Well, thanks, but may be the way that the years play out is not inevitable. So how about the idea of being able to increase our health span, live the better years of our life for longer, until we are a0 or 60. Theres a 15 17 years of healthy life that is up for grabs for all of us. We head to california to meet the scientists and founders who want to make it a reality. Ageing by itself is the largest risk factor for every single disease, this Chronic Disease of ageing, so by targeting it, you target all disease together. But how do we separate science from snake oil . The Longevity Industry is worth billions, with hopes of delaying disease, extending our sprightly years and maybe even throwing in a few extra. I let a system of science and data run my body. It does a betterjob taking care of me than i can. Maybe even our Furry Friends can be with us for longer. He sneezed in my face. And the things some people will do to stay young you got this. Do you consider yourself a guinea pig . No, i do not. I consider myself to be an explorer on the frontiers, trying to find out what is possible. Tech entrepreneur bryanjohnson is spending millions trying to turn back time on his body. I refer to myself as a professional rejuvenation athlete. It is a new sport i want to create. Im not a bio hacker, im not a health enthusiast, i am a professional rejuvenation athlete. I love it. Working with a team of 30 scientists, his daily life is dictated by an extreme regime of fitness, diet, tablets, tracking and treatments. I am chronologically 45 years old, biologically i am a few hundred ages. My left ear is 64. My fitness test say im 18. My heart is 37. My diaphragm strength is 18. And i playfully say i am trying to become like an 18 year old. My son is 17 so i always tease him and say, when i grow younger, i want to be like you. Where is he taking me . Wow. Where to start in here what is this . This is High Frequency electromagnetic assimilation. We got this machine because we were trying to solve a problem. Every night i was getting up one time per night to go to the bathroom. And when i do so, that is actually normal but when i did so, it produced less quality sleep. So, i wanted to see if i could get up zero times, so we got this machine to trial could we strengthen my pelvic floor and my bladder so i would not have to get up at night to go to the bathroom. Do you want to try it out . Do you want to just sit down . 0k. Is it going to vibrate or something . A lot of women use this after having babies to rebuild the strength of the pelvic floor. A lot of some use kegel exercises. This is basically kegel stimulation. Right. Im going to turn it on and the feeling is going to be a little foreign and it might be shocking initially. 0k. It is like pins and needles. It is sort of tickling but tickling in a quite hard and oppressive way. How long do you do it for . The session is 30 minutes. But it has been successful. Is this one of those devices that measures the age of your skin . Thats right. How is yours doing . With me we have made about 22 years of progress in reversing the age of my skin. It takes all these images of your face and you get about ten reports on pore size, uv spots, red, brown. Your skin is amazing. Is this just from your regime or is there other help . Other help too, we have some lasers over there. There are no injections thatsjust from everything in here . Thats right. What do we have next . This is something that also tells you the health of your cardiovascular system, so your age. It looks at advanced glycinate product in your skin. If you want to try it, you can put your arm on it and it will tell you your age. The ideal score would be around two. So i am only a little bit too old for my age, it could be worse. Whats next . Ok, this is an ultrasound machine, medical grade. This is what you see in a hospital. Are you having a baby . Laughs who knows with what youre getting up to already what are you actually using it for . We look at the brain, the lungs, the heart, the pancreas, prostate, tendons, ligaments, everything, it is really a useful technology to have in the clinic to do on a routine basis. How do you feeljust before you do any of this tracking . Do you get a bit nervous, hopeful . Do you have expectation . It is a game. Some of my most happiest days are when we do these full measurement days. What is your motivation . Are you doing this for yourself or for humanity . When i was 21 years old i decided that i wanted to spend my life doing something meaningful for the world. And i didnt know what to do so i said, im going to make a whole bunch of money being an entrepreneur by the age of 30, then ill decide what to do. Since i sold my company, braintree venmo, i made 300 million and the question was, what could i do that would matter in the year 2500 and right now it could be ageing. If we slow the speed of ageing and even reverse it, it would change what it means to be human. Do you think you are risking your health here . In all the things youre doing to protect it, do you think theres also some real risk . Certainly, there is always risks but there is potentially an argument that we are being more safe than anyone else because we have the rigour of measurement. Whilst bryan signed his life away to experimentation, i visit the buck, the worlds First Institute for ageing research. These scientists are working on drugs that they hope could delay age related disease. I have two of my postdocs. Would you say there has been huge scientific advancement in this field recently or is there just a sudden trend for investment and interest in it . The science has matured in terms of we have been doing this for close to 30 years, understanding the basic mechanism of ageing, number one. Number two, the societal needs are there, you have a rapidly ageing population with an increasing burden of Chronic Diseases. This place is huge. This is one of about 20 labs. Three, two, one, squeeze. It is notjust drugs and supplements being put through their paces here though, its also exercise. What kind of exercise, how much, how often, aerobics, anaerobic, lifting weight, yoga, balance, swimming which one of these interventions actually works the best . But one really important discovery in mice here was the ability to reduce what are called Senescent Cells. These zombie cells play a useful role throughout our lifetime but as we age, we acquire many more and as they also lead to inflammation, that increased number ends up providing a hotbed for cancer and all sorts of disease. So Biotech Companies are trying to create drugs that will reduce that cellular senescence. Im adding my reagent to my eye tissue so i can understand which types of cells are senescent. Unity is using this science and it has now achieved small early stage Clinical Trials for Eye Injections to treat Macular Degeneration that is failing eyesight that glasses cant fix. We see these cells purple so i can visualise spatially within the eye where the Senescent Cells reside. Once you get rid of one of these cells, it is gone. This would be a small number of treatments over a limited amount of time. One of the things we started to see is because the fda will not approve drugs just for anti ageing, companies are looking for a specific problem to treat. Alzheimers disease is an important one, cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, Liver Diseases all of these are diseases that are more prevalent as we get older, to the extent that they have a basis of cellular senescence, these agents we are working on could have applicability in other diseases. What have you got here . That looks like it is connected to an eye . Yeah, we get normalised and diseased eyes. We can section the eye, a Cross Section of it very thinly and put it on a microscope slide. Here we are testing different drug candidates on our animal models. So we test in a diseased animal model, does our drug actually inhibit or get rid of it once it is already formed . A lot of mouse trials have not translated well into humans . We believe it translates relatively well compared to a tumour of cells, and a tumour in a human. Quite creepy when you know what it is. Yeah, i think it is quite cool. But maybe we are missing something. Lifestyle is responsible for about 93 of your longevity. Only about 7 on your genetics so you cant blame your parents. A lot of exercise, some fasting, a lot of good sleep, a lot of social connection, very little alcohol, try to spend at least 1a hours of your 24 hour day without ingesting any calories. This has profound effects on your metabolism, on many of the pathways. Based on the data, i would predict that most people could live to 95 in good health if they did all of the things that we know would promote a healthy lifespan. If they work, why do we need to deal with this Bigger Picture . Senescence is still going to happen. Hopefully if you exercise, its going to be delayed by10, 15, 20 years. I dont mean to be saying that Lifestyle Intervention is all that needs to be done, there is a need for science for the future. What is that thing that people do where they sit on the floor and try to get up without using their hands . Whatever eric has been doing seems to be working. This is supposed to be some sort of sign of youth, if you can stand up by not using your hands. How can anyone do that, pushing yourfeet down, how is that possible . How do you do that . I dont know. I think it means you are under 20 or something. Exactly. I cant do it 0ur Furry Friends could get their paws on a life extending pill first though. 0ur Furry Friends could get their paws on a life extending pill first though. I love my dog to bits. Youll notice there are no great danes here, there are no large dogs here, and its because they can have a lifespan of six, seven, eight, nine years, almost half of what a little guy like this could be expected to have. Our hypothesis is that the short lifespan of big dogs is a disease. Hes my honey, sweetie, sugar canine number one pal. We are a senior dog rescue, and when we take in dogs, like a great dane for instance, at five years old, they are already starting to age so much, and it would be like a miracle cure if we could have some of our big dogs live longer and live as long as the small dogs. Ms robinson, thats for you. Where are you at now with the trial . We are kicking off our big, pivotal study, we are trying to understand does our drug extend life span and quality of life . Its a preventative drug, inhibiting the protein that we believe drives dogs to age fast. And if everything goes to plan we will hopefully have a drug on market in 2025. If successful, this drug could hasten the solution for humans as well. Has there been any sort of scientific breakthrough that has made possible what you are trying to do . The thing that people dont realise is there have been hundreds of drugs that have shown lifespan extension, health span expansion in mice. The issue is you cant develop a drug for people today for a purely logistical standpoint. If i gave you an ageing drug, it would be decades before i would know if you develop age related diseases, and decades before i find out your eventual lifespan. Dogs have similar diets to us, they live in the same environment and they also develop the same age related diseases as we do, approximately at the same kind of a lifespan, so if a drug works in a dog, it is not 1 to 1 as any human but its much more likely versus, we do a lot of research on mice and that does not translate out all. Back to humans, and if we want to reduce the age that our bodies seems rather than is, well, we need to find a way to measure it. I was really put through my paces with this test, assessing my baseline, then pushing me to my physical limits. Was this really necessary . Really nicejob. You got this good job. What a relief to take that off ive recovered so how fit am i . Youve done a really nicejob, nice test. At least i discovered at the end that i have a fitness age of 36, thats seven years lower than my years. But there is an easier way a few drops of blood and this scientists invention, known as the epigenetic clock, can assess my biological age and possibly the date of my demise. There is this grim age which is our best mortality predictor and unfortunately you are a little bit older than you should be. It says 49 years. Thats unfortunate its very important to have a sense of humour when one looks at these reports. I could come up with a date almost predicting when you would die. When do you think it is going to occur, according to this . We dont give people this. But you know, you know the answer to that question . I have a way to calculate it. Tell me no, i wont, and the reason is things change, you know, people develop Healthy Habits or bad habits, bad luck, so its essentially not very informative for you. You cant even tell me the likelihood of which illness it is, it is just that my body is ageing a bit faster . I dont want to go back to this, but its a bit concerning. The question is really why. We have a lot of good news for you. I wanted to start with the bad news. Look at that, your female age is 36. 5, seven years younger than expected. Right, my biological age is 36, my chronological age is 43, and my disease risk is a lot higher than it should be. I wont worry too much though, its very early days for these tests. How about this one . In fact, im keeping my spirits up and im off to a longevity meet up. Are these brainy scientists living the Longevity Lifestyle . There are still unopened bottles of wine, so probably tonight we had a longevity friendly mix of food, seaweed and so on. Other parts of the industry have not been quite so wholesome though. In four decades there has been a lot of snake oil, a lot of miracle pills, the god pill, all of this stuff. Many have been desperate to believe, just ask this leading Silicon Valley doctor. I dont know why people want to gamble with their health. I understand gambling with money, if it is safe and not effective like a vitamin, some maintenance, then some vitamins, then you are gambling with your money but if it is not proven safe, and it is not proven effective you are gambling with your health, and then there are people spending a lot of time doing these things and they are not living their life, they are living the version of their life to give themselves a future life, but what happens if the future life never materialises . The repurposing of current drugs might hold some promise to preventing age related disease and some dont even want to wait for the Clinical Trials. Especially in Silicon Valley amongst techies, its hard to find somebody who isnt taking metformin, this diabetic drug that these people are not diabetics and they are typically quite healthy, but they have seen some of the studies and even though it has not been approved as an anti ageing drug, they are taking it, the same with others, so you have a lot of people who are going off book, going doctor shopping, looking for those doctors that will give them the pills that might be for Something Else but have shown an effect on extending life in animals. I get asked by young men in their 40s, should i take metformin. And my first question is are you ready to lose half of your testosterone . There are no medicines without side effects. The good news is with all these blood tests, breath tests, urine tests, wearables, apps, there are so many things that track things so if you really want to, like if you are overweight and have high blood pressure, and you love your wine and your life, but you want appealed and your life, but you want a pill to make you live long, guess what . You cannot stop the wind with your hands. Its probably getting close to this last bedtime, they really value sleep. I want to wake up naturally, because your cortisol levels, which is your Stress Hormones go down as you sleep and right up when you wake up a spike. A lack of good sleep can disrupt them and in turn lead to unnecessary inflammation and a higher risk of disease. Its like ageing, so you want to do everything you can to decrease the inflation in your body. The pills and supplements and the cryo and all this stuff, they tout it does that, but show me the measurements outside of people saying i feel better. Because by the way, placebo, people feel better and im not saying that is placebo because there is lots of interesting science in there. Whether pills or procedures are proven or not, there are a whole lot of people who are really obsessed. Some of this stuff seems a bit cult like, this stuff. Very cult like and i try to protect my people against that cult aspect. We try not to let it become that way. There is one issue that none of this can resolve though. In the united states, the single biggest determiner of your Life Expectancy is your postcode, where you live. That is a problem that cannot be engineered. Once drugs are developed, will they not further enhance the inequality, because who was going to get access the drugs and when . The model, the way it works, the drugs become valuable the drugs become available, if they actually are demonstrated to be valid to insurance companies, and we expect the same thing to happen with all drugs that will be developed together. So where does this leave us . There is exercise, but. Exercises hard, magic pills are easy. One pill gets us six months, another gets a year, and you piece this together and we are living to the age of 85, 95, healthily. Will the drugs come . There are a ton of companies who are trying to capitalise on this enthusiasm, raising a lot of money, but then you get to the very hard yards of actually science, bench science, putting something in a human body and actually having it work. And there are bigger questions over how we may need to work longer, the unexpected diseases that will emerge at these older ages, and our planet is already pretty busy. First thing to consider is these changes we are talking about are not going to happen tomorrow, they are going to be happening slowly, the same way we have doubled our lifespan over the past 150 years, and we slowly adapted. As for brian. What has the reaction been from doctors and scientists to what you are doing, because i guess it has been kind of mixed . The reaction has been very mixed. There are quite a few people who are excited that this is happening and its a good blueprint for them. There has also been a colossal amount of hate, which i love. I love every bit of it. I think brian is a true pioneer. Is there not a bit of a risk in what he is doing to himself. There is a concern, we will see what happens to him in the long term. So far, his numbers look good, he claims to be extremely happy, its an interesting experiment for us to watch. Delicious the reality is we know a lot about the science of ageing. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. But the big scientific breakthroughs are just are not there yet, so i guess i come away from this feeling more than ever that it is so important to live your healthiest life, just maybe not quite to the extent of brianjohnson. Lucky us, we exist. Lets play the most fun games we can for as long as we can. Hello there, good evening. With low pressure close by for yet another weekend, its looking rather unsettled again. Blustery for the time of year, with blue sky and sunshine, as captured in perth and kinross, and a good scattering of showers. Another good scattering of showers, some heavy and thundery. Similar tomorrow weather wise. The showers will be fewer and further between. Less sharp in nature, windy, but not as blustery as today. This is the satellite picture, showing us the area of cloud. Low pressure very much dominant, gradually pushing further eastwards through the rest of the weekend. And we look out towards the South West On sunday night, where theres some more rain approaching. But tonight, a lot of the showers fade away and there will be clear spells around. Still some showery outbreaks of rain, cloud across Northern Ireland and approaching Western Scotland by the end of the night. A mild start to sunday morning, temperatures down to between 1a and 16 celsius. Plenty of cloud around for many areas on sunday morning, but it should break up and well see brightness and spells of sunshine develop. But still watch out for showers possibly thundery across the moray firth, but elsewhere, they should fall lighter. And largely dry across parts of east anglia, where it will tend to be brightest. Highs here of 23 degrees. More cloud and Rain Approaching Cornwall and the south of wales by the end of the day. And that rain will move further northwards and eastwards through the day on monday, into central and southern england, as far north as northern england. Some showers breaking out across northern scotland, but largely dry across scotland perhaps and across Northern Ireland, too. Bright spells, but watch out for showers across parts of east anglia. Temperatures here still 22 celsius, in the best of that brightness. On tuesday, that area of low pressure is moving into scandinavia. Tuesday looking largely dry, maybe a few showers across central and Western Areas of scotland, and a murky start to the day. But pressure builds towards the south of england. This is the position of the jet stream through next week. Still a lot of debate about how far north it will be. But we expect that warm air from Southern Europe to move further northwards, on more of a south easterly wind, so across south wales, likely to rise into the mid 20s, possibly across london and the south of england, as highs reach the high 20s. But further north, cooler and more unsettled. Live from london, this is bbc news. The french coastguard because of its search for the night after six people drowned when a Boat Carrying Migrant Sinks in the English Channel. Hawaiis Attorney General orders an investigation into the handling of wildfires on maui after 80 are killed. Im ata im at a centre here in my way where people are desperately searching for their loved ones. In mawi. Two games away from glory, the lionesses who Reach The World Cup semifinal where they will play hosts australia, in an eagerly anticipated fixture. Hello, im lucy gray. The six migrants who drowned in the English Channel on saturday have been identified as afghans. A french official said more than 60 people were on board the boat which capsized most of them were from afghanistan and some were sudanese. In the last few minutes, we have been told that the
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