The first episode of Michael Mosley’s final ever series, titled Secrets of the Superagers, was released yesterday on Channel 4 and will look into the secrets behind people around the world who have managed to defy ageing.
Mosley, who tragically died last year whilst on holiday in Greece, revealed several ‘hacks’ that research shows can help in staving off old age and help you to live longer lives.
The series opens with a tribute to Mosley, a diet, health, and medical TV show presenter who was one of the earliest proponents of intermittent fasting as a weight loss method.
Mosley died on the Greek island of Symi at 67 years old last year after having gone missing whilst on holiday, with his body having been found after four days.
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In his new TV show, quite poignantly, he continues what he has done throughout his career: helping people live longer and healthier lives.
The first episode of the Channel 4 show Secrets of the Superagers explores the brain and examines various ways people can maintain their cognitive function and combat age-related illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
These are the ways that Mosley explores in the show, which have been purported to aid in living longer, some of which are polar opposites of one another.
Mosley first interviews a 70-year-old man, Dane Kenny, who is a skydiving enthusiast and has been doing so since 1969.
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Kenny is convinced that the act has kept his brain and body young, something which the show looks into and finds out actually has some truth to it.
When skydiving, people experience hypoxia – a condition in which there is insufficient oxygen to maintain proper homeostasis, which allows the body to maintain an internal stable environment (via WebMD).
Whilst extended periods of hypoxia can lead to a more severe form of the condition and can be fatal, Mosley explains that studies have shown that periods of hypoxia can be beneficial to brain functions and cognition.
The theory was presented by an Israeli study into the effects of hypoxia and is tested by Mosley in the show – with his brain function shown to be lower than Kenny's in a memory test despite being younger, with the drop off of experiencing hypoxia also being more pronounced in Mosley.
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They go as far as to say that extended periods with the condition can improve cognition by 5 per cent. Meanwhile, another tactic shown to improve brain function is simply committing to regularly learning new things.
One of the groups he visits is a community of older people in the US who spent three months learning different skills.
By the end of this project, they each were shown to have cognitive abilities of much younger people, in some cases as much as 50 years younger than their supposed cognitive ability.
The final method he preaches is meditation, but specifically for people who suffer from general anxiety.
This is due to the negative effects that cortisol can have on the body, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands in response to stress.
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By meditating to manage stress and anxiety, people can reduce the amount of cortisol they are producing, which can help stave off brain conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's later in life.
Secrets of the Superagers is available to watch on Channel 4 every Monday.
Topics: Channel 4, Health, TV, TV and Film, Documentaries
Michael Slavin