What We Mean By Aging, Dr. Barzilai | The Future You | Men's Health - video Dailymotion

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What We Mean By Aging, Dr. Barzilai | The Future You | Men's Health

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00:00So, what are we talking about when we're talking about aging?

00:03What's happening inside our bodies as time moves on?

00:07And what's happening at a biological level and at a cellular level?

00:10Welcome to The Future You, a new series by Men's Health,

00:13where we talk to the leading experts in health and longevity

00:15to help you live longer and stronger.

00:17I'm your host, Rich Dormant.

00:19In this episode, we're talking with Dr. Nir Barzilai

00:21about the biology and genetics of aging

00:23and how certain drugs may extend a person's lifespan and healthspan.

00:27So, I want to start a little bit farther from there and I'll answer you.

00:32But aging has a biology, right?

00:34Everybody knows that.

00:36Everybody knows that you're younger than me.

00:39What people don't realize is that this biology drives age-related diseases.

00:47You think you're getting old, you're getting diseases,

00:50and then the disease makes you older.

00:52It's in part also true, but no, it's really the other way.

00:56Aging brings the diseases.

00:58So, for example, you can be born with a genetic change

01:04that will change something that's called ApoE gene, ApoE4 gene,

01:09and you'll have two copies that will make you high risk for Alzheimer's.

01:14You'll probably get Alzheimer's when you're 60 or 70 and die when you're 80.

01:18But when you're born, you're not demented.

01:22And when you're 1 year or 10 years or 20 years or 50 years, you're not demented

01:26because it needs the biology of aging to trigger those diseases.

01:31And I can go over other diseases and tell you the same story.

01:35So, aging causes the disease.

01:37But we know that aging is flexible.

01:41We, geroscientists around the world over years, have gone from hope to promise.

01:47We know that we can target the process of aging, delay it significantly,

01:53even stop and reverse it in some context.

01:56And we've done it in animals, and we've done it in humans.

02:00Now, to your question, you know, what is this biology?

02:06And I'll tell you really simply, we geroscientists agree on a concept

02:11that's called the hallmarks of aging.

02:14What are the hallmarks of aging?

02:15Something that goes wrong when you're old.

02:18And when you fix it, you can fix it in animal with genetic ways or with drugs,

02:24or in humans also.

02:26So, you target this hallmark, you reverse the aging,

02:32you extend the health span of the animals and humans,

02:36and you increase their lifespan.

02:38That's how you become a hallmark.

02:40Now, there may be 12 hallmarks like that,

02:43but the important thing is you fix one, you can fix the others.

02:48Most of the drugs that we're doing are doing that.

02:50So, you don't have to fix all of them at one time to get an effect.

02:56Maybe it's going to be better if you do that.

02:59But we have a biology, we have targets,

03:03and we can start dealing with it right now.

03:05And some of those targets, as you mentioned before,

03:08you're born with, and they're only activated or active over time.

03:12Some of them are just the natural process of aging.

03:14Things break down.

03:16Can you tell, a lot of people might have heard of a word like telomeres.

03:18Can you talk a little bit about the genetic influences of aging

03:23and sort of what happens on that genetic level

03:25that could impact or expedite aging?

03:28So, let's start with genetic stability.

03:32So, in each one of our cells, we have the same information, right?

03:37That's the DNA.

03:38That's our chromosomes.

03:39They come in each cell.

03:40In each of those cells, there are changes that happen with time,

03:44maybe with radiation, maybe with accelerate aging in other ways.

03:50And there's a lot of changes in the sequence of our DNA.

03:54And they're usually repaired.

03:56In every cell, we have hundreds of them now.

03:59I probably underestimated it.

04:01And they're going to be repaired.

04:02Naturally.

04:03Naturally.

04:03By your body's own mechanism.

04:04By our body's own mechanism.

04:07But this process is not 100%.

04:09And if you have more changes in the cells with time,

04:14then it's even less than not 100%.

04:18Okay?

04:19So, you start getting cells that are starting to get into trouble.

04:24And they can deal with the trouble.

04:27They can either die, commit suicide.

04:31It's called apoptosis in medical term.

04:34Or they can form to some other cells that are called senescent cells.

04:39Senescent cells just stop multiplying because, you know,

04:44something is wrong with them.

04:45And they stand there.

04:47And it's protective.

04:48It's good.

04:48Okay?

04:50Sometimes it's a way to prevent cancer.

04:52Okay?

04:53Because you don't know what those cells are going to be.

04:55Otherwise, they become senescent cells.

04:58Those senescent cells accumulate in our body.

05:01And then they become a problem, actually.

05:04Because they secrete lots of bad stuff.

05:07Okay?

05:07And they actually can cause cancer.

05:09Although they're protected in cancer, they cause cancer.

05:12So, one of the things we want to do with aging is to remove those cells.

05:16But back to the telomeres.

05:18The telomeres are in those chromosomes that I described,

05:22that are in every cell.

05:24Their end has a little straw-like thing that wraps around.

05:31But it gets shorter every time the cell divides.

05:35And there is a connection between how short are those telomeres being

05:40to what happened eventually to the cell.

05:43It will become senescent or it can die.

05:45So, the telomeres shortening could be part a reason for aging,

05:51not a major reason for aging.

05:53But it can also be a biomarker to tell you,

05:57hey, you know, your telomeres are becoming too short.

06:00And that means trouble.

06:04And you and your team are investigating different ways

06:06when you look at these hallmarks of aging that we can intervene.

06:09To your point, either arrest or, in some cases, rewind the damage that's being done.

06:15Correct.

06:16So, in our center, we are approaching basically all of those hallmarks of aging

06:22with drugs that could, in combination or not,

06:26change them and affect each one of those hallmarks.

06:30Now, this concept is really difficult for scientists to hear.

06:34Certainly, for you, I'm expecting, though I know you're really smart.

06:39But I'm pretending you're not.

06:43So, how is it possible, okay, that we have drugs, okay,

06:49that attacks all the hallmarks of aging?

06:53You know, who thought about it?

06:56And this is how you have to think about it.

07:01You take a cell or an organ or your whole body and you make it younger.

07:07By making it younger, you're making lots of changes

07:10that are really fixing a lot of the hallmarks.

07:13It doesn't mean that all those hallmarks are what this drug did.

07:18The drug did something that repair all of those hallmarks

07:23and has really effect on your health span and longevity.

07:26So, we are looking for drugs that are exactly that,

07:31that we can actually measure on a cellular level

07:34if they change the hallmarks,

07:35and then we can test them to see how they are doing in animals

07:38and then in humans.

07:39Okay.

07:40Let's get started.

07:41Okay.

07:44Let's see you.

07:46Um.

What We Mean By Aging, Dr. Barzilai | The Future You | Men's Health

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