From getting wrinkles and grey hair to having droopy earlobes and big noses – the human body goes through numerous changes as we get older. And alarmingly, although it may not be immediately obvious, over time, most of the changes the body goes through are caused by parts of our body getting either longer or shorter.
A woman’s breasts are held in place by a network of connective tissue called Cooper’s ligaments, which connect breast tissue and milk ducts to the skin and act like an internal bra. These ligaments are only 2-3cm long in your twenties – but over time, gravity and excess weight can stretch them by as much as 11cms. This process is known as ptosis and can be split into three stages.
Stage one: In young breasts, the nipple is usually above the line where the base of the breast meets the chest – or the infra-mammary fold. By stage two, the nipple is around one to three inches below that point.At stage three, the breast hangs more than 3cm below, with the nipple often pointing down to the floor.As well as gravity causing breast sagigng, after menopause a woman’s oestrogen levels begin to fall causing the milk ducts and glands to shrivel. The connective tissue which makes breasts firm also gets replaced by fat – which is heavier and less able to withstand gravity – making the breasts lengthen.
And there’s essentially nothing we can do to stop it.A doctor said: “We have no medical evidence that wearing a bra could prevent sagging, because the breast itself is not muscle so keeping it toned up is an impossibility.”
And it’s bad news for the boys too – over time penises get shorter. As we age, the arteries in the penis get clogged up with fatty deposits which impact circulation, and the collagen in the erectile tissue loses elasticity – making it harder to get erections. Experts say this means that if a man’s erect penis is 6in long when he is in his thirties, it might be an inch – or 2.5 cms – less by the time he reaches his seventies.
Consultant urologist Zaki Almallah, says the testicles and penis can also look smaller as a man gains weight around his middle. He said: “A built up of excess fat in the torso can lead to part of the penis getting buried in the fat so it ends up looking smaller.”
You may have dainty feet but as you age, expect to need a bigger size. Over time, your feet flatten out under the weight of your body and connective tendons and ligaments lose their elasticity and don’t hold the joints and bones together as well. The result is when you hit 40, your foot can increase by as much as half a shoe size – about 3 to 4 mm – every ten years.As we age, leaky veins also allow fluid to leak into the feet and ankles, making them swell.
As we age, our nails get shorter because they grow at about a third of the rate they do when we’re young. They grow fastest in our teens when they reach a peak of about three to four millimetres a month. After the age of 20, the rate drops off by about 0.5 per cent a year as blood supply to the tips of the fingers becomes less efficient. Mineral deficiencies, hormonal imbalances and some medications can also slow down their growth.
Just like in the rest of the body, the eye muscles lose tone and mass with age, making the pupils dilate less. A 30-year-old has an average pupil diameter of between 6mm and 8mm, but by the age of 90, it has dropped to between 4mm and 6mm.