Devi Sridhar

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, I guess it was looking at the gap between our knowledge of health and how to live longer and the amazing scientific research that's happened.

I should say research, but it's Americans.

And life expectancy going backwards, especially since the pandemic and also seeing the rise of chronic disease in younger people like diabetes and cancers and trying to think, why is there this gap between our knowledge and actually what's happening?

And then in the course of it, I started looking at people like Brian Johnson, who I know you look at in your book, thinking, oh, wow, there are a lot of people thinking about this issue.

But the way I'm thinking about it was much more, I think, global.

I'm American, but I've lived in Britain.

I've lived in a bunch of different countries.

My team does research across the world.

And so trying to bring a global perspective to this, but also one where

We as individuals are much like social beings.

So actually where you live, who you're around, your communities have, I would say, as much to do with your life expectancy than anything else and trying to shift the perspective.

So in a way, it's complementary, I guess, to individual takes, but it's much more on what kind of societies, what kind of policies enhance us.

Maybe not to die too soon in the sense of I put 100 as being like meaningful, realistic life expectancy.

Yeah.

So while I was writing the book, I went for my smear test.

So here at the NHS, you get a letter, you go in, you just get your yearly checkup and just forgot about it.

And then a couple of months later, I got a letter back because things here were quite delayed after the pandemic that they had found high risk HPV and that actually they found abnormal cells and I needed to get treatment.

But unlike, I guess, the United States, the UK NHS is a public system and you're just in the waiting list.

And so I was being told nine months till you get seen, maybe six months.