Don't you also look at twins to, to try and understand the early signs of disease as well as just normal aging?

Yeah, that's right.

And in fact, there's quite strong genetic determinants to many diseases.

Um, and you do see that.

So for example, um, uh, i- individual, uh, twins within a pair often suffer from the same diseases, not necessarily at the same time.

Um, but what we're really interested in is how people age, which means the trajectory of change in different organ systems.

And we see that seems to be much more influenced by environmental factors, which could be like the choices that we make or, um, uh, the environments that we're exposed to.

So what's the big ambition then here? Do y- what, what's the hope of what you're doing and how it might affect our understanding about aging for the rest of the population, those of us who aren't twins?

Because if I thought the links between muscles and my brain seemed wild, like the idea that there is, I am told, a gut muscle axis, like how can muscles possibly be linked to gut health?

Yeah.

Well, that's a really good question.

I think one of the things we need to unpick here is this idea of anabolic resistance, and I think that's really key.

We talked earlier about anabolism building up muscles.

Yeah.

So the anabolic steroids or like testosterone helps you build things, right? And catabolism being the other way around.

And so these are just examples of foods that are high in protein that aren't sort of like my protein shake or red meat, or are you actually talking about foods like specifically that should help to maintain my muscle strength because of, you know, what we've been talking about earlier in this show?

So let's listen to that.

Okay, so why do many people think more about their legacy as they get older? Well, that's a very good question.

And I think it's probably because most people consider that we're only transient on this earth.

And the older we get, the more this comes into focus.

We're also probably more likely to have experienced the death of other people around us.

And so these things bring into the question, what are we going to leave behind when we're gone? Okay, and can thinking about the impact that we have on others improve our well-being and sense of purpose? Now, that's another very good question, which has a lot of parts to it.

So there's certainly evidence from large studies that having a sense of purpose and meaning is connected to well-being.

And are there benefits to reflecting on what we want to be remembered for while we're still young?