Interviewer (3:10)

So is getting old and dying just a natural part of the human experience?

Dr. Andrew Russell (3:16)

Yeah, well, that's a question that I ask my students. So after getting interested in the topic, I actually made a class, designed a class here at Hillsdale College when I first came, which is a non majors course, and it's on the science of aging. It gave me an opportunity to actually really dig deep into the topic and make a class that I was passionate about. So that's one of the questions I ask my students. And it's, you know, it's kind of a rhetorical question because I want them to think about it from the perspective before joining the class and then after the joining the class and what they, you know, has their opinion changed? And, you know, it's interesting, the answer to that question depends on who you ask. Because right now, surprisingly, the answer for scientists who are in this field would say, actually aging is not a natural process that is required for us to go through, which sounds, you know, shocking and surprising to most people. They're like, of course, aging, getting old, dying is normal.

Interviewer (4:15)

Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Russell (4:15)

And I would say part of that answer is true. But what we're finding at a cellular level in our bodies is that actually there's no fundamental rules in our cells that say they should get old. So right now, research is trying to discover, okay, what are the things that, you know, the signs that a cell is aging and is there a root cause behind those that we can start manipulating in order to extend longevity? And we're making some fascinating progress.

Interviewer (4:47)

So perhaps without getting too technical, what do you mean by there are not biological rules that say we have to age? What does that mean?

Dr. Andrew Russell (4:56)

Well, I mean, everybody that starts my class or here's my talk, goes into it with the conception that it's inevitable, right? We're all going to age, we're all going to get old and die. But what researchers are doing is they're looking at cells individually, which is my kind of area of research. I'm not so much interested in the whole organism, or rather I'm interested in explaining what's happening in the whole organism, depending on what's happening in the cell at the cellular level. So what I mean is, if we look at a cell, it should actually have the ability to just continue to live indefinitely. So we're looking into why cells then start to go down this process of aging and then dying. And can we then dial that back a little bit and sort of reset the Clock, so to speak.

Interviewer (5:47)

What do we know right now? Are there things that listeners can do to slow down the. The aging process with the data and research that we have?

Dr. Andrew Russell (5:56)

Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of one of the interesting parts of my class and my talk is, you know, the most exciting part of aging research right now is we've discovered what are called longevity genes. That's what the field calls them, because when they are engaged in an appropriate way, they will actually allocate resources towards extending the life of the cell, rather than the opposite, which would be using energy to just grow very quickly, as if the cell is just kind of a throwaway sort of resource. So now our knowledge that there are these longevity genes is looking into, okay, how can we actually change maybe our lifestyle or our diet, or maybe even come up with some medical interventions to engage these longevity genes in a positive way? So, of course, the easiest thing that doesn't require any sort of medical intervention are kind of the same things that your mother always taught you. Right? Okay. Don't eat too much, limit how much you're eating, and exercise. So those things are not going to be shocking to most people. But what's new in the field is that we actually can explain scientifically at a cellular level what those things do to actually promote healthy, long life. And, you know, to be succinct, it's basically engaging these longevity genes. When you exercise, you're actually doing things to your body that communicate to your cells to turn these genes on so that they begin to extend the life.

Interviewer (7:31)

Of your cells besides diet, exercise. But what potential advanced treatments might be on the horizon?

Dr. Andrew Russell (7:40)

Yeah, because my students are like, you know, Dr. Russell, can't we just figure out a way to eat what we want and not exercise, but still get the same benefits? And that's actually another area that researchers are actually trying to figure out. Is there a pill we can take or something like that where we can engage these genes? So there's been quite a few different compounds out there, some of which the audience may have heard of, if they're at all familiar with this area of research. There's some, like rapamycin and metformin, which are drugs that have been studied for a while for other purposes, like cancer treatment or immunosuppressive drugs. But more recently, researchers have actually looked at their role in aging in model systems in animals, and they've showed that small doses of these can actually extend the life of these animals for a longer period of time. So where the research is now is actually taking some of These same drugs and treatments and starting human clinical trials.

Interviewer (8:41)

Is there research or is there even. This might just be more anecdotal. But like family bloodlines, where, you know, grandfather lived to 101 and dad lived to 99. Right. Are there particular reasons, are we looking into particular reasons why particular people or again, particular bloodlines have longer life?

Dr. Andrew Russell (9:00)

Well, yeah, you can approach that in two ways. The first way that people approach it is looking at what are called blue zones, which is essentially areas around the world where people live longer. We have more concentration of centenarians, people that live past the age of 100. And so we've been fascinated for decades, what are these people doing differently that's causing them to live longer? And that's where we got some of the basic kind of lifestyle cues which were eat less, which is known as calorie restriction in the field of anti aging exercise. And then kind of another one which I'm sad about is eating less meat. That's another big kind of thing that has a negative effect on your longevity genes, one of them in particular. So that's one approach to that question. The other is more genetically looking at, you know, what, what are maybe some types of mutations or things that some people get. And there are actually groups of people that have mutations in certain genes that are either related to these longevity genes or have a role downstream of them. And, and we can tell why and how they actually live longer. So, for example, one of the hallmarks of aging is that the little protective ends of your chromosomes called telomeres begin to shorten basically from the time that we're born. We're, we're born with these long telomeres, and every time our cells divide their DNA, they start to shrink down. So by the time you're in your 60s and 70s, they started to become pretty short. And a lot of research is going into studying why that happens and can we reverse that process. And so naturally there are people that have a genetic advantage where some of the population just naturally is born starting on third base when it comes to their telomere length. And some of us are at first base and there's no way, at least currently, that we can catch up. So there is research going into figuring out, okay, the people that are on first base, can we actually, you know, genetically give them gene therapy or something that can actually modify and extend their telomeres so that they have an, you know, equal footing with those people on third base?

Interviewer (11:10)

I want to ask about potential issues and all down that line, but I guess I have to ask like the Jurassic park question, which is, you know, spend so much time thinking about can we do this? We think about should we do this? Meaning should we want to delay aging? Should we want to do this?

Dr. Andrew Russell (11:31)

Yeah, it's a great philosophical religious question. You know, from one perspective, I think chasing after immortality is probably not a good, a good thing to do, especially if you're a Christian. Right. That's not at all the purpose of life. Eventually we are to die and we are to, you know, be with Christ in heaven. So, you know, from a religious perspective, that's not something we should pursue. And it's interesting also if you look at Greek myths like Glaucus, the sea God is a Greek myth where he was a fisherman and he, he found this herb which was able to bring fish back to life. So naturally, what did he do? He tried it himself and it worked very well. It made him immortal. But the problem was it also made him into a merman like creature. So I told, you know, the people at my talk that this is kind of a cautionary tale for us. I think that we shouldn't just be pursuing after immortality in a frivolous way, but we should think about, okay, this is just simply a type and area of science that is another tool for us. And science, like all tools, are amoral. They're not bad or good. It's simply how we use them that makes them bad or good. So I challenge my students in my class to think about what are the positive ways we can use this anti aging research and, and what are nefarious or bad ways we can use it. And I think that's important for that class because it's a non majors class. None of them are planning to be scientists themselves. But this type of research is going to be affecting them and their lives and their children's lives and society as a whole.

Interviewer (13:13)

Yeah, I mean, I guess sort of a follow up. But it might be a ridiculous question. Are there any advantages to aging that we don't want to overlook?

Dr. Andrew Russell (13:25)

Well, certainly that's one thing that kind of David Sinclair talks about in his book is we obviously don't want to lose the kind of wisdom and the institutional knowledge that growing old and aging gives us. But the whole goal of most of the anti aging research out there right now is not to just make people live longer. Which I think is an important aspect of, to reassure people what scientists are trying to do. And also relates to another Greek myth which is Tithonus. He was a mortal man who was loved by Eos, a Greek goddess and she wanted him to live forever. So she asked Zeus, you know, to make him immortal. And he did. But the problem was she forgot to ask that he also retain his youthfulness.

Interviewer (14:13)

Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Russell (14:14)

So he eventually became old and decrepit and she put him in a room and never saw him again because he was no longer desirable. So that relates to most of what current aging researchers are trying to do, and that is not only extend lifespan, but also extend what's called health span.

Interviewer (14:32)

Right.

Dr. Andrew Russell (14:33)

Where you're not just making people live longer, but you're actually extending the healthy period of their lives so that they're not just remaining in these ailing states for longer years, which would actually be detrimental to them and to society.

Interviewer (14:48)

We've been touching a little on this, but what potential issues might arise, what do we have to sort of be aware of as these anti aging treatments become more widely available?

Dr. Andrew Russell (14:58)

Right. And I should emphasize to the audience that they are going to become available. You know, this isn't something that's just kind of like pie in the sky ideas, but where the research is going is very, very soon going to extend human lifespan by 10, 20, maybe more than that years. So we have to be prepared for how that's going to change the way we live and change society. So, you know, that goes beyond medicine. There's some obvious benefits medically, but just the way we've structured our society, especially in the United States, with things like retirement age, Medicaid, Social Security, all of these are actually probably already antiquated based on when we came up with them. So Social Security, for example, you know, was in the 1930s and then the life expectancy was so much lower than it is now. Well, imagine if we extend lifespan 20 more years. Well, when it was started, I think the worker to beneficiary ratio was like 42 to 1, and now it's like 3 to 1. Well, if we extend lifespan more, we might get to one to one or even worse than that, it might actually be more beneficiaries than workers. So non scientists need to be prepared for how to vote, how to advocate for policies that are going to change things before they get bad. So Social Security would be one of them. Medicaid retirement age. Most people think of retirement age around 65 or 67. Well, if people are living to 100, we're expecting them to live in retirement for 40 years and that's not sustainable. So we're gonna have to rethink. Are people still going to retire? Are they going to retire later? Are people going to retire from their first career and maybe start a second career. Things like that are totally possible once we get to the point of where this becomes more widely available.

Interviewer (16:57)

Not to mention, where do you live? Right there. Retirement communities or assisted living facilities. You know, if everyone's living 10 to 20 years later. Longer, yes, that's another question.

Dr. Andrew Russell (17:08)

Yeah, we have to think about housing shortages, shortages of resources like food and water. You know, some areas of the world already have issues there, so those are only going to be compounded if we start extending lifespan. Now, all this might seem kind of doom and gloom, but there are also some benefits to this. And I think one of the compelling benefits is that if we start treating aging almost as if it's a disease, which is the ultimate kind of root cause of some of the older, the other ailments that kind of get us as we get older, like cancer and heart disease and all of these things. Really, a lot of aging researchers like David Sinclair would argue that if we start just addressing aging and helping people live a longer health span, we're actually going to make their entire bodies healthy. So we no longer see cancer rates increasing and heart disease levels increasing. Those will actually start trending down. So then we're not going to be spending as much money on those. So that would be kind of the flip side. The exciting side about this research is it should actually improve healthcare costs.

Interviewer (18:24)

Interesting. Must we die? A review of anti aging research and its implications. Dr. Andrew Russell, Associate professor of Biology at Hillsdale College. Dr. Russell, thanks for joining us here on the Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast.

Dr. Andrew Russell (18:39)

Thank you so much. I love this topic, so always happy to talk.

Scott Bertram (18:41)

I'm Scott Bertram. We invite you to like us on Facebook search for Hillsdale College K12 classical education. You also can follow us on Instagram @hillsdalek12. That's hillsdalek12 on Instagram. Thank you for listening to The Hillsdale College K12 classical education podcast, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.