What if a message suddenly appeared on your bathroom mirror to tell you that your most recent bowel movement contained a clue to a possible health problem? The bathroom will never be the same again. It is about to become the epicenter of the health hub of the future, according to Eric Olson, director of design at Karten Design, a Los Angeles-based, research-driven, product innovation company. Eric sees the room that we all interact with multiple times a day as the perfectly connected environment...
Nov 20, 2017•25 min•Ep. 40
Dr. David Albert is a visionary physician and innovator in the field of digital health. As an entrepreneur he has developed medical products and nurtured new technologies over the last 30 years. A graduate of Harvard College and Duke University Medical School, Dr. Albert has founded three tech companies, InnovAlarm, Lifetone Technology and AliveCor his most recent endeavor, which has developed the mobile ECG or electrocardiogram sensor. The Kardia mobile device, which is aimed at everyone, detec...
Nov 13, 2017•28 min•Ep. 39
Dr. Michelle Longmire is a Stanford-trained dermatologist, accomplished athlete and CEO of the digital health platform, Medable . The Palo Alto, California-based company is transforming the way clinical trials are performed by opening up the process to everyone. Through its technology and “direct-to-patient” approach, Medable is making it possible for researchers to capture data that would otherwise be lost to the scientific process. This includes environmental factors and the continuous measure...
Nov 06, 2017•32 min•Ep. 48
"Alzheimer's disease, a devastating disease that affects the cells of the brain, is now regarded as the major form of old age “senility,” said President Ronald Reagan in 1983, as he designated November as National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness month. "Because there is an association of dementia with aging and because Americans are living longer, the numbers affected by this disease will continue to grow,” he added. A decade later Reagan was diagnosed with the disease and November is still recogn...
Oct 30, 2017•33 min•Ep. 37
Herb Alpert, at the age of 82, is showing no signs of slowing down. The American musician has enjoyed a long and hugely successful career as a trumpet player, bandleader, composer, record company co-founder and philanthropist. Healthy and vibrant, the octogenarian lives a full life, touring, performing and nurturing young talent though the Herb Alpert Foundation, where the mission is to “promote compassion and creativity” in society. Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass burst on to the music scene ...
Oct 23, 2017•34 min•Ep. 36
We are living longer and the pace of population aging is growing faster than ever. Globally, the proportion of people over 60 years old will almost double by 2050. Aging comes with many challenges - from health and wellbeing to housing, mobility and maintaining social networks. The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) caters for the social welfare needs of nearly 38 million Americans. Lisa Marsh Ryerson is president of AARP Foundation , the organization’s charitable affiliate. The foun...
Oct 16, 2017•30 min•Ep. 35
Older adults often miss medical appointments because they are unable to get the hospital or doctor's office. A lack of transportation has been shown to be a major factor. The inability to get around also leads to social isolation and loneliness and could contribute to the failing health of many senior citizens. In the age of on-demand car services, younger generations take for granted the ability to hail a relatively cheap ride, but older people are less likely to embrace the technology that mak...
Oct 09, 2017•28 min•Ep. 34
Brianna Stubbs ( @BriannaStubbs ) has been a competitive athlete all her life. At the age of 12, in 2004, she became the youngest person to row across the English Channel. She went on to win a gold medal with the GB Rowing Team at the 2016 World Rowing Championships and twice rowed for Oxford in the Women’s Boat Race against Cambridge. Alongside her athletic endeavors, Brianna pursued an academic career, completing her PhD in metabolic biochemistry at Oxford. She is particularly interested in th...
Oct 02, 2017•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 33
Dr. Joel Kahn has treated thousands of acute heart attacks during a career spanning more three decades. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School , Dr. Kahn has served as Clinical Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Wayne State University School of Medicine since 1993. Once a traditional doctor using traditional techniques, he now applies a holistic approach to health care, believing that many chronic diseases could be prevented through changes in lifestyle, with a plant-based di...
Sep 25, 2017•54 min•Ep. 32
Could fruit flies help us understand why women tend to live longer than men? It is an intriguing but age-old question. Laura Pomatto is the first-ever graduate in the Biology of Aging Doctorate program of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, in California. It is the first formal program of its kind in the U.S. Her main interest is in understanding why an organism loses its ability to cope with oxidative stress during aging. Laura’s work with f...
Sep 18, 2017•42 min•Ep. 31
Dr. Andrius Baskys (@MindThisMind) adopted a lifestyle of calorie restriction because he wanted to improve his health as a middle-aged man. The Lithuanian-born psychiatrist and neuroscientist studies aging and interventions to reverse it. A prolific writer and former clinical professor of health sciences at the University of California, Riverside, Dr. Baskys currently practices as a gero-psychiatrist, treating mental disorders in the elderly. He permanently restricts his caloric intake because h...
Sep 11, 2017•38 min•Ep. 30
When Allison Melody lost her parents to cancer it had a profound and life-changing effect on her attitude towards food and the healing power of nutrition. In her early twenties she says she had "no awareness of health,” but was moved to dedicate her life to finding a better way to heal. A film-maker and entrepreneur she formed Holistic Voice, a multi-media production company focussing on diet, exercise and alternative healing modalities. Allison co-hosts, with Suzy Hardy, the Food Heals Podcast ...
Sep 04, 2017•38 min
Bob Tygenhof is a 68-year old gym rat and health professional. A former advertising industry executive, Bob pursued a second career as a certified fitness specialist and nutritionist with the Integrative Medical Group of Irvine, California. A long-time exercise devotee, Bob follows a rigid program of strength and aerobic training, in between coaching patients on personalized programs. Working alongside doctors, he also overseas patients following a Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), called ProLon, fo...
Aug 28, 2017•32 min•Ep. 28
Problems associated with the aging heart could be reversed by infusing the organ with a type of cell taken from a young heart. According to a study published last week in the European Heart Journal, elderly rats injected with a specific type of stem cell showed a significant improvement in their health and vitality. The cardiosphere-derived cells helped reverse signs of aging in animals with an average age of 22 months, which is considered old for a rat. They were more agile and even showed bett...
Aug 21, 2017•30 min•Ep. 27
Floyd Norman is busier than ever. He is 82 and still working at the job he started in the 1950s. A cartoonist all his life, Floyd enjoyed a hugely successful career creating some of Disney’s most iconic characters. As a young cartoonist he was handpicked by Walt Disney to be part of the team behind The Jungle Book. He also worked on classics such as Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Mary Poppins. Later, at Pixar, Floyd brought his creative flair to Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc...
Aug 14, 2017•55 min•Ep. 26
Senior moments and the aging process go hand in hand. As we grow older memory lapses and cognitive problems are often assumed to be the normal course of events. But should we really worry about losing the car keys, now and then? The biological and psychological explanations for declining cognitive performance are many and varied, but Dr. Sarah Barber, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at San Francisco State University, says memory slips are not always signs of worse to come....
Aug 07, 2017•42 min
Ethel Travis wants to make history. At the age of 102, the former ballerina, artist and fashionista has her sights set firmly on the future. With a busy social calendar, good health and the support a loving family, Ethel embraces life with giddy enthusiasm. She loves to talk, reminisce and make new friends. A centenarian with the mind and body of someone decades younger, Ethel recently welcomed LLAMA host Peter Bowes into her home, in Newport Beach, California, for a conversation about age, atti...
Jul 31, 2017•37 min
A hundred years from now, "physicians will have the capacity to keep people alive indefinitely,” says Dr. Michael Rose, director and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Rose has spent over 40 years working with fruit flies to try to unravel the mechanisms at work as we age. He believes that there is a point (which can be manipulated) in our lives, when aging ends. It is followed by a "post-aging phase of biological immortal...
Jul 24, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Phil Libin, co-founder and former CEO of Evernote, the note-taking app, recently moved into a new phase of his life. He turned 45, launched a new AI startup studio, All Turtles, and perhaps most significantly, lost a ton of weight. Phil has been a big guy since his late teens. He knew he was obese but did nothing about it until eight months ago. That’s when he decided to join the growing clan of fasting enthusiasts in Silicon Valley. It worked. He has lost 86 pounds (39 kilograms). Blood tests s...
Jul 17, 2017•42 min
As human life expectancy continues to increase, age-related diseases are the main impediment to enjoying the fruits of longevity. High on the list is Alzheimer’s disease, the incurable neurodegenerative condition that robs sufferers of their memory and eventually leads to death. But valuable progress is being made in the understanding and prevention of the disease. A new study at the Keck School of Medicine of USC in Los Angeles has revealed that biological changes in the brain occur long before...
Jul 11, 2017•38 min
Why do women live longer than men? Does the ability to bear children play a role and to what extent do evolutionary forces discriminate between men and women? Dr. Felice Gersh is a board-certified (1984) gynecologist and the founder of a private medical practice, the Integrative Medical Group of Irvine, California. Fellowship trained in a relatively new medical field, known as functional/integrative medicine, Dr. Gersh believes longevity is connected to estrogen. She argues that it is the “most ...
Jul 04, 2017•1 hr 5 min
The enhancement of the human body is the main goal of Geoffrey Woo, a biohacker and entrepreneur based in San Francisco. A Stanford-trained computer scientist, Geoffrey is the CEO and co-founder of HVMN (formerly Nootrobox), a nootropics company that melds biology and technology to optimize the human system. The evolving science behind nootropics, which are legal compounds designed to improve cognitive function, has become big business in Silicon Valley. Geoffrey sees the human body as a quantif...
Jun 27, 2017•50 min•Ep. 19
James Maskell is a writer, public speaker, entrepreneur and advocate for a new paradigm in healthcare. The author of The Evolution of Medicine, James is the founder of the Functional Forum, an integrative medicine conference that curates discussions with leading medical practitioners around the world. Next week, James will co-host the launch of an ambitious project to make Guernsey the first community in the world to achieve a life expectancy of 100. Named 'Journey to 100,' the goal is to radica...
Jun 20, 2017•48 min•Ep. 18
Curt von Badinski is a serial tinkerer, inventor, entrepreneur and businessman. As a mechanical engineer he worked on secret projects at the aerospace company, Lockheed Martin; he developed network equipment at the IT giant, Cisco Systems, and he built a family company making camera accessories. It was during this enterprise that Curt realized his work-obsessed and sleep deprived “crazy” lifestyle was making him sick. It was a light-bulb moment that convinced Curt to use his tech expertise to fo...
Jun 13, 2017•44 min•Ep. 17
In the months before her retirement, Sue Albert was worried that she may not survive to enjoy her golden years. She spent a lifetime in nursing, and ended her career as the dean of a health department at a California college. But Sue was burned out and sick. She had neglected her own health needs and was overweight, hypertensive and physically challenged. She decided to join a gym and, albeit reluctantly, embarked on a life-changing – possibly life-saving – workout regime. This week Sue heads to...
Jun 06, 2017•30 min•Ep. 16
The biological mechanisms at work during the aging process have long since intrigued and baffled scientists. Indeed, the very definition of aging continues to be the subject of much debate. The relationship between growing old and chronic disease is pivotal to the understanding of human longevity and the focus of many clinical studies. Dr. David Gems is a professor of biogerontology at the Institute of Healthy Aging, University College London. A leading voice in the quest to unravel the mysterie...
May 30, 2017•57 min•Ep. 15
People with a brain age older than their bodies could be at greater risk of dying early, according to a recent study. Dr. James Cole, a neuroscientist at Imperial College London, led a research project using MRI scans and a computer program to predict a person’s brain age. The system, which is still in development, could help spot people whose lifestyles put them at greater risk of poor health and early death. LLAMA host Peter Bowes visited Hammersmith Hospital in London for this in-depth interv...
May 23, 2017•35 min•Ep. 14
Implanted devices that monitor the internal functioning of our bodies, in minute detail, could soon be part of our daily lives. Many of us already take for granted the wearable gadgets and apps we use to keep track of exercise and food intake. Technological advances in the field of body computing are moving quickly and are about to revolutionize the way we manage aging and everyday wellbeing. Dr. Leslie Saxon is a professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of...
May 16, 2017•43 min•Ep. 13
Living a healthy lifestyle goes a long way towards reducing the chances of an early death, but some diseases still strike with little warning and deadly effect. You can do everything right and still get cancer. Dr. Steven Eisenberg is an oncologist, based in the California city of San Diego. Board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology, he has been recognized for his compassionate bedside manner. He is best known for singing to his patients. Not only does he burst into s...
May 09, 2017•51 min•Ep. 12
Edith Johnson Avise recently moved into a care home, at the age of 100. After a lifetime of independent living, she is finding it difficult to adapt to her new surroundings. The home, in Southern California, is comfortable and safe, but Edith still has a spirited attitude towards life. She enjoyed a successful career as an agricultural educator, or extension worker, in her home state of Michigan. She traveled the country and worked closely with 4-H, the youth organization that teaches young peop...
May 02, 2017•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 11
