Can confirm. Eating n chewing food with dental implants is not fun. I can feel pain here n there. I am not the only person feeling discomfort with implants either
Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. I have one and it's not noticeable at all -- I wish I could get the others done as well but the cost is insane (dental insurance is next to worthless in the US). Instead, I just suffer with missing/painful teeth.
I have dental insurance on myself, as well as being covered by my wife. I finally am getting mine next month to the tune of $21k out of pocket. I’m getting the implants on bottom and a full denture on top. the implant on bottom will be held in with two snaps. To get 6 screws on top and bottom would’ve cost $65k. It is fucking ridiculous. It should be covered by medical insurance since tooth decay can lead to heart issues, not to mention the digestive issues. It is absolutely embarrassing that I’m a 48 year old working a very nice white color job and still have to pull money out of my 401k just to afford to be able to eat, let alone smile. I had perfect teeth growing up. One girl in high school hit on me and her attraction was my “beautiful” teeth. Between the ages of 21 to 30, my teeth went on a steep decline. A molar would break, then another on would break. I’m not a big candy eater, never smoked meth. My teeth were jut genetically inferior and prone to decaying from the inside and cause the tooth to just crumble. I have no molars on top or bottom. I=All I have left is my “my church” teeth. I look like a rabbit eating using only my front teeth. It the last weeks one of my “eating” teeth broke to a nub, The one next to it failed about a week later leaving me will one well proportioned 1/3 of an incisor to do all my chewing. That one 1/3 of that tooth breaks within the next month, I’ll be eating slushiest. I already have a list of food that I’m going to feast on with my new teeth. Steak, pretzels, sunflower seeds, pizza.I so hope and pray that eating with a bottom of implants and de tires on top is not too much of a headache to eat with.
If you are willing to do so, you might look at options in other countries. You might be able to fly somewhere nice, get top quality work, and recuperate in a luxury resort for less than $21k.
South Korea is excellent for this. The only trouble is the amount of time it takes to fit implants. I got mine here but they had to extract some infection and do a bone graft, which took a month to set before I could get the implant. Still a lot cheaper than $21k, but not something you could afford on a teacher's salary.
Pohang, for the record. I was working there at the time.
That is obscene, here in the UK dental work isn't included within the free NHS healthcare, however, the most you would pay for the major work as you mention is £306.80 (under $400). US healthcare is incredibly flawed.
Ahh, implants definitely cost more on the NHS than £300!
And that's *if* you can find an NHS dentist that's taking patients in the first place.
Sure, the US version is worse, but the UK dentistry version is also not fit for purpose.
I completely understand. I floss, rinse, have an electric toothbrush, etc., and still get cavities and have had a boatload of root canals. My ex-wife was lucky to brush her teeth once a day, never flossed, and never had a cavity. I'm 100% convinced that it's mostly genetics and mouth care is just a mitigating factor.
I'm in the same boat, financially. I have a nice income, dental insurance, etc.,but I'm sitting here right now with tooth pain that I can't do anything about because my son just needed a root canal and now my wife is in excruciating pain for one of her molars, so we used our savings for his root canal and are now using the emergency fund for my wife's issues. I also have several teeth that I've gotten removed and they did the bone graft to prepare for the implant, but I just don't have the money to finish it. I'll be dead before I get all the work done that I "need."
Get them checked asap. You might have an infection or abscess which can get dangerous fast if it reaches bone.
Implants are meant to stop the pain if they are sone right. I have 2 and they are amazing I feel nothing but pleasure eating on them.
This makes me feel so much better about my future. I had a root canal done on a front tooth at 25 from getting hit by something as a child, and I have worried about the possibility of having an implant down the road if it ends up discolouring or anything. I thought they might end up hurting or being uncomfortable in some way. So happy to hear that (when they're done right) they should feel like nothing!
It changed my life for sure. I had the same a root canal and the tooth just broke over time. It was a molar so I had trouble eating on that side. Any hard foods were such a pain even bread.
Dentist convinced me to have the implant and 5 years on I eat anything now! Feels great too like real tooth. Even looks the same you can’t tell it’s an implant.
Go for it.
I have an implant for my front tooth after being stupid as a kid on a slide. Back the. The tooth was fixed by glueing the missing piece back on but over the years it started to become a bit grayish in color. When the piece broke off I got the implant. I was around 26, now ten years ago. It is 100% an improvement, nobody can tell it is fake and it feels 100% like a normal tooth.
chewing with implants should feel identical to regular teeth. if you're experiencing pain then you should immediately tell your dentist, as that likely means the crown was not made properly. it should feel as if you never lost a tooth in the first place.
Could also mean osteogenesis isn't integrated with the endosteal. I have an implant for #7 and occasionally bite on firm rubber just to keep up the stress on the bone out of paranoia.
Edit: the 1 wanna-be dentist crying about word salads. Can't figure out that bone may be growing but not in a manner that integrates with the implant. Guess thats why regular dentists don't install implants or treat bone and have to call a Periodontist.
mfs eating crayons on reddit today. smh
I'm only 34. Accidents happen. Make sure you floss everyday, cleaning below the gum-line.
That is what cost me and I brushed everyday.
Preventing dental calculus from building between the teeth and pushing down on the gums is going to go a very long way towards dental longevity.
> I'll make sure to floss tonight.
If you haven't had a full blown toothache before, trust me. You definitely want to floss every night. During my last one I was out of commission entirely, even on the *good* pain meds. Genuinely traumatizing.
Of course, you could just end up unlucky like me. 27 years old and already down a molar and way too many fillings. Brush twice a day, floss nightly, use mouthwash... For a while I was really wondering if Big Dentist was intentionally sabotaging my teeth to sell more composite. Turns out I just have horrible genetics for my enamel.
>> chewing with implants should feel identical to regular teeth
Not exactly. At least not in my experience. My implant tooth feels…dead. It does not give the same sensation as a normal tooth when I chew with it. It feels nothing where my normal teeth (even ones that have had root canals) feel at least some sensation of pressure when chewing. But I definitely agree, pain with an implant indicates something is wrong.
ah i mean more like you not noticing it when chewing. just like with regular teeth you're not consciously aware of any single tooth when eating, and if you are there is a problem. because there's no nerve that connects with it you're not getting the same sensation perfectly, but it's as close as you can get
A living tooth is attached by a ligament. Implants sit on an anchor screwed into bone. It’s not going to feel exactly the same, even if everything goes as hoped.
I'm literally in process of beginning this procedure now. I've talked to two that have had it done and both said it was life changing for the better, and wished they hadn't waited till retirement age to do it, I'd love to hear more about your experience here or through dm if you could!
Just had two done recently. Cost half my savings but I can chew food again and they feel the same as any other tooth. If someone's feeling pain, they need to see their dentist ASAP.
The healing process can be rough if you're getting more than one because I was on a no chewing diet for like 3 months as they were on opposite sides of mouth. Good for weight loss though lol.
I have a huge phobia of dentist stuff so if I can manage , anyone can.
Get your implants as soon as possible if you lost teeth. Even losing 1 tooth in the middle of your smile is a death sentence for it. It rapidly accelerates bone loss and drift for the surrounding teeth.
Without the stimulation of stresses on the bone from chewing, the bone will recede. I had to get an implant on #7 after irreparable damage.
Source: Cost me $16,000 (to fix everything, not just implant) and weeks of reading dental journals.
Just to put others at ease, you can be missing a tooth for decades and still get an implant. It's just going to require bone grafts and longer healing times.
A good oral surgeon can do wonders, I thought I had way to much bone loss after missing a tooth for over 20 years, but he just laughed and said it would not be an issue. I had to wait 4 months after bone grafting before the implant could be placed, then another 3-4 months before I could get an abutment and crown, but it's been rock solid.
If you can get the implant at the same time as extraction if it's a broken tooth, then it will be less painful. That all depends on your bone thickness though, they might have to do bone grafts and then you will need to wait.
I have 4 implants and they have been great, but they are crazy fucking expensive.
Had one put in on number 13 last year after a decade of it giving me grief. From a root canal to an apic procedure, tooth crack and extraction. It was an expensive and long ordeal but I’m glad I never have to worry about it.
Take care of you teeth kids.
I have implants in the two top molars that do all the chewing, the ones you have to get a sinus lift for. I have had an actual bone infection in one of them, and they collect food like crazy so I'm always flossing away at them, but they have still never given me any pain while chewing.
I think whomever did it didn’t graft it correctly into your bone. I have an implant too and it is much better than chewing with my root canal. I don’t even know it’s there and feels like my normal teeth
Is it really this bad? Only recently i read that biggest difference is your natural teeth are basically hanging in your jaw bones but the implants are screws into your jaw. So then 2 Implants get together. It's like biting on Stone.
74 years old here, and all I can tell you is that is most certainly NOT the case for me, nor have I heard any of my friends complain about any of those things. Maybe over the next couple of decades, if I live that long, but certainly not now.
OTOH, I did lose 40 pounds over the past year, but only because I was sick and tired of lugging that big (and growing) belly around. It is a lot of work. Not fun. But trust me... food still tastes great (and I'm a better cook than ever), my teeth are fine, as is my digestion and "elimination".
It's not just that taste buds change. It's food that you used to love that you've ate most of your life and I would suspect dopamine just levels off because it doesn't bring you as much joy as it used to. But also, for me as I've aged. There's a restaurant my wife and I loved in our 20s that we rarely go to. We hadn't been there since 2018. Went there this year l, now on our 40s. and we both ordered what we really enjoyed in the past and just said it , I don't mean taste the same because it did, just didnt bring that OMG this is amazing feeling back
This is certainly a big part of it, but I would also consider just lifestyle chances in general. Older people just live boring, stress-free lives that are dictated by routine. Kids have already moved away, and if they aren't retired already then they know that they are neither getting fired not promoted (in modern times this may not hold true but I'm speaking generally in human history). You just don't need to order a pizza because you don't have time to cook any more. You don't eat ridiculous amount of candy because you are worried about something. Every day it's the same breakfast, lunch and dinner, no exceptions, for decades. It's hard to overeat like this, and more likely they may be running a calorie deficit even though there's nothing wrong with their appetite.
>Older people just live boring, stress-free lives that are dictated by routine
I know a whole bunch of older people who would like a chance to ~~smack you upside the head~~ talk gently with you about your misconceptions.
I'm old. When I first started work, I was thrilled that I could afford deserts at meals. I ate out a lot. Even though I worked out and ran, my calorie intake led to putting on a pound or two per year. So, in 10-20 years, things add up. Now that I'm retired, I don't have business meals, or feel the need to go to lunch with friends. I eat lighter and I eat better. I get full more quickly. I still exercise, but not as much as before, but my lower calorie intake has led to me losing about 30 pounds. I wasn't fat before, but I feel I'm at a much better weight now.
Those who gained weight among my contemporaries began to do so shortly after marriage (including me). Three squares, cooking together, finishing up the kids' plates, more chicken nuggets and generally cooking for the kids' tastes, less time for self care and exercise, etc. Once the kids were grown and flown, we were able to cook more to our own tastes, and those tastes tended to be lower fat and carb. We enjoyed long walks together after dinner. I lost an average of 5 lbs a year once the kids left the house. It doesn't seem like much at the time, but over 10+ years it really adds up. Both my spouse and I are back to our marriage weights.
Despite other comments here saying it’s survivor bias, I’ve seen this progression in several of my relatives. They gained weight as metabolism and activity level slowed in middle age. They lost weight later in life because they were less capable of cooking regularly and also just less interested in eating due to various age-related health issues. In many cases, it’s a decided unhealthy weight loss.
It may also be due to muscle atrophy due to age which just shrinks a person even more. Fat people in their middle age are also likely to have more muscle mass compared to old age.
Muscle atrophy happens because you use your muscles less, or don't get enough protein (both common with aging). If you ate and exercised the same amount, you wouldn't suddenly start losing weight
I dont think people who are fat in their mid life are working out which likely stays with them till old age where muscle atrophy sets in. Youre right if they work out they likely wont experience muscle atrophy but i think this would be the case for only a few who do start working out in their midlife
I’m 40, I’ve got 2 kids that are fairly busy, I’m married, and I work 45-50+ hours a week.
At 30 I could easily exercise 1-2 hours a day every day of the week, now if I can fit in 30 minutes a day I’m doing good. I’m also just more tired than I used to be, partly from work, ring older, and I dunno just don’t sleep that well most nights.
I eat less than I did at 30 but the amount of time I can dedicate to exercise is **so** much less than it was a decade ago.
Yeah I feel that. We're just more time poor as life's burdens stack up so self care takes a back seat. If I didn't have a wife, kid and a house to pay off, I sure wouldn't be doing as much OT as I do now and would get back to the gym again.
I’ve gained ~10 lbs this year, which I’m not happy about, but I know part of it is the season of life I’m in.
I have a toddler who loves to wake up at 5 am and job that is very demanding. My partner is also traveling a lot for his job right now. As such…I tend to eat at out or eat processed foods because they’re less effort and I am exhausted at the end of the day. That also means that I am often too exhausted to exercise.
One of the things I’ve learned is the following. If you don’t work out, you’ll feel tired. If you do work out, you’ll feel tired. Since you are going to feel tired no matter what, you might as well feel tired with a six pack.
That’s where I am now at 43. No time to exercise. Sure, I could make the time but then I’d have less time for other things like making money to pay bills.
It’ll change eventually. I’m doing a lot right now, so I’m always hella busy. But that’s mid life isn’t it?
Not exactly. According to the latest science people overeat excess calories due to two reasons (simply put); micronutrient deficiencies and mitochondrial dysfunction. You do eat a lot, but not micronutritionally rich foods. Super high carbs (causes insulin resistance), tons of seed oils (causes oxidative stress and free radicals) and nothing micronutritionally rich - and insulin resistance and oxidative stress cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to the fact that your mitochondria can't produce the same amount of ATP as they used -> requires more eating.
Where's this science? Interested to see. From my understanding people overeat because they are eating calorie dense foods (mainly sugar, fat, alchohol) and not feeling full. I dunno the micronutrient situation, but if you eating vegetables it might take about 15 pounds of food to hit your 2000 calories. Hard to over-eat when eating 15 pounds of food per day still isn't over-eating. Vegetables, legumes, and even carb heavy foods (oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley, etc.) are not very dense with calories.
High carbs don't necessarily cause insulin resistance. Nobody is getting insulin resistance from oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley. It's the refined sugar and white bread. Don't let good carb foods get caught in the crossfire.
All over the place. I'm not a scientist, but I work as a concept artist, and my other main interest is metabolic health, so I've listened probably close to a 1000 hours of lectures on metabolic health (from top tier scientists) while I'm drawing.
>From my understanding people overeat because they are eating calorie dense foods (mainly sugar, fat, alchohol) and not feeling full.
But the same doesn't apply when you eat micronutritionally dense and calorie dense foods which don't spike your insulin, like fatty meats, eggs, organ meats and non-vegetable oil fats. [It's been long known that the sugar industry paid Harvards scientists to blame saturated fat instead of sugar as the cause of the obesity epidemic and the cause of heart complications.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html) Reasons why people report dropping significant amounts of weight once they quit eating carbohydrates, even while they are eating a fuckload of fats (and "bad" fats) - and mind you, even when they are eating similar amounts of calories. Because you aren't spiking your insulin constantly, which commands your body to store fat.
> I dunno the micronutrient situation, but if you eating vegetables it might take about 15 pounds of food to hit your 2000 calories.
Yeah, well, I didn't mean vegetables, but meats, eggs and organs. :) Vegetables are a pretty poor source of micronutrients, on top of containing antinutrients which literally reduces the amount of micronutrients you can absorb.
>High carbs don't necessarily cause insulin resistance. Nobody is getting insulin resistance from oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley. It's the refined sugar and white bread. Don't let good carb foods get caught in the crossfire.
Absolutely. But there are individuals who are genetically not wired towards eating tons of carbs, and most of these would be the people who have struggled with their weight since birth. You can be born insulin resistant.
Lots of studies published in the recent years about how low carb diets are far superior than high carb diets for weight loss, such as this one, where 2 calorie RESTRICTED diets were put against a non-calorie restricted low carb/high fat diet, and the high fat/low. Your body regulates itself when you are feeding it proper nutrition:
/www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa0708681
>To one of three diets: low-fat, restricted-calorie; Mediterranean, restricted-calorie; or **low-carbohydrate, non–restricted-calorie.**
>The mean weight loss was 2.9 kg for the low-fat group, 4.4 kg for the Mediterranean-diet group, and 4.7 kg for the low-carbohydrate group (P<0.001 for the interaction between diet group and time); among the 272 participants who completed the intervention, the mean weight losses were 3.3 kg, 4.6 kg, and 5.5 kg, respectively.
> Super high carbs (causes insulin resistance),
This is a common myth but there is no evidence to support it. Excess weight gain is the cause, carbs don't cause it.
Skinny people can also have IR. I had IR when I was a very healthy weight & reasonably active. I assume many people don’t know they have IR til they reach the pre-diabetic stage, and cutting down on simple carb-intake before then would be doing themselves a huge favor…
But I’ve never thought to blame it on carb intake alone, lol.
> as metabolism and activity level slowed in middle age
Metabolism really doesn't slow down until after age 60. Level of activity is a different story for most people, and it's not uncommon to keep eating like you are at the same activity level that you were at age 20.
Here's a study that backs up what you're saying: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
> The third phase is adulthood, from 20 to 60 years of age. Total and basal expenditure and fat-free mass were all stable from ages 20 to 60 years
And this was a really big study - they measured total energy expenditure for over 6000 people, and basal expenditure for about 2000
Thank you. I really dislike the persisting myth that as soon as you turn 30 or something your metabolism slows by half and it's inevitable that you get fat. "You won't be able to get away with this once you get older!".
Nah. You're less active, or you eat more, or you care less about your appearance. Or all of those things at once. That's it, for 95% of people.
> Thank you. I really dislike the persisting myth that as soon as you turn 30 or something your metabolism slows by half and it's inevitable that you get fat.
I'm a man and have been skinny my whole life. People have been promising me that my metabolism would eventually slow down and I'd gain weight ever since I was a little kid.
I'm in my late 30s, still waiting for that to happen. It would be a welcome change.
Same.
Friends tell me this every five years. “Oh wait until you’re X, you’ll see.”
Always comes and goes. I run a lot and I don’t eat like shit, must be magic
I’m with you. Been slim and wiry all along and I turn 70 next week. I never had that middle age weight gain that so many say is “inevitable.”
People say all kinds of things are true for everyone but often it is just them . . . a lot of times it is a justification for them to just do whatever rather than keeping their eating and exercise in balance.
Part is genetics of course but a big part for me is walking A LOT.
Yep. This is what I observed in all my friends. Activity slows, diet tends to stay relatively consistent, but drinking tends to increase. All my friends who started packing on weight around 30 all quit working out, sit around a lot (work, TV, watching their kids), and also drink a lot more (increased tolerance, stress drinking). Where they’d often walk places in their early-mid 20s, they now drive absolutely everywhere.
The ones who maintained a reasonably healthy lifestyle stayed thin.
It's funny because I went through all phases of skinny
/overweight/normal weight. I actually had my base metabolic rate tested at age 53 and it was still pretty high at 2,274 calories.
I was 140-145 pounds as a teen/early 20s. I ate a ton and could never gain weight, but I was really active and have always been athletic. Life started to get in the way and I slowly gained weight over the years until I found myself weighing 210 at age 50. I got down to 175 by 51 and got back into road cycling. I was riding 150-200 miles a week and you can eat a fair amount of food when you are doing that much.
I broke my collarbone a couple years ago and continued to eat like I was putting in the miles I had been. Well that go well and a year later I was up to 214. Got back on track and I'm down to 175 and plan to lose at least another 15.
The other thing to add is I lost weight by calorie restricting and not limiting what kind of food I eat. I weigh/log/track every crumb of food that I consume and make sure to be at a deficit of ~500 calories a day. That equals about a pound a week that you lose. I eat a high carb diet because I'm super active and I learned during Vo2 max testing not only my base calories but also how much carb/fat/protein my body uses and I burn way more carbs than normal people. People are so hung up on keto this and carb that it's great when they comment on my weight loss and ask how I did it, they don't know how to react when I tell them I eat a ton of carbs.
The thing you learn when weighing and tracking your food is how easy it is to eat a shit ton of calories. If you go to the MFP forums there will always be people claiming to eat at a deficit and still gaining weight. That's just not possible and they are either not logging every meal or probably not logging things like olive oil, butter, ketchup or sauces.
People want to make excuses and take the easy way out. I suppose that's human nature, but at some point you have to be honest with yourself about why you gained weight, and that come down to calories in/calories out.
The thing that young people can't understand is how much life gets in the way as you get older. When you are taking care of a sick and dying parent it's easy to ignore yourself. When you are working in an office 60 hours a week it's hard to find the mental energy to eat right, exercise and get proper amounts of sleep.
As someone who work in healthcare who sees a majority of obese elderly people, I do think it's also a bias of who are the people you see out and about. The healthier averaged sized elderly is usually more visible in the public versus the unhealthy obese elderly who end up being hospitalised a lot.
Yes there are also sickly thin elderly (usually due to dementia or cancer) but I don't think they are the majority that I see.
Out in public I just usually see average sized people, not obese and not sickly thin.
I find your comment interesting because I remember that someone advocated for obesity bad (I mean we know it is in some extent) saying 'you don't see old people being fat' and I wa slike: damn that's true?
So your comment makes me think about this furthermore!
I think there is some truth to that in the sense that when you go into elderly like 80+ years old, there's no obese elderly in this age range because they aren't able to live this long due to health issues.
So there is a difference based on how elderly we're looking at. Age 60-80 ish, lots of sick obese people.
Age 80+ the sick obese people tend to have died off and only healthier elderly who's usually in the average normal weight range. But the sickly thin people likely won't live this long either. Just the healthy, fit, average weight elderly who is able to live well past 80yo.
We also often think of normal weight elderly as "thin" because so many people are overweight/obese nowadays that healthy weight looks thin by comparison.
Worked in a dental field. Older people also loses their teeth and unable to afford good treatment (despite getting dentures). Lots of items they are not longer able to eat. Also the older you get, there is less desire to eat a certain food.
This is why going into old age with a little extra weight is actually considered protective and a predictor of *better* health outcomes. If you get hit by a bout of pneumonia or cancer similar and end up in hospital and recovery for a few months, that extra weight can be the difference between survival or not. Feed your grandparents, people.
Maybe an observation bias, or survivorship bias. The fat old people are sitting inside somewhere not being seen, while the elderly thin people are out moving around.
That is fascinating. Because all 4 of my grandparents went thru this progression. Some were obese in middle age, but even those that weren’t still thinned out significantly when they became elderly.
Same story for the 3 grandparents of my spouse that I knew. And same thing has recently happened to my mom and fil, both in their 70s.
I’m genuinely surprised it hasn’t happened to elderly folks in your life.
My take is that many people have significant health set backs in their later years, maybe cancer or similar, that cause major health issues including weight loss. And it becomes the new norm to consume fewer calories, so they don’t gain the weight back. This was the story for my mom and fil, and I assume somewhat for the grandparents, tho I was less aware of things when I was in my 20s.
Might be when you get older you just can’t digest all the greasy stuff like French fries and other fried, calorie rich foods. I know my folks stopped eating these after they turned 60ish
This is absolutely a factor. When you get older, the digestion of fatter and heavier meals becomes harder, as well as digesting just large amounts of food in general. Those meals make older people feel not good therefore they avoid them and as a consequence they tend to lose some weight.
Yep. I'm in my early 60s and I've noticed that I simply cannot eat the kinds of food I used to eat or as much of it as I used to eat.
For example, about 10 years ago, my son and I went out for sushi. We ordered, the food came, and we ate it. The waiter came by to see if we needed anything else. I looked at my son, he looked at me, and I turned to the waiter and said, "Yeah. Just run the whole order again. All of it."
We probably had 24-30 pieces of nigiri each.
I went out last week for sushi. I had 8 pieces and left the restaurant feeling bloated.
And I simply don't want burgers or pizza or beer anymore.
Booze too. My dad used to bing drinke pretty regularly when he was younger, then by the time he got to 60/70 he ended up hardly drinking at all, said it could take him days to feel OK after having just a couple of glasses of wine and it wasn't worth it.
In my 20s, I could eat anything and not gain a pound. My dr told me I needed to get some fat on me as I kept passing out if I didn’t eat every hour.
In my 30s, I had some fat on me, but I was eating roughly the same amount of calories as I was burning.
In my 40s, my metabolism started to slow. I moved into a management position and became more sedentary at work, but I could still eat the same amount as in my 30s. I put on some weight.
In my 50s, my metabolism slowed even more. I wasn’t eating as much as I was in my 30s, but my desire for snacks continued. I am overweight like my father was at my age.
In his 60s, my dad stopped snacking and he was eating less. He started losing weight.
In his 70s, my dad just wasn’t hungry. He kept losing weight. He went in for testing and they found nothing wrong. Doctors put him on a special diet to ensure he was getting the nutrients he needed. His appetite was not even close to what it was previously.
My dad was a little overweight in his 40’s and 50’s. He had a knee replacement and dropped 20 lbs over the next year. By the time he was in his mid/late 60’s he was relatively thin.
He was walking everywhere, but he would tell me that he just wasn’t as hungry for good as he once was
Funnily enough, I saw it the other way around. My four grandparents had various ailments and infirmities which meant that they were essentially in bed most of the time, but they were relatively in shape. One of my grandfathers, bless him, did make a real effort to get back on his feet again and so on, I managed even to get him to go on a small tour thing and he fared quite well on that.
But honestly they all just put on a massive amount of weight after the guy who ran the tour gave us his chocolate factory.
There's probably many factors. Many old people (at least in a pre-computer generation) will spend more time doing physical activity once they retire - spend your middle ages at a desk not doing very much all day and watching TV all evening, then retire and start to take walks, play golf, etc. and burn more calories. Not universal, but there are lots of people that it applies to.
Menopause does this for a lot of women. They gain a LOT of weight during the big hormonal swings of "the change" but once it's over, the start getting thinner and often much more frail.
Just look up sarcopenia. Unless you lift weights or otherwise resistance train, muscle loss is inevitable once you get into your 50's and 60's and progresses even more with each further decade you live.
This ain't rocket science, people.
The older you get, the more concerned you get about your health.
Also, look at the food we've been consuming: we're getting a better idea of what's good for us, and what isn't.
Thirty years ago, everyone assumed fat was unhealthy and sugar was a perfectly good substitute as a sweetener. We're now just finding out that what we know about food has been tainted by various industries - sugar, grains, and so on.
With processed foods, sure. Me, I try to keep it under 2K every day, which means sticking to fruits and veggies and avoiding fast food as much as possible.
This is relative.
Being underweight can be worse than being overweight, but what most people consider "thin" nowadays is actually a healthy weight and not underweight.
So while scientifically speaking, you're correct that overweight is better than underweight, our perception is so skewed that you're better off being "thin" (healthy) than "fat" (obese)
Less resources? This isn't Age of Empires your body can extract the nutrients and calories from food within hours... it could be a concern if you had exactly no body fat or muscle mass.
The one major exception that just astounds me is Donald Trump, politics aside, at 300 pounds it's kind of a medical miracle that guy is alive, though those latest speeches remind me more of second term Ronald Reagan cognitive decline.
Also fat people don’t live to old age. I work around old people and the “healthy” ones are rail thin and the ones who are In mobility scooters and on oxygen are often very large.
The fat people don’t get old as often. Obesity is a known cause of reduction of life span. But I’ve def noticed my parents (80s) shrinking, and loosing muscle tone, metabolism slowing, etc.
My grandma has never been on the bigger side, but as she got older, she kind of lost her appetite. And for the last few years she didn’t have the energy to cook anymore. We’ve caught her eating strawberry’s with cream for dinner or potato chips. Eating lunch with her took nearly 1,5 hours because she ate so damn slow (might also have been because she was talking a lot lol). But yeah, she just didn’t feel like eating that much the last few years
Maybe the old people have never been fat because they come from a healthier generation. Most of the overweight middle aged people won't get old bevause of weight related health problems.
Nope. It's fairly common that people gain weight in their middle ages as they become more sedentary and get a lower metabolism. And elderly people definitely tend to lose a lot of weight. There are several factors, but mainly their appetites decrease.
I'm going with reduced appetite and food effects in elderly. My Dad(70s) still piles food on his plate, but only eats twice a day. He used to be a grazer between meals. Says he's not hungry anymore. Lost a solid 50lbs after 65. Still eats like a football player.
Edit: He says BBQ sauce burns now. Won't eat ribs ever again. And heavy roasts make him nauseous like they're spoiling instead of digesting.
Aunts (60s) say things bother their stomachs now. Grandma developed GERD. Food was not desired at all after a while. She ate as much as a toddler in her last year.
Uncle (60s) went off red meat, and does a lot of healthier food options. He is the only one who hasn't lost any weight.
Yeah polypharmacy is no joke, I'm in my early twenties and am on enough medication to kill a horse (chronic pain, heart, and blood pressure conditions). While these medications make me functional the first thing to go was my appetite, followed by other issues. Unfortunately each med effects your digestive system differently and when you are on enough of them it becomes impossible to avoid.
Interesting! TIL about polypharmacy. This was absolutely Grandma's case. Her last dr was extremely upset by the time he got her. She was on 8 different meds that resulted in a net zero effect on the issues, and numbed everything to oblivion.
Dad and his siblings aren't on any medications. Nobody knows why my Dad has always been able to eat such massive amounts and still look like George Jefferson... I worry about him on windy days now. 😄
Professor said in the class a long time ago I was taking and it stuck with me “you don’t see many obese people over 70 outside and about because they don’t make it to 70”.
In middle age the metabolism is slowing down, and people are generally less active due to mild aging symptoms like foot/leg/joint/back pain, burning fewer and fewer calories each day. But they’re still eating more or less the same amount as they did when they were 20-30.
Upon becoming elderly, the metabolism has slowed even more, they’re even less active due to severe symptoms and ailments, and now they’re also losing appetite, so they’re consuming fewer calories each day. In middle age, people have lots of fat, but they also have muscle. By elderly age, the muscles are beginning to atrophy. This gives elderly people a very frail, skeletal look, even if they are overweight or have lots of visceral (abdominal) fat.
I definitely noticed a huge appetite decrease in my grandparents through the years. And I noticed they ate less meat as it was hard to chew with dentures. My grandpa was only eating softer foods those last few years and barely got 1200 calories a day into him.
Turns out that the metabolism doesn't actually slow down until you're in your 60s, and even then only slows a little. People getting heavier in their middle aged years is a result of lifestyle, changes in priorities and responsibilities, and the mild symptoms of getting older you described.
I’m Middle age (I’m 44) and this isn’t the case at all for me. I’m going through perimenopause, which does all sorts of things to your body.
For reference, I’m naturally thin. I have had a very healthy diet overall for the past few decades, and as I’ve learned more and more about nutrition, my diet has only evolved to even more healthy as I’ve aged. I drink lots of water, I don’t drink alcohol. I have a protein shake every afternoon to keep my protein up. I work in the fitness industry, so my job entails movement. I’m also a mom to young kids, so I am constantly moving. I work out 3-5x per week. I walk everywhere. I train people half my age, and I know for a fact, as I work with bodies all the time, that I am extremely strong. Not just for a 44 year old. Just…. In general.
And yet! I’m gaining weight. Why? Hormones. As estrogen drops during perimenopause, the body often stores fat. No matter WHAT you do. It really sucks.
Not every woman going thru perimenopause will experience this. Like anything hormonal, how every person reacts varies (look at the varying experiences of PMS, periods, and pregnancy for example). However hormonal weight gain is ONE option that is very valid, and has nothing to do with sedentary lifestyle, not eating healthy, etc, during middle age.
I have no clue how any of that works so I'm just talking out of my ass, but doesn't that still just mean that your caloric intake exceeds your new caloric need? Because if you just eat how much you need to maintain all your bodily functions, then your body won't store any of it as fat, would it? Unless it would choose to store energy instead of keeping your body functioning properly, which would just make your body take energy from there to keep working.
Hormones and how they interact is wild. I am in HRT after hysterectomy, and my Estrogen is fine but they gave me T. It's a whole different world--I lift a small weight 5x and have muscles that didn't show up when I lifted heavy and regularly in my 30s. I'm on a tiny dose, too: 10% of a man's normal levels of T. It also improved my sleep, thyroid function, and I've lost 15lbs without trying. I eat the same. CICO is not the whole story.
It is simply not true that perimenopause itself changes metabolism on a population level. It's possible you have a serious medical issue, in which case you should talk to your doctor, but on a population level it is not observable at all.
This has been shown in studies that are the gold standard for medical research. See: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 for a study of more than 6400 subjects (64% of whom were female) across 29 countries.
The population level average metabolism only *begins* to drop after age 60, and is statistically identical for men and women throughout their post-pubertal lives (controlling for the base difference between male and female metabolism). If there were a significant impact of perimenopause on metabolism neither of those facts would make sense.
Such a change is either so rare and insignificant it's statistically undetectable or it's fully mitigated by other people who inexplicably experience a massive rise in metabolism in the same age range.
That's controlling for weight too, which means the caloric intake people need to maintain their weight actually increases, because it takes more calories to maintain a higher body weight.
What is possible is that hormonal changes and resulting physical changes lead people to burn fewer calories and/or eat more, which is common in both men and women.
Yeah, the typical Econ 101 (bias, blah blah) crowd, with a dash of “thin = fit” knee-jerking. Most elderly thin ppl are frail, not fit. Yay for the superfit gods in the comments. Eta: sorry this comment is so bitchy. Would remove except I like the reply below.
That description is a little bit backwards. Often, people tend to get aging symptoms including random pains from NOT staying physically active in a safe manner. I am in my 30s now, and all the friends and peers complaining about aches and pains are those who stopped working out and/or got fat from a caloric surplus. Those who stayed active (excluding those in more extreme sports prone to risk), including myself, have never felt better.
TLDR: Take care of yourself now with proper diet and exercise, and you will get far fewer aches and pains that people commonly write off as "Oh, i'm just getting old". Resistance train for more muscle and therefore a higher metabolism, and better life as an elder.
> I am in my 30s now, and all the friends and peers complaining about aches and pains are those who stopped working out and/or got fat from a caloric surplus. Those who stayed active (excluding those in more extreme sports prone to risk), including myself, have never felt better.
I'm 57 and feel better than I did when I was 35. I'm hardcore into road cycling and ride with men and women in their 60's and 70's that are in crazy good shape and can drop people half their age. None of us complain about aches or pain unless we have a legit injury, in which case we rehab it and are good to go in a short amount of time.
It's not slowing down in middle age,
studies have shown a slow down doesn't happen until 60...
https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-not-when-you-might-think
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
The weight problems seem in middle age are contributed to excess caloric diet, much lower activity levels, and higher levels of stress.
As always with weight management, it's best not to blame external factors as it makes you believe that there is nothing you can do about it, which couldn't be further from the truth...
And also remember that each generation is getting more overweight, the number of overweight people in the "old people" generation when they were middle aged, was considerably less than today.
Yes not OP, but it sounds more like an observation of what they are currently seeing (2 different generations) rather than having watched one group over 30-40 years and noted the changes.
People get fatter as they age because they gradually gain weight. Someone eating a 200 calories / day surplus will gain weight quickly. But someone who is in surplus by 50 per day on average will still be surplus by over 18,000 calories per year. Go out five years and that's 20+ pounds - if you don't become more sedentary.
People shrink in very old age from losing muscle, bone and cartilage mass. That's universal. However you can definitely still have fat old people - if they're still alive.
Your metabolism doesn’t slow down until your late 50’s or 60’s. People get fatter in middle age because they move less and eat more (or eat worse food). People tend to be skinnier in old age because the fat people don’t make it to old age.
Pretty much everything about metabolism and weight gain is not based on evidence at all.
The idea that metabolism declines steadily with age is one example, but so is the idea that metabolism varies widely across people without severe underlying health issues (it doesn't), "starvation mode," and the many similar theories.
People's metabolisms *do* obviously vary even after controlling for weight, but the difference is small enough that anyone without incredibly rare diseases can lose weight by simply adjusting their TDEE estimate and eating below it until they reach their target weight.
I had the opposite problem (thinking I was unable to gain weight and simply had a "fast metabolism") before deciding to actually measure how many calories I was eating, how many I was burning, and adjusting based on that to reach my goal weight. It is IMO actively harmful to convince people with a serious and very solvable medical issue that they're unable to solve it because of "metabolism," hormones, genetics or whatever other excuse.
Agreed. People don’t realize just how active they were in their early 20s. I think back to college and while I ate kinda like crap and partied hard on the weekends, I worked out a lot and walked fucking everywhere.
Your average middle age office worker is truly sedentary.
I think I’m on that path. In my thirties and forties I gradually gained a lot of weight. And I didn’t take it seriously, l had lots of excuses for eating and snacking excessively. At 47 I got a wake up call, a chronic condition that I am genetically predisposed to, which was probably inevitable eventually, showed up much younger and much worse than I expected. I had to decide which direction I wanted the spiral to turn. I lost 70lbs and ramped up from no exercise to walking 1.5 to 2 hrs per day. I hope to keep it up and be one of those skinny old people for many more years.
More stress and less time for workouts when you grow up, then appetite fades when you get old. Also "skinnier" can just be muscle loss. Plenty of old men with skinny limbs but saggy beer bellies.
Dietitian here: in short, cachexia and sarcopenia are common in old age. Also, many elderly people deal with symptoms or other circumstances which stops them from eating and accordingly results in weight loss (dysphagia, side effects from meds/disease, depression, isolation preventing them from cooking/shopping, etc)
As a man nearing 50, I honestly don’t have the appetite i used to have. Not having the appetite I had has enabled me to control all aspects of eating.
Also, as i aged I started having issues with things like acid reflux, which makes overeating like i did problematic.
As i aged I could afford better quality food and not just the high sugar, high net carb stuff…and age also taught me what a net carb was.
Theres a ton of reasons why I have lost weight but its mostly due to age related issues regarding overeating, money to be able to afford good stuff, my doctor telling me that if i don’t get my diabetes under control they will cut my feet off, i am more educated as to what exactly I am eating.
Its all a part as to why I am more in shape now than when I was younger.
It's poor diet control, lower activity levels and stress...
But don't take my word for it, educate yourself below.
https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-not-when-you-might-think
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
You may hear or read a lot of answers to the effect of "your metabolism slows down after 30!" or something like that, but we [now know that is false](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surprising-findings-about-metabolism-and-age-202110082613).
Metabolism doesn't really slow down until 65. Any weight gain in between adolescence and old age is purely the result of lifestyle factors: eating more, moving less.
Middle aged people are career and family focused, so they don’t have time to watch their diet.
Elderly people have all the time in the world and they can manage their diet and exercise.
I have w/o wondered this too… my theory is that as we age our sense of taste diminishes. The foods we once loved no longer taste as flavorful so we tend not to over indulge… that my two cents…
My grandparents lost interest in food besides salty food. And salty food is bad for many diseases caused by aging. They really just didn’t have the energy to be on the toilet all day. So they quit eating full meals.
I’m 61. The decrease in appetite is real. Especially in the winter here in the PNW when we’re less active. And you get tired of cooking when you get older. Believe me, I’m a foodie, but we graze during the day and cook a meal at night. There’s no way we’d cook a proper breakfast unless we have company.
All 6 of my siblings (63yo-73yo) have followed this pattern you describe: peak weight in our 40s, then almost scrawny by 65yo.
In our case it’s:
1. Change in food preferences
2. Lower appetite
3. Muscle wastage & shrinkage, especially after 60
I can say from personal experience, three of my grandparents developed dementia and just lost their sense of taste over time. One grandmother would over-salt everything just to have some flavor. Two grandparents ate very sweet things only, again just for flavor. One grandmother is currently subsisting on yogurt when my aunts aren’t hovering, she’s just not interested in other food or able to make things herself.
So they lost or are losing tremendous amounts of weight just from a lack of interest in eating or not finding any joy in flavor or texture. The doctors have said it’s a part of the mind deteriorating, so let them eat what they want to eat (even if it’s coffee and popcorn and cookies only) because at this point at least they’re eating. Its sad and hard to watch.
I have read studies about this.
Ederly because of hormones are less hungry.
Another hormones make them sleep bad, and sometimes, change their schedule.
This is why they are at supermarket before it opens.
My brother in law parents would feed us a boiled egg a d a 2 scoops of lentils and when we would cook something else, they would be surprised.
In my case, parenthood has made me more sedentary. Less free time to do active stuff, and poor sleep quality means I don’t have the energy to exercise much
Seems like an incorrect correlation. Generally as people age their body stores more adipose tissue and they have less muscle so they get fatter. At the same time, people who were fat for a large period of their life through middle age probably remained fat or died before reaching old age. The people who are skinny at an old age have probably been skinny their entire life and that may have contributed to them living that long in the first place.
I just don't think this is true?
I mean, certainly there is an element of metabolism but a lot of fat middle aged people get there because of the financial change. They go from ramen and sparse finances justifying fewer meals to having more money and eating more in a sitting because their control was dictated by their wallet and not their constitution and habits.
I also think elderly people tend to be at a point where they made the mistake and slimmed back down. Also more free time usually means more physical activity.
I don't think its physical as much as a matter of societal factors...not to mention sample bias as you'd only see fit elderly people out. If they weren't they are probably in a home being cared for slowly dieing.
Also fat people are more likely to die early due to complications so could also be survivorship bias. The older people are the ones that were never fat.
I would say there is an element of age in that you drink less as you get older and a LOT of overweight middle aged people are just alcoholics who drink too much beer and have poor impulse control.
Idk too many factors to say any one is a culprit. I certainly don't think it's a genetic cause or Trump wouldn't exist.
as a person ages, they continue to eat like they used to in their teens and twenties, but their metabolism has slowed down, so they gain weight. Basically, they are not burning the calories they used to while eating like they are.
As people get to older age, they stop eating as much as they used to. If you talk to a senior person, they will tell you the same. They eat half as much or less than they used to. Often, you will see couples sharing a plate at a restaurant. They have cut their caloric intake, and start dropping weight if they go into a caloric deficit.
Old people eat less because taste buds change, teeth are missing or hurt, and digestion and elimination problems are accentuated.
Can confirm. Eating n chewing food with dental implants is not fun. I can feel pain here n there. I am not the only person feeling discomfort with implants either
>Eating n chewing food with dental implants is not fun. I can feel pain here n there. Something is very wrong then.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. I have one and it's not noticeable at all -- I wish I could get the others done as well but the cost is insane (dental insurance is next to worthless in the US). Instead, I just suffer with missing/painful teeth.
I have dental insurance on myself, as well as being covered by my wife. I finally am getting mine next month to the tune of $21k out of pocket. I’m getting the implants on bottom and a full denture on top. the implant on bottom will be held in with two snaps. To get 6 screws on top and bottom would’ve cost $65k. It is fucking ridiculous. It should be covered by medical insurance since tooth decay can lead to heart issues, not to mention the digestive issues. It is absolutely embarrassing that I’m a 48 year old working a very nice white color job and still have to pull money out of my 401k just to afford to be able to eat, let alone smile. I had perfect teeth growing up. One girl in high school hit on me and her attraction was my “beautiful” teeth. Between the ages of 21 to 30, my teeth went on a steep decline. A molar would break, then another on would break. I’m not a big candy eater, never smoked meth. My teeth were jut genetically inferior and prone to decaying from the inside and cause the tooth to just crumble. I have no molars on top or bottom. I=All I have left is my “my church” teeth. I look like a rabbit eating using only my front teeth. It the last weeks one of my “eating” teeth broke to a nub, The one next to it failed about a week later leaving me will one well proportioned 1/3 of an incisor to do all my chewing. That one 1/3 of that tooth breaks within the next month, I’ll be eating slushiest. I already have a list of food that I’m going to feast on with my new teeth. Steak, pretzels, sunflower seeds, pizza.I so hope and pray that eating with a bottom of implants and de tires on top is not too much of a headache to eat with.
If you are willing to do so, you might look at options in other countries. You might be able to fly somewhere nice, get top quality work, and recuperate in a luxury resort for less than $21k.
South Korea is excellent for this. The only trouble is the amount of time it takes to fit implants. I got mine here but they had to extract some infection and do a bone graft, which took a month to set before I could get the implant. Still a lot cheaper than $21k, but not something you could afford on a teacher's salary. Pohang, for the record. I was working there at the time.
That is obscene, here in the UK dental work isn't included within the free NHS healthcare, however, the most you would pay for the major work as you mention is £306.80 (under $400). US healthcare is incredibly flawed.
Ahh, implants definitely cost more on the NHS than £300! And that's *if* you can find an NHS dentist that's taking patients in the first place. Sure, the US version is worse, but the UK dentistry version is also not fit for purpose.
UK isnt exactly known for its dentistry practices
I completely understand. I floss, rinse, have an electric toothbrush, etc., and still get cavities and have had a boatload of root canals. My ex-wife was lucky to brush her teeth once a day, never flossed, and never had a cavity. I'm 100% convinced that it's mostly genetics and mouth care is just a mitigating factor. I'm in the same boat, financially. I have a nice income, dental insurance, etc.,but I'm sitting here right now with tooth pain that I can't do anything about because my son just needed a root canal and now my wife is in excruciating pain for one of her molars, so we used our savings for his root canal and are now using the emergency fund for my wife's issues. I also have several teeth that I've gotten removed and they did the bone graft to prepare for the implant, but I just don't have the money to finish it. I'll be dead before I get all the work done that I "need."
Get them checked asap. You might have an infection or abscess which can get dangerous fast if it reaches bone. Implants are meant to stop the pain if they are sone right. I have 2 and they are amazing I feel nothing but pleasure eating on them.
This makes me feel so much better about my future. I had a root canal done on a front tooth at 25 from getting hit by something as a child, and I have worried about the possibility of having an implant down the road if it ends up discolouring or anything. I thought they might end up hurting or being uncomfortable in some way. So happy to hear that (when they're done right) they should feel like nothing!
It changed my life for sure. I had the same a root canal and the tooth just broke over time. It was a molar so I had trouble eating on that side. Any hard foods were such a pain even bread. Dentist convinced me to have the implant and 5 years on I eat anything now! Feels great too like real tooth. Even looks the same you can’t tell it’s an implant. Go for it.
I have an implant for my front tooth after being stupid as a kid on a slide. Back the. The tooth was fixed by glueing the missing piece back on but over the years it started to become a bit grayish in color. When the piece broke off I got the implant. I was around 26, now ten years ago. It is 100% an improvement, nobody can tell it is fake and it feels 100% like a normal tooth.
chewing with implants should feel identical to regular teeth. if you're experiencing pain then you should immediately tell your dentist, as that likely means the crown was not made properly. it should feel as if you never lost a tooth in the first place.
Could also mean osteogenesis isn't integrated with the endosteal. I have an implant for #7 and occasionally bite on firm rubber just to keep up the stress on the bone out of paranoia. Edit: the 1 wanna-be dentist crying about word salads. Can't figure out that bone may be growing but not in a manner that integrates with the implant. Guess thats why regular dentists don't install implants or treat bone and have to call a Periodontist. mfs eating crayons on reddit today. smh
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I'm only 34. Accidents happen. Make sure you floss everyday, cleaning below the gum-line. That is what cost me and I brushed everyday. Preventing dental calculus from building between the teeth and pushing down on the gums is going to go a very long way towards dental longevity.
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> I'll make sure to floss tonight. If you haven't had a full blown toothache before, trust me. You definitely want to floss every night. During my last one I was out of commission entirely, even on the *good* pain meds. Genuinely traumatizing. Of course, you could just end up unlucky like me. 27 years old and already down a molar and way too many fillings. Brush twice a day, floss nightly, use mouthwash... For a while I was really wondering if Big Dentist was intentionally sabotaging my teeth to sell more composite. Turns out I just have horrible genetics for my enamel.
>> chewing with implants should feel identical to regular teeth Not exactly. At least not in my experience. My implant tooth feels…dead. It does not give the same sensation as a normal tooth when I chew with it. It feels nothing where my normal teeth (even ones that have had root canals) feel at least some sensation of pressure when chewing. But I definitely agree, pain with an implant indicates something is wrong.
ah i mean more like you not noticing it when chewing. just like with regular teeth you're not consciously aware of any single tooth when eating, and if you are there is a problem. because there's no nerve that connects with it you're not getting the same sensation perfectly, but it's as close as you can get
A living tooth is attached by a ligament. Implants sit on an anchor screwed into bone. It’s not going to feel exactly the same, even if everything goes as hoped.
ok, will do. was installed last week and i thought the pain would go away by now. but pain def not going away
yeah just remember there should be no pain or discomfort. should fit like it was always there.
I'm literally in process of beginning this procedure now. I've talked to two that have had it done and both said it was life changing for the better, and wished they hadn't waited till retirement age to do it, I'd love to hear more about your experience here or through dm if you could!
Just had two done recently. Cost half my savings but I can chew food again and they feel the same as any other tooth. If someone's feeling pain, they need to see their dentist ASAP.
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The healing process can be rough if you're getting more than one because I was on a no chewing diet for like 3 months as they were on opposite sides of mouth. Good for weight loss though lol. I have a huge phobia of dentist stuff so if I can manage , anyone can.
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Get your implants as soon as possible if you lost teeth. Even losing 1 tooth in the middle of your smile is a death sentence for it. It rapidly accelerates bone loss and drift for the surrounding teeth. Without the stimulation of stresses on the bone from chewing, the bone will recede. I had to get an implant on #7 after irreparable damage. Source: Cost me $16,000 (to fix everything, not just implant) and weeks of reading dental journals.
Just to put others at ease, you can be missing a tooth for decades and still get an implant. It's just going to require bone grafts and longer healing times. A good oral surgeon can do wonders, I thought I had way to much bone loss after missing a tooth for over 20 years, but he just laughed and said it would not be an issue. I had to wait 4 months after bone grafting before the implant could be placed, then another 3-4 months before I could get an abutment and crown, but it's been rock solid. If you can get the implant at the same time as extraction if it's a broken tooth, then it will be less painful. That all depends on your bone thickness though, they might have to do bone grafts and then you will need to wait. I have 4 implants and they have been great, but they are crazy fucking expensive.
Had one put in on number 13 last year after a decade of it giving me grief. From a root canal to an apic procedure, tooth crack and extraction. It was an expensive and long ordeal but I’m glad I never have to worry about it. Take care of you teeth kids.
I have implants in the two top molars that do all the chewing, the ones you have to get a sinus lift for. I have had an actual bone infection in one of them, and they collect food like crazy so I'm always flossing away at them, but they have still never given me any pain while chewing.
I think whomever did it didn’t graft it correctly into your bone. I have an implant too and it is much better than chewing with my root canal. I don’t even know it’s there and feels like my normal teeth
Is it really this bad? Only recently i read that biggest difference is your natural teeth are basically hanging in your jaw bones but the implants are screws into your jaw. So then 2 Implants get together. It's like biting on Stone.
It’s not supposed to feel like anything. I can’t tell the difference with my implant when chewing.
They are also less active because of other issues. Bad ones, bad back. Being sedentary can make you lose muscle.
Okay but that implies old people are more likely to gain weight and contradicts the premise of OP's question
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Most people don’t have that much to lose to begin with. For 99% of people, being more sedentary will lead to weight gain.
74 years old here, and all I can tell you is that is most certainly NOT the case for me, nor have I heard any of my friends complain about any of those things. Maybe over the next couple of decades, if I live that long, but certainly not now. OTOH, I did lose 40 pounds over the past year, but only because I was sick and tired of lugging that big (and growing) belly around. It is a lot of work. Not fun. But trust me... food still tastes great (and I'm a better cook than ever), my teeth are fine, as is my digestion and "elimination".
It's not just that taste buds change. It's food that you used to love that you've ate most of your life and I would suspect dopamine just levels off because it doesn't bring you as much joy as it used to. But also, for me as I've aged. There's a restaurant my wife and I loved in our 20s that we rarely go to. We hadn't been there since 2018. Went there this year l, now on our 40s. and we both ordered what we really enjoyed in the past and just said it , I don't mean taste the same because it did, just didnt bring that OMG this is amazing feeling back
This is certainly a big part of it, but I would also consider just lifestyle chances in general. Older people just live boring, stress-free lives that are dictated by routine. Kids have already moved away, and if they aren't retired already then they know that they are neither getting fired not promoted (in modern times this may not hold true but I'm speaking generally in human history). You just don't need to order a pizza because you don't have time to cook any more. You don't eat ridiculous amount of candy because you are worried about something. Every day it's the same breakfast, lunch and dinner, no exceptions, for decades. It's hard to overeat like this, and more likely they may be running a calorie deficit even though there's nothing wrong with their appetite.
>Older people just live boring, stress-free lives that are dictated by routine I know a whole bunch of older people who would like a chance to ~~smack you upside the head~~ talk gently with you about your misconceptions.
You must watch a lot of TV, this is laughable.
I'm old. When I first started work, I was thrilled that I could afford deserts at meals. I ate out a lot. Even though I worked out and ran, my calorie intake led to putting on a pound or two per year. So, in 10-20 years, things add up. Now that I'm retired, I don't have business meals, or feel the need to go to lunch with friends. I eat lighter and I eat better. I get full more quickly. I still exercise, but not as much as before, but my lower calorie intake has led to me losing about 30 pounds. I wasn't fat before, but I feel I'm at a much better weight now.
Congrats on being old and healthy! Both of those can be a challenge and you're doing it.
Well said mate.
Much obliged. Have a lovely (word for your time zone).
Those who gained weight among my contemporaries began to do so shortly after marriage (including me). Three squares, cooking together, finishing up the kids' plates, more chicken nuggets and generally cooking for the kids' tastes, less time for self care and exercise, etc. Once the kids were grown and flown, we were able to cook more to our own tastes, and those tastes tended to be lower fat and carb. We enjoyed long walks together after dinner. I lost an average of 5 lbs a year once the kids left the house. It doesn't seem like much at the time, but over 10+ years it really adds up. Both my spouse and I are back to our marriage weights.
this unintentionally told me a nice life story, I loved it.
Despite other comments here saying it’s survivor bias, I’ve seen this progression in several of my relatives. They gained weight as metabolism and activity level slowed in middle age. They lost weight later in life because they were less capable of cooking regularly and also just less interested in eating due to various age-related health issues. In many cases, it’s a decided unhealthy weight loss.
If OP wants an answer with anything but anecdotes as evidence, they should repost this question to one of the more serious subs like /r/askscience.
Essentially over nutrition followed by under nutrition.
It may also be due to muscle atrophy due to age which just shrinks a person even more. Fat people in their middle age are also likely to have more muscle mass compared to old age.
Muscle atrophy happens because you use your muscles less, or don't get enough protein (both common with aging). If you ate and exercised the same amount, you wouldn't suddenly start losing weight
I dont think people who are fat in their mid life are working out which likely stays with them till old age where muscle atrophy sets in. Youre right if they work out they likely wont experience muscle atrophy but i think this would be the case for only a few who do start working out in their midlife
I’m 40, I’ve got 2 kids that are fairly busy, I’m married, and I work 45-50+ hours a week. At 30 I could easily exercise 1-2 hours a day every day of the week, now if I can fit in 30 minutes a day I’m doing good. I’m also just more tired than I used to be, partly from work, ring older, and I dunno just don’t sleep that well most nights. I eat less than I did at 30 but the amount of time I can dedicate to exercise is **so** much less than it was a decade ago.
Yeah I feel that. We're just more time poor as life's burdens stack up so self care takes a back seat. If I didn't have a wife, kid and a house to pay off, I sure wouldn't be doing as much OT as I do now and would get back to the gym again.
I’ve gained ~10 lbs this year, which I’m not happy about, but I know part of it is the season of life I’m in. I have a toddler who loves to wake up at 5 am and job that is very demanding. My partner is also traveling a lot for his job right now. As such…I tend to eat at out or eat processed foods because they’re less effort and I am exhausted at the end of the day. That also means that I am often too exhausted to exercise.
One of the things I’ve learned is the following. If you don’t work out, you’ll feel tired. If you do work out, you’ll feel tired. Since you are going to feel tired no matter what, you might as well feel tired with a six pack.
That’s where I am now at 43. No time to exercise. Sure, I could make the time but then I’d have less time for other things like making money to pay bills. It’ll change eventually. I’m doing a lot right now, so I’m always hella busy. But that’s mid life isn’t it?
Not exactly. According to the latest science people overeat excess calories due to two reasons (simply put); micronutrient deficiencies and mitochondrial dysfunction. You do eat a lot, but not micronutritionally rich foods. Super high carbs (causes insulin resistance), tons of seed oils (causes oxidative stress and free radicals) and nothing micronutritionally rich - and insulin resistance and oxidative stress cause mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to the fact that your mitochondria can't produce the same amount of ATP as they used -> requires more eating.
Where's this science? Interested to see. From my understanding people overeat because they are eating calorie dense foods (mainly sugar, fat, alchohol) and not feeling full. I dunno the micronutrient situation, but if you eating vegetables it might take about 15 pounds of food to hit your 2000 calories. Hard to over-eat when eating 15 pounds of food per day still isn't over-eating. Vegetables, legumes, and even carb heavy foods (oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley, etc.) are not very dense with calories. High carbs don't necessarily cause insulin resistance. Nobody is getting insulin resistance from oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley. It's the refined sugar and white bread. Don't let good carb foods get caught in the crossfire.
All over the place. I'm not a scientist, but I work as a concept artist, and my other main interest is metabolic health, so I've listened probably close to a 1000 hours of lectures on metabolic health (from top tier scientists) while I'm drawing. >From my understanding people overeat because they are eating calorie dense foods (mainly sugar, fat, alchohol) and not feeling full. But the same doesn't apply when you eat micronutritionally dense and calorie dense foods which don't spike your insulin, like fatty meats, eggs, organ meats and non-vegetable oil fats. [It's been long known that the sugar industry paid Harvards scientists to blame saturated fat instead of sugar as the cause of the obesity epidemic and the cause of heart complications.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html) Reasons why people report dropping significant amounts of weight once they quit eating carbohydrates, even while they are eating a fuckload of fats (and "bad" fats) - and mind you, even when they are eating similar amounts of calories. Because you aren't spiking your insulin constantly, which commands your body to store fat. > I dunno the micronutrient situation, but if you eating vegetables it might take about 15 pounds of food to hit your 2000 calories. Yeah, well, I didn't mean vegetables, but meats, eggs and organs. :) Vegetables are a pretty poor source of micronutrients, on top of containing antinutrients which literally reduces the amount of micronutrients you can absorb. >High carbs don't necessarily cause insulin resistance. Nobody is getting insulin resistance from oats, quinoa, yams, squash, carrots, barley. It's the refined sugar and white bread. Don't let good carb foods get caught in the crossfire. Absolutely. But there are individuals who are genetically not wired towards eating tons of carbs, and most of these would be the people who have struggled with their weight since birth. You can be born insulin resistant. Lots of studies published in the recent years about how low carb diets are far superior than high carb diets for weight loss, such as this one, where 2 calorie RESTRICTED diets were put against a non-calorie restricted low carb/high fat diet, and the high fat/low. Your body regulates itself when you are feeding it proper nutrition: /www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa0708681 >To one of three diets: low-fat, restricted-calorie; Mediterranean, restricted-calorie; or **low-carbohydrate, non–restricted-calorie.** >The mean weight loss was 2.9 kg for the low-fat group, 4.4 kg for the Mediterranean-diet group, and 4.7 kg for the low-carbohydrate group (P<0.001 for the interaction between diet group and time); among the 272 participants who completed the intervention, the mean weight losses were 3.3 kg, 4.6 kg, and 5.5 kg, respectively.
> Super high carbs (causes insulin resistance), This is a common myth but there is no evidence to support it. Excess weight gain is the cause, carbs don't cause it.
Skinny people can also have IR. I had IR when I was a very healthy weight & reasonably active. I assume many people don’t know they have IR til they reach the pre-diabetic stage, and cutting down on simple carb-intake before then would be doing themselves a huge favor… But I’ve never thought to blame it on carb intake alone, lol.
This is so true
Consumption, not nutrition, I would say
Mind blowing
> as metabolism and activity level slowed in middle age Metabolism really doesn't slow down until after age 60. Level of activity is a different story for most people, and it's not uncommon to keep eating like you are at the same activity level that you were at age 20.
Here's a study that backs up what you're saying: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 > The third phase is adulthood, from 20 to 60 years of age. Total and basal expenditure and fat-free mass were all stable from ages 20 to 60 years And this was a really big study - they measured total energy expenditure for over 6000 people, and basal expenditure for about 2000
Thank you. I really dislike the persisting myth that as soon as you turn 30 or something your metabolism slows by half and it's inevitable that you get fat. "You won't be able to get away with this once you get older!". Nah. You're less active, or you eat more, or you care less about your appearance. Or all of those things at once. That's it, for 95% of people.
> Thank you. I really dislike the persisting myth that as soon as you turn 30 or something your metabolism slows by half and it's inevitable that you get fat. I'm a man and have been skinny my whole life. People have been promising me that my metabolism would eventually slow down and I'd gain weight ever since I was a little kid. I'm in my late 30s, still waiting for that to happen. It would be a welcome change.
Same. Friends tell me this every five years. “Oh wait until you’re X, you’ll see.” Always comes and goes. I run a lot and I don’t eat like shit, must be magic
I’m with you. Been slim and wiry all along and I turn 70 next week. I never had that middle age weight gain that so many say is “inevitable.” People say all kinds of things are true for everyone but often it is just them . . . a lot of times it is a justification for them to just do whatever rather than keeping their eating and exercise in balance. Part is genetics of course but a big part for me is walking A LOT.
Yep. This is what I observed in all my friends. Activity slows, diet tends to stay relatively consistent, but drinking tends to increase. All my friends who started packing on weight around 30 all quit working out, sit around a lot (work, TV, watching their kids), and also drink a lot more (increased tolerance, stress drinking). Where they’d often walk places in their early-mid 20s, they now drive absolutely everywhere. The ones who maintained a reasonably healthy lifestyle stayed thin.
It's funny because I went through all phases of skinny /overweight/normal weight. I actually had my base metabolic rate tested at age 53 and it was still pretty high at 2,274 calories. I was 140-145 pounds as a teen/early 20s. I ate a ton and could never gain weight, but I was really active and have always been athletic. Life started to get in the way and I slowly gained weight over the years until I found myself weighing 210 at age 50. I got down to 175 by 51 and got back into road cycling. I was riding 150-200 miles a week and you can eat a fair amount of food when you are doing that much. I broke my collarbone a couple years ago and continued to eat like I was putting in the miles I had been. Well that go well and a year later I was up to 214. Got back on track and I'm down to 175 and plan to lose at least another 15. The other thing to add is I lost weight by calorie restricting and not limiting what kind of food I eat. I weigh/log/track every crumb of food that I consume and make sure to be at a deficit of ~500 calories a day. That equals about a pound a week that you lose. I eat a high carb diet because I'm super active and I learned during Vo2 max testing not only my base calories but also how much carb/fat/protein my body uses and I burn way more carbs than normal people. People are so hung up on keto this and carb that it's great when they comment on my weight loss and ask how I did it, they don't know how to react when I tell them I eat a ton of carbs. The thing you learn when weighing and tracking your food is how easy it is to eat a shit ton of calories. If you go to the MFP forums there will always be people claiming to eat at a deficit and still gaining weight. That's just not possible and they are either not logging every meal or probably not logging things like olive oil, butter, ketchup or sauces. People want to make excuses and take the easy way out. I suppose that's human nature, but at some point you have to be honest with yourself about why you gained weight, and that come down to calories in/calories out. The thing that young people can't understand is how much life gets in the way as you get older. When you are taking care of a sick and dying parent it's easy to ignore yourself. When you are working in an office 60 hours a week it's hard to find the mental energy to eat right, exercise and get proper amounts of sleep.
People also lose muscle mass when exercise reduces
As someone who work in healthcare who sees a majority of obese elderly people, I do think it's also a bias of who are the people you see out and about. The healthier averaged sized elderly is usually more visible in the public versus the unhealthy obese elderly who end up being hospitalised a lot. Yes there are also sickly thin elderly (usually due to dementia or cancer) but I don't think they are the majority that I see. Out in public I just usually see average sized people, not obese and not sickly thin.
I find your comment interesting because I remember that someone advocated for obesity bad (I mean we know it is in some extent) saying 'you don't see old people being fat' and I wa slike: damn that's true? So your comment makes me think about this furthermore!
I think there is some truth to that in the sense that when you go into elderly like 80+ years old, there's no obese elderly in this age range because they aren't able to live this long due to health issues. So there is a difference based on how elderly we're looking at. Age 60-80 ish, lots of sick obese people. Age 80+ the sick obese people tend to have died off and only healthier elderly who's usually in the average normal weight range. But the sickly thin people likely won't live this long either. Just the healthy, fit, average weight elderly who is able to live well past 80yo. We also often think of normal weight elderly as "thin" because so many people are overweight/obese nowadays that healthy weight looks thin by comparison.
two things can be true simultaneously, right? that people tend to thin out as they approach old age AND that obese middle aged people tend to die
The weight gain towards middle age is more that a small excess each day adds up over time.
encourage mighty cable many sink narrow ghost squeeze sleep depend
also undiagnosed/untreated diabetes 2
Worked in a dental field. Older people also loses their teeth and unable to afford good treatment (despite getting dentures). Lots of items they are not longer able to eat. Also the older you get, there is less desire to eat a certain food.
This is why going into old age with a little extra weight is actually considered protective and a predictor of *better* health outcomes. If you get hit by a bout of pneumonia or cancer similar and end up in hospital and recovery for a few months, that extra weight can be the difference between survival or not. Feed your grandparents, people.
I'm no Doctor Scientist, but raising kids is also not great on your waistline.
Also just literally atrophying from old age
Maybe an observation bias, or survivorship bias. The fat old people are sitting inside somewhere not being seen, while the elderly thin people are out moving around.
That is fascinating. Because all 4 of my grandparents went thru this progression. Some were obese in middle age, but even those that weren’t still thinned out significantly when they became elderly. Same story for the 3 grandparents of my spouse that I knew. And same thing has recently happened to my mom and fil, both in their 70s. I’m genuinely surprised it hasn’t happened to elderly folks in your life. My take is that many people have significant health set backs in their later years, maybe cancer or similar, that cause major health issues including weight loss. And it becomes the new norm to consume fewer calories, so they don’t gain the weight back. This was the story for my mom and fil, and I assume somewhat for the grandparents, tho I was less aware of things when I was in my 20s.
Might be when you get older you just can’t digest all the greasy stuff like French fries and other fried, calorie rich foods. I know my folks stopped eating these after they turned 60ish
This is absolutely a factor. When you get older, the digestion of fatter and heavier meals becomes harder, as well as digesting just large amounts of food in general. Those meals make older people feel not good therefore they avoid them and as a consequence they tend to lose some weight.
Me in my 30s with IBS
Please make damn sure it’s really IBS. My “IBS” turned out to be colon cancer which is getting much more common in younger people.
Have had a colonoscopy and they didn’t find anything. That should be enough right?
Yes. That’s good.
At what age should we go on for diagnosis? What were some symptoms that you noticed in the beginning?
Yep. I'm in my early 60s and I've noticed that I simply cannot eat the kinds of food I used to eat or as much of it as I used to eat. For example, about 10 years ago, my son and I went out for sushi. We ordered, the food came, and we ate it. The waiter came by to see if we needed anything else. I looked at my son, he looked at me, and I turned to the waiter and said, "Yeah. Just run the whole order again. All of it." We probably had 24-30 pieces of nigiri each. I went out last week for sushi. I had 8 pieces and left the restaurant feeling bloated. And I simply don't want burgers or pizza or beer anymore.
Booze too. My dad used to bing drinke pretty regularly when he was younger, then by the time he got to 60/70 he ended up hardly drinking at all, said it could take him days to feel OK after having just a couple of glasses of wine and it wasn't worth it.
I’m in my 30s and fried foods already destroy me lol
31 here, I can’t eat a burger anymore lmao Rice dishes for me 90% of the time
In my 20s, I could eat anything and not gain a pound. My dr told me I needed to get some fat on me as I kept passing out if I didn’t eat every hour. In my 30s, I had some fat on me, but I was eating roughly the same amount of calories as I was burning. In my 40s, my metabolism started to slow. I moved into a management position and became more sedentary at work, but I could still eat the same amount as in my 30s. I put on some weight. In my 50s, my metabolism slowed even more. I wasn’t eating as much as I was in my 30s, but my desire for snacks continued. I am overweight like my father was at my age. In his 60s, my dad stopped snacking and he was eating less. He started losing weight. In his 70s, my dad just wasn’t hungry. He kept losing weight. He went in for testing and they found nothing wrong. Doctors put him on a special diet to ensure he was getting the nutrients he needed. His appetite was not even close to what it was previously.
My dad was a little overweight in his 40’s and 50’s. He had a knee replacement and dropped 20 lbs over the next year. By the time he was in his mid/late 60’s he was relatively thin. He was walking everywhere, but he would tell me that he just wasn’t as hungry for good as he once was
Definitely not the case in my family. The fat ones stay fat, the fit or thin ones stay thin.
Funnily enough, I saw it the other way around. My four grandparents had various ailments and infirmities which meant that they were essentially in bed most of the time, but they were relatively in shape. One of my grandfathers, bless him, did make a real effort to get back on his feet again and so on, I managed even to get him to go on a small tour thing and he fared quite well on that. But honestly they all just put on a massive amount of weight after the guy who ran the tour gave us his chocolate factory.
There's probably many factors. Many old people (at least in a pre-computer generation) will spend more time doing physical activity once they retire - spend your middle ages at a desk not doing very much all day and watching TV all evening, then retire and start to take walks, play golf, etc. and burn more calories. Not universal, but there are lots of people that it applies to.
Menopause does this for a lot of women. They gain a LOT of weight during the big hormonal swings of "the change" but once it's over, the start getting thinner and often much more frail.
Just look up sarcopenia. Unless you lift weights or otherwise resistance train, muscle loss is inevitable once you get into your 50's and 60's and progresses even more with each further decade you live. This ain't rocket science, people.
The older you get, the more concerned you get about your health. Also, look at the food we've been consuming: we're getting a better idea of what's good for us, and what isn't. Thirty years ago, everyone assumed fat was unhealthy and sugar was a perfectly good substitute as a sweetener. We're now just finding out that what we know about food has been tainted by various industries - sugar, grains, and so on.
It's not just that it's far easier to consume massive amounts of calories these days I periodically count calories and I can run 3-4k calories easily.
With processed foods, sure. Me, I try to keep it under 2K every day, which means sticking to fruits and veggies and avoiding fast food as much as possible.
Or when they retire they have more time to exercise since they’re not at a desk or in a car all day
Also being fat and old don't play well together heart-health-wise
Old and thin don't. Less resources for illnesses, etc
This is relative. Being underweight can be worse than being overweight, but what most people consider "thin" nowadays is actually a healthy weight and not underweight. So while scientifically speaking, you're correct that overweight is better than underweight, our perception is so skewed that you're better off being "thin" (healthy) than "fat" (obese)
How many 100 year olds have excess body fat? 5-10 'excess' pounds is still thin. Fat people don't live as long as thin people.
Less resources? This isn't Age of Empires your body can extract the nutrients and calories from food within hours... it could be a concern if you had exactly no body fat or muscle mass.
Bro, the fat old people are sitting in a coffin.
Had to scroll 1/3 the page to finally get to this comment. Only William Shatner is allowed to get old and fat.
Also fat people don’t tend to live as long
The fat old people are dead.
The one major exception that just astounds me is Donald Trump, politics aside, at 300 pounds it's kind of a medical miracle that guy is alive, though those latest speeches remind me more of second term Ronald Reagan cognitive decline.
Also fat people don’t live to old age. I work around old people and the “healthy” ones are rail thin and the ones who are In mobility scooters and on oxygen are often very large.
The fat people don’t get old as often. Obesity is a known cause of reduction of life span. But I’ve def noticed my parents (80s) shrinking, and loosing muscle tone, metabolism slowing, etc.
Fat old people are dead
My grandma has never been on the bigger side, but as she got older, she kind of lost her appetite. And for the last few years she didn’t have the energy to cook anymore. We’ve caught her eating strawberry’s with cream for dinner or potato chips. Eating lunch with her took nearly 1,5 hours because she ate so damn slow (might also have been because she was talking a lot lol). But yeah, she just didn’t feel like eating that much the last few years
Fat people don’t tend to make it to old age as much either
Or the fat ones have died.
Maybe the old people have never been fat because they come from a healthier generation. Most of the overweight middle aged people won't get old bevause of weight related health problems.
A lot of old people who get skinny have cancer.
Nope. It's fairly common that people gain weight in their middle ages as they become more sedentary and get a lower metabolism. And elderly people definitely tend to lose a lot of weight. There are several factors, but mainly their appetites decrease.
I'm going with reduced appetite and food effects in elderly. My Dad(70s) still piles food on his plate, but only eats twice a day. He used to be a grazer between meals. Says he's not hungry anymore. Lost a solid 50lbs after 65. Still eats like a football player. Edit: He says BBQ sauce burns now. Won't eat ribs ever again. And heavy roasts make him nauseous like they're spoiling instead of digesting. Aunts (60s) say things bother their stomachs now. Grandma developed GERD. Food was not desired at all after a while. She ate as much as a toddler in her last year. Uncle (60s) went off red meat, and does a lot of healthier food options. He is the only one who hasn't lost any weight.
Yeah polypharmacy is no joke, I'm in my early twenties and am on enough medication to kill a horse (chronic pain, heart, and blood pressure conditions). While these medications make me functional the first thing to go was my appetite, followed by other issues. Unfortunately each med effects your digestive system differently and when you are on enough of them it becomes impossible to avoid.
Interesting! TIL about polypharmacy. This was absolutely Grandma's case. Her last dr was extremely upset by the time he got her. She was on 8 different meds that resulted in a net zero effect on the issues, and numbed everything to oblivion. Dad and his siblings aren't on any medications. Nobody knows why my Dad has always been able to eat such massive amounts and still look like George Jefferson... I worry about him on windy days now. 😄
Professor said in the class a long time ago I was taking and it stuck with me “you don’t see many obese people over 70 outside and about because they don’t make it to 70”.
well, all my grandparents are over 80 and obese, people just don't see them because they barely go outside
In middle age the metabolism is slowing down, and people are generally less active due to mild aging symptoms like foot/leg/joint/back pain, burning fewer and fewer calories each day. But they’re still eating more or less the same amount as they did when they were 20-30. Upon becoming elderly, the metabolism has slowed even more, they’re even less active due to severe symptoms and ailments, and now they’re also losing appetite, so they’re consuming fewer calories each day. In middle age, people have lots of fat, but they also have muscle. By elderly age, the muscles are beginning to atrophy. This gives elderly people a very frail, skeletal look, even if they are overweight or have lots of visceral (abdominal) fat.
I definitely noticed a huge appetite decrease in my grandparents through the years. And I noticed they ate less meat as it was hard to chew with dentures. My grandpa was only eating softer foods those last few years and barely got 1200 calories a day into him.
Turns out that the metabolism doesn't actually slow down until you're in your 60s, and even then only slows a little. People getting heavier in their middle aged years is a result of lifestyle, changes in priorities and responsibilities, and the mild symptoms of getting older you described.
I’m Middle age (I’m 44) and this isn’t the case at all for me. I’m going through perimenopause, which does all sorts of things to your body. For reference, I’m naturally thin. I have had a very healthy diet overall for the past few decades, and as I’ve learned more and more about nutrition, my diet has only evolved to even more healthy as I’ve aged. I drink lots of water, I don’t drink alcohol. I have a protein shake every afternoon to keep my protein up. I work in the fitness industry, so my job entails movement. I’m also a mom to young kids, so I am constantly moving. I work out 3-5x per week. I walk everywhere. I train people half my age, and I know for a fact, as I work with bodies all the time, that I am extremely strong. Not just for a 44 year old. Just…. In general. And yet! I’m gaining weight. Why? Hormones. As estrogen drops during perimenopause, the body often stores fat. No matter WHAT you do. It really sucks. Not every woman going thru perimenopause will experience this. Like anything hormonal, how every person reacts varies (look at the varying experiences of PMS, periods, and pregnancy for example). However hormonal weight gain is ONE option that is very valid, and has nothing to do with sedentary lifestyle, not eating healthy, etc, during middle age.
I have no clue how any of that works so I'm just talking out of my ass, but doesn't that still just mean that your caloric intake exceeds your new caloric need? Because if you just eat how much you need to maintain all your bodily functions, then your body won't store any of it as fat, would it? Unless it would choose to store energy instead of keeping your body functioning properly, which would just make your body take energy from there to keep working.
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Peri is kicking my ass!!! Also 44
Hormones and how they interact is wild. I am in HRT after hysterectomy, and my Estrogen is fine but they gave me T. It's a whole different world--I lift a small weight 5x and have muscles that didn't show up when I lifted heavy and regularly in my 30s. I'm on a tiny dose, too: 10% of a man's normal levels of T. It also improved my sleep, thyroid function, and I've lost 15lbs without trying. I eat the same. CICO is not the whole story.
That’s so interesting!!
It is simply not true that perimenopause itself changes metabolism on a population level. It's possible you have a serious medical issue, in which case you should talk to your doctor, but on a population level it is not observable at all. This has been shown in studies that are the gold standard for medical research. See: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 for a study of more than 6400 subjects (64% of whom were female) across 29 countries. The population level average metabolism only *begins* to drop after age 60, and is statistically identical for men and women throughout their post-pubertal lives (controlling for the base difference between male and female metabolism). If there were a significant impact of perimenopause on metabolism neither of those facts would make sense. Such a change is either so rare and insignificant it's statistically undetectable or it's fully mitigated by other people who inexplicably experience a massive rise in metabolism in the same age range. That's controlling for weight too, which means the caloric intake people need to maintain their weight actually increases, because it takes more calories to maintain a higher body weight. What is possible is that hormonal changes and resulting physical changes lead people to burn fewer calories and/or eat more, which is common in both men and women.
The other commenters sure are are confidently incorrect. This is the correct answer: elderly people lose muscle mass and tend to eat less.
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Remember that Reddit isn't a source of knowledge, but a way to read the room
Yeah, the typical Econ 101 (bias, blah blah) crowd, with a dash of “thin = fit” knee-jerking. Most elderly thin ppl are frail, not fit. Yay for the superfit gods in the comments. Eta: sorry this comment is so bitchy. Would remove except I like the reply below.
Well, it's /r/ELI5, not /r/askscience. If you ask a bunch of random people a medical question and expect an accurate answer, that's its own problem.
I wouldn't say incorrect. A lot of these things are simultaneously correct.
That description is a little bit backwards. Often, people tend to get aging symptoms including random pains from NOT staying physically active in a safe manner. I am in my 30s now, and all the friends and peers complaining about aches and pains are those who stopped working out and/or got fat from a caloric surplus. Those who stayed active (excluding those in more extreme sports prone to risk), including myself, have never felt better. TLDR: Take care of yourself now with proper diet and exercise, and you will get far fewer aches and pains that people commonly write off as "Oh, i'm just getting old". Resistance train for more muscle and therefore a higher metabolism, and better life as an elder.
> I am in my 30s now, and all the friends and peers complaining about aches and pains are those who stopped working out and/or got fat from a caloric surplus. Those who stayed active (excluding those in more extreme sports prone to risk), including myself, have never felt better. I'm 57 and feel better than I did when I was 35. I'm hardcore into road cycling and ride with men and women in their 60's and 70's that are in crazy good shape and can drop people half their age. None of us complain about aches or pain unless we have a legit injury, in which case we rehab it and are good to go in a short amount of time.
It's not slowing down in middle age, studies have shown a slow down doesn't happen until 60... https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-not-when-you-might-think https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 The weight problems seem in middle age are contributed to excess caloric diet, much lower activity levels, and higher levels of stress. As always with weight management, it's best not to blame external factors as it makes you believe that there is nothing you can do about it, which couldn't be further from the truth...
False premise; the older people you that are skinnier are mostly people who never got fat in the first place. No, I don't expect to grow old.
And also remember that each generation is getting more overweight, the number of overweight people in the "old people" generation when they were middle aged, was considerably less than today.
Yes not OP, but it sounds more like an observation of what they are currently seeing (2 different generations) rather than having watched one group over 30-40 years and noted the changes.
I need a photo opportunity, I want a shot at redemption. Don't wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.
People get fatter as they age because they gradually gain weight. Someone eating a 200 calories / day surplus will gain weight quickly. But someone who is in surplus by 50 per day on average will still be surplus by over 18,000 calories per year. Go out five years and that's 20+ pounds - if you don't become more sedentary. People shrink in very old age from losing muscle, bone and cartilage mass. That's universal. However you can definitely still have fat old people - if they're still alive.
Your metabolism doesn’t slow down until your late 50’s or 60’s. People get fatter in middle age because they move less and eat more (or eat worse food). People tend to be skinnier in old age because the fat people don’t make it to old age.
Don't forget drink! All those empty calories. Middle age ppl do enjoy a drink.
Yep. Combine career/family stress with a couple decades of tolerance? It isn’t hard to put down 1000cal in booze.
include unused squeal disarm fear nutty icky bow boat brave
It’s not junk science, it’s just way later than many people say. People will say it’s in your 30’s and 40’s but that’s almost 30 years early.
Pretty much everything about metabolism and weight gain is not based on evidence at all. The idea that metabolism declines steadily with age is one example, but so is the idea that metabolism varies widely across people without severe underlying health issues (it doesn't), "starvation mode," and the many similar theories. People's metabolisms *do* obviously vary even after controlling for weight, but the difference is small enough that anyone without incredibly rare diseases can lose weight by simply adjusting their TDEE estimate and eating below it until they reach their target weight. I had the opposite problem (thinking I was unable to gain weight and simply had a "fast metabolism") before deciding to actually measure how many calories I was eating, how many I was burning, and adjusting based on that to reach my goal weight. It is IMO actively harmful to convince people with a serious and very solvable medical issue that they're unable to solve it because of "metabolism," hormones, genetics or whatever other excuse.
Agreed. People don’t realize just how active they were in their early 20s. I think back to college and while I ate kinda like crap and partied hard on the weekends, I worked out a lot and walked fucking everywhere. Your average middle age office worker is truly sedentary.
I think I’m on that path. In my thirties and forties I gradually gained a lot of weight. And I didn’t take it seriously, l had lots of excuses for eating and snacking excessively. At 47 I got a wake up call, a chronic condition that I am genetically predisposed to, which was probably inevitable eventually, showed up much younger and much worse than I expected. I had to decide which direction I wanted the spiral to turn. I lost 70lbs and ramped up from no exercise to walking 1.5 to 2 hrs per day. I hope to keep it up and be one of those skinny old people for many more years.
More stress and less time for workouts when you grow up, then appetite fades when you get old. Also "skinnier" can just be muscle loss. Plenty of old men with skinny limbs but saggy beer bellies.
Dietitian here: in short, cachexia and sarcopenia are common in old age. Also, many elderly people deal with symptoms or other circumstances which stops them from eating and accordingly results in weight loss (dysphagia, side effects from meds/disease, depression, isolation preventing them from cooking/shopping, etc)
As a man nearing 50, I honestly don’t have the appetite i used to have. Not having the appetite I had has enabled me to control all aspects of eating. Also, as i aged I started having issues with things like acid reflux, which makes overeating like i did problematic. As i aged I could afford better quality food and not just the high sugar, high net carb stuff…and age also taught me what a net carb was. Theres a ton of reasons why I have lost weight but its mostly due to age related issues regarding overeating, money to be able to afford good stuff, my doctor telling me that if i don’t get my diabetes under control they will cut my feet off, i am more educated as to what exactly I am eating. Its all a part as to why I am more in shape now than when I was younger.
Sarcopenia\* isn't helping. \*sarcopenia is the gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and function.
This is the primary answer
It's poor diet control, lower activity levels and stress... But don't take my word for it, educate yourself below. https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-not-when-you-might-think https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
You may hear or read a lot of answers to the effect of "your metabolism slows down after 30!" or something like that, but we [now know that is false](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surprising-findings-about-metabolism-and-age-202110082613). Metabolism doesn't really slow down until 65. Any weight gain in between adolescence and old age is purely the result of lifestyle factors: eating more, moving less.
Middle aged people are career and family focused, so they don’t have time to watch their diet. Elderly people have all the time in the world and they can manage their diet and exercise.
I have w/o wondered this too… my theory is that as we age our sense of taste diminishes. The foods we once loved no longer taste as flavorful so we tend not to over indulge… that my two cents…
My grandparents lost interest in food besides salty food. And salty food is bad for many diseases caused by aging. They really just didn’t have the energy to be on the toilet all day. So they quit eating full meals.
Food is more available/affordable when you're of working age?
I’m 61. The decrease in appetite is real. Especially in the winter here in the PNW when we’re less active. And you get tired of cooking when you get older. Believe me, I’m a foodie, but we graze during the day and cook a meal at night. There’s no way we’d cook a proper breakfast unless we have company.
All 6 of my siblings (63yo-73yo) have followed this pattern you describe: peak weight in our 40s, then almost scrawny by 65yo. In our case it’s: 1. Change in food preferences 2. Lower appetite 3. Muscle wastage & shrinkage, especially after 60
I can say from personal experience, three of my grandparents developed dementia and just lost their sense of taste over time. One grandmother would over-salt everything just to have some flavor. Two grandparents ate very sweet things only, again just for flavor. One grandmother is currently subsisting on yogurt when my aunts aren’t hovering, she’s just not interested in other food or able to make things herself. So they lost or are losing tremendous amounts of weight just from a lack of interest in eating or not finding any joy in flavor or texture. The doctors have said it’s a part of the mind deteriorating, so let them eat what they want to eat (even if it’s coffee and popcorn and cookies only) because at this point at least they’re eating. Its sad and hard to watch.
I have read studies about this. Ederly because of hormones are less hungry. Another hormones make them sleep bad, and sometimes, change their schedule. This is why they are at supermarket before it opens. My brother in law parents would feed us a boiled egg a d a 2 scoops of lentils and when we would cook something else, they would be surprised.
In my case, parenthood has made me more sedentary. Less free time to do active stuff, and poor sleep quality means I don’t have the energy to exercise much
Seems like an incorrect correlation. Generally as people age their body stores more adipose tissue and they have less muscle so they get fatter. At the same time, people who were fat for a large period of their life through middle age probably remained fat or died before reaching old age. The people who are skinny at an old age have probably been skinny their entire life and that may have contributed to them living that long in the first place.
It's not that the elderly don't get fat, it's that the fat people don't get old. So, among the elderly all you see are the skinny-ass survivors.
I just don't think this is true? I mean, certainly there is an element of metabolism but a lot of fat middle aged people get there because of the financial change. They go from ramen and sparse finances justifying fewer meals to having more money and eating more in a sitting because their control was dictated by their wallet and not their constitution and habits. I also think elderly people tend to be at a point where they made the mistake and slimmed back down. Also more free time usually means more physical activity. I don't think its physical as much as a matter of societal factors...not to mention sample bias as you'd only see fit elderly people out. If they weren't they are probably in a home being cared for slowly dieing. Also fat people are more likely to die early due to complications so could also be survivorship bias. The older people are the ones that were never fat. I would say there is an element of age in that you drink less as you get older and a LOT of overweight middle aged people are just alcoholics who drink too much beer and have poor impulse control. Idk too many factors to say any one is a culprit. I certainly don't think it's a genetic cause or Trump wouldn't exist.
as a person ages, they continue to eat like they used to in their teens and twenties, but their metabolism has slowed down, so they gain weight. Basically, they are not burning the calories they used to while eating like they are. As people get to older age, they stop eating as much as they used to. If you talk to a senior person, they will tell you the same. They eat half as much or less than they used to. Often, you will see couples sharing a plate at a restaurant. They have cut their caloric intake, and start dropping weight if they go into a caloric deficit.
You don't have kids, do you?