Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/researchers-examine-impact-of-exercise-on-aging Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Scientists have coined a new term -- geroscience -- to describe research that aims to slow down aging and delay the onset of age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Researchers are studying the underlying genetic causes of aging and effects of exercise. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Now, living longer, living better. NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels has our Science Unit report. SPENCER MICHELS, NewsHour Correspondent: The watchword at The Redwoods, a retirement community north of San Francisco, is "keep active." Line dance, even if you're using a walker, stay involved.The subtext, of course, is that, if you exercise your body and your mind, you will be healthier and may live longer.And, in fact, the number of older persons has tripled in the last 50 years. And in the U.S., life expectancy has gone up to almost 78 years. Now scientists are starting to believe they can extend that dramatically and at the same time attack diseases of the elderly.Some of the clues to longer life are coming from tiny roundworms or nematodes, which normally live just a few weeks, making them good subjects to study.For a decade, researchers like Gordon Lithgow have been working with these transparent, almost microscopic worms, often by manipulating their genes.GORDON LITHGOW, Buck Institute for Age Research: We can increase the lifespan 100 percent, 500 percent. There's even some occurrence of 1,000 percent increases in lifespan.But the big news is that a lot of these genes are similar to human genes that are involved in disease and specifically age-related disease. And that's where a lot of the excitement is coming from. SPENCER MICHELS: Lithgow and other age researchers contend that understanding and slowing down the aging process, a goal in itself, may also hold the key to delaying the onset of many diseases that occur in old age.Lithgow works at the Buck Institute of Aging, an independent research center in the hills north of San Francisco, where Dale Bredesen is a researcher and the CEO.DALE BREDESEN, CEO, Buck Institute for Age Research: When you have an animal and you make a genetic manipulation that allows the animal to live longer, it puts off all of the associated diseases. That argues that, if we're out there looking for treatments for Alzheimer's and treatments for cancer, et cetera, maybe these are all one treatment. Maybe these are all something we should be focusing, not on each disease by itself, but on the aging process itself.