A quick guide to aging: what to expect in every decade

Here's a quick glimpse at some of the age-related changes that do occur as we move through our decades. It's a surprisingly short list: Most other common signs of "aging" have little to do with age, and everything to do with lifestyle.

• The first signs of age appear in your skin as the collagen fibers that keep your skin taut begin to weaken.

• By the end of the decade, you may find your first grey hair. Men may find their hair colour fading and their hair, well, disappearing.
• You've passed the halfway mark in terms of bone strength. During this decade, bone breaks down faster than it builds up.
• By the time you turn 39, you'll probably find it harder to maintain your weight with the same eating/exercising regimen you followed at the beginning of the decade. Your metabolism is slowing — time to pump up the physical activity.
• This is the time when women's fertility begins waning. It may take longer to get pregnant, and you may need to call in the experts for a little boost.

• Gasp! Is that a wrinkle? Yes, this is the time of life when the sun you worshipped as a teen and in your twenties turns on you.
• By the middle of this decade, you're more likely to die of cancer than from accidents.
• By the end of the decade, you may find your days of rock 'n' roll have left sounds slightly muffled. Even if you were a classical-music aficionado, your eardrums have lost elasticity, affecting your hearing.
• Oh, and don't forget the reading glasses. The question is not "if" you'll develop presbyopia, a type of farsightedness, but "when." It occurs because the lens of your eye stiffens with age, making it more difficult to focus.

• One day, you look down at your hands but see your grandmother's hands! Sadly, though, they are your hands, and all those brown spots and puffy veins are the result of years of sun exposure and the increasing inability of your skin to rid itself of gunk called lipofuscin — produced when free radicals build up in the skin.
• Early this decade, women will reach menopause. The average age of menopause in most countries is 52.

• Even though you can't see it, you probably have small pockets throughout your intestines called diverticula. They won't bother you unless bits of digested food become caught in them, in which case they get inflamed and infected. To prevent this, make sure you get plenty of fibre.
• This is the decade in which men may find themselves having some urinary problems from an enlarged prostate.
• You should check in with your ophthalmologist; chances are that you have a cataract or two that needs to be removed.

• How you'll feel in your seventies and eighties really depends on how you spent the last six decades. If you never exercised, smoked, drank a lot, and considered late-night TV intellectual fare, you may find yourself frail with diabetes and heart disease, forgetting simple things, and fighting chronic pain from arthritis.

Know what to expect with this quick guide to aging and remember that how you age heavily depends on how well you take care of your body.