You’re not going to find a reliable “debunking” in HN comments of a scientific paper published in Cell.
But this paper is about analyzing tissue samples from internal organs. Which is generally not what people feel when they “feel” aging. In fact most internal organs can’t be felt at all (no nerve endings), which is how people get surprised with Stage IV cancer diagnoses like pancreatic cancer.
What people generally feel are their muscles and joints are weaker and more painful. Or their eyesight gets worse. Or their digestive system works worse. And the truth is, there is a lot a person can do to adjust or mitigate these things, through simple lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.
So there is your ray of hope: you can do things differently to feel less old. Plenty of examples in the comments here.
That said, you are 100% for sure going to age and die, and there are also things you can do to help accept and prepare for that. Your body will change; your mind can change too.
> And the truth is, there is a lot a person can do to adjust or mitigate these things, through simple lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.
This is spot on. I'm 46 and I've been fortunate to be healthy and in decent shape my entire life; however, a check up that was fine but trending in the wrong direction prompted these lifestyle changes.
I lift run or lift daily, have reduced my carb intake significantly, stopped drinking, perform a short yoga routine each morning, and spend some time on the cushion each evening. I only wish I'd done this earlier because I feel so much better than I ever have.
To lose weight. I was at the cusp of being overweight, so decide to get my BMI (an admittedly flawed, but still useful metric) firmly into the middle of the expected range rather than at the upper bound.
I can't put a number on that, unfortunately. I don't do well with diets that require I keep track of all the details — it feels like a chore and I tend to give up — so I decided instead to adopt a simple rule of thumb: avoid carbs where possible. In practice, this means no breads, no pasta, no doughnuts, no sugary foods, etc. Instead, I eat more protein. This works well for me and I lost 15-20 lbs quite quickly and I now maintain a good weight. YMMV, though.
As for cushion time, my practice is very basic: just 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation each day (usually after working out). I feel calmer, less irritable, and more present in everyday life. It's not a panacea, but I find it helps me.
The counterpoint is that people will report that low carbs is bad for exercise. i also feel like low-carb is the only way I can easily lose weight and don't feel hungry all the time.
This is a good point. I certainly feel like I can lift more (weight and reps) when I've eaten more carbs. It's a bit of a balancing act to keep the weight off, but also have enough energy to exercise hard. To address this, after the initial weight loss I was less aggressive in avoiding carbs.
> In fact most internal organs can’t be felt at all (no nerve endings)
That might be technically true, but I think it's worth noting that many internal organs can produce pain, e.g. kidneys, gallbladder, pancreas, prostate, urethra, stomach, intestines, bladder, heart.
Only through chemical means which triggers relatively far away neurons to produce pain. This has the consequence that the pain is not felt at it's source.
E.g. a doctor will become very nervous if you report dizziness with a pain moving from your chest into your left shoulder or neck. Such pain originates along the path of the vagus nerve, which includes your lungs and heart (and half the digestive organs, and even the womb, kidneys and gall bladder sometimes). It's very tricky to diagnose, and usually extremely serious (as in ignoring it may cause death).
You're correct, but I've personally experienced the kind of referred pain you're describing, for both (at different times) prostate and kidneys, and doctors (and now me!) are pretty able to identify that and treat it.
We get plenty of sensations from our internal organs; just ask anyone who had kidney stones. The sensations may or may not feel like pain, but the internal organs are definitely not silent. The issue of referred pain is mostly related to organs sharing nerve supply at the spinal level, e.g., the liver and the left shoulder.
But this paper is about analyzing tissue samples from internal organs. Which is generally not what people feel when they “feel” aging. In fact most internal organs can’t be felt at all (no nerve endings), which is how people get surprised with Stage IV cancer diagnoses like pancreatic cancer.
What people generally feel are their muscles and joints are weaker and more painful. Or their eyesight gets worse. Or their digestive system works worse. And the truth is, there is a lot a person can do to adjust or mitigate these things, through simple lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.
So there is your ray of hope: you can do things differently to feel less old. Plenty of examples in the comments here.
That said, you are 100% for sure going to age and die, and there are also things you can do to help accept and prepare for that. Your body will change; your mind can change too.