Our lifestyles affect how we age and many of us are ageing too fast and have a body age much higher than it should be.

Dr Chris van Tulleken and Angela Rippon join some of the country’s leading health experts at Newcastle University to turn around the lives of people whose bodies are much older than their actual age.

Using the latest scientific research on ageing, the expert team try to help volunteers by giving them a complete lifestyle overhaul that will bring their body age closer to their birth age in just 12 weeks.

How to Stay Young is available  on the BBC iplayer

Calculating your Body Age, Reversing Type 2 diabetes and Changing Health app

Information about how to calculate your Body Age as well as information about programmes can be found on the BBC website.

Reversing Type 2 diabetes

In the last episode of the series you can see Tina reversing her Type 2 diabetes following the low calorie diet based on the research of Professor Roy Taylor at Newcastle University. There is full information about the research and information for patients, their GPs and diet sheets.

Recently Professor Taylor presented a round-up of this research outlining why diet works and the science behind it. 

Changing Health app 

The app, programmes and coaching used to help people during the programme is from Changing Health, a spin-out company from Newcastle University which provides digital education and personalised coaching based on scientific evidence from Professor Mike Trenell’s research. More information on the programme and the opportunity to trial the app can be found on the Changing Health website.

Anti-ageing lab

Working alongside the Institute for Ageing at Newcastle University the BBC built the ambitious anti-ageing lab, where they test some the country’s worst offenders to get the most complete picture of how they are ageing. The results from these tests  provide their real body age, and allow them to put together a personal plan.

Professor Mike Trenell from Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing who designed and oversaw the testing said: “It was great to have members of the general public come into the lab to have their body age calculated. However, what we found was a real wake up call for them and us. The great news is that as poor lifestyle choices age people, good choices about physical activity, diet and sleep can fight the ageing progress - some cut more than a decade off their body age."

Professor Trenell was joined in the anti-ageing lab by Newcastle University Professors Paula Moynihan, Lynn Rochester, Mark Birch-Machin and Dr Daniel Collerton covering diet, movement and brain function issues with the volunteers.

One volunteer Kamini discovers how being so lazy has made her body weak, putting decades on her age. Fifty year-old Alison finds out why modern life has made her so forgetful, and 51 year-old stress eater Tim has one of the worst results our scientists have ever seen, putting his life at serious risk. 

They have just three months to get their body age down and closer to their birth age. But will they have succeeded when they re-face the tests in the ageing lab?

Professor Trenell adds: "The volunteers who took part are quite typical - and when we talk about an ageing population many of us don't realise that refers to ourselves!

"If we don't take action, make better food choices, move more and manage our weight then we will see the problems of older age creeping up on us at a much younger age. We already see it in the growing problem of diabetes, obesity and heart problems.

"This is why it is so important that we study these conditions to help provide solutions towards a longer, healthier life."

Images Credit: BBC Studios/Sean Elliott 

BBC press release 

True body age

In the series, the ‘How to Stay Young’ team invited a group of ordinary people to the specially-constructed anti-ageing lab to take part in one of Britain’s biggest ever ageing experiments to find out their true body age - and the results are shocking. 

One volunteer Kamini discovers how being so lazy has made her body weak, putting decades on her age. Fifty year-old Alison finds out why modern life has made her so forgetful, and 51 year-old stress eater Tim has one of the worst results our scientists have ever seen, putting his life at serious risk.

They’ll have just three months to get their body age down and closer to their birth age. But will they have succeeded when they re-face the tests in the ageing lab?

How to Stay Young is available on the BBC iplayer