How to die young at a very old age: a TEDx Talk with Dr. Nir Barzilai

Dr. Nir Barzilai is a Professor of Medicine and Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Deputy Scientific Director at the American Federation for Aging Research.

Dr. Barzilai’s specialty is the study of biological aging–specifically how our unique genetics may influence or determine our lifespan and our overall quality of health as we age.

Directing a study of 600 families of centenarians–called the Longevity Genes Project–Dr. Barzilai hopes to discover why many families have shorter lives and spend many years in bad health while others seem to breeze past 100 in much better health than those in their 80s.

One such family is the family of Irving Kahn, a New York City resident and investment advisor who loved his career too much to ever think of retiring. And why retire? Despite getting up in years, he had energy, he kept his mind occupied with reading, and he was in terrific health.

At the time of this TEDx Talk, Irving Kahn was also 104 years old. He lived to be 109 before his passing in 2015. And he was by no means a special case in his family.

Between himself and his three siblings, the Kahn brothers and sisters were the world’s oldest living quartet of siblings. His sister, Helen (featured in the video), four years his senior, also lived to be 109. Irving’s sister, Lee, and his brother, Peter, lived to be 101 and 103, respectively.

During a time and in a place where reaching age 100 is a tremendous and rare accomplishment, these siblings all met and surpassed this milestone. And they did it in shockingly good health, to boot (Irving’s sister, Helen, was even a smoker for 80 years!).

Four times. One family. It’s absolutely remarkable.

But Dr. Barzilai thinks there’s more to the story. While studying the Kahn family, and other families like them, he discovered a common genetic denominator–something he hopes will someday lead to helping others have not just longer lives, but much healthier lives FOR longer.

Thanks to Dr. Barzilai’s groundbreaking research, we may be entering a whole new frontier of medicine–one where age truly is nothing but a number.

And a three-digit number at that!