In this age, people do get a bit melodramatic when they turn 35 years old. After all, pop culture and social media have painted this age as a milestone where we all become old hags (excuse our French) and start becoming decrepit. Western society as a whole has decided that it’s okey—or at least, part of life and therefore something to put up with—that our joints start hurting in our thirties, we suddenly wake up with back pain, and our metabolism has decided to jump off a cliff and live as hanging with water retention and poor digestion.
There is not enough Korean skincare, retinol and creatine supplements to combat the fact that our bodies are undergoing a shift, but knowledge is power, and there is a way to understand our biology and retain the quality of life and overall health we enjoyed in our early twenties. This is were a certain Spanish expert comes in.
When it comes to predicting how the human body changes, hardly anyone in the medical world has a better perspective than Ángel Durántez. As a trailblazer in preventive medicine and an expert on aging well, he knows exactly what path most of us are likely to go down. Because of that, it’s worth listening closely to what he has to say. He pushes people to do something about their health while they are young and even identifies the specific moment that serves as a major turning point in our lives.
The key age to start looking after ourselves
Durántez was very direct about this during a recent interview with the Diario de Mallorca. When the reporter asked if stopping illness is actually possible, his answer seemed scary at first, though he quickly explained the details: “Starting around age 35 or 40, we enter a state of being pre-ill.”
Durántez explains that this is the point where all the illnesses linked to getting older—specifically those chronic conditions that aren’t infectious—start to grab hold. Every person will follow a unique path based on different factors: “Some people drift toward heart disease early on, others toward diabetes, and others toward brain decline or cancer, largely relying on our genetics.”
He explains that this might happen because of the “theory of programmed senescence,” a biological concept describing how cells naturally age and stop splitting without actually dying. As he describes it, “in a sense, we are wired to start fading out once we have finished our biological cycle.”
Such a claim naturally brought up a logical next question. With that in mind, at what age should a person actually start focusing on their health? Although the standard answer might be “the earlier the better,” Durántez points out a key detail: “At age 44, specifically, the pace of aging accelerates. You’re free to start whenever. You might think, ‘I smoke, drink, and use drugs because I’m young, and I’ll just deal with my health when I turn 50.’ You’ll likely reach that age in rough shape. Ultimately, everyone has to choose how they want to handle their own health.”
From his point of view, age 40 is when you need to start getting serious about your health. “Most of the people visiting our clinics are in their early 40s or their 50s,” he explains, using the same logic he brought up before. “But obviously, we uncover more issues in your 50s than we would if you had visited us at 40.”
How to prevent and safeguard or quality of life
There are obvious lists of what to do: clean eating, hitting the gym, keeping away from alcohol and cigarettes, etc. However, there are other key factors that might sound weird, but they are reveal a lot about our health. One of them is our sense of balance.
This skill depends on your inner ear, the cerebellum, and tiny sensors in your muscles, all of which start to decline after age 35 if you don’t actively challenge them. The doctor suggests that standing on one leg for 30 seconds while brushing your teeth is an excellent way to train your brain-body coordination and drastically lower the risk of falls later in life.
After age 30, most people naturally start losing muscle mass. From your mid-30s on, you gradually lose muscle fibers and bone density, so doing strength and impact exercises is vital. These movements send physical signals through your body, prompting it to rebuild those tissues stronger. This habit protects your metabolism, stabilizes your joints, and controls your glucose levels.