0:00:03 > 0:00:06There is one inevitability in life -
0:00:06 > 0:00:09as time passes, we age.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12It might creep up on you,
0:00:12 > 0:00:16but you only have to look back to spot the changes.
0:00:16 > 0:00:18'Do you know that song? We've sung it before.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20'Sing it with us this time
0:00:20 > 0:00:24'and do the actions as though you were swimming, like Humpty.'
0:00:24 > 0:00:29You know, I'd like to think that I've aged or grown old gracefully,
0:00:29 > 0:00:31but there's no question about it - I have grown old,
0:00:31 > 0:00:33I've got the evidence to prove it.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36It's hard to believe, but it's 45 years
0:00:36 > 0:00:38since I first started presenting on television.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Since then, my hair's gone grey,
0:00:40 > 0:00:42and my forehead's so wrinkled, I can screw my hat on.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46What I want to know is, does it have to happen
0:00:46 > 0:00:52or could I stop, or even slow down, the ravages of time?
0:00:56 > 0:00:59It's a question that has long fascinated
0:00:59 > 0:01:02amateurs and alchemists alike
0:01:02 > 0:01:06and, for the last 45 years, Horizon and the BBC have followed
0:01:06 > 0:01:11as ageing has become the increasing focus of serious scientific studies.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17From the earliest days of grappling for answers...
0:01:18 > 0:01:22I think we are miles and miles away from solving the problem of ageing.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24We're just right at the very beginning.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29..To extravagant promises of longer life.
0:01:29 > 0:01:30I would think, by the end of the century,
0:01:30 > 0:01:34that we will be living to 150 to 200 years.
0:01:36 > 0:01:38We've witnessed macabre treatments.
0:01:39 > 0:01:45What in fact you are doing is injecting a beef broth.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50We have met those who have claimed to have found the ultimate solution.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54This was the first discovery that we could actually find a way
0:01:54 > 0:01:57to slow down the ageing process with a single pill.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02And glimpsed a brave new future.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Does it spontaneously start to beat in the end?
0:02:05 > 0:02:06Yes. Yes, absolutely.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Wow, that is marvellous.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11While some scientists have been driven
0:02:11 > 0:02:14by the desire to alleviate suffering...
0:02:15 > 0:02:17Having lost my dad to disease,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20I just want to change the world.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23..Others have been spurred on by an all-too-human desire.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26Sandy and I have been working on life extension
0:02:26 > 0:02:28to make the world safe for Durk and Sandy,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31a couple of gourmets who want to live a long time and stay young.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35This is a story we all have a vested interest in,
0:02:35 > 0:02:37but, after 45 years,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42how much has science discovered about why we age?
0:02:42 > 0:02:46And are we any closer to achieving the dream of immortality?
0:02:59 > 0:03:02We all like to remain young at heart,
0:03:02 > 0:03:04but wouldn't it be better to just stay young?
0:03:04 > 0:03:07Perhaps that's why we are all drawn to people who claim
0:03:07 > 0:03:11they've discovered the elixir of youth,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14irrespective of how colourful those claims might be.
0:03:22 > 0:03:23'Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw
0:03:23 > 0:03:24'have written a bulky manual
0:03:24 > 0:03:26'of their life extension techniques
0:03:26 > 0:03:27'which has swiftly sold
0:03:27 > 0:03:29'more than a million copies in the United States.'
0:03:29 > 0:03:30Thank you.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32Thank you!
0:03:32 > 0:03:36I read it every day and use it as, like you would The Bible.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38And I'm young and I just want to stay that way
0:03:38 > 0:03:39so that when I get older,
0:03:39 > 0:03:42I won't have the problems that people have now.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44'Both are in their early forties
0:03:44 > 0:03:48'and every day, they consume over 35 different chemical substances
0:03:48 > 0:03:51'which they believe are helping to maintain their youth
0:03:51 > 0:03:53'and prevent the ravages of age.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56'Although neither is a doctor, they did qualify as research scientists,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59'and they regularly scan the medical literature
0:03:59 > 0:04:02'for news of drugs which might stop them growing old.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05This is ornithine. It's an amino-acid.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08It causes the release of a growth hormone by a gland in your brain.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10Growth hormone causes you to burn off fat
0:04:10 > 0:04:13and put on muscle like a teenager with very little exercise.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15It also has a very powerful immune stimulant
0:04:15 > 0:04:19and makes your body better able to fight off infectious diseases and even cancer.
0:04:21 > 0:04:23This is vitamin C.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26It's an extremely important nutrient to help avert
0:04:26 > 0:04:27a major form of ageing damage.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30In fact, it's so important that the brain and spinal cord
0:04:30 > 0:04:33have special pumps that bring the concentration of vitamin C
0:04:33 > 0:04:37up to 100 times that of the general circulation.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40This is vitamin B3, niacin.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49This is able to reduce the cholesterol in your bloodstream
0:04:49 > 0:04:53by about 25% within two weeks of when you start taking it.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55A lot easier than going on a diet.
0:04:57 > 0:04:58We want to live a lot longer.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00We'd like to remain young and healthy
0:05:00 > 0:05:03as long as possible, perhaps even indefinitely.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06We and many other people now alive have a very good chance
0:05:06 > 0:05:07of having an indefinite lifespan,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11one limited not by ageing or cancer or cardiovascular disease,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14but rather one limited by accidents, murder and suicide.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21Fanciful, maybe,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25but such claims reflected a real shift in modern attitudes to ageing.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27Thank you.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31In the post-war era,
0:05:31 > 0:05:36increasing prosperity and improved healthcare
0:05:36 > 0:05:38meant many were living longer.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42By the 1960s, average life expectancy had increased
0:05:42 > 0:05:46by nearly ten years in the space of one generation.
0:05:47 > 0:05:52The downside was that with longer life came the problems of old age.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Now, just a second, stop. I think you could walk without it.
0:05:55 > 0:05:56No, I can't.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59- Why don't you let me take it away for a minute?- Why not?
0:05:59 > 0:06:01And not just physical disability,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06but the increased likelihood of a deteriorating mind.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10This is essentially an organic
0:06:10 > 0:06:12deterioration of the brain
0:06:12 > 0:06:14in which the tissues are breaking down
0:06:14 > 0:06:19and it's shown clinically as loss of mental powers initially.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24The memory goes, this is particularly striking, they can't concentrate.
0:06:24 > 0:06:28One doesn't know whether senile dementia is a disease
0:06:28 > 0:06:31which has, in fact, superimposed on ageing
0:06:31 > 0:06:36or whether one can look on it simply as the extreme of old age.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38And this is what one is trying to find out
0:06:38 > 0:06:41before one joins the ranks oneself.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46The early pioneers in age research were driven
0:06:46 > 0:06:49by a sense of this pressing social need.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51Professor Alex Comfort,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54who would later become famous for his work on The Joy Of Sex,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56was one of those determined
0:06:56 > 0:06:59to find a way of combating the effects of ageing.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04One of the first things
0:07:04 > 0:07:08that every human being learns in childhood is that old people die.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Of course, we can die before we're old,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13but if we escape all the other hazards and bad luck,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16we know old age gets us in the end.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19In other words, we've got a fixed lifespan
0:07:19 > 0:07:22and, as more and more of us are surviving to that lifespan,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25old age accounts for more and more of the work
0:07:25 > 0:07:28of our medical and social services.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31Research money needs now to be spent
0:07:31 > 0:07:35on alleviating all these special disabilities which go with age.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39And I would like to see British biology well in on this attempt
0:07:39 > 0:07:42to understand ageing and to do something
0:07:42 > 0:07:45socially and practically useful about it.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47And if you wonder whether it's worth it,
0:07:47 > 0:07:50whether it's worth trying to do something about old age,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53just you look at the old people around you, the old people you know.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56People say old age has its compensations. Well, maybe it has.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58That's very nice, yes.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02But you don't ask for compensation unless you've been run over.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04Old age is a pretty miserable business.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10For Professor Comfort, the first practical step
0:08:10 > 0:08:13was for scientists to try to get to grips
0:08:13 > 0:08:17with what controlled this miserable business.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19What they are trying to find out
0:08:19 > 0:08:22is whether there is a single major clock mechanism
0:08:22 > 0:08:25which determines the progress of age changes
0:08:25 > 0:08:27and whether it can be slowed.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29To find out, in other words,
0:08:29 > 0:08:35which components in the developmental programme of living are the timekeepers.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42The hope was that there was one single dominant factor
0:08:42 > 0:08:44that acted as a timekeeper.
0:08:46 > 0:08:51If scientists could discover that, then maybe they could alter it
0:08:51 > 0:08:55and enable people to live more healthily for longer.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01At the time, there was a broad theory of why we grow old,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04that ageing was part of a programme
0:09:04 > 0:09:08in a way in-built in all living things.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11'Our voyage through life is programmed,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13'just as the holes in the Pianola roll
0:09:13 > 0:09:16'dictate the notes to be played and the length of the tune.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24'In the same way, the DNA in our cells
0:09:24 > 0:09:29'dictates the growth and death both of our organs and of our whole body.
0:09:31 > 0:09:35'But, sooner or later, the holes dictate the final chords
0:09:35 > 0:09:38'and the roll must run out.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41'Professor Bellamy of Cardiff University.'
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Many organisms are programmed to live for a set time
0:09:44 > 0:09:47to reproduce and then immediately die.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49The migrating salmon is a good example of this.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51It spends most of its life in the sea.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56It grows, matures there, it migrates up the river to spawn
0:09:56 > 0:09:58and then immediately afterwards dies.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02So that is the total programme of its life, and natural selection in fact has produced this.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13To try and pinpoint a more precise mechanism for ageing,
0:10:13 > 0:10:17scientists needed to discover more about how the body aged.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21The American Institute for Ageing embarked upon an ambitious study,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25subjecting dedicated volunteers to a battery of tests
0:10:25 > 0:10:30for over two decades to see what happened to their bodies over time.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38'One person who has been coming every year since 1959
0:10:38 > 0:10:39'is Mr Young.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45'On average, the capacity of the heart to pump
0:10:45 > 0:10:49'declines by 33% from age 30 to age 75.'
0:10:52 > 0:10:55174 over 80.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59'The lungs do worse than the heart,
0:10:59 > 0:11:01'their capacity is down 40%.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05'The liver lasts better,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07'it loses only 10% of its capacity,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10'compensating for the fact that blood flows through it
0:11:10 > 0:11:13'much less efficiently.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16Put your arms to your side.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18'The kidney suffers especially,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22'its capacity to filter is down by 44%.'
0:11:24 > 0:11:28The results revealed just how complex a process ageing was.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31All the organs seem to deteriorate at different rates,
0:11:31 > 0:11:36making it unlikely that there could be one single mechanism at work.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42But what was indisputable was that the body went downhill.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47The study suggested that ageing might be caused
0:11:47 > 0:11:49by the battering our system takes
0:11:49 > 0:11:52simply in the business of everyday living.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Damage slowly builds up over time.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00Service!
0:12:00 > 0:12:03And we begin to break down.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07Professor Comfort likened this to a film
0:12:07 > 0:12:09running through a projector too many times.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15This old film, The Wonderful Hair Restorer,
0:12:15 > 0:12:17has been shown hundreds of times.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21In use, it's accumulated random wear,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25scratches, breaks, loss of frames where it's been mended.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29It's now quite unclear, and prints taken from it will be worse still.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Now, this random damage is what we engineers call noise,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38it's interference which makes the original information
0:12:38 > 0:12:41contained in the film harder and harder to read
0:12:41 > 0:12:44until, really, there is very little left of the film
0:12:44 > 0:12:46as it was originally made.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52Another early expert on ageing,
0:12:52 > 0:12:56Denham Harman, thought he knew what might be causing the damage
0:12:56 > 0:12:58and the answer lay not in humans,
0:12:58 > 0:13:00but in mice.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02He reasoned that mice are so short-lived
0:13:02 > 0:13:07because of what became as the Oxidative Stress Theory of Ageing.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10Their high metabolism means mice use lots of oxygen.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12The more they breathe,
0:13:12 > 0:13:16the more it creates dangerous reactive substances called free radicals
0:13:16 > 0:13:19that damage cells and organs,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22causing the mice to rapidly age and die.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Denham thought the same principle could be applied to humans
0:13:28 > 0:13:31and he also suggested a solution,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34substances that could prevent the damage happening.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38We know them today as anti-oxidants.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45People began to apply some pretty basic logic to this discovery -
0:13:45 > 0:13:47if you can increase the anti-oxidants in the body,
0:13:47 > 0:13:48perhaps through what you ate,
0:13:48 > 0:13:51then you could stop the free radicals causing damage
0:13:51 > 0:13:53and thus, slow ageing.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57However, where was the proof that this would work?
0:13:58 > 0:14:02Two brothers thought they had it.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06They spent 20 years studying the population of Okinawa,
0:14:06 > 0:14:08trying to work out why so many people there
0:14:08 > 0:14:11lived such long and healthy lives.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25You walk down the street and there's an elderly lady
0:14:25 > 0:14:28sweeping outside of her little restaurant,
0:14:28 > 0:14:30you look at her
0:14:30 > 0:14:33and you think, "There's a nice 65-year-old lady,
0:14:33 > 0:14:36"she's probably retired, a part-time job, keeping busy,"
0:14:36 > 0:14:39and then you find out, you know, she's 101.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45'The explanation for this extraordinary phenomenon
0:14:45 > 0:14:48'begins in the most ordinary of places.
0:14:50 > 0:14:51'Like every town in Okinawa,
0:14:51 > 0:14:53'the fruit and vegetable shop in Egimi
0:14:53 > 0:14:56'lies at the heart of village life.'
0:14:57 > 0:14:59'It's here that Bradley and Craig
0:14:59 > 0:15:03'believe the source of the Okinawan miracle can be traced.'
0:15:03 > 0:15:07These veggies are a type of a sweet potato.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10It's called, in the local dialect it's called "beni-imo."
0:15:10 > 0:15:14And beni-imo, it's a purple sweet potato, isn't it?
0:15:14 > 0:15:16Oh, look at that purple colour!
0:15:16 > 0:15:17You can see that purple,
0:15:17 > 0:15:19the purple really comes out more when you cook it.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22The key is to get a lot of vegetables that are,
0:15:22 > 0:15:27with the very colourful, oranges, like these carrots here,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30dark greens and yellow vegetables,
0:15:30 > 0:15:33er...you might think of it as a rainbow diet.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40'For the past 20 years, Bradley and Craig have been analysing
0:15:40 > 0:15:43'the life-enhancing Okinawan ingredients.'
0:15:43 > 0:15:47We got reds here and the tomatoes, the peppers.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50You've got green peppers here.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53'They've identified a number of crucial properties
0:15:53 > 0:15:57'that guard the Okinawans from disease,
0:15:57 > 0:16:01from the anti-oxidant rich vegetables that protect against cell damage
0:16:01 > 0:16:03'to the high quantities of soya proteins.'
0:16:05 > 0:16:08We believe that this is playing a part in,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12in their low rates of hormone-dependent cancers.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16'Okinawans have amongst the lowest rates
0:16:16 > 0:16:19'of breast and prostate cancer in the world.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22If we lived in the West more like the Okinawans,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26you could probably close down 80% of the coronary care units,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29one third of the cancer wards
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and a lot of nursing homes would be out of business,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35simply because these people are so healthy.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38Hmm, he passes the test,
0:16:38 > 0:16:41this is really good. Goya chempu!
0:16:41 > 0:16:43Thank you.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48The Okinawan soy and rainbow diet is stuffed full of anti-oxidants.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50Its apparent effect in this says,
0:16:50 > 0:16:55"Yes, the oxidative stress theory of ageing must be correct."
0:16:57 > 0:17:01But, while anti-oxidants have become big business,
0:17:01 > 0:17:05other studies have found the theory less convincing.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09Scientists at the University of Texas investigated oxidative damage
0:17:09 > 0:17:11in a different rodent -
0:17:11 > 0:17:13the naked mole-rat,
0:17:13 > 0:17:15an exceptionally weird-looking creature
0:17:15 > 0:17:19that seems to have traded beauty for longer life.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21If you look at a naked mole-rat,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23it's a 30-gram animal,
0:17:23 > 0:17:25the same size as a mouse.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27Yet it lives ten times longer than a mouse
0:17:27 > 0:17:29and it clearly is beating the odds,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33so we predicted that, given the fact that they live so long,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36that they would have very low levels of oxidative damage.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41So Professor Shelly Buffenstein set out to test the theory,
0:17:41 > 0:17:44but things didn't pan out as expected.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47We found that, even our youngest animals
0:17:47 > 0:17:50had three to ten times more oxidative damage
0:17:50 > 0:17:54than a similar physiologically age-matched mouse.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58Clearly, it was possible to have high levels of oxidative damage
0:17:58 > 0:18:01and live a long, healthy life.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04But this was not going to go down well.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07What Shelly had found would shock colleagues
0:18:07 > 0:18:09who'd worked in the field for years
0:18:09 > 0:18:12and threaten the entire anti-oxidant business.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16People didn't want to accept what we found
0:18:16 > 0:18:19because there's too much investment in this area of research,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23anti-oxidants are a multi-million dollar industry, as you know.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26When we tried to publish it in Science,
0:18:26 > 0:18:27the first review came back,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30"Well, you guys don't know how to measure this technique,
0:18:30 > 0:18:32"so that's why you're getting these crazy measurements.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35"Send it to a real lab that knows this kind of thing."
0:18:35 > 0:18:39So Shelly repeated the experiment
0:18:39 > 0:18:44and found that oxidative stress didn't make a difference.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47What to me seemed so fascinating is,
0:18:47 > 0:18:50they've put their little finger up at ageing.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01Many people still swear by a diet rich in anti-oxidants,
0:19:01 > 0:19:05but oxidative stress is really too simple an explanation
0:19:05 > 0:19:07as to why we age.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10But scientists did have evidence that you could slow ageing
0:19:10 > 0:19:15and it did involve food, but not what you ate, how much you ate.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21And once again, mice take centre stage, this time mice on a diet.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28This particular mouse is...
0:19:31 > 0:19:33..48 months old.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37That's longer than any mouse ever lives
0:19:37 > 0:19:39who is not on a restrictive diet.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42This one has been restricted since about 12 months of age.
0:19:42 > 0:19:48Normally, mice never live longer than 36 months.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51This means that the ageing process
0:19:51 > 0:19:55has indeed been retarded by this kind of procedure.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59One can slow down ageing. This is the equivalent in human terms
0:19:59 > 0:20:03to increasing maximum lifespan from the present level
0:20:03 > 0:20:06of about 110 years, the longest anybody ever lives,
0:20:06 > 0:20:08to 150 to 180 years.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12This kind of study is, with a high order of probability,
0:20:12 > 0:20:16directly translatable to human use.
0:20:16 > 0:20:21Researchers were uncertain why calorie restriction might work.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25Their best guess was that it made the in-built ageing programme run slower.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30For some, the evidence proved too tempting a prospect to pass up,
0:20:30 > 0:20:33including Dr Walford.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41'For a man in his sixties who fasts three days a week,
0:20:41 > 0:20:43'Roy Walford seems to be living proof
0:20:43 > 0:20:47'that eating less but eating well keeps you fit and young.'
0:20:47 > 0:20:50My own technique for extending maximum lifespan
0:20:50 > 0:20:54includes a programme that I call "under-nutrition without malnutrition."
0:20:54 > 0:20:57That means lowering the caloric intake
0:20:57 > 0:21:00but keeping the nutritive value of your food very high
0:21:00 > 0:21:04and this, if one translates the animal data into human use,
0:21:04 > 0:21:07should extend lifespan by a very substantial amount,
0:21:07 > 0:21:11depending on what age you are when you begin that kind of a programme.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20Despite his certainty, Walford was taking a leap of faith
0:21:20 > 0:21:24and it would take a very hungry lifetime to see if the bet paid off.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31But that hasn't stopped a host of others giving it a go.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38In 2009, Michael Moseley went to meet one of them
0:21:38 > 0:21:41to see what effect 16 years
0:21:41 > 0:21:45of living on just 1,600 calories a day might have had.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51- Hello.- Welcome, hi! - Hello, very nice to see you.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54- First impressions - very youthful, I have to say.- Oh, thank you.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56Very youthful. Can I just look at your face?
0:21:56 > 0:21:58Me? I thought you meant the house.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00No, I think you, good, very good.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04'Calorie restriction isn't simply about eating less.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07'Dave eats salad on an industrial scale
0:22:07 > 0:22:10'to get all the vitamins and minerals he needs.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13'At 51, he certainly looks good on the outside.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17'But I wanted to know what was going on inside.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19'A series of tests would compare our bodies
0:22:19 > 0:22:22'and determine who was biologically younger.'
0:22:22 > 0:22:23Could you sit down and sit back?
0:22:23 > 0:22:25HE LAUGHS
0:22:35 > 0:22:38'How embarrassing, I hadn't realised how competitive I am.'
0:22:40 > 0:22:42HE COUGHS
0:22:42 > 0:22:46- Are you going to pass out there, mate?- I was going to pass out, let me tell you.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49'Finally, our skin was analysed
0:22:49 > 0:22:52'by cosmetic surgeon Mr Jaya Prakash.'
0:22:52 > 0:22:53Right, that's better.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55Oh, what a big funny nose I have.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02His skin is better than mine.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05According to these graphs, his skin is marginally better.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- Marginally. - Marginally.
0:23:07 > 0:23:08Yes, how old do you think we are?
0:23:08 > 0:23:12- If you want me to guess...- Yes.
0:23:12 > 0:23:13Dave would be 35.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16Mmm-hmm, and how old do you think I am?
0:23:16 > 0:23:1750.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19HE LAUGHS
0:23:19 > 0:23:20You reckon I'm 50 and he's 35?
0:23:20 > 0:23:22- Yeah.- OK.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24Yeah, that's right, that suits me.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27OK. I am 51, and he is 51.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30- We're actually the same age within a month.- Really?
0:23:35 > 0:23:38Well, he may look great but most of us, and me for one,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41would really baulk at the idea of a lifetime of salad.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45But one scientist discovered how calorie restriction worked
0:23:45 > 0:23:49and that it could work irrespective of what you eat,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52and then everyone sat up to take notice.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55The secret is in our genes,
0:23:55 > 0:24:00in the genetic makeup within our DNA.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14I know about a dozen people voluntarily restricting their food
0:24:14 > 0:24:17so that they're for the most part hungry during the day,
0:24:17 > 0:24:19in the hopes that that will extend their lifespan,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23but you have to be hungry for this to work.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27And I tried it for about a week and it meant eating baby food
0:24:27 > 0:24:30and just a few vegetables, and I felt hungry all the time
0:24:30 > 0:24:35and I thought, "If this is going to be my life for the next hundred years, I don't want it."
0:24:35 > 0:24:38David Sinclair wanted to find out
0:24:38 > 0:24:41how calorie restriction worked
0:24:41 > 0:24:44to see if he could create its effects without starving himself.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46He began by studying yeast,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49but it wasn't what the yeast ate that concerned him.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52Rather, it was their genes.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55The organisms that I'm particularly excited about are yeast cells.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58These are yeasts that you put in your bread and your beer,
0:24:58 > 0:25:00but actually, they have a lifespan of about a week
0:25:00 > 0:25:02and the goal, about 15 years ago,
0:25:02 > 0:25:06was to find out why do they age and what can we do about it?
0:25:08 > 0:25:11And what we were looking for were genes that, if you delete them
0:25:11 > 0:25:14or you add an extra copy of them, that they live longer.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17We found a set of genes that do that.
0:25:17 > 0:25:18They're called the sirtuin genes,
0:25:18 > 0:25:21and really what was very exciting was
0:25:21 > 0:25:24that just adding one extra copy of a gene called Sir2
0:25:24 > 0:25:28could greatly extend the lifespan of those yeast about 30%.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32David had found a gene in the yeast
0:25:32 > 0:25:34that seemed to directly influence ageing,
0:25:34 > 0:25:36an astonishing discovery.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39So he removed the gene to see what happened
0:25:39 > 0:25:42when he then restricted what the yeast fed on.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44What the team discovered was that,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47when this gene wasn't there any more in the yeast cells,
0:25:47 > 0:25:49they didn't respond to the diet calorie restriction,
0:25:49 > 0:25:50they didn't live longer,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53so we knew immediately that this gene, maybe others,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56were really important for this diet to work.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00What was a really amazing discovery was to realise that this diet
0:26:00 > 0:26:03and these genes were part of the same system
0:26:03 > 0:26:05and that was a real breakthrough.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10David had discovered why calorie restriction worked.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14He now wanted to see if he could get the benefit without going hungry.
0:26:14 > 0:26:19After ten years, he found a molecule called resveratrol
0:26:19 > 0:26:23that seemed to mimic the effect of the diet.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26The amazing thing about this molecule is, when you feed it to life forms,
0:26:26 > 0:26:28so a yeast cell or a worm or a fly,
0:26:28 > 0:26:30even a mouse that's obese,
0:26:30 > 0:26:32they live longer and they're much healthier.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36And this was the first discovery that we could actually find a way
0:26:36 > 0:26:39to slow down the ageing process with a single pill.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43This could be the ultimate dream - an anti-ageing pill.
0:26:43 > 0:26:50Glaxo-Smith-Klein paid 720 million for David's company
0:26:50 > 0:26:55and, while it's too early to know if resveratrol works in humans,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58David isn't waiting to find out.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01I'm a scientist. Occasionally, I experiment on myself as well
0:27:01 > 0:27:03and so I started taking resveratrol
0:27:03 > 0:27:06as soon as we had tested it on yeast cells.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09Now, looking back, that was a little mad.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13We didn't know if it was toxic, might have even caused cancer.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17Fortunately, we now know that resveratrol is, as far as we can tell, relatively safe.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20My wife started taking resveratrol, my family does.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24Now, I don't endorse it, it's still an investigational molecule,
0:27:24 > 0:27:28but I felt that the signs were strong enough for me to take that risk
0:27:28 > 0:27:31and I know what's going to happen if I don't take it.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42The ability to just pop a pill to stop the ageing process
0:27:42 > 0:27:45sounds too good to be true, and at the moment it still is,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49but what the work did show was how important our genes are in the ageing process,
0:27:49 > 0:27:53and our increased ability to understand our genetic makeup
0:27:53 > 0:27:58has revolutionised our understanding of how we grow old.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08This expanding knowledge of genetics has turned communities
0:28:08 > 0:28:11where people make a habit of living long lives
0:28:11 > 0:28:15into superb laboratories for ageing research.
0:28:15 > 0:28:21In New York, Professor Nir Barzilai studied a Jewish community full of centenarians
0:28:21 > 0:28:23to work out what role their genes played
0:28:23 > 0:28:26in helping so many of them reach a hundred.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31I think the ageing can be
0:28:31 > 0:28:33redefined after you see
0:28:33 > 0:28:35so many centenarians like I do,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38and I'm really jealous of them.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41They might look old to you,
0:28:41 > 0:28:44but you see that their life is so meaningful.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49- Hi, Grandma, it's good to see you again.- My darling, I'm so glad you came.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52The old man with the beard is my baby grandson.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55Ria Tauba is 102
0:28:55 > 0:28:58and part of Nir's study.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01The chances of living to a hundred are only one in 10,000.
0:29:04 > 0:29:05Cheers, that's great.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09The question for Nir was how much of their longevity was down to genes
0:29:09 > 0:29:11and how much could be about lifestyle.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13- Are you going to have some lox, Grandma?- What could be bad?
0:29:13 > 0:29:15What could be bad? There you go.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17Eat like this, and you live to 102.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21So his team conducted physical and cognitive assessments
0:29:21 > 0:29:25and asked the 500 centenarians a range of lifestyle questions.
0:29:27 > 0:29:28Did you eat yoghurt all your life?
0:29:28 > 0:29:31You know, were you a vegetarian?
0:29:31 > 0:29:34What was your interaction with the environment?
0:29:34 > 0:29:37And I think the surprising thing for us
0:29:37 > 0:29:39is that we don't have yoghurt eating,
0:29:39 > 0:29:41we don't have a single vegetarian.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44We have just one person who was an athlete.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50Nir gathered their blood samples and prepared to map their genes.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54After five years, Nir finally had some results.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58He found a gene key to longevity and has since found two more.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04Two of those genes seem to be relevant to cholesterol.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08Basically, they increase the good cholesterol in a significant way.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11There is no drug currently that does it so effectively.
0:30:11 > 0:30:17And another gene seemed to be very important as preventing diabetes.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26For most of us, how much we eat and exercise
0:30:26 > 0:30:29is key to how healthy we are and to how long we live,
0:30:29 > 0:30:34but there was something rather shocking about these centenarians.
0:30:34 > 0:30:3930% smoked two packs of cigarettes for more than 40 years.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43Because our centenarians have longevity genes,
0:30:43 > 0:30:47they are protected against many of the effects of the environment,
0:30:47 > 0:30:49that's why they do whatever they want to do
0:30:49 > 0:30:51and they get there anyhow.
0:30:55 > 0:31:00Those key genes apparently overpower the effects of diet and lifestyle
0:31:00 > 0:31:04and leave a wonderful legacy for the next generation.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08So, Grandma, what are your plans for your next birthday?
0:31:08 > 0:31:10The children of these Jewish centenarians
0:31:10 > 0:31:13are 20 times more likely than the general population
0:31:13 > 0:31:15to live to be a hundred.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18- If you have a nice guy for me, I'll go on a date.- OK.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20THEY CHUCKLE
0:31:20 > 0:31:26For the rest of us, what our genes might have in store is a lottery.
0:31:29 > 0:31:34There's no way of knowing whether we have long life in our DNA.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40But is there anything we can do to change the odds in our favour?
0:31:42 > 0:31:44Ageing and death are both
0:31:44 > 0:31:47programmed into our genes.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49It doesn't mean it always has to be that way.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51If we can figure out what the programme is,
0:31:51 > 0:31:56then we can try to fix the programme and to stop ageing from taking place.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01Scientists searched for ways of fixing the programme
0:32:01 > 0:32:05by experimenting with selective breeding.
0:32:05 > 0:32:11Not on humans! Instead, they chose something much shorter lived -
0:32:11 > 0:32:14they chose the common fruit fly.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22A team at the university of California devised a simple breeding programme
0:32:22 > 0:32:25in which only eggs from older flies were allowed to survive
0:32:25 > 0:32:29while those from younger flies were destroyed.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34The essence of the experiment is to say to the fruit flies,
0:32:34 > 0:32:38"OK, you don't get to reproduce until you're older."
0:32:40 > 0:32:42And that means you have to survive until you're older,
0:32:42 > 0:32:45and it means also when you're older, you have to have
0:32:45 > 0:32:48the physiological ability to reproduce when you're older.
0:32:48 > 0:32:52And natural selection screens the flies under those conditions
0:32:52 > 0:32:55for postponed ageing automatically.
0:32:57 > 0:33:02'The only eggs allowed to hatch are those with the genes for long life.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15'This single experiment has been going on for over two decades.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18'Over hundreds of generations of selective breeding,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22'the fruit flies have slowly doubled their lifespan.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25'But the most remarkable thing about this experiment
0:33:25 > 0:33:29'is what extreme old age does to these flies.'
0:33:30 > 0:33:33The much longer-lived fruit fly turns out to be very different
0:33:33 > 0:33:34from what you might imagine.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37These fruit flies that have increased lifespan
0:33:37 > 0:33:40are far more athletic than normal fruit flies,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44they fly for much longer, walk for much longer.
0:33:44 > 0:33:49They are vastly more resistant to a variety of stresses,
0:33:49 > 0:33:51they are very robust in that sense
0:33:51 > 0:33:54and they certainly set to enjoying life,
0:33:54 > 0:33:56at least from a sexual standpoint.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05A longer life and more sex,
0:34:05 > 0:34:07sounds like a win/win situation for fruit flies.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10But, really, could we do that with humans?
0:34:10 > 0:34:12Use selective breeding to lengthen our lives?
0:34:12 > 0:34:14Think of the ethical nightmare of that.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21So if we couldn't breed for immortality,
0:34:21 > 0:34:23could we still find the answer somewhere else,
0:34:23 > 0:34:25deep within ourselves?
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Scientists working in another area of ageing research
0:34:31 > 0:34:33thought they had it.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39Only this time, the insight came from not studying the very old,
0:34:39 > 0:34:43but the tragic cause of ageing in the very young.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48In 2000, Horizon met Ory Barnett,
0:34:48 > 0:34:53a young boy suffering from the rare disease Progeria,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56which causes early ageing.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00Although only three, Aury already had wrinkles,
0:35:00 > 0:35:03stiff joints and thinning hair.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12Sufferers often go onto develop arthritis and heart disease
0:35:12 > 0:35:14and most will die of old age
0:35:14 > 0:35:17whilst still in their teens.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19I thought that he was just a perfect little boy
0:35:19 > 0:35:23and to find out that he had, you know, things wrong with him,
0:35:23 > 0:35:25it was just, it was very upsetting.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28'Scientists now believe they can explain
0:35:28 > 0:35:31'why these children age so suddenly
0:35:31 > 0:35:34'and this is offering clues to how we all age.
0:35:34 > 0:35:38'They have discovered that there is a time bomb inside our cells
0:35:38 > 0:35:40'that causes them to stop dividing
0:35:40 > 0:35:42'and, for Progeric children,
0:35:42 > 0:35:44'the fuse on this timebomb is the wrong length.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52'Inside every cell in our body,
0:35:52 > 0:35:53'at the end of our chromosomes,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56'is a piece of DNA called a telomere.
0:35:56 > 0:36:01'It stops the DNA from fraying as it divides.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04'But, every time a cell divides, the telomere gets shorter.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09'Eventually, the telomere shortens to a critical length
0:36:09 > 0:36:11'and the next time the cell divides,
0:36:11 > 0:36:16'the telomere can no longer protect the fraying DNA and the cell dies.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24'What scientists now know is that Progeric children
0:36:24 > 0:36:28'begin their lives with unnaturally short telomeres
0:36:28 > 0:36:31'and that is why they age so quickly.'
0:36:39 > 0:36:42If the shortening of the telomeres could be slowed or reversed
0:36:42 > 0:36:46then, perhaps, there was a hope of a cure for Progeria
0:36:46 > 0:36:49and a chance of influencing the way we age.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54Scientists knew that an enzyme called telomerase
0:36:54 > 0:36:56could repair telomeres.
0:36:56 > 0:37:02Researchers at the university of Texas inserted the gene for telomerase
0:37:02 > 0:37:05into skin cells taken from an old man
0:37:05 > 0:37:09and waited to see if they started producing the enzyme.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13And I can remember the postbox bringing me the gel,
0:37:13 > 0:37:14this is a piece of film showing
0:37:14 > 0:37:16that these cells had telomeres.
0:37:16 > 0:37:18And I told the postbox,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21"Remember this moment," because it was one of those,
0:37:21 > 0:37:23it wasn't one of these eureka sort of things
0:37:23 > 0:37:24but it was almost like that,
0:37:24 > 0:37:28because we were sitting there and I realised, for the very first time,
0:37:28 > 0:37:32we were able to actually put cellular ageing on hold.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40'These scientists had made an old human cell act young again.
0:37:47 > 0:37:51'Two years on, the cells are still dividing
0:37:51 > 0:37:55'and yet their telomeres never get any shorter.'
0:37:55 > 0:37:57The cells that we were using
0:37:57 > 0:38:00normally divide up to but no more than about 90 times.
0:38:02 > 0:38:07In contrast, the cells into which we put this enzyme, telomerase,
0:38:07 > 0:38:11did not stop, have continued dividing and have continued dividing
0:38:11 > 0:38:14and have continued dividing and they're still dividing
0:38:14 > 0:38:16and some of them have now undergone 400 doublings,
0:38:16 > 0:38:21so, you can see, that's four or five or six times their normal lifespan.
0:38:21 > 0:38:25But they've been behaving so consistently that we're considering them immortal.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28Our expectation is that they will never stop dividing.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37Unfortunately, the advance with telomerase
0:38:37 > 0:38:41offer little hope to sufferers of Progeria.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45Further research revealed that the disease is a genetic condition
0:38:45 > 0:38:47not linked to telomere length.
0:38:49 > 0:38:54Ory Barnett died in 2006, aged ten.
0:38:58 > 0:38:59For ageing research,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03the work of telomerase was an extraordinary breakthrough.
0:39:03 > 0:39:09Though this apparent immortality comes at a price,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12as Liz Bonnin discovered when she observed the one situation
0:39:12 > 0:39:17where adult cells naturally produce telomerase of their own accord.
0:39:20 > 0:39:22They look like pretty normal cells to me, Tom,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24what kind of cells are they?
0:39:24 > 0:39:27- Well, they come from this woman here, Henrietta Lax.- Right.
0:39:27 > 0:39:32And she died back in America, 1951.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35- So these are live cells from a dead woman?- Correct.
0:39:35 > 0:39:37That sounds very weird, how does that work?
0:39:37 > 0:39:40These cells are exceptional, they are expressing telomerase.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43So these cells can replicate endlessly.
0:39:43 > 0:39:44Absolutely.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47So are they, as such, immortal?
0:39:47 > 0:39:50Well, to me they are, they're immortal, they're growing on.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52Give me some cells, we'll put telomerase in
0:39:52 > 0:39:55and they'll live for ever, but there is a drawback.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57See, I knew there'd be a catch, what's the problem?
0:39:57 > 0:39:59To be honest, these are the cells that killed her,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01these are cancer cells.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04What's happening here is, these cells have divided too long.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07And as a cell grows and divides,
0:40:07 > 0:40:10it's going to accumulate damage. All sort of sources
0:40:10 > 0:40:12are going to damage the DNA.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16And that accumulation of damage is what can lead to cancer.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19So if you keep your cell alive longer than it should be,
0:40:19 > 0:40:23the DNA just gets more and more damaged and it can lead to cancer?
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Exactly. And one of the key roles here of telomeres
0:40:26 > 0:40:27and the telomere shortening
0:40:27 > 0:40:31and the death of the normal cell in preventing cancer.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40Well, it looks like immortality is going to be confined to the lab
0:40:40 > 0:40:42for a good few years to come.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45But there's no question that science has made great inroads
0:40:45 > 0:40:48into understanding how we might prevent ageing -
0:40:48 > 0:40:51having good genes, having a very good lifestyle,
0:40:51 > 0:40:53making sure we don't eat too much.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57All these things can help to slow down the ageing process,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59but we're not really much closer
0:40:59 > 0:41:04to finding a concrete solution to preventing ageing,
0:41:04 > 0:41:08which is why some people aren't looking to slow the clock down,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10but actually to turn it backwards
0:41:10 > 0:41:15by repairing the damage that ageing has already done to the body.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21And wherever there are those who claim to have the power of regeneration,
0:41:21 > 0:41:23there are others who are willing to believe them.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30'And, while the scientists laboriously plod the foothills,
0:41:30 > 0:41:33'the charlatans claim to have climbed the mountains
0:41:33 > 0:41:35'and seen the view over.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39'Ivan Poppof, one time court physician
0:41:39 > 0:41:41'to the King of Yugoslavia,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43'now, full-time rejuvenationist.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55I usually say that I discovered the god in my microscope.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02'An embryonic egg flip like this every morning
0:42:02 > 0:42:04'for each of his £1,000 clients
0:42:04 > 0:42:08'and, because the United States bans such practices as cell therapy,
0:42:08 > 0:42:10'the British off-shore islands like the Bahamas
0:42:10 > 0:42:13'make an ideal site for dollar earning clinics of this sort.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20'Aromatherapy, sleep therapy, Thalassotherapy...
0:42:20 > 0:42:21'You name it, they do it.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25'Poppof, in scientific terms, is a whole body man.'
0:42:28 > 0:42:31The women mostly come here for their looks,
0:42:31 > 0:42:33as the men come for their function.
0:42:35 > 0:42:37'Whether or not this treatment
0:42:37 > 0:42:39'raises more than the morale is open to doubt.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41'At best, what Dr Poppof does
0:42:41 > 0:42:43'is to embellish a fairly conventional health farm
0:42:43 > 0:42:45'with a lot of pseudo-science.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48'It probably doubles the price.'
0:42:51 > 0:42:55And pseudo-science seemed to come in many guises,
0:42:55 > 0:42:59some more gruesome than others.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05'Here, to a discreet villa near Montreux,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08'come the movie stars and the ambassadors,
0:43:08 > 0:43:10'the rich and the distinguished.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15'Every Wednesday, they arrive under the conditions of secrecy
0:43:15 > 0:43:18'which the Swiss reserve for the especially rich.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30'Every Thursday, at least one of the pregnant black sheep is sacrificed
0:43:30 > 0:43:33'and her unborn lamb taken from the womb.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39'In one of the world's most macabre operations,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42'the lamb is meticulously dissected by a team of surgeons,
0:43:42 > 0:43:46'each organ is placed in its labelled petri dish.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52'In 23 very private rooms, the patients wait,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54'like Mrs Zimmerman.
0:43:54 > 0:43:56'Now and every four months,
0:43:56 > 0:43:59'she is to receive up to 12 syringes,
0:43:59 > 0:44:04'one large wine glassful of liquidised thyroid cells from the lamb embryo.
0:44:04 > 0:44:09'The theory is that the fresh cells will revitalise her own dead organ.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14'They talk about the fountain of youth. In a word, rejuvenation.'
0:44:14 > 0:44:18Unsurprisingly, some scientists were sceptical of such claims.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21What in fact you're doing is injecting...
0:44:21 > 0:44:23a beef broth.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27You take dead cells and stew them up.
0:44:27 > 0:44:28And there's really no evidence
0:44:28 > 0:44:31that anything that you put in with dead cells
0:44:31 > 0:44:33has any effect at all on life.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37It may help to shorten it, perhaps, I don't know.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40But it, at best, it may help you to feel better.
0:44:43 > 0:44:4640 years later, there are echoes of this idea
0:44:46 > 0:44:50in an approach that now genuinely offers hope of regeneration
0:44:50 > 0:44:52in the field of stem cell research.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56In the very earliest stages of life,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58foetal stem cells form the blank sheet
0:44:58 > 0:45:02from which all our organs and cells develop.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06If we could harness their ability to grow
0:45:06 > 0:45:08into a multitude of different forms,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10then the dream of regenerating our worn out organs
0:45:10 > 0:45:13could become a reality.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18Stem cells taken from adult bodies are usually unsuitable,
0:45:18 > 0:45:21but in the year 2000, scientists found some they could use
0:45:21 > 0:45:23from an astonishing source.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39A teratocarcinoma is the most bizarre kind of tumour
0:45:39 > 0:45:42that you can possibly imagine.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45It's a tumour that actually looks like a little monster.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48The word terato means monster
0:45:48 > 0:45:50and carcinoma of course means cancer.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53And these things grow spontaneously
0:45:53 > 0:45:56inside a woman's ovary out of her eggs,
0:45:56 > 0:45:58inside a man's testes out of the sperm.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00And they grow like little embryos at first,
0:46:00 > 0:46:03but then they become totally disorganised
0:46:03 > 0:46:06and so they can be as big as grapefruits,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09covered in hair with blood vessels
0:46:09 > 0:46:13and nervous tissue and even teeth inside of them.
0:46:13 > 0:46:14And if you poke them,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17they can actually respond with a nervous reaction to the poke.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20And so there's a real question as to whether or not
0:46:20 > 0:46:21these things are alive or not.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30'A teratocarcinoma is a cancer unlike all others.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34'Because they grow out of a sperm or egg,
0:46:34 > 0:46:37'they contain embryonic stem cells.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41'A team of scientists once extracted embryonic stem cells
0:46:41 > 0:46:45'from a teratocarcinoma and left them to grow in a petri dish.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52'When they next looked, some of the cells were beating in the dish.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57'They had turned themselves into heart muscle, kidney, liver and brain cells.
0:47:01 > 0:47:05'They have the power of regeneration.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14'In Pittsburgh, doctors are taking the first step into the future.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19'They are beginning to exploit the potential of embryonic stem cells
0:47:19 > 0:47:21'to regenerate our bodies.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26'They are using stem cells taken from a teratocarcinoma
0:47:26 > 0:47:30'to treat people whose brains have been damaged by a stroke.'
0:47:30 > 0:47:33OK, try and lift your hand off the bed.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37- 'Don Fitch is one such guinea pig.' - No.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40'The hope was that they'd graft themselves
0:47:40 > 0:47:42'onto his existing brain cells and grow,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45'helping to reconnect the neural pathways
0:47:45 > 0:47:47'that had been damaged by the stroke.'
0:47:50 > 0:47:53- How are you doing there, Mr Fitch? Are you OK?- I'm fine, yeah. - Excellent.
0:47:53 > 0:47:59The potential of embryonic stem cell technology is absolutely enormous,
0:47:59 > 0:48:03because it gives us the idea that we could actually replace
0:48:03 > 0:48:07tissues and organs as they wear out in human bodies.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12That may sound like science fiction,
0:48:12 > 0:48:16but within a few years, the possibility of creating new organs in the lab
0:48:16 > 0:48:18was rapidly becoming a reality.
0:48:20 > 0:48:22- Hello.- Hi, there.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Hello. Hi, there, hello.
0:48:24 > 0:48:26- Hi.- Doris Taylor. - Hello, Michael Moseley.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29Nice to meet you. Stefan Kran.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32- Hello, nice to see you. You know what I've come to see.- Yes.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34OK, lead me on.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38'This is what the excitement is all about,
0:48:38 > 0:48:39'it's a newly created heart,
0:48:39 > 0:48:42'the result of Dr Taylor's inspired idea.'
0:48:43 > 0:48:47Wow! And it is beating.
0:48:47 > 0:48:48- It is beating, isn't it?- It is.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50It's not my imagination.
0:48:50 > 0:48:52How quickly does this happen?
0:48:52 > 0:48:57- So this is day five... - Four.- Four.- Day four.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59Does it spontaneously start to beat?
0:48:59 > 0:49:02Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05So was it exciting when you first saw it beat?
0:49:05 > 0:49:08It was one of those yes-moments in life.
0:49:08 > 0:49:13It was, you know... Yes! It doesn't get any better than this.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16'Dr Taylor's team removed a rat's heart
0:49:16 > 0:49:19'and washed away all the surface cells,
0:49:19 > 0:49:23'leaving a translucent structure made of connective tissue.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27'Then, stem cells from another rat were injected
0:49:27 > 0:49:30'and, within a few days, miraculously,
0:49:30 > 0:49:33'the living heart began to beat.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35'In principle, they should be able to do the same thing
0:49:35 > 0:49:40'with human organs - hearts, livers, kidneys.'
0:49:40 > 0:49:41We think we've opened a door
0:49:41 > 0:49:46that makes it possible for building virtually any organ.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48Any guess as to timescale?
0:49:48 > 0:49:52I suspect that we could have probably our first organ
0:49:52 > 0:49:54in a human in about four years.
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Wow! That is remarkable.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59'If it works in humans, this clearly has the potential
0:49:59 > 0:50:03'to extend lifespan by allowing the elderly,
0:50:03 > 0:50:04'at least those with enough money,
0:50:04 > 0:50:10'to replace their worn out organs with specially engineered new ones.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13'However, Dr Taylor's more immediate concern
0:50:13 > 0:50:17'is helping those who desperately need a transplant.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20A curious idea that, in 200 years' time, you know,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23maybe when I'm on my fourth heart, my sixth kidney,
0:50:23 > 0:50:27my third bladder, I could tell my great-great grandchildren
0:50:27 > 0:50:32how I met Doris and her team 200 years before.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41Doris wasn't far off in her predictions -
0:50:41 > 0:50:45in 2011, her team successfully grew a human heart.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50Being able to replace parts of our body as they wear out
0:50:50 > 0:50:53is an exciting prospect,
0:50:53 > 0:50:58but there is one thing that we can't yet replace - our minds.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04Yet, researchers are becoming increasingly aware
0:51:04 > 0:51:06of the importance of the mind in the ageing process,
0:51:06 > 0:51:09not just as something that deteriorates as we grow old,
0:51:09 > 0:51:14but as a powerful tool that can keep ageing at bay.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19The citizens of Loma Linda, in California,
0:51:19 > 0:51:20have a higher life expectancy
0:51:20 > 0:51:24than any other community in the United States
0:51:24 > 0:51:30But their secret isn't a shared ancestry or a restricted diet.
0:51:30 > 0:51:32Instead, it's all in the mind.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38'Today, Dr Ellsworth Wareham is preparing to perform
0:51:38 > 0:51:42'open heart surgery on a patient many years younger than himself.'
0:51:44 > 0:51:48Do the patients know that a 92-year-old will be supervising?
0:51:48 > 0:51:51I would hope not.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56I, I personally am sort of less than anxious
0:51:56 > 0:52:00to let people know my age,
0:52:00 > 0:52:06because there's a lot of incompetence associated with age.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10I think the figure is that 85, at 85 years of age,
0:52:10 > 0:52:1350% of people have Alzheimer's.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17'Dr Wareham's extraordinary longevity
0:52:17 > 0:52:22'may not have anything to do with his genes.'
0:52:22 > 0:52:24I don't have a particularly good heredity,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27three of my grandparents died at 72.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32Nobody in my family has lived to be my age.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37'The community living in Loma Linda have discovered a secret
0:52:37 > 0:52:41'that's much easier to find than any gene.'
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Your body is a temple of the holy spirit.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48'Marge is a Seventh Day Adventist,
0:52:48 > 0:52:51'a religion whose members live between five and ten years longer
0:52:51 > 0:52:53'than their fellow citizens.'
0:52:56 > 0:52:59Our research indicates that we are in control
0:52:59 > 0:53:02of at least ten years of extra life
0:53:02 > 0:53:07just by virtue of the choices that we make or we don't make.
0:53:07 > 0:53:08There's been one interesting fact
0:53:08 > 0:53:11that's been known now for 20 or 30 years.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13And that is that people that go to church regularly,
0:53:13 > 0:53:15whatever faith they have, live longer.
0:53:15 > 0:53:20And there is no question about that, the data is very robust.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22But it's probably not sitting in the hard pew that does that,
0:53:22 > 0:53:24there's probably something else.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29The support and community offered by religion
0:53:29 > 0:53:34is thought to help people cope better with stress of all kinds.
0:53:34 > 0:53:39Sometimes, it's believed that mental stress causes early ageing
0:53:39 > 0:53:41and damages your immune system,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44ultimately shortening life.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46Each major stresser of your life
0:53:46 > 0:53:48is pushing on your organ systems,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52and these organ systems slowly but surely
0:53:52 > 0:53:55have effects of all these stressers that are accumulating.
0:53:55 > 0:54:01The comfort of religious belief may help keep that stress at bay.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05There's many things in life, many stressers that are not controllable,
0:54:05 > 0:54:09that are not really your choice but you still have to cope with them.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13And religion and connection to something higher than oneself,
0:54:13 > 0:54:18connection to the sacred, connection to a tight-knit religious community
0:54:18 > 0:54:22allows you to modulate your reactions,
0:54:22 > 0:54:26your emotions to believe that there is a broader purpose
0:54:26 > 0:54:29and therefore your body can stay in balance
0:54:29 > 0:54:34and not be destroyed by those stressers and traumas over time.
0:54:34 > 0:54:40'..30 years of which are almost virtually gone.'
0:54:42 > 0:54:49But another intriguing study took the power of the mind even further.
0:54:49 > 0:54:54In 1979, Dr Ellen Langer conducted a daring experiment
0:54:54 > 0:54:59by taking a group of elderly volunteers all over the age of 75 back in time.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05They were forced to live as if they were 20 years younger,
0:55:05 > 0:55:09and that meant giving up all outside help and living independently.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17'This programme has been brought to you by Curtis, makers of the...'
0:55:17 > 0:55:20We created this environment they were going to be totally immersed in.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24It was a timeless retreat that we had transformed,
0:55:24 > 0:55:25and so, for a full week,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28they'd be living there as if it was that earlier time.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31'See your Ford dealer.'
0:55:31 > 0:55:33As soon as we got off the bus, I told them
0:55:33 > 0:55:35that they were in charge of their suitcases,
0:55:35 > 0:55:37getting them up to their rooms.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39They could move them an inch at a time,
0:55:39 > 0:55:42they could unpack them right at the bus and take up a shirt at a time.
0:55:42 > 0:55:47Just think about the difference in how these people were treated
0:55:47 > 0:55:50by me, with the assumption that they could do everything,
0:55:50 > 0:55:53versus treated like when you're a little kid.
0:55:55 > 0:56:00And this attitude was going to be maintained right through the experiment.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05There was nobody babying them,
0:56:05 > 0:56:09they were in all ways taking care of themselves
0:56:09 > 0:56:13as they would have and did, say 20 years earlier.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16Ellen was changing the routines and habits they'd built up
0:56:16 > 0:56:21over the last 20 years and challenging what they'd come to believe was possible,
0:56:21 > 0:56:24but would their bodies follow their minds?
0:56:24 > 0:56:25Had her reconstruction been convincing?
0:56:25 > 0:56:28She'd only run the experiment for one week
0:56:28 > 0:56:30but at the end of that period, it was crunch time.
0:56:32 > 0:56:33Had they changed?
0:56:37 > 0:56:41We got a difference in their dexterity,
0:56:41 > 0:56:46a difference in their joint flexibility,
0:56:46 > 0:56:50their gait, they were able to move faster, they stood taller,
0:56:50 > 0:56:53their cognitive abilities improved,
0:56:53 > 0:56:55their blood pressure dropped.
0:56:55 > 0:57:00The men put on weight and were objectively judged to look younger.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03One man decided he could do without his walking stick.
0:57:03 > 0:57:0563% had increased their IQ.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08What was even more surprising
0:57:08 > 0:57:11was that their vision and their hearing improved.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14And all of this from them just living
0:57:14 > 0:57:17as if they were younger for a week's time.
0:57:25 > 0:57:27Over the last 45 years,
0:57:27 > 0:57:32Horizon has documented science's vastly increased understanding of ageing.
0:57:32 > 0:57:33Yet, for all the progress,
0:57:33 > 0:57:35it seems there's still not much
0:57:35 > 0:57:40it can offer you or I to slow the march of time.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44Unless you really fancy chancing your arm on something pretty experimental
0:57:44 > 0:57:47or, of course, taking a shot of beef broth in the buttocks.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53Perhaps, with a bit of mental effort, we can do it ourselves.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57So it seems we have more control
0:57:57 > 0:57:59over the ageing process than we thought
0:57:59 > 0:58:04and the first thing to do is adapt the right attitude of mind to ageing.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08Meanwhile, science promises great things in the near future.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Who knows, they might even crack it in time for me.
0:58:11 > 0:58:15But meanwhile, I'll stay young simply by living young.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd