"I don't know if you've heard about it," says the long-adored scientist and climate activist—plus, the one rising condition that tells him "there's something going on."
Bill Nye has dedicated decades to making science fun for the masses. Now, the 69-year-old engineer-turned-educator and performer is turning his signature bow tie toward something personal: ataxia, a group of genetic neurological disorders that damages the nervous system.
For Nye, there’s a personal tie-in: ataxia runs in his own family and has directly affected his sister, brother, and cousins. In a new awareness campaign, Nye has partnered with the National Ataxia Foundation and Biogen about Friedreich ataxia—the most common inherited form of the disease: how FA is diagnosed, and why early testing matters.
For those who grew up watching Bill Nye the Science Guy in the ’90s—or later Bill Nye Saves the World—you’ll recognize his mission: make the science clear, make it engaging, and make people care. It’s what earned him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September, and it’s what guides his new video series, The Science Guy: Back in the Lab for FA, where he focuses on this disease.
Nye recently spoke with The Healthy by Reader’s Digest about how ataxia running in his family pushed him into an active lifestyle that includes ice skating, scuba diving, and even skydiving. He also shared why he’s skeptical of wellness fads and why he believes reinstating NASA’s funding could ultimately help us here on Earth.
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The Healthy by Reader’s Digest: Bill, can you tell us more about how witnessing the generational impact of this disease in your family shaped your relationship with science and health advocacy—and what made you decide to talk about it?
Bill Nye: First of all, [when] you grow up with your family with this condition, you just get used to it. This condition … was brought to North America in 1635 by Samuel Darby. My family calls this condition the Darby Glide, where you’re gliding around, not gracefully, you’re falling down and breaking things and so on. Friedrich ataxia is unique in a way. It’s brought on by these recessive genes. And so both parents have to be carriers of this gene repeat, and then they have to have kids. And then there’s a one-in-four chance of the kids exhibiting Friedrich ataxia symptoms. So it’s a big deal that this has been figured out and there are treatments available.
If you or someone you know is having difficulty walking around, difficulty with fine motor movements, difficulty swallowing, these could be symptoms of Friedrich ataxia. It starts out with very subtle problems. You lose your balance, and then as years go on, the symptoms become more and more pronounced. By then there’s just less to be done about it, so we want everybody who feels that he or she may have symptoms tested.
The Healthy: How did having so many family members with this disease affect the way you approach your own health and well-being?
Bill Nye: I exercise all the time. It was hypothesized quite reasonably that ataxia was brought on by degeneration or lack of activity of certain nerve pathways. So that perhaps by being very active, a person could stave it off or reduce the chances or the severity of the symptoms. But that’s probably not the case. Nevertheless, I did all sorts of things. I learned to ice skate. I’m into scuba diving. I go swing dancing. I jump out of planes with a parachute, presuming that I could stave off any symptoms of my family’s specific type of ataxia.
The Healthy: Was testing available when you were concerned you might get it? Can you share a little more about the diagnosis and testing for this genetic disease?
Bill Nye: It is only recently that gene sequencing has been developed to the point where people could figure out how to sequence genes and then identify these sequences, especially these repeats. I marvel all the time.
The Healthy: As the beloved “Science Guy,” can you tell us what wellness practices you incorporate into your life? There are always trends, so we’re curious what you pay attention to?
Bill Nye: Specifically, I have tried, if I understand the term, intermittent fasting. Then the other one I tried was what is called carbo loading. I still ride bicycles, but I used to ride bicycles a great deal and so you eat pasta a couple days before the big ride, and then the presumption is you have glycogen [a form of glucose] available to metabolize on the day. But I have heard about this other wellness practice … I don’t know if you’ve heard much about it: diet and exercise. What you eat and how much exercise you get affects your overall well-being. So anyway, I don’t have any big revelations and I am very skeptical of virtually any wellness fad. Everyone’s running in circles screaming now about protein.
The Healthy: Suddenly creatine and protein are being marketed specifically toward women.
Bill Nye: I think the answer is: maybe. My grandmother was French, from France. She married a U.S. Army captain after the first World War. I was raised on what nowadays is called the Mediterranean diet. You can take in fewer calories by eating less food. I do think about what I eat continually, but I have not pursued fads. I am interested, though, in what is going on that so many people are reporting being allergic to peanuts. There’s something going on in the environment perhaps that’s bringing [this] on.
The Healthy: Talk to us about your climate advocacy and how it relates to health. You’ve become a big advocate in that space.
Bill Nye: Everybody understands what every kid is into: dinosaurs and space! Well, one can argue that climate change on Earth was discovered or verified by studying the planet Venus, where the atmosphere is almost entirely carbon dioxide. And it has this hellish surface temperature as a result. Anytime you become scientifically literate about general biology and about the idea of an ecosystem that these species are interdependent, you become an environmentalist. Just by learning about how nature works and how we might fit in, you become environmentally conscious.
I’m so old. I was at the first Earth Day. And in those days, everybody was concerned about pollution. That’s another noun that’s getting a lot of attention again, now that we’re realizing how much plastic we’re putting out into the world.
The Healthy: Yes, microplastics has become a big discussion.
Bill Nye: When I was in elementary school, they said, “You have DDT in your system,” this pesticide, because it was reckoned that it was better to be around DDT than to be around malaria. There’s an old science teacher trick question: what is the most dangerous animal on earth? Do you know the trick answer?
The Healthy: Mosquitoes.
Bill Nye: Yes. Mosquitos. Which is a real thing. So you’ve got DDT in you and oh, you’ve got plastic in you. And look, you’re fine. Maybe. Maybe! But if you’re concerned about the future at all, then you would be concerned about climate change.
The Healthy: Looking ahead, what are you excited about?
Bill Nye: I’m focused now on the NASA budget. Plans have been proposed to cut the NASA budget overall by 20%…and to cut the NASA science budget by almost 50%. This is not in anybody’s best interest. And I can’t tell if it’s a bargaining technique or if it’s just a lack of understanding of NASA’s role and the United States’s role in the world. Last [month], researchers announced that they could find no way for what appear to be fossil bacteria on Mars to come into existence in any way but through biology, through a life process, which must have taken place on Mars. This is fantastically exciting news. Over the last 50 years or so, we have gone to great trouble to find the place to look for these rocks and to collect these rocks into these super fancy rock collection sample tubes. And there is no plan to provide the money to bring them back. A colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. So that is my professional focus right now.
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