Episode 78

The Science Behind Healthy Aging with Eric Verdin, MD

Listen Now

If you pay attention to the health trends on social media, you’ll notice that there has been a lot of talk these days about longevity coming from authors, social media influencers and serious scientists. What they seem to be saying is that living into our 100s is no longer a fantasy, and much more likely. However, as we get older, there is also a growing anxiety of how to get there, about health span and about healthy aging.

To learn more about this topic, I spoke with one of the world’s experts, Dr. Eric Verdin, to discuss what the latest science is saying about healthy aging and longevity. Dr. Verdin is president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research of Aging, the world’s only research institution singularly focused on the biology of aging.

Some of the questions I ask Dr. Verdin in this episode are:

  1. Besides lifestyle modifications, what are the most promising strategies to increase the health span in humans?
  2. What is the reason for the progressive increase in centenarians in different parts of the world?
  3. What role do genes play in longevity?