Daryl Hall interview

Daryl Hall and John Oates are one of the most successful pop duos of all time. After more than 40 years of hit singles, number ones, popular albums and live shows, Daryl and John recently received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Daryl's TV show, Live From Daryl's House, is a unique formula, and also a huge hit. It's a personal, behind the scenes experience with the singer and his superstar friends, making music and having - what looks like - far too much fun. Daryl joined me on BBC Radio 5 Live for an in-depth and exclusive chat (with Rhod Sharp) about his life, work ethic and uncompromising views on the music business.

Herb Alpert interview

Herb Alpert created The Tijuana Brass and - with his partner Jerry Moss - A&M Records.  The label launched many a successful career in the music business. Alpert is a producer, performer and industry mogul and at the 81 is still creating new music.  

Herb Alpert's latest album, Human Nature, his fourth new release in just three years, is out next month. He is also rereleasing 24 of his classic albums which have been digitally remastered from the original analog tapes.  

The musician has a life-long passion for promoting arts education to young people. In August 2016 The Herb Alpert Foundation announced that it was donating $10.1 million to Los Angeles City College, to provide free tuition as well as private lessons for its music students.  

The diet that mimics fasting and could slow aging

There is a small but intriguing population of of people - a third of whom live in Ecuador - that appear to be protected from some of the deadliest diseases of old age. Equally intriguing is the latest research which suggests that their inherited condition - which also leads to dwarfism - could hold the secret to how we could all be better protected from cancer and diabetes.

I visited the Larons of Ecuador and have been experimenting with a new diet, that could - in part - replicate their resistance to disease.

Read the full article at Mosaic

WITH THE help of a small stool, Mercy Carrion clambers onto an examination table. The obese 50-year-old woman stands just 115.6 cm (3’9.5’’) tall. Despite being overweight, Mercy shows no sign of developing diabetes and has remarkably low blood pressure at 100/70. 

“That’s why they don’t care much about their weight,” says her doctor, Jaime Guevara-Aguirre.

Mercy, who has a rare genetic disorder, is one of his long-term patients. She and her peers know they are in some way protected from diabetes, cancer and a number of other diseases that threaten the rest of us as we age. As such, they have a happy-go-lucky attitude towards health and fitness.  Mercy giggles as she tells her doctor that dieting is not her. She enjoys a typical high-calorie Ecuadorian diet, where rice accompanies almost every meal. 

The next day, we visit her at home in a poor, farming community in El Oro province, a one-hour flight away. Her refrigerator is stocked with red meats, bologna and eggs. Bananas are plentiful, and usually served fried.

This high calorie-diet contributes to her excess weight. But, paradoxically, the biology that has driven her weight gain could also be what protects her from disease. I’m fascinated, partly because this woman’s condition relates so much to a diet I’ve been trying for the past three years.

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The science

“They’re really the human version of what the research of many groups has shown in simple organisms,” says Valter Longo, biogerontologist and director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute. Longo and others have shown that you can significantly extend the life of yeast, nematode worms, flies and rhesus monkeys by introducing mutations that affect growth. For instance, a mutation in a single gene can give yeast – the simplest of organisms – a lifespan three times longer than normal. Scientists have also found that mice, when genetically modified so that their GH receptors are impaired, enjoy lives 40 per cent longer than normal. What’s more, their longer lives are also free of major diseases. “It’s a remarkable increase in what’s called health span, in addition to longevity,” says Longo. And, he believes, the same could apply to humans. The ageing process appears to be controlled, in distantly related organisms, by similar genes and mechanisms.

Read the full article at Mosaic

Nick Yarris interview

Nick Yarris has a remarkable story.  He spent over 20 years on death row for a murder he didn’t commit.  He walked out of prison a free man in 2004.  He was wrongly convicted in the 1982 case of a woman who was murdered and raped in Delaware, but eventually acquitted when DNA evidence proved that he was not the killer. After leaving death row Yarris moved to the UK, where he married his second wife and had a daughter. He now lives between England and California and is embarking on a new chapter in his life.

We sat down together for this enthralling chat, with Rhod Sharp, on BBC Radio 5 Live