Active Minds, Active Lives, Dr. Lachs | The Future You | Men's Health - video Dailymotion

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Active Minds, Active Lives, Dr. Lachs | The Future You | Men's Health

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00:00What didn't we talk about?

00:01Well, we didn't talk about cognition.

00:04Yes, all right, so we'll talk about the mind.

00:06Welcome to The Future You, a new series by Men's Health,

00:08where we talk to the leading experts in health and longevity

00:10to help you live longer and stronger.

00:13I'm your host, Rich Dormant.

00:15In this episode, we're talking with longevity expert Dr. Mark Lacks

00:18about physical and social fitness.

00:21Dementia is an epidemic.

00:22There's compelling data now that more so than the pharmacologic treatments

00:26that you're seeing long after the horse has left the barn,

00:32socialization and exercise.

00:34So do you think that dementia itself is getting worse,

00:38or do you just think people are living longer

00:39and therefore developing dementia and sort of...

00:42I think dementia is an age-dependent phenomenon.

00:46One of the biggest risk factors for dementia is age.

00:50About 5% of people at 65, 10% at 75, 30, 40% at 85.

00:56And I think that many of the interventions we talked about

01:00for body health apply to cognition.

01:04And it's not like I'm giving you chemotherapy.

01:07Socialize, exercise with your friends.

01:09And I would argue keep the mind active, you know.

01:13We didn't talk about purpose.

01:15Well, let's go back to before we go to purpose.

01:18Are we talking like crossword puzzles here?

01:19Because if so, I'm going to leave.

01:21Sudoku, what are we talking about here?

01:23I think when you do Sudoku a lot, you get better at Sudoku, okay?

01:26I think it's pushing yourself through coursework,

01:31lifelong learning, you know,

01:34a variety of different activities

01:37in the way that you exercise different muscle groups.

01:41So it could be crossword puzzles.

01:42It could be learning a new language.

01:44Oh, man, learning a new language

01:45and getting interested in the world and history.

01:48And now we transition to purpose.

01:50And now, so the fourth pillar, so we've got nutrition,

01:53we've got fitness, we've got socialization and mind and purpose.

01:58Again, this is not something that I think a lot of mainstream practitioners

02:01were talking about 20 years ago.

02:04There is data on purpose.

02:06And relatedly, there's data on attitudes about aging

02:09that start in your 40s and 50s.

02:11A colleague at Yale, Becca Levy,

02:14has looked at people in their 40s and 50s

02:16and asked them questions like,

02:19it's normal to get sick as you get older.

02:21I feel less useful as I get older.

02:23And when she compares the glass half full

02:26and glass empty people 20 years later,

02:30it's like a seven-year difference in life expectancy

02:32after controlling for their diseases and illnesses.

02:35Similar data on purpose.

02:38You know, retirement for many people is quite stressful.

02:44What's the first thing someone asks you at a cocktail party?

02:46What do you do for a living?

02:47Right.

02:48So if you're retired, you do nothing.

02:49You have no purpose.

02:50So most of the successful agers I take care of,

02:56and younger people,

02:57which have like one, two, or three things

02:59that really motivates them.

03:01It could be world events.

03:04It could be being on the board of a not-for-profit

03:06or doing charity work.

03:08It could be travel.

03:09It could be grandchildren.

03:11It could be golf.

03:12It could be something to keep your brain motivated

03:16and having a reason to want to live longer.

03:19When you study these people

03:20with similar kinds of questionnaires,

03:23there's a clear mortality.

03:26There's a clear lifespan difference,

03:28and there's a clear healthspan difference.

03:30And again, I emphasize

03:31that these are not medicines with side effects.

03:34I mean, what is life about?

03:36It's doing those things.

03:38And being engaged with the world around you.

03:40Being engaged with the world around you.

03:42Being interested in what's happening.

03:44One of the more interesting studies

03:45came from Dr. Linda Freed,

03:48who we'll also be speaking to.

03:51And I think intergenerational collaboration

03:55and cooperation has been shown

03:56to have really wonderful effects.

03:58Can you talk a little bit about that?

03:59Linda is one of the premier geriatricians in the world.

04:03I don't want to steal her thunder.

04:05But yes, as someone who's about to be a grandfather,

04:07I just discovered,

04:09intergenerational interaction is amazing.

04:12Linda took these inner city kids in Baltimore

04:15who were failing from difficult homes

04:20without direction or purpose.

04:21and she found a group of African-American grandmothers

04:27for the most part

04:27and paired them up

04:29and paid them

04:31and whipped these kids into shape

04:34and looked at things like,

04:35you know, visits to the principal's office,

04:38academic performance,

04:39and showed extraordinary improvements with these kids,

04:43but also showed improvements in brain function

04:46and imaging in the older women.

04:49You know, and then my favorite story,

04:54which you may have heard,

04:56it involves car makers in Europe.

04:58I think it was BMW or Mercedes.

05:00I can't remember.

05:01There was a competition

05:02where they had different groups of workers.

05:04They had young workers.

05:05They had older workers

05:07and they had intergenerational workers.

05:10And they said,

05:11make as many cars as you can.

05:13And the young people made the most cars,

05:15but they had lots of errors

05:16and they had to go back and change them.

05:18Old people made less cars,

05:22but they were perfect.

05:23But the biggest number of cars,

05:26without mistakes,

05:27were the intergenerational workers

05:29because the old guys said,

05:30you know, you could do it like this.

05:32And let me show you how to do this

05:33and you miss something over here,

05:35but the young guys could move the line along.

05:37And I just love that story.

05:41And there's so many metaphors like that in the world.

05:45And older people have time

05:47and they have so much to offer society.

05:51I mean, they built our society

05:52and the freedoms that we have.

05:54And they're just an untapped resource for volunteerism.

05:59Older people now are getting deeply involved

06:02in climate change.

06:03They may have caused it, first of all,

06:07with their big cars

06:08and guilty as a high schooler, right?

06:11They want to see their children and grandchildren

06:14have a clean environment.

06:15They have time to volunteer.

06:17And as I told you from Linda's studies,

06:19volunteerism is good for your brain

06:21if you have meaningful volunteerism.

06:23So Cornell has a climate change and aging program.

06:27You can Google aging and climate change Cornell

06:29and you'll see our clearinghouse.

06:31So what are people talking about?

06:33They're talking about aging and climate change,

06:35notwithstanding the politics

06:37that are going on right now.

06:38People just have to stay healthy.

06:40People have to stay healthy and able to do it.

06:42And the last thing I would say is,

06:43let's say you do develop a disability.

06:45Let's say you do everything right

06:46and through some genetics or some mishap,

06:49you have an injury or a stroke

06:50and your gait is unstable,

06:52you require a cane.

06:54Does that mean you failed?

06:56I mean, that's the other sort of notion of aging

06:58we have in our society

06:59that once you have some disability

07:01or develop some problem,

07:03you should be put out to pasture.

07:07You know, as I get older,

07:08you know, the knees creak a little bit.

07:10I need some oiling, you know, here and there.

07:13But, you know, I have people

07:14who come to my office in a walker

07:16who could whip you at bridge,

07:18out-invest you,

07:19beat you at Sudoku,

07:21do the crossword puzzle in pen better than you can.

07:23I mean, that's a magnificent individual

07:25who has a little bit of a medical problem,

07:28a little bit of a disability.

07:29So I don't want to make the case

07:32that if you're not perfect,

07:33like those beautiful silver-haired people

07:35in the commercials,

07:36I won't name the products,

07:37that you failed.

07:38I mean, that's not fair.

07:40Well, thank you so much, Dr. Lack.

07:42It's always a pleasure to see you.

07:43And I can't wait to be a patient of yours someday.

07:45You'd be in the newborn nursery.

07:47Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

07:53Ha, ha, ha.

Active Minds, Active Lives, Dr. Lachs | The Future You | Men's Health

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