Science Direct reports the findings of a study published in Age this month, which investigated the development & decline of various physiological factors related to human performance in relation to chronology.

"Physiological parameters that characterize human capabilities (mobility, reproduction or the capacity to perform tasks) evolve throughout the life cycle. The physical and intellectual abilities follow the same pattern, starting at the moment of conception: The performance of each individual is limited at birth, then increases to a peak before declining until death. With these findings, Geoffroy Berthelot and Stephane Len modeled the careers of more than 2,000 athletes (from a panel of 25 Olympic disciplines) and grandmasters of chess. They demonstrate a simple relation between changes in performance and the age of individuals.

The results of this study validate a model previously published by Moore: The evolution of the performances of an individual throughout his life follows an exponential growth curve to a peak before declining irreversibly, following another negative exponential curve. This peak is reached at the age of 26.1 years for the disciplines studied: athletics (26.0 years), swimming (21.0 years) and chess (31.4 years). For each data set, the evolution curve is representative of a range of 91.7% of the variance at the individual level and 98.5% of the variance in terms of sport events. Moreover, these cycles are observable in other physiological parameters such as the development of lung function or cognitive skills, but also at the level of cells, organisms and populations, reflecting the fractal properties of such a law."

Read more at Science Direct...

Read the study at Age, published with open access at Springerlink.com...