Healthy aging: The surprising power of your social life

Unfortunately, many of us spend our later years in poor health. But is this avoidable? And can we actually increase our healthy years? While aging is inevitable, there are steps we can take to minimize its effects on our health. And surprisingly, some of these steps have nothing to do with exercise or diet. Simply spending time with others can provide countless benefits to us as we age. But how can we maintain these connections? Does retirement affect our social interactions? And can attitude alone keep you healthier in your later years? In today’s episode, one of the world’s top experts on aging, Prof. Rose Anne Kenny, joins us to explore these ideas. Rose Anne is a world-leading geriatrician at Trinity College Dublin, where she leads a huge, long-term study on aging. She’s also the author of the number one international bestseller Age Proof: The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life. Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 00:13 - Quickfire round 01:14 - What’s the biggest myth about aging? 04:18 - What is aging? 07:43 - Aging process predictors 13:50 - Our growing elderly population 15:14 - Retirement 19:21 - Study on aging and social interaction 24:57 - Importance of social participation 27:38 - Studying the effects of loneliness 29:56 - Combating loneliness 31:13 - How attitude affects aging 33:20 - Social interaction online 36:08 - Creating social relationships 48:42 - Summary and Outro Mentioned in today’s episode: The Dunedin Study, a long-term study designed to investigate broader questions of child health and development from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) from Trinity College Dublin You can buy Rose Anne’s book here. Follow ZOE on Instagram. Episode transcripts are available here. Is there a nutrition topic you’d like us to explore? Email us at podcast@joinzoe.com and we’ll do our best to cover it.