I was lucky enough to have a chat with the amazing Russell Howard for his topical comedy show last week, and the full interview is now online for anyone to watch!
I love spreading the word about ageing biology to new audiences—and, this being a late-night comedy show, it’s quite an unusual interview which takes a rather unexpected turn in the middle! Probably not one to watch with the kids…but I had a lot of fun.
You can read more about this fascinating topic in my book, Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old.
Spermidine calculations
If you’re wondering about how I got to the, er, numbers I quote in the interview, here’s the calculation!
| quantity | unit | source | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | Clinically relevant quantity of spermidine | 79.8 | µmol/day | [1] |
| b | Molecular weight of spermidine | 145.25 | g/mol | [2] |
| c | Clinically relevant amount of spermidine in g | 11.6 | mg/day | a × b |
| d | Spermidine in semen (min) | 15 | mg/l | [2] |
| e | Spermidine in semen (max) | 50 | mg/l | [2] |
| f | Average ejaculation volume | 3.2 | ml | [3] |
| g | Spermidine per ejaculation (min) | 0.048 | mg | f × d |
| h | Spermidine per ejaculation (max) | 0.16 | mg | f × e |
| Which implies… | ||||
| i | Ejaculations/day (max) | 241 | a ÷ g | |
| j | Ejaculations/day (min) | 94 | a ÷ h | |
| k | Average volume of semen required | 536 | ml | a ÷ ((i + j) ÷ 2) |