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LiveScience
LiveScience
Kristel Tjandra

Why do we shrink as we age?

An older, shorter male talking to a younger, taller male.

Have you noticed someone getting shorter as the years slip by? Some people may start hunching over and even get a few inches shorter. So what makes us shrink as we age? 

It turns out that it's a combination of our bones "eating" themselves, our cartilage thinning and our muscles being whittled away. But the rates at which these processes happen vary depending on genes, physical nutrition and activity levels across a person's lifespan.

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