Michael Mosley: Secrets of the Superagers

In this first episode, Michael focuses on the brain. At the Shaolin Temple in China, he learns how meditation can trigger structural changes in the brain that help to counteract dangerous levels of stress.

Michael looks for the latest methods to preserve healthy hearts, bones and muscles, visiting Okinawa in Japan, where diet and a sense of community have contributed to low levels of heart disease. On the Faroe Islands, Michael joins a women's football team who are taking part in a study looking at how to improve bone density and prevent the onset of osteoporosis.

Michael learns how people can keep their hearing, smell and vision super-sharp into old age. He explores the benefits of music and singing by meeting an 86 year old jazz musician in Chicago.

Michael travels to Los Angeles to meet a 71-year-old great-grandmother with amazingly line-free skin, and in Sacramento, he learns about a study that reveals how chemicals in mangoes can visibly reduce wrinkles. In New York, Michael meets a scientist who's discovered that we can delay the onset of grey hair by reducing harmful levels of stress, and in Beijing, a group of models in their 60s and 70s show how our faces contain important information about our health.

Michael discovers how to keep bodies healthy on the inside, meeting an 86-year-old cyclist in the Surrey Hills who has the immune system of a 20 to 30-year-old. In Hong Kong, a scientist has discovered that the ancient Chinese practice of tai chi can be a better way of losing weight and lowering cholesterol than more vigorous exercise. In Cilento, southern Italy, Michael visits a tiny village that has one of the highest proportions of centenarians in Europe.

Michael discovers advances at the frontier of medicine that are attempting to turn back the clock on ageing, and undergoes hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which scientists claim can reverse ageing at a cellular level. Meanwhile, researchers at a biotech firm in California have developed a method of using plasma taken from young people's blood to keep Parkinson's disease at bay.