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- [00:02]
Maria Shriver
Lemonade.
- [00:06]
Dan Buettner
You know, for 20 years, I've spent my life on the road, trekking through the highlands of Sardinia or the hills of Nicoya to find the secrets of the world's longest lived people. Now, this wasn't only traveling. This was also an enormous data exercise that parsed through worldwide census data to really find areas where people lived the longest. And I thought I'd seen it all, but honestly, this is the first season of the podcast and it's been a whole new kind of expedition. Instead of a backpack, I had a microphone. And instead of centenarians in remote villages, I've been sitting down with some of the world's leading scientists, skeptics and visionaries. We've debated the biological limits of the human body, the secrets of the gut microbiome, and whether we can actually fast our way to youth. But today, we're doing something a little different. My producer put together a list of questions, reflections on the highs and the lows and the big surprises that actually changed my own mind over the last few months. Full disclosure, I haven't seen these yet. I have no idea what's on the list. So we're going to spend some time looking back where we've been, what we've learned, and where this journey is taking us next. So let's get into it. Who got the most extra points for vulnerability? Our tagline at the Dan Buener podcast is extra points for vulnerability. So we thought we'd kick it off with Jillian Te. And she was the first interview that I did it, it appeared out of sequence, but she is the very personification of vulnerability. She had a miscarriage on the same day her boyfriend left her. And it has helped shape her into, I think, one of the top relationship experts in America right now.
- [01:57]
Adrian Grenier
Why?
- [01:57]
Dan Buettner
Because she's not only wise, but she's vulnerable. She's not afraid to show the side of her that is wounded and could be wounded again. And I think that is an important element of interpersonal communication. And it turns out she sat down, gave not only great relationship advice, and by the way, having good friends and staying in a relationship favors longevity. So there's a very clear tie and she absolutely hit it out of the park. Check this out. I would go as far as to say one of the four pillars of longevity is having a good relationship, maintaining it. And people overlook these things.
- [02:37]
Jillian Te
You know, with all relationships too, with your family, with your friends, with your co workers, and yes, who you choose to partner with is the most important decision you will ever make. But it also means if there's some longstanding beefs with certain people. See if you can release it or address it, fix it. Because that will add, I think, to your longevity. Because it's the stress.
- [03:06]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Right.
- [03:07]
Jillian Te
I really believe in the mind body connection. I believe that the mind and the body are one. I think that most of the time when we are dealing with any sort of chronic things, there's an emotional component. And I know that to be true also because I've worked with hundreds of people with headaches who, when they resolved a conflict with a key relationship in their life, whether that was a business partner, whether that was their lover, whether that was their mom, their dad, their sibling, the headache went away.
- [03:39]
Dan Buettner
Interesting.
- [03:40]
Jillian Te
Yeah. So I think of it as sort of like a trilogy. It's a mind, body, relationship connection. Because our relationships really do determine the quality of our lives and that good relationships make us feel better and happier and healthier, and bad relationships make us stressed out and sick and weak.
- [04:05]
Dan Buettner
Which guest were you most nervous to interview? I actually was initially nervous about bringing Adrian Granier on. He was Vinny in Entourage because I knew he had something to say. But I wasn't sure if it was going to have enough kind of depth to make the cut for the Dan Buer podcast for being real longevity. And he revealed this story of how he walked away from Hollywood that provided a great lesson for anybody who gets deluded in thinking that fame and wealth brings happiness.
- [04:42]
Adrian Grenier
So I was just skating along the surface, you know, Peter Pan floating just above consequence. But there was something that was calling me forth and asking me to delve deeper. And as I started to do the deeper work and started to contemplate things that I needed to sort of change in my life while still thinking that I could continue the lifestyle, could have it both ways. I'm gonna have deep revelations and be a better person and at the same time, not say no to those parties or those opportunities. I was on a plane from some fancy place, I wanna say, like, south of France or something, to another awesome adventure in another place around the world with awesome party and fancy people. And I needed a way to get from one place to the other. And someone says, oh, you should just hop on a plane with this oligarch. And I'm like, okay, cool. Who is he? Cool. Just call this number. And that's the way things were. They would just appear. They would just fall in your lap. And so next thing I know, I'm hopping on this private plane with this rich guy who I never met. And he was, you know, in his 80s. He was gray and older, for sure. And I was like, hey, what's your name? Nice to meet you. Hey, thanks for letting me catch a ride. And that's just the way it goes, right? So I'm living large. I sit down and onto the plane walks these three or four amazingly beautiful, young, you know, Russian vibed ladies. And of course I'm like, oh, okay.
- [06:26]
Dan Buettner
You know, great models are great.
- [06:27]
Adrian Grenier
Yeah, model types. And they are just doting over him, sitting next to him, laughing, you know, they're having champagne or whatever. And, you know, I was impressed. You know, I said, wow, this guy, he's really got it going on, right? He's got a lot of money, he's got his own private plane, and he's got all these girls hanging over him. And there was just this passing thought, and it was as natural as any other thought. I. I said to myself, I was like, I hope I can be like him one day. Wow. Like, he's got it made. I hope that I can still be, you know, hanging with the girls.
- [07:04]
Dan Buettner
I can sit 85 in my own play.
- [07:06]
Adrian Grenier
Exactly like that guy has made it. And in that moment, and I guess because I was more available to something deeper in me, I shuddered. Because I realized, Adrian, you put your mind to something, you make it happen. You're a manifester, you build businesses, you're creating a career for yourself. You're a very powerful person. And when you think of something, you make it happen. So I had that thought, and then it scared the hell out of me because I realized, holy shit, that is going to be me. I am. I am on a direct path, right, to be that guy in one iteration or another. And then I. And then it all became rushing into me as I realized those girls aren't here for the right reason. You know, I didn't feel any love. It felt like fun. But there was, you know, certainly of an exchange of value.
- [08:10]
Dan Buettner
The guy lost his dough.
- [08:12]
Adrian Grenier
You start to wonder, like, were they there for the right reason? Were they there for the money? Were there for. Why was I there? I was there for the free ride, you know, And I didn't even know if he was even connecting with me. Real like. And I don't know who that guy is. Like, we're not friends now. So that's when I realized I was like, I do not actually. I don't want to be that guy. And then I had to ask myself, well, who do you want to be when you're 85, when you're 90, who do you want surrounding you? You know, are they going to get on the plane and off the plane and you have to go get. Yeah.
- [08:47]
Dan Buettner
And what did you, what, what did you conclude?
- [08:50]
Adrian Grenier
Well, it took me a lot longer to figure out, you know, why I'm here, like why I really came to be.
- [08:58]
Dan Buettner
You were, you were just, I love the phrase, you were just telling us about your cosmic slap, which I think that's going to be a hashtag.
- [09:05]
Adrian Grenier
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I had a lot of learning to do. I had to, first of all, I had to come down to earth from the lifestyle. You know, I had to step off this sort of vapid, you know, high horse of sorts, you know, is sort of vanity and carnal pleasure and indulgence and it was utterly godless. I mean, I was agnostic at best, you know, and really just living a life of indulgence and pleasure and enjoyment and believing that when you die, you go to nothing. And so when I started to come down to earth and dig into the soil and in fact, working, you know, literally in soil, in the earth was a huge, huge help for my growing journey, for my healing journey. And someone said to me, he said, you are utterly ungrounded. You're like flying off the planet. You need to get into the earth before you do anything. You just need to ground yourself and just the process of working the soil, planting, growing food.
- [10:24]
Dan Buettner
This is some years later when you,
- [10:26]
Adrian Grenier
I mean, it was. Bought your farm several years. Well, no, this is before then. The farm is a result of my ultimate recognition of why I'm here and what I'm, what I want to do while I'm here.
- [10:38]
Dan Buettner
Who was the most surprising guest? One of the biggest surprises on this season came from Vanessa Van Edwards. So when I launched this podcast, I thought, I'm just going to bring the top tier scientists. And Vanessa's expertise was connecting, showing people how to connect. And I realized that if you're lonely in America, it shaves about eight years off your life expectancy. And what if you're awkward? What if you're an introvert? Or what if you're middle aged and just forgot how to connect and make friends with people? Vanessa Edwards had great advice. Let me ask you this. So let's just say I've lost my skill at breaking the ice and connecting with people and I meet somebody at a bus stop or I'm on a plane with them and I'm kind of interested in that person. How do you break the ice in a way that's not weird?
- [11:31]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Okay, well, there's two things I want you to think about. And I agree that not only are friendships important, they're enjoyable. So it's one of the few longevity hacks that not only is gonna add years to your life, it's also enjoyable in the moment. Like, you know, I'll take my vitamins and they don't taste that great.
- [11:46]
Dan Buettner
No, no.
- [11:47]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Friendships, when they're good, they taste delicious.
- [11:49]
Dan Buettner
Flintstones vitamins over there.
- [11:50]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Oh, man, the worst. The worst, right? So like at least friendships, they feel good in the moment and they're adding years to your life.
- [11:57]
Dan Buettner
They really are.
- [11:57]
Vanessa Van Edwards
So it's a double good. Okay, so there's two different things here. One is, what do you do once you are with someone you're interested in and want to break the ice? One. But two, also, how can you put yourself in more places where you're going to meet people that you want to make a relationship with?
- [12:11]
Dan Buettner
That's a very good point.
- [12:12]
Vanessa Van Edwards
There are two. And I want to start with the second one first actually, which is you need to find your watering holes, right at the watering hole. Like, you know the African savanna, All the animals of all different kinds have to go to the watering hole and get their water. What is yours? Where do you draw life? What is the source of your energy? Is it Pilates class? Is it hiking? Is it the beach? Is it knitting, Is it cooking? I want you to find what is the thing that gives you life. Cause if you go to that watering hole, you are more likely to find similar animals to you.
- [12:42]
Dan Buettner
So, so try to imagine a sort of middle aged mom or 40 year old guy who's feeling a little bit lonely. Now what's the general. How do you find your. What is sort of the mental processes you go through to identify your watering hole? Because I love that metaphor by the way.
- [13:04]
Vanessa Van Edwards
I love it. And by the way, if that's you and you're feeling lonely, there is room for change. If you are feeling lonely, you are not alone. And that's something I really wanna share with people. If you are feeling loneliness, it means that that is your body's way of saying I need something like don't be ashamed of that loneliness.
- [13:21]
Dan Buettner
Be involved with that age.
- [13:22]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Yes. And so if you're feeling lonely, I got you. There's a way to do this. And you don't have to move, you don't have to move to California to do it. Here's the first thing I want you to do. I want you to literally make a list if you'd be willing. So first thing I want you to make a List of is what are the places that give you energy? We're getting into the watering hole talk. I mean literal places. Is it the grocery store? Is it church? Is it the gym? Is it even a place you think might give you energy? I want you to make a list of all those places down to even like certain classes or certain groups.
- [13:51]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, I like where you're going with groups and classes because you're really going to find like minded people there and you're going to see them with enough repetition that it's likely to become.
- [14:02]
Vanessa Van Edwards
And it's way easier to break the ice with someone that you've seen three weeks in a row across class.
- [14:06]
Dan Buettner
Yeah.
- [14:07]
Vanessa Van Edwards
And then we're getting into that second. That first question you asked earlier is
- [14:09]
Dan Buettner
what do you say?
- [14:10]
Laura Dern
Right.
- [14:10]
Vanessa Van Edwards
It's so much easier when you use context cues, which I'll teach you in a second.
- [14:13]
Adrian Grenier
Yeah.
- [14:13]
Dan Buettner
Cause yeah, you're in a yoga class and say, you know what?
- [14:15]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Where'd you get that mat?
- [14:16]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, there you go. Perfect.
- [14:17]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Well, that matcha latte looks great.
- [14:18]
Maria Shriver
Where'd you get it?
- [14:19]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Right, like, okay, so I want you to make a list of the places that fill you. And this is the part that people most forget about but is the most important. Now I want you to make a list of the places that drain you.
- [14:29]
Dan Buettner
Oh yeah.
- [14:30]
Vanessa Van Edwards
A mistake that people make in their watering hole. They've lived in the same town for many, many years. Oh no, there's no friends here. I can't find anything.
- [14:36]
Dan Buettner
Yeah, or there are people bellied up to the bar complaining about their life.
- [14:39]
Maria Shriver
Right.
- [14:40]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Where are the places where you haven't met friends that you leave feeling drained? When you see it on your calendar, that PTA meeting or that group, you feel dread.
- [14:49]
Dan Buettner
Yeah.
- [14:49]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Make a list of those places.
- [14:51]
Dan Buettner
Well, I hate to say it, if you're feeling lonely and even though you get an energy from the places you're going, you're not obviously making the friends. So you got to sort of force yourself to go to that, identify that new place.
- [15:03]
Vanessa Van Edwards
And you might be getting quantity over quality.
- [15:05]
Dan Buettner
Right.
- [15:05]
Vanessa Van Edwards
Like a lot of the times I think we think it's fake stimulus. It's like cotton candy. Right. Like it feels like it's a lot of sugar, but actually if you boil it down and it's just like a very small, you know, half a cup of sugar, it's sort of the same thing. Social media is like cotton candy friends. Like it tastes good in the moment, but it actually doesn't fill you up. It's the same thing. So I want you to make a list of those places. You are not allowed to make friends at those places.
- [15:27]
Dan Buettner
Who do you think most surprised? The audience. So people might ask, why? What the heck does Laura Dern have to say about longevity? Well, it turns out in addition to being this graceful, wonderful human being who fights for all these causes to try to make the world a better place, she was also taking care of her 90 year old mother and father. And I was really interested in what it's like being a caregiver as you're out winning awards in TV and movies. And as it turns out, so many of us are struggling from that. It seems a lot of us, we raise our kids and as soon as we get done raising our kids, we have to take care of our parents. And that's true for people in Hollywood too. But Laura had some great advice on how to do it and through it came her beautiful heart and inspiration for all of us to do the right thing with our parents. You know, you and I are also in this similar situation that we have. My great treasures are my mom and dad, Roger and Dolly, who are older. They're about the same age as your dad, late 80s, 90 and kids, the other great treasures and we're sandwiched in between and I mean for most of us that is an enormously stressful situation because you're worried about both generations. The one below, they're not out of school, not out of college and you got older. Older people have health problems and we're getting from the top and the bottom. And I'm just wondering if it's different in Hollywood or if it's different for you managing this bifurcation of responsibilities.
- [17:14]
Laura Dern
No, I mean, I think whoever we are, wherever we are, We are in it. And it's joyful and hellish and all the things when you feel the fear and worry of the people you love, you know, I am also aware of my privilege, I'm aware of my good fortune that you know, for people who have endless funds, they have an incredible luxury to do anything for their elders they would want. Set them up at home with around the clock caregivers. What a luxury is that for those of us who know the world of assisted living and trying to get help or getting insurance to cover hospice care and the battle of elder care support in this country is the greatest shame in the United States. Like I'm so horrified by it now that I'm living it and watching it. And as a union member of my actors union and as a daughter of almost 70 year union members, they have a union that does not give them health care in these years if they
- [18:43]
Dan Buettner
do not work for your mom and dad.
- [18:45]
Laura Dern
Yeah, if in the next 18 months my parents do not work as actors
- [18:49]
Dan Buettner
that are struggling financially after being, you know, household names in America for seven decades.
- [18:57]
Laura Dern
And most unions cover you when you retire. The actors union does not. And that should change.
- [19:03]
Dan Buettner
Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts why
- [19:09]
Laura Dern
did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic source in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.
- [19:26]
Adrian Grenier
Don't go down the rabbit hole.
- [19:28]
Dr. Eric Topol
Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast.
- [19:31]
Dan Buettner
Healthcare just got less painful. I've spent my career studying how the environment impacts our health. For me, that balance is found between the constant excitement and variety of Miami and the deep, remote peace of my lake house in Wisconsin. Since I can't be in both places at once, I list my lake house on Airbnb when I'm away. It allows people looking for a restorative escape to enjoy that silence while I'm gone. That same idea, matching a space to what people need in a given moment, can apply in a completely different setting too. If you live in a city that hosts major events, your home can be part of the excitement. When big moments roll into town. When thousands of fans arrive for a concert or a major sporting event, they're not just looking for a place to stay, they're looking to be part of the experience. Listing your space on Airbnb during those times can be a simple way to to meet that demand and earn some extra income, Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host what was it like interviewing your parents? So I'm going to admit a couple things to you. First thing is I love my parents. I still have my parents, Roger and Dolly, and they have been married for 66 years. My dad grew up on a farm. My mom was a stay at home mom for four boys and they seem to me to have this sort of quintessential Mid America life that nothing too exciting happens and nothing too bad happens either. I to be honest, I had to fill a slot for a podcast and I was afraid it, you know, might be too kind of like nepotism or something. But I really do admire them and they sat down with me at my place on Church Pine Lake. They were just themselves and the audience blew up. We had 400,000 downloads for Roger And Dolly, why? Because they gave simple advice that worked for 90 years for them. Take a look. You've been married 66 years, which is two thirds of a century. That is in the top 2% of the longest marriages in history. You've done so. I mean, I've had a front seat to it. There's been no great drama. There's been no great misbehavior. And what I mostly see is joy. You two still hold hands, and you're very different people, but you still love each other. And I'm just wondering what lessons you might be able to give to newlyweds today or people thinking about making a partnership commitment. What advice would you give them if they want to be together 66 years later and still love each other?
- [22:31]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
I live in a family, you know, of five males, so I might as well get the ladies point of view out there first. What makes us happy after 66 years? Or what's the trigger? Endurance. I mean, it endures. It's not been perfect all the time, but it's been in the top 95%. Somebody asked me once, I think it's a perfect story. We were with a travel group, and we went for a long walk, and one of the guys was walking with him, and he said, raj never waits for you, does he? He's always ahead of you or whatever. And I looked at him, I said, I really don't let that offend me. Because for the one thing he might not be perfect at, he's perfect in the other nine out of ten.
- [23:34]
Dan Buettner
So do you think you have an ability to see Roger's good traits better than you are able to see his negative traits? Or do you just think he's objectively has 10 good traits for every negative one?
- [23:50]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
I think that's it. I think nobody's perfect. But they couldn't be more perfect in my eyes than Roger.
- [23:59]
Dan Buettner
So you picked the right.
- [24:01]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
I did, man.
- [24:01]
Dan Buettner
In the first place.
- [24:02]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Dan Buettner
How about you, Daddy? Is there. What's. What's. What's your secret to. Well, I think you have to let the other person have a life, a life of their own. And it's not that you allow them to go to work or do those kinds of things, but make sure that they have friends and they do things with friends and you don't feel bad when they're gone doing something on their own. Have either one of you tried to change the other person? Did you marry a different person than you ended up with?
- [24:36]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
I tried to teach them to dance.
- [24:41]
Dan Buettner
How did that work? I didn't get an A in that
- [24:44]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
class, but I tried. And that's only one point that taken off your hundred good ones.
- [24:53]
Dan Buettner
So, you know, I've been around you. I haven't seen a lot of, of serious arguments, but when there is a serious disagreement, how do you resolve it? Well, we make sure that we kiss each other before we go to sleep at night. Every night. Every night. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a way of. So even when you're mad? Yeah, even when you're mad.
- [25:13]
Dolly (Dan's mother)
Sometimes we had to go kiss the one that went to bed first.
- [25:20]
Dan Buettner
But we got it done. We did. How has the podcast changed your perspective on longevity? For the past two decades, I've looked almost exclusively at blue zones, places where people have achieved the outcomes we want. They've lived a long time, but their sphere of experience is quite narrow. I mean, they tend to live in villages and they tend to live in a culture where they have done the same things for centuries or millennia. And again, the idea of the podcast was the open the aperture. We don't live in 1850, we live in 2026. There's all kinds of influences, all kinds of pressures to our life right now. There's all kinds of research and kind of influencer suggestions that we hear on Instagram and so forth. Should we be taking a supplement or is there a genetic intervention or is AI going to help us live longer? I've tried to bring in guests who are experts, but who can illuminate the whole sphere, or the whole portfolio, if you will, of longevity in 2026. We like to think that we can live to 120. But, but the ceiling right now, the capacity of the human machine, if you do everything right, is probably mid-90s. We. Unless you, you're going to tell us something today we don't already know, but getting past 100 right now, you have to have won the, the, the genetic lottery.
- [26:59]
Dr. Eric Topol
So I totally agree, but I think the world has changed. And six months ago we had this interview. I would say you're right. Kind of the max of our engineering is kind of the mid to late 90s. But AI has changed everything. I made a drug for breast cancer that's now on the market. It took 10 years to make and to show it worked in cells, then seven years to test in humans. In the last six months, I've been able to make four drugs. And so it's wild, right? I could say, hey, here's a molecule I want to bind to. I want it to bind right here. And I could design Something that does. Then I say, here's every other protein in the human body. I don't want it to bind to those. Here's the immune system, how it works and how it recognizes things. I don't want this to be recognized as foreign. And here's the metabolism, genes. I want it to last X long in the blood. And it can do that. I could build in these constraints and, and I can make drugs, which means all the dreams of if I could turn this off or on. I want to do it to help us have longer health span. I can now do that. And it's wild. Absolutely wild.
- [28:08]
Dan Buettner
So you're saying the pace of discovery is faster.
- [28:10]
Dr. Eric Topol
The pace of discovery and then also the insight. Right. A group of young people. And it's horrible because they're all 20 year olds and it's just inappropriate that AI is dominated by this generation of kids 20 to 30 years old. But what they did was they took this bag of words, which is electronic health records.
- [28:29]
Dan Buettner
Right.
- [28:30]
Dr. Eric Topol
That's what they are. I would type in words. And they converted it to structured data with large language models. And they started to look. And one of the things that popped out, for example, was like the shingles vaccine reduced Alzheimer's by close to 50%.
- [28:45]
Dan Buettner
Wow.
- [28:46]
Dr. Eric Topol
So all of a sudden, for decades and hundreds of billions of dollars worth, we were wrong. Right. Well, these plaques, they lead to Alzheimer's.
- [28:54]
Dan Buettner
They do.
- [28:54]
Dr. Eric Topol
But we didn't realize that plaques could have been an immune response to a virus that affects neurons like shingles does. And it yielded the plaque. So you hit that virus before it affects those neurons. What do you know? You could prevent shingles. And there probably will be several other viruses associated. Right now we know 100% of multiple sclerosis is from a virus.
- [29:16]
Dan Buettner
I just wanna stop there on one thing. Because a lot of people out there don't believe in vaccinations.
- [29:22]
Dr. Eric Topol
And they became a religion. It's kind of wild.
- [29:24]
Dr. Jay Olshansky
Yeah.
- [29:24]
Dan Buettner
And they think about all these sort of bizarre kind of side effects of it. But here you're telling us that if we get the shingles vaccination, which is often recommended to older people, two shots and I've done them. They love this.
- [29:40]
Dr. Eric Topol
Older people, people over 50 that ain't older.
- [29:42]
Dan Buettner
Come on. I meant older than us even. Yes. But not only might we not endure symptoms as bad as we would if we, if we got shingles again, which often happens in older age, but our chances of Alzheimer's drop by 50%.
- [29:59]
Dr. Eric Topol
It's pretty dramatic. Right? This is a vaccine that's Already on the market that's FDA approved for everybody over the age of 50. Yet probably less than 10% of people in the country who are eligible actually get it. Shingles hits a good portion of the US Population at some time. You know, we all have its chickenpox come back. We all have chickenpox inside our neurons. And when you get stress, cortisol goes up, your immune system goes down. Cause it's saving energy for flight to flee a lion. And then what can happen is that virus can come back and you can get shingles. Well, you block that pretty easily with this vaccine and at the same time, a dramatic effect on Alzheimer's.
- [30:39]
Dan Buettner
So your recommendation is get the shingles vaccine.
- [30:43]
Dr. Eric Topol
My recommendation before this was get the shingles vaccine. Now with this new data, it's, damn, get that shingles vaccine.
- [30:50]
Dan Buettner
What are you hoping the audience takes away from the podcast? Since I first started doing blue zones work, and I remember, by the way, landing in Sardinia in the year 2004. So that's 22 years ago with this big assignment from National Geographic. Not really sure how I was going to tell the story, but there was one thing I knew. These people have had achieved the outcomes we want. In other words, they live a very long time. Their life Expectancy at age 60 is about 10 years longer than ours is in the United States. So they're reaching age 100 at some of the highest rates in the world. And they were doing so without cardiovascular disease, without cancer, without, in many cases, dementia either. So I knew there was a secret there somewhere. And since I've started that work, I've seen lots of other longevity insights come online. Resveratrol was huge 20 years ago. Well, that panned out to be nothing. And now we're hearing about rapamycin and metformin and stem cells and peptides. And there's so much force behind these because they offer a quick fix. They're constantly marketed to us. But I found no evidence. And we've talked to Jay Oshansky, who's one of the top demographers, and Steve Austead, you can see his episode. One of the top longevity biologists in the world, who will tell you that all this is bunk and that there. There is no pill or supplement or genetic intervention even on the scientific horizon that has been shown to. To stop slow or reverse aging in humans. So Mostly, it's an $84 billion hope machine, which a lot of people fall prey to and spend a lot of money, but it's not going to help them live longer. You're kind of the buzzkill when it comes to this unmitigated optimism that we're going to live longer.
- [32:49]
Dr. Jay Olshansky
It's a realistic check based on what the human body has been telling us all along. The there is a lot of hype in the field of aging where people embellish and exaggerate what we can and cannot do. And look, I've called anti aging medicine the second oldest profession.
- [33:10]
Dan Buettner
Quackery.
- [33:11]
Dr. Jay Olshansky
It's quackery. People have been selling longevity for thousands of years. The origin of alchemy was built on the idea that kings could drink their wine or whatever it was that they were drinking in their youth in their cups made of gold. Keep in mind, this may sound pessimistic, but you have to realize the accomplishment that public health and medicine has had in the 20th century is nothing short of enormous. We should be celebrating the longer lives that we are now living. Now, of course, you said earlier, and I agree with you, we always want more. You get the average up to 80, we want 85. You get the average up to 85. We want 90.
- [33:55]
Adrian Grenier
Yeah.
- [33:55]
Dr. Jay Olshansky
And I've argued that we've reached a point of diminishing returns, where instead of trying to live longer, we should be
- [34:02]
Dr. Eric Topol
trying to live healthier.
- [34:04]
Dan Buettner
Which guest had the biggest impact on your life? I'm going to tell you the truth about something. Sitting at this microphone completely changed the course of my life, and I'll tell you why. I was thinking about buying back Blue Zone, this company I sold a long time ago. Now it's 150 employees, and we mostly work at making cities healthier. And it's a big job. It involves mayors and city council and big insurance companies. And it's a lot of work. And, you know, I'm at an age now where I kind of want to write and research and enjoy life. And Maria Shriver came on. She just had a big birthday, and she's at an age where a lot of people are saying, you know, I'm going to enjoy the fruits of my labor. And Maria was on fire to continue her work with Alzheimer's. Her Sunday paper. And I just felt like a tsunami of inspiration. And I ended that interview and I called up and I ended up buying my company back because of that. So now I'm completely engaged and on fire to bring Blue Zones to the next chapter because of talking with Maria Schreiber. And at this microphone, I got lucky enough to get an invitation to the hottest party in town, Maria's birthday party. Can we say the number?
- [35:28]
Maria Shriver
Oh, I don't you know, actually, it's so funny you asked me. So I just turned 70. And I believe in saying that number because ageism is real. Ageism is alive and well. And nobody told me that my 60s were going to be great. When I went to turn 60, everybody's like, Mm, you're gonna turn 60? I was like, oh, was that bad? You know, and, like, I think the alternative is worse. But my 60s were the most extraordinary decade. It's, I think, probably maybe my best decade or.
- [36:01]
Dr. Jay Olshansky
Wow.
- [36:01]
Maria Shriver
And it was so extraordinary. And I have the same hopes for this decade. And I want people not to fear aging. And I think, you know, if we keep hiding our age or being ashamed of our age, ageism wins. Invisibility wins, fear wins. And if we say, yeah, I'm 70, and I have all of these dreams and I still have purpose, and I wanna do a lot of things. And as long as I have my health, I'm capable of doing that. But I have goals I wanna pursue. I have dreams I wanna fulfill. And to me, it doesn't matter the age. And in a way, I had been working on women's health and Alzheimer's and all of these things ra for 20 some years. And in my 60s, they all kind of started working. People started understanding what I was talking about. Things that I had been pushing came to fruition. I started a Women's Alzheimer's Prevention center, the first of its kind. Opened a women's Comprehensive Health center at the Cleveland Clinic. Started my mosh bar company with my son to fund the research that goes on at the women's Alzheimer's movement. The Sunday paper started winning awards and getting bigger. I opened a publishing imprint in my 60s. So I tell that. Not to brag on myself, but I tell it because people think their life is over and it can be just beginning. Or these dreams you may have had in your 40s and 50s. Your kids grow up. Maybe your parents. My parents had passed away, and I had more time than I'd had in the past. And I was like, let's go. My granddaughter, the other night there were. This is an interesting thing. She's 5, and she was at dinner at the table. My other daughter was there and her friends who had come in to visit, and she. The other two adults were talking about some of the challenges they had. And she said to them, is your bucket full or empty? And they were like, what? And she took out the crayon. Cause she and I had been painting, and she said, this is a full bucket. And when your bucket is full, you're happy. Then she this is an empty bucket. And when your bucket is empty, you're sad. And this is a medium bucket. And then you're a little happy and a little sad.
- [38:32]
Dan Buettner
Wow.
- [38:33]
Maria Shriver
And so I was like, wow, Lila. She goes, do you know what makes your bucket full? She goes, love and being with you, Mama G. Oh, my God. And then everybody at the table was like, I don't know what fills my bucket? Oh, my God, what do I do? But it ensued two days of conversation about what fills one's bucket in life. I've been thinking ever since. I was like, what fills my bucket now? What do I want in this decade of my life? What do I want?
- [39:06]
Dan Buettner
Can you tell us?
- [39:07]
Maria Shriver
Yes. I want more love in my life. I want my table to grow. I want love for my children. I want to live in this world that I write about in the Sunday paper. I want to help build that world. I understand that we can't build a caring, compassionate world unless we start doing that to ourselves. I want a more compassionate world. And I want to be a loving presence in the life of my children and others. And I want to be that in my own life. Cause I've driven myself for multiple decades, and I want to be gentler and tender. More tender with myself.
- [39:51]
Dan Buettner
Oh, Maria, I cannot imagine a better conversation. I think you filled all of our buckets a little bit, so thank you so much. You're an inspiration. And you're a us TR treasure. A world treasure. We love you.
- [40:04]
Maria Shriver
Love you, too.
- [40:06]
Dan Buettner
Thanks for watching. And tell us who you'd like to see on next season of the podcast.