Century Lives

Sometimes a single question can open up a whole new world. About ten years ago, a young doctor named Sara Naseri was trying to think of how the field of medicine could be more preventative. It was so difficult to get information about what was going on inside people’s bodies, before they were sick enough to go to a doctor for a blood draw. Suddenly it dawned on her: Women bleed every month. What can we learn from that blood, and why has no one looked at it before? A rigorous scientific study followed—and eventually, a Silicon Valley start-up called Qvin, which produces menstrual pads used for testing women’s blood. Dr. Naseri represents a new generation of women coming up with innovations to close the women’s health gap. We travel to Silicon Valley to meet her, and we talk to two venture capitalists about the impact women in venture are having on private sector efforts to improve women’s health.

Two of the biggest social factors that contribute to health problems are financial insecurity and caregiving for family members. And it’s no coincidence that the burden of both falls more heavily on women. We hear the moving story of a woman named Amy Goyer, whose responsibilities as a caregiver landed her in bankruptcy and prevented her from taking care of her own health. She is now the national caregiving expert for the AARP.  We also talk to three experts about how women’s lower financial status leads to health problems, how health problems lead to lower financial status, and how both are tied to women’s roles as caregivers: Chloe Bird, Director of the Center for Health Equity Research at Tufts Medicine, Ana Hernandez Kent of the Federal Reserve and Heather McCulloch of the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program.

What are autoimmune diseases, exactly? And how many people have them? Experts can’t quite agree on the precise number, but it’s a lot: somewhere between 10 and 15% of the population. And 80% of those people are women. Autoimmune diseases contribute significantly to a lower quality of life, and incidences of autoimmune diseases are dramatically increasing. Autoimmune diseases have typically been under-researched and, as a consequence, are poorly understood. But thanks to new funding and research, efforts are underway to gain new insights into this category of diseases that affect millions of women.

Everyone knows that heart disease is a men’s issue. But as it turns out, everyone is wrong.  Heart disease is also the leading killer of women. And despite significant efforts to educate the public about women’s heart disease, the risks that women face are still badly understood—not just by the public, but by the medical community, too. Why are doctors still ill-prepared to treat women with heart disease? And why do so many women not realize the threat of cardiovascular disease to their own health?

There are very few givens when it comes to menopause - and mostly unanswered questions. Should you treat menopause with hormones? Do hormones cause breast cancer? Do hormones cause heart disease? What about non-hormonal alternatives? Shouldn’t you just stop complaining? In this episode, we’ll offer a few answers about how we got here - decades after the abrupt end of the Women’s Health Initiative, the first study of its kind to look at the effects of hormone therapy on women’s health. We’ll hear from Dr. Marcia Stefanick who worked on the original WHI study and meet Dr. Joann Pinkerton and Dr. Wen Shen, who have devoted their careers to improving women's lives at midlife.

During its first hundred years, the National Institutes of Health, the world’s premiere medical research institution, used only male subjects in its clinical studies, completely ignoring the anatomy and physiology of half of humankind. But that began to change in 1990 - a turning point for women’s health in the United States, one brought about by the growing power of women in Congress and the field of medicine. We talk with Senator Barbara Mikulski, who along with a small band of members of Congress, demanded change at NIH, and Dr. Vivian Pinn, a trailblazing pathologist who became the first head of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH.

The United States has been described as the “most age-segregated society that’s ever been." In the final episode of Century Lives: The Century Club, Ken travels around the globe to explore how other societies make intergenerational connections. He gets serenaded by the oldest and youngest Spaniards and witnesses the world’s most comprehensive effort to build an intergenerational society in Singapore. And as Ken wraps up his trip, he realizes that he found his ikigai.

It may not come as a surprise, but fixating on someone’s age can affect how you think about them—and even how they think about themselves. And the health implications are dramatic. People who have a negative view of aging live on average 7.5 fewer years than those who have a more positive view, even holding constant for other health and social factors.   In this episode, Ken travels to some of the longest-lived countries in the world to find societies that put real thought into the needs of older adults. We'll see a fashion show in Singapore, go to a beauty school in Japan, and meet a street photographer in South Korea to discover a kind of longevity advantage that stems from cultures that encourage a positive attitude towards aging.

It’s been said that you are what you eat, and Italians are aging like the fine wine that makes them famous. As older Italians retire and leave their careers behind, an astonishing number of them are beginning new chapters as volunteers. In this episode, Ken travels across Northern Italy to explore its vibrant new culture of volunteerism. Along his journey, he gets the best advice about aging he’s ever heard.

The national motto in South Korea is “hurry, hurry,” and that’s what the country did as it turned its metropolitan areas into “lifelong learning cities.” Across the nation, adults of all ages now have access to free classes that help them keep learning—and connecting to each other. In this episode, Ken goes back to school, where he learns about the traditional art of teamaking, and meets a recent college graduate who is older than he is. Then we return to the United States to hear from an American who attributes her long lifespan—99 years and counting!—to lifelong learning.

You can’t go anywhere in Japan without running into older workers. They might be driving your taxi, serving your food, or selling you tickets at a tourist attraction. Japan has the highest percentage of older workers in the world. You might think this has to do with economic necessity and changes in pension rules. But when you look closely, you’ll discover the widely accepted belief in Japan that work brings you “Ikigai," which translates to a purpose in life that is critical to healthy and successful aging.      In Episode 2 of Century Lives: The Century Club, host Ken Stern travels to Fukuoka, Tokyo, Ukiha, and Toyama to meet older workers who describe what they enjoy about working longer. And, he visits a company in Tokyo that is developing new adaptive technologies that will help people work into their 70s and 80s—that is, if they so choose.

Americans are obsessed with youth. But instead of keeping us younger, that focus is proving detrimental to our health. Join us as we explore how the U.S. can reframe our government policies and social perspectives to help extend our lives. In the first episode of Century Lives: The Century Club, “The Fountain of Youth,” Ken searches for centenarians in Italy, drags his Gen Z son to Florida’s Fountain of Youth tourist attraction, and learns an interesting truth from the chronicler of the world’s long-lived Blue Zones.

Though attitudes about retirement are shifting rapidly, traditional notions of retirement still hold currency. In Episode 6, we meet Maria and Brendan D’Souza. Maria is a senior nurse at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, just a few years away from retirement. Her son Brendan is freshly minted from medical school, starting his career just a few floors away from his mother. They share a family bond, a career, and many of the same interests and passions, but for all that unites them, different perspectives and circumstances facing their generations are creating different ideas about retirement, caregiving and family commitments.

For some, work is a calling, and they can’t ever imagine giving it up.  In episode 5, we meet Michael Segal, and hear his incredible journey—beginning with being left for dead on the floor of a convenience store in Austin, TX and ending with his lifelong commitment to helping trauma victims survive and flourish in the trauma wards of Ben Taub Hospital.

For some, retirement is just the starting pistol for that next act. Whether it is a new business or an entirely new career, retirement is just an out-of-date term for starting something new. To this group, entrepreneurship is a big draw (older Americans are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs) but it’s really about the freedom to pursue an exciting new phase of life. In episode 4, we meet Tasha Mayweather, and are drawn into her vision for her next act: KBK Skating Palace. And that’s just the beginning.

Retire young: travel, spend time with family, perhaps tend to a nice piece of land in the country. It is the retirement that we all are supposed to want, but relatively few people get. In episode 3, we meet Carrie Nealis, a nurse in her late 30s who dreams of having the retirement her parents did. But she is challenged by the uncertainty of our times and the nagging belief that her generation will not share the same opportunities of their parents.

It’s a common story: approaching retirement with little or no savings, uncertain how far social security or savings will take you, dealing with climbing health care costs and the potential responsibility for providing financial support to adult children. Increasingly, retirement is a financial struggle for millions. In episode 2, we meet Genie and Burgess Etzel, both approaching the final year of their careers at Harris Health. Perhaps they have it made: two pensions, a house in a fashionable neighborhood, a loving family. All this is true, but as with so many Americans, it hides complex family dynamics and the challenging math of the new retirement.

If there is a new vision of what “The New Retirement” should be, it is the “all of the above” retiree: stay healthy, stay involved in something you are passionate about, and be a dedicated caregiver to your future grandchildren. In episode 1, we meet Esmaeil Porsa, the CEO of Harris Health, to hear about his arduous and shockingly improbable road to the top of Harris Health, and what it means for the retirement that may not come as soon as his family hopes.

In episode 6, we explore an insidious epidemic, equivalent to the health effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It can cause inflammation, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. And it can cut our lives short by as much as 30 percent. It’s not Covid - or a virus - or a bad diet. It’s loneliness. More than 60 percent of Americans report feeling lonely and disconnected. And that number keeps going up. Today we’ll explore the health effects of loneliness. And our host Ken Stern comes up with an ingenious way to overcome his own feelings of isolation - as he sets out to make six new friends in his neighborhood.

Obesity rates have exploded in the US over the past half-century, with negative consequences for healthy longevity. We travel to rural Arkansas, where we visit countless dollar stores and explore the impact of ultra-processed foods on the obesity epidemic. We also examine potential solutions – from anti-obesity medication to Food Is Medicine interventions – as we begin to tackle obesity as a disease and not a personal choice.