LS 32 - Dr. Roger Landry, Masterpiece Living

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Welcome to the Longevity Show, Informing listeners on the important aspects of health, wealth and happiness to ensure you live life to its fullest. With fascinating interviews with top authors and gurus in the field, along with the latest news in the science and technology of longevity, we're going to reveal expert advice and amazing secrets of living a long, happier life. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman.

It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Roger Landry to the show. He is president of Masterpiece Living. He's a former flight surgeon in the US Air Force who retired as a highly decorated full colonel and chief flight surgeon. He's author of Live Long, Die, a guide to authentic health and successful aging. Roger, welcome. How are you?

I'm well, Jason. Thank you for having me. It's really an honor.

The pleasure is all mine. Give us a sense of geography. Where are you located?

Well, I live in Massachusetts, but since the publication of the book, it's been on the road again, so to speak. And presently I'm in Florida.

What is the core philosophy of live long, Die short, and maybe the inspiration of that title, if you like as well?

Yes. Well, I'm a preventive medicine physician, as you say, and the public health term for dying short, live long, I think, is intuitive and it's what you talk about. But the dying short part is what we call in public health, the compression of morbidity. Morbidity is when we're sick and impaired, and this is about compressing the time that we're sick and impaired. So rather than a long, maybe decades long decline that's expensive, with lower quality of life, painful and degrading even, that we can expect that we can, with some minor lifestyle adjustments, live at very high levels for a longer, longer period of time and have that endpoint of our lives be something a little quicker than what we would like relative to decline. So that's what it's about in the core of what we do, is that the research tells us that lifestyle is the major determinant in whether we take that long road of decline or we take one with compression of morbidity. It's good news.

Yeah, yeah, definitely is. Well, give us some of your best lifestyle tips then.

Well, the research on aging started with the MacArthur Foundation. And what they observed in people who did age in a much better way were that they challenged themselves physically and mental. They did not set low expectations. They refused to be what so many as so many are in our society, pasteurized, not like milk, but like horses put out the pasture, marginalized. So they refused to be and continued to grow. And they secondly, they really paid attention to any risks that they had, either from genetics or from their previous lifestyle or maybe just due to their age, and worked to reduce those risks. And thirdly, and probably most importantly back in the 90s when this research first came to light, was that these people were stayed out on the playing field of life rather than being in the bleachers. They were connected and stayed connected and had a network of friends, were part of a community and had meaning and purpose in their life. Those are probably the core. I have 10 tips I put in the book and I'd be happy to discuss them, but they all evolve around that core social connection. Challenge yourself physically and mentally having purpose.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, you talk about the hunter gatherer, the agrarian. There's interesting historical references here. Did you want to talk about that before we get into the tips?

Oh, absolutely, I would. Because, you know, Jason, when I first started writing this book, I didn't intend to do that. But as the research, as I get deeper into the research, I recalled having my undergraduate years taking anthropology. And many of these newly discovered lifestyle traits that would result in a better aging experience were in fact the lifestyle traits of our hunter gatherer ancestors, even our agrarian ancestors. As you know, maybe those two lifestyles account for about 99% of the time that humans have been on earth. So it is not a leap to say that since our physiology evolves very slowly, that we still have these type of physiologies that require that hunter gatherer lifestyle in agrarian in order to be healthy and be at our best. And the 10 tips allude to those.

So what would be the preference then, the agrarian or the hunter gatherer? Because if you talk to a paleo person, they're going to say, you know, that's when health really started facing the challenges. When we started making grains and things like that, when we just ate off the land. You know, it seemed like agriculture was an advancement until I heard the paleo philosophy. Then I guess maybe it wasn't, I don't know.

Well, certainly for availability of food, which, which dramatically increased the lifespan. So. Yes, but I think wild grains.

Were at the time a huge bonus and probably still are if you didn't have another source of food and calories readily available. Because prior to that, I mean, I think the life expectancy went up reasonably dramatically when we went to an agrarian society. Perhaps Maybe it was in the 30s, during the hunter gatherer would be our lifespan. And I can't tell you for sure, but I know that.

At the turn of the 20th century, and we were probably only maybe 150 years from the industrial revolution, life expectancy was at 50. So there was an advance in that time.

Yeah, well, it was an advance because it was a triumph over famine. But if you're not going to die from famine, then it might be questionable in terms of diet. But again, there are many different philosophies on that for sure. I don't know if that's where you go with this, so I don't want to, I don't want to burden you with that discussion necessarily.

Well, I think diet is a factor. I tend to take the whole picture a holistic, actually lifestyle approach. So our hunter gatherers and agrarian, they move and they moved regularly. And at our best, we exercise for an hour or two a day. This was a whole lifestyle of movement. They were connected to each other in a very, very meaningful way for the greater good, survival and work together. Everyone had a role, everyone had purpose. No matter what their age. Older adults probably, well, did raise the children, among other things. And these things were really critical to us progression. Now, diet.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors ate not three meals a day. That was an industrial revolution thing. They sort of grazed and it was about fruits, nuts, vegetables, some wild grains, fish and a little bit of meat. They weren't that good at hunting until they began to domesticate animals. So since our systems and our physiology evolves much more slowly than our societies, we still have that hunter gatherer physiology. And I believe we still require those basic lifestyle characteristics to be healthy with age Prep.

Right, right. Okay, so let's go through the 10 tips and I'll just kind of review them. Maybe you can pick a. Pick a few of them, maybe pick three or four because we're probably not going to, you know, use it or lose it. These are, these are great titles. We've all heard them. You know, keep moving, challenge your brain, stay connected, lower your risk, never act your age. I love that one because I'm trying not to. Wherever you are, be there. So that's kind of the. Be in the moment probably and you know, find your purpose, have children in your life, laugh to a better life. So, so pick your choices there.

Well, you like, never act your age. Let's start there. Well, that one has to do with the fact that to act your age these days is to essentially buy into a stereotypical and erroneous view of aging, that aging is only about the climate and doesn't acknowledge the potential and the ability to grow as long as someone has a pulse. And so when we do indeed act our age, that is usually going to set extremely low expectations for ourselves, because society has low expectations. It's changing, but changing slowly. And as a lead boomer, I want it to change a whole lot faster. And so this really is about acknowledging the potential.

Setting higher expectations in a society with public policy that also acknowledges that older adults are a huge resource, as they have been for every pre industrial revolution society. And that's what that's about. So I have a story in that I met Chuck Yeager, who was the first pilot to go faster than the.

Speed of sound barrier.

Yes. Oh, you know, so. And he was in my office and I had done a physical and he told me, you know, I'm the 50th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier, I'm going to do it again. I was young and a product of myself, my upbringing in society and medical education. And I said to him, but you'll be 75 years old then. And he looked me straight in the eye and said, what is your point? And. And I had an education that day because indeed I had some ages. And what is the point? It's all about capability and function.

Yeah, yeah, no, it definitely is. It definitely is. So a lot of it is that psychosomatic portion, that mentality of, you know, what you think and, you know, really, age is such a moving target. I mean, just watching movies, even from the 70s, which is not that long ago. Okay. The way they depict someone who is, say, 50 versus the way many 50 year olds that I know are nowadays, I mean, it's shocking. You know, it's just. It's just an amazing difference.

You know, it is shocking, Jason, and it's changing, but I don't think it's changing fast enough because the demographic is like a train bearing down on us. You know, the fixes. By 2050, every fifth person will be over 65. You know, if we're going to continue to marginalize older adults, we're only going to have a few people actively contributing to society. And that's nuts. That's crazy, because we can't, you know, to me, it's like saving something valuable, say gold. You save it for 70 years and when you get a nice big pile, you just push it to the side and just throw it away. That's what we're doing. We can't afford to do that.

And when you say society marginalizing them. You know, are you referring to one core thing? Like, are you referring to the fact that it's really hard to get a job in corporate America if you're over 50 or what are you referring to?

I am referring to that. That is one element. There's the whole element of engagement. You know, why aren't our older adults involved in education on a regular basis rather than just sort of one older co beating down the door to talk about living history? That's the history they live through. I'm talking about the ability to continue to get around in a city, to do your errands with safety, because we have diverse cities that they're essentially unsafe for everybody to move by bicycling or moving, but certainly for older adults to do it safely. You know, I'm talking about the wisdom that has guided societies prior to the Industrial Revolution almost always centered in older adults. And.

We tap into that a little bit, but not all that much. Jason, I'm sure you're aware of the blue zones where people. Five areas in the globe that were identified by Dan Bucher in his book where people grow old and grow old very vitally. And one of the key characteristics is that these people are still engaged in life and are a necessary part of the society. And it's a coveted position, and they definitely have a role. So these are the sort of things.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. One thing that I want to point out, I want to throw some blame at the government on the job situation. And, you know, it is because the age discrimination laws, you know, it seems like all these laws always hurt who they intend to actually help. They always seem to have this backfire. So a worker in a company can sue for age discrimination if they're over 40. And so what companies do is they react to that by being very cautious and shying away from hiring older people. Not that that's even old by today's standards, because they're afraid if it doesn't work out and we have to let them go, they're going to claim age discrimination and sue us. Right. So it's like a law of unintended consequences.

It is. Jason, you're absolutely right. That's ironic. And, you know, I don't propose that the policies that are out there are nefarious or meant to harm people. I think it is.

Sometimes they are.

Yeah, maybe you're right. I was trying to be nice about it.

I don't know. Maybe not. I'm not sure. But, you know, but in general, I.

Think that there are an attempt to decrease liability, you know, increase productivity.

With the mistaken identity that comes with only with you. Yes, and the industrial revolution told us that youth could produce more widgets. But if you talk about things that require.

Both lobes of the brain, right and left sides of the brain, wisdom and.

Calculation and experience, well, where does the real expertise lie there? And so we're learning. We'll get better. I'm very optimistic about it. It's just taking longer than it should. Shall we go to another? Do we have time for another tip?

Yeah, yeah, let's give it. Give us one more tip and, you know, I don't know. Pick your favorite.

Well, I have many favorites, but I think one that's particularly favorite of most audiences is this whole aspect of the brain and what's possible now with the brain. When I was in medical school, I was essentially taught the brain was a fairly static organization until maturity, and then it was only about losing neurons, losing ability over the rest of your life. And we know now that that's not true and that we can grow new pathways. We can actually grow new neurons. And neuroplasticity, which is with the brain, that's the ability to rewire itself when challenged, either by a disease or an injury or by learning new experience, being challenged. And we grow new pathways. So the brain has so much more potential. And where that particularly is important is as someone is growing new pathways and is challenging themselves by learning new things. They are. Empirically, we're seeing that they are less likely to ever have the symptoms of dementia. Even sometimes when they have the anatomical disease in their head, the plaques and the tangles of Alzheimer's, they. Many times they do not have the symptoms. And so this is very optimistic news, I think, for all of us.

Yeah, it really is. So how do we do that? I mean, do we. You know, you hear those commercials for websites like Lumosity. You know, what are some of the best ways to do that? Grow those new neural pathways and strengthen the brain.

I think luminosity is a good one. And I think that the key. The key core advice I would give is get out of your comfort zone and learn new things. Be a beginner and don't worry about winning a gold medal or being an expert or a savant or whatever. Just continue to learn new things.

That is such an excellent stimulant for the brain to grow new pathways. Basically, what happens every day is we make a bunch of new neurons, and if we're learning something new, those neurons migrate to the area of the brain and to contribute to the pathway. And if we, we're not learning new things, those cells just die. So, so it's, it's. That's. I think that's the image and that's exactly what happened. That can get people's attention. I'm not going to waste these neurons. I need them. So whatever it is, it can be, you know, eating with the opposite hand. It can be driving a place you go to every day a different way, or it can be learning a language or a skill or musical instrument. We actually see when we scan brains, brains getting larger in particular areas when someone is learning something new. This is fantastic.

Yeah, it really is. It really is good stuff. Well, give out your website and tell people where they can learn more about you, your work and your book.

Sure, Jason. I appreciate the opportunity. LiveLongDie Short.com is the website and they can learn about me. They can sign up to get weekly videos for no cost and little instructions and little nuggets to help them age successfully. I hope they do it.

Excellent. Dr. Roger Landry, thank you so much for joining us.

Jason, thank you for having me. Keep up the good work.

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