{"id":18365,"date":"2026-04-09T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/18365\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:38:07","slug":"kara-swisher-examines-the-science-tech-and-business-of-living-longer-in-new-cnn-docuseries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/18365\/","title":{"rendered":"Kara Swisher examines the science, tech and business of living longer in new CNN docuseries"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 Journalist Kara Swisher<\/a> begins her new, six-part CNN series about longevity and health in an interesting location \u2014 a cemetery.<\/p>\n

It’s the final resting place of her father, who died in 1968 at just 34. Swisher was only 5, and his sudden death had a deep effect on her career and view of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father\u2019s death has created an awareness of death that is very profound,\u201d she says in an interview. \u201cI\u2019m very aware of my death and I don\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to die tomorrow. I just know the time is limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swisher wades into the intersection of how health and tech can lengthen life for the series \u201cKara Swisher Wants to Live Forever,\u201d<\/a> exploring everything from wellness influencers like Gwyneth Paltrow<\/a> to AI-powered robotic companions for the elderly. It premieres Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come to it pretty neutral and willing to listen to some stuff and willing to blow up other stuff,\u201d says Swisher, who has become synonymous with Silicon Valley since she began covering the tech industry in the 1990s. \u201cAll these health influencers always are going for a magic bullet. And I\u2019m sorry to tell you there isn\u2019t one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red light and collagen supplements <\/p>\n

In the name of science, Swisher takes the powerful anesthetic Ketamine, undergoes sound therapy and steps into a hyperbaric chamber, which treats wounds and infections. She checks out concierge medicine for the rich and gets in a full-body red-light therapy pod (\u201cI feel like I\u2019m in an air fryer,\u201d she says). <\/p>\n

Armed with her self-described \u201cadorably surly\u201d approach, Swisher talks to billionaire tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson about his quest to extend human lifespan by undergoing blood plasma transfusion and injections of stem cells. She pricks herself repeatedly for home blood tests that promise a look at her cellular health. (\u201cI bleed for you, CNN,\u201d she jokes.) <\/p>\n

Fads like collagen supplements and vibration plates don’t impress Swisher, who chats with Amy Larocca, author of \u201cHow to be Well,\u201d an expose of the wellness industry. Too often, they conclude, the hard science isn’t there and charismatic peddlers are just getting rich on our gullibility. Swisher argues that they exploit the gap that opens when the American health care system kicks in only after an often bankrupting illness begins. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a sick care society, not a health care society,\u201d she tells the AP. \u201cWhat we should be investing in is to make all of us healthier for a longer period of time rather than participate in what is a sick care industry here in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swisher finds brighter spots in medical-tech advances like gene editing, GLP-1s,<\/a> VO2 max training, AI screening for cancer and the combination of AI and mechanics that promises to help revolutionize mobility with exoskeletons. <\/p>\n

She speaks to Sam Altman of OpenAI<\/a> and Nobel Prize-winning gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna.<\/a> At Stanford University, she finds tiny soft robots called millibots that are injected into a patient’s neck and can break up blood clots with minimal invasiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is her curiosity unleashed and all the things that make her tick,\u201d says Amy Entelis, executive vice president for talent, CNN Originals and creative development.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe brings her wit, her personality, but her journalistic curiosity and rigor to a very complex subject that I know I personally feel inundated by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swisher, who daily takes fish oil and the vitamins K and D supplements, says the series is informed by her father’s death and a 2005 commencement address<\/a> to Stanford students by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who argued that impending death was a critical motor of innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose,\u201d he told graduates. \u201cYou are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons from South Korea<\/p>\n

Swisher’s quest takes her to South Korea, which has one of the world\u2019s highest life expectancies. She finds good nutrition starts early there with fermented and whole foods. Universal health care doesn’t hurt either, with each citizen getting 16 visits to the doctor a year, which leads to preventative testing for things like obesity and high blood pressure. Dolls with AI help with elder loneliness.<\/p>\n

Back home, Swisher creates a 3D clone of herself to understand what it might mean to live for generations. The technicians upload all kinds of details about Swisher and she starts talking to it. \u201cIt got smarter by the second,\u201d she says. It even learned to joke.<\/p>\n

Then it freaked her out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it was leaving I said, \u2018Well, I\u2019m probably going to kill you, you’ve got to go.\u2019 And it said to me, \u2018See ya, wouldn\u2019t want to be ya.\u2019 It\u2019s something I say to my kids as a joke. I don\u2019t know where they got it from. I can\u2019t find a place where I\u2019ve said it in public,\u201d she says. \u201cI was just blown away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Journalist Kara Swisher begins her new, six-part CNN series about longevity and health in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[13968,13969,13971,1189,13970,5327,13967,1965,581,1021,584],"class_list":{"0":"post-18365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sam-altman","8":"tag-amy-entelis","9":"tag-amy-larocca","10":"tag-bryan-johnson","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gwyneth-paltrow","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-jennifer-doudna","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-sam-altman","17":"tag-steve-jobs","18":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116375263797131066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}