2 days ago
Michael Mosley's final series is bittersweet, with some surprising ageing tips
Over the weekend, I read a very perceptive piece about ageing by the writer Ian Leslie, and the difference between your actual age and the age you feel. 'When you're 18, you feel 18, when you're 35 you feel 35, and when you're 53 you feel… 35,' he says. 'If you're a young person, and you're talking to an older person, it's as well to remember that they may well believe, at some level, that they're the same age as you.' As a young person might say: I feel seen.
Well, in Michael Mosley: Secrets of the Superagers (Channel 4), the presenter met older people who also feel younger than their age, but in biological terms they may actually be correct. People such as Dane Kenny, a 70-year-old skydiver who has been jumping out of planes since 1969 and still does so up to 12 times a day. Spending so much time at high altitude doesn't sound as if it would be good for the brain, but when researchers put Kenny and Mosley through a memory test they found that Kenny performed significantly better. The conclusion was that constant exposure to low oxygen increased blood flow to Kenny's brain while up in the air and down on the ground.
It's been a year since the sad death of Mosley. According to an Instagram post by his wife, Claire Bailey, this is the last of his series to be broadcast in the UK (it previously aired abroad in 2023). But every one of his posthumous programmes has been a reminder of what a loss he is. Secrets of the Superagers did what a Mosley show does best: unintimidating, easily digestible advice, delivered in a reassuring and cheerful manner. As usual, he threw himself into the research, at one point submitting to electric shocks to test his stress levels.
Of course, you're not going to jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet. But Mosley also demonstrated things that you can try at home. High-intensity interval training can boost our memory, he explained, but don't think this involves strenuous gym sessions; if you're sedentary and over-60, try short bursts of brisk walking. Mosley visited a community of older people in the US who had taken part in a study to 'rediscover the curiosity of youth'. The volunteers spent three months learning three new skills: painting, Spanish and how to use an iPad. The results? Their cognitive ability improved by more than 200 per cent, and in some cases, their abilities were in line with people more than 50 years younger.
One thing about older people, though, is that they don't get too carried away. Jim, a septuagenarian, had achieved great results on this latter study. 'Do you feel like a 19-year-old?' Mosley asked him. To which Jim replied: 'No. Do a 19-year-old's knees hurt?'
