ZOE Science & Nutrition - Healthy aging: The surprising power of your social life

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Unfortunately, many of us spend our later years in poor health. But is this avoidable? And can we actually increase our healthy years? While aging is inevitable, there are steps we can take to minimize its effects on our health. And surprisingly, some of these steps have nothing to do with exercise or diet. Simply spending time with others can provide countless benefits to us as we age. But how can we maintain these connections? Does retirement affect our social interactions? And can attitude alone keep you healthier in your later years? In today’s episode, one of the world’s top experts on aging, Prof. Rose Anne Kenny, joins us to explore these ideas.  Rose Anne is a world-leading geriatrician at Trinity College Dublin, where she leads a huge, long-term study on aging. She’s also the author of the number one international bestseller Age Proof: The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life. Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 00:13 - Quickfire round 01:14 - What’s the biggest myth about aging? 04:18 - What is aging? 07:43 - Aging process predictors 13:50 - Our growing elderly population 15:14 - Retirement 19:21 - Study on aging and social interaction 24:57 - Importance of social participation 27:38 - Studying the effects of loneliness 29:56 - Combating loneliness 31:13 - How attitude affects aging 33:20 - Social interaction online 36:08 - Creating social relationships 48:42 - Summary and Outro Mentioned in today’s episode:  The Dunedin Study, a long-term study designed to investigate broader questions of child health and development from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) from Trinity College Dublin You can buy Rose Anne’s book here. Follow ZOE on Instagram. Episode transcripts are available here. Is there a nutrition topic you’d like us to explore? Email us at [e-mail] and we’ll do our best to cover it. 

Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. People are living longer than ever. In developing countries, average life expectancy has doubled in the last 200 years. Great news, but the sad fact is that many of us will spend these additional years stuck in our homes due to poor health. So the more crucial question is not how long we survive, but for how long we thrive. And when it comes to maintaining our health in later life, science has a surprise for us.

It turns out that the most significant impact is neither from physical activity nor nutrition. Instead, it relates to the frequency and quality of our interactions with others, or our lack of them. In fact, according to new scientific research, loneliness can be deadly. In today's episode, we're joined by a world-leading geriatrician from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, to learn how social interaction can help you stay fitter for longer. Professor Roseanne Kenny leads a huge long-term study on aging and is the author of Age Proof, the new science of living longer and healthier. Today, she shares what her research has uncovered about how you can delay aging. She also shares extraordinary tips to help us foster these important interactions in

later life. Roseanne, thank you for joining me today. Thank you. I'm today. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Now, it's very exciting because this is like a different topic that's, I think, really important and we haven't touched on at all before in the podcast. So I'm really excited and we had a lot of questions from our listeners. Now I'd like to start with something that we always do, which is a quick fire round

of questions from our listeners. And the rules are simple, but we know that professors find this really hard, which is that you can say yes or no, or if you have to, you can give us a one sentence answer. Are you willing to give it a go? I am, of course. Yes, go. All right. Brilliant. Is it inevitable that most of us will have many years of poor health before we die? No. That's very good news. I always like it when people say this in their podcast.

All right. Do scientists know how to slow down aging? Yes. Can having more friends actually keep me healthier? Am I allowed to say absolutely yes? You are allowed to say absolutely yes. I love that. I love this one

from our listeners. Does delaying retirement reduce the effects of aging? Not necessarily. Okay. We'll come back to that. And finally, and you're allowed, you're definitely allowed a sentence now. What's the biggest myth about aging that you often hear? That it's inevitably an unpleasant process. And that's not true? It's not true. Quality of life consistently in a number of longitudinal studies gets better as we get older. In my own study, and indeed in the twins study, in the King study, after the age of 50, life gets better. Quality of life improves, and there are probably a number of reasons for that. Most of us are in a better place financially, we have less pressures in terms of children, etc., and we're more comfortable in our own skin, less concerned about what others

are thinking of us or assuming about us. So quality of life continues to improve on very well-validated scales up to late 70s, early 80s. And then it gradually declines. And the factor which predominantly influences that decline is physical illness. So most of the focus of research in this area is to try and compress the period of life that we spend with any, the generic term is disability. And that basically means comorbidities, physical illnesses like arthritis, like heart problems, kidney problems, etc. So we're trying to compress that period and maximize healthy life expectancy. I love the idea that life gets better. I'm about to turn 50. I've got just another couple of years. So I love the idea that actually my happiness is going to go up. And it feels like this is often not the story that we tell ourselves. And I'm actually

just thinking about my own experience. So my grandmother had Alzheimer's. She got this quite early, so in her late 60s. And I think that had a big impact on me, a huge impact on my father. And so for him, I think he's worried that this will happen to him ever since. It's obviously one of the most awful things I think that can happen to a family member. And so I think there's a lot of fear perhaps associated with aging, even when you are still healthy. That's a really good point. The first thing to say, we can flip that and say that the topic we're talking about predominantly this morning, social engagement and friendship and having a good laugh, that actually mitigates against cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease or any other form of dementia in later life. And in fact,

it's a major risk factor for developing poor brain health in later life if you are painfully socially isolated. So it's another really good reason to focus on and work on friendship. Just before we dive into all of that in detail, I'd love almost just to start with aging, because I was just thinking about this this morning, and we have the fun of lots of different scientists coming and talking on this podcast. But I sort of thought the starting question is like, why do we age at all? You know, why can't we live forever? And certainly, why is it that we see all these signs of aging? Of course, there are few, very few scientists who believe that, in fact, we can live forever.

But there is actually very little evidence for that. And maybe we might get just two definitions out of the way, Jonathan, to start with. Lifespan refers to the maximum number of years an individual can live. So it's unique to everyone. lived person, the longest lifespan that we know we as humans can achieve is 122 years and five months. And that was Jean-Louis Calment. You'll have heard of her, French woman south of France who lived her lifespan was that long. Life expectancy, which is what we normally talk about, that's the average age that we can expect to live at different stages of our life. So at the moment, life expectancy, depending on where you're living and depending on gender, is early 80s, mid-80s, etc. Although social class and your lifestyle is a major determinant of that. There are some who believe that we will cure aging, but the vast majority of scientists in this field don't think that that's the case. And as I said earlier on, our purpose is to try and manage the diseases that are fairly, very common, certainly, and may even be inevitable in some cases with longer life span and manage those diseases so that they're

compressed. It's fair to say that in the Western world, about 20% of our overall life is spent with some disease or disability. That's an awful lot, one in five of our years. So to try and really get that down. And the way to do that, of course, is to prevent diseases. And we've got loads of information on that. And also to manage them early, identify the early signs of disease and manage that at a really early stage. And that's where most of the science is showing great promise, early detection of something going wrong and intervention at that stage. And Roseanne, I've heard people start to use this word healthspan more often in the last few years, which is definitely not a word I'd come across before. How does that fit into the different,

what's the difference between that and lifespan? So I've given you the generic definitions of lifespan and life expectancy. But what I'm saying compress the period of time at the end of life where we have disability or diseases, that's extending your healthy lifespan. Amazing. And you've talked quite a lot, obviously, about getting particular illnesses. And we know, obviously, if you get a severe illness, then suddenly your quality of life falls away. Is there a sort of background tick-tocking that is going on as well, which I think is how often we think about this idea of aging, you know, just like every year, somehow you're degrading a little

bit. And, you know, as I said, my children are pointing to my wrinkles and the gray hair that's starting to appear, which seems different from getting diabetes or something that really collapses that quality of life? Yeah. So the changes occur very early on. I mean, you'll be familiar possibly with David Barker's theory that actually our aging process, he was an obstetrician, endocrinologist who did a lot of work on predictors for aging and identified that it wasn't just in your mother's womb, you as a fetus, but indeed your grandmother and your mother, that a lot of this was predetermined by their dietary intake, et cetera, and environment. And of course, that probably set the scene for some of the socioeconomic factors that influence the aging process. But I hate that because we can do nothing about that. So let's leap forward to us and now. And just to say that probably, certainly in childhood, changes start to take place. The Dunedin study is a really good example of this,

where in Dunedin in New Zealand, they studied a thousand children born in one year and followed them through every four years with repeated tests of health, socioeconomic status, both subjective, i.e. what I think I'm feeling, and objective, I am measuring something. And they found that actually, when they looked at epigenetic clocks, which are the methylated DNA in our genes, which can switch off and on, they're the dynamic markers of aging, probably in the cell, they found that those changes were quite dramatic even at the age of 38. But it wasn't just the clocks that were different in this group of 1,000 people. Other markers were different, like grip strength, how strong their grip strength was. And we know

that's a very good predictor for future muscle weakness and even frailty and sarcopenia. The speed of their gait, using a very standard gait speed test, that's the walking speed, blood pressure changes, even vasculature in the eye. When they looked at the vessels in the eye, some of them were slightly thicker than they should have been, like prodromal or an early phase of possible hypertension in the future, et cetera, and atherosclerosis, etc. So this group, all at the same age, all the same chronological age, the same numbers on their birthday cake of 38, actually had not only epigenetic changes suggesting accelerated aging, but also hard, objective health measures, if you like, physical, physiological measures of

accelerated age. And Roseanne, just to make sure I've got that, because it was a lot of quite complex science, you're saying that you could take a group who are still quite young at 38, all the same age, and there are all of these different things you can measure, which are very, each one of them is sort of quite tiny, but actually you can really see this difference already in sort of their internal rate of aging, which is sort of different from just looking on their skin and saying like how wrinkly you are. But actually there are all of these many different things inside you that you can already see are on different paths. So that's exactly right. Now, to bring this story full circle, the finishing point was that those who had appeared to have a faster aging,

appeared to be physically older than the others, actually had issues with childhood. So had experienced adverse childhood experiences, either depression or alcoholism in the family or divorce in a family or poverty, or they themselves were embarking on poor life health behaviors like smoking, alcohol excess, drugs, etc. So they were the drivers, even at that early age, for an accelerated aging and the ways that we know we can measure aging biologically. Not only that, but when they repeated the measures, they found that this group continued to age at a faster pace a few years after that. So what I'm saying is that this starts very, very, it starts early on. And that's why it's important, I think, that we're aware of the factors which drive the aging process that we've got control

over. That's 80% of aging, which comes back to one of the earlier questions I asked, answered very definitively. We have control over 80%. That's brilliant. So you're saying 80% actually is in our control. And I love that. And you're not the first person to say that on this podcast, which is, I was brought up with this idea, basically, you were doomed by your genes and your upbringing. So by the time you're 18, it's all over. And I love the fact that actually modern science is saying something very different. So that for anyone listening to this, actually, wherever you are today in all of those different measures,

you can make active choices about your lifestyle and can really change the direction of your health. Is that your view? Yeah, that's right. Genes are responsible for 20% probably, in some studies 30%, so it varies. But that's up to the age of 80. Now, if you make it to 80, then your genes are more dominant in governing your aging process and they were responsible for about 40% of the process after 80. So if you make it to 123, probably there were some beneficial genes in that it wasn't only your lifestyle, but even there you're saying is more than half of it is actually about lifestyle and less than half is your genes.

So after the age of 80, if you come from a family where, you know, siblings all lived into their 90s and 100s, then, you know, that factor kicks in more dominantly. I'd like to share something exciting. Back in March 2022, we started this podcast

to uncover how the latest research can help us live longer and healthier lives. We've spoken to leading scientists around the world doing amazing research. And across hundreds of hours of conversations, they've revealed key insights that can help you to improve your health. If you don't have hundreds of hours to spare, no need to worry. At the request of many of you, our team has created a guide that contains 10 of the most impactful discoveries from the podcast that you can apply to your life and you can get it for free.

Simply go to zoe.com slash free guide or click the link in the show notes and do let me know what you think of it. Okay, back to the show. Now, Roseanne, I thought there's one thing that in your book that really struck me. And you said that in 2018, for the first time in history, persons aged over 65 outnumbered children under five worldwide, which I thought is an amazing statistic, right? That suddenly they're more old people effectively than small children. And I just wondered, what's the implication of this sort of growing elderly population for everyone listening to the show? There are a number of aspects that we can approach that from. The first thing to say is today's 60-year-old or 65-year-old is yesterday's

45-year-old. And I think that's becoming much more apparent. And there's a lot of reasons for that, including our attitude. Can you explain what you mean by that? Yeah. I mean, I think society's attitude towards people getting older is changing. It isn't as negative as it was. That enables individuals to feel better about getting older. So I think that attitude makes a big difference to the fact that we are functioning much younger than the last generation or the generation before that.

Also, of course, we know the lifestyle changes that need to be implemented and by and large are implementing many of them, although we do have a big obesity problem and for various reasons seem to be deaf and blind to the factors that can change that at a societal level. It's becoming more and more common. So the implications of an aging society are that it, I would like to say, is very positive in terms of the numbers of older persons, the wisdom they bring, etc. I think we need to look at this very ingrained date for retirement. That has to be looked at again. And people should be given choice. Many people want to continue in their role or in a modified version of their role after a certain age. And we have to reframe the workplace so that one can do that in whatever way suits them

best, but that will be the best suited for the institution or organization as well. So we really need to look at that. Roseanne, you answered one of our questions right at the beginning about retirement and the sort of, it depends. So I think this question was, is it actually good for people to retire? Or actually, if you delay retired, you stay healthier. So I think this question was, is it actually good for people to retire? Or actually, if you delay retired, you stay healthier. And I'm fascinated by that. My parents are in their 70s, and they're both still working. And it strikes me when I meet them and I meet their friends that actually they're much younger than many of their friends. And it seems to me that to me, just anecdotally, that their work, which sometimes drives myself and my siblings crazy because they're like, well, surely you

should have more time for your grandchildren, actually seems to be keeping them healthier and younger. I mean, is there any truth in this? And what should listeners think about as they're thinking about retirement? You've touched on a few components of how we've evolved that are really, really important. First of all, we've evolved to require purpose. Having a purpose is terribly, terribly important. There's lots of work around forced retirement and how toxic that is and how beneficial it is to give people choice. That's why I keep coming back to choice, because with choice, you're in control. And again, we've evolved to need control as humans. So forcing someone to retire, they have no control over that. That is bad for their physical health, bad for our biology. So I think your parents are doing the right thing. I'm sorry, I'll just have to get longer baby minding hours. And so somebody is thinking about this in the moment, maybe they are coming towards retirement, maybe there's some way off, but they're sort of thinking

about planning their life. What would you advise them therefore? Are you saying actually, hey, just keep working full time for as long as you can? How would you help them to think about this? Very much depends on the individual, because some people actually can't wait to retire because they have a bucket list a mile long and they just can't wait to hit it. And I meet some people who have retired. Some of them were forced retirement in the health service who said they've never been busier.

You'll be familiar with this. The listeners will know this. So they've made the right choice. Choice, choice. It's all about choice. And they're in control of their choices. I think it's very much shift from this old view that what everyone should be pushing for is to get retired as soon as possible because work was this unpleasant thing. And if only you could retire, then this is when all your good years

start. It sounds like you're saying for many of us, because you lose this purpose potentially, that might not be true. Yes. And after the age of 60, 65, you could have another 30 years to live. So you need to know how you want to spend that 30 years. Then don't forget the value, the institutional memory and knowledge and wisdom and benefit that individuals can bring to their organization. This isn't just about the individual. It's about what they give bring to their organization. This isn't just about the individual, it's about what they give back to the organization. And your original question that we started with was the implications of this changing demography of an aging society. And the implications are, we need people back in the workforce. We will need those numbers in the workforce.

They're the implications. And frankly, our workforce and our society will remain healthier for longer if they choose to stay at work just like your healthy parents. Well, I'd love to talk a bit about some more of the science behind this and actually talk about your specific study because you've been running this brilliant study

in Ireland for many years now called TILDA. And I actually took a look on the website a few weeks ago, and it has the best mission statement for a study that I have ever seen. Most studies don't even have mission statements. So this one says, to make Ireland the best place in the world to grow old, which I just thought, that's really a great scientific mission. Could you tell us a bit about the study and what it's hoping to discover? And then I think we can talk some more about this impact on social relationships and things like that. So it's been running since 2006. And just apropos the mission statement, last year, the data from Eurostat showed that Ireland actually had the best quality of life for people over the

age of 65. So we're there. It wasn't there at the beginning of the study. Congratulations. And the best perceived health, perceived health, not objective measures that's different. So those two things. And also we know that the media coverage with respect to ageism has actually changed in the last 10 years in Ireland, and it's been attributed to the TILDA study. So that just shows the power of a study. We are very exercised with engaging with the public and policy at every single step of our science. And I think that that's something that has benefited the study hugely and society as

a whole. I love that, Roseanne, because this whole Zoe is really all about this idea of taking sort of the most cutting edge science and allowing it to connect to just regular people who want to understand it. But historically, it's been very hard. It's hidden behind journals that no normal person can understand. So I love this idea that it's doing real cutting edge science, but it's also really helping people to understand it as you go.

Yeah, but honestly, how privileged are we to be able to do the science and actually see the impact of the science? I mean, it's a fantastic place to be in my view. So it's a longitudinal study on aging, much like the twin study at King's. And we follow the same people aged 50 and over every two years and apply the same tests to them every two years. Now, I need to explain just how challenging that was in Ireland. We did not have a data set, which other countries have, the US and UK and most European countries, where we could identify addresses and match them with ages and see where people 50 and over lived and then call on them and ask them to take part in the study. We didn't have that. All we were able to do is randomly select

addresses. So we randomly selected from a data set 30,000 addresses. Cold called on those homes, knocked on the door, hello, does anybody here, live here aged 50 or more? And if so, would you like to take part in a study on aging with Trinity College Dublin for the next 10 or more years,

maybe till death do us part? 67% who met those criteria said, yes, I will. So two thirds of people said yes when you knocked on the door and said would you commit the rest of your life to doing science with me yes that's amazing isn't that amazing now but bear in mind that we did three to four years of piloting from 2006 this was 2009 ireland had just gone into a recession as had the rest of the world and in my opinion that age group felt they saw emigration

again from Ireland of our young students, our young people had to leave because there was no work. They wanted to give something back. And they have. So what we do is we see the same people every two years and we refresh the sample as the group that were involved in the original study age. And we do everything because we're trying to understand the tapestry of what it's like to have the experience of aging in Ireland. What does all that tapestry, all that color look like? So from a health perspective, we do subjective health, asking about, do you have this? Do you have that? Do you feel this from a health perspective?

From a health perspective, we also do objective measurements. We measure blood pressure. We measure brain blood flow. We do MRI scans of brains. We measure your walking speed. We measure your bone density, et cetera. We do genetic measurements, including the clocks. We were talking about the epigenetic clocks. We do nutritional assessments, including now, feces, stools for microbiome. I'm glad to hear that. Big believers of microbiome here. I know. Mental health measures, income and assets. And the funny thing there is when we had the discussions

with the economists who are helping us with the study, we were going through the different questions because you can't ask, you can't cover everything in detail. So you have to cherry pick a bit. And they said, oh, no one's ever going to answer questions about incontinence. I said, well, they weren't telling how much money

they have on the bank either. And I was right. I was right. The most difficult information to get is the economics information. The rest is no problem. We do a lot around work and retirement, Jonathan, because we're following people through their retirement period, et cetera. Marital status, household structure, family networks, and friendships, and social participation, and how active you are both with your friends and

family, but also in volunteering and other clubs and organizations. And then, of course, education. And Roseanne, I was really interested to talk about that sort of social network, because I think there are various of these sort of big studies that look at people over time, as you said, sort of longitudinal studies. They tend to focus on measurable health, right? The sort of thing that a doctor can use a machine to evaluate because that I think is what science and doctors have tended to be comfortable with. And I think what's brilliant here is you were looking at all of these things to do with relationships, which really have not been seen in the same way as sort of,

I think historically, probably even like proper subjects of social study. Could you tell us a bit about what you found? So social participation, friendship, social relationships is as important as all of the other measures that we've talked about so frequently, like exercise and diet and physical activity and even smoking. It has as strong a biological impact as those factors. And the reason is, we believe, it's kind of like thirst or hunger. We've evolved to need other people, just like we've evolved to need food and we've evolved to need water. We've evolved to need other people. And then when we deny ourselves that exposure, the effect is in fact as bad, as toxic as anything you can get biologically. What it does is it triggers chronic inflammation in the system. And chronic inflammation is probably

the underlying biological dysfunction or abnormality that underpins all of the big diseases we know about, cancer, heart disease, strokes, etc. So loneliness triggers chronic inflammation, which is why those diseases are associated very much so with loneliness, as is dementia. I think a lot of people listening to this are going to be really shocked to hear that. I mean, I think everyone listening will probably say that they understand that being lonely is a terrible thing. And there will probably be some people listening who are experiencing that and it's really difficult and other people who are aware that it's something that maybe they're worried about, particularly as they age. I think they would be quite shocked to hear that there is a direct

link between loneliness and their health, which I think you said was as strong as whether or not you do exercise. And I think anyone listening to this podcast has heard lots of scientists say, you know, exercise has a huge impact on your health. So that is absolutely the case. I mean, there's buckets of science behind this. Good science. I'm just going to give you one lovely example because it kind of fits with how we've evolved. And if you take monkeys and you isolate a monkey and they're gregarious animals, as are we, you isolate a monkey, do a biopsy of their lymph node, which is the engine for inflammation in the body. Say our neck lymph nodes, and your listeners will know this, we get a throat infection or we're feeling down or fatigued, or we can feel glands in my neck,

is the expression. They took a biopsy of that and found that for the isolated monkeys, that the genes which regulate inflammation were upregulated. So they were active. In other words, there was an inflammatory process going on and the genes which fight against infection and are good for the immune system had been downregulated. So they'd been dampened down, were not as active as they should have been. And that was just within 48 hours of monkeys being isolated. And then we know in humans, all of the inflammatory markers we frequently measure are also higher in people who have poor social networks, social engagement, or who experience loneliness. So the important thing, therefore, is to put as much effort into building your friendships as you do to choosing your foods or to selecting your physical activity that you like. It's as important as that. And then in that context, you know, mix them. So eat out with people and do physical activity with people.

Again, with COVID, more and more people were, you know, doing yoga on their own at home. I actually think you need to get back into group sessions now with people because you get not just the physical and biological benefit of the yoga itself, but it's the group interaction, the social interaction, the laughter, the laughter that's terribly important. The show you're listening to right now that's providing you the latest evidence-based health and nutrition information from the world's top scientists, while making it takes a lot of time. We think it's well worth it.

All in the name of improving your health. All we ask in return is this. Send a link to this podcast to someone you think would benefit. And if you haven't already, click follow this podcast wherever you're listening right now. Okay, let's get back to the show. So we talked a lot about loneliness, which is a sort of, this is the bad outcome. Okay, let's get back to the show. So we talked a lot about loneliness, which is a sort of, this is the bad outcome, but I'd love to talk almost about, let's say you're just at the average level in your study. So you're presumably

you're not in the position where you don't know anywhere. Is it possible in fact, to improve your health by just having more engagement with friends and family? So can people listen to this and say, rather than go, oh my God, I'm really scared about being lonely, is there a more positive take of things you could do that is actually going to both make you happier and make you live healthier for longer? Absolutely. So again, coming back to the work, people who continue to dip in and out of work or do some sort of activity relating to work and occupation are much less likely to be lonely and actually have much better health. Likewise, volunteering. So most volunteering is done by older persons or persons who are retired. Those who volunteer

on a regular basis have a better quality of life, less physical illness and less depression. And because it's a longitudinal study, we've been actually able to adjust for, well, were they like that at baseline and they're just the healthier ones who volunteer, et cetera. That is not the case. Volunteering independently influences your biological health. That's amazing. So it's not just that people who are healthier end up doing this. You're saying that even when you're 60, 65, 70, you could decide to do things which are going to see more engagement with more people and it's just going to increase your number of healthy years. Absolutely. And so it's an independent factor. And then coupled with that, because it's hard, I think, to dissociate these two things, is your attitude. So people who are

engaged and more socially interactive actually have a much more positive attitude towards aging. Believe it or not, you are as young as you feel. Attitude and your own perception of how you're aging independently determines your aging process. And we've looked at this and other studies have, but particularly Tilda, because from the get-go, we asked questions about how you perceive yourself aging, what your attitude is. And people who felt that they were their chronological age, more or less around that, you know, the same number of candles on the birthday cake. Actually, they aged more quickly. And again, we were able to, because of the richness of the data,

we were able to adjust for any factors that might have influenced that. And how you see yourself aging independently determined the pace of your subsequent aging for 10 years hence. I love that. So basically what you're saying is because I'm convinced that actually I'm only 25, I'm actually slowing down my aging and I should stick with this illusion permanently. Yeah. I'm going to tell my wife that.

So your attitude does matter. And it's much easier to have a positive attitude if you're engaged with other peers who also have a positive attitude and you're constantly networking it's harder to have a positive attitude if you're alone you know if you're isolated in your attitude because you can be the media can sometimes be negative and you just need something to buffer that and there's no better buffer than friends or acquaintances even and having a good laugh and being surrounded by others who are positive. That's amazing. I'd love to dig a little bit into like what these social interactions mean because you talked a lot about friends. I often think quite a lot

about family when I think about social interactions. And then we also had a bunch of questions around does any of this count if it's online social connection? Do you have any answers from any of your data about those different things? Okay. So the first thing I can say is both friends and family are very, very important. It's not about, however, the quantity of your relationships. It's the quality. If a friendship or a family member or engagement with a family member is strained or unpleasant, that is not good for us. And we find that that triggers a stress

process. Stress hormones, autonomic nervous system, which are our kind of stress calibrators in the body, all increase and they're bad for health. So the thing about friends is we can walk away from a toxic friendship more or less, but it's very difficult to walk away from family relationship that's toxic. So you have to really be aware of that, I think, and manage your exposure to that in a family and share it with other family members. And again, sharing does half a problem. That's the first thing with respect to family and friends. So it's about the quality. Online is really interesting. There have been loads of studies with respect to this and meta-analysis and systematic reviews. And pretty much the consensus up until three or four years ago was, yeah, probably online overall was good.

But most of the studies actually measured online by number of hours of exposure. And frankly, you know, online looking at pornography is different from online talking to grandmother. So a number of hours of exposure. So the way the studies have been done isn't great to date. And there's now a lot of activity around doing these in a much more grander, specific way. More recently, it is less clear whether online is good or bad. And I think that's just about the methodology of the studies. If you step back from it, of course, online is brilliant if it engages you with people. And if you can't go out or you aren't out or you're feeling down and you get this online

engagement, it can pull you up and make you feel wonderful. So it makes absolutely great sense that that's happening. I would say, however, if you're with people, put your phones away. Because being online and looking down at a technology when you should be engaging face-to-face with another human creature, and you have evolved together over thousands of millions of years to understand each other's body language face-to-face is not healthy. So put the phones away. But generally speaking, online, in moderation, and if it's used to benefit, is of value. Of course, it can be toxic in terms of the messaging.

There'll be people listening to this who are saying, I'd really love to have more social relationships, but I don't really know how to start. Is there anything from your studies or experience that might actually be like, what are the actionable advice that you might give to somebody saying, actually, I'd really like to do that and I don't feel very confident about how to get there? So this is the biggest problem, but I've thought a lot about this. So first of all, things you enjoy in your life, do them with other people. We've talked about that. So go to the gym, do exercise classes,

try and eat out, even if in a club fashion where there's a tasting menus for people, etc. That sort of thing. Look into that. Secondly, creativity is really good for us and creativity with others is even better. So if you have a fancy doing a bit of art or singing in a choir, etc., join one. It takes, it's hard. I joined a choir recently because I thought to myself, I'm talking about this all the time and I'm doing nothing about it. Okay, I'm going to join a choir. And I did.

And it's just such fun. And it's a lovely thing to do with other people. Volunteering. If you're really struggling, organizations are always looking for volunteers. It's a good way to get started. That's amazing. And let's say you're listening to this and thinking like, I want to be a better friend. I want to improve the health of people. But maybe you're a bit unsure how to do that. Maybe you're in a country where you feel like, oh, I don't want to sort of overstep the boundary or embarrass myself.

What's your advice? So I think pick up the phone and ring somebody and say, look, you came into my mind today. I've just been thinking about you. How are you? Haven't heard from you for a very long time. And since COVID, I've decided to reach out to people that I haven't heard from. Somebody did that recently. They were reading my book and I hadn't heard from. Somebody did that recently. They were reading my

book and I hadn't heard from him for a long time. And he rang me the evening after he read the friendship chapter. And he said, you know what? I read your chapter and I realized how lonely I am. So we met, we had dinner and we've kept engaging, et cetera. He was a great friend of myself and my husband, but we lost it and now we've re-engaged. So I think reach out. People will want it themselves. I think that's a beautiful message and actually maybe a perfect place to wrap up.

I know we could talk for hours about this, but I know you've got a busy ward that you need to go to. I'm just going to try and do a little summary of the conversation, which I thought was fascinating. And I am now going to think about a few people that I think I should go and give a call to later today. I think we started with this wonderful idea that life gets better after 50, saying that all the actual science says that. So quite the opposite, I think, of what many of us believe, that only 20% of our sort of health span is really about our genetics. So 80% is really within our control.

And then I think we talked about your brilliant study in Ireland. And I think the fascinating data that it's been showing about the importance of our relationships with other people actually on our physical health. So not just our mental health, but actually how we are and sort of the inflammation in our body. I think one thing you talked about was sense of purpose, that actually this is like a deep need that we have. So really practically, don't retire if you don't want to. Forced retirement is a terrible thing to do to people. People can feel invisible. It doesn't mean you shouldn't retire if you want to, but maybe dip in and out, maybe transition. And above all, if you do retire, you need to have

a new sense of purpose because the people who have this purpose are just going to be happier and also going to be healthier for longer. You said this wonderful thing that you are as young as you feel. So basically, if you can feel you're 25 like me, that's actually going to be a great thing, even if I have to admit looking in the mirror, it's not entirely true. And then we talked a lot about this interaction. You said friends and family, both can be equally important. Toxic relationships can be bad. And the challenge with family, I think, is that if you do have a difficult relationship, it's hard to walk away from that, unlike friends. But that in general, it's really about this,

I think you said sort of the quality of these relationships. It's not about having hundreds of friends. It's having like some really good friends. And if you haven't got all the friendship you want, and it sounds like almost everybody is probably lonelier. Maybe it's a bit better in Ireland, you said, but certainly if you're listening in the US or the UK, probably many people are lonelier than they would like to be.

There are lots of things that you can do. And I thought you had some great examples like go to exercise classes with people. Don't do it at home in your room. If you're interested in something creative, like go and do an art class, join a choir, volunteering. You're saying like people are always looking for that. And that's very powerful. But even down to where you live live because being isolated is bad.

So can you be with other people? And then I think we wrapped up with, I think this brilliant message, which I love the idea of everyone on this podcast thinking about right now, which is, is there someone you could reach out to right now? At the end of this show, could you pick up the phone to someone you haven't spoken to for a long time? And if you just said, you know what, I've been thinking of you and I really wanted to give you a call, rather than us being scared, Roseanne, you're saying actually that person's going to be delighted and you could actually be

improving their health. Yes, absolutely. That's great, Jonathan. Wonderful summary. Well, I love the idea. I am going to make that call straight after this podcast. You are going to look after a ward full of sick people. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the book. I think the study is amazing. And I hope that we can have you back again in the future to talk about the latest learnings. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Roseanne, for joining me on Zoe's Science and Nutrition today. If you want to understand how to support your body with the best nutrition to give you more healthy years, then you may want to try Zoe's personalized nutrition program. You can learn more and get 10% off by going to

joinzoe.com slash podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolfe. Zoe's Science and Nutrition is produced by Yellow Hewins Martin, Richard Willen, and Alex Jones. See you next time.