Age when body starts 'falling apart': It's earlier than you think
At what age health problems may begin (photo: pexels)
According to new research, smoking, alcohol consumption, and lack of physical exercise begin to negatively affect your body as early as age 36, WomensHealth reports
What the researchers discovered about the risky age
For the study, published in Annals of Medicine, researchers observed participants over 30 years, measuring their physical and mental health at the ages of 27, 36, 42, 50, and 61.
They also asked people about their risky habits, such as alcohol consumption and smoking, as well as how often they exercised.
Researchers found that both the presence of bad habits (for example, how much you smoke, drink, and avoid exercise at the time of testing) and how these habits increased over time were associated with declines in mental well-being, overall health deterioration, and a greater number of metabolic risk factors.
Importantly, the effects were just as strong at 36 as at 61. This is one of the first times this has been discovered in research.
However, the researchers from universities in Finland already knew that our health behaviors tend to form when we are younger and continue into middle age, so they were interested in examining how habits formed early in life affect the body.
These findings highlight the importance of tackling risky health behaviours as early as possible, the scientists say.
In particular, researchers also found that a lack of physical activity is especially associated with poor physical health.
Smoking has a very strong impact on mental health, and excessive alcohol consumption is associated with a decline in both mental and physical health.
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