Marnie Chesterton

No, no one's suggesting that's a causal thing, that being poor makes you use spicy food. Instead, when we look at something like GDP, that actually scales with so many things. So, for example, GDP per capita scales with foodborne illness. So you might think, well, poorer countries have more foodborne illness, so that's why they have spicier food. But actually, spice correlates with all aspects of health, including things that aren't caused by foodborne infection like malaria or death from road traffic accidents.

Luulen, että vastaus on se, että näemme maailmanlaajuisia ratkaisuja syrjinnästä, mutta on todella vaikeaa yhdistää vaikutuksia, koska niin monta asiaa ihmisen kulttuurista korreloidaan yhdessä, että niistä yhdistetään paljon analysointia ja dataa.

Thank you to Lyndall Brumman for their insights and to our listener in Colombia for the question. And if listeners want us to try and attempt an answer to a science question, then the email address is unexpected at bbc.co.uk.

So each week I get a personal pick, which is a chance to head in a different direction with our theme, possibly aided by recent scientific research or our impressively sizable BBC audio archives. And since the subject of the enhanced games has us focusing on sport, I wanted to take a moment to include those of us who are less inclined to break sporting records, enhanced or not.

I think it's well established that the benefits of regular exercise are staggeringly clear. But for those of us who are naturally culture vultures rather than gym bunnies, I bring good news. According to scientists at University College London, engaging with art slows down your biological aging.

This work was done by Professor Daisy Fancourt, who's previously been on our sister science show, Crowd Science, talking about the benefits of singing. So here she is explaining how she investigates how the arts affect us. Over the last couple of years I've been leading a program of research where we've been using big data sets, what we call cohort studies. Now these are studies that most countries run. They can involve tens of thousands of people.

suomalaisen hallituksen näkökulmasta, jotka ovat yleensä perustaneet koko vuoden elämänsä, jossa on kymmeniä tietoja siitä, mitä heillä on saatu koko vuoden aikana. Ja Yhdysvalloissa moni näkökulma on sisältänyt kysymyksiä ihmisten taiteilijoiden kanssa. Joten olemme käyttäneet näitä kompleksisia statistiikkoja, jotta näemme, onko ihmiset, jotka liittyvät taiteilijoihin enemmän eri vaiheissa elämänsä,

actually have better health, and we're finding consistently that there are strong relationships with lower risk of depression, better preservation of cognition as we age, a lower risk of experiencing things like chronic pain as well, or age-related disability. And of course what we might say is the people who do the arts, are they just healthier and wealthier, and that's why we see these benefits. But we've actually been able to model these different factors into our analyses, and we're still finding these consistent and long-term benefits from engagement with the arts.

All of which sounds fascinating, but how does looking at art or enjoying a concert translate into biological benefits? Well, here's Daisy talking about the molecular biology benefits of singing in particular. Well, in a way this is like Zoom.

Tulemme nyt oikein molekyylis- ja molekyylisen puolesta siitä, mitä tapahtuu. Mitä näemme muiden tutkimustieteilijoiden kanssa, on se, että kun laulaamme, meillä on melko paljon erilaisia vastauksia terveellä. Tämä voi sisältää vähentämistä stressihormonista, kuten kortisolista. Se voi sisältää vähentämistä inflaammoituksesta immuunissamme, joka liittyy erilaisiin tilanteisiin, kuten depresioon ja monien muiden fyysisen elämyksien kanssa. Näemme erilaisia endorfinoiden tasoja, jotka liittyvät elämästämme.

And we also see things like blood pressure and heart rate being affected as well. So this is about singing having multiple physiological benefits. So that was singing, which you could argue is a form of breath exercises rather than an expression of artistic engagement. But Professor Van Kort's latest work covers not just singing. It's painting, it's going to museums, it's galleries, it's concerts. And the key thing seems to be enjoying art in as

Kati Andrada, oletko teillä tämän konseptin?

Olen nähnyt, että isäni, joka on 37-vuotias, kertoi minulle, että hän on 21-vuotias. Se on hänen biologisen aikansa. Nyt minun täytyy varmistaa, että olen 21-vuotias tai edelleen 21-vuotias. Se on melko haastavaa tehdä sitä vielä vähän aikaa. Se, miten se toimii, on se, että meillä on paljon meitä, jotka ovat aina uudistamassa.

at different rates on a regular basis. And so aging researchers look at something called your biological age, which is different from your chronological age, to try and work out how much life and everything that's happening to you is different.

Se vaikuttaa siitä, kuinka paljon olet vanhempi. Monet käsittelevät jotain nimeltä epigenetisia muutoksia. Tämä on programmi, jonka tein muutamia vuosia sitten. Tässä on erittäin hyvän esimiehen ja genetisistin Adam Rutherford. Hän kertoo epigenetisia muutoksia.

Joten nämä pienet tagit, joita Adam mainitsi, sinä valitset niitä koko elämän aikana. Mielestäni ne ovat kuin DNA-versio grey hair. Ja yleensä ne antaa sinulle hyvän idean tulevaisuuden morbidoinnista. Joten pölyä on paljon tagit, todennäköisesti.

And it seems experiencing art and culture seems to slow the rate that you collect them. So does going to see some paintings mean you live longer? Am I understanding this correctly? I would really love it if I could say that, but guess what? It's not that simple. It's just that it slows the rate at which you pick up these little tags –

And generally those tags are a sign of how well you are aging and how fast you are aging, which is a sign of how fast you are going to age in the future. So if I have an hour to kill, am I better off going for a run or going to a gallery or running to a gallery? How do I hack this? I'd say, I think ideally you need to run around a gallery. Really quickly looking at the art.

It's very complex because I think an element of this is how well you engage with it. But obviously there is huge amounts of evidence already for exercise, that exercise is brilliant. Creativity, the more research people do in this area, they're finding that engagement with culture and arts seems to have a similar buzz. So from this study, those that did an arts activity at least once a week were

were on average a biological year younger than those who never engaged with galleries or museums or any of that. And interestingly, those who exercised once a week only got an extra six months younger.