August 16, 2017 • 41 mins
From tips from a 122-year old rap star, to the latest research on how many eggs a week is too many (80 eggs a week is probably too many), Will and Mango dig into the most recent science on longevity and investigate the best ways to hit the triple digits. Featuring Howard Friedman of the Longevity Project. And special celebrity guest, Mamaw.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All right? You know
how I love a good list, and especially when these
lists are about records. While I was looking over the
list of the world's oldest living people, and I stumbled
into this story of Jean Louise Coleman, and she was
the oldest living person on record until she died in
at a hundred and twenty two years and a hundred
(00:21):
and sixty four days old old. That's crazy, and it
was so much fun to read about her life. I mean,
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
(00:42):
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
(01:05):
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.
(01:27):
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.
(01:58):
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
(02:19):
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
(02:42):
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
(03:02):
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
(03:23):
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
(03:45):
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
(04:06):
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,
(04:27):
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
(04:48):
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,
(05:09):
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,
(05:30):
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
(05:52):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:35):
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
(06:57):
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
(07:17):
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
(07:40):
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
(08:02):
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
(08:23):
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,
(08:46):
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
(09:06):
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,
(09:27):
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
(09:47):
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
(10:07):
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,
(10:30):
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
(10:50):
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
(11:11):
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,
(11:32):
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
(11:53):
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
(12:15):
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.
(12:37):
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
(12:59):
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
(13:21):
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.
(13:45):
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
(14:06):
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
(14:29):
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
(14:50):
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
(15:12):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:54):
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
(16:16):
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
(16:37):
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
(17:00):
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,
(17:20):
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.
(17:42):
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.
(18:03):
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.
(18:35):
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,
(18:59):
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
(19:20):
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.
(19:44):
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
(20:05):
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
(20:26):
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
(20:48):
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
(21:08):
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
(21:29):
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
(21:50):
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
(22:12):
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.
(22:34):
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
(22:56):
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,
(23:17):
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
(23:37):
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
(23:57):
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
(24:19):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:02):
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
(25:22):
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
(25:45):
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,
(26:06):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:49):
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,
(27:12):
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
(27:36):
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
(27:57):
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
(28:17):
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,
(28:39):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:23):
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.
(29:44):
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,
(30:06):
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
(30:28):
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.
(30:50):
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
(31:13):
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,
(31:36):
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
(31:57):
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
(32:17):
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
(32:39):
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
(33:02):
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
(33:31):
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,
(33:51):
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
(34:12):
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
(34:32):
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
(34:52):
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,
(35:14):
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
(35:36):
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
(35:56):
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
(36:17):
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
(36:38):
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.
(37:01):
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
(37:23):
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
(37:46):
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
(38:08):
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
(38:29):
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
(38:52):
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
(39:12):
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,
(39:33):
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
(39:55):
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
(40:16):
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
(40:38):
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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support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown
and Lucas Adams. And he's Jeffico gets the show to
(41:00):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason Jason who
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All right? You know
how I love a good list, and especially when these
lists are about records. While I was looking over the
list of the world's oldest living people, and I stumbled
into this story of Jean Louise Coleman, and she was
the oldest living person on record until she died in
at a hundred and twenty two years and a hundred
(00:21):
and sixty four days old old. That's crazy, and it
was so much fun to read about her life. I mean,
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
(00:42):
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
(01:05):
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.
(01:27):
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.
(01:58):
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
(02:19):
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
(02:42):
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
(03:02):
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
(03:23):
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
(03:45):
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
(04:06):
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,
(04:27):
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
(04:48):
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,
(05:09):
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,
(05:30):
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
(05:52):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:35):
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
(06:57):
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
(07:17):
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
(07:40):
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
(08:02):
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
(08:23):
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,
(08:46):
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
(09:06):
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,
(09:27):
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
(09:47):
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
(10:07):
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,
(10:30):
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
(10:50):
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
(11:11):
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,
(11:32):
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
(11:53):
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
(12:15):
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.
(12:37):
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
(12:59):
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
(13:21):
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.
(13:45):
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
(14:06):
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
(14:29):
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
(14:50):
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
(15:12):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:54):
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
(16:16):
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
(16:37):
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
(17:00):
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,
(17:20):
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.
(17:42):
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.
(18:03):
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.
(18:35):
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,
(18:59):
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
(19:20):
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.
(19:44):
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
(20:05):
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
(20:26):
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
(20:48):
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
(21:08):
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
(21:29):
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
(21:50):
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
(22:12):
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.
(22:34):
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
(22:56):
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,
(23:17):
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
(23:37):
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
(23:57):
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
(24:19):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:02):
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
(25:22):
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
(25:45):
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,
(26:06):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:49):
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,
(27:12):
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
(27:36):
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
(27:57):
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
(28:17):
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,
(28:39):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:23):
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.
(29:44):
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,
(30:06):
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
(30:28):
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.
(30:50):
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
(31:13):
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,
(31:36):
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
(31:57):
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
(32:17):
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
(32:39):
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
(33:02):
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
(33:31):
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,
(33:51):
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
(34:12):
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
(34:32):
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
(34:52):
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,
(35:14):
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
(35:36):
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
(35:56):
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
(36:17):
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
(36:38):
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.
(37:01):
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
(37:23):
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
(37:46):
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
(38:08):
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
(38:29):
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
(38:52):
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
(39:12):
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,
(39:33):
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
(39:55):
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
(40:16):
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
(40:38):
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
exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with
support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown
and Lucas Adams. And he's Jeffico gets the show to
(41:00):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason Jason who
Part-Time Genius News
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Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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