The renewed obsession with living longer
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Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis, the host of the Politics Now podcast.
And navigating what our rapidly changing world means can be tricky.
I do think you're right to point to the ability of the backbench in Britain to agitate, be upset with Keir Starmer. That's one of the reasons he's gone.
That's why I'm joined by the sharpest political minds at the ABC to break down what each development means for Australia and how the government is positioning.
Albanese has got a much more compliant backbench and he's got much more dominance of the parliament just because of peculiar Australian features of our system.
That's Politics Now with me, Patricia Carvellis. Find it on ABC Listen.
For thousands of years, the question of extending life or living forever has occupied minds. But now it's taken on a new life. From Silicon Valley to Sydney, there's a buzz around longevity. Today, Dr Norman Swan on his Four Corners investigation into the science and the peptides. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
Norman, there's nothing new in the search for a fountain of youth, but a lot of people are looking for one right now. Just tell me, how long do you want to live for?
Well, actually, Sam, that's a really interesting question because when I embarked on this, we said, oh, we're going to cover the whole ethical issue. What happens if everybody dies? lives to 120 or 150, all the height that you hear. And the people, we actually haven't included this in the four corners, but I did ask that of some of the people. And there are a couple of things that people said to us fairly consistently, is that they don't come across many people who want to live to 150. What people want is to live a long time in really good health. And if that's longer than they otherwise would have, that's all the better, as long as they're in good health. Speaking personally, I'm in the camp, probably like you, where I'll take what I get.
If I can get a few years longer, great, as long as it's in good health.
Yeah, exactly. You just want to be healthy. Although President Xi Jinping of China, of course, he was actually caught on microphone with Vladimir Putin at a military parade last year, suggesting, yes, humans could soon live to 150. So there's those out there in powerful positions that think this would be a very good idea.
Yeah, there's nothing like having a powerful personality, maybe a dose of narcissism. No idea whether Xi Jinping's got that or Vladimir Putin. One suspects maybe one of them does. To think that the world could not survive without you, therefore going to 150 is a really good idea.
Exactly. All right. Well, Norman, in the interest of research and for your Four Corners piece, of course.
Oh, we're getting down to facts now, are we, Sam? That's a really good idea.
It's a great idea. All right. You agreed to be a guinea pig and you gave your blood to an Australian startup that promises to make people live longer. So tell me about that.
Well, they are promised to live longer, healthier. So they're in the healthspan business. But I needed to have my biological age done for the program because there are a couple of quite reliable or repeatable tests that you can have done to take your biological age. And the only way you can have it done in Australia is actually through this particular company that's got the license from the United States. So they very kindly agreed to expedite this test. And they said to me, well, while you're here, why don't you take our full service? And the full service is... full medical history, lots of blood tests, and then they give you your feedback based on your results. So I did get my biological age done, and it was good news.
A measure of one, in 12 months, you've aged one year. And if you're above one, well, that's not great. And if you're below one, happiness. And mine came in at 0.93. And I'm probably aging about 14 or 15% slower than somebody in the equivalent of my age. It was So that's great news.
What is driving the renewed public interest in longevity research?
And then I got all my biological tests back and some were up, some were down.
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