
They specifically looked at what impact exercise had on the hippocampus part of the brain, which is largely responsible for learning and memory.
They divided participants into three groups, with one performing low intensity exercise like stretching. Another group did medium-intensity exercises like walking on a treadmill at a consistent pace. The final group performed high-intensity internal training. Sessions lasted 40 to 45 minutes and occurred three times a week.
“The really interesting thing was that the high-intensity group improved their hippocampal dependent spatial learning, while the low-intensity and the medium-intensity remained stable,” Blackmore says.
“Beyond that, we’re lucky enough to follow these wonderful volunteers five years after they started the intervention, and that improvement that we noted in the high-intensity group was actually retained for up to five years following the initiation of the intervention, which is a remarkable finding.
“Exercise is really beneficial in activating these stem cells to produce neurons and improve spatial learning in the hippocampus.”
Blackmore believes the findings are “just the tip of the iceberg” because ageing and cognitive decline are some of the biggest risks for dementia, a condition that affects almost half a million Australians.
He would like the findings to be used to inform exercise guidelines for older people.
Happiness is also a key component to a contented life. Le Plastrier believes it, too, needs to be considered as part of a well-rounded approach to healthy ageing, just as traditional medical interventions are.
“We’ve got all this evidence that the most important things in people’s lives, in terms of what makes a life worth living, are actually about meaningful relationships,” he says.
“It’s not about the number of pills you’re on. It’s not that managing diabetes and blood pressure isn’t important, it’s just, that’s not the key to ageing well.
“The key to ageing well is finding purpose and meaning and that can sound esoteric, but when you look at all the studies long term, it’s consistently found that the happiest people, the people most satisfied with their lives are the ones who have friends and family around them.
“So I think that should always be the emphasis of what we do.”
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