A Wrinkle in Time

We're all living longer than ever before and there's never been so much pressure to spend our lives looking and feeling young. How does this affect our 21st century experience of ageing?Watch the video trailer hereA Wrinkle in Time video trailer, filmed by Diego Opatowski, edited by Cole Eastham-Farrelly.With the release of the first episode of the A Wrinkle in Time podcast, Noelle McCarthy reflects on what she's learnt while making the series.One of the nicer things was feeling - at the tender age of 37- relatively unqualified to tackle the subject of ageing. So I asked everyone I could think of to tell me about it.Many of the experts - scientists, medical professionals and health-care workers all had thoughtful and provocative things to say about the cultural, social and emotional aspects of getting older. The academics, including philosophers and historians were helpful in explaining possible reasons why there's so much pressure on us to maintain our youthful vigour in an era of increasing longevity.But the great thing about ageing is that it happens to all of us, so everyone has an opinion on the subject. There are some well-known personalities in this series: Buck Shelford, US news anchor Tom Brokaw, former MP Winnie Laban, activist Helen Kelly and New Zealand Poet Laureate CK Stead, but I also interviewed friends, colleagues, people who answered online adverts, friends grandparents, residents of rest homes. Anyone really. For the past six months, ageing was my preferred conversation topic.That didn't always go down well at parties. We don't live in a culture that permits us to grow old without a struggle, and to a certain extent, it's no wonder. As Bette Davis said "old age ain't no place for sissies".Wrinkles, grey hairs, slowness. Cancer, dementia, osteoporosis. The physical consequences of getting older may not pretty, but there's no mileage in minimising them, nor is there any point in pretending that it's not in the post for us. And we all know what's waiting at the end of the process.The researchers I spoke to are on the cusp of major anti-ageing breakthroughs, but there's still no cure for mortality. Like ageing, death is an inevitable part of being human. This is something of a downer. A series about gradual decline and increasing physical difficulties isn't the most appealing prospect for listeners. There were a few weeks there when I wondered how to do this…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

How do we want to age? And how much control will we have over the process? Noelle McCarthy visits the Dunedin Study, and finds out why the most accurate measure of your age might not necessarily be your birthday.Noelle McCarthy finds out her biological age: watch the video hereVideo filmed and edited by Diego Opatowski.How do we want to age? And how much control will we have over the process? Noelle McCarthy visits the Dunedin Study, and finds out why the most accurate measure of your age might not necessarily be your birthday.Potentially, we all have control over how we age.Genetics plays a part, but there are other important factors: whether you get enough sleep, what you eat and how much exercise you do.The Dunedin Study has been tracking everyone born between April 1, 1972 and March 31,1973 at the city's Queen Mary Maternity Hospital. When the 954 subjects were aged 38, they tested them all to find out their biological age.Biological age was calculated based on 18 measurements, including blood sugar and cholesterol levels, lung function, blood pressure, dental health, body mass index, waist circumference. The researchers also looked at chromosomes, measuring the length of protective caps called telomeres - because shorter telomeres are associated with ageing.The study found that individuals who were ageing more rapidly were less physically able, showed cognitive decline and brain ageing, self-reported worse health and looked older.Measured biological ageing in young adults can be used to identify causes of ageing and be used to evaluate therapies to slow the ageing process, the researchers say."We've all got options, strategies we can bring to bear that will make things better or longer," says Professor Richie Poulton, who directs the study."Nothing is deterministic - it's not written in stone, and the faster we can get away from that deterministic thinking about it being written in stone, the better."Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

How do our brains change as we get older? Noelle finds out, with the help of a neuroscientist, a centenarian, and a Poet Laureate.Noelle McCarthy interviews Professor Richard Faull: watch the video hereVideo filmed and edited by Diego Opatowski. How do our brains change as we get older? Noelle McCarthy finds out, with the help of a neuroscientist, a centenarian, and a Poet Laureate.CK Stead's writing career has continued unimpeded by age. Now 83, and having established himself as one of our best-known critics and most successful novelists, he's New Zealand's current Poet Laureate."I still seem able to write fiction and nonfiction. I hope if there is a decline, it'll be clear to me, or clear to someone else who will tell me, but so far I can't really detect it."But he has noticed some change."Sometimes now, when I read a novel by Henry James, which when I was young I would have relished, and read easily, I'm now conscious of difficulty ... so there's a certain loss of intellectual edge, but there may be a compensating astuteness. I don't know, let's hope so!"He was astonished when he reached 70 and is "bewildered" he's now 83."I'm very conscious of being old in a way I wasn't keenly aware of 10 years ago," he says."I'm starting to think about how one exits. There has to be an exit and it can't be too far away."Our brains start growing just three weeks after conception and continue until early adulthood, when fully formed.Professor Richard Faull, director of the Auckland Centre for Brain Research, says the brain shrinks by about 5 percent every decade after the age of 40.But that doesn't mean we can't make new brain cells while we age, which Professor Faull and his team proved to the world in 2007. His team's discovery, based on research into Huntington's disease, debunked the received wisdom that we only lose brain cells as we get older.Now we know that we can keep making new ones, even if we don't yet know how fast."Basically, the older you get the less ability you have to make new brain cells, and the question is we don't know how significant that is, but what we do know though is the more you keep people stimulated, doing things they like, living with people they love and enjoying life - having intellectual excitement and stimulation is good for the brain."…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Noelle McCarthy takes an honest look at ageism, pension costs, and intergenerational tension.Noelle McCarthy interviews Suzy Morrison: watch the video hereVideo filmed by Diego Opatowski and edited by Cole Eastham-Farrelly.Noelle McCarthy takes an honest look at ageism, pension costs, and intergenerational tension.There is no denying the wisdom of age - but in a world where people are living longer and 50 is the new 40, what defines being "old" and what challenges does an ageing population present for younger generations?At age 67, Suzy Morrison is a baby boomer. She blogs about the intergenerational tensions brought on by people living and working longer."I didn't expect to be working when I was 67. I visualised that I'd retire when I was 65 but anyway opportunities arose and here I am," Ms Morrison says.She's aware of a light resentment of her generation."Sort of like jokes - like 'Oh it's alright for you, you were around when education was free'. You know, I left school when I was 15 and you walked into jobs in those days and you can't do that these days and people know that. So yeah there is a little bit of tension that I notice."Stanford University professor Richard Harrison says this lack of stability and security for the younger generations is having an impact."We are always subjected to a series of shocks and concussions that make it hard to believe sometimes that everything is finally going to work itself out, stabilise itself and reach deep into the future."People from different generations can sometimes struggle to relate to each other. Learning is no longer transmitted from generation to generation, at your grandmother's knee.Dr Harrison says society does not value old age the way it used to, even though there were definite advantages to clocking up the years."There is more time left for the young but I'm not sure that they live it that way, it's biologically true and it's maybe factually true that their future lies ahead of them, but sometimes psychology is perverse enough that the youthful mindset can be much more trapped within the present tense than people at an older age who actually live within a distended future, even though they have less material or chronological time left in their lives."Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Who will take care of us when we can't take care of ourselves? And how much choice will we have in the matter, once the time comes?Noelle McCarthy talks with Janet Colby: watch the video hereWho will take care of us when we can't take care of ourselves? And how much choice will we have in the matter, once the time comes?Janet Colby is in her early sixties. She lives in Auckland, with her partner and one grown-up son. She and her younger sister shared the care of their parents before they died. Both had wanted to stay at home as long as they could."My father went into hospital for elective surgery, supposedly for two weeks. And when he went to hospital we realised that mum needed support at home, couldn't be left alone."Dad didn't leave hospital. He was in there for three months, so we were basically caring for both parents."One of the side effects of living so much longer than we used to, is that age people also older when they join the Sandwich Generation - when they are caring not only for their own children, but for their ageing parents too.Sandwiches used to typically be aged in their 30s and 40s, but that experience is being pushed out until later in life, when we have a full load of work, childcare and a raft of other commitments.Janet's mum died in August last year, aged 86. And over the nine months leading up to that point, she visited her almost every day."It was a privilege to give back some of the love that they'd given us over the years - and it was really stressful," she says.Although district health boards provide some support for people caring for relatives at home, the majority of the work falls to the families."Mum was under older people's care," says Janet, "they provided someone to come in three times a day. That was just to wash my mum and check on her, but that was very minimal and we really needed to be a voice and oversee what was going on.Janet and her family were lucky to be able to rise to the logistical, financial and emotional challenges involved in caring for an ageing, sick parent who wanted to stay in her own home."We didn't really talk about it, we just did it. I think the thought of going to a resthome is horrifying and I totally understand my mother, that she didn't want that." Janet's mum died within a year of needing fulltime care, but there's no way of predicting how long relatives will need looking after…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Death is the natural culmination of the ageing process, but it can seem like an abstract idea, until it affects us directly.Noelle McCarthy speaks with Helen Kelly: watch the video hereDeath is the natural culmination of the ageing process, but it can seem like an abstract idea, until it affects us directly.Like living, dying is something that happens to everyone.But death can seem like an abstract idea until it directly affects someone through either a family member, a friend or their own personal circumstance.Helen Kelly is in her early 50s. The former Council of Trade Unions president was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last year and has had to face the reality of not being around forever.She is pro euthanasia and has campaigned for the use of medical cannabis in New Zealand since she became sick.Most healthy people do not put any thought into their own death, and are quite taken aback when Ms Kelly talks openly about dying with them, she says."I guess when you get a terminal diagnosis you have conversations with people that you've never ever had before... and so I've had conversations with people about dying and I'm very upfront with people that that's what's happening to me."People are shocked by that... that you can be so open about it... so I say things like 'oh well I won't be here for the next election anyway'... things like that which people are like 'oh that's pretty out there'."Stanford University professor Robert Harrison says advances in medical science and a decline in religion have changed people's understanding of what it means to be human."Our age has taken the finality of death very much outside of the picture and rendered us rather childish and helpless when it comes to making mortality the ground of a meaningful existence."People are often in denial about the prospect of death and ignore the reality of it, instead of using it as a tool for living life to its fullest, he says.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details