This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter.

Lately, I've been thinking about how complicated health advice has become.

I've talked about it on this show, too.

It's interesting because at the end of the day, most of us just want to feel good in our bodies.

We want to have good health as we age. We want to

stay mentally sharp and enjoy our lives along the way. It's a pretty clear goal. But every day,

there seems to be a new headline telling us to eat this, avoid that, track more data, optimize

harder. And it can start to feel like staying healthy is a full-time job,

one that requires discipline, money, and constant vigilance. But what if the biggest drivers of

long-term well-being were not extreme routines or expensive tools? What if, instead, the answer is

a lot more doable, a handful of simple habits done consistently

over time, with room for pleasure built in? To help us sort out the facts, I invited Dr. Zika

Manuel to join me on the show. Dr. Emmanuel is an oncologist and bioethicist, a best-selling author,

and one of the most influential voices in

American health policy. He's currently vice provost for global initiatives at the University

of Pennsylvania. And that's just one of the many impressive entries on his resume. He's helped

shape everything from research ethics to national health care reform, advised multiple presidential

administrations, and spent decades studying how health systems and individual choices affect how long

and how well we live. His new book is called Eat Your Ice Cream, and its message cuts through a lot of

modern wellness noise.

In our conversation, Dr. Manuel explains why longevity should not be about chasing the longest

possible life at all costs. Instead, he makes the case for maximizing years of good function,

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