Transcript of Is the man trying to reverse ageing actually getting younger? | BBC News

I'm visiting one of the world's so-called Blue Zones to find out why its residents live longer, healthier lives than average. Many of those in Loma Linda, California, a Seventh Day adventice, a religious group that really values health and community. Hey, you must be Lara. I'm so good to meet you. Awesome. It's so good to meet you, Lara. Would you like for me to prepare your breakfast. Oh, yes, please. That would be lovely. That would be awesome. What I can see already here looks very healthy and very tasty. Yes, we enjoy fruits and nuts and greens and all of this stuff. We want to eat healthy. We want to exercise because my body is the temple of God. So if I stay strong and clear-minded, I'll be of service. Living this life is centered around what the adventists refer to as the health message. Healthy lifestyle is to refrain from unhealthy activities, more family-oriented lifestyle. Aside from that duty to protect physical health that exists here, community spirit is strong. What I didn't realize was how important socialization is to your brain, and without it, it seems to shrink and go away. And so the ability to just have heart-opening, brain-opening conversations is very, very, very important.

And that mental stimulation matters. As we get older, our brains shrink. We lose brain cells and brain connections. This can impact our memory and our attention spans. It doesn't happen to everyone equally, though.

Our body's age, our brain ages at different speeds based on different things. There are 87-year-olds that are sharp as a whip, and part of its genetics and part of its lifestyle, the life you lead informs your genetics, and your genetics then expresses itself based on the interactions you have with your environment, which is why social interaction is so important. Social interaction is basically exercising your brain.

As we start to understand more about how it works and ages, experts are taking advantage of the power of AI and big data. It helps them see patterns of how cognitive decline can play out, and indeed, the disease process when it comes to something like dementia.

But also other sources.

And it's-Andre Arimio researches brain aging. Based on data from 15,000 brains, he's aiming to provide a better way of predicting decline.

It's looking at a lot of different patterns related not only to shrinking of the brain, but also change in the properties of the signal and the intensity on these MRI scans.

What uses are there in this technology for helping with dementia?

So this shows differences in aging between cognitively normal adults and patients with Alzheimer's disease. Everywhere you see either red or blue, those are areas where aging is occurring in a different way in patients with Alzheimer's.

What impact can that have on both diagnosing and potentially even treating Alzheimer's?

So if we can identify individuals whose brains are aging a lot faster and estimate their risk for disease a lot better. So that either clinicians can provide custom-tailored treatment or individuals themselves can implement lifestyle changes.

I am a professional rejuvenation athlete. I love it.

Tech entrepreneur Brian Johnson is spending millions trying to turn back time on his body. I visited him last year to unearth his extreme and sometimes controversial regime of fitness, fasting, a load of tablets, tracking, and treatments. And I'm back to see how it's going. What have you achieved? What's possible and what's proving challenging?

Hearing still remains something we can't do much about. Heart health, we've made great strides in. My cardiovascular ability, my bone mineral density, my strength.

Can you talk me through what you're looking at in your brain and then any interventions you're doing to try and reverse that biological age?

The brain shrinks and changes over time. So you're looking at the actual brain. And then functionally, you're looking at how it actually works.

But then what can you do next?

So we've done several things. Like last year, When we spoke, I mentioned that I had problems where my posture was poor like this, and it actually- Probably not now. Yeah, I fixed it. And it lessened my blood flow. And so with bad posture, I had white matter hyperintensities. This is like a scarring for the brain. When I fixed my posture, and I did the physical therapy exercises, I reduced my white matter hyperintensities by nine years. I dramatically reduced my brain age by fixing my posture.

What we have to remember is that if you do an experiment on an individual, that is very different than an experiment on a population that can be peer reviewed and replicated.

Maybe, though, we can learn something from the animal world. And one company has been researching ground squirrels, like this one behind me, to see what they're gaining from hibernation. This lot spend half the year going in and out of a state of intense hibernation. Their body temperature drops, and their metabolic rate is turned down to just 1% of normal.

As they're leaving hibernation, they have this amazing adaptation where they're able to regrow these neurons, and they're able to have these neuronal connections again.

Biotech company Fauna has been tracking the animals, aiming to develop drugs to replicate these benefits it's in humans.

One side of the coin is looking at Alzheimer's disease patients and saying, what's different about their proteins, which genes are active or not active? And then we compare that to the opposing biology of the squirrel that we know can modify the protein in a good way and regrow the neurons.

But does that translate into humans?

Yes. 90% of the protein or more looks exactly like the human protein.

Spending six months a year underground isn't generally an option for us, but getting good sleep is crucial.

Sleep is the single most effective thing that you can do each and every day to reset your brain and body health. Your brain has a cleansing system. We knew that your body had one. It's called the lymphatic system. You've heard of that. We didn't think the brain had one, but it does. And it's called the glymphatic system, named after the glial cells that make it up. It was specifically during sleep and during deep sleep that this power cleanse for the brain began to unfold. Why is this relevant for Alzheimer's? Because two of the pieces of metabolic buildup of this detritus that was washed away by the glymphatic system during sleep were things called beta amyloid and tau protein, which are two of the culprits underlying Alzheimer's. You don't start When you start to see the decline in your deep sleep that is associated with Alzheimer's risk in your '60s or your '70s. It begins in your late '30s. So what if I could shift from a model of late-stage treatment to a model of mid-life prevention? Could we start to help the brain at that midlife stage?

Music is a A big part of life here at Loma Linda, and there could be some brain gains. Recent studies suggest that learning a musical instrument or even singing throughout your life could benefit your brain health in later years. It's not only about staying sharp, though. Healthy, happy aging is about the whole package. Mildred was a doctor. She even set up a hospital in Uganda and was working in health care in Loma Linda. You're 103, aren't you?

Yes.

That's an incredible age. How old do you feel?

I'm getting like a worn-out Model T that's falling apart.

How would you describe your quality of life at this point?

Pretty useless. I would never recommend and say, Okay, you pick being old as the way you're going to end your life. Forget it.

You've lived quite some life, and you've had to go through a lot to reach this age. Do you recommend living into your hundreds or not?

I don't think I'd recommend anything about life and its length. I I have tried to be happy, and I've managed pretty well.

Going from talking to Brian Johnson to someone who's 103 made this all seem very real. We need to look after not just our bodies, but our minds. It's just a matter of how important being able to quantify that is. It's certainly going to make difference when it comes to research in the future, and the power of AI and big data is making a lot of that possible. It's just right now, there is no silver bullet.

The power of this computational biology and AI will be to help you understand yourself over time and what the things you do benefit you.

Technology is helping us understand and predict like never before. We know better than ever what we should be doing to look after ourselves. But perhaps Mildred should have the last word.

You absolutely need to be very careful with your diet. It's true, but I'm not done for any You've got to do this and this and this and absolutely not touch this.

Do you think it's more important to live?

I think it's more important to live.