Venki Ramakrishnan

Now, that seems very unlikely.

This idea that we're healthy all our lives and then suddenly collapse, it's called compression of morbidity.

It means you take those years of morbid life and compress them into just a few years.

The one thing that suggests that there's something there is the study of centenarians.

So someone named Tom Pearls, who heads up the New England centenarian study in Boston,

has been studying centenarians for many, many years.

And one thing he's found is, and this is particularly true of what he calls supercentenarians.

These are people who live to be over 110 or semi-supercentenarians who live to be 105.

These people spend a very short time in poor health.

So they're healthy and independent for most of their lives, and suddenly they decline and die.

So somehow these people have solved that problem of compression of morbidity.

And I think understanding the causes of aging and perhaps studying these centenarians, what is special about them, what's special about their lifestyle, their genetics, that might provide us clues on how to live a healthy life while we're alive.

130 longer absolutely and that that is a real dilemma and i have to admit it is not a solved problem because virtually everything we've done about some of these diseases of aging for example heart disease or high blood pressure virtually every one of these things has prolonged our life but we have not extended the fraction of our lives that is actually healthy

so every western country is full of care homes with people who are you know not doing so well they're alive but they have lots and lots of health problems uh so that is a that is a serious problem how to extend healthy life and compress the part that we live in poor health

there are some things it seems that that people can do now that we know really helps longevity in fact people who study the biology of aging have found it striking that some of the age-old advice that we've been given and the three things that i think are are key are exercise

eating moderately and eating healthily and getting enough sleep.

These three things affect many of the major pathways of aging.

And so the advice we may have gotten from our grandmothers is actually true.

Of course, added onto this is stress, but of course, exercise and sleep actually help to reduce stress.

So they're all related.