Exploring living longer with steps to improve your ‘real age’

Intro Speaker:  

Hello, and welcome to Matters Beyond Wealth with your host, Leanne Kaufman, president and CEO of RBC Royal Trust. For most of us, talking about subjects like aging, late life, and estate planning isn’t easy. That’s why we’re going to help get the conversation started on this podcast while benefiting from the insights and expertise of some of the country’s top experts. We want to bring you information today that will help to protect you and your family in the future. Now, here’s your host, Leanne.

Leanne Kaufman:

Tales of the mythical fountain of youth, whose waters could seemingly restore the youth of those who bathed in it date back to writings as far as Ancient Greece. Two thousand years later, you can’t escape anti-aging or youth-restoring product advertising. But what if we truly can reset our biology to defy our calendar age, and reboot our bodies back to our decades-younger selves?

Our guest today has a lens into the medical advancements that may help us do just that, and it’s not that far away.

Hello, I’m Leanne Kaufman and welcome to RBC Wealth Management Canada’s Matters Beyond Wealth. With me today is Dr. Michael Roizen, an anesthesiologist, internist and the global chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic–a global non-profit academic medical center. He has spent years on the faculty of prestigious post-secondary institutions and medical schools, including as Dean. He’s published countless articles and medical books, edited medical journals, written four New York Times number one bestselling books and nine overall bestselling books for the general public, and countless other accomplishments before moving to the Cleveland Clinic. Perhaps what Dr. Roizen is most recognized for is being the creator of the innovative RealAge concept, which motivates behavior change to promote wellness.

Dr. Roizen, thank you for being here with me today to discuss some of these health strategies that may help people to live not only longer but healthy for longer, and why this matters beyond wealth.

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Thank you, Leanne. It’s a privilege to be here.

Leanne Kaufman:

So, let’s start by having you describe what you mean when you talk about the difference between one’s chronological age or calendar age and their biological age.

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Well, we started RealAge, which integrates both your risk of disability and your risk of dying. So your real age is the actual age of your body, and it can be many years younger or older than your calendar age. So for example, if you smoke a pack a day that makes you about 10 years older. That is your risk of disability and dying is that of someone who is 10 years older than your chronologic age. You can make yourself–currently, and we said this in 1998, that 60 could be the new 40. That’s pretty easy to do. You can make yourself about 29 years younger if you’re a woman, 27 years younger than your calendar age if you’re a man, as far as your risk of disability and dying.

But we’re going to get a breakthrough we think in the next eight to 10 years. That is [because] the science into the mechanism of aging is advancing fast enough that we now believe that with an 85 percent probability, you’re going to be able to make yourself 40 when the calendar says 90.

Leanne Kaufman:

Yeah, that’s really incredible. It’s also amazing that you’ve been doing this work since the late ’90s, because it’s such a hot topic today but you’re well ahead of the curve obviously in your work in having done all this for many decades now.

I’ve heard you say that you are the genetic engineer of you. What do you mean by this?

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Well, I’m going to get a little bit in the weeds on this if I can. So when the Human Genome Project started in 1991 and ‘2, they expected—both groups, the group at NIH and Venter’s group in private industry—expected to find 300,000 genes based on the amount of DNA we had in our nuclei. It turns out they only found 22,500 genes.

Nine years later, they found out that the rest of the DNA wasn’t just junk as they initially called it, but was in fact switches that turn your genes on and off. So it is like you have a light bulb that’s the gene, and you have a switch that is the epigene. And in fact, you have more switches, it’s like you have three or four switches for each gene, like you may have in the house for one light. As the genes, the lights don’t wear out very easily, but the switches can be changed and can be reset so that you get to control those switches.

In fact, at least 80 percent, and in the latest two studies, 93 or 94 percent of the switches are under your control. So you are a genetic engineer for you. You turn your genes on or off to a great degree. That gives you enormous power over how long and how well you live.

Leanne Kaufman:

So can you give us some examples of the ways in which we might be able to turn those switches on or off, or using some of the other language I’ve heard you use or seen in your books, reboot our genetic cells.

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Right, so let me give you first the ways you can do it now, because 60 is the new 40 and that’s been shown–we were proven correct.

So, just doing stress management. For example, doing routine breathing or whatever of the 12 techniques that have been shown to change the epigenes that control your stress-provoked genes changes 256 genes from either on to off or off to on. So, when you do stress management, and let’s say you have a stressful event—and we don’t control those. The events occur, whether it’s a friend that dies or you’re sued or a whole bunch of different things can cause major stresses. If you manage that, you turn off the genes that those stresses would turn on. The stress genes, the genes that stress turns on, cause inflammation in your body. Huge number of proteins they turn on that increase inflammation. By doing stress management, you turn those same genes off and turn on genes that decrease inflammation. So that’s one way you stay younger by doing stress management.

Another thing, we know that the brain gets better by doing physical activity. And when you stress your muscle, you turn on a gene that goes across, it produces a small protein called irisin. Irisin grows across your blood-brain barrier to your brain. It turns on another gene in turn that makes brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor, which is like miracle grow for your brain. So by physical activity, you turn on the switch that makes your brain’s memory center bigger and more robust and less likely for you to have cognitive dysfunction as you get older.

Leanne Kaufman:

It’s fascinating stuff and things that we kind of know from our common sense that we got to manage our stress and we need to exercise for all these other reasons, but in this context it just makes it so much more compelling in some way.

Tell me about flossing your teeth—I know that that’s another big one. Why is flossing your teeth so important?

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Well, we don’t exactly know all the genetic pathways that occur because of flossing your teeth, but it turns out that flossing your teeth is a strong predictor. That is by getting rid of periodontal disease and gum disease, you prevent a lot of, again, inflammation in your body. You prevent heart disease, stroke, type two diabetes, and even dementia. So we know the outcome. We don’t know [why] on that one. And that’s one of the great things that’s happening: we’re progressing very fast in understanding the science, but we don’t yet know the full science on that.

Let me give you the example of why this is happening so fast. When the Human Genome Project started, it cost $2.7 and $3.1 billion to do those two independent projects. To get the same level of information for your genome now, the actual cost is around $40. To get your full genome, (much better than [what] was done for that $3 billion) on average is now only $800. That’s how fast we’re advancing in science relating to your control of your body.

And that’s why we think 90 will be the new 40. That is we’re learning, and there are 14 areas of advancing the area—what we call if you will, “an aging mechanism” that will allow us to reboot you to a younger, more productive age. That is the period between 30 and 60, we expect [to] expand between 30 and 90. It’s not just extending the old years, it’s extending your most productive ones. 

There are literally 14 areas, I like two of them that I can quote now because I know how fast they’re advancing.

One is our stem cells. So our stem cells have a limited number of replications called the Hayflick limit. The stem cells have on them—and all of our cells have—a telomere at the end of it. The telomere protects the chromosomes from damage so your genes don’t get changed or damaged as they replicate. But the telomere gets six base pairs shorter every time it replicates, so we only have 70 to 110 stem cell replications, and stem cells are what repair us. So if you don’t have stem cells, you can’t repair your cells. Well, we waste our stem cells on sunburns and other things like that, but the good news is that telomeres may be able to be lengthened. There are a couple of companies working on drugs that look like in animal models and now in humans and cell culture will extend your stem cell life, so you’ll be able to repair your cells longer. That’s one of the things.

Another is an epigenetic reboot. Some of the damage we think, some of the reason we age may be changes in our switches that control those light bulbs, the genes. Well, if you can reset the switches to their original settings, you may be able to reset yourself. And that’s true in now six different animal species that’s been shown. We think that’s going to be one of the—if you’re betting on it, those two are two of the areas that are advancing fastest to reboot ourselves. But as long as you do things to keep healthy now, within eight to ten years, we think you’re going to be able to get much healthier and much more vigorous for much longer.

Leanne Kaufman:

Incredible. In your book, one of the books you wrote called The Great Age Reboot, you also touch on the economic advantages of doing this reset of our biological age back in the way that you’ve described it to those highly productive years. Can you expand on that a bit?

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Yeah, so one of the co-authors was an economist from Wharton, Peter Linneman, a very famous economist in the area. He did these figures for us, so I’m not an economist at all, but he said if we’re going to expand, if we just change the average retirement age in the United States, which is 61, to 62. That is if everyone who retires at 61 works one year longer to 62, that increases the GDP in the United States by $340 billion, increases the federal tax revenue by $58 billion, and the local and regional taxes by about $34 billion.

Well imagine if you do 10 years longer. If you’re going to live 10 years longer, which is what will happen even without one of the breakthroughs. That’s just the change, linear projection of what’s happened to life expectancy. If you live 10 years longer and work 10 years longer, so the retirement period is the same, that would be $3.4 trillion more in economic benefit in the United States, and that’s just for one age group. If you keep doing it, obviously you wipe out the deficit. You actually, according to Peter’s calculation, as long as we extend, if you will, the period before you have eligibility for social security and your retirement, it gives an enormous benefit to the economy. We even reduce our deficits and would have to reduce our tax rates to have a balanced budget at the current spending level.

Obviously, it requires some legislative changes that are difficult, but since there’ll be enough money, Peter says, when there’s enough money, people find a way of getting it right.

Leanne Kaufman:

Well, and I mean that’s the kind of macro level. Think about at the personal finance level for people that are worried about outliving their finances. I can imagine the impact it would have to bring comfort to individuals about that as well.

Dr. Michael Roizen:

You and your group know more than anyone, compounding makes a huge difference. So the longer you’re able to compound, the greater the benefit.

Leanne Kaufman:

This is a really massive and clearly complicated topic, and I think more than I can do justice to in the short conversation that I’m privileged to have with you, but I’m sure we have just wet the appetite of listeners. Where would you suggest that listeners go to learn more, go a little bit deeper, maybe learn about all 14 of those factors you were referencing, to learn more?

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Well, The Great Age Reboot is really written well, we have an editor who’s superb. I can tell you one of the things I’m proudest of is in our original books and all the books up to now, nothing in the science has been overturned because we do them pretty well. So, if you go, The Great Age Reboot is a book. One of the keys is preparing for this and making sure you stay as young as you can until the reboot comes through, and Cleveland Clinic Canada is a great place to start that journey.

Leanne Kaufman:

Well, thank you so much for pointing us in that direction.

If you hope listeners just remember one thing from the conversation that you and I have had today, what would that be?

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Well, there really are two things, if you will. Your choices matter. That is what you do today makes a huge difference in how long and well you live. You get to control your epigenes to a great degree. So, one is your choices matter.  And the second is put yourself in your schedule. So what that means is keeping yourself healthy is key to staying young enough to enjoy the benefits of your choices matter. So schedule yourself so that you have time for stress management, so that you have time for physical activity, and so that you enjoy both your passion and your posse.

Leanne Kaufman:

That’s great advice. Thank you so much Dr. Roizen for joining me today to talk about RealAge and strategies we can each personally adopt today for a younger tomorrow, and why this all matters beyond wealth.

Dr. Michael Roizen:

Thank you, Leanne.

Leanne Kaufman:

You can find out more about Dr. Roizen at clevelandclinic.org or on LinkedIn. Cleveland Clinic Canada has two locations in Toronto, Ontario, and provides virtual care across Canada.

If you enjoyed this episode and you’d like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review.

Until next time, I’m Leanne Kaufman. Thank you for joining us.

Outro speaker:

Whether you are planning for your own estate, the needs of your family or business, or you are an executor for a loved one’s estate, we can help guide you, simplify the complex, and support your life’s vision. Partner with RBC Royal Trust and ensure your legacy will thrive for generations to come. Leave a legacy, not a burden™. Visit rbc.com/royaltrust.

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