Anti-Aging Expert: "STOP These 3 Habits After 40+! – They Predict Early Death" | Rose Anne Kenny

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   Let's say if someone's in midlife, in their 40s or 50s, and you were gonna say one or two things for them to focus on, what would you say?

2. RKRose Anne Kenny0:10

   I'll give the- my top three, and the first one I'd start with would be friendship, and to culture friendship, how important that is. Maybe we can take a step back. You mentioned there that 80% is in our control, and isn't that wonderful?

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:23

   Yeah.

4. RKRose Anne Kenny0:23

   'Cause everybody assumes it's genes. You know, aging is about your genes, and your j- you're, you are stuck, more or less, at the moment anyway, with whatever genes you've got. But that isn't the case. Genes only contribute to 20% of the aging process. 80% is within our control, so that's fantastic. And then what are the things that we know are in our control that influence the process, that influence that 80%? And so if my top three would be, as I said, friendship, having good friendships. Um, it's not about quantity, but it's very much about the quality of relationships, qual- quality of friendships, and we can come back to how that works later on. I, I'm, and I'm sorry to say the next two, because the la- once I said this on radio in Ireland, and the interviewer said to me, "Oh, my God, not those old chestnuts again."

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10

   [laughs]

6. RKRose Anne Kenny1:10

   But I have to mention diet and I have to say exercise, because they are very important, and they are something that certainly definitely makes a difference. And then if I were to include a fourth, I'd say stress. How, you know, th- th- stress is so bad for us, so anything that we can do to attenuate stress processes or attenuate stress itself is important-

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33

   Yeah

8. RKRose Anne Kenny1:33

   ... for the aging process.

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:35

   Yeah, brilliant. So friendships.

10. RKRose Anne Kenny1:37

    Mm-hmm.

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37

    Well, let's broaden that out.

12. RKRose Anne Kenny1:38

    Mm.

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38

    I guess relationships-

14. RKRose Anne Kenny1:39

    Yeah

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40

    ... the food we're eating-

16. RKRose Anne Kenny1:41

    Yeah

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:42

    ... how much we're moving our bodies-

18. RKRose Anne Kenny1:44

    Yeah

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45

    ... and how much stress we're being exposed to. We're gonna get into all of those in detail.

20. RKRose Anne Kenny1:50

    Yeah.

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51

    But as you say, a lot of us who are health-conscious these days have heard some of these messages, right?

22. RKRose Anne Kenny1:58

    Yes.

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:58

    You have been publishing papers for years. You've been treating patients for years. You teach medical students. You've got a lot of experience, and I think everyone comes to the aging conversation at different times in their lives, right? So you've mentioned your top three there, but I'm, I'm interested, how would you frame it differently depending on the age of someone who's coming to see you? So for example, if someone is a, I don't know, a 40-year-old female, for example, how would you change that messaging slightly to be super relevant for them?

24. RKRose Anne Kenny2:36

    Good question. So 40-year-old female, uh, will be coming into menopause, so to be preparing for that, I would say that's the first thing. We can talk a little bit about that. Um, it doesn't change what I'm saying about friendship, but it's sometimes much more difficult, because there are an awful lot of other pressures on someone's life.

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:55

    Mm.

26. RKRose Anne Kenny2:56

    So they don't have the time to be culturing friendships, et- et cetera. So but to use some mechanism for retaining friendship is very important. You know, when you're picking up kids from school and having to do the housework piece and your work piece, that makes your life much more difficult in the context of diet, in the context of exercise. I can absolutely say that I almost came to a full stop when I was in that period of my life with my children and with my professional life, et cetera. All of the things [laughs] that I'm going to be talking to you now about, and the, and your audience, and sharing as being important for manipulating the aging process were almost at a full stop, because I wasn't able to do everything, and I focused on those other things. But I think to, uh d- not to... It's not all or nothing, so at least to try and do some of-

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:46

    Yeah

28. RKRose Anne Kenny3:46

    ... the things we know are beneficial.

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:47

    I mean, on that, that's really interesting. At this stage in your life now-

30. RKRose Anne Kenny3:52

    Yeah

Episode duration: 2:08:57