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[Music]
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aging it's the price we pay for
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living but it might not always be this
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way I think that in 50 years we'll be
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able to take a 20-year-old and give them
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a treatment they'll be Peter Pan they'll
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be forever young increasingly science is
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revealing how we can slow our biological
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clocks the rate of Aging is malleable
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and these tantalizing glimpses of an
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ageless future are attracting huge money
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big investors are zeroing in on age
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reversal research but does the science
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live up to the hype can we really slow
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down aging or even stop it all together
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when I started the field it was like
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well let's let's see we moved from Hope
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to realizing the promise
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[Music]
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if we can slow aging
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enough so that we don't have diseases of
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Aging then we will be happy but there
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will be a side effect we might live
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longer I want you to walk back to me
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calling off every other letter of the
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alphabet starting with a
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a
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c she might not look it but gy is 98
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years old she's a participant in the
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longevity genes project at the Albert
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Einstein College of Medicine in New York
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my brother died in his mid 80s my sister
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is now
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103 I have a younger sister who is 90 my
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father died 5 days short of
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95 my mother
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died at 85 or
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[Music]
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86 not only longer they live he here for
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the past 25 years near barel has studied
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the long lived in a bid to unlock the
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mystery of Aging when I started studying
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the centenarian the question is do they
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just live longer or do they also leave
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healthier and the answer is yes they're
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healthy we have discovered several genes
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in our centenarians if we can imitate
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them if we can understand what happens
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to them we can create it as a drug or or
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some other intervention that we could
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use near is just one of a growing number
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of scientists chasing a future where
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aging is no longer inevitable but what
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is aging the longer you live the greater
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the impact of molecular and cellular
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damage in your body bringing you closer
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to death as to why we age one
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explanation is the Disposable Soma
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Theory there's an evolutionary trade-off
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between repair and
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reproduction it's not obvious why an
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animal should become more damaged as it
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gets older and The evolutionary
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explanation is a thing called disposable
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Soma Theory and for that you have to
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understand that the purpose of an
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organism is to reproduce and since it's
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always at risk of getting killed by the
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outside world it makes sense to get your
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reproducing done as fast as possible so
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organisms tend to reproduce when they're
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young evolutionary pressure to keep them
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in full working order as they get older
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uh
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diminishes an adult human's risk of
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death doubles roughly every 8 years at
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30 years of age your odds of dying in
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the next year are less than
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0.1% at 60 years of age that risk is 1%
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by the time you turn 90 it's over
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15% but this isn't true for all
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animals alabra giant tortoises for
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example can live to well over 100 and as
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adults their risk of death remains
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roughly constant at just over 2% per
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year biologically speaking they hardly
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age at
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all so if aging isn't fixed Maybe maybe
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it can be
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changed in the 1930s a paper by Clive
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McCay a scientist at Cornell University
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in New York state proved just that with
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one simple modification he revealed a
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way to make animals stay healthy for
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longer and even prolong their lives
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McKay found that if he restricted the
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diet of rats to near starving levels he
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could increase their lifespan by up to
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30
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3% that was the first time that we
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discovered that agent could be slowed
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down and it's true of pretty well every
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animal it's been tested on from yeast to
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dogs it sounds counterintuitive but in
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evolutionary terms it fits with the
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Disposable Soma theory if you are um
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solving then reproduction is possibly
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not top of your list of things to do you
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want to survive and so a mechanism that
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will PR long life then to allow the
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animal to arrive at a point where it can
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reproduce successfully makes sense
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Evolution will wish to preserve the
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animal for better times but it does
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preserve Health as well it's not that
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you uh have a horrible old age you have
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a healthy old age but keeping yourself
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hungry for a longer healthier life is
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far from ideal the trick would be to
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fool the body into thinking it's
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starving when it's not and the key to
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that may lurk in our DNA
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[Music]
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[Music]
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in the 1990s Cynthia Kenyan made
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headlines when her groundbreaking work
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with round worms showed for the first
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time that genes can play a part in aging
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amazingly we found that changing a gene
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called daff 2 could in one Fell Swoop
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double the lifespan of the animal and
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caus it to age much more slowly than
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normal so that it stayed young much
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longer than normal since then scientists
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have tweaked various genes in round
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worms resulting in mutants that can live
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to over 5 months old 10 times longer
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than those without the genetic changes
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we now know from work from our lab and
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from other labs that the reason that
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this Gene change slows down aging is
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because the genes that we changed are
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involved in a kind of programmed system
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of resiliency they make the animals less
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sensitive to pathogens they improve the
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ability of the animal to repair its DNA
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all sorts of things it's pretty amazing
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they're the same changes responsible for
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increasing lifespan in near starving
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animals only this time the animal can
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eat as much as it wants because its
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genes have been tricked into thinking
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it's starving and humans have the genes
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they're right there in us but we don't
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yet know whether they affect our
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lifespan or not researchers have
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discovered other genes that affect Aging
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in humans but changing genes in people
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is irreversible a more practical way to
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slow aging would be to change not genes
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themselves but how they're read
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modifying something called The epig
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genome epigenetics literally means on
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top of genes so you can think of it as a
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layer of information that are added to
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the DNA the epigenome Tells genes when
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to turn on and off there is a very
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promising um therapeutic Avenue that is
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being investigated now called epigenetic
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reprogramming tweaking the epigenome of
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mice has already shown it's possible to
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turn back a cell's biological clock in
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particular manipulating four proteins
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known as yam AKA factors and if you
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express those yamanaka factors in Old
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cells they change the epigenome and push
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the cell back in time epigenetic
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treatments are showing so much potential
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that research money is flooding in
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startups betting they can modify the
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epig genome to slow down aging are
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popping up all over Silicon Valley and
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elsewhere the claims might sound
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outlandish but but the science is real
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epigenetics um or epigenetic patterns
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are laid down by enzymes which by Nature
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catalyze mostly reversible reactions and
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therefore if we can Target the correct
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enzymes to change those patterns and
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convert them back to the youthful
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pattern then it means that epigenetics
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is a drugable field of research in terms
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of anti-aging
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while a drug that can fight aging at the
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DNA level remains closer to Theory than
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practical application other methods of
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turning back the biological clog already
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exist for the past few years I've been
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endeavoring to build the world's best
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anti-aging
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protocol some attempts to slow aging are
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raising
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eyebrows take Brian Johnson the man
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whose Zeal for a long life is viewed as
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obsessive by many
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these are all the supplements I take in
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his quest to remain Forever Young he's
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pushed boundaries even using his own
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son's blood we'll lead her out we'll
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lead her in for me as macabra as it
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sounds it seems to work in animals it's
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known as
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parabiosis it's almost like out of a
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vampire
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story parabiosis is when you take two
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animals of the same species and Link
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their blood circulations together if you
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do it with animals of significantly
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different ages so one's quite young and
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one's quite old the older animal lives
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longer than you would expect although
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how much of this is down to special
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qualities in the younger blood is open
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to debate there probably are some
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factors that are crossing over from the
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young to the old but it look as though a
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lot of the effect is coming simply from
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the dilution of the bad factors in the
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old animal and blood isn't the only gift
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the young can donate to provide the old
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with youthful figure if you transplant E
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from a young animal to an old animal
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that will extend its lifespan not much
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is known yet about why this works but
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the microbiome the bacteria in the gut
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changes with age presumably it's
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adapting to the the host we know the
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composition of the microbium changes as
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the animal gets older and it becomes
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more specific so this might be a way
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that you can gu its longevity through
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the gut it might take blood and guts to
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stay this young but a range of different
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drugs are also showing promise at
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slowing down aging and some of them have
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been on pharmacist shelves for years a
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class of drugs that includes dasatinib
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used to treat leukemia has been found to
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extend life in Animals by attacking a
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major contributor to aging there's a
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certain kind of cell called a senescent
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cell it could have been any cell in your
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body but when it becomes ccent it stops
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stops dividing no longer proliferates
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and it becomes highly inflammatory it's
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a little Center of inflammation right
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there in your body and that's a problem
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because inflammation is linked to a
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variety of age related
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diseases in animals where they've
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cleared ccent cells it's really
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remarkable the animals don't live that
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much longer but they're much healthier
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currently there are nearly 20 clinical
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trials globally for therapies that clear
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ccent cells but this isn't the only
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class of drug that shows promise in
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slowing
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aging this one is metformin it's been
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also taken off label for longevity
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purposes met forming is a common drug to
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treat diabetes but also the people who
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are using that are protected against
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variety of age related
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diseases metformin mimics dietary
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restrictions by lessening the amount of
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sugar the body produces and absorbs the
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way it works inside a cell isn't
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completely understood but it reduces
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inflammation and helps break down
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accumulated rubbish in studies diabetics
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taking metformin have lived longer and
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healthier than people not on the drug
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whether they were diabetic or
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Not Another drug that seems to slow
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aging is
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Ramy already approved for use with organ
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transplants rap myin is an
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immunosuppressant it changes the way
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that nutrients are are sensed and
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changes the way that they're metabolized
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in ways which are useful to extending
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life Romy boosts the way cells clear up
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junk that builds up inside them with age
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this means they can function better like
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a younger version of
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themselves whether they're drugs that
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already exist or new ones that change
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our epig genome anti-aging treatments
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are are coming and the need for them has
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never been greater we all know that we
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have a demographic shift in which fewer
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young people are supporting more old
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people so it's really really important
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that our older people stay vibrant and
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Youthful and productive it's also
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something we all want for ourselves and
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for our family and people we love and
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for everybody a future where we grow old
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with aging would benefit billions and
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give the world an economic Boon too it's
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not a billion doll question it's
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trillions the last two years of medical
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expense of centenarians is third of
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those who di at
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7 if people lived longer with a sharper
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decline in old age it would reduce
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medical expenses resulting from age
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related
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diseases although it's impossible to put
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a price on on extra years of healthy
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life one day hopefully more of us will
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be as independent into old age as
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gy as I look
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back who ever thought of
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98 when I was in my 60s I never thought
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of that but today 50 is like being a
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baby I want to beat my sister right now
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my sister is 103
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I want to be able to live that long
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120 thank you for watching to read more
00:15:39
about the science of Life Extension
00:15:41
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