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Great explainer! Appreciated learning more about the details on what was measured in the study and hearing your big-picture thoughts on factors that may influence aging.

Those headlines caught the attention of everyone I know near those ages, including me. So I looked at the study and was like—really? These grand conclusions on human biology are drawn from a short study of about a hundred people? I understand the headline’s appeal. It’s helpful to feel prepared. But it seems that for most things in life, shifting the conversation to a range of possibilities happening over a period of time would be a better way to prepare for what’s ahead.

And I had my share of hose water too. Just last night, I explained to my youngest that there were no such things as individual “water bottles” when I was a kid. He was horrified.

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author

Thanks Daphne! Indeed, these headlines really wrote themselves and were guaranteed to resonate, regardless of the strength of science. At least it didn’t involve peddling supplements :). Now we can go back to our hose water and worrying about aging every year instead of arbitrary thresholds ;)

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Nov 1Liked by Jennifer Dowd, PhD

nice review, thank you.

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Thanks Jack!

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