Creative Aging in America: Younger Next Year – Part C

[HTML1] Host Christopher Springmann brings us more compelling evidence of the healthy principles detailed by Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry Lodge in their book Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit and Sexy until You’re 80 and Beyond.

Joy Johnson, 81, has been described by the Wall Street Journal as having “sturdy, pointed shoulders, smooth tan skin that resembles soft leather, and a leggy, slim-waisted figure women 50 years her junior would kill for.”  Joy won the 80 plus category in the New York City Marathon, knocking an entire hour off her running time from 2007 to 2008.  She tells Christopher Springmann all about her lifestyle, training strategies and winning attitude.

Then he speaks with biochemist Cynthia Kenyon, a researcher on aging at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kenyon has increased the lifespan of tiny worms up to 600% by suppressing a single regulator gene that appears to direct aging, not only in worms, but also in similar pathways in flies, mice — and possibly humans. In addition to some fascinating hard science, she reveals her personal, pragmatic approach to diet and health. There’s a framed article in her office, an interview from Glamour Magazine, in which the writer asked her, “How old are you – really?” To which Cynthia Kenyon replied “150.”

More about Joy Johnson
Joy Johnson was born on Christmas Day, 1926 and was raised on a farm where living an active lifestyle was a given. She was a physical education teacher in the San Jose, California public school district who, upon retirement in 1985, took up running as a way of life. She trains at Dick Beardsley’s Marathon Running Camp in Waubun, Minnesota, and has run in every New York City Marathon since 1987. When she isn’t running her usual 30-35 miles per week, Joy likes to spend her time gardening at the home she shares with her daughter and granddaughter.

More about Cynthia Kenyon
Cynthia Kenyon studied chemistry and biochemistry at University of Georgia and earned her Ph.D. in 1981 from MIT, where she discovered that DNA-damaging agents activate a battery of DNA repair genes in E. coli. She completed her postdoctoral studies with Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, studying the development of C. elegans. Since 1986 she has been at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she was the Herbert Boyer Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and is now an American Cancer Society Professor. In 1993, Dr. Kenyon’s discovery that a single-gene mutation could double the lifespan of C. elegans sparked an intensive study of the molecular biology of aging. Her work has driven the study of aging in many other organisms. Her honors include the King Faisal Prize for Medicine, the American Association of Medical Colleges Award for Distinguished Research, the Ilse & Helmut Wachter Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and La Fondation IPSEN Prize. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is now the director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at UCSF.

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About Christopher Springmann

Christopher Springmann is Executive Producer and Senior Correspondent of Life, Love and Health, the award-winning health and wellness program that reaches millions daily on multiple news, talk and sports channels including Sirius XM, CNN, FOX, NPR affiliates, American Forces Network, and HealthRadio.net.

Life, Love and Health is also Mr. Springmann’s latest endeavor in a journey of “creative convergence” that started as a photographer for Time, Fortune, National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines. He moved into writing leadership profiles for Chief Executive and California CEO magazines, which in turn provided the inspiration for creating Life, Love and Health: to fulfill the unmet need of telling America’s health story. Mr. Springmann meets this need in entertaining and emotionally engaging ways, with the authentic voices of real people, including a diverse group of doctors and nurses, patients and their families, plus researchers and innovators in the health-and-wellness field. He relies on the credibility and persuasiveness of people’s passionate storytelling to get the point across. People identify with the experiences of others and are encouraged to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.

Christopher is also the Host of Life, Love and Health on WomensRadio. Life, Love and Health seeks to ultimately make a difference in people’s lives by encouraging individuals to take positive, attainable actions to improve their personal and family health.