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How can some centenarians lead unhealthy lives? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. It's freezing
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Speaker 1: in here. It's not that cold you need to put
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Speaker 1: on a sweater or something. Well, uh, I didn't expect
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Speaker 1: it to be chilly. It is a little chilly. Our
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Speaker 1: producer Jerry's wearing a hooded twitter and the vest. That's
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Speaker 1: kind of a giveaway. Chuck, Well, she stylished the way
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Speaker 1: she is she is. So everybody, Um, if you haven't
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Speaker 1: figured out by now, this is stuff you should know. Um.
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Speaker 1: And uh, Chuck and I are going to talk about death.
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Speaker 1: It's part of our death suite kind of yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: realized Everest Bizarre and then this one. Right, And if
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Speaker 1: you don't know what we're talking about, it means that
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Speaker 1: they've been published out of order. So just look forward
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Speaker 1: to a lot of death from S Y s K. Right. Yes, Okay,
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Speaker 1: So Chuck, I'm pretty sure you're fully aware that I
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Speaker 1: don't leave a very healthy life. I yes, I know
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Speaker 1: that have certain vices that are disgusting and um, suicidal. Right,
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Speaker 1: that's one of many. Basically I shouldn't be walking around
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Speaker 1: right now. Um, and I've come to um kind of
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Speaker 1: take hope in. Uh. Someone who's become one of my
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Speaker 1: personal heroes a woman named Madame Jeanne Clement. And Madame
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Speaker 1: Clement was a frenchwoman, as her name would indicate, and
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Speaker 1: she in she died happy and healthy, um and a
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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two years old. Amazing. And the greatest
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Speaker 1: part about Madame Clement is that she smoked until she
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Speaker 1: was a hundred. So I've got what sixty eight more
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Speaker 1: years before i have to quit, if you know, I
1:48
Speaker 1: want to possibly live to a hundred and twenty two,
1:50
Speaker 1: to live another twenty two years, right, and there there
1:53
Speaker 1: are caveats to that, right, Um, you know, I plan
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Speaker 1: on raging against the dying of the light unless you know,
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Speaker 1: I get like a terminal cancer diagnosis or there's something
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Speaker 1: that that I'm not going to be able to get
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Speaker 1: out of and it equals like horrible death and then yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm not going to go go easy. No,
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Speaker 1: actually no, the opposite. I'm gonna go very easy, but
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Speaker 1: it will be by my own hand. Yeah, so that's
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Speaker 1: my plan. But I'd rather lived a hundred twenty two
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Speaker 1: and just you know, have the a FP take photos
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Speaker 1: of me and post them on Getty images that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing. You just want to be a hundred with
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Speaker 1: a smoke in your hand, Yeah, totally, and be like,
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Speaker 1: don't smoke, kids, it's really bad for you. My grandmother
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Speaker 1: lived to be a hundred, did Yeah you know what, right?
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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, a hundred years old? Yes, there's another word
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Speaker 1: for that. Is it a centurion? That's very close? Did
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Speaker 1: she combat people and and or anything? No, centenarian centenary.
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Speaker 1: Anybody who lives to age one hundred or older is
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Speaker 1: automatically a centenarian, right. She passed away between one hundred
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Speaker 1: and one one. Good for her. She made it to
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Speaker 1: this centenarian status. So, um, what was she a healthy person?
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Speaker 1: Did she lead a healthy life? Yeah? I mean she
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Speaker 1: was from the South and uh so she ingested a
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Speaker 1: lot of grease and fried foods over her life. But
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Speaker 1: she didn't drink and she didn't smoke. She you know,
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Speaker 1: grew on vegetable stuff like that. Now, that's that's generally
3:22
Speaker 1: the rule of thumb. If you're going to lead a
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Speaker 1: very long life, especially a healthy long life. They're certainly like,
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Speaker 1: you can't drink, you can't smoke, you have to foreswear
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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Um, So basically you can lead
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Speaker 1: a long, healthy, boring life, right. Um. But there's people
3:38
Speaker 1: like Madame Clement who kind of fly in the face
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Speaker 1: of this notion, like you're you're she she should have
3:45
Speaker 1: been dead many many years before she did die from
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Speaker 1: lung cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, any any number of things, um,
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Speaker 1: and she wasn't. So that kind of leads us to
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Speaker 1: this question of how can people like her? And she's
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Speaker 1: not the only one. She's definitely a rarity, but she's
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Speaker 1: not the only person who who's lived that that led
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Speaker 1: us slightly unhealthy life but lived a very long, healthy one.
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Speaker 1: So how is this possible? Right? And this is there's
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Speaker 1: actually a field of research, aging research, dedicated to longevity,
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Speaker 1: so it's not dumb luck. But they're trying to figure
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Speaker 1: out there's got to be something to this. Yeah, And
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Speaker 1: the weird thing is is I have a pretty high
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Speaker 1: chance of actually making it a lot longer than I should,
4:26
Speaker 1: although I should probably insert here as you know, the
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Speaker 1: death clock gives me till but a gypsy once. I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: a Roma once read my palm and told me I
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Speaker 1: had till eighty seven. So I'm not sure which one's right.
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Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go with the Roma. Well, what
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Speaker 1: would the other one put you at? Um, sixty five?
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Speaker 1: I think, well, between six and eighty seven, that's pretty good. Well,
4:52
Speaker 1: the thing is is if I if I make it
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Speaker 1: to sixty five, I'm that's not very long. Yeah, eighty
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Speaker 1: seven is definitely long, but I think if you look
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Speaker 1: at it in perspective, by the time i'm eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: eight seven will probably be like sixty five is now.
5:06
Speaker 1: Either way I'm going down, I can tell, but you'll
5:08
Speaker 1: look like you're exactly So. Um, how did we get
5:13
Speaker 1: on this one? You need you to leave me back there, buddy,
5:15
Speaker 1: Well we need to go back. It's Jeans, Josh oh No. First, first, yes,
5:21
Speaker 1: they're pretty sure that it is Jenes. Surely there's a
5:24
Speaker 1: genetic cause. And the whole reason why there's pretty much
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Speaker 1: evidentiary proof that that genes do play role is that
5:32
Speaker 1: this whole families of centenarians and if if genetics didn't
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Speaker 1: play a major role in longevity, uh, then the the
5:42
Speaker 1: probability of a family having like three or four UM
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Speaker 1: centenarians is like astronomically unlikely, right, So, yes, genes play
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Speaker 1: a role, but there's another mechanism that the kind of
5:53
Speaker 1: a physiological mechanism, the starvation. Yeah, yeah, restricted caloric intake.
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Speaker 1: And it's gonna say, right it is, well just you know,
6:03
Speaker 1: just through observation um and in studies in like worms
6:08
Speaker 1: and uh, I think yeast, yeast, yeast ratch, which is
6:12
Speaker 1: a fun guy, not a plant, by the way, we've
6:14
Speaker 1: learned many times over. Yeah, but the rats in particular
6:17
Speaker 1: are the ones who are really kind of giving up
6:19
Speaker 1: the secrets of what genes might lie behind us. But
6:22
Speaker 1: you want to talk about a clerk restricted diet first,
6:24
Speaker 1: and what happens with that, Well, yeah, they found out
6:27
Speaker 1: they did some like you were talking about tests on rats,
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Speaker 1: and they found that the rats fewer calories than their
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Speaker 1: beefy counterparts, uh called caloric restriction. Uh. They live longer,
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Speaker 1: so and healthier. Evidently longer and healthier. Part of it
6:46
Speaker 1: is a leanness leads to um longevity and health. Generally,
6:51
Speaker 1: fat is although our body has a mechanism for storing
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Speaker 1: it in. Uh. In the lean times, if you'll forgive me, Um,
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Speaker 1: it's actually not very good for us. We we make
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Speaker 1: much better use of carbohydrates and proteins UM and other nutrients. Um.
7:07
Speaker 1: That's kind of like that. The it's it's the bottom
7:09
Speaker 1: of the barrel nutrient right right. I know when I
7:12
Speaker 1: was doing my survival work in the how long can
7:15
Speaker 1: you live without food and water? That kind of thing
7:17
Speaker 1: that when you start to starve, your fats are the
7:19
Speaker 1: first thing to go than carbohydrates and the proteins, which
7:22
Speaker 1: means that's your body itself. Right. So um, So we
7:26
Speaker 1: know that a caloric restricted diet is a good thing,
7:30
Speaker 1: but we just what what longevity researchers are trying to
7:33
Speaker 1: figure out it is exactly how this keeps us um
7:39
Speaker 1: healthy and the mechanism behind it. Right. So, one one
7:42
Speaker 1: of the genes that's been studied is the s I
7:45
Speaker 1: R T one gene. That's one, and it's my favorite
7:48
Speaker 1: the longevity genes. Yes, well mind the other one. We'll
7:50
Speaker 1: get to this, okay. Well, which, by the way, I've
7:52
Speaker 1: dubbed the ponta da leon gene like that. Did you
7:56
Speaker 1: notice that in the article that was all Josh I believe, Okay? So, Um,
8:00
Speaker 1: the s I R T one gene actually curiously was
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Speaker 1: studied by two independent studies, one at Harvard and one
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Speaker 1: at m I T. And they both published their findings
8:12
Speaker 1: in June two four, within like sixteen days of one another. Yeah,
8:15
Speaker 1: it kind of makes me wonder if they were, you know,
8:17
Speaker 1: looking on each other's test paper. Can't you see like
8:20
Speaker 1: some eggheads like huddled over like the study um so uh.
8:25
Speaker 1: What one of them found was that the s i
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Speaker 1: r T one gene inhibits the expression of this protein
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Speaker 1: called backs. Right, no matter whether your cells are doing
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Speaker 1: well or damaged, they have a specific life time right
8:43
Speaker 1: right there, They have a lifespan and they could be
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Speaker 1: healthy as an ox. But once they reached this the
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Speaker 1: end of this lifespan, um, this protein backs comes in
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Speaker 1: and actually creates a poptosis, and a poptosis is um
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Speaker 1: program cellular death. Like it's an execute. Wow. Now, what
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Speaker 1: s i r T one does is it prevents the
9:03
Speaker 1: expression of of backs, right, and so therefore it grant
9:08
Speaker 1: sells a stay of execution so they can keep working longer.
9:12
Speaker 1: And it's ultimately cellular death that that leads to death
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Speaker 1: from old age, non disease, non environmental factors, but just
9:20
Speaker 1: your cell stop dividing and reproducing and stop function about it. Right,
9:25
Speaker 1: So the s I r T one gene has been
9:27
Speaker 1: shown to produce that, right, But it also um it
9:30
Speaker 1: also creates a process where fat is shed more quickly,
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Speaker 1: so you become leaner basically with a reduced calorie diet,
9:41
Speaker 1: your body inner survival mode and s I r T
9:43
Speaker 1: one really comes into play. But as you said, you
9:47
Speaker 1: have another favorite gene, which indicates that there's that's not
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Speaker 1: the only gene involved in this. No, and and I'll
9:52
Speaker 1: likelihood there's probably more than one gene involved at a
9:56
Speaker 1: time as well. Yeah, there's there's a guy who's conducting
9:58
Speaker 1: his study of massage you sits on longevity, and he
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Speaker 1: he says probably about eight thousand genes are responsible for it.
10:06
Speaker 1: Is that Dawkins. No, that's Pearls I believe is his name.
10:10
Speaker 1: We'll get the Dawkins too, right, Yeah, oh yeah, I
10:12
Speaker 1: promise me. I promised, uh, my favorite gene, Josh. And
10:16
Speaker 1: this category is I don't know how you would say it,
10:19
Speaker 1: f O x O three so three A I like
10:21
Speaker 1: fox O three A. Yeah, that's what we'll call it.
10:24
Speaker 1: And that when they tested on worms and it had
10:26
Speaker 1: a definite effect on the lifespan of a worm. Uh.
10:29
Speaker 1: They were able to turn this gene on and off
10:31
Speaker 1: by adding compounds that basically target and shut down these
10:38
Speaker 1: specific genes. Yeah, they're called the gene silencing compounds. They've
10:41
Speaker 1: used them to create tearless onions. Oh really, Yeah, how
10:44
Speaker 1: I need to get some of those stuff kills me.
10:47
Speaker 1: I prepared to pay seventeen bucks an onion. Nough pal really. Oh,
10:50
Speaker 1: genetic research didn't come cheap. Yeah, I guess I'll just
10:53
Speaker 1: fry as they cook. Uh. So um. Yeah, they found
10:57
Speaker 1: out when they had the gene turned on, the worms
11:00
Speaker 1: lived a lot longer. So uh. They also found that
11:04
Speaker 1: the same gene was in a lot of elderly Japanese people,
11:08
Speaker 1: and Okinawa has the largest concentration per capita of centenarians
11:14
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the world. And centurions, yeah, they're still
11:17
Speaker 1: running around. Uh. And they also found it in elderly Germans.
11:21
Speaker 1: So that kind of proved that it's not you know,
11:23
Speaker 1: drawn along continental or racial bounds. Right. And there's there's
11:27
Speaker 1: there's another Um, there's another gene. It's the insulin growth
11:32
Speaker 1: factor one gene one, yeah, good one. And they found
11:36
Speaker 1: that in a in a population of Ashkenazi Jews. You
11:43
Speaker 1: know what those are? Look that up. I I know,
11:45
Speaker 1: apparently they're Jewish people that from medieval Jewish people in
11:49
Speaker 1: Western Germany, so direct descendants of that line. I got you,
11:53
Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, I knew that they were a very
11:54
Speaker 1: specific um group. But they found in women in this
12:00
Speaker 1: group that the i g F one gene had a mutation,
12:04
Speaker 1: and i g F one is partly responsible for creating
12:07
Speaker 1: growth hormone. And these women are generally small in stature
12:11
Speaker 1: as well. Um, and one of the researchers who connected
12:16
Speaker 1: the study on them, I just found this kind of
12:19
Speaker 1: flawed logic. I mean, it makes sense, but sometimes biologists,
12:23
Speaker 1: geneticists and you know, evolutionists make certain leaps. They go
12:28
Speaker 1: from A to C without hitting B as we like
12:30
Speaker 1: to say, which I've done before. And yeah, I was
12:34
Speaker 1: not mad at you, by the way. Um. So this
12:38
Speaker 1: one researcher positive that, you know, because they're smaller, they're
12:41
Speaker 1: living longer, and a pony lives longer than a horse.
12:45
Speaker 1: And I was, I don't know, for some reason that
12:47
Speaker 1: just I was like, back that up, dude, you know, um,
12:50
Speaker 1: But I think the more likely explanation is that cancer
12:54
Speaker 1: has been shown to be fueled by growth hormones. So
12:57
Speaker 1: if you're producing last, that would lead you to believe
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Speaker 1: that you're you have less of a likelihood of dying
13:02
Speaker 1: of candida. That's an adcy I can get behind right now.
13:05
Speaker 1: The the problem is is this shouldn't just express itself
13:10
Speaker 1: in women, this mutation or should it. Let's talk about
13:14
Speaker 1: Richard Dawkins zoologists. Yes, yes, he has a theory that
13:19
Speaker 1: um or perhaps a hypothesis, as we've been corrected, not
13:23
Speaker 1: the same thing. That everything that can reproduce basically is
13:28
Speaker 1: only a vessel for its genes, for carrying out you know,
13:31
Speaker 1: and putting your genes and your son or daughter, and
13:34
Speaker 1: then that goes on and their son or daughter, and
13:36
Speaker 1: it's a vessel essentially. Right, We're basically like a yeah,
13:40
Speaker 1: we're a vessel for a genetic line. Almost it's so
13:44
Speaker 1: disturbing to look at it like this, but almost like
13:46
Speaker 1: a parasite, you know what I'm saying. Like everything we're doing,
13:49
Speaker 1: every flaw we have, every every good thing that's going
13:53
Speaker 1: on with us is genetic, right, and then we die,
13:57
Speaker 1: but our genetic klein gets passed on. It's surely so
14:00
Speaker 1: if you look at it like that, then the genes
14:02
Speaker 1: would only be concerned with getting us to reproduction age,
14:05
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't care whether or not. Right that, they
14:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't concern itself with the Evolutionarily speaking, it's pretty interesting.
14:13
Speaker 1: But the thing is is, um, there is a case
14:16
Speaker 1: you could make for women having longevity genes but not men. Well,
14:20
Speaker 1: so they could reproduce longer. Yeah, they would have a
14:23
Speaker 1: healthier lifespan and thus their reproductive age would be greater,
14:27
Speaker 1: so they could produce more offspring and the genetic line
14:29
Speaker 1: would would have even more of a chance of survival. Yeah,
14:32
Speaker 1: but women only produced reproduced for what like half their
14:35
Speaker 1: life roughly, I don't I don't think even that. Let's
14:38
Speaker 1: say like fifteen to fifty. Yeah, I was just thinking
14:42
Speaker 1: about the end date. Actually that's probably about half a lifetime. Sure, Yeah,
14:45
Speaker 1: depending on who you are. Although fifty I don't even
14:47
Speaker 1: know if you could do that. That's probably kind of
14:49
Speaker 1: a freak occurrence if you're fifty and have a kid. Yeah,
14:52
Speaker 1: I think anything over forty is isn't always guaranteed yeh.
14:56
Speaker 1: And medically speaking, even a thirty five is considered how
15:00
Speaker 1: risk pregnancy today inya, so that's Dawkins position, and um
15:07
Speaker 1: the O B g y n Ruth Fettes was the
15:09
Speaker 1: one who posited that um hypothesis of that explanation of
15:14
Speaker 1: why women would have a long devity gene and not men. Clearly,
15:19
Speaker 1: though we don't really have an idea yet, or else
15:23
Speaker 1: we we, this podcast would have been much shorter. We
15:25
Speaker 1: would have said, it's the FOXO three a gene. You know,
15:29
Speaker 1: it could be, it could have a part, It could be,
15:31
Speaker 1: but I think more likely it's it's a bunch of
15:33
Speaker 1: jeens working together. Yeah, and once we figure it out,
15:37
Speaker 1: we're gonna figure out how to harness it. We're all
15:38
Speaker 1: gonna be walking around at twenty five getting in boxing
15:42
Speaker 1: matches with kangaroos. Still, Uh, We're you gonna mention the
15:46
Speaker 1: Hayflick limit because I thought that was kind of cool.
15:48
Speaker 1: You kind of talked about it earlier, but that I
15:50
Speaker 1: didn't know this until i'd read the article. You were
15:52
Speaker 1: talking about cells having a shelf life basically until they
15:56
Speaker 1: can die out or as many times as they can
15:58
Speaker 1: can split, and the Hayflick limit. Um. Dr Hayflick Leonard
16:03
Speaker 1: Hayflick noticed that fifty times is the number that a
16:08
Speaker 1: cell can can split and then it stops. Right. But
16:10
Speaker 1: he also figured out that if you take an old
16:13
Speaker 1: cell and put a young nucleus in it, it'll keep
16:16
Speaker 1: going just also very coolm right. And then as it
16:19
Speaker 1: as it reaches closer and closer to that fifty fifty
16:22
Speaker 1: division limit, it starts to slow down more and more,
16:25
Speaker 1: and then it finally gets the fifty and stops. But yeah,
16:27
Speaker 1: you can, um, you can replace the nucleus and it
16:32
Speaker 1: will jam on it interesting, much like a old man
16:37
Speaker 1: goes after a younger woman. Let's go out on a
16:39
Speaker 1: morality tail, Chuck. I think that's a good idea. Yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: you want to talk about old Tom Parr. Old Tom Parr.
16:45
Speaker 1: Is that actually how he's known? Actually they knew him
16:48
Speaker 1: as old par but yeah Tom Parr. Yeah, but old
16:51
Speaker 1: Tom Parr. Yeah, I could. I could hardly believe this,
16:54
Speaker 1: but since you came up with it, I will believe it.
16:56
Speaker 1: Um par was a hundred I'm sorry. He was born
17:00
Speaker 1: in fourteen eighty three, so we need to point out
17:03
Speaker 1: that at the time, in fourteen eighty three year lifespan
17:05
Speaker 1: was what two something like that, That's what I read. Um.
17:10
Speaker 1: He lived as a single man until he was eighty,
17:13
Speaker 1: so he more than doubled his lifespan already, which is amazing.
17:17
Speaker 1: And then he got married and started having kids at
17:20
Speaker 1: eighty and at a hundred. Uh he apparently fathered an
17:26
Speaker 1: illegitimate child with another woman. Yeah, he was publicly chastised. Uh.
17:30
Speaker 1: He was three times the age at this point almost
17:34
Speaker 1: and he had an llegitimate Yeah. Yeah, he was killing
17:37
Speaker 1: it basically. Um. Everybody else is just dying around him
17:41
Speaker 1: and he's fathering illegitimate children at age one hundred, right, Um,
17:45
Speaker 1: and he actually uh, he became fairly well known in
17:48
Speaker 1: England as you can imagine. Um, his birthdate is tentative,
17:52
Speaker 1: but they're pretty sure based on the age that he
17:54
Speaker 1: supposedly entered the service, um that he was born around.
17:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, and they know exactly when he died. So
18:02
Speaker 1: even if it was off, it could have been off
18:03
Speaker 1: by not too terribly much. Huh. Um. So so this guy,
18:08
Speaker 1: he was asked many times like what his secret was.
18:11
Speaker 1: And he was like a real salt of the earth
18:12
Speaker 1: farmer who liked to you know, father illegitimate children. Um.
18:16
Speaker 1: But he ate like a very steady diet. Um. He
18:21
Speaker 1: drank um, not meat, I guess he drank ale fairly regularly,
18:25
Speaker 1: but he I vibed in cider only on special occasions,
18:28
Speaker 1: So I guess cider was a lot stronger back hard stuff. Yeah. Um,
18:33
Speaker 1: And he just kind of lived as much of a
18:35
Speaker 1: healthy life as people lived in the fifteen, sixteenth, and
18:38
Speaker 1: seventeen centuries. The guy made it to see three centuries right,
18:41
Speaker 1: unbelievable what God him was at the age of a
18:44
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two? Um, this this uh courtier who
18:48
Speaker 1: had fallen out of grace with King Charles um decided
18:51
Speaker 1: he was going to get back in the King's good
18:52
Speaker 1: graces by bringing old Tom Parr to court and basically
18:57
Speaker 1: parading him around. Like check, this whole guy always a
18:59
Speaker 1: hunt two. So old Tom Parr this is first taste
19:05
Speaker 1: of like court life and basically he parties like a
19:07
Speaker 1: rock star for two weeks dead. And I mean, you
19:11
Speaker 1: think a hundred and fifty two now is just unthinkable.
19:15
Speaker 1: And this is when the average life fan is thirty
19:17
Speaker 1: two years, so I can't even imagine he must have been.
19:20
Speaker 1: That was a terrible idea, it was, And you have
19:23
Speaker 1: to imagine, like did King Charles in this disgraced courtier.
19:27
Speaker 1: I mean, like It's almost like um ending up with
19:30
Speaker 1: some sort of thrill kill Colt and then you know,
19:32
Speaker 1: dying because you weren't. You're totally out of like your
19:35
Speaker 1: your league, you know, kind of thing like did they
19:37
Speaker 1: feel bad that they killed old m bar getting him
19:40
Speaker 1: wasted and feeding him pig and duck and stuff he
19:43
Speaker 1: had never written before? So yeah, I bet they did. Yeah,
19:46
Speaker 1: I can't tell. I'm curious. I wonder if the history
19:48
Speaker 1: books write about stuff like that. Well, let's find out.
19:50
Speaker 1: Chucking will check out, give an update, and we will
19:52
Speaker 1: follow up. Yeah, well, there's plenty more to read. All
19:55
Speaker 1: you have to do is type in uh, some of
19:58
Speaker 1: the world's oldest people or old then unhealthy in the
20:01
Speaker 1: handy search bar at how stuff works dot com. So, Chuck,
20:06
Speaker 1: let's did you know I have a question for you?
20:08
Speaker 1: Did you know that if you my friend went onto
20:11
Speaker 1: iTunes right now and typed in super stuffed to words
20:15
Speaker 1: into their search bar, our spoken word album would come up.
20:20
Speaker 1: Spoken word album. We have a spoken word album, Chuck.
20:23
Speaker 1: I know that you were kind of zonked for a
20:25
Speaker 1: while while we were doing this. We had to prop
20:27
Speaker 1: him up like a dope monkey. Um, but he did
20:29
Speaker 1: a great job. Regardless. I can only imagine if we
20:32
Speaker 1: get to do another one, which is largely contingent on
20:35
Speaker 1: how many we sell this one. Um that if you're
20:38
Speaker 1: not doped up, we will be able to really excel
20:41
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, so, um, you want to talk about
20:44
Speaker 1: it for a second. Sure, it's it's called the Stuff
20:47
Speaker 1: You Should Know, super Stuffed Guide to the Economy, and
20:50
Speaker 1: Josh and I talk about economics on a broad level
20:54
Speaker 1: and on a small level, granular level, and uh we
20:58
Speaker 1: kind of break it down for the for the everyday
21:00
Speaker 1: Joe that doesn't really understand what's going on in the
21:03
Speaker 1: world of economics, which makes sense because we're every day
21:05
Speaker 1: Joe's got it or layman. I think, as we've put
21:08
Speaker 1: it before, right are Yeah, So it's up for what
21:12
Speaker 1: it's an hour long, it's got all sorts of bells
21:14
Speaker 1: and whistles, interviews. Yeah, there's professional or expert interviews. So yeah,
21:18
Speaker 1: it's it's not just like our regular podcast times four,
21:22
Speaker 1: it's it's exponentially better. Right. We get out of the studio,
21:26
Speaker 1: which is nice for us. Yeah. I think we cut
21:27
Speaker 1: out a lot of buzz, which is vastly different from
21:31
Speaker 1: our regular pod, much more professional. Uh So, Yeah, there's
21:35
Speaker 1: our there's our plug for our audiobook The Stuff You
21:38
Speaker 1: Should Know, super Stuff Guide to the Economy three on
21:41
Speaker 1: iTunes right now. If you want to buy it, we
21:43
Speaker 1: won't be mad at you. We'd love you. And uh,
21:47
Speaker 1: I'm thinking you want to talk about the blog. Sure, Josh,
21:50
Speaker 1: let's talk about the blog. Okay, it's been up for
21:52
Speaker 1: a few weeks now, maybe a month, and we're starting
21:55
Speaker 1: to get some good interaction from the fan. That's nice. Disnice.
21:59
Speaker 1: I do a little blog podcast recap on Fridays, and
22:03
Speaker 1: so if you hear something on Tuesday or Thursday that
22:06
Speaker 1: strikes your fancy, just log onto the blog and leave
22:09
Speaker 1: a comment Josh, and I'll chat it up with you.
22:11
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, it's been cool. Yeah, that is cool.
22:13
Speaker 1: And you can find it through the homepage at how
22:15
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com over on the right side there. Yeah,
22:18
Speaker 1: it has our mugs alternately alternate mugs. Yeah. So yeah,
22:23
Speaker 1: check it out right, Okay, so chuck us about the blogs?
22:26
Speaker 1: Is it time for listener mailed Josh? This one um
22:33
Speaker 1: comes to us from a post postal service worker named
22:37
Speaker 1: Scott and he's from Pismo Beach, California. And remember we
22:42
Speaker 1: did our thing on junk mail. Yes, and how awful
22:44
Speaker 1: and evil it is. Turns out junk mail is actually
22:47
Speaker 1: keeping the Postal Service in business really a large degree. Yeah,
22:52
Speaker 1: and this is something we never consider, and that's why
22:53
Speaker 1: we wanted to read this, because sometimes there's another side
22:55
Speaker 1: of the coin that that we don't really realize, and
22:58
Speaker 1: this is definitely the case. Um, Josh and Chuck, you
23:02
Speaker 1: guys feel like a couple of old poker buddies to me.
23:05
Speaker 1: Very nice way to keep going there. Scott Um writing
23:08
Speaker 1: in response to junk mail. I'm a letter carrier for
23:10
Speaker 1: the US Postal Service, and I can assure you that
23:13
Speaker 1: on a superficial level, I hate junk mail even more
23:16
Speaker 1: than you. I sometimes loathe having to mess with all
23:18
Speaker 1: that seemingly used to scarbage on a daily basis. However,
23:21
Speaker 1: it is a huge source of revenue for the Postal
23:23
Speaker 1: Service and surprisingly it does provide a substantial return for advertisers.
23:28
Speaker 1: And these increasingly difficult, difficult economic times, we post employees
23:32
Speaker 1: are becoming concerned about the future of our jobs. Mail
23:35
Speaker 1: volumes dropped rapidly in the so called junk mails, providing
23:38
Speaker 1: us with much need of business if it were to
23:40
Speaker 1: disappear so would all of our jobs. So before you
23:43
Speaker 1: can call an all out assault on this admittedly minor annoyance,
23:48
Speaker 1: please take a moment to reconsider. I'm willing to put
23:50
Speaker 1: up a little mailbox clutter to keep alive one of
23:52
Speaker 1: our nation's oldest and most important professions. From Scott and m.
23:58
Speaker 1: Giddy up Scott and I believe Eve. Just last week
24:01
Speaker 1: the Postal Service announced a lot of layoffs and this
24:04
Speaker 1: was just a few days ago, So it kind of
24:06
Speaker 1: think we're responsible for it, think so, I hope not?
24:09
Speaker 1: So what we'll tell people then? Junk mail apparently is
24:12
Speaker 1: keeping the postal service open, so do your best to
24:15
Speaker 1: recycle it and uh and deal with things that way.
24:18
Speaker 1: If you want to be taken off a list, you
24:19
Speaker 1: can be taken off a list, But we can't completely
24:21
Speaker 1: stop jumpmail, or else there would be no more Pony Express.
24:25
Speaker 1: It also makes for really good artwork too. Yeah. Well,
24:29
Speaker 1: if you want to give us another perspective, I'm reality.
24:32
Speaker 1: You can dose this by sending an email to stuff
24:35
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com wow for more
24:44
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
24:47
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented
24:52
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you