Who's gonna live to 100?

she had this really active lifestyle. She enjoyed swimming, playing tennis, cycling. She decided to start fencing at the age of eighty five, and in fact, she rode her bike until she turned a full century old. That's incredible. Yeah, and she didn't slow down much after that, so she decided to let her artistic talent shine after turning a hundred. She was a hundred and fourteen when she made an appearance in the movie Vincent and Me, and that made her the

oldest actress to appear in emotion picture. Then, when she was a hundred and twenty, one of four track CD titled Times Mistress was released. This was a rap album with Kelmen speaking over it. So she obviously lived this very active and engaging life. But you want to know the real reason I think she made it to a hundred and twenty two. She stopped smoking when she was a hundred and sixteen, after ninety six years of sucking

down cigarettes. That's so strange. And obviously cigarettes are one of the things that are most consistently linked in earlier death. So that's that's doubly crazy, right right, it really is. And you know, while it's certainly a bizarre case, there's some really fascinating findings in the world of science that are helping us understand why certain people live longer. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's

get started. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer, and today we're talking about the latest research around longevity, that is, how to live a super long time now, Mango. In one of our earlier episodes, we talked about cryonics, you know, this effort to freeze our bodies after we die, all in the hopes that science will advance enough in the coming centuries

to be able to bring us back to life. And if I remember correctly, you made it pretty clear this was not something you're a fan of. You'd rather just try to live longer while you're still alive the first time around, right, And I totally stand by that feeling. So first off, you know, I hate the cold. There's no way I want to be shoved upside down into a freezer. And and also I would so much rather just live longer and healthier than than you've woken up

like two years from now. Yeah, well that's what we're gonna talk about today, and so we'll dive into the latest research on the obvious stuff, whether that's exercise and diet and all of those things, and and then some of the surprising. And we've got a couple of great guests on today, that's right. So one of them is a total superstar to me, and I'm a little surprised that we managed to get her on the program. Any listeners who heard the original trailer for the show will

also be familiar with your ninety year old grandmother, Mama. Mama, I know, and so Mamma is going to share some of her tips on how she's managed to reach ninety and be in better shape than either of us. And we'll also be joined by Howard Friedman. He's this professor and psychologist at the University of California Riverside. Friedman co authored a book called The Longevity Project a few years back, which followed an incredible eight decades study about the various

psychological factors that contribute to how long people live. It's this really fascinating book, and I'm excited to hear some of those updates and uh, talk to Howard. So two great guests. Yeah, I can't wait to get both of them on the line. So all right, well let's talk about longevity. You know, when we were young, if you mentioned someone had lived to be a hundred, it just seemed incredible, almost impossible. And it is incredible, I know.

So when I was younger, I used to tell people that my great grandma lived to a hundred and three, and no one believed me, and I just kind of took it for granted that people live at But when I think about it now, I don't even understand how that's possible. What's even more incredible than that is that some researchers predict that half the baby is born in wealthy countries after the year two thousand will live to be a hundred. Half of these people, Yeah, that's unreal.

But I did see in a research that life expectancy has been going up by nearly three months every year for nearly a hundred eighty years now. And while there's certainly no guarantee that the trend will continue, if it does, that's where your stat really starts to click. Like I read that if those numbers continue, more than half the

baby is born since two thousand will hit triple digits. Well, and there have been so many studies done to try to find some big clue or marker that lets us say, Okay, that's it, you know, that's why people are living this long, But so far they really haven't been able to find one, even for these supercentenarians. These are those incredible cases where people live more than a hundred and ten years. I know.

So I used to read tips from old people on living longer, and they see things like, uh, you know, too much standing will kill you, or too much sitting, or eat yogur but only the really sour yogurt, or don't eat any dairy. I mean, everything is so conflicting, And the clearest thing is that genetics obviously play a role, so scientists haven't been able to figure out that like one magic gene that helps people live to a hundred years.

But behavioral differences are something researchers know much more about that we're going to talk about those, but before we get into the big ones like diet and exercise, I'd love to warm up a little and talk about some of the surprising or interesting things that you were mentioning from the research you found yesterday. All right, let's do that. Well, So, so which which place do you want to start? Well, what about the fact that work stress isn't nearly as

bad as uh as people think? Okay, well, that that one actually surprised me. So we're not talking about people who are miserable in their jobs. But you know, some stress, a little bit of stress, even consistent stress over doing a good job or just being busy at work. That's not going to kill you, or at least it's not likely to. So we can ask Dr Freedman more about this later. But the health benefits of hard work have been found, and not only in young are workers, but

even in older people. So again, this was a little surprising to me. And a certain level of stress often indicates, you know, real engagement in their work, and these individuals are usually more connected and happier than those co workers who are not as engaged in what they're doing. Yeah, wh which which makes a certain amount of sense to me, like the pride you're taking and you know your commitment

to But but what about parenthood. I mean, people always joke about kids taking years off their life, and it seems like it would make sense if we found out that being a parent made his die a little younger, Like it's stressful to be a parent. They're all the years of missleep and then the years of worrying about those kids, and then they obviously cost a ton of money. Um, but I think you had some surprising facts for stressed out parents. It turns out having kids may actually help

you live a little bit longer. I was reading about this study out of Sweden, and these researchers looked at over a million people in this study, So these were people born in the early nineteen hundreds, and what the study found was that those who had at least one child were actually more likely to live longer. So for women, it was a benefit of about a year and a half, and for men it was almost two years. So I

lived with two tyrants. And if you'd asked me when I had to toddler in the house two years ago, I would have told you that that just can't be true. I mean, there's no coincidence that all my white hair came in when I had kids. Yeah, I would have said the same thing. And there's some other interesting elements to the study as well. They found that there was an even stronger link between parenthood and life expectancy for

those who weren't married. Yeah, so this is the part where we tell all our single friends, like Sean Turner, just go out there and have a kid. That'll solve it all. Just just just go have a kid. But this is where our biggest clue comes from. So it suggests that these parents benefit from their adult children caring for them and providing social support in their later years. So you told me that yesterday. But I'm wondering, doesn't

matter if these parents have a boy or a girl. Well, there were some earlier studies that it just had shown that it was, you know, maybe more beneficial to have a girl because adult daughters were more likely to be helpful as their parents got older. But the more recent studies have shown that it's it's pretty much equal to whether you have a boy or a girl, which is

kind of relief. Okay, So another one that I I guess isn't that shocking but is interesting to see confirmed is the benefit of learning a second language and how that can slow your brain from aging. Yeah, this one is actually pretty cool. So you know, it's not a new idea that knowing a second language might help keep a mind sharp, but it's always been difficult in these previous studies to try to separate out the benefits of knowing a second language with you know, other contributors to this.

So that is until a recent study of hundreds of Scottish people. And this was over a several decades span. So this study tracked over a thousand people and at the beginning of the study, all the participants were around eleven years old, and all of them spoke only one language, and that was English. Now, this was back in the nineteen forties. So I've got to tell you, like, I love studies like this that spans so many decades. It's

just amazing to me. Yeah, me too. And so you can fast forward from there to over sixty years later when all of them were in their seventies. And so they managed to track down about eight hundred of these original participants, and it just so turned out that that a third of them had learned at least one more language. So it really made for this pretty controlled study, huh.

And so what they find, well, they found that those who picked up a second language scored better than they would have expected when they looked back at their original scores, and those that had not learned a new language performed pretty much in line with what they had expected. So it's, you know, it's pretty strong evidence that the additional language actually helped them. And do you have any sense of why? I mean, you know, they can't be a d percent

certain as to why. But in thinking about what the brain must do when speaking multiple languages, it has to process words and both languages and then produce the appropriate phrases and the right language. So I mean it is some kind of a mental workout, all right. So one more before we get to the big stuff. And this one was totally shocked to me. And I think you said, and I'm going to paraphrase here, that the elderly, you need to start taking massive bond kits every mooring just

to get smarter. I'm not sure that's exactly what I said, but they're definitely some interesting studies around the use of th HC, which is the active ingredient in cannabis. So that's a little different than than what you've suggested here. But you know, over the years, many studies have pointed to the fact that teenagers perform more poorly on memory

or attention tests when under the influence. But in some recent studies of mice, when th HC is administered in very controlled and very low doses to these elderly mice, they found that these mice were able to perform certain cognitive task at similar levels to those of mice that were not given the substance. So this was not the case when they were not given the th HC, which is just crazy, and the response was very different in

the young mice. When they were given the THHC, they actually performed much more poorly, which is which is just super interesting to me. So I'm still a little baffled by this idea of old people picking up this daily marijuana have it, even if it's in like low doses, But why does it keep younger. Well, they're focusing on the endocannabinoid system, and this is what helps our bodies deal with stress. So this is a system that begins declining with age, but the THHC helps stimulate this system

and calm the mice down a little bit. So I'm guessing they're gonna be trying this on people next Yeah, and we do need to be clear yet again, this does not mean that doctors are going to start prescribing joints for the same benefit. Again, it's a very controlled and low dosage to be administered, and so that's what they're testing now, you know, to figure out how much the benefit is and and at what age it's most beneficial. Okay, Well,

I honestly feel like this changes everything. I know, Like somehow we learned that being stressed at work is great, being a parent, forcing yourself to learn Portuguese, and possibly just possibly picking up a low dose pot habit in your seventies or eighties, all of that's gonna extend your life. That's right before we get to the Big East. Like exercise and diet and the things that will definitely boost your chances of living longer. Why don't we get them

on the line. All right, you better buckle up. How does it feel to be ninety just like I did when I was young? Yeah? Because I can do everything I did when I was younger. Yeah, I love that. I know you've always told us that we had to stay active. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you know, what you do to exercise and how you stayed active all these years? Well? Right now, I work with Mary Beth the trainer for three days a week, and then I try to just go right on in

and swim. And you know what kind of swimmer I am. I certified swimming structor for years and I'm still helping. Always try them on boys that can't swim too well. They can ride bicycles and and do all these others, but they're not very good swimmers. So I helped the police investigator and a senior from Sanford just lately they wanted to swim. And how are you? I love how many hobbies you have and and I always say you play got point of fourteen? Then I'm played tennis and

then uh oh, model all my life. I'm modeled everywhere in Birmingham. So that's a bunch of fun. And I decided to want flyer planes. Well that was a lot of fun. And my husband was in California and I had come back, and I said, don't let him get scared of this. Well he started flying and he got his license and said, that's most funds they ever had in his life. And the guy that taught me to fly to help the blue angels in the thunderbird, So he was pretty good. It was an Emery riddle, so

he was very good. Well, you've obviously stayed really really active. I was also hoping you tell us a little bit about, you know, about your healthy eating and what kinds of things you try to do to stay healthy. On that side, you need now Like today, while ago, I fisted some chicken and some fruit, and then I keep Bold eggs in the refrigerator because they're good to go. Grab one out of the frigerator, get your Bold eggs. And then this is like, oh, bait, you know, chicken out. Only

eat fried foods? You no, And I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and just be real careful what I eat. Now, You've always told us, though that you got to save a little bit of room every once in a while for for a little tree. Oh yeah, I'm famous for banana putts. My grandson will now mind go, I gotta make your banana. But we all in the

love those banana please man go. Yeah. I don't know if you knew this, but when you know Michael Jordan played for the Birmingham Barons when he played baseball in the league for a couple of years, and Mama would make Michael Jordan's bananas. Well, Michael Jordan was just a or a sweet guide. Michael hit a home run when my mother was ninety two. She went to the ball game and she got to see if hit a home run.

So that was good. We'll tell us any any other tips you might have about living a long, healthy life. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell y'all. I was president two years for the International Lady Polots. It's one of the biggest organizations in the world. I am still a member of him, and I meet with the ladies for lunch and uh so we still see each other and I like the volunteer And my favorite is Autism Society. My little great grandson has autism and he's doing very well,

very well well that's great. Well, mamma, we uh we we thought we would let you play a little quiz with us if you if you don't mind, all right, all right, so mango, we're what's our quiz called today, It's called did it happen in Mamma's lifetime? All right, So we're gonna read you a thing, and you're gonna have to tell us. We're gonna read you a statement, and you're gonna have to tell us whether it happened

in your lifetime. Now, if it happened, if you're in your lifetime, we want you to say, that sounds about right. And if it did not happen in your lifetime, we want you to say, I don't know about that. We kind of use some of your phrases. All right, Okay, here we go, you ready, okay, all right? The invention of shopping carts. Did it happen in mamma's lifetime? That sounds about right? Is that true? Is she right? Yeah, she's right. The shopping cart was invented by the owner

of the Humpty Dumpty grocery store in Okay. So Mamma's one for one. Question number two. The invention of the facts machine did it happen in your lifetime? I don't know about it? Okay, is she right? Man? Yeah, she's right. A fax machine was invented way back in eighteen forty three by a Scottish inventor. It was actually called the electronic printing telegraph. Okay, so she's got all right, I got to study. Yeah, she's two out of two. Alright,

the next question, she got two left. Juicy fruit chewing gum? Was this invented in your lifetime? I don't know about that, but all right, so so is she right? Yeah, she's right. Juicy fruit was introduced in eight and in case you were wondering the juicy fruits to make up the flavor of juicy fruit or lemon, apple, orange, and banana. Okay, so mamma has gotten all three, right, So for the last one, let's see if she can get a perfect score.

Chocolate chip cookies. Were they invented in your lifetime? If you think so, you'll say that sounds about right, That sounds about right. Yeah, four for four cookie, that's right? Since so so so mango, mamma got four out of four. So what she won today a whole lot of hugs and kisses all right, would I have made a lot of chocolate chip cookies. They're good. I agree. Thank you so much for doing this with us today, and I want you boys to be sweet and be good here.

All right, we will welcome back to part time genius. All right, Mango. Now that Mamma has inspired us to live healthier and way more enthusiastically too. But let's let's talk about the obvious reasons that we all know can influence how long we live and what the latest science has to say. All right, so do you want to start with diet? Well, I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't appear that the Raman restaurant downstairs is

the key to are living longer. Man. That is so good. Honestly, if you guys are ever in Pond City Market, you'll see us at that ram and bar wat much too much. But I know you've done some reading on the latest diet research and and what did you find? So you know all the studies that I've looked at significant calorie

restriction and its relationship to a long healthy life. Yeah, it's It's been a little while since I've seen at some of these, but you know, I feel like I've only seen ones that are about mice or worms or some other small creatures. So to be honest, I really wasn't sure how close we were to saying that this would apply to humans. Well, lucky for you were one step closer, because now we're talking primate alright, Lucky for me,

I want to restrict my calories. I saw a really interesting story in your favorite magazine, New Scientists about how a long running trial and a group of monkeys or macoux specifically found that calorie restriction led to a longer life. Actually it was about three years, and while that doesn't seem that long, it's equivalent about nine human years. That is pretty significant. I mean, I guess we can't assume

that would necessarily be nine years in humans. Yeah, but I mean i'd also just take three extra years, right, But some researchers are hopeful that as we better understand what calorie restriction is doing, we might be able to come up with better anti aging medicines. And the other thing they found in some trials calorie restriction resulted in lower rates of cancer and heart disease. Yeah, both both

good things obviously. And you know, as you're saying this, I decided to google calorie restriction in humans, and I see there's something called the calorie restriction Society. So obviously there are people already subscribing to this and thinking about it pretty seriously. Yeah, the New Scientists reporter Clara Wilson talks about this group in our story. They're basically on a permanent diet of around hundred two I don't know about eighteen hundred calories per day as compared to the

usual recommendation of two thousand. In fact, there's kind of a funny quote at the end of Claire's story, so she says, quote until someone's used to it, the diet involves planning every meal with precision, and side effects can include feeling cold and reduced libido. And story, that's the last line. I kind of wonder how many people had the whole story, got all the way to that final quote and they were like, Okay, I'm out. I can't

do this. But it is interesting and it does seem like science is starting to point us in the direction of calorie restriction being beneficial to humans, So it will be interesting to watch where this goes. Yeah, so there was this interesting thing that A. J. Jacob's our friend wrote a while back where he was talking about visiting some folks from the calorie restriction Society, and they basically meditate on each piece of food. They like slowly meditate

on it to savor it. And they show him how to eat a single blueberry, and first they smell it, then they think about how delicious it's going to taste from the scent of it, and how it's going to feel in their mouth, and then they put it in their mouth, but tell him not to bite until he's ready.

It's like tantric eating sounds like a Portland sketch, and all he wants to do is bite, but they tell him to consider the blueberry skin and the texture and the tannins and savor every little segment of the fruit. Is it burst full of flavor in his mouth? And then he's supposed to chew it way more than you're supposed to choose, something like forty times of side or something. And they literally spend like fifteen minutes on the blueberry.

That just seems like way too much work. I know, I'd wolfed down two cartons and blueberries in that time. But supposedly when you slow yourself down and eating your head catches up and realizes you're fuller than you think. All right, So there are obviously lots of other food related studies, and you know, showing what we should and shouldn't eat. And so what else did you find in

your research? Well, beyond the usual it's healthy to eat fruits and vegetables mantra, which apparently, I'm happy to report, is still healthy to do. It is interesting to see the studies on populations around the world that lived the longest. So in most of those you'll find people getting more than their food from plants. So you think about fruits or veggies, whole grains and beans, and and of course you know leafy greens, which are obviously important, maybe the

most important. So multiple studies have shown that eating a cup of cooked greens every single day significantly reduced the likelihood that someone in the middle age would die in the next four years. I don't know what daily leafy greens. That seems a little excessive, though, So where do where do biscuits fit into this? All right? Give me the rundown on the rest. I know I've been waiting for that all biscuit diet to come out, so but until

it does, here's what we do now. So one study which followed nearly a hundred thousand Americans since two thousand two, the ones who lived the longest were those who followed a plant based diet and had a small portion of fish a handful of times per week. And then the next thing is eggs. While they're good for us, we might be overdoing it on the number of eggs we eat at a time, so we should probably be aiming for more like three a week. Three a week. It's

like a meal. So we should all eat half a cup of cooked beans each day, and a couple of handfuls of nuts per day. And of course, uh, we eat way too much sugar. I feel like I could do most of those. The challenge I think for me would be with nuts. When they say they're healthy to eat like, I eat them by the handfuls, So I think it'd be tough to pull that off. All right,

So what's the latest on drinking. I'm I'm still gonna stand by the two thousand ten study from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which just sounds so efficient, very official, whatever they say, So that studies showed the benefits of light daily drinking, which means one drink for women and two for men, with red wine being the winner. All right, so we've got nuts, beans, greens, and red wine, but not too much. Got it? All right, I'm going

to be healthier from here on out. So let's let's talk about exercise now. And again, we know that exercise is important, that's nothing new, but let's look at what the latest research shows and and particularly the latest on what seems to slow down our bodies decline. Well, you were telling you earlier this week about the studies on HIT. That's high intensity interval training. That's right, Yeah, there's definitely

been some really interesting research on this. So so high intensity interval training is when you exercise with the short burst of intense activity is the name suggests, and then you add in these recovery periods where you have you know, more more low intensity movement. So you mean like this and uh and then like you got it? I like how you knocked down that miniature Snickers bar up the table.

When you did that, you kind of killed two birds with one stone there, Good job, all right, But one study led led by sure Kumara and Naya at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota had two age ranges that they were looking at, so he was looking at eighteen to thirty year olds and then again at sixty five to eight year olds. And with each of these ranges they had them do three months of exercise. So some only did interval training, sub did weight training, and some did

a combination of both. So I think we already gave away the punchline on this, but what they find, we did. But it is still really interesting to see what they found. So they found that the interval training had the greatest impact on the mitochondria and cells and their ability to generate energy. And we're not talking about a small amount. We're talking nearly seventy in the older group and just shy of fifty in the younger group. I mean that's

pretty significant. Yeah, it is. And it's extra significant because microchondrial activity is something we see declining as we get older, which has an effect on our muscles. Yeah, and and that decline was not only stopped for the older group, but in some it was actually reversed. Here's what Nier said about it. He said, after three months of interval training, everything converged towards what we saw in young people. So in addition to those benefits, the interval trainers also saw

benefits and their lungs, their hearts, their overall circulation. So weight training is beneficial in building muscle mass, but that's a different benefit from what we're talking about with our mitochondria, right, And I'm glad you clarified that, And I'm also glad

that we're talking about exercise in general. You know, a few episodes back, we were talking about the fact that exercise doesn't have that much of an impact on our attempt to lose weight, and I know we were both a little bit nervous that some might take that to mean that there was no reason to exercise, And obviously that's not true. I mean, there's a ton of benefit to exercising. It's incredibly important in helping us live longer and healthier. And you know, there's so many studies, including

this one, that backed that up. There have been multiple studies that shown regular high intensity interval training could add years to a person's life. So, just to be clear for our listeners, exercises goods, smoking not so much. Yeah, we should have saved those gems for the fact of thing of well, we've covered the bigg ease. So we should also talk about the latest anti aging treatments and

what their futures look like. But before we do that, let's talk about longevity and the Longevity Project with our next guest. He's no mammal, but all right, let's get him on. Our guest today is the distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and we're talking to him today about his book, The Longevity Project. Howard Friedman, Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thank it's always great to talk about promoting health and long life. Well,

it's terrific. Well, it's great to have you on, you know, and it's really interesting to to read about this more than two decade long journey that you and your co author Leslie Martin took as you were looking at all of this interesting data, and it's it's not often that you have access to data spanning over eighty years following the you know, the health and wellness of over a

thou and different children and their their lifespan. But for our listeners who aren't familiar with the Longevity Project and the study that you guys have been looking at over this period of time. Could you give just a brief overview of what this project was all about. Ure, We always want to understand what makes people happy and healthy and live long over the long term. But it's hard

to do that. You have to follow a bunch of people for their whole lives, and obviously we would be long gone before we could complete the study like that. So we were able to access some archival data from a study that was started back in study of California children who were about ten years old of the time, and they were recruited by Professor lewis Terman and they were followed every five to ten years ever since then.

We picked up the study now it's about twenty five years ago, and we met some of the people and followed some of the people and um we also um gathered the death certificates on those who had passed away, and so we know throughout their whole lives, what activities people engaged in, everything about them and who lived long

and who who who died young stay happy, and who thrived. Yeah, that's pretty amazing and so looking at all these factors that contributed to either a long life or perhaps um you know, dying at certain ages what what would you say in doing these studies? Were some of the bigger surprises coming out of the research. Well, one of the most interesting things was that people who were very responsible and conscientious, Um, they actually thrived throughout their lives and

they live happy lives. So we often think, well, why why not just live it up? Um? But in fact, the people who actually got involved with things had good marriages, had good education, had good work, kind of the people you would say are the responsible people in the world. They actually became happier and happier as they as life went on, and maybe also we stayed healthy and lived a long time. So the book was published a few years ago, and I was curious to hear if there

been any any new development since you guys published. Yes, we used following the people. Um, there's only a few still alive. One I went to his hundred and fourth birthday, which was great. Uh. And he kind of lived a lot of the kinds of things we talked about in the Longevity project. He had a good marriage, important for men,

He was very conscientious. He they stayed working and more and more researchers finding that people who stay involved keep working take on new challenges to remain fresh and in a moment. Those are key part of on long term healthy patterns. So UM, it's these patterns that come first. They lead to both health and happiness. UM. So so that we're finding that the determined participants, the people we

were studying, they didn't really were very happy. UM, they didn't live in the end of what we call m I call you know, self esteem clinics and indulge in parents and UM. It was the people who were out there doing things, making the most out of their life. So I'm talking more these days. We're finding support for an idea which we sometimes call healthy neuroticism. So people who were worrying, you always here, don't worry, take it easy. Stress.

But that turns out to be bad advice. I mean, if if you're chronically stressed for years and years and you can't sleep, that's bad. But for most people, if you take on challenges, that's good. And in fact, the participants regretted when they look back in the lives and things they didn't do, not the things that they did do. So people who get involved UM and and try things, that's that's a kind of healthy curiosity, a healthy stress that UM we're finding more and more can be important.

So rather than kind of fretting themselves to death, these people were concerned enough to to keep themselves alive. In fact, like you said, my co authors a lunge every project, Doctor Leslie Martin, she she lives her life very much like that. She was just in Uganda tracking the guerrillas and she's always off somewhere. She ran across the Para desert. So um, but you know, she's very healthy and happy. And that that's typically what we found and it kind of inspired both of us to do more of that,

just to stay active, stay involved. And so some of those new findings are being confirmed by both ourselves and by others as well. Yeah. That that's That's what I'm curious to you about, was how how have you changed your life since doing this project and understanding the learnings. One of the other things is, um, you know, stay stay active. So you don't have to be going to the gym every day for hours and hours, but just getting up and out of your chair is is very

important and so UM, we do a lot more of that. Um. You know, I just if there's something to get up and do, I just get up and do it. And if I have to go down the stairs to get something, I don't call down to somebody, you know, I go down the stairs. But the other thing that's very important that people can do is be um socially involved with

other healthy people. So you know, you know who your friends are, who are basically good influences, who are doing healthy things, doing productive things, doing worthwhile things, and then you know, I really turned down invitations to associate with those people. So that what's the one thing you could do to live a happy and thriving and long life. It would probably be to look around and so and see who you're you're healthy and thriving friends are and

try to associate more with those. So that's that's a kind of conscious change you could make. You know, am I too busy? Or should I do this? And how much more likely these days to say I'm gonna go do that. Oh that's good, that's good, We're good for you. Well, it's been so fascinating reading about this project and chatting with you about this, So Dr Freeman, thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. Now we've talked about diet and exercise.

But let's talk about the fortunes being invested in the development of anti aging treatments. Yeah, now that we've managed to extend the human lifespan significantly, researchers are focused on how to improve that quality of longer life, and there are several really interesting possibilities being explored. So I want to talk about another New Scientist article we're looking at, and this one's by Jessica hams Alu. Yeah, that's a

good call. So all right, Well, one of the first treatments she talks about is that of the the young blood plasma theory, and she writes about this she says, the idea is that there's something in the blood of people under twenty five that keeps them youthful, although we don't yet know what it is. Yeah, they kind of made fun of the tech billionaire obsession with this on Silicon Valley and tech bulonaires having these blood boys on hand.

But in the studies they've done on older mice who were injected with plasma from younger mice, the results were strangely promising. Like they even tested the injection of plasma from human teens into these older mice and both cases the older mice end up more active and show fewer signs of aging. Well, and that Silicon Valley show wasn't wrong about this. I mean, while we're still lacking rigorous clinical trials for what this will do for humans, it

hasn't stopped businesses from developing around these plasma transfusions. There's even a company in California called Ambrosia and that you can go there and you can get this young blood plasma transfusion. You know, if you if you've just got eight thousand dollars to spend on this, I mean, if you knew this would work, I could actually see paying for that, you know, But I think I made hold

off just a little bit. But still, according to the company's founder, Jesse Carmazin, the people who have been treated are already reporting benefits and cognition, muscle strength, and energy level. But again, I mean that's an evangelist speaking. So we need real clinical trials to be conducted before the verdicts out. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens, all right. So the next treatment Hanzlou covers is related to our telomeres. Well, I think we should pause for a minute remind our

listeners what telomeres are and buy our listeners. I mean, can can you remind me? So? Telomeres are our DNA protectors. There are the caps at the end of chromosomes, and and there's a strong correlation between the length of telomeres and aging. So you know, like every every time a cell divides, these caps shrink, and this process takes place until there's simply too small to provide meaningful protection. And after that the cells either die or they're significantly damaged,

and the cells around them can become damaged too. In fact, even before we start aging, those born with shorter telomeres are are way more likely developed age related diseases at younger ages. Nicely done, good description there, Mango, all right. So we're starting to see more research on them and

from people like Maria Blastco. She's at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid, and her team has been working on ways to extend telomeres and mice and and they're doing this through gene therapy and they've been pretty successful at what they're doing with some of these mice.

They've been able to extend their lives by as much as that's crazy, So it's definitely fascinating, though there's still a ton of work to be done and it's not something that's really ready to be practiced on people yet. So again that that that has not stopped a few companies from introducing gene therapy treatments to you know, targeting these telemeres. Yeah, it definitely hasn't. Some of them are self reporting successful growth of telomeres and that patients feel

like twenty years younger. But again that's self reporting and something I'd hold off on trusting. Yeah, me too, Me too. Now we we should also talk about the services that are being marketed that are less about anti aging treatments and really more about better understanding our genome or our microbiome through scans and blood tests and all these other evaluations.

So I guess the idea here is that if we know a bit more about the underlying health issues we might be developing or what we're at risk of, then you know, we can begin working on an early treatment or preventative efforts. But there was a quote from one of the company's founders that I have to admit I found pretty amusing. So Craig Ventor, the founder of a company called Human Longevity, Inc. He got the results from

his company's twenty five tho dollar package. That's right. It provided a genome sequencing and all this other information that we talked about before and after seeing his results, he said, quote, I've lost forty three pounds since finding out things about my metabolic condition. Honestly, I'm not sure someone needs to spend twenty five thou dollars to know that. If they had forty three pounds to lose, they might want to go ahead and do that. That said, I know we're

not mean spirited here. I'm speaking with the almost no knowledge of his company, so I'm not saying that it's not a valuable service. I just kind of found that quote funny. So it's in the end, it sounds like many of these treatments may be promising, but most of them aren't quite ready for the masses. And even Hamslu writes about this, until that time, your best options are boring old diet and exercise. It's true, it's true. But you know one thing that's not boring, Mango, the part

time genius bag. That's right. M okay, so I'm gonna go first. Gat he's born in autumn are more likely to hit a hundred than those born in another seasons. All right, so let's talk about TV watching. TV watching definitely appears to take a serious toll on our health. There was a two thousand ten study that looked at people watching more than four hours of TV per day, and it found there were forty six percent more likely to die from any cause than those who watch less

than two hours. Although while I'm reading this, I'm wondering about the words any cause. I mean, it seems like people watch TV all the time are less likely to die from say like rock climbing or something like we're elephant trampoline, right, what ever? It maybe, but still don't watch so much TV if you want to live longer. So one of the other benefits of aging, and this

is pretty interesting me is fewer migraines. Like one study showed the only ten percent of women and five percent of men over seventy report having migraines, or rather, if they were having the migrants, they weren't they weren't accompanied by headaches. Oh that's pretty good. That's all right, all right.

I was just looking at the list of the world's oldest people again here I can't stop looking at this list and the supercentenarians, which for obvious reasons, this list has to be updated somewhat regularly, but as of this morning, five of the ten oldest people in the world are in Japan. Actually looking here at the top fifteen, seven of the top fifteen or in Japan. I I do kind of wonder if they're counting years differently there though. Um So, here's one for the ladies, and specifically ladies

over eighty. So. Studies looking at sexual satisfaction by age have shown that while the elderly may not have sex as often as younger people, multiple studies have shown that satisfaction increases with a In fact, the women over eighty and one study report being much more satisfied during sex than those were in the late fifty five to seventy nine range. You know what, Mango, I don't think I can top an octogenarian sex facts. So I'm gonna give you the PTG fact Off Trophy this week. That's it

for Part Time Genius. Thanks so much for listening. You kids are to stick around. Wasn't that you would have a bunch of funk everybody? Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sounding. Jerry Rowland does the

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