Ageing of many tissues accelerates around age 50, according to an analysis of tissues in people ranging from teenagers to individuals in their sixties.Credit: Karen Haibara/AFP/GettyIt is a warning that middle-aged people have long offered the young: ageing is not a smooth process. Now, an exhaustive analysis of how proteins change over time in different organs backs up that idea, finding that people experience an inflection point at around 50 years old, after which ageing seems to accelerate. “But it is still difficult to make a general conclusion about the timing of the inflection points.”Showing their agePrevious work has shown that different organs can age at different rates2. The team tracked down one protein produced in the aorta that, when administered to mice, triggers signs of accelerated ageing. Liu speculates that blood vessels act as a conduit, carrying molecules that promote ageing to remote destinations throughout the body.