Changes in Human Beings across Lifespan
Introduction
Human beings continually develop and change across a distinct life cycle, right from cell development all through to death. With a proper diet, which acts as fuel, people undergo cognitive, hormonal, physical, and metabolic changes to respond to the needs pertinent to specific stages in their respective lifespans. These changes commonly relate to the human body structure and functioning as an individual strives to fully adapt to the dynamic needs associated with the aging process. Therefore, describing and detailing frequent body changes across the human lifespan presents an opportunity to establish whether or not the male and female humans undergo identical growth and development processes.
Cognitive Changes
Cognitive changes involve the higher functions of the brain, including reasoning and memory. As such, they tend to affect multiple human mental abilities, such as thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving (Beckett & Taylor 109). Although cognitive decline with age seems to be the overall picture when addressing these changes, variability exists as many older folks tend to out-perform young ones in some cognitive tasks irrespective of their gender. Therefore, cognitive changes should be tracked through the normal aging process, dementia, and Alzheimer’s lenses to understand the evident anomalies.
A normal aging process has age-related cognitive changes in both males and females. These changes tend not to be uniform across all the domains of cognition and gender. For instance, the attention and memory domains usually show a significant decline with age in both sexes, whereby, at a young age, when the brain has fully developed, both males and females will perform better than in their late ages of 65 years upwards. Nevertheless, some elements of these domains hold up even with old age (Payne & Larry 14). Hence, the evident sharper memories and attentiveness among older adults in comparison to those in their early ages. Just like attention and mind, the perception domain also tends to decline with age since both genders experience deteriorating sensory capacities (Payne & Larry 12). However, the variance in vulnerability to dementia and Alzheimer’s apparent between the female and the male reveal possible differences in cognitive changes.
A woman is most likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than a man due to cognitive changes associated with the death of brain cells. In females, aging comes with a high death rate of brain cells, unlike in their male counterparts (Payne & Larry 22). Their cells die at a faster rate exposing their cognitive domains to challenges. For instance, the rapid death of nerve cells and associated connections relate to deficiencies in the cognitive functioning of most women in their late ages. Such a rapid death rate of the brain cells commonly sets women apart from males regarding cognitive changes.
Hormonal Changes
Unlike cognitive changes, the female and the male have distinct hormonal changes, especially for the period between onset of pre-puberty and death. In particular, hormones represent the difference between males and females. Despite having common hormones including, but not limited to, estrogens, testosterone, and progesterone, each gender tends to be unique depending on hormone production sites, interactions with organs and systems, and blood concentration.
The pre-puberty stage in girls and boys is distinguished from subsequent steps by a beehive of hormonal activities. Primarily, the pre-puberty stage tends to be relatively dormant in both genders but prepares body organs and systems for robust hormonal processes at the puberty stage. In the puberty stage, the hypothalamus releases a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Subsequently, it releases follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) (Beckett & Taylor 124). While these hormones then travel through the bloodstream to signal the production of the hormone testosterone and sperm in testes, in girls, they go to ovaries to trigger the creation of the hormone estrogen, maturation, and menstruation. At this stage, sharp differences emerge, which further foster more variances in hormone changes as boys and girls age.
The most common hormonal change in subsequent stages relates to menopause during the age of about 50 years. Their ovaries decrease the production of estrogen and progesterone, triggering more production of FSH to compensate for the deficit (Beckett & Taylor 130). This particular change sets the female apart from the male since the latter group continues with the production of testosterone throughout life. These sharp variances in hormonal changes influence most of the physical differences among women and female.
Physical Changes
Physical variations revolve around the skin, skeletal, and functional activities of an individual. Even though these changes vary based on gender, they tend to maintain a common trend with age. For instance, whether in females or males, melanocytes decrease with age, and the remaining ones increase in size, causing aging skin to look thinner, paler, and translucent. However, the male skin is distinguished initially from that of a female with about 25 percent thickness (Beckett & Taylor 109). While skin gradually gets thin with age in males, the female experience constant skin thickness until they are in their mid-40s (Beckett & Taylor 113). At the onset of menopause, their skin then starts thinning significantly. The skin alterations primarily reflect the skeletal differences between males and females.
Most of the skeletal variations draw from independent hormonal changes in females and males. In particular, the male experience of testosterone’s effects become apparent during adolescence. Their testicles enlarge, pubic hair starts sprouting, and subsequently, a robust growth between 10 to 16 years (Beckett & Taylor 126). This growth relates to faster growth of hands, arms, legs, and feet in relation to other parts of the body. Contrarily, in females, physical changes start 1 to 2 years earlier than in males. Beckett and Taylor assert that breasts develop as hips widen rapidly. Although not comparable to the rate of growth in males, they also increase in height (1). These differences tend to influence how people function based on gender. For example, the masculinity identified with males makes them more competent in handling more heavy activities with a lot of ease compared to the other group. As such, metabolism tends to set these gender groups apart.
Metabolism
The nutritional and metabolic needs of each group tend to be unique. The uniqueness draws from the variation in energy requirements since males are engaged in body activities that are dependent on relatively higher energy levels. The need for more calories in men tends to require a higher total intake of proteins, fat, and carbohydrates. Gropper and Smith assert that the higher metabolism in male depends on the consumption of the macronutrients (110). The intake helps to counter the anabolic effects produced by testosterone as they build more masculinity.
However, as both males and females grow and develop, metabolism slows down with age. Aging comes with less activity as a result of the maturity of internal body components. In particular, after a peak of 3,200 calories in men at the age of 18 or 19 years, metabolism slows with a drop of 200 calories (Gropper and Smith 124). In women, calories also steadily reduce as from the age of 20 years and exponentially at 40 years, when menopause starts (Gropper and Smith 136). Nonetheless, there are some different periods to women, such as breastfeeding, which result in massive burning of calories. They often cause unique nutritional needs among women, whereby they tend to have higher mineral and vitamin needs than men.
Conclusion
Overall, human beings continually develop and change across their distinct life cycle, right from cell development all through to death. This current research paper explores some of these changes, including cognitive, hormonal, physical, and metabolism. Through the various lenses of change in cognitive functioning, such as the normal aging process, dementia, and Alzheimer’s, the paper establishes common trends among the female and male genders with slight differences. However, variations emerge with hormonal, physical, and metabolic changes. Case in point, as the production of estrogen and progesterone hormones interferes with menopause, testosterone is continually produced throughout the lifespan of the male. These sharp differences extend to physical changes involving the skin, skeletal, and functional changes. They mostly get eminent even in metabolic changes as nutritional and metabolic needs tend to vary across the genders.
References
Beckett, Chris, and Hilary Taylor. Human growth and development. SAGE Publications Limited (2019): 109-135.
Payne, V. Gregory, and Larry D. Isaacs. Human motor development: A lifespan approach. Routledge (2017): 12-43.
Gropper, Sareen S., and Jack L. Smith. Advanced nutrition and human metabolism. Cengage Learning, (2012): 100-146.