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Speaker 1: Welcome to Get Connected with Nina Del Rio, a weekly

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Speaker 1: conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on

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Speaker 1: one Oho six point seven light FM.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Get Connected. By twenty thirty five,

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Speaker 2: the number of people in the US over the age

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Speaker 2: of sixty five will outnumber the people under eighteen in

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Speaker 2: this country for the first time in history. So our

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Speaker 2: population is aging rapidly, but one of the greatest challenges

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Speaker 2: for US is being socially isolated. For example, older adults

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Speaker 2: are more vulnerable to illness or injury when we don't

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Speaker 2: have a person to call for help. As we're collectively

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Speaker 2: getting older, how can we age well? What is there

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Speaker 2: to learn from countries with long life expectancies who make

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Speaker 2: social health a priority. In Healthy to one hundred, how

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Speaker 2: strong social ties lead to long lives, longevity expert ken

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Speaker 2: Stern reveals the key components that globally contribute to longer,

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Speaker 2: more enriching lives. Ken Stern, thank you for being on

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Speaker 2: Get Connected.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on the show.

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Speaker 2: Ken Stern is a nationally recognized expert on longevity and aging.

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Speaker 2: He is the founder of the Longevity Project and hosts

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Speaker 2: the popular Century Lives podcast from the Stanford Center on Longevity.

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Speaker 2: So it wasn't that long ago, ken Stern, that life

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Speaker 2: expectancy in the US was on par with other wealthy countries.

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Speaker 2: But that is not the case anymore. And it's not

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Speaker 2: just the length of our lives, it is the quality

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Speaker 2: that's right.

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Speaker 3: So you're exactly right. So if you turn the clock

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Speaker 3: back to say, nineteen to eighty, the US was it

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Speaker 3: wasn't the first in life expectancy, but it certainly wasn't

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Speaker 3: last among developed economically developed countries. But today we're last

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Speaker 3: both in life expectancy and more importantly, in what's called

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Speaker 3: healthy life expectancy, the number of years you can expect

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Speaker 3: to live in good health, And we trail every other

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Speaker 3: single economically developed countries in the world, and often not

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Speaker 3: by a small amount you can live. You can expect

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Speaker 3: to live almost a decade longer in good health in

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Speaker 3: Japan than you can in the US now.

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Speaker 2: So as US life expectancy has not grown on par

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Speaker 2: with so many other countries, our levels of social engagement

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Speaker 2: have also gone down. What does the research say about

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Speaker 2: social engagement and overall health?

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Speaker 3: What we have now in this country is a loneliness epidemic.

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Speaker 3: The VC Murphy, the former Surgeon General, declared that about

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Speaker 3: two years ago, and the focused on loneliness because it

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Speaker 3: has a direct and important effect on our health. Being

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Speaker 3: lonely is equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day in

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Speaker 3: terms of our health and life expectancy. And I mean,

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Speaker 3: what has happened between nineteen eighty and today is that

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Speaker 3: social connection, the amount of time we spend with other

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Speaker 3: people has declined as we spend more and more time

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Speaker 3: with our own technologies, first television, now phones.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk about some of the countries with most

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Speaker 2: long lived citizens, how social health is implemented in the

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Speaker 2: workplace when it comes to volunteering those sorts of things.

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Speaker 2: I found it fastating your travels, especially in Asia. So

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Speaker 2: we'll start with Japan because we always think of them

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Speaker 2: as having the most long live citizens. I believe they

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Speaker 2: are the most long lived in the world. Nearly forty

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Speaker 2: percent of companies in Japan now hire workers past the

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Speaker 2: age of seventy, something that would be unheard of in

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Speaker 2: the US, and often with specialized programs to retain them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so really important. So I went to five countries

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Speaker 3: for this book, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Italy and Spain.

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Speaker 3: Japan is in fact the longest lived country in the world.

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Speaker 3: The median life expectancy for women Japan is now ninety

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Speaker 3: half the women alive and Japan will live to more

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Speaker 3: than ninety years old. It's really an extraordinary thing. And

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Speaker 3: part of it is what's going on is Japan is

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Speaker 3: not the only only longest lived country. It's also the

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Speaker 3: country with the most older workers, both by numbers of percentage.

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Speaker 3: And that's because people in Japan associate work with social

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Speaker 3: connection and having per and those things are really quite

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Speaker 3: important to our lives. When I talk about working longer,

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Speaker 3: it's not necessarily a popular topic among people. A lot

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Speaker 3: of people get it, but they don't necessarily want to

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Speaker 3: work in the same way. And what's happened in Japan

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Speaker 3: is they've created essentially a second economy for older workers.

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Speaker 3: A lot more part time work, a lot more flexible hours,

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Speaker 3: a lot more job sharing, a lot more assistive technology.

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Speaker 3: All those things make working longer not only possible but

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Speaker 3: attractive to older workers.

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Speaker 2: I'd like to ask about something very specific, just because

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Speaker 2: this is kind of fascinating to me. But it's not

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Speaker 2: only programs, it's technology can you talk about the muscle suit.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I was in Japan, I strapped on

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Speaker 3: the muscle suit, which is a exoskeleton that's designed to

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Speaker 3: help any worker, but specifically older workers work who are

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Speaker 3: doing physical labor work longer. So it doesn't actually do

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Speaker 3: the work for you, but it eases pressure in your

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Speaker 3: back and makes lifting and moving things a lot easier.

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Speaker 3: So I put it on. I lifted site, I lifted

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Speaker 3: without being turned on a basket of fifty pounds of weights,

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Speaker 3: which wasn't easy, and then they turned it on. It

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Speaker 3: still wasn't easy, but it was a lot easier than before,

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Speaker 3: And its designed to help think about how can you

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Speaker 3: reduce wear and tear across the lifetime, but also make

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Speaker 3: it easier for older workers to be physically active longer.

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Speaker 2: You're right, people don't want to talk about retirement as

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Speaker 2: something that maybe you would push off. But you bring

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Speaker 2: up the point in the book as life expectancy has

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Speaker 2: increased over many decades. This number sixty two, sixty five,

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Speaker 2: it feels a bit arbitrary. What did you learn about

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Speaker 2: workers who continue with pleasure, assuming they enjoy what they

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Speaker 2: do working into older age, People.

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Speaker 3: Who work past sixty five's a lot of research on it.

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Speaker 3: It's good for your health, it's good for social connections.

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Speaker 3: Perhaps not all jobs, there's sort of a small category

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Speaker 3: of what they call bad jobs that raise more stress,

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Speaker 3: but by and large, working longer is good for life

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Speaker 3: expecting see and specifically good for healthy life expectancy. And people,

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Speaker 3: I think are beginning to know that the actually the

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Speaker 3: fastest growing component of the American labor force is people

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Speaker 3: over age of seventy five, still a small, small percentage,

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Speaker 3: but it's growing rapidly, as is the workers over sixty five.

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Speaker 3: And that's because I think increasingly people understand that there's

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Speaker 3: a loneliness to a lot of people's retirements, loss of purpose,

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Speaker 3: loss of the You fall off the cliff when you

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Speaker 3: leave work, and work social connections behid, and that's not

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Speaker 3: good for you. So you see a lot of stories.

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Speaker 3: Jane good All famously worked till ninety one. Mel Brooks

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Speaker 3: has just announced a new movie that he's going to

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Speaker 3: start produce a star and he's ninety nine come out

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Speaker 3: when he's one hundred and one. Those are extreme cases,

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Speaker 3: but it reflects, I think a growing trend that we

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Speaker 3: understand the importance of work to our social connections.

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Speaker 2: Our guest is ken Stern. He's a nationally recognized expert

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Speaker 2: on longevity and aging and best selling author. He's been

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Speaker 2: a frequent contributor to a wide variety of publications, including

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Speaker 2: Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and Slate. His new book is

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Speaker 2: Healthy to one hundred, How strong social ties lead to

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Speaker 2: long lives. You're listening to get connected on one O

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Speaker 2: six point seven light FM. I'm Mina del Rio Moving

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Speaker 2: to Singapore. Every citizen there is eligible for free courses

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Speaker 2: in the Skills Future Program. What is that?

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Speaker 3: So? Another way of being socially connected is lifelong learning. Again,

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Speaker 3: we've largely confined, at least formal learning to the first

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Speaker 3: quartile of life, something we stop at eighteen or twenty

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Speaker 3: one or twenty five. Other countries longer lived countries have

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Speaker 3: reframed their educational system so that you can learn across

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Speaker 3: the life course while you're working, in terms of skills,

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Speaker 3: but also into retirement. Because lifelong learning is great for

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Speaker 3: social connection and engagement. A lot of our friends come

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Speaker 3: from our school life, not because we're a friendlier then,

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Speaker 3: but because we were approximate to people for lots and

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Speaker 3: lots of hours. So countries like Singapore have not only

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Speaker 3: sort of committed to life long learning, they have put

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Speaker 3: their money where their mouth is. They essentially a fund

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Speaker 3: people to learn across the life course. So the Skills

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Speaker 3: Credit in Singapore is essentially a program to give essentially

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Speaker 3: free education to people across the life course. So you

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Speaker 3: can take courses mostly in person as a way of

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Speaker 3: learning new skills or just learning things that are interesting

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Speaker 3: to you, but engage with other people who are have

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Speaker 3: similar values, similar interests, which is great for social connection

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Speaker 3: and ultimately great for health.

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Speaker 2: What did you learn also about intergenerational connections? What opportunities

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Speaker 2: are there in collaboration when ages are mixed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So the writer Mark Friedman says, the generations fit

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Speaker 3: together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and there's putting

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Speaker 3: the generations together is important for the health of elders.

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Speaker 3: But it's also important, perhaps the most critical factor for

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Speaker 3: the development of young people. So a lot of countries,

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Speaker 3: the US is considered by many to be the most

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Speaker 3: age segregated society. You're more likely to be friends with

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Speaker 3: someone of a different race than you are of someone

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Speaker 3: ten years younger or older than you. Other countries are

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Speaker 3: really focusing structurally on keeping the generations together, whether it's

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Speaker 3: and housing or at work, and creating incentives for families

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Speaker 3: to stay together or just people of different generations to

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Speaker 3: mix and mingle in ways that historically we did naturally

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Speaker 3: but lost in the urbanization of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: Some of that is also done through things like volunteering.

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Speaker 2: Volunteering in the US has interestingly been declining since around

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Speaker 2: two thousand and five, in part because we're ironically less

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Speaker 2: socially connected.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so volunteering, of course, it's important society, but

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Speaker 3: it's also important to the idea of social connection health

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Speaker 3: and you know, it was accelerated by the pandemic, of course,

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Speaker 3: But really technology has taken us away from the connections

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Speaker 3: that drive volunteering. The things that actually get people volunteering

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Speaker 3: is to have a friend ask you to volunteer. But

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Speaker 3: we have fewer friends now. More and more people are

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Speaker 3: reporting having no friends, and the number of people report

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Speaker 3: having six or more friends to decline by about two

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Speaker 3: hundred percent since the turn of the century. And that's

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Speaker 3: because technology. Just take a subway or a bus, everyone's

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Speaker 3: heads down, their phones were not relating to each other

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Speaker 3: as we need to as humans.

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Speaker 2: What does Italy seem to be getting right about volunteering, then.

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Speaker 3: So Italy, I mean there are cultural differences, of course,

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Speaker 3: in the countries I visited and know, Italy is a

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Speaker 3: much more socially engaged country. They rely less on technology,

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Speaker 3: they spend lots more time at meals together Americans do

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Speaker 3: and most countries do. But they've also, as they have

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Speaker 3: grappled with a much older society and a declining birth rate,

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Speaker 3: have focused on older volunteers and create opportunities essentially from

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Speaker 3: whole cloth, create essentially a volunteer culture. When I was visiting,

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Speaker 3: I remember going to a senior center in town called

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Speaker 3: Omina in northern Italy, and there were about thirty people

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Speaker 3: older than me. I'm sixty two. They're older than me.

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Speaker 3: It was impossible to tell who is the volunteers and

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Speaker 3: who are the participants of the senior center. It didn't

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Speaker 3: really matter, because they're building a culture where people of

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Speaker 3: all ages, but particularly in the second half of life,

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Speaker 3: really can engage and support each other.

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Speaker 2: As the age at a time when, as I mentioned

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Speaker 2: at the beginning and you mentioned numerous times in the book,

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Speaker 2: so many Americans are turning older every day. Ten thousand

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Speaker 2: Americans are turning sixty five every day. Can you talk

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Speaker 2: about the importance of changing what we're doing now? Why

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Speaker 2: does this matter for the larger community?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's exactly right. So this is what's called

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Speaker 3: peak sixty five. More people in the United States are

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Speaker 3: turning sixty five than ever before, ten thousand a day.

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Speaker 3: We're a much older society and that changes sort of

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Speaker 3: the economics of the country. So we have a labor challenge,

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Speaker 3: but it also means that we need to keep older

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Speaker 3: Americans engaged and healthy. And the way you do that

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Speaker 3: a is a little bit to redefine what older is

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Speaker 3: because we have adopted definitions of old that made sense

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Speaker 3: one hundred years ago but don't make sense anymore. And

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Speaker 3: find opportunities to support people in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties,

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Speaker 3: nineties stay engaged, whether that's through work or volunteering or learning,

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Speaker 3: or in generational relationships, or just redesign our cities to

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Speaker 3: provide opportunities for people to be together in important ways.

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Speaker 3: Other countries have begun to grapple with it. They think

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Speaker 3: of social health and social connection as a public health priority,

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Speaker 3: and we need to do the same.

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Speaker 2: And as you continue this work and you're sixty four

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Speaker 2: or sixty two. I'm sorry, I'm fifty four, so I'm

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Speaker 2: above the waterline as well. As you continue to study aging.

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Speaker 2: What are some ways you have rethought your own social health,

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Speaker 2: your own aging.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what a great question. So you know, when I

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Speaker 3: started this work, I would have probably given the answer

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Speaker 3: to that most Americans give, like what's the most important

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Speaker 3: your health? Would probably said something about exercise and nutrition,

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Speaker 3: act of self care. Those are all important. But I

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Speaker 3: wouldn't have thought about social connection and fighting the loneliness epidemic.

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Speaker 3: I do now, So it's changed how I think about work.

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Speaker 3: I mean, ordinarily I would probably a lot of my

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Speaker 3: friends are retiring. I would be thinking that it's time

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Speaker 3: to start retiring. I don't think that anymore. I'm going

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Speaker 3: to work as so many older workers told me, until

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Speaker 3: I can't. That's how I think about work, because that's

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Speaker 3: a source of I wouldn't be talking to you today.

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Speaker 3: With that work, I wouldn't be engaging with so many

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Speaker 3: different people, And I think that's really changed my view.

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Speaker 3: I also changed my view of the importance of trying

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Speaker 3: to find friends and social connections of different generations. I

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Speaker 3: tell the story of going to a wedding and being

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Speaker 3: seated with a table with people I didn't know. The

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Speaker 3: only thing that we had in common were our age,

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Speaker 3: and they were great, But I'd much rather have been

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Speaker 3: engaged with pull of different generations, and that's really changed

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Speaker 3: my view on trying to find people of similar interest

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Speaker 3: but not necessarily a similar age.

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Speaker 2: Ken Stern's book is Healthy to one hundred, how strong

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Speaker 2: social ties lead to long lives. Thank you for being

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Speaker 2: to get connected, Thanks for.

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Speaker 3: Having me on the show. Enjoyed the conversation.

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Speaker 1: This has been Get connected with Nina del Rio on

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Speaker 1: one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and

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Speaker 1: opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views

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