Why do we shrink as we age? | Live Science


Have you noticed someone getting shorter as the years slip by? Some people may start hunching over and even get a few inches shorter. So what makes us shrink as we age?

It turns out that it’s a combination of our bones “eating” themselves, our cartilage thinning and our muscles being whittled away. But the rates at which these processes happen vary depending on genes, physical nutrition and activity levels across a person’s lifespan.

“We all age differently biologically,” Marian Hannan, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who researches aging, told Live Science.

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