| “Thirty-five is the worst age,” Tom Hanks recently declared. “That time where your metabolism stops, gravity starts tearing you down, your bones start wearing off, you stand differently.” If the Great American Everyman says it, it must be true. But I took a peek at the science just to be safe. A Nature Aging study, published in August 2024, studied the “nonlinear dynamics” of aging and observed “substantial dysregulation” at two chronological ages: 44 and 60. But in an earlier study, the same team of Stanford researchers had pinpointed aging surges at 34, 60 and 78. So which is it? I wouldn’t sweat the exact number. These studies have to make do with protein samples from different populations, so there’s bound to be variance. Hanks is onto something either way — and the most important takeaway here, as summarized by neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray, is twofold. | 