How metabolism changes with age and whether you can speed it up

How your metabolism changes with age and whether you can speed it up

Scientists analyzed data from 6,500 people to test the theory.

Member of the British Association of Nutritional Scientists, Master of Nutritional Science, author of the book “Make peace with food”

How does the body burn calories and is it possible to slow down or speed up metabolism?

What is metabolism

Metabolism is the work that cells do every day, every minute. There are about 37 million cells in the body, each cell is like a small factory. A certain amount of calories are burned during movement, but most of them are used as fuel to keep cells and organs running.

How metabolic rate changes with age

A recent study examined the metabolism of 6,500 people around the world, from newborn babies to ninety-year-olds. The work involved more than 80 scientists who tried to combine studies from the last 40 years. The results of the work are really impressive.

Experts have always assumed that metabolism peaks in adolescence and slows down significantly as we approach middle age, after the age of 30 or 40. However, a study refutes this fact. Scientists have found that metabolism speeds up much earlier and slows down much later. As a result of many years of observation, they found that metabolism is maximally stable at the age of 20 to 60 years and slows down only in the seventh decade.

There are four stages in the development of metabolism.

• Metabolism reaches its peak in the first year of human life. At this age, a child burns calories 50% faster than an adult.
• From age one to age 20, the rate decreases by about 3% per year.
• From age 20 to 60, the metabolism reaches a plateau, remaining unchanged.
• After age 60, it gradually slows down – by about 0.7% per year.

As amazing as it may sound, we burn calories at a constant rate during our 40 years of life, and a sixty year old has the same metabolism as a twenty year old.

Is it possible to speed up your metabolism

Unfortunately, there are still no proven and effective ways to change your metabolic rate. There are many supplements that promise to speed up metabolism, among them cayenne pepper, caffeine, green tea, etc. However, the effectiveness of these products is quite low and will not bring the desired results.