Tennis and Aging

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez unpack a striking statistic: tennis players live an average of 9.7 years longer than sedentary individuals. Drawing on Dr. Wu's research notes on racket sports and dementia prevention, and on Bozyiğit, Karagöz, Karsai, and Tornóczky's 2026 study Contribution of Tennis Involvement to Successful Aging: The Case of Masters Tennis Players, published in Sports journal, they explore why it's not just playing tennis that matters — it's how you relate to the game psychologically. The episode reveals a surprising villain in the data and makes the case that the secret to aging well might simply be having fun with other people.