How to Die Young at a Very Old Age: Nir Barzilai (Full Transcript)

Full text of aging researcher Nir Barzilai’s talk titled “How to die young at a very old age” at TEDxGramercy conference. Nir 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. He has pioneered breakthrough research on the biology of aging.

TRANSCRIPT:

Nir Barzilai – Professor of Medicine and Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Thank you.

So let me transfer you immediately to my world with this beautiful New York story. It’s about a hundred-year-old guy that walks into a life insurance office and wants life insurance. And the clerk looks at him and says, “Are you crazy? We’re not giving life insurance to 100 years old.”

And he said “Well, that’s not true. My mother is insured here.”

He said, “How old is your mother?”

He said, “She’s 120.”

“And is she okay?”

He said, “Yes, she is fine.”

So clever clerk… he goes to the boss and there’s a lot of a promotion here. And they come back to the elderly gentleman and they say, “You know what, we’ll be happy to give you life insurance. In fact, why don’t you come on Tuesday? We will have all the papers ready and you’ll be on your way.”

And the elderly gentleman says, “I’m sorry, but I’m busy on Tuesday.”

And they looked at him and said, “Old man, what do you have on Tuesday?”