In today's podcast episode, Steven Austad explains why we should want to live a long time as long as that involves longer healthspans.
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Steven Austad is featured in the latest episode of Making Sense of Science. He's a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Alabama Birmingham and has a new book due to be published in August, Methuselah's Zoo.
Photo by Steve Wood
Show notes:
2:36 - Steven explains why a particular opossum convinced him to dedicate his career to studying longevity.
6:48 - Steven's billion dollar bet that someone alive today will make it to 150-years-old.
9:15 - The most likely people to make it to 150 (Hint: not men).
10:38 - I ask Steven about Elon Musk’s comments this month that if people lived a really long time, “we’d be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn’t advance.” Steve isn’t so fond of that take.
13:34 - Why women are winning maybe the most important battle of sexes: staying alive. This is an area that Steven has led research on (see show notes).
18:20 - Why women, on average, actually have more morbidities earlier than men, even though they live longer.
23:10 - How the pandemic could affect sex differences in longevity.
24:55 - How often should people work out and get other physical activity to maximize longevity and health span?
29:09 - Steven gave me the latest update on the TAME trial on metformin, and how he and others longevity experts designed this groundbreaking research on longevity not in their offices, not on a zoom call, but in a castle in the Spanish countryside.
32:10 - Which anti-aging therapies are the most promising at this point for future research.
39:32 - The drug cocktail approach to address multiple hallmarks of aging.
41:00 - How to read health news like a scientist.
45:38 - Should we try a Manhattan project for aging?
48:47 - Can Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison help us live to 150?
Show links:
Steven Austad's bio
Pre-order Steven's new book, Methuselah's Zoo - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09M2QGRJR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Steven's journal article on Sex Differences in Lifespan - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27304504/
Elon Musk's comments on super longevity "asphyxiating" society - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/elon-musk-on-avoid...
Steven's article on how to read news articles about health like a pro - https://www.nextavenue.org/how-to-read-health-news...
AFAR's research on Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) - https://www.afar.org/tame-trial
A robot server, controlled remotely by a disabled worker, delivers drinks to patrons at the DAWN cafe in Tokyo.
A sleek, four-foot tall white robot glides across a cafe storefront in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, holding a two-tiered serving tray full of tea sandwiches and pastries. The cafe’s patrons smile and say thanks as they take the tray—but it’s not the robot they’re thanking. Instead, the patrons are talking to the person controlling the robot—a restaurant employee who operates the avatar from the comfort of their home.
It’s a typical scene at DAWN, short for Diverse Avatar Working Network—a cafe that launched in Tokyo six years ago as an experimental pop-up and quickly became an overnight success. Today, the cafe is a permanent fixture in Nihonbashi, staffing roughly 60 remote workers who control the robots remotely and communicate to customers via a built-in microphone.
More than just a creative idea, however, DAWN is being hailed as a life-changing opportunity. The workers who control the robots remotely (known as “pilots”) all have disabilities that limit their ability to move around freely and travel outside their homes. Worldwide, an estimated 16 percent of the global population lives with a significant disability—and according to the World Health Organization, these disabilities give rise to other problems, such as exclusion from education, unemployment, and poverty.
These are all problems that Kentaro Yoshifuji, founder and CEO of Ory Laboratory, which supplies the robot servers at DAWN, is looking to correct. Yoshifuji, who was bedridden for several years in high school due to an undisclosed health problem, launched the company to help enable people who are house-bound or bedridden to more fully participate in society, as well as end the loneliness, isolation, and feelings of worthlessness that can sometimes go hand-in-hand with being disabled.
“It’s heartbreaking to think that [people with disabilities] feel they are a burden to society, or that they fear their families suffer by caring for them,” said Yoshifuji in an interview in 2020. “We are dedicating ourselves to providing workable, technology-based solutions. That is our purpose.”
Shota Kuwahara, a DAWN employee with muscular dystrophy. Ory Labs, Inc.
Shota, Kuwahara, a DAWN employee with muscular dystrophy, agrees. "There are many difficulties in my daily life, but I believe my life has a purpose and is not being wasted," he says. "Being useful, able to help other people, even feeling needed by others, is so motivational."
