Dr. Xand van Tulleken
speaker
1,476 appearances
9 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 6d ago
Dr. Xand van Tulleken’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 5.
Appearances
Which is more important for your longevity and for your well-being, looking after yourself or being looked after?
That is the dilemma that we're wrestling with today.
And people have been interested in this dilemma for a long time, Zandi, particularly in the concept of longevity, haven't they?
That's right, Chris.
So if we were recording this episode at the first ever Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival... 1983.
3,000 years ago...
Top of the charts would be the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known major work of literature.
King Gilgamesh of Uruk, he's obsessed with cheating death.
And is he still around?
Spoiler alert, he does not succeed in his quest.
But, as the Hay Festival reminds us, if you write a good enough book...
You live forever.
OK, Zandi, but what has been a common concept across this discussion, across cultures for a very long time, is the idea that there is something out there external to ourselves that can confer on us a longer, better life.
I think we're all familiar with this, Chris.
I guess the Holy Grail would be a great example.
It's part buried in Christian stories, part of it's Arthurian legend.
So there's these old ideas, but we see these vampire headlines now.
There's this much more contemporary idea, Silicon Valley billionaires injecting themselves with the blood of the young to rejuvenate.
So this is a familiar idea, but in fact, if we go back, Chris, to 1492, Pope Innocent VIII, aged 60, his doctors hired three young boys, drained out their blood for the pontiff's benefit.
So the story goes.
Showing 1061–1080 of 1,476 · page 54 of 74
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