Transcription
So, as we get older, our brain shrinks back a little bit. The brains of superagers don't shrink at the same rate as other people their age.
Across the Village Media Network and wherever you get your favorite podcast. Welcome back to Closer Look, uh, on this Wednesday, uh, the 14th day of Jan.
Am I interrupting your reading over there?
>> No, no. I'm just trying to get up to speed on what you're going to talk about.
>> All right. I appreciate that. Uh, 14th day of January with uh Michael Friscalante, our editor-in-chief here at Village Media. Derek Turner at the controls again this evening. Uh, okay. Uh, it's been a few days. Uh, we need a sweater update.
>> Yes. Drum roll. Do we have drum?
>> Drum? Do we have?
>> No. Yes. They have not found the sweater.
>> Again, low budget program.
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Actually, that sounded pretty good.
>> It did sound the drummer.
>> I know. They have not found the sweater. And I found myself thinking a lot about this sweater. It pops in my head every day. Honestly, it does. That story resonates with I don't know if it's just the the time of the that we live in and the what's going on in the world, but I really wanted that sweater to to.
Cuz the the nightmare scenario with that sweater is that someone bought it. This is, of course, people don't remember a couple episodes ago, we had a story about this family in the United States desperately looking for a a lost family heirloom.
>> Letterman sweater.
>> Letterman sweater that was traced to last known location to like a a pop-up sale in Meford, Ontario.
>> Yes.
>> Uh, and that was the last of its, the last trace.
>> Yeah. Uh, you know, the worst-case scenario is that someone bought it at this uh popup and then, you know, threw it in the garbage or gave it away or.
>> Well, and it happens, right? You purge your closets and things get donated and.
>> Yeah, yeah. The the best-case scenario is that someone's going to watch this episode tonight and go, "I wonder what those guys are talking about," and then go back and watch the old episode from the other day.
>> And bang, sweater dis.
>> Sweater found. Uh, you can find that episode at closerpodcast.ca. CA. For the record.
>> It'd be great if we found that and just the next episode, you just showed up and wore it on on the.
>> Look, I've got a closet, not full, but I do have a couple of cardigans in there. And it's funny because on the weekend, I was looking at one and that made me think of the letter.
>> I bet you there's a National Cardigan Day or something. You have to wear one of those. Anyway, sorry to keep interrupting.
>> No, that's that's fine, man. You're allowed to do that. Uh, goodness knows I do it to you enough.
Okay, it's Alzheimer's Awareness Month. A very important month, uh, each and every year. Yeah, they talk, we talk a lot. We see a lot of different, uh, organizations putting out different, uh, releases, information about Alzheimer's, and it's a topic that we've tackled a few times on this show. Yes. Uh, most recently, we had Dr. Howard Chkow, one of the leading experts on dementia and Alzheimer's, talking about how.
>> It was an uplifting conversation, actually, because he feels like we're in this next decade is going to be transformational from what we know, right? They're learning so much about how the brain works and different things that build up in the brain that are linked to Alzheimer's, linked to dementia. A new medication had recently been approved. I, I should have written it down. I don't remember off top of my head, but we talked about that.
>> He feels good about the. We also know a lot more about the things we can do to help prevent dementia and Alzheimer's, right? Whether it be exercise, keeping your mind sharp, all kinds of things. And it reminded me, we talked about this this morning, reminded me that a couple years ago, we had a great conversation on the podcast, um, with a University of Western professor, Dr. Angela Roberts, who's a spent her, is spending her career now studying superagers, as they call them. And I love this. If you Google superagers, there's a new story about them every week somewhere in the world.
>> And superagers are these, you know, this segment of the population, typically, what is it, 80 or older?
>> 80 and over who have cognitive abilities like someone who is 20 or 30 years younger.
>> That's right. So you kind of see these guys, these people, right? They could be, you know, at the gym and they're 80 years old and they're doing 50 push-ups. They just seem to still be young. They defy aging, right? And so there's an international study that Dr. Roberts is a part of where she's been, the team has been researching what, trying to meet as many of these superagers as they can and figure out what makes them tick and what it could mean for others like you and I. I don't think either of us will be superagers.
>> We are not superagers. Uh, the only thing I find each morning, I'm usually super sore.
>> Yes. Uh, not a superait. I think Derek could be a super out of the three of us. He's probably got the best.
>> He's a musician, right? He plays in the band.
>> He's in the gym every day. Gym rat.
>> He is a gym rat. Yeah, he does, quote unquote, young things. So that, uh, that could.
>> He lifts.
>> Yeah, he lifts. He's lift.
>> You and I, we lift a.
>> Well, yesterday, because of the weather, didn't he? I had to cancel band practice.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> It's like he's a teenager. He's got his, he's got his band. Anyways, I just thought it'd be a great opportunity to revisit this conversation because it was a great conversation and ironically enough, I think it happened the day after the famous presidential debate between Trump and Biden, where Joe Biden's cognitive abilities really came into question. There was a lot, I remember right after the debate ended, the the news was all over, like, what's wrong with Joe Biden?
>> And we actually asked her about that, uh, and it was an interesting answer. But just, if it's just a great opportunity to, especially during Alzheimer's Awareness Month, to know that this kind of research is going on and for everyone to learn what a superager is.
Very excited to have, uh, Dr. Angela Roberts join us on the program today. Dr. Roberts is an associate professor at Western and also a research associate with the Canadian Centre of Activity and Aging. It's a big title, and we're, uh, equally excited that you're here with us. Dr. Roberts, thanks for taking the time.
>> Thanks for having me today.
>> Uh, now you're also a research lead on international, or an international study looking to uncover what contributes to the long healthy lives of superagers. For the benefit of Frisco and I and our audience, can you, uh, tell us what the study is all about and, more importantly, what a superager is?
>> I can. So, I, I always start by saying superagers are phenomenal people. So that, that's the first definition. Um, but the way we define superagers, there's lots of ways that people think about exceptional aging and longevity. For us, the definition, uh, is anyone who's 80 and over who has cognitive abilities like people who are often 20 and 30 years younger. In fact, we use this anchoring measure of memory. Their memory has to be as good as a 50 or 60-year-old. Now, this is a definition that's been around for about a decade. Was first coined by my colleague Dr. Emily Regowski, who's now at the University of Chicago, who kind of started this program of research. Uh, but we use memory in part, uh, because memory is this kind of nice anchor that we often think about that declines in the context of dementia.
>> So if you have memory as good as someone who's 20 or 30 years younger than you when you're 80, you're probably in pretty good shape in terms of lower risk of developing dementia.
>> That's wild. How do you measure that, Professor?
>> A great question. So, we, a standard test of memory, um, which means often having people learn a list of words. And so we repeat a list of words several times and ask people to recall it, uh, over different kind of practice trials, and then we give a delay, and then we ask them to recall it again about 15 or 20 minutes later. And so this is called a word learning test, and it's a really standard measure of how we use, uh, tests to think about how people, how good their memory is as they get older.
>> Uh, professor, I know that, uh, meaningful social connections, uh, is a, is a big part of this. Uh, what specific types of, of social interactions have you found, uh, to be most beneficial for, uh, superagers?
>> Oh, gosh, what a great question. Um, you know, the, the first thing I'll say is that superagers aren't just cognitively good. Their brains are also very, very good. And in fact, the brain of a superager, when we look at how much it's shrinking. So, as we get older, our brain shrinks back a little bit. The brains of superagers don't shrink at the same rate as other people their age. Um, and so, we, one of those reasons that we think that might be happening is they have a little bit more cognitive stimulation, particularly in this kind of social interaction space. Um, and what our superagers tell us is it's not having a thousand friends that makes the difference. It's having deep, meaningful social relationships. One of our superagers and I were having a conversation on Wednesday of this week, um, and she was saying, "That's exactly right. She doesn't have a lot of friends, but the ones she has are deep. They're meaningful. They do things for each other. They have deep conversations about life, including politics and philosophy." Um, and so it's this idea of the meaningfulness of the connection, whether that's friends or family members, uh, not just the number of connections that they have. And really, that's this kind of common trait across all of our superagers.
>> Are there other lifestyle factors, uh, that are common, uh, among the, uh, the superagers?
>> Yes, it's this whole notion of, "What do I, what, what can I do to be a superager?" And, and yes, Scott, you can be a superager, too. Um,
>> Well, I don't, I don't know about Scott, man. That's nice of you to say. Checks in the mail.
>> Exactly. Uh, so, uh, we certainly think this is probably a combination of biology and behavior. I think, like all stories of aging. Um, but, you know, one of the things that we know about superagers, or at least we're starting to understand, is this isn't simply an explanation that they're at lower risk of developing dementia. In fact, many of our superagers have a family history of dementia. Many of our superagers actually carry some of the, if we think about genetic risk for developing dementia, we know there's some genes that are more likely to contribute to developing dementia. Our superagers have some of those genes. In fact, we have superagers who are 100 years and older who actually carry genetically a very high risk of developing dementia, but have never done so.
>> So, part of this is is genetic, for sure, but it's not all genetics. Lifestyle certainly plays a factor, and we were just looking at some of our lifestyle data about an hour and a half ago, in fact, with our team. One of the ways that we get this data is that we have people wear wearable sensors at home, and we follow them around for two or three weeks. We look at how well they're sleeping. We look at how much exercise they're getting. One of the true things that seems to distinguish superagers is they have a really regular habit from day to day. They tell us this, and we also see it in their behaviors. They go to bed at the same time. They get up at the same time. They exercise at the same time. They have routines around the types of foods that they eat. Uh, so this idea of predictability seems to be a strong trait. When I ask superagers about this, like, "Do you really have this predictable routine?" They say, "Yes." And, you know what it does? And I'm, why it reduces stress. So they all perceive that having a regular routine ensures that that they have these low-stress lives, and many of them will also talk about stress as, and and how they manage stress, as being a positive factor around how they've aged. So, certainly sleeping 7 hours a night seems to be a regular trait. Although some of them go to bed at 4:00 AM and get up at noon, and others go to bed at 8:00 at night and get up at 4:00 AM. So it's not that they're all sleeping overnight. Um, but this notion of regular activity, low sedentary behavior, so they're really active and up and moving a lot. They may not be exercising like you and I. Not all of them are marathon runners, although we do have a world record track star in in our midst, um, but some of them are more active exercise-wise, but what they do tend to do is get regular sleep and have low sedentary behavior activities, meaning that they're up and going and doing things a lot.
>> That is all super fascinating. Just use the word super again. But, um, and you, how many have you identified in this research? Is it up to thousands now that you have as part of your group?
>> So, you know, it's a relatively rare, you might imagine, they don't grow on trees.
>> That's what, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, I'm fascinated by that.
>> Yeah. So, they, but I, I will say, I think there are more out there than than we think. So, I, you know, one of our superagers said to me on Wednesday, and again, you know, everything I want to be a superager too, and everything I know about life now, I know from these folks. So, one of the things she said is, is, "We are the new normal." Like, you know, she goes, "I, I struggle with the term super aging because I don't think I'm super. When I see myself and I see my close circle of friends, this is how we are all living. We are. This is the new 80. This is the new 85, and this is the new 90. And society just needs to get used to that." And so, I think she's right. Right. I think there's actually more superagers out there than than we know because we've not looked for it, and our stigmas around aging and how we think about older adults has kept us from looking for this. Um, but our true superagers, we're in the neighborhood of about 4 to 500 now. So, not, not thousands, not in our data. Um, and we have the first Canadian cohort, of course, and we've been largely limited to southwestern Ontario at this point in time. But within the first 18 months of the study, we've identified roughly 60 superagers just in this relatively small geographical area. I don't think that means London is a blue zone. I think it means Canada has a lot of older adults that are aging well, and our mission is to get out there and find them and understand what's contributing to that.
>> That's what I want to ask you. How do you find them? Does someone say, "Hey, you should maybe look at this person. They could be, do they seem to fit the categories?"
>> Well, you know, people who are interested in our work help us fund a lot of these people. So, thanks to, it's a thanks to you all for helping to spread the word about the study. Um, but superagers find each other. They, they come to us often, uh, through word of mouth. So, I had an email from one of our superagers last night who said, "Hey, I found four people, and I think they're going to qualify, and I've already convinced them to do the study. Can they call you next week?" Uh, we have people's children who reach out to us and say, "I think my, my mom, my grandmother, my grandfather, I think they're a superager. I think the the lady who plays bells at my church is a superager. Can I have them contact you?" So really, you know, we find them through a variety of ways, either through word of mouth, or because someone has a family member who says, "I actually think my loved one's really special. I want to see if they qualify for your study." And then they contact us. Um, we have, you know, we had a 97-year-old person, I think, this week, who drove down from, uh, about four hours away to participate in the study, drove on their own, got here on their own, uh, because they really were interested in, and, you know, kind of connecting and giving back to research. Um, one of the things that I think to understand about the aging research landscape is that most studies end at the age of 80, and that's where we begin. So, a lot of what we know about aging in older adults is what we know from 60 and 70-year-olds, not 80, 90, and 100-year-olds. And so people are truly excited at this stage of life to give back and to help people understand aging through their lens. Um, the other reason we do this work, and I think this is an important component. The super aging research program isn't just about aging and understanding older adults. It was founded as a counterpoint to helping out, uh, studies in dementia and neurodegenerative brain diseases. So, I'm a dementia researcher by background. That's what I do. All of my colleagues with whom I do this work are researchers in dementia and neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's disease, which is another area that I do research in. And over the years, we were realizing that what we were looking at as our comparator controls were actually people who were often on the early stages of developing the same conditions that we were trying to study. So, the superagers were kind of an accidental find, uh, by my colleague, uh, Dr. Rolski, and, and she really expanded this, and now this work is housed at the University of Chicago along here at Western. But the goal was really to try to understand what's going wrong, if you like, used lightly, wrong in neurodegeneration by trying to understand what's going exceptionally right.
>> So, really, the super aging program of research, and what brings a lot of people into it, is they've had family members with dementia, Parkinson's disease, other conditions, and they want to give back. They want to help us understand what's happening at the other end of the spectrum by trying to understand what's going right with them. And, and so that's really what draws people to the program of research.
>> That's really interesting. I can imagine when, when you do the, the, the, whatever it is you, you do, like the, the, the study or the analysis of people when you come in, they must be super happy when you tell them, "Hey, you are a superager." Like, do they get a t-shirt or how does it work out?
>> They do get a t-shirt. They get a literal t-shirt.
>> That says that says "I'm a superager."
>> It, no, it says "Aging is my superpower," actually, is what it says. I, I don't have one with me, but I can mail you each one, and so you can wear it around too.
>> Oh, that'd be awesome.
>> It actually says "Aging is my superpower." Um, and they are thrilled. In fact, last Friday, we hosted an event. I mean, this program of research, recall that, you know, our superagers do have circles and they, of social circles. They're often people of various ages, young people, older people, their age, but many of them, their spouses have passed away. Uh, their children, they may have outlived their children. They certainly have outlived many of their friends. Um, and so we bring them together in a social context as well, so that they can get to meet other people who are aging the way that they are. And I'll give you an idea about what we did last Friday. Uh, last Friday, they formed clubs, movie clubs. We have a superager who runs a gin and politics club. Um, and so some of them got involved with that. We have a, a superager who leads a philosophy circle every week. He left school at the age of 14, and, and now runs a philosophy circle for people of all ages. But they formed these clubs so they can stay connected. They also formed the foundations of an anti-agism campaign. They want to use their stories to promote and reduce, uh, promote healthy aging, but reduce stigma, uh, societal stigmas in aging. And so we're planning for an anti-agism campaign that will help them conduct. Uh, they're teaching art classes. They're volunteering in their communities, and, and so we try to help open up avenues to help them continue to age well through these social opportunities. And, uh, that's what we did last Friday. They, they are a fantastic group of people.
>> They certainly sound like it. Uh, doctor, what about things like, uh, advancements in technology and social media? Uh, what role, if any, does that play, uh, where healthy aging is concerned?
>> Yeah, a really good question. You know, we have, I, not necessarily here in our, our Canadian cohort, uh, but in our, at our cohort at the University of Chicago, we actually have an aging influencer who's in that community who spends a lot of time on social media, uh, promoting, uh, aspects of healthy aging, bringing older adults together. So much of what we're doing, you know, when we had our Friday event and we draw everyone together, she's doing that in a virtual space so that older adults from around the world who may find themselves in a position of aging well, but not necessarily having a lot of contemporaries around them who are aging in the same way, can can come together. So, uh, we have that aging influencer, we have another aging influencer at one of our other sites. Um, so I think social media provides, at least what our folks tell us, is social media provides an opportunity for them to reach out and stay connected with people whose experiences in aging might be similar to their own, but that they're not necessarily running into every day in their neighborhood. And, and so I do think it plays a role. That face-to-face connection, I think, is still really important, which is why we foster events for for these people to come together, and why they often foster those social connections within their own communities. So, I'm not saying that social media is a proxy for that. Um, but I do think it provides a way for them to connect with people who are aging in a similar experience. Mhm.
>> Professor, I have to ask you this because you're an expert in aging, and everyone's talking about aging today because of the presidential debate last night, right? And be, did you get to watch any of it? And with your expertise, what did you make of it in terms of just, just watching it, what were your thoughts?
>> Yeah, I, I, I did watch part of it. Um, I, I will stay out of the politics of it a little bit, but I, I think I'm going to take this from a different angle. I, um, what I observe, and I think I observe this a little bit, society is many of us will have good days and bad days, and, and we all, I'm sure you have a bad day where your program doesn't go exactly as intended. No one.
>> This is the first time it hasn't. This is the first time it's gone well. Yeah. Sorry to cut you off, professor. Go ahead.
>> Yeah.
>> But, but no one looks at us on a bad day and assumes we're incompetent at our job. And, and so this is not, again, this is not a political statement toward either candidate. I think we offer very little grace and forgiveness to older adults. We operate by an assumption of their incapacity versus their capacity. I will agree, last night was a challenging performance to watch on both sides, and for different reasons. Um, but it doesn't take away from the fact that that we have to be aware that how we're looking at this problem is through a line of stigma. We're looking at it through a lens of an assumption of incompetence versus competence. And I'll remind us that older adults deal with this every day. They encount, you, our superagers, who, if you walked into a room, you might not know they're 95 and 100 years of age. Um, but they still face this on a daily basis. In fact, Canada has an agism problem. We know that. Stats Canada's collected these data. So, not only do we have a society of, of where one of the largest growing cohorts are people 80 and over, and particularly people 85 and older, but we have a societal bias toward viewing these people as, as not being able to contribute as much as they did, of a of a default standard of being incompetent or incapable. Nothing could be further from the truth, right? And so, I think what I see when I watch things like that, I, I, my truth reaction was, I was incredibly sad. Um, but I was saddened by the assumptions and perspectives that I knew that people would take the next day, some of which may be grounded in truth, and others that are grounded in stigma and bias. And, and it also motivates me and reminds me why, in addition to the scientific and biological discoveries that we'll make in this science, in addition to thinking about how we advance theories of complexity of hypotheses and aging, all these kind of technical aspects that we're doing, one of the most important things we're doing is resetting the mindset on aging and providing positive role models for aging. That's not to say that I think everyone should be a superager, and not everyone will be a superager, but if what we learn can help people age well, no matter where they find themselves on this spectrum, whether they're living with dementia or they are a superager, then I think we've done a lot to to help older adults in society. Um, and I think that's an important part of this research.
>> All right. See, there is hope for us. Sometimes we just have an off day.
>> That was amazing. That was a fantastic conversation.
>> And I, I love that perspective that sometimes it's just an off day, and it's not, you know, uh, the whole overarching, uh, picture of how things really are.
>> I always tell people, you know, the, the first day that I'm perfect in this world, then I'll expect perfection of others. And, and that's kind of a, a mantra by how I operate my life, and I operate my lab. But I think society's very intolerant of, of aging and older adults. Maybe it's our own fear of where we land in that space. I'll share one interesting anecdote, and this may or may not be relevant, uh, to the program, but it's, I had one of our superagers say to me the other day that she wants to get back to teaching art classes. She did that previously with people who had dementia. Um, and she found she was able to draw the pre-COVID, and then, you know, COVID, a lot of those programs were disrupted. Now, now she's in her early 90s. Um, and she said to me, "I think I can do this uniquely differently than if someone who's 50 or 60, because at this stage in my life, I'm not afraid of developing dementia. I can be around people with dementia and people who might have challenges cognitively or physically, and I'm not afraid to do that. So, I have a courage and a confidence in that space that someone who's 40 or 50 might not have because they're afraid of developing that condition when they're around someone." So, I, I think there are unique spaces where these older adults who are doing very well, whether we're talking about intergenerational programming, inspiring people who are 18, 19, and 20, giving life lessons that they may not be exposed to otherwise, or actually treating and helping us manage some of these conditions and aging because they don't have that level of fear. Um, I, I think there's so much that they can offer to society, and so much that they want to offer to society, that probably the, the greatest disservice we're doing to ourselves is washing them away.
>> Very well said, and I think that's a great place to, uh, to leave it. Dr. Angela Roberts, uh, thanks for your time and your perspective today. A pleasure to have you on the show.
>> Yeah, thank you so much for the conversation. I really liked, uh, how she alluded to the fact that it's not about having hundreds or thousands of different friendships or people in your life. It's about the number that you do have, that those relationships are deep and meaningful.
>> That's right. Cuz you think of super, that concept of superagers, you would think, oh, is it because they have some physical abilities that keep them feeling young? But for her, and what's important, what the research is showing, is it's these deep, meaningful social relationships, right? That you have to have that social aspect. And it's interesting because we just talked about that yesterday with Dr. Buckley from CH. We were talking about the latest monitor report talking about how,
>> You know, alcohol dependence levels are up. People are feeling that their mental health is down all across the board. And one of the biggest pieces of advice she gave yesterday was,
>> Get out there and be social, right? Get, get away from your Netflix, get off your phone.
>> Speak to an old friend, go out for a coffee.
>> Y.
>> God forbid, go out for a beer, do something social, right? And that, that really helps with your mental health, even more so than than maybe going to the gym would be.
>> Um, so it all kind of, it all kind of plays the same. Who knows where we're all going to end up, uh, when, when time will tell, but I think both yesterday's interview and this one give a lot of insight into, uh, into into how to, that importance of having those social relationships. I was going to make a bad joke about this show being a, but I'm not going to make it.
>> All right. Uh, well, one thing is for certain. Uh, you and I are not superagers, but it was a super episode. Uh, and to find more of those, you can go to closerlookpodcast.ca or drop us a note, closerlook@villagemedia.ca. For Derek Turner, executive producer of this evening's, uh, program, and Michael Friscalanti, our editor-in-chief here at Village Media. I'm Scott Sexsmith. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow night, 7:00, right here on Closer Look.
>> Frisco and Scott's wardrobe, provided in part by Mo's, Sault Ste. Marie.