Front Burner - Introducing: Unlocking the Fountain

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

What if there were a pill that could add decades to your life? Would you take it? For thousands of years, people have searched for elixirs that could delay death and extend human life. Could new advances in medicine finally make this a reality? From madcap medicine to cutting-edge science, the quest to unlock the fountain of youth is teeming with dreamers, skeptics and charlatans alike. More episodes are available at: hyperurl.co/unlocking

This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, question for you. What if there were a pill that could add decades to your life? Would you take it? For centuries, humanity has imagined this magical fountain that could unlock eternal youth. But are we anywhere near achieving that fantasy? Unlocking the Fountain with host and journalist Keith MacArthur explores the mysteries of aging. You'll meet dreamers, skeptics, and cutting-edge scientists, including those who believe that the first person who will live to 150 years old has already been born.

We have a special bonus for you today from this brand new CBC podcast series. Here's the first episode. In the year 2000, two scientists made what could be the largest bet in history. The wager began with a provocative statement from zoologist Steve Ostad in Scientific American magazine. Ostad studied animals in order to better understand the aging process. And based on this research, he made a bold prediction about human longevity. It was in response to a question by a journalist who said, this was at a small conference, who asked people, well, when do you think we're going to have the first 150-year-old? And everybody looked at each other and nobody said anything.

And finally, I just blurted out, I think that person's already alive. It wasn't reasoned, at least from my perspective. But once I started thinking about it, that age made a lot of sense. To J.L. Shansky, a demographer known for calculating the upper limits of human longevity, it sounded bonkers. I called him up. I said, Steve, you can't be serious that you actually think somebody's going to live to 150.

Olshansky was a professor of public health at the University of Illinois. He knew Ostad from aging conferences and considered him a friend. He said the world record is 122. You're talking about breaking that record by 28 years. He said, you don't really believe that, do you? And I said, yeah, actually, I do, Jay. I wouldn't have said it if I didn't believe it. I said, well, maybe we should place a wager on this because, you know, I don't really think that that's plausible. And, you know, we each put $150 down in an account. I think that's plausible.

And, you know, we each put $150 down in an account. The pair would later double the bet, each depositing $300. Now, $600 might not sound like a lot. But remember, the bet wouldn't be paid out for 150 years. Through good investments and compound interests, Olshansky says the payout could be considerable. I invested it in gold, which more than doubled in price, and then I invested it in Tesla, which, you know, has gone through the roof. So it's now called the billion-dollar bet, but it may very well be the two-billion-dollar bet. But it may very well be the $2 billion bet.

Neither scientist expects to be alive in 2150. So the jackpot will go to the winner's descendants. So would you still put money on that same bet today? Oh, yeah. Hands down. There's no question. There isn't anybody that's going to make it to 150. Ostad is still a believer.

And not because he thinks we're going to get better at treating or curing diseases, but because he believes we're on the cusp of radical new medicines that will allow us to treat and slow the aging process itself. Getting better at diagnosing and treating cancer or heart disease or kidney disease. None of these things are going to get us to 150. The only way to get us to 150 is to actually be able to change the rate at which we fall apart with age. So you made the bet 20 years ago. So you're basically saying that someone who's at least 20 years old today, maybe someone listening to the podcast is going to make it to 150. So they're going to live for

another 130 years. Yeah. Well, I would say that at least half of the listeners have that opportunity. And that would be the female half. I think it's quite likely that a female will, if a male does. In mid 2021, the oldest living man in the world was 112. There were 28 living women older than that. Now, Ostad's prediction was considered outlandish two decades ago. But today, an increasing number of experts say it could prove true. Some even predict that in the not-too-distant future, life expectancy at birth will be in the range of hundreds or even a thousand years.

I'm Keith MacArthur. In the first season of Unlocking, I investigated the cutting-edge science that might lead to cures for people living with rare diseases. People like my son, Bryson. This season, I'm going broader, exploring a condition that affects everyone on the planet. Aging. Scientists have known for decades that they can prolong lifespan in animals like worms and mice by altering the rate at which they age. lifespan in animals like worms and mice by altering the rate at which they age. But so far, efforts to slow human aging have been more fantasy than reality.

Every night I dreamed as you dream of immortality. Drink that potion and you'll never grow even one day older. Why can't a man live 500 years or a thousand? New scientific discoveries could change that. And the repercussions are profound. This is Unlocking the Fountain. Episode 1. 150 Candles.

I've always been curious about aging. Why do some of my high school friends look decades older than others in the pictures they post on Facebook? Why do some seniors live without serious disease for a century, while others suffer one ailment after another? And what can we do to prevent the toll of aging on our bodies and minds? I find these questions scientifically fascinating. But this exploration is also personal for me. My son Bryson has a rare genetic disease called Grin Disorder. He's a happy, social, loving 14-year-old.

He also has profound physical and cognitive disabilities. He can't walk or talk, and most of the time we don't know what's going on in his mind. When he's unhappy or in pain, he's not able to tell us why. My biggest worry in life is who's going to take care of Bryson when my wife Laura and I are no longer able. One path, the one I explored in Unlocking Bryson's Brain, is to find him a cure. Another is for Laura and me to live as long and strong as possible. To be there for Bryson as long as we can. And then there's my own medical challenges.

I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in my 20s. But it didn't seem real. I was young. I felt strong. Fifteen years later, my kidneys failed. While I waited for my transplant, I felt sick and tired and old. My brain became muddled. I moved slowly and needed to take a break halfway up a flight of stairs.

I remember sitting at a coffee shop window, envying people who were walking by me with the kind of vigor I'd had not long before. When a man at least 30 years older than me power walked by the window, it seemed impossible. It was as though this disease had caused me to age older than him. Then within days of getting a kidney transplant, thanks always to my sister Stephanie, I felt decades younger. I've seen this in other people too. When my dad was dying of cancer, my mom became his caregiver. Although she'd worked as a nurse for decades, this 24-7 job seemed to add years to her life.

But today, six years after his death, she seems younger than she did then. It seems your age is about much more than the number of candles on your cake. Ancient texts are full of people living for hundreds of years. And Moses was 120 years old when he died. In the Bible, Moses lived for 120 years. And Isaac? The days of Isaac were 104 score years. And Noah's grandfather, Methuselah?

All the days of Methuselah were 969 years. Dan-gun, the first ruler of Korea, supposedly lived for over 1900 years. Chantinatha, an Indian spiritual leader of the Jain tradition, for 800,000. Our ancestors have often bestowed longevity on leaders to establish royalty, heroism, or divinity, and there continue to be unproven reports of people living to extreme ages today, including a woman in Liberia who supposedly died at 153 in 2016. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Jean Calment of France as the oldest person ever. Here's Calment being interviewed in 1994 at age 119.

The interviewer asks, did you know Vincent Van Gogh? Yes, Calment says. I knew him right at the end of his life. He was ugly, ruined by alcohol. Calment died three years later at 122. Her son had already passed. So had her grandson. Calment hadn't lived a particularly healthy life. Well after her 110th birthday, she continued to drink port, smoke cigarettes, and eat two pounds of chocolate a week. There's a bit of a debate about Calment's longevity, with some researchers speculating

her daughter may have assumed her identity after she died. But she's generally accepted to be the longest-lived person whose age can be verified using modern techniques. When Calment was born in 1875, life expectancy in France was only about 40 years. So you might say she lived more than three lifetimes. Today, worldwide life expectancy is about 71 years, according to United Nations data. But there are huge discrepancies around the world, from a life expectancy of 84 in Japan to barely 50 in the Central African Republic. Canada is near the top of the list with a life expectancy of about 82 years. the United States stands at 79. So how did global life expectancy double over Jean Calment's lifetime?

J.L. Shansky explains. So the first major wave that occurred in public health was the early 20th century. That was, you know, basic public health, indoor living and working environments. What did that do? That dramatically brought down early age mortality. It allowed people to live into their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Then you had the middle part of the 20th century, latter part of the 20th century, focus on medicine, you know, antibiotics and whatnot. That allowed us to live longer into our 70s and 80s. I think we can safely say that Methuselah didn't live for 969 years. But historians and scientists

agree that even in ancient times, there was a small percentage of the population that lived to 80 or 90 or even 100 years of age. So the two waves described by Olshansky, they allowed a far greater percentage of people to get closer to this maximum potential age. The big question for this century is whether we can boost the maximum potential age itself from Calment's 122 years to 150 years or more. Ostad thinks we can. And though Olshansky doesn't, he does believe that an important third wave of aging benefits is imminent. That's because researchers don't just think about aging in chronological terms. It's also the underlying condition for many diseases that lead to sickness,

pain, and death. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's. We become exponentially more susceptible to all these diseases as we age. So the movement to slow, stop, or even reverse aging, it's not just about living longer. It's also about living younger. Imagine it taking 80 years to be 60. I mean, if I could be like I am today in my late 80s, I would be delighted. And I think that's the mindset that we need to have going forward, is really focusing in on what we

can achieve in terms of healthspan extension and compressing frailty and disability. But the third revolution, which is here, which is on its way, isn't going to yield large increases in lifespan, but it has the potential to yield quite significant and powerful effects on healthspan. to yield quite significant and powerful effects on healthspan. The researchers agree on another key point, too. They say we won't see any significant increases to either healthspan or lifespan through our current approach of trying to find cures for one disease at a time. It's not that efforts to cure cancer or Alzheimer's aren't valid. It's just those aren't the most efficient

ways to give us all more healthy years. Jay Olshansky. Look, if we cure cancer today, life expectancy would rise by about three and a half years. I mean it in the literal sense, so that nobody ever dies from cancer ever again. If we cure cardiovascular disease, I think we would gain about four to four and a half years in life expectancy. I think what will happen if we continue with this one disease at a time approach is we could increase the levels of frailty and disability among future cohorts of older people. Remember, death is a zero-sum game. So if you reduce the risk of death from one disease, something else comes up.

It's a big epidemiological game of whack-a-mole. But here's something else I learned. There are people who've been able to escape life's giant game of whack-a-mole. People who have lived past 100 without getting any of these age-related diseases. So what's their secret? My wife Laura suggests I talk to her friend's mom. My name is Eleanor, as in Roosevelt. Eleanor Ruth Gibson.

It was Fisher. And how old are you, Eleanor? Well, I'm 102, they tell me, and I feel every minute of it some days. Do you? Well, mentally I'm not too bad. It's physically that I'm over 102. So what year were you born?

1918. 1918. The last big, well, not the last one, but when the flu epidemic apparently was very bad. With the flu spreading around the world, 1918 was a deadly year for babies. But Eleanor was unscathed. She grew up strong and active, playing sports, teaching sports, and going on to have a career as a physiotherapist, where she was on her feet for most of the day. She took an interest in her brother's friend, and they started dating. And I guess that was the happiest time when I was dating him, She took an interest in her brother's friend, and they started dating.

Eleanor was an occasional drinker, but never smoked. Did you live a very healthy life compared with other people? Well, I guess so. I don't think, well, I used to get little things wrong with me like everybody else, and mumps and chicken pox. Have you ever had any serious illnesses? No, no, no. Wow. And so what's your secret to living so long?

Now, I don't know. I just can't figure that out myself. I just have no idea. Both my parents lived into their 90s. But that's about all I can say. My siblings, none of them reached 90. all I can say, my siblings, none of them reached 90. It's only since she turned 100 that life has become more challenging for Eleanor.

Now she needs a walker to get around, and her eyesight is fading. Things got even harder during the pandemic, when residents at Eleanor's long-term care facility were confined to their rooms. Yeah, and so you have to eat in your room? Oh, yes. Yeah. Ever since March the 16th or something, yeah. So more lonely than ever, I guess.

Oh, very. Yeah, very. Because we cut off, we don't have the heavy activities as much. And we enjoyed them all. I got plodded into everything. I just like keeping busy. So that's my problem. And my eyesight is failing me. And I did a lot of reading and a lot of knitting and stuff. Now I can't see to do that. And so being stuck in a room and not seeing or hearing,

able to talk to the people that I was friendly with, is kind of a hardship. I tell Eleanor about Jean Calment and wonder what she thinks about the possibility of new science that could prolong life for decades.

The oldest person on record lived to 122 years. Oh my gosh. How long do you think you'll live? I don't want to. I'm ready to go. They can come any time now. Yeah. I want to learn more about how people like Eleanor live such long and healthy lives. I seek out Nir Barzilai.

Okay, terrific. Can you hear me? I can hear you, yes. Thanks for that. A physician and aging researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. a physician and aging researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. When Barzilai started to study aging, most scientists in the field were focused on diseases that result in early aging. Kids with progeria, for example. They typically go bald and get wrinkles as toddlers and die of heart disease before they've reached adulthood. But Barzilai took a different approach.

Instead of studying people who age too quickly, he began researching people who age more slowly. Centenarians. He wanted to know if they were getting extra years of health or extra years of sickness. We looked at centenarians and we asked, do they live healthier as much as they live longer? And the answer is absolutely. Centenarians live 30 years healthier than people who are younger than them. They already exceeded lifespan

for their cohort by 40 years. But that's not really, that wasn't really the striking thing. The striking thing is that they have contraction of morbidity. In other words, the time that they're sick at the end of life is shorter. And it's interesting that the Center for Disease Control has been looking at the medical expense of last two years of life of many people, but among them, the medical expense of last two years of centenarians. And the medical expense of centenarians are third the cost of those who die before. One third the cost. Wow. So we have this example of population that live healthier, they live longer, and their medical cost, if you calculate, is a cost saving. In fact,

I would argue economically, you cannot afford not to target aging. The other thing Barzilai wanted to know is what were the secrets that allowed his centenarians to live dramatically longer, healthier lives? He and his team asked allowed his centenarians to live dramatically longer, healthier lives? He and his team asked hundreds of centenarians about their lifestyle. Did you exercise? Were you vegan? Did you smoke or didn't you smoke? And that's where it's interesting. I have 750 centenarians like that, and there's nothing special about them. that. And there's nothing special about them. Half of them smoked and less than half even walked as an exercise or did housework. And vegetarians only 2%. And they were not behaving in what we view as a healthy way. And still they got there. One example. Barzillai had a group of four siblings in his study. The youngest died at 100.

The eldest at 110. And the person who died at 110, I met her when she was 100 years old. She opened the door in a New York apartment, and she was smoking. And I said, just a minute, none of your doctor told you to stop smoking? And she said, you know, all four doctors that told me to stop smoking, they died. Lifespan is a product of two main factors. First, environment and lifestyle. Diet, exercise, sleep, stress.

The other factor is the genes you're born with. People like Jean Calment and Eleanor Gibson, they seem to have something special in their DNA. Gene variants that make them age more slowly than everyone else. Here's zoologist Steve Ostad. What I tell people is if you want to live to be a healthy 80, 85-year-old, you need to eat right, you need to have the right diet, you have to do all these things. If you want to be a healthy 100-year-old

or 120-year-old, you need to have the right parents. Now, this could all change as researchers develop drugs that can mirror the effects of these anti-aging genes. One example. Barzilai's team found a gene variant that helps with cholesterol and protects against age-related diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Today, you need to have won the genetic lottery to get these benefits, but Barzilai's discovery has led to the development of drugs that target the gene and could give anyone similar protection. I'm sitting on the couch, watching TV. Laura is beside me, scrolling through Facebook.

Laura is beside me, scrolling through Facebook. She gasps, oh no. What is it? I ask. She tells me Eleanor has died. It's less than a month since our chat, and I've been thinking about her a lot. About how the loneliness of outliving her friends and siblings was exacerbated by the loneliness of pandemic life during COVID-19, about how all this loneliness affects the rate of aging. Eleanor took her last breath on what would have been her 79th wedding anniversary. I text Eleanor's daughter, Judy, to give my condolences, and I ask how she died.

Her poor old heart just stopped, she replies. She died very peacefully and without any suffering. She was vibrant right until the end. I'm curious about what Laura and my son Connor think about science that might allow any of us to live as healthy as Eleanor, but for decades longer. Would you want to live to 150 years? Sure.

I would if others around me were living that long, because otherwise I think it's a lot of loss, right? As a 17-year-old, yeah, let's do it. I mean, I'm not super worried about other people around me. I mean, yeah, let's see where it goes. Let's do it. Sure. 150 years, 1,000, let's go.

And what about you, Laura, if it were 1,000? I think so. I mean, I like000, let's go. And what about you, Laura, if it were 1,000? I think so. I mean, I like life. I enjoy it. I think there's a lot of things that I would like to try to do. And if I found that my body was still young, there's a lot that I would want to do now even, right? That I feel like my body can't do things now that it could do when it was younger.

Yeah. My body can't do things now that it could do when it was younger. Yeah, so I think a big part of the answer to that question is whether we're living to 1,000 like most 90-year-olds today or whether we're living to 1,000 like most 40-year-olds today. Right, yeah. Or 20-year-olds. Again, I think it's quality has to be balanced with quantity. So could you be married to me for a thousand years? Yes.

Why are we even talking about living to a thousand? Well, that's at the far end of what researchers on the fringes believe is possible. That's at the far end of what researchers on the fringes believe is possible. Some of the most aggressive predictions have come from an organization called the SENS Research Foundation, which has raised tens of millions of dollars for research into extending lifespan. One of the founders of SENS has predicted that someone alive today, someone in her 40s, will make it to a thousand years. It sounds like science fiction, but believers say it could happen through a phenomenon they call escape velocity, where technologies to reverse human aging are developed faster than the aging process itself. So by the time someone reaches 100, there will be

technologies to keep her alive until 250, and on and on, all the way to 1,000. So if J.L. Shansky is skeptical of Ostad's 150 years, guess how he feels about 1,000? Well, I mean, that's a nice made-up number. You know, the first person to live to 1,000 today is a catchphrase designed to attract attention from the media. There's no science in it at all. There's no basis for coming up with 1,000. If you're going to make up that number, you might as well go to 5,000 or 10,000. None of it has any meaning at all in the world of aging science or aging biology. So, you know, to me, it doesn't matter if you talk about 1,000, 800, 5,000. They're all made up numbers. They're not going to happen.

I'm 49. I don't have any illusion that I'm going to live for a thousand years. But I want to believe that the new science of aging will permit me to live into my 90s without losing my mind or body, without going through rounds of toxic cancer treatments, without the pain of osteoarthritis. That I can stick around strong and healthy as long as possible for Bryson. And I'd love to believe that my kids or grandkids might live as healthy as Eleanor for even more

decades or centuries. Is any of this possible? Maybe. There are a lot of brilliant minds working on this challenge and a lot of money backing it up. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and PayPal founder Peter Thiel have invested in the space. And in 2013, Google launched Calico, a life sciences company targeting aging and age-related diseases. Calico and its biotech partners have already spent billions towards these goals. Calico and its biotech partners have already spent billions towards these goals. Over the coming weeks, I'm going to speak with scientists at the leading edge of this research. Every species study to date, lifespan is extended.

Explore why our pets could be the first to get extra years from this new technology. Oh yeah, I heard about you. You're trying to make dogs live longer. Learn what you and I can do today to add a decade or more to our lives. Those are powerful factors that are all within our realm of control. And imagine how the world would be different if we did all live for a thousand years. You're talking about a several-fold increase in the world's population. Does everybody want to live until they're completely broken down? And like J. Olshansky,

I'll try to balance hope with skepticism. Because these promises of radical life extension, they aren't new. For centuries, charlatans have peddled elixirs and false hope to people desperate to live beyond their years. So before we get to the real science, we'll take a look at the quackery. Next time on Unlocking the Fountain.

Older individuals can benefit by breathing the exhaled air of younger people. He took thin slices of testicles from chimps and baboons and he attached them to patients' scrotums. We will spend probably a majority of our time in virtual bodies, in virtual environments. Unlocking the Fountain is hosted and written by me, Keith MacArthur. Our associate producers are Sarah Melton and Graham MacDonald, who also does our sound design. Our digital producers are S.K. Robert and Emily Cannell.

Chris Oak is our story editor. Additional audio from CBS Studios, Universal Pictures, Hendrickson Publishing, France 3, and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Our senior producer is Tina Verma. And our executive producer is Arif Noorani. This has been the first episode of Unlocking the Fountain. New episodes are available every Tuesday on the CBC Listen app

and everywhere you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.