History of the Self: Aging

Summary

Throughline: History of the Self – Aging

Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, NPR’s Throughline takes listeners on a captivating journey through time. In the January 2, 2025 episode titled "History of the Self: Aging," Abdelfatah and Arablouei explore humanity’s enduring obsession with defeating aging and the remarkable story of Eli Metchnikov, a pioneering scientist whose quest to cure aging left a lasting legacy.

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1. The Eternal Quest: From Legends to Science (00:28 - 02:27)

The episode opens with a glimpse into the age-old human fascination with immortality. Narrated anecdotes span from Qin Shi Huang’s quest for an elixir of life in 200 BC to late 19th-century legends about life-restoring artifacts. The narrator sets the stage by introducing Eli Metchnikov’s momentous claim in December 1899 when he believed he had discovered the secret to eternal life.

Narrator (00:28): "After the alchemists disappeared at sea, the legend says the emperor took things into his own hands and died after drinking what he thought was a cure."

Metchnikov's breakthrough captured global attention, symbolizing a shift from mystical pursuits to scientific endeavors in the fight against aging.

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2. Eli Metchnikov: A Scientist Ahead of His Time (03:07 - 05:14)

Eli Metchnikov, renowned for his fearless scientific methods, became a household name. Known for consuming cholera and testing his own limits, Metchnikov’s dedication to science was unparalleled.

Expert/Scientist (03:07): "He was very famous. He was one of the most famous scientists in the world."

His work on the immune system eventually earned him a Nobel Prize, cementing his status as a visionary. Metchnikov firmly believed that science could solve aging, viewing it as a disease to be treated.

Philosopher/Scientist (04:03): "Aging is a disease that should be treated like any other."

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3. Discovering the Immune System: A Scientific Breakthrough (08:31 - 14:34)

Metchnikov’s early life in 19th-century Russia was marked by curiosity and resilience. Growing up in a time when modern medicine was nascent, he was driven by a desire to alleviate human suffering. His pivotal moment came during a study trip to Sicily, where he observed mobile cells in starfish larvae under a microscope.

Expert/Scientist (13:20): "He was very happy that he was still interested in females."

Expert/Scientist (13:42): "He came up with the idea that maybe this is a defensive force of the organism."

This observation led to the foundational understanding of the immune response, positioning Metchnikov as a pioneer in immunology.

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4. The Death Instinct and the Pursuit to Cure Aging (14:49 - 20:56)

Metchnikov’s fascination extended beyond immunity to the broader question of aging. He theorized the existence of a "death instinct," a natural predisposition towards mortality that he hoped could be understood and managed.

Philosopher/Scientist (16:36): "This instinct must be accompanied by marvelous sensations, better than any other we are capable of experiencing."

His ventures into large hospitals like La Salpetriere revealed a populace desperate to extend their lifespans, reinforcing his belief that aging was a solvable affliction.

Philosopher/Scientist (20:51): "What is this love of life that makes death so terrible?"

Metchnikov envisioned a utopian future where medicine could prolong life until individuals felt ready to die, aspiring to extend human life to 150 years.

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5. Yogurt: The Accidental Elixir (21:03 - 33:10)

Metchnikov’s theories took a dramatic turn with his discovery of the benefits of yogurt. Observing the longevity of Bulgarians who consumed large amounts of yogurt, he hypothesized that lactic acid from sour milk could combat the microbes he believed caused aging.

Expert/Scientist (28:05): "Meshnikov thought that in the intestines there are microbes that cause rotting and that the rotting is what really causes the deterioration of aging."

In a landmark lecture in 1904, Metchnikov championed yogurt as the elixir of life, sparking a global yogurt mania.

Expert/Scientist (32:05): "He connected all these dots together. We age because in the intestines, it is rotting. And lactic acid that is produced in sour milk can stop this rotting by killing the bacteria that cause the rotting."

Despite Metchnikov’s reservations about media sensationalism, yogurt became a staple in diets worldwide, transforming the food industry and popular health practices.

Historical Figure (32:46): "He coined the beginning of the yogurt industry."

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6. Clash of Titans: Metchnikov Meets Tolstoy (37:00 - 41:40)

In 1909, Metchnikov returned to Russia to engage with the esteemed writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy. This meeting epitomized the tension between scientific rationalism and spiritual morality.

Philosopher/Scientist (37:21): "I had long wanted to get to know Tolstoy closer, learning in person what he really thought about universal issues that had fascinated me since my youth."

Tolstoy critiqued Metchnikov’s reliance on science, arguing that morality and love were paramount.

Philosopher/Scientist (38:16): "Scientists can't tell useful knowledge from useless. They study such topics as the sexual organs of the amoeba only because this allows them to live like lords."

The dialogue between them was intense, highlighting the broader European debate on the roles of science and spirituality in improving human life. Despite their differing viewpoints, they found a common ground in yogurt, though Metchnikov remained steadfast in his scientific pursuits.

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7. The Final Years: War and Decline (42:05 - 45:56)

World War I profoundly impacted Metchnikov’s life and work. As a staunch believer in science’s capacity to foster peace, the outbreak of war shattered his optimism.

Expert/Scientist (43:18): "What really killed him was World War I. He was such a believer in rational thought, in science. He thought that there will be no more wars, that the world had learned from that."

The war effort consumed the Pasteur Institute, leaving Metchnikov disheartened. His health deteriorated, and he struggled with his fears of death despite his lifelong quest to overcome it.

Philosopher/Scientist (45:18): "Let all those who expected me to live 100 years or longer forgive me my premature death."

Eli Metchnikov passed away in 1916 at the age of 71, far short of his dream of a 150-year lifespan.

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8. Legacy and Modern Perspectives on Aging (46:51 - 50:45)

Metchnikov’s influence persists in today’s aging research. Modern experts continue to explore the boundaries of lifespan and healthspan, drawing inspiration from his groundbreaking work.

Philosopher/Scientist (48:10): "I've been working in the field of aging for almost 40 years, trying to figure out why people live as long as we do and how to make that last even longer."

While Metchnikov did not achieve eternal life, his promotion of yogurt remains ubiquitous, and his scientific principles underpin much of contemporary gerontology.

Listener/Caller (50:45): "Though in some ways, some of us get more than that. Eli Metchnikov wasn't able to beat aging, but he's still with us in fridges and on breakfast tables everywhere."

The episode concludes by reflecting on the enduring human desire to extend life and the ongoing search for solutions, embodying Metchnikov’s legacy.

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Conclusion

Throughline’s episode "History of the Self: Aging" weaves a rich tapestry of historical narrative, scientific discovery, and personal struggle. Eli Metchnikov’s relentless pursuit to understand and cure aging exemplifies the intersection of human aspiration and scientific endeavor. Despite the setbacks and ultimate failings of his mission, Metchnikov’s work laid the groundwork for modern aging research and left an indelible mark on both science and popular culture.

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Notable Quotes:

• Philosopher/Scientist (04:03): "Aging is a disease that should be treated like any other."
• Expert/Scientist (13:42): "He came up with the idea that maybe this is a defensive force of the organism."
• Philosopher/Scientist (16:36): "This instinct must be accompanied by marvelous sensations, better than any other we are capable of experiencing."
• Expert/Scientist (28:05): "Meshnikov thought that in the intestines there are microbes that cause rotting and that the rotting is what really causes the deterioration of aging."
• Philosopher/Scientist (37:21): "I had long wanted to get to know Tolstoy closer, learning in person what he really thought about universal issues that had fascinated me since my youth."
• Philosopher/Scientist (38:16): "Scientists can't tell useful knowledge from useless. They study such topics as the sexual organs of the amoeba only because this allows them to live like lords."
• Philosopher/Scientist (45:18): "Let all those who expected me to live 100 years or longer forgive me my premature death."

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions of the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the full podcast.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

Around 200 BC, China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, feared death so badly that he sent an alchemist on voyages across the sea to search for a magic elixir that would give him immortality. After the alchemists disappeared at sea, the legend says the emperor took things into his own hands and died after drinking what he thought was a cure. Around 200 years later, another legend was born. A Holy Grail that was thought to hold life restoring powers for anyone who drank from it. There was the philosopher's stone, the fountain of youth. And then, in late December of 1899, a scientist named Eli Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn that he had done it. He had found the secret to eternal life.

[Expert/Scientist]

The French morning newspaper Loma Tin carried a huge headline in large block letters all across the front page. And it said, vive la vie. Long live Life.

[Narrator]

Underneath that headline, it said things like, the Elixir of Eternal Youth, the Institute of Miracles. Old Age Defeated.

[Expert/Scientist]

None of us should despair to see.

[Historical Figure]

The year 2000 will reach the age of the patriarchs.

[Expert/Scientist]

And Monsieur Meshnikov will be damned only.

[Historical Figure]

By heirs of fortunes.

[Narrator]

Eli Metchnikov had captured the world's attention. For millennia, people had tried to evade death, seeking cures in things like mercury, gold powders, liquids. But now they had a new tool, science, and it was miraculous. There were new vaccines. X rays had just been invented. You could now see what had once been invisible. And Metchnikoff had helped to make that happen.

[Expert/Scientist]

He was very famous. He was one of the most famous scientists in the world.

[Narrator]

Eli Metchnikov was hardcore. The man drank cholera in the name of science. He injected himself with disease, and he tested the body's power and its limits. Later in his career, his work on the immune system would win him a Nobel Prize. When the world was sick, Eli Menshnikov tried to cure it. And he made sure people knew.

[Expert/Scientist]

He loved the journalists. He never turned them away, and they loved him even more than he loved them. And they followed him around and they took down his every word.

[Narrator]

And his message was clear.

[Expert/Scientist]

He thought that a solution to everything was science. So, of course, science was going to solve aging as well.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Aging is a disease that should be treated like any other.

[Narrator]

No one had studied aging scientifically before. And here was this famous scientist saying he wanted to take it on. But Metchnikov didn't just want to study aging. He wanted to cure it.

[Expert/Scientist]

This became for him, like his new mission.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Science alone can lead suffering humanity into the right path.

[Expert/Scientist]

We free the world from this terrible.

[Narrator]

Affliction, and the world ate it up.

[Expert/Scientist]

Entire sacks of letters that piled up in the mailroom was stuffed with letters from people who didn't want to die.

[Caller/Listener]

Nobody likes to die. Nobody likes to see their friends and family die. So we want to extend the lifespan as much as possible.

[Modern Expert]

People nowadays want to remain ageless.

[Narrator]

We can delay aging.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

It's one of the foundational questions in science.

[Narrator]

We can stop aging.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

How long can we live?

[Caller/Listener]

We keep searching.

[Modern Expert]

What is it exactly we're looking for?

[Listener/Caller]

I don't know what I want to do.

[Modern Expert]

Living to 200. Are we looking to living to, you know, 95 with our senses and being active and in control? I think the most important thing to me is maintaining my mobility. I would love to, like, renovate a house.

[Listener/Caller]

I think I want to travel more.

[Modern Expert]

Traveling as much as I can, more time to myself.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

We all know that winter is coming for us.

[Listener/Caller]

I have about 20, 25 years left.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

The question is when? And can we push it out as much as possible? People have been talking about it for thousands of years. It's not a new question. It's an old question.

[Narrator]

Since the beginning of human civilization, people have been obsessed with staying young, even living forever. Today that obsession is tied up with media, medicine and money.

[Expert/Scientist]

So I got this straw on Amazon.

[Modern Expert]

And it literally is the best.

[Narrator]

We spend billions of dollars on anti aging products.

[Modern Expert]

It doesn't cause wrinkles. You can easily drink out from the top of it.

[Narrator]

We're told to look younger.

[Listener/Caller]

The top 10 celebrities who have aged badly.

[Narrator]

We question whether older people are fit to lead.

[Modern Expert]

Why do voters vote for older politicians and then turn around and question their mental fitness?

[Narrator]

But what if these are the wrong questions? Is aging something we even need to cure? And what does it mean if we can't? I'm Ramtin Arablouei.

[Expert/Scientist]

I'm Rend Abdelfattah.

[Narrator]

On this episode of Throughline, we're not gonna answer the question of aging, but we are gonna tell you the story of someone who tried.

[Listener/Caller]

It's part of our series History of.

[Modern Expert]

The Self, where we explore the deeply.

[Listener/Caller]

Personal experiences that make history.

[Narrator]

Coming up, our producer Devin Katayama tells the story of Eli Meshnikov.

[Caller/Listener]

Hello, my name is Sabushpeta Chakraborty. I'm calling from Austin, Texas, and you.

[Listener/Caller]

Are listening to True Line npr.

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[Listener/Caller]

Part 1 this love of Life.

[Historical Figure]

The country is neither beautiful nor rich. Steppes, hillocks covered with low grasses and wild wormwood. A poor village, meager vegetation, no river. The whole impression is a melancholy one.

[Listener/Caller]

In the middle of the 19th century, Ilya Ivanovich and his wife and children left St. Petersburg, Russia, for the countryside.

[Historical Figure]

But what boundless space, what soft silver gray coloring. And in the mornings and evenings, what fresh, cool air.

[Listener/Caller]

It was here, on a little slice of land outside the main village, that they would welcome their fifth child into.

[Historical Figure]

The world, though they wished to have no more children. One more child was born on 16 May 1845. Eli Metchnikov.

[Listener/Caller]

These descriptions of Eli Metchnikov's early life are from the biography his wife Olga wrote about him.

[Historical Figure]

Fair and slender, with silky hair and a diaphanous pink and white complexion, he had small gray blue eyes full of kindliness and sparkle.

[Caller/Listener]

He had a few brothers and sisters, and out of all of them he was probably the most curious.

[Historical Figure]

He was so restless that he went by the name of Quicksilver. He always wished to see everything, to know everything, and found his way everywhere.

[Caller/Listener]

As a kid he was always chasing bugs and looking at what bugs do.

[Historical Figure]

He could only be kept quiet when his curiosity was awakened by the observation of some natural object, such as an image insect or a butterfly.

[Caller/Listener]

Then he would invite all of his siblings and cousins for a lecture in natural history, and he would actually pay them out of his pocket money to come and listen to his lectures.

[Listener/Caller]

This is Lena Zeldovich. She's currently a science and medical journalist in New York City, but she grew up in the former Soviet Union where Eli Metchnikov was a household name.

[Caller/Listener]

So I learned that name at a very young age.

[Listener/Caller]

She remembers hearing about his famous discoveries the same way you might have learned about Albert Einstein's E equals MC squared.

[Caller/Listener]

He was like, you know, a cherished name, a big name. A couple of research institutions were named after him. We definitely knew about him growing up.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikoff was born in a time and place when medicine was only just starting to modernize. The human body wasn't really understood, and diseases like cholera and typhoid were really scary. Many doctors still believed in bloodletting and would actually treat patients with toxic substances like mercury and lead. So medical care itself was basically synonymous with suffering.

[Caller/Listener]

From a very young age, I think he had this desire to alleviate human suffering, and that's how he sort of found his way into biological research.

[Listener/Caller]

So Metchnikov grows up to become a zoologist. And he couldn't have picked a better time, because when he was just 14 years old, a new theory rocked the scientific world. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

[Expert/Scientist]

The main goal at the time of many scientists, and of him as well, was to test Darwin's idea that all life on Earth came from the same common ancestor.

[Listener/Caller]

And he dedicated his early career to researching that theory.

[Expert/Scientist]

When he was in his late 30s, he traveled to Italy, to the island of Sicily, to study marine animals. And he was studying the larvae of starfish.

[Listener/Caller]

This is Luba Vukonsky. She's a science writer at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

[Expert/Scientist]

And I've written a book called called Immunity How Eli Metchnikov Changed the Course of Modern Medicine.

[Listener/Caller]

This trip to Sicily would change everything for Metchnikov. He and his wife were staying by the seaside in a cottage overlooking the bright blue Messina Strait. The strait was home to all sorts of marine creatures. And while his wife went out to explore Sicily, Metchnikov would spend long days holed up in the cottage, staring at jars filled with seawater and tiny organisms. One day, he had his eye pressed up against his microscope, peering inside these minuscule starfish larvae.

[Expert/Scientist]

And in the larva, he saw mobile cells.

[Listener/Caller]

These were cells that wandered inside the larva, gobbling up food and other particles. Metchnikov had seen seen these cells in action before, but that day, watching them go about their business, it struck him.

[Expert/Scientist]

He came up with the idea that maybe this is a defensive force of the organism.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Sensing that my hunch concealed something particularly interesting, I became so excited that I began striding up and down the room.

[Expert/Scientist]

He performed an experiment. It's a Very famous experiment in immunology, where he inserted thorns into these larva.

[Listener/Caller]

If the cells attacked the thorn as a foreign invader, his theory would be correct.

[Expert/Scientist]

And he saw that the cells indeed ganged up on the thorns. This was, for him, evidence of his theory that they were there to protect the larvae.

[Listener/Caller]

Watching this unfold through his microscope, his mind was blown.

[Expert/Scientist]

In fact, this was the first material evidence of inner healing forces in science.

[Listener/Caller]

The invisible had become visible. Metchnikov wasn't the first person to observe this healing force, but he was the first person to define it as an immune response. This was the work that would later earn him a Nobel Prize.

[Expert/Scientist]

The idea that the body has inner powers that can be studied and enhanced and understood, I mean, that's enormous. It just turned everything around.

[Listener/Caller]

Around the turn of the century, while Metchnikoff was consumed by his work on immunity, another question started to nag at him.

[Expert/Scientist]

He was living in Paris, working at the Pasteur Institute.

[Listener/Caller]

The Pasteur Institute was home to the miracle makers of the day, scientists who were researching vaccination or figuring out what caused plague.

[Expert/Scientist]

He was in his mid-50s. He started having kidney trouble, and he began to worry about his own aging. And he also began to fear death.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Our strong will to live runs counter to the infirmities of old age and the shortness of life. That's greatest disharmony of human nature.

[Listener/Caller]

Life expectancy at the time was around the mid-40s, so he must have had a growing sense of his own mortality. But he wasn't just concerned about himself. In his mind, aging was one of the greatest problems facing humankind. The fact that we all grow older and that aging meant sickness until death.

[Expert/Scientist]

And he was appalled to discover how little was known about aging and that there was no systematic study of aging. There were textbooks about diseases of old age, but not about old age itself.

[Listener/Caller]

And Metchnikov comes up with this theory, an idea that would stay with him throughout his entire life.

[Expert/Scientist]

His hope was that if people live long enough, they will develop this death instinct.

[Listener/Caller]

The death instinct.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

This instinct must be accompanied by marvelous sensations, better than any other we are capable of experiencing.

[Expert/Scientist]

Death instinct would mean that people would be happy to die after living a long and healthy lives.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Perhaps the anxious search for the purpose of human life is nothing but a vague yearning for this anticipation of natural death.

[Expert/Scientist]

He went around looking for this death instinct.

[Listener/Caller]

He became so obsessed with figuring out how older people felt as they approached death that he would literally chase the elderly down.

[Expert/Scientist]

Centenarians made it into the newspapers. So whenever he would See an article about an old person, he rushed to meet them and he wanted to ask them, you know, about if they wanted to die.

[Modern Expert]

So this is late 19th century. We're going through a transformation from the agrarian economic system to the industrial economic system.

[Listener/Caller]

This is Carol Haber. She's a professor and dean emerita of Tulane University in the School of Liberal Arts.

[Modern Expert]

I was trained as a medical and social historian and I focus largely on the history of aging.

[Listener/Caller]

Carol says she doesn't think there was ever a time when old age was seen as something wonderful that everyone respected. But around the time Metchnikoff turned his attention to aging, there was a cultural shift happening in how people viewed it.

[Modern Expert]

If you look at the late 19th century, the image of the old person is hunched over with a cane, sitting in a rocking chair. It's pretty negative.

[Listener/Caller]

At that time, the Industrial Revolution was changing how families lived and worked. And in this work revolution, the elderly were getting left behind.

[Modern Expert]

You had the feeling that there wasn't this basis of support and that old people were going to end up in what they call the industrial scrap heap. They couldn't keep up, they couldn't learn new skills, and so they were going to become obsolescent.

[Listener/Caller]

Western society's view, whether it was true or not, was that the elderly weren't compatible with the increasingly fast paced world. Caring for the elderly came to be seen as a burden. Many elderly people ended up living the rest of their days in a hospital. And that's exactly where Metchnikov went to find them.

[Expert/Scientist]

He went to this large French hospital, La Salpetriere.

[Listener/Caller]

La Salpetriere was an infamous hospital in Paris. It had long doubled as a psychiatric ward and a home for the elderly.

[Expert/Scientist]

And most of them were poor because, you know, obviously more wealthy, the elderly wouldn't make it there.

[Listener/Caller]

For a lot of Parisians, it was a dark, distant presence looming over the city. Inside its imposing brick walls was a massive, sprawling complex that for centuries had been a place of squalor and suffering. A famous French neurologist referred to it as Le Versailles de la Douleur. The Versailles of pain probably must have.

[Expert/Scientist]

Been quite a, quite a sad place, you know, where all these people were brought to die and there was not much that could really be done for.

[Listener/Caller]

Them, but it was the perfect laboratory for Metchnikov.

[Expert/Scientist]

He went around asking them what they wanted and he was hoping to find the death instinct. And he was really disappointed because even the sick old people, they didn't want to die, they wanted to get better.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

I discovered that one and all felt as if they were continually being threatened by death, as if they were convicts awaiting the day of execution at the Selpetra. The great ambition of women of 80 is to live to 100. And the desire to live is almost universal.

[Listener/Caller]

Even in a miserable place like Salpetriere, people wanted to live longer.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

What is this love of life that makes death so terrible?

[Expert/Scientist]

He developed a whole philosophy that there was this big disharmony in the world, in nature, between the shortness of human life and people's desire to live.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikoff came to believe that aging was a disease and he was sure that science could cure it. He envisioned a utopic future where medicine could prolong life up to 150 years. At that age, he thought the death instinct would finally appear. So he went all in.

[Expert/Scientist]

This became for him like his new mission to free the world from this, you know, this terrible affliction.

[Listener/Caller]

Coming up, Metchnikoff heads back to the lab with a new mission to extend human life to 150 years.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Hello, this is Nancy Smith and I'm in Kiel, Germany.

[Listener/Caller]

You're listening to Throughline from npr.

[Expert/Scientist]

It's a great show. I love it.

[Listener/Caller]

Keep up the good work.

[Modern Expert]

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[Modern Expert]

Also another story about the people living those headlines. On weekdays, up first brings you the day's biggest news. On Sundays, we bring you closer with a single story about the people, places and moments reshaping our world. Your news made personal every Sunday on the up first podcast from NPR.

[Listener/Caller]

Part 2. Trusting his gut in his 20s, Eli Metchnikov had been visited by death.

[Caller/Listener]

His first wife died of tuberculosis. It's a disease that kills you slowly. You can basically watch your loved one wither away day after day, month after month. They traveled to places with better climate, milder winters, sunnier places, and nothing helped. And she eventually died.

[Listener/Caller]

This sent Metchnikoff into a deep depression. And then a decade later, he went through it again.

[Caller/Listener]

His second wife contracted typhoid fever and it looked like she could die. And so he inoculated himself with some kind of a tick borne disease, thinking that they will die together. But neither one of them died.

[Listener/Caller]

And this changed everything for Metchnikov.

[Historical Figure]

After his recovery, he had a renascence of vital intensity. The life instinct developed in him in a high degree. His health became flourishing, his energy and power for work greater than ever. And the pessimism of his youth began to pale before the optimistic dawn of his maturity.

[Listener/Caller]

Fast forward a couple of decades. It's the early 1900s. The now famous Metchenikov set out to pioneer the study of aging and cure it. He wants people to be able to live happy and healthy until they're ready to die.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

The purpose of human existence lies in going through a normal cycle of life, leading to a loss of the life instinct and a painless old age, bringing about a reconciliation with death.

[Listener/Caller]

By now he's a superstar at the Pasteur Institute, which was one of the most prestigious science facilities in the world at the time. It's sort of a scientist's dream. He has lab assistants, facilities, all the resources he could imagine at his fingertips. And he gets to work.

[Expert/Scientist]

His lab gradually filled up with old animals of all sorts.

[Listener/Caller]

There are mice and rats and geese and cats and dogs. There's this 87 year old turtle and a 70 year old parrot.

[Expert/Scientist]

Meshenkov was very happy that he was still interested in females.

[Listener/Caller]

And that's just the beginning. He starts pulling out hair from an old Great Dane, from a co worker, and then from his own head to figure out why it's turning gray. And remember, he's a renowned immunologist with kind of a savior complex. So he's also spreading the gospel to everyone he knows.

[Expert/Scientist]

When he wrote on public transportation, he would tell people how they should be careful about microbes. He boiled everything he ate, even strawberries and even peeled bananas. He thought that the skin probably didn't protect them well enough. And when he invited guests to restaurants, he asked to bring a burner and he sterilized the utensils.

[Listener/Caller]

Okay, so maybe he's not like the most fun guy to have around. But this is the beginning of the science of aging, of gerontology, which, by the way, was a term that Metchnikov coined in 1903. And science is all about making mistakes. So you can find that one thing that works. And as he's conducting all these experiments, he zeros in on this one idea that the body was being poisoned.

[Expert/Scientist]

He thought that the root of aging, that it all started in the intestines.

[Listener/Caller]

Specifically the large intestine.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

The large intestine must be regarded as one of the organ possessed by man and yet harmful to his health and his life. The presence of large intestine in the human body is the cause of a series of misfortunes.

[Listener/Caller]

The idea that something bad was happening in the intestines is one that dates back thousands of years. So this wasn't necessarily a new idea, but in the late 19th century, it was making a comeback because science was making new links to germs and disease.

[Caller/Listener]

At the time, the human intestine was viewed as a cesspool of all sorts of toxins. I guess the proof that all the scientists had was, hey, just look what comes out of your rear end. Any more questions?

[Expert/Scientist]

So Meshnikov thought that in the intestines there are microbes that cause rotting and that the rotting is what really causes the deterioration of aging. The big question became how to fight that.

[Listener/Caller]

Then one day, he has a breakthrough.

[Expert/Scientist]

He learned that in Bulgaria, there is this entire population of centenarians in the mountains.

[Listener/Caller]

Remember, Mechikov is obsessed with centenarians. And there were newspaper articles backing up this idea that people in this region of Bulgaria were living a long time. And so he had to know why.

[Expert/Scientist]

Yogurt.

[Listener/Caller]

Yogurt.

[Expert/Scientist]

They ate lots of yogurt.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikov had to tell everyone. It's 1904, Paris. A crowded lecture hall at the Society of French Agriculturalists. The famous Eli Metchnikoff is the guest speaker.

[Expert/Scientist]

The lecture was called Old Age.

[Listener/Caller]

And he starts by getting up there and rattling off some pretty dark ideas.

[Expert/Scientist]

He was saying how in Europe, old people are miserable.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Their lives often become very difficult, unable to fulfill any useful role in the family or in the community. Old people are considered a very heavy burden.

[Listener/Caller]

He claimed they were more likely to commit suicide or be murdered.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

One is shocked by the quantity of murders committed against the elderly, notably against elderly women.

[Listener/Caller]

He also repeated, without evidence, by the way, that some cultures killed and ate.

[Expert/Scientist]

Their women because they are useless. And he said that people there say that old dogs can at least capture seals. And old women can't even do that. He was painting a very sort of gruesome picture of old age.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikoff is straddling the line between serious science and being a salesman because he's still trying to sell the world on science. So he's playing to his audience, stoking the fears of aging that are growing at the time, and then saying, hey, don't worry. Science has a solution.

[Expert/Scientist]

He brought an old dog and a parrot. The dog was 17, and he looked very old and undecupid. And the Parrot, who was 70, looked much younger than the dog.

[Listener/Caller]

And then Metchnikov lays down his science.

[Expert/Scientist]

Birds do not have such large intestines as mammals. They don't store as many microbes.

[Listener/Caller]

And he says, if we can find a way to prolong that decay in our intestines, and maybe we can prolong it in the rest of our bodies.

[Expert/Scientist]

And then he says, maybe there's a solution, because, you know, in Bulgaria, people live that long.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

It is interesting to point out that this microbe is found in sour milk, consumed in large quantities by Bulgarians. An erin renowned for the longevity of its inhabitants.

[Expert/Scientist]

He connected all these dots together. We age because in the intestines, it is rotting. And lactic acid that is produced in sour milk can stop this rotting by killing the bacteria that cause the rotting. And there you have proof. All over the world, you know, newspapers started running, running stories.

[Listener/Caller]

The Chicago Daily Tribune. Sour milk is elixir, secret of long life discovered by Professor Metchnikoff.

[Expert/Scientist]

And there was no turning back.

[Listener/Caller]

Drink sour milk and live to be 180 years old.

[Expert/Scientist]

I mean, this started a real mania. Yogurt mania.

[Historical Figure]

The London Telegraph, the Washington Post.

[Listener/Caller]

People who wish to live to 100 breakfast off of yogurt exclusively. That one lecture, Luba says, started a global yogurt trend that still exists today.

[Expert/Scientist]

I think it's rare to trace the beginning of an industry to a single event. Event. But in this case, I can pretty much. I can say, you know, that the yogurt industry started with that lecture.

[Listener/Caller]

Much later, we'd find out that yogurt was probably not the only reason people in that region of Bulgaria lived so long. But it didn't really matter. Pharmacies started stocking yogurt. Doctors recommended it to patients. People used it as a disinfectant or preparation for surgery, even to treat some diseases. This stuff was all over the place.

[Expert/Scientist]

There were ads. This cafe on one of the Parisian boulevards advertised Bulgarian curdled milk.

[Caller/Listener]

The yogurt crease kind of, you know, grew and grew.

[Expert/Scientist]

I saw pictures of Denona, which I think in the States is called Dannon.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah, Dannon yogurt.

[Caller/Listener]

I mean, I don't even know how many different brands of yogurt we have today, but Dannon is still there.

[Listener/Caller]

Even breakfast cereal pioneer John Harvey Kellogg reached out to Metchnikoff. His face was everywhere.

[Expert/Scientist]

They sold cups of yogurt and it said, recommended by Professor Metchnikov in the medical profession. It was totally got out of hand completely. There was all this hype and all this hoopla about it that he had no control over.

[Listener/Caller]

This wasn't exactly what Metchnikov had wanted throughout his career. He was always arguing over how the media took his research and ran with it or twisted his words. He gave caveats to his work. He called his ideas theories.

[Expert/Scientist]

He tried sort of to present the facts and to separate it from the hype, but it was just way too late. The good thing about yogurt was that it was harmless because so many cures for aging were terrible and dangerous and lethal. And yogurt was cheap and it was safe and easily available, so it was irresistible.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikov was a scientist, but he was also a showman. Maybe yogurt wasn't a magic elixir, but science would still find the answers. Coming up, Metchnikov returns to Russia to face one of his biggest critics. He's 63 years old and he doesn't know it yet, but he's running out of time. Foreign I'm Gerald Smith from Zurich in Switzerland, and you are listening to Throughline from npr. Lately on the NPR Politics podcast, we're talking about a big question.

[Modern Expert]

How much can one guy change?

[Expert/Scientist]

They want change.

[Listener/Caller]

What will change look like for energy?

[Expert/Scientist]

Drill bit schools take the Department of Education, close it. Health care better and less expensive.

[Listener/Caller]

Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept.

[Expert/Scientist]

We're going to keep our promises on.

[Listener/Caller]

The NPR Politics podcast.

[Caller/Listener]

Part three, Winter is Coming.

[Historical Figure]

It was at dawn that we reached a little railway station where a carriage had come to meet us on a.

[Listener/Caller]

Cloudy May morning in 1909, Eli Metchnikov, bow tie and gray coat, and his wife Olga, white blouse, straw hat, descend from an overnight train.

[Historical Figure]

We were excited by the sight of the Russian country, cool meadows, forests, fields, all the simple landscapes that we had not seen for so long. And we were also greatly moved at the idea of meeting Tolstoy.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikoff has returned to Russia, where he was born, to visit the writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy.

[Expert/Scientist]

So he was looking to Sort of to solve the riddle of aging on all levels. He was looking for partners in this quest.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

I had long wanted to get to know Tolstoy closer, learning in person what he really thought about universal issues that had fascinated me since my youth, especially the basis of morality, the meaning of life and the inevitability of its end.

[Expert/Scientist]

He admired so much. Tolstoy's writing about the fear of death, which are really masterful.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

A man can be master of nothing while ever he fears death. And the man that fears not death possesses everything without suffering. A man would know not his limits.

[Expert/Scientist]

So he thought that Tolstoy must know some secret that I don't.

[Listener/Caller]

This wasn't just some random meeting. Although the two had never met, their work had been in conversation for years. Tolstoy was critical of Metchnikov's work and threw shade on science in general.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Scientists can't tell useful knowledge from useless. They study such topics as the sexual organs of the amoeba only because this allows them to live like lords.

[Listener/Caller]

And Metchnikov had written responses about Tolstoy, warning of the dangers of discarding science and embracing just spirituality.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

In certain cases, his teaching had caused young researchers to drop science, burn their dissertations and join communes to start a new life.

[Listener/Caller]

Now it's time to talk face to face. Metchnikov had minds now. He needed hearts. At Tolstoy's estate, Metchnikov notes its simplicity, the furniture functional but old. Any airs of luxury done away with. Tolstoy, 80, with a white flowing beard and white shirt, bounces down the stairs full of energy.

[Expert/Scientist]

The reporter called it a meeting of two monarchs of universal literature and science.

[Listener/Caller]

The two spend the day together debating science versus religion, debating as they ride in a carriage, debating after listening to piano works by Chopin, debating over tea.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

I highly value genuine science, one that is interested in man, his fate and happiness.

Any ideal that may be capable of uniting mankind in some religion of the future future must be based on scientific principles.

[Listener/Caller]

For Metchnikov, science and reasoning always key. For Tolstoy, morals above all. If we are going to submit everything.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

To reasoning, we can arrive at the most absurd nonsense. I dare say in that case it would be possible to justify cannibalism.

Progress doesn't necessarily have to be based on people's love for one another.

[Listener/Caller]

When it came to Metchnikoff's current work on aging, the trouble is not that.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Our life is too short, but that we live badly, contrary to our own conscience.

[Expert/Scientist]

So the only thing on which they agreed was yogurt. Because Tolstoy Turned out loved yogurt. But other than that, it was pretty much a disaster, the meeting. Meshikov very candidly, very honestly wrote about this himself. Afterwards.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Tolstoy noted that at the end of the day, our worldviews coincide, but with this difference. He takes a spiritual perspective and I take a material one.

[Expert/Scientist]

Komeshakov was much more spiritual than Tolstoy gave him credit for. He did try, I think, understand human psychology. And I think he thought that somehow, together with Tolstoy, he could get closer to cracking this riddle of, you know, what really happens in human psyche, in the human mind. How, you know, we feel like that, how we feel when we age. Why, you know, this fear of death. And of course, it just, you know, totally crashed. You know, the meeting didn't work at all.

[Listener/Caller]

And Tolstoy and Mentchnikov's dispute of science versus religion fit into this larger yield European debate at the time over how to view and improve life at the.

[Expert/Scientist]

Turn of the 20th century. This was a very dominant dichotomy between pessimism and optimism. Sort of your belief, you know, about the world. Is the world getting better?

[Listener/Caller]

For Tolstoy, the answer was no. So morality, love and faith in the here and now was the most important, important. But Metchnikov, an optimist, saw things differently. In headlines, the New York Times had crowned him the apostle of optimism, but of course he continued to age.

[Expert/Scientist]

In some of the Russian newspapers, he was bragging about how good he felt. He was saying that this is working. Look, you know, I'm eating yogurt three times a day. I believe, you know, it's doing me a lot of good. And look how vigorous I am.

[Listener/Caller]

Metchnikov's outwardly positive science will save us all outlook was getting harder to maintain. In 1914, as his research continued, the headlines made a dark world impossible to ignore. Assassin's bullet strikes down Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Germany declares war on Russia. England declares war on Germany. 25,000 dead and wounded.

[Sponsor Announcement]

Peace refused by France.

[Listener/Caller]

War declared all Europe in turmoil.

[Expert/Scientist]

What really killed him was World War I. He was such a believer in rational thought, in science. He thought that there will be no more wars, that the world had learned from that. And he was devastated when war broke out and all science stopped. At the pasteur Institute.

[Listener/Caller]

Over 100 people at the Pasteur Institute get recruited to the war effort.

[Expert/Scientist]

His wife describes it like how overnight he turned into an old man.

[Historical Figure]

He could not bear the idea now a terrible reality, that these brilliant young lives should be sacrificed.

[Listener/Caller]

War, she wrote, became a dark, sinister Background to his daily life. And even though he had tried to convince tolstoy that science had the answers to everything that now looked empty in the face of a world war, he'd always thought his purpose in life was to help people reach their death instinct, right to live longer and live healthier until they felt ready to go. The idea that humans would willfully create so much death crushed him.

[Historical Figure]

The contrast between his aspiration and the cruel reality had been to him a blow which his sensitive and suffering heart was not fit to bear.

[Expert/Scientist]

In 1916. So this is already, what, like more than a year after the war started, his health began to deteriorate and he developed heart disease, heart failure. In terms of the fear of death, he kept coming back to this, and he kept saying that, I have conquered my fear of death. I've conquered it. And the truth is that you end up feeling the exact opposite, because had it been true, I don't think he would have had the need to repeat it so many times. So it was obviously something that he was still struggling with, I think, till the end of his life.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Let all those who expected me to live 100 years or longer forgive me my premature death.

[Caller/Listener]

So he died from a heart attack. And the most moments before he died, he asked his assistant to carefully look into his intestines and see what's there once he was gone.

[Expert/Scientist]

He died in 1916 at 71, not even halfway to the 150 that he thought, you know, people should live. Many people were all over the world were disappointed. There were headlines saying, you know, what have you done? You know, we believed, you know, because even despite all the skepticism, I think people wanted to believe that maybe it's true. Maybe he has found a recipe, a cure.

[Listener/Caller]

He secret to a good life.

[Historical Figure]

I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I want to do.

[Expert/Scientist]

I want to have a baby.

[Modern Expert]

Aging is not inevitable anymore. Companies are betting big money on it.

[Expert/Scientist]

If we can slow aging enough, then we will be happy.

[Modern Expert]

If you're concerned about preventing or minimizing the signs of aging, then this video is for.

[Expert/Scientist]

These are the nine anti aging foods.

[Sponsor Announcement]

Can slow down the aging process.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

You know, we should all be so lucky to age and grow old and get to experience this part of life. When you try and imagine it when you're younger, you think you may not want to be there because you get these images in your head of being bent over, you know, using these walkers, and you don't want that to happen to you. But once you get out Here, you know, you look around and you go, hey, nothing's different. I'm just older.

[Listener/Caller]

This is Jay Olshansky, professor of Public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He's one of the people today following in Eli Metchnikoff's footsteps.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

I've been working in the field of aging for almost 40 years, trying to.

[Listener/Caller]

Figure out why people live as long as we do and how to make that last even longer. In the year 2000, a few years after Eli Metchnikov would have turned 150, Jay made a bet.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Basically, the bet was all about whether or not anyone alive in the year 2000 would be alive in the year 2150.

[Listener/Caller]

Could science keep someone alive until they're 150 years old?

[Philosopher/Scientist]

My good friend thought that it was possible. And I said, no, it's not possible. The process of living itself leads to the degradation, the continuous degradation that ultimately leads to the demise of mind or body. And we have components of the body.

[Listener/Caller]

That don't replicate, muscle fibers, brain neurons, parts of our bodies that power on life and degrade as you age.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Those are our Achilles heels. So we can't get these bodies to last that long unless we turn the engine of life off. And when you turn the engine of life off, you're dead.

[Listener/Caller]

But Jay believes in the promise of science. It's taken us so far already. People live much longer than they did in Metchnikoff's day. Jay thinks science will take us even farther so that we can live healthier longer.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Do I know which one of these interventions is going to succeed? No, I don't know. All we need is one that does.

[Listener/Caller]

The human desire to beat aging began way before Metchnikov and will likely last way after. J.

[Caller/Listener]

Nobody likes to die, so we want to extend the lifespan as much as possible and health span as much as possible, kind of just how much Nikov envisioned. And with that goal, we keep searching.

[Philosopher/Scientist]

Winter will come for me. It will come for all of us. The question is when? And what can we do to do what's the most important thing, in my view, which is to enjoy life while we're here. We only get to go through this journey once. And, you know, for humans, it's about 29 to 30,000 days. That's all we get. It varies, but that's it. 29 to 30,000 days. That's it.

[Listener/Caller]

Though in some ways, some of us get more than that. Eli Metchnikov wasn't able to beat. Beat aging, but he's still with us in fridges and on breakfast tables everywhere. That's it for this week's show.

[Expert/Scientist]

I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

[Narrator]

I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to Throughline from npr.

[Listener/Caller]

Next week in our series the History.

[Modern Expert]

Of the Self, we explore what's hiding in our dreams.

[Expert/Scientist]

Dreams are a process of adaptation.

[Listener/Caller]

Dreams have to do with preparing the dreamer for the next day. They're not random at all. This episode was produced by me and.

[Narrator]

Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya.

[Listener/Caller]

Steinberg, Casey Miner, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama, Peter Balanon, Rosen, Thomas Liu, Irene Noguchi.

[Narrator]

Thanks to Leslie Kossoff, Susan Evans, Sam Evans, Carol Hacker, Stefan Hubinoff and Anandita Palero. Also thanks to Sasha Solieva, Zachar Kinserski, Artem Kuznisov, Peter Balanon Rosen, Anya Steinberg, Thomas Liu and Laurent for their voiceover work.

[Listener/Caller]

Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel.

[Narrator]

This episode was mixed by Maggie Luthar. Thanks to Johannes Durgi, Edith Chapin, Colin Campbell and Anya Grundman.

[Listener/Caller]

Music was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which includes Anya Mizani, Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara.

[Narrator]

And finally, if you have an idea or like something, something you heard on the show, please write [e-mail] thanks for listening.

[Sponsor Announcement]

This message comes from Capella University. With Capella's flexpath learning format, you can set your own deadlines and learn on your schedule. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn [e-mail] support for this podcast and the following message come from arm. ARM CEO Rene Haas discusses leadership and the role of AI in national security with the head of Palantir's defense business, Mike Gallagher in the latest episode of Tech Unheard, available on all podcast platforms.

[Modern Expert]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Squarespace. Measure your end to end online performance with powerful website and seller analytics. Get insights, track sales metrics and more. Go to squarespace.com NPR for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.