Episode Transcript
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0:00
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All
0:02
right? You know how I love a good list, and especially
0:05
when these lists are about records. While
0:07
I was looking over the list of the world's oldest
0:09
living people, and I stumbled into
0:11
this story of Jean Louise Coleman, and
0:14
she was the oldest living person on record
0:16
until she died in at
0:18
a hundred and twenty two years and
0:21
a hundred and sixty four days
0:23
old old. That's
0:25
crazy, and it was so much fun to read about her life.
0:27
I mean, she had this really active lifestyle.
0:29
She enjoyed swimming, playing tennis,
0:32
cycling. She decided to start
0:34
fencing at the age of eighty five, and
0:36
in fact, she rode her bike until she turned
0:38
a full century old. That's
0:40
incredible. Yeah, and she didn't slow down much
0:43
after that, so she decided to let her artistic
0:45
talent shine after turning a hundred.
0:47
She was a hundred and fourteen when she made an appearance
0:50
in the movie Vincent and Me, and that made
0:52
her the oldest actress to appear in emotion
0:54
picture. Then, when she was a hundred and twenty,
0:57
one of four track CD titled
0:59
Times Mistress was released. This
1:01
was a rap album with Kelmen speaking over
1:03
it. So she obviously lived this very
1:06
active and engaging life. But
1:08
you want to know the real reason I think she made it to a
1:10
hundred and twenty two. She stopped
1:12
smoking when she was a hundred and sixteen,
1:15
after ninety six years of sucking down
1:17
cigarettes. That's so strange. And obviously
1:20
cigarettes are one of the things that are most consistently
1:22
linked in earlier death. So that's
1:24
that's doubly crazy, right right, it really
1:26
is. And you know, while it's certainly a bizarre case,
1:29
there's some really fascinating findings in the
1:31
world of science that are helping us understand
1:33
why certain people live longer. And
1:35
that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's get started.
1:56
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
1:58
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by
2:00
my good friend man guest Ticketer, and today
2:03
we're talking about the latest research around
2:05
longevity, that is, how to live
2:07
a super long time now, Mango.
2:09
In one of our earlier episodes, we talked about
2:12
cryonics, you know, this effort to freeze our
2:14
bodies after we die, all in the
2:16
hopes that science will advance enough in the coming
2:18
centuries to be able to bring us back to
2:20
life. And if I remember correctly, you
2:22
made it pretty clear this was not something
2:25
you're a fan of. You'd rather just try to
2:27
live longer while you're still alive the first
2:29
time around, right, And I totally
2:31
stand by that feeling. So first off, you know,
2:34
I hate the cold. There's no
2:36
way I want to be shoved upside down into a freezer.
2:38
And and also I
2:41
would so much rather just live longer and healthier
2:44
than than you've woken up like two years
2:46
from now. Yeah, well that's what we're gonna talk about
2:48
today, and so we'll dive into the latest research
2:50
on the obvious stuff, whether that's exercise
2:52
and diet and all of those things, and
2:54
and then some of the surprising. And we've got
2:56
a couple of great guests on today, that's right.
2:59
So one of them is a total superstar
3:01
to me, and I'm a little surprised that we managed
3:03
to get her on the program. Any listeners who heard
3:05
the original trailer for the show will also be familiar
3:07
with your ninety year old grandmother, Mama. Mama,
3:10
I know, and so Mamma is going to share some of her
3:12
tips on how she's managed to reach ninety and
3:14
be in better shape than either of us. And
3:16
we'll also be joined by Howard Friedman.
3:19
He's this professor and psychologist at the University
3:21
of California Riverside. Friedman co
3:23
authored a book called The Longevity Project a few
3:25
years back, which followed an incredible
3:28
eight decades study about the various psychological
3:30
factors that contribute to how long people
3:32
live. It's this really fascinating
3:35
book, and I'm excited to hear some of those updates
3:37
and uh, talk to Howard. So two great
3:39
guests. Yeah, I can't wait to get both of them on the line.
3:41
So all right, well let's talk about longevity.
3:44
You know, when we were young, if you mentioned someone had
3:46
lived to be a hundred, it just seemed
3:48
incredible, almost impossible. And it
3:51
is incredible, I know. So when I was younger, I used
3:53
to tell people that my great grandma lived to a hundred
3:55
and three, and no one believed me, and
3:57
I just kind of took it for granted that people live at
4:00
But when I think about it now, I don't even
4:02
understand how that's possible. What's
4:04
even more incredible than that is that some researchers
4:07
predict that half the baby is born in wealthy
4:09
countries after the year two thousand
4:11
will live to be a hundred. Half
4:13
of these people, Yeah, that's unreal. But I
4:15
did see in a research that life expectancy
4:18
has been going up by nearly three months every
4:20
year for nearly a hundred eighty years now.
4:23
And while there's certainly no guarantee that the trend
4:25
will continue, if it does, that's
4:27
where your stat really starts to click. Like
4:29
I read that if those numbers continue, more
4:31
than half the baby is born since two thousand will hit
4:34
triple digits. Well, and there have been so many studies
4:36
done to try to find some big clue or marker
4:38
that lets us say, Okay, that's it, you know, that's why
4:40
people are living this long, But so far
4:43
they really haven't been able to find one, even
4:45
for these supercentenarians. These are those
4:47
incredible cases where people live more
4:49
than a hundred and ten years. I know. So I
4:52
used to read tips from old people on living longer,
4:54
and they see things like, uh, you
4:56
know, too much standing will kill you, or too much sitting,
4:58
or eat yogur but only the really sour
5:01
yogurt, or don't eat any dairy. I
5:03
mean, everything is so conflicting, And
5:06
the clearest thing is that genetics obviously
5:08
play a role, so scientists haven't
5:10
been able to figure out that like one magic gene
5:12
that helps people live to a hundred years. But
5:15
behavioral differences are something researchers
5:17
know much more about that we're going to talk about
5:19
those, but before we get into the big ones
5:21
like diet and exercise, I'd love to
5:23
warm up a little and talk about some of the surprising
5:26
or interesting things that you were mentioning from the research
5:28
you found yesterday. All right, let's do that. Well,
5:30
So, so which which place do you want to start?
5:32
Well, what about the fact that work stress
5:34
isn't nearly as bad as uh as people
5:37
think? Okay, well, that that one actually
5:39
surprised me. So we're not talking about people
5:41
who are miserable in their jobs. But you
5:43
know, some stress, a little bit of stress,
5:45
even consistent stress over doing a good
5:47
job or just being busy at work.
5:50
That's not going to kill you, or at least it's
5:52
not likely to. So we can ask Dr
5:54
Freedman more about this later. But the
5:56
health benefits of hard work have been found,
5:58
and not only in young are workers, but even
6:01
in older people. So again, this was a little
6:03
surprising to me. And a certain level
6:05
of stress often indicates, you know, real
6:07
engagement in their work, and these individuals
6:09
are usually more connected and happier
6:12
than those co workers who are not as engaged
6:14
in what they're doing. Yeah, wh which which makes a
6:16
certain amount of sense to me, like the pride you're taking
6:18
and you know your commitment to But but
6:21
what about parenthood. I mean, people always
6:23
joke about kids taking years off their life,
6:25
and it seems like it would make sense if we found
6:27
out that being a parent made his die a little younger,
6:30
Like it's stressful to be a parent. They're all
6:32
the years of missleep and then the years of
6:34
worrying about those kids, and then they
6:36
obviously cost a ton of money. Um,
6:39
but I think you had some surprising facts
6:41
for stressed out parents. It turns out having
6:43
kids may actually help you live a little bit
6:45
longer. I was reading about this study out of Sweden,
6:48
and these researchers looked at over a million
6:50
people in this study, So these were people
6:52
born in the early nineteen hundreds, and
6:54
what the study found was that those who had at least
6:57
one child were actually more likely
6:59
to live longer. So for women, it was a benefit
7:01
of about a year and a half, and
7:03
for men it was almost two years. So
7:06
I lived with two tyrants. And if you'd
7:08
asked me when I had to toddler in the house two years
7:10
ago, I would have told you that that just
7:12
can't be true. I mean, there's no coincidence
7:15
that all my white hair came in when I had kids. Yeah,
7:17
I would have said the same thing. And there's some other
7:19
interesting elements to the study as well. They
7:21
found that there was an even stronger link between
7:23
parenthood and life expectancy
7:26
for those who weren't married. Yeah, so this
7:28
is the part where we tell all our single friends, like
7:30
Sean Turner, just go out there and have a kid.
7:32
That'll solve it all. Just just just go have a
7:34
kid. But this is where our biggest clue
7:36
comes from. So it suggests that these parents benefit
7:39
from their adult children caring for them
7:41
and providing social support in their later
7:43
years. So you told me that yesterday. But I'm
7:45
wondering, doesn't matter if these parents
7:47
have a boy or a girl. Well, there were some earlier
7:49
studies that it just had shown that it was, you
7:52
know, maybe more beneficial to have a girl because
7:54
adult daughters were more likely to be helpful
7:56
as their parents got older. But the
7:58
more recent studies have shown that it's it's
8:00
pretty much equal to whether you have a boy
8:03
or a girl, which is kind of relief. Okay,
8:06
So another one that I I guess isn't
8:08
that shocking but is interesting to see confirmed
8:11
is the benefit of learning a second language and
8:13
how that can slow your brain from aging. Yeah, this
8:15
one is actually pretty cool. So you know, it's not
8:17
a new idea that knowing a second language
8:19
might help keep a mind sharp, but it's
8:21
always been difficult in these previous studies
8:24
to try to separate out the benefits of
8:26
knowing a second language with you know, other
8:29
contributors to this. So that is until
8:31
a recent study of hundreds of Scottish people.
8:33
And this was over a several decades span.
8:36
So this study tracked over a thousand people
8:39
and at the beginning of the study, all the participants
8:41
were around eleven years old, and all
8:44
of them spoke only one language, and that
8:46
was English. Now, this was back in the nineteen forties.
8:49
So I've got to tell you, like, I love studies
8:51
like this that spans so many decades. It's just amazing
8:54
to me. Yeah, me too. And so you can fast forward
8:56
from there to over sixty years later
8:58
when all of them were in their seventies. And
9:00
so they managed to track down about eight
9:03
hundred of these original participants, and
9:05
it just so turned out that that a third of them
9:07
had learned at least one more language.
9:09
So it really made for this pretty controlled
9:12
study, huh. And so what they find,
9:14
well, they found that those who picked up a second language
9:17
scored better than they would have expected when they
9:19
looked back at their original scores, and
9:21
those that had not learned a new language performed
9:24
pretty much in line with what they had expected.
9:26
So it's, you know, it's pretty strong evidence that the additional
9:29
language actually helped them. And do you have any
9:31
sense of why? I mean, you know, they
9:33
can't be a d percent certain as to why.
9:35
But in thinking about what the brain must do
9:37
when speaking multiple languages, it
9:39
has to process words and both languages
9:42
and then produce the appropriate phrases
9:44
and the right language. So I
9:46
mean it is some kind of a mental workout,
9:49
all right. So one more before we get to the big
9:51
stuff. And this one was totally shocked
9:54
to me. And I think you said, and I'm going to paraphrase
9:56
here, that the elderly, you need to start taking
9:58
massive bond kits every mooring just
10:01
to get smarter. I'm not sure that's exactly
10:03
what I said, but they're definitely some
10:05
interesting studies around the use of th HC,
10:08
which is the active ingredient in cannabis.
10:10
So that's a little different than than
10:12
what you've suggested here. But you know, over the
10:14
years, many studies have pointed to the
10:16
fact that teenagers perform more poorly
10:19
on memory or attention tests
10:21
when under the influence. But in some
10:23
recent studies of mice, when th HC
10:25
is administered in very controlled and
10:27
very low doses to these elderly
10:30
mice, they found that these mice were able
10:32
to perform certain cognitive task at
10:34
similar levels to those of mice
10:36
that were not given the substance. So
10:38
this was not the case when they were not given the th HC,
10:41
which is just crazy, and the response
10:43
was very different in the young mice. When they were
10:45
given the THHC, they actually performed
10:48
much more poorly, which
10:50
is which is just super interesting to me. So I'm
10:52
still a little baffled by this idea of old people
10:54
picking up this daily marijuana have it, even
10:56
if it's in like low doses, But why
10:59
does it keep younger. Well, they're focusing
11:01
on the endocannabinoid system, and this
11:03
is what helps our bodies deal with stress.
11:05
So this is a system that begins declining
11:08
with age, but the THHC helps
11:10
stimulate this system and calm the mice
11:12
down a little bit. So I'm guessing they're gonna be trying
11:14
this on people next Yeah, and we do need to
11:16
be clear yet again, this does not mean that doctors
11:18
are going to start prescribing joints for the same
11:21
benefit. Again, it's a very controlled
11:23
and low dosage to be administered, and so that's
11:25
what they're testing now, you know, to figure out how
11:28
much the benefit is and and at what
11:30
age it's most beneficial. Okay, Well,
11:32
I honestly feel like this changes everything.
11:34
I know, Like somehow we learned that being
11:37
stressed at work is great, being a parent,
11:39
forcing yourself to learn Portuguese, and possibly
11:42
just possibly picking up a low dose pot habit
11:44
in your seventies or eighties, all of that's
11:46
gonna extend your life. That's right before
11:49
we get to the Big East. Like exercise
11:51
and diet and the things that will definitely boost
11:53
your chances of living longer. Why don't we get
11:56
them on the line. All right, you better buckle up.
12:01
How does it feel to be ninety just
12:04
like I did when I was young? Yeah?
12:06
Because I can do everything
12:09
I did when I was younger. Yeah,
12:12
I love that. I know you've always told
12:14
us that we had to stay active. Why don't you tell us
12:16
a little bit about you know, what you
12:18
do to exercise and how you stayed active
12:20
all these years? Well? Right
12:22
now, I work with Mary Beth
12:25
the trainer for three days a week, and
12:28
then I try to just go right on in and
12:30
swim. And you know what kind
12:32
of swimmer I am. I certified swimming
12:34
structor for years and I'm
12:36
still helping. Always try them
12:38
on boys that can't swim too
12:41
well. They can ride bicycles
12:43
and and do all these others, but they're
12:46
not very good swimmers. So I helped the
12:48
police investigator and a senior from
12:50
Sanford just lately they
12:53
wanted to swim. And how are you? I
12:55
love how many hobbies you have and and I
12:57
always say you play
13:00
got point of fourteen? Then I'm played
13:02
tennis and then uh
13:04
oh, model all my life.
13:07
I'm modeled everywhere in Birmingham. So
13:09
that's a bunch of fun. And
13:13
I decided to want flyer planes. Well
13:16
that was a lot of fun. And
13:19
my husband was in California and I
13:21
had come back, and I said, don't let him get
13:24
scared of this. Well he started
13:26
flying and he got his license
13:28
and said, that's most funds they ever had in his
13:31
life. And the guy that taught me
13:33
to fly to help the blue angels
13:35
in the thunderbird, So he was pretty good.
13:39
It was an Emery riddle, so he was very
13:42
good. Well, you've obviously stayed
13:44
really really active. I was also hoping
13:46
you tell us a little bit about, you
13:48
know, about your healthy eating and what kinds
13:51
of things you try to do to stay healthy. On that side,
13:54
you need now Like today, while
13:56
ago, I fisted some chicken and
14:00
some fruit, and
14:02
then I keep Bold eggs in the refrigerator
14:05
because they're good to go. Grab one out of the frigerator,
14:07
get your Bold eggs. And then
14:11
this is like, oh,
14:15
bait, you know, chicken out. Only eat
14:17
fried foods? You no, And I eat
14:19
a lot of fruits and vegetables
14:22
and just
14:24
be real careful what I eat. Now,
14:27
You've always told us, though that you got to save a little
14:30
bit of room every once in a while for for a
14:32
little tree. Oh yeah,
14:34
I'm famous for banana putts. My
14:36
grandson will now mind go, I
14:39
gotta make your banana. But
14:41
we all in the love those
14:43
banana please man go. Yeah. I don't know if
14:45
you knew this, but when you know Michael
14:47
Jordan played for the Birmingham Barons when
14:49
he played baseball in the league for a
14:52
couple of years, and Mama would
14:54
make Michael Jordan's bananas. Well,
14:58
Michael Jordan was just a or
15:00
a sweet guide. Michael hit
15:02
a home run when my mother was ninety
15:05
two. She went to the ball game
15:07
and she got to see if hit a home run. So
15:09
that was good. We'll tell us any any
15:12
other tips you might have about living
15:14
a long, healthy life. Oh
15:17
yeah, I forgot to tell y'all. I was
15:19
president two years for the International
15:22
Lady Polots. It's one of the biggest
15:25
organizations in the world. I
15:27
am still a member of him, and
15:30
I meet with the ladies for
15:33
lunch and uh so
15:35
we still see
15:38
each other and
15:40
I like the volunteer And
15:43
my favorite is Autism Society.
15:46
My little great grandson has autism
15:48
and he's doing very well, very
15:51
well well that's great. Well, mamma,
15:53
we uh we we thought we would let you
15:55
play a little quiz with us if you if
15:57
you don't mind, all right, all
16:00
right, so mango, we're what's our quiz
16:02
called today, It's called did it happen in
16:04
Mamma's lifetime? All right, So
16:06
we're gonna read you a thing, and
16:08
you're gonna have to tell us. We're gonna read you a statement,
16:11
and you're gonna have to tell us whether it happened
16:13
in your lifetime. Now, if it happened,
16:15
if you're in your lifetime, we want
16:18
you to say, that sounds about right. And
16:20
if it did not happen in your lifetime,
16:22
we want you to say, I don't know about
16:24
that. We kind of use some of your phrases. All
16:27
right, Okay, here we go, you ready, okay,
16:30
all right? The invention of
16:32
shopping carts. Did it happen
16:35
in mamma's lifetime? That
16:37
sounds about right? Is that true? Is she right?
16:39
Yeah, she's right. The shopping cart was invented by
16:41
the owner of the Humpty Dumpty grocery store
16:44
in Okay. So Mamma's
16:46
one for one. Question number two.
16:49
The invention of the facts machine
16:51
did it happen in your lifetime?
16:53
I don't know about it? Okay, is she right?
16:56
Man? Yeah, she's right. A fax machine
16:58
was invented way back in eighteen forty three
17:00
by a Scottish inventor. It was actually called
17:02
the electronic printing telegraph. Okay,
17:05
so she's got all
17:08
right, I got to study. Yeah,
17:11
she's two out of two. Alright, the next question,
17:13
she got two left. Juicy fruit
17:15
chewing gum? Was this invented in your
17:17
lifetime? I don't know
17:20
about that, but all
17:23
right, so so is she right?
17:26
Yeah, she's right. Juicy fruit was introduced
17:28
in eight and in case
17:31
you were wondering the juicy fruits to make up the flavor
17:33
of juicy fruit or lemon, apple, orange,
17:35
and banana. Okay, so mamma has gotten
17:37
all three, right, So for the
17:39
last one, let's see if she can get a perfect
17:41
score. Chocolate chip cookies.
17:44
Were they invented in your lifetime?
17:46
If you think so, you'll say that sounds about
17:49
right, That sounds about right.
17:51
Yeah, four for four cookie,
17:57
that's right? Since so
18:00
so so mango, mamma got four out of four.
18:03
So what she won today a whole lot
18:05
of hugs and kisses all right,
18:07
would I have made a lot of chocolate chip
18:09
cookies. They're good. I
18:12
agree. Thank you so much for doing this with
18:14
us today, and I want you boys
18:17
to be sweet and be good here. All
18:19
right, we will welcome
18:34
back to part time genius. All right, Mango. Now
18:36
that Mamma has inspired us to live healthier
18:39
and way more enthusiastically too.
18:41
But let's let's talk about the obvious reasons
18:43
that we all know can influence how long
18:45
we live and what the latest science
18:47
has to say. All right, so do you want to start
18:50
with diet? Well, I hate to
18:52
tell you this, but it doesn't appear that the Raman
18:54
restaurant downstairs is the key to are living
18:56
longer. Man. That is so good.
18:59
Honestly, if you guys are ever in Pond City
19:01
Market, you'll see us at that ram and bar wat much
19:03
too much. But I know you've done some
19:05
reading on the latest diet research and and what
19:07
did you find? So you know all the studies
19:10
that I've looked at significant calorie restriction
19:12
and its relationship to a long healthy life.
19:14
Yeah, it's It's been a little while since I've seen at some
19:16
of these, but you know, I feel like I've only seen
19:18
ones that are about mice or worms or
19:20
some other small creatures. So to be honest,
19:23
I really wasn't sure how close we were to saying that this
19:25
would apply to humans. Well, lucky for you
19:27
were one step closer, because now we're
19:29
talking primate alright, Lucky
19:31
for me, I want to restrict my calories.
19:34
I saw a really interesting story in your favorite
19:36
magazine, New Scientists about how a long
19:38
running trial and a group of monkeys or macoux
19:40
specifically found that calorie restriction
19:43
led to a longer life. Actually it was about
19:45
three years, and while that doesn't seem
19:47
that long, it's equivalent about nine
19:50
human years. That is pretty significant. I
19:52
mean, I guess we can't assume that would necessarily
19:54
be nine years in humans. Yeah, but I mean
19:56
i'd also just take three extra years,
19:58
right, But some researchers
20:00
are hopeful that as we better understand what
20:02
calorie restriction is doing, we might
20:04
be able to come up with better anti aging medicines.
20:07
And the other thing they found in some trials
20:09
calorie restriction resulted in lower rates of
20:11
cancer and heart disease. Yeah, both
20:13
both good things obviously. And you know, as you're
20:15
saying this, I decided to google calorie
20:18
restriction in humans, and I
20:20
see there's something called the calorie restriction
20:23
Society. So obviously there are people already
20:25
subscribing to this and thinking about it pretty
20:27
seriously. Yeah, the New Scientists reporter
20:29
Clara Wilson talks about this group in our story.
20:31
They're basically on a permanent diet of around
20:34
hundred two I don't know about eighteen
20:36
hundred calories per day as compared to
20:38
the usual recommendation of two thousand.
20:41
In fact, there's kind of a funny quote at
20:43
the end of Claire's story, so she says,
20:46
quote until someone's used to it, the
20:48
diet involves planning every meal
20:50
with precision, and side effects can
20:52
include feeling cold and reduced
20:55
libido. And story, that's
20:57
the last line. I kind of
20:59
wonder how many people had the whole story, got all
21:01
the way to that final quote and they were like, Okay, I'm
21:03
out. I can't do this. But it is
21:05
interesting and it does seem like science
21:07
is starting to point us in the direction of calorie
21:09
restriction being beneficial to humans,
21:11
So it will be interesting to watch where this
21:13
goes. Yeah, so there was this interesting
21:15
thing that A. J. Jacob's our friend wrote a while
21:17
back where he was talking about visiting some folks
21:20
from the calorie restriction Society, and
21:22
they basically meditate on each piece
21:24
of food. They like slowly
21:26
meditate on it to savor it. And they
21:28
show him how to eat a single blueberry,
21:31
and first they smell it, then
21:33
they think about how delicious it's going to taste
21:35
from the scent of it, and how it's going to feel
21:37
in their mouth, and then they put it in their
21:39
mouth, but tell him not to bite until he's
21:41
ready. It's like tantric eating sounds
21:43
like a Portland sketch, and
21:46
all he wants to do is bite, but they tell him
21:48
to consider the blueberry skin and the texture
21:50
and the tannins and savor every
21:52
little segment of the fruit. Is it burst full of flavor
21:55
in his mouth? And then he's supposed to chew it
21:57
way more than you're supposed to choose, something like
21:59
forty times of side or something. And they
22:01
literally spend like fifteen minutes
22:03
on the blueberry. That just seems like way too much
22:06
work. I know, I'd wolfed down two cartons
22:08
and blueberries in that time. But supposedly
22:10
when you slow yourself down and eating your
22:12
head catches up and realizes you're fuller
22:14
than you think. All right, So there are obviously lots
22:16
of other food related studies, and you know, showing
22:18
what we should and shouldn't eat. And so what else
22:20
did you find in your research? Well, beyond
22:22
the usual it's healthy to eat fruits
22:25
and vegetables mantra, which
22:27
apparently, I'm happy to report, is still healthy
22:29
to do. It is interesting to
22:31
see the studies on populations around the world
22:33
that lived the longest. So in most of
22:35
those you'll find people getting more than their
22:38
food from plants. So you think about
22:40
fruits or veggies, whole grains
22:42
and beans, and and of course you
22:44
know leafy greens, which are obviously
22:46
important, maybe the most important. So
22:49
multiple studies have shown that eating a cup of
22:51
cooked greens every single day significantly
22:53
reduced the likelihood that someone in the middle age
22:56
would die in the next four years. I don't know what
22:58
daily leafy greens. That seems a little
23:00
excessive, though, So where do where
23:02
do biscuits fit into this? All
23:04
right? Give me the rundown on the rest. I know
23:07
I've been waiting for that all biscuit diet to
23:09
come out, so but until it
23:11
does, here's what we do now. So one
23:13
study which followed nearly a hundred thousand Americans
23:15
since two thousand two, the ones who lived
23:17
the longest were those who followed a plant based
23:20
diet and had a small portion of fish a handful
23:22
of times per week. And then the
23:24
next thing is eggs. While they're good for
23:26
us, we might be overdoing it on the number of
23:28
eggs we eat at a time, so we should probably
23:30
be aiming for more like three a week. Three
23:32
a week. It's like a meal. So
23:36
we should all eat half a cup of cooked
23:38
beans each day, and a
23:40
couple of handfuls of nuts per day. And of
23:42
course, uh, we eat way too much sugar.
23:44
I feel like I could do most of those. The challenge
23:47
I think for me would be with nuts. When they say they're
23:49
healthy to eat like, I eat them by the handfuls,
23:51
So I think it'd be tough to pull that off. All
23:53
right, So what's the latest on drinking.
23:56
I'm I'm still gonna stand by the two
23:58
thousand ten study from the Journal of the American
24:00
College of Cardiology, which just sounds
24:03
so efficient, very official, whatever
24:05
they say, So that studies
24:07
showed the benefits of light daily drinking,
24:09
which means one drink for women and two for men,
24:12
with red wine being the winner. All right,
24:14
so we've got nuts, beans, greens, and red
24:16
wine, but not too much. Got it?
24:18
All right, I'm going to be healthier from here on out. So let's
24:20
let's talk about exercise now. And again, we
24:22
know that exercise is important, that's nothing
24:24
new, but let's look at what the latest research
24:27
shows and and particularly the latest on what seems
24:29
to slow down our bodies decline. Well,
24:32
you were telling you earlier this week about the studies
24:34
on HIT. That's high intensity interval
24:36
training. That's right, Yeah, there's definitely been some really
24:38
interesting research on this. So so high
24:41
intensity interval training is when you exercise
24:43
with the short burst of intense activity
24:45
is the name suggests, and then you add
24:47
in these recovery periods where you have you know, more
24:50
more low intensity movement. So
24:52
you mean like this and
24:54
uh and then like you
24:57
got it? I like how you knocked down that miniature
24:59
Snickers bar up the table. When you did that, you kind
25:01
of killed two birds with one stone there, Good job,
25:03
all right, But one study led led by sure
25:06
Kumara and Naya at the Mayo Clinic
25:08
in Minnesota had two age
25:10
ranges that they were looking at, so he was looking
25:12
at eighteen to thirty year olds
25:14
and then again at sixty five to eight
25:16
year olds. And with each of these ranges
25:18
they had them do three months of exercise.
25:21
So some only did interval training,
25:23
sub did weight training, and some did a combination
25:26
of both. So I think we already gave away
25:28
the punchline on this, but what they find, we
25:30
did. But it is still really interesting to see
25:32
what they found. So they found that the interval training
25:34
had the greatest impact on the mitochondria
25:37
and cells and their ability to generate energy.
25:39
And we're not talking about a small amount. We're
25:41
talking nearly seventy in the older
25:44
group and just shy of fifty in
25:46
the younger group. I mean that's pretty significant. Yeah,
25:48
it is. And it's extra significant because
25:51
microchondrial activity is something we
25:53
see declining as we get older, which has
25:55
an effect on our muscles. Yeah, and and that
25:57
decline was not only stopped for the older
25:59
group, but in some it was actually reversed.
26:02
Here's what Nier said about it. He said, after
26:04
three months of interval training, everything converged
26:07
towards what we saw in young people. So
26:09
in addition to those benefits, the interval trainers
26:12
also saw benefits and their lungs, their
26:14
hearts, their overall circulation. So
26:16
weight training is beneficial in building muscle
26:18
mass, but that's a different benefit from what
26:21
we're talking about with our mitochondria, right, And I'm
26:23
glad you clarified that, And I'm also glad that we're
26:25
talking about exercise in general. You know, a few
26:27
episodes back, we were talking about the fact that
26:29
exercise doesn't have that
26:31
much of an impact on our attempt to lose
26:34
weight, and I know we were both a little bit nervous
26:36
that some might take that to mean that there was no reason
26:38
to exercise, And obviously that's
26:40
not true. I mean, there's a ton of benefit to
26:43
exercising. It's incredibly important in helping
26:45
us live longer and healthier.
26:47
And you know, there's so many studies, including
26:49
this one, that backed that up. There have been multiple
26:52
studies that shown regular high intensity
26:54
interval training could add years to a person's
26:56
life. So, just to be clear for our listeners,
26:58
exercises goods, smoking not so much.
27:01
Yeah, we should have saved those gems for the fact
27:03
of thing of well, we've
27:06
covered the bigg ease. So we should also talk about
27:08
the latest anti aging treatments and what their futures
27:10
look like. But before we do that, let's talk
27:12
about longevity and the Longevity Project with
27:14
our next guest. He's no mammal,
27:16
but all right, let's get him on. Our
27:24
guest today is the distinguished Professor in the Department
27:26
of Psychology at the University of California,
27:28
Riverside, and we're talking to him today
27:30
about his book, The Longevity Project.
27:33
Howard Friedman, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
27:35
Thank it's always great to talk about promoting health
27:37
and long life. Well, it's terrific. Well, it's great
27:40
to have you on, you know, and it's really interesting
27:42
to to read about this more than
27:44
two decade long journey that you and your
27:46
co author Leslie Martin took
27:48
as you were looking at all of this interesting data,
27:51
and it's it's not often that you have access
27:53
to data spanning over
27:55
eighty years following the you know, the
27:57
health and wellness of over a thou
28:00
and different children and their their lifespan.
28:02
But for our listeners who aren't familiar
28:04
with the Longevity Project and the study that
28:06
you guys have been looking at over this
28:09
period of time. Could you give just a brief overview
28:11
of what this project was all about. Ure,
28:13
We always want to understand what
28:15
makes people happy and healthy and live long
28:18
over the long term. But it's hard
28:20
to do that. You have to follow a bunch of people
28:22
for their whole lives, and obviously we
28:24
would be long gone before we could complete
28:26
the study like that. So we were
28:29
able to access some archival data
28:31
from a study that was started back in study
28:35
of California children who were about
28:37
ten years old of the time, and they
28:39
were recruited by Professor lewis Terman and
28:41
they were followed every five to ten years ever
28:43
since then. We picked up the study now it's about twenty
28:46
five years ago, and we met some of the
28:48
people and followed some of the people and
28:50
um we also um gathered the
28:52
death certificates on those who had passed away,
28:54
and so we know throughout their whole lives,
28:56
what activities people engaged in, everything
28:59
about them and who lived
29:01
long and who who who died young stay
29:04
happy, and who thrived. Yeah, that's pretty amazing
29:06
and so looking at all these factors that contributed
29:09
to either a long life or
29:11
perhaps um you know, dying at certain
29:13
ages what what would you say in doing these
29:15
studies? Were some of the bigger surprises
29:17
coming out of the research. Well, one of the
29:19
most interesting things was that people
29:21
who were very responsible and
29:23
conscientious, Um, they actually
29:25
thrived throughout their lives and they live happy
29:27
lives. So we often think, well,
29:30
why why not just live it up? Um?
29:32
But in fact, the people who
29:35
actually got involved with things had
29:38
good marriages, had good education, had
29:40
good work, kind of the
29:42
people you would say are the responsible people in the world.
29:44
They actually became happier and happier as they
29:47
as life went on, and maybe also we stayed healthy
29:49
and lived a long time. So
29:51
the book was published a few years ago, and I
29:53
was curious to hear if there been any any
29:56
new development since you guys published. Yes,
29:59
we used following the people. Um,
30:01
there's only a few still alive. One
30:04
I went to his hundred and fourth birthday, which
30:06
was great. Uh. And he
30:09
kind of lived a lot of the kinds of things
30:11
we talked about in the Longevity project. He
30:13
had a good marriage, important for men, He
30:15
was very conscientious. He they stayed
30:18
working and more and more researchers finding
30:20
that people who stay involved keep working
30:22
take on new challenges to remain
30:24
fresh and in a moment. Those are key
30:27
part of on long term healthy patterns. So
30:30
UM, it's these patterns that come first. They lead to both
30:32
health and happiness. UM. So
30:34
so that we're finding that the determined participants,
30:37
the people we were studying, they didn't
30:39
really were very happy. UM, they didn't live
30:41
in the end of what we call m I call you know, self
30:44
esteem clinics and indulge in parents and
30:46
UM. It was the people who were out there doing things,
30:49
making the most out of their life. So I'm
30:51
talking more these days. We're finding support
30:54
for an idea which we sometimes call healthy neuroticism.
30:56
So people who were worrying, you always
30:58
here, don't worry, take it easy. Stress.
31:02
But that turns out to be bad advice. I mean, if
31:04
if you're chronically stressed for years and years
31:06
and you can't sleep, that's bad. But for most
31:08
people, if you take on challenges,
31:11
that's good. And in fact, the participants
31:13
regretted when they look back in the lives and things
31:15
they didn't do, not the things that they did do.
31:18
So people who get involved UM and
31:20
and try things, that's that's
31:22
a kind of healthy curiosity, a healthy stress
31:24
that UM we're finding more and more
31:26
can be important. So rather than
31:29
kind of fretting themselves to death, these
31:31
people were concerned enough to
31:33
to keep themselves alive. In fact, like
31:36
you said, my co authors a lunge every project,
31:39
Doctor Leslie Martin, she she lives
31:41
her life very much like that. She was just in Uganda
31:43
tracking the guerrillas and she's always off somewhere.
31:45
She ran across the Para desert. So
31:48
um, but you know, she's very healthy and happy. And that that's
31:51
typically what we found and it kind of inspired both
31:53
of us to do more of that, just to stay active,
31:56
stay involved. And so some of those new findings are
31:58
being confirmed by both ourselves and
32:00
by others as well. Yeah. That
32:02
that's That's what I'm curious to you about, was how
32:04
how have you changed your life since doing this project
32:07
and understanding the learnings. One of the
32:09
other things is, um, you know, stay stay
32:11
active. So you don't have to be going to the gym every
32:13
day for hours and hours, but just
32:15
getting up and out of your chair is is very important
32:18
and so UM, we do a lot more of that.
32:21
Um. You know, I just if there's something to
32:23
get up and do, I just get up and do it. And if I have to go down
32:25
the stairs to get something, I don't call down to somebody,
32:27
you know, I go down the stairs. But the
32:29
other thing that's very important that people can do is
32:32
be um socially involved with other
32:34
healthy people. So you know, you know
32:36
who your friends are, who are basically good
32:38
influences, who are doing healthy things, doing
32:40
productive things, doing worthwhile things,
32:42
and then you know, I
32:45
really turned down invitations to associate
32:47
with those people. So that what's
32:49
the one thing you could do to live
32:51
a happy and thriving and long life.
32:53
It would probably be to look around
32:55
and so and see who you're you're healthy
32:57
and thriving friends are and try to associate
33:00
more with those. So that's that's a kind
33:02
of conscious change you could make. You know, am
33:04
I too busy? Or should I do this? And how
33:06
much more likely these days to say I'm gonna go
33:08
do that. Oh that's good, that's good, We're
33:11
good for you. Well, it's been so fascinating reading
33:13
about this project and chatting with you
33:15
about this, So Dr Freeman, thanks so much for
33:17
joining us on Part Time Genius. Welcome
33:31
back to Part Time Genius. Now we've talked about
33:33
diet and exercise. But let's talk about
33:35
the fortunes being invested in the development
33:37
of anti aging treatments. Yeah, now that we've
33:39
managed to extend the human lifespan significantly,
33:42
researchers are focused on how to improve that
33:44
quality of longer life, and there are several
33:46
really interesting possibilities being explored. So
33:49
I want to talk about another New Scientist article
33:51
we're looking at, and this one's by Jessica hams Alu.
33:53
Yeah, that's a good call. So all right, Well, one of the first
33:55
treatments she talks about is that of the the
33:58
young blood plasma theory, and she
34:00
writes about this she says, the idea
34:02
is that there's something in the blood of people under
34:04
twenty five that keeps them youthful, although
34:07
we don't yet know what it is. Yeah, they kind
34:09
of made fun of the tech billionaire obsession
34:11
with this on Silicon Valley and tech bulonaires
34:13
having these blood boys on hand. But in
34:15
the studies they've done on older mice who were
34:17
injected with plasma from younger mice, the
34:19
results were strangely promising. Like
34:22
they even tested the injection of plasma from human
34:24
teens into these older mice and both
34:26
cases the older mice end up more active
34:28
and show fewer signs of aging. Well, and
34:30
that Silicon Valley show wasn't wrong about
34:33
this. I mean, while we're still lacking rigorous
34:35
clinical trials for what this will do for
34:37
humans, it hasn't stopped businesses
34:39
from developing around these plasma transfusions.
34:42
There's even a company in California called Ambrosia
34:45
and that you can go there and you can get this young blood
34:47
plasma transfusion. You know, if you if you've
34:49
just got eight thousand dollars to spend on this, I
34:52
mean, if you knew this would work, I could actually
34:54
see paying for that, you know, But I think
34:57
I made hold off just a little bit. But
34:59
still, according to the company's founder, Jesse
35:01
Carmazin, the people who have been treated
35:03
are already reporting benefits and cognition,
35:06
muscle strength, and energy level. But
35:08
again, I mean that's an evangelist speaking. So
35:10
we need real clinical trials to be conducted
35:13
before the verdicts out. Yeah, it'll be interesting
35:15
to see what happens, all right. So the
35:17
next treatment Hanzlou covers is related to
35:19
our telomeres. Well, I think we should pause
35:21
for a minute remind our listeners what telomeres
35:24
are and buy our listeners. I mean, can can you
35:26
remind me? So? Telomeres
35:29
are our DNA protectors. There are
35:31
the caps at the end of chromosomes, and and there's
35:33
a strong correlation between the length of telomeres
35:36
and aging. So you know, like
35:38
every every time a cell divides, these caps
35:40
shrink, and this process takes place until
35:42
there's simply too small to provide meaningful
35:45
protection. And after
35:47
that the cells either die or they're significantly
35:49
damaged, and the cells around them can become damaged
35:52
too. In fact, even before we start
35:54
aging, those born with shorter telomeres
35:56
are are way more likely developed age related
35:59
diseases at younger ages. Nicely done,
36:01
good description there, Mango, all right. So we're
36:03
starting to see more research on them and
36:05
from people like Maria Blastco. She's at
36:07
the Spanish National Cancer Research Center
36:09
in Madrid, and her team has been working
36:12
on ways to extend telomeres and
36:14
mice and and they're doing this through gene
36:16
therapy and they've been pretty successful
36:18
at what they're doing with some of these mice. They've been able to
36:20
extend their lives by as much as that's
36:22
crazy, So it's definitely fascinating,
36:25
though there's still a ton of work to be done and
36:27
it's not something that's really ready to be practiced on
36:29
people yet. So again that that that has not
36:31
stopped a few companies from introducing gene therapy
36:33
treatments to you know, targeting these telemeres.
36:36
Yeah, it definitely hasn't. Some of them are self
36:38
reporting successful growth of telomeres and
36:40
that patients feel like twenty years younger.
36:43
But again that's self reporting and
36:45
something I'd hold off on trusting. Yeah, me too,
36:47
Me too. Now we we should also talk about the services
36:49
that are being marketed that are less
36:51
about anti aging treatments and really
36:54
more about better understanding our genome
36:56
or our microbiome through scans and blood
36:59
tests and all these other evaluations. So
37:01
I guess the idea here is that if we know a bit more
37:03
about the underlying health issues we
37:05
might be developing or what we're at
37:08
risk of, then you know, we can begin working
37:10
on an early treatment or preventative
37:12
efforts. But there was a quote from one of
37:14
the company's founders that I have to admit I found
37:16
pretty amusing. So
37:18
Craig Ventor, the founder of a company called
37:20
Human Longevity, Inc. He got
37:22
the results from his company's twenty five
37:24
tho dollar package.
37:26
That's right. It provided a genome
37:29
sequencing and all this other information that
37:31
we talked about before and after seeing
37:33
his results, he said, quote, I've
37:35
lost forty three pounds since finding out things
37:37
about my metabolic condition. Honestly,
37:40
I'm not sure someone needs to spend twenty five thou dollars
37:42
to know that. If they had forty three pounds
37:44
to lose, they might want to go ahead and do that.
37:47
That said, I know we're not mean spirited here. I'm
37:50
speaking with the almost no knowledge of his
37:52
company, so I'm not saying that it's not a valuable
37:54
service. I just kind of found that quote
37:56
funny. So it's in the end,
37:58
it sounds like many of these treatments may
38:01
be promising, but most of them aren't quite ready
38:03
for the masses. And even Hamslu
38:05
writes about this, until that time, your
38:07
best options are boring old diet
38:09
and exercise. It's true, it's true. But you
38:11
know one thing that's not boring, Mango, the part
38:13
time genius bag. That's right. M
38:26
okay, so I'm gonna go first. Gat he's born
38:28
in autumn are more likely to hit a hundred
38:30
than those born in another seasons. All
38:33
right, so let's talk about TV watching. TV
38:35
watching definitely appears to take a serious
38:37
toll on our health. There was a two thousand
38:39
ten study that looked at people watching more than four
38:42
hours of TV per day, and it found
38:44
there were forty six percent more likely
38:46
to die from any cause than those who
38:48
watch less than two hours. Although
38:50
while I'm reading this, I'm wondering about the words any
38:53
cause. I mean, it seems like people watch TV all
38:55
the time are less likely to die from say like
38:57
rock climbing or something like we're elephant trampoline,
38:59
right, what ever? It maybe, but still don't watch
39:01
so much TV if you want to live longer.
39:04
So one of the other benefits of aging,
39:06
and this is pretty interesting me is fewer migraines.
39:09
Like one study showed the only ten percent
39:11
of women and five percent of men over seventy
39:14
report having migraines, or rather,
39:16
if they were having the migrants, they weren't they
39:18
weren't accompanied by headaches. Oh that's pretty good.
39:20
That's all right, all right. I was just looking at the list
39:23
of the world's oldest people again here I can't
39:25
stop looking at this list and the supercentenarians,
39:28
which for obvious reasons, this list has to
39:30
be updated somewhat regularly, but as
39:32
of this morning, five of the ten oldest
39:34
people in the world are in Japan. Actually
39:37
looking here at the top fifteen, seven of
39:39
the top fifteen or in Japan. I I
39:42
do kind of wonder if they're counting years differently there
39:44
though. Um So,
39:46
here's one for the ladies, and specifically
39:48
ladies over eighty. So. Studies looking
39:50
at sexual satisfaction by age have shown
39:53
that while the elderly may not have sex
39:55
as often as younger people, multiple
39:57
studies have shown that satisfaction increases
39:59
with a In fact, the women over eighty
40:01
and one study report being much more satisfied
40:04
during sex than those were in the late fifty five
40:06
to seventy nine range. You know what, Mango,
40:08
I don't think I can top an octogenarian sex
40:11
facts. So I'm gonna give
40:13
you the PTG fact Off Trophy this week.
40:15
That's it for Part Time Genius. Thanks so much for listening.
40:19
You kids are to stick around. Wasn't
40:21
that you would have a bunch of funk
40:34
everybody? Thanks
40:37
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
40:39
of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without
40:41
several brilliant people who do the important things
40:43
we couldn't even begin to understand. Christa
40:46
McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
40:48
made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sounding.
40:50
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing.
40:53
Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support
40:55
from the Research Army including Austin Thompson,
40:57
Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams. And he's Jeffico
41:00
gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If
41:02
you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if
41:04
you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
41:06
a good review for us. Do we do? We forget
41:08
Jason Jason who
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