Hi,
Age does have an effect but I would say that there are many factors which determine the number of hours a student passes the skill test in. Motivation, determination and and persistance play a strong part, as does the more reading/study you do in the bacckground The oldest student at the club where I instruct is a sprightly 78, he has been solo a few times so that alone shows age is certainly not a barrier to success.
Hours to Solo is in my opinion, somewhat irrelevant as there are far too many factors (eg weather, regularity of flying and so on) to make it a reliable judge of ability and performance, in fact 2 students that I taught more or less full time during the summer and who both passed in close to minimum hours both took around 15-20 hours to go solo.
Its much better to wait until you have better developed handling skills and can deal with any issues more easily before going solo, it also makes the rest of the course less taxing as you use less effort in simply flying the aircraft.
So stick with it, I'm sure you'll get there in the end and good luck