On the NPR TED Radio Hour, Sunday 11th October at 7pm, Newstalk FM

'The Fountain of Youth'

Aging is inevitable.  We can slow it down a little, but could we ever bring it to a grinding halt? In this episode, TED speakers explore how we all might live longer and even better lives.

To find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner studies  the world's "Blue Zones" communities whose elders live longer than anyone else on the planet.

He is now helping communities  in the US come up with their own ‘Blue Zones’.

Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey argues that aging is merely a disease  -and a curable one at that.  

He says he doesn’t understand why we don’t do more medically to prevent people getting sick and explores what more we could be doing for diseases like alzheimer's.

But  what controls aging? Biochemist Cynthia Kenyon has found a simple genetic mutation that can more than double the lifespan of a tiny worm, which points to how we might one day significantly extend human life.

Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg says "neo-evolution" is on the horizon. When it becomes easier to eliminate disease through gene therapy, will we change the trajectory of evolution?

Author Isabel Allende is in her 70's. She's got a few wrinkles but she has incredible perspective, too. She asks what is wrong with aging seeing as we don't really have an alternative. 

She says she plans to keep on living passionately as long as she can.

Listen Back to TED Radio Hour ' The Fountain of Youth' here