2023-07-04 - Interview Dr. David Sinclair - The Longevity Experts - Aging is NOT Unstoppable (2023 Edition)

Length: 1:06:35
Interviewee: Dr. David Sinclair

Transcript

0:02	foreign [Music]
0:13	switch so you can reset different parts of the body you can reset the skin which
0:18	you can reset muscle uh you can reach what have we done yeah the skin was easy
0:23	so using the same gene so we're just basically turning on an embryonic program in older people or middle aged
0:30	in their cells and in mice and they get young again what does this mean this means one day
0:36	it's going to be possible to reset the age of the body we've done that we've done that in mice
0:41	now the question is how soon can we get it into ourselves
0:47	[Music] all right welcome back to the program
0:53	everybody I'm one of the smartest men in the world here in the studio with me here today and somebody that I enjoy his
0:59	company so much the last time he was on the show we were both just talking about the fact that we did consume a great deal of tequila prior and during the
1:06	show so today you may even get a better program he is a Harvard Professor he is
1:12	the director of co-director of the Paul F Glenn Center for biology of Aging research at this place called Harvard
1:19	medical school and he is I think the foremost expert on slowing down the
1:25	aging process on the planet Earth today and one of my favorite guests I've ever had on is also the author of the book
1:31	lifespan and a bunch of other great stuff we're going to talk about today Dr David Sinclair welcome back brother Ed
1:36	thanks for having me back on it's good to see you good to see you I'm looking at you and I'm thinking you look younger
1:42	and I want to know if that's a telling sign of Aging in other words do we look our age if we look
1:48	younger are we actually mechanically medically biologically younger
1:54	yes really it's really true there were there was a study maybe a couple of years ago they looked at people's
2:00	biochemistry you can now measure people's age you can do the What's called the DNA methylation clock it's basically reading the DNA chemicals yeah
2:07	and we can see the age and then you can match that to how old somebody looks and this was based on AI interpretation of
2:13	age and if somebody looked older they generally were older internally as well this whole aging thing we talked about
2:20	this a lot on the program before so describe for us because I think the foundation of your work and you can
2:26	correct me if I'm wrong is this concept the basic concept of hormesis so how I
2:31	know what it is because I've done a bunch of reading I've read your book and study you like crazy but explain to everybody what is the basis of hormesis
2:38	and why does that impact aging yeah well it's similar to what you preach which is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
2:44	and that's basically the biological uh premise here is that we want the body to be under a state of
2:51	non-complacency in other words we I want to make everybody have their body feel as though they could die next week so
2:58	you got to trick your body I mean you don't want to die next week obviously but you you want to induce this you call it harmesis that's what that's what
3:05	scientists call it but basically it's it's putting the state of the body in a state of perceived adversity as opposed
3:12	to some of the other some of the other things that we can do in life and that's perceived abundance yeah and in life we
3:17	have a choice we can live a certain way some of them are choices of Lifestyle diet exercise hot cold uh even mental
3:26	health those things can put you either in this abundant state or adversity State and it's that adversity hormesis
3:32	state that long term is pretty much proven and certainly in animals it's
3:37	known to extend the lifespan and keep you healthier for longer it's not just about living longer it's got to be healthier and in fact often people say
3:44	well why would I want to live longer if I'm just going to be older for longer I hear that a lot and that's so wrong what I'm about is let's prevent and treat
3:50	diseases of Aging by keeping the body younger okay and the only way I know how to keep somebody alive for longer is to
3:57	keep their diseases away and turns out if you're not sick and you don't you're not depressed you're family you don't
4:04	want to die and you don't die so that's my goal is to keep everybody happy healthy productive when that happens you
4:10	live longer yeah there's very few people it's funny of all the stuff in the medical world right now there's this
4:16	little Community right even to this day you're one of very few people who are really spending their life studying this
4:22	topic it's fascinating you would think that preventative medicine preventative health in other words being proactive
4:28	instead of treating disease instead of preventing it would be what everybody would be into now but it's really still
4:33	The Way It Was 80 100 years ago we just treat symptoms still don't we well doctors do the train doctors do that
4:39	that's where it's come out of History where you have to wait for somebody to be sick to be able to diagnose and then treat yeah but we live in a world now
4:45	where we can predict diseases right in a way that people 100 years ago could never do that yeah and so it's it's very
4:51	rapidly changing not so much at the edge of medicine but in the consumer health and wellness and people's education of
4:58	how to live their lives and then they go to their doctor and say hey have you heard about this or hey have you seen my
5:03	latest blood work that I had done myself that's so true and that the the patient is now driving the doctor for the most
5:09	part it is so true I mean that's exactly what I do and I'm there's little markers and whatnot the harmasis thing I want to
5:15	stay on in a minute so is intermittent fasting one of those things in other words you've tricked your body into thinking you're hungry so that is a form
5:21	of survival mode in your body yeah it is it is time restricted feeding is a better way of putting it okay why what's
5:28	the difference uh well intimate so fasting is typically longer than a day can go for a couple of days three days I don't do that I find
5:35	that too draining on me um so what I do is restrict the time that I eat and I put that down to a few
5:41	hours a day so it's if I can help it uh one meal a day one big meal do you really yeah I try to do that and I've
5:47	lost a lot of weight uh I have a lot better blood biochemistry my predicted age is younger than it was you've
5:53	noticed that I look different and that I think is partly due to the change in diet and not just what I eat which I've
5:59	changed but I also changed when I ate and eat and that's once a day is there a particular time every day for you is
6:06	there yes dinner I have a pretty big dinner because I've got to make up for all those calories but I find that the the not snacking and not having this
6:14	bloated feeling after a meal is just wonderful what I've so study myself I'm
6:19	a guinea pig and I can measure my blood levels through these continuous glucose monitors have you tried one yes yeah just finished with one it's a matter of
6:25	fact do you find it useful absolutely yeah human longevity Center and they had me do that so right well there are some
6:32	doctors that are against it um and you know I tweeted out that's like saying you're against weighing
6:37	yourself on scales in the bathroom you should be allowed to measure your body um but why why would you do that well I
6:43	did that so I could learn what this fasting or what I call you know time restricted feeding is doing to me and I
6:49	learned that once I did it for three four weeks my liver kicked in my liver woke up and went oh I better make some
6:57	sugar and it's called gluconeogenesis and it takes three weeks on average but
7:03	and you'll feel hungry for three weeks and if you want to get through that then it's a wonderful state I'm I'm now at a
7:08	state where I don't feel hungry through most of the day usually if I snack on something it's a bit of chocolate or
7:14	some nuts because I'm a bit stressed but I I love eating now more than I ever did yeah and I can have big meals it's only
7:21	one a day but you can go for it I can go for it I've gone from 100 I'm not a big guy but I've gone from 150 pounds
7:26	pre-covered down to 133. yeah you you're thinner than the last time you were with me and you look younger than the last
7:32	time you were with me like like noticeably I'm curious though like you're drinking coffee right now I know
7:38	you've drank tequila because we've drinking it together so you do still indulge in things that I I most people
7:44	tell you alcohol is not very healthy for you so you still live your life and you can still live a long life and still
7:51	enjoy it I guess because I'm watching you do it you know two times we've been together that's true the key is
7:56	moderation I don't have to be religious about it or strictly religious I think it's okay to have a drink once in a
8:01	while don't overdo it don't fry your brain coffee no harm in that plenty of goodness in that you know usually I'd
8:07	have a matcha tea or something these days because there's some extra chemicals but you know in general it's okay to eat a piece of cake once in a
8:14	while that's not going to hurt you but if you eat a piece of cake every other day or every day yeah it'll Mount up
8:20	yeah the thing that's fascinating me is this topic that we're talking about it's the number one topic amongst me my
8:27	friends even stuff I see on social is this idea of living longer and living healthier yeah like this Today's Show
8:33	will explode I already know that's what I'm having you on because there's so little real true information about this
8:39	stuff and so you're talking about like what you put in your body well I put a lot of steak in my body and I've heard
8:45	you talk about this right so what is what's an mtor level so I read these
8:51	things and they're they could be higher they could be MTR levels I just read stuff and then I remember them my way so
8:57	what about eating meat and what's an mtor level am I pronouncing that wrong you can correct me but I know that it's
9:03	important because it's stuff that I heard you talk about before yeah you're pronouncing it correctly it's called mtor okay m stands for mammalian okay
9:10	and Taurus Target of rapamycin a drug that extends lifespan and it does so by toning down mtor got it okay so mtor is
9:19	a is a protein or a bunch of proteins that come together in the body and the role in every cell is to sense how many
9:25	amino acids are coming in and it doesn't measure all 20 amino acids that are in the body it just senses three main ones
9:31	leucine isoleucine valine Branch chain amino acids you'll find them in abundance in meat and uh and some
9:38	protein shakes for weight lifting right and what what it's doing is saying to the cell all right I got lots of protein
9:45	put on let's put on some muscle let's grow yes reproduce that's the Abundant state
9:51	okay so you'll feel great in the short run okay and you'll feel great you might look great but for the long run your
9:58	your body's not putting yourself in this ormesis adversity State got it which is good for long-term Health okay so what
10:04	I'm I'm experimenting with my body all the time and measuring stuff yeah and I'm optimizing and I'm currently on a
10:10	plant-based diet now I really don't like giving up meat I'm a carnivore I'm a hedonist I like alcohol and I like I
10:17	like meat this is good I would love it if alcohol and meat were the healthiest they've made us live to 200 really but
10:22	but I'm a scientist and I also I believe in data not just what I think should be right and often I think too many people
10:29	just justify yeah like meat so it must be good for me right so I'm currently testing the effects so far really great effects on my body from this plant-based
10:36	diet but you know if I had a fish put in front of me and I was socializing or even a steak no on occasion I'll have it
10:42	it's not again it's not going to hurt me but am I going to eat steak every night no no way okay I don't think the science
10:47	backs that up to be long-term healthy you know am I going to make it to 100 by eating steak every I I'd say it's quite
10:53	doubtful okay unless you've got really good parents okay and jeans which I don't by the way neither do I so I have to work a little harder yeah that's
10:59	that's right we've talked about that before yeah so the steak thing is uh no so this this overall like a lot of
11:05	people that listen to my show that you know all different sorts but there are a segment that really train hard you know they
11:11	lift weights they're actively very physical so I'm wondering two things that we've covered so far just so I can
11:17	ask for them because I'm hearing them say this one on the idea that what I'm calling intermittent fasting which you're calling having these smaller
11:23	feeding Windows would you still recommend that for someone who's putting themselves under really strenuous exercise I'm talking you know an hour 90
11:30	minutes a day of strenuous exercise number one number two can you get enough protein to sustain that sort of muscle
11:36	tear down and rebuilding without eating meat it's particularly steak and even
11:42	you know some sorts of chicken what are your thoughts on those two things right uh well many people have seen the the
11:48	documentary game changes yes I've seen it that's why I'm asking you yeah well you can just have to eat a lot more of
11:55	plants you know tons of spinach a lot right it's really quite a lot or you can you
12:00	can take uh some protein but what's different about plants is they have a different ratio of amino acids
12:06	that shuts down the mtor and then protects the body got it and what mtor is doing that's beneficial is it mainly
12:13	what it does is recycles old protein and as we get older we build up all this old crappy Protein that's oxidized and
12:19	misfolded causes Alzheimer's but it's causing all sorts of diseases and mtor when it senses there's not enough amino
12:26	acid Supply it'll start recycling your old proteins first not the young ones that and and then that turnover is what
12:32	fasting is that's all about okay and if you're eating a lot of meat you won't
12:37	turn over the old protein and that'll build up and build up and build up so I think probably what we'll find the
12:43	optimum is and I if you allow me to speculate yeah as a scientist is that
12:48	um it's all about variety and even if you're a steak lover or three meals a day plus snacks and you want to build up
12:54	your body you'll still benefit from some periods during the week or during the month of skipping meals and putting your
13:01	body in a state whether it does recycle those proteins and get mtor to shut down because if mtor is on all the time we
13:07	know this in animals they live short it's like live fast Die Young okay they look great yeah but they die young and
13:13	I'm all about having a long healthy life I know you are yeah but I think weightlifting is really important I do
13:19	it myself not as much as I should for lack of time but the benefits they're a huge on male hormones women as well okay
13:26	you don't just look good you feel good you have bounce in your step yeah I'm so I'm all for that a bit of aerobics as
13:31	well of course is essential as well to get your body into What's called the hypoxic low oxygen State yes and that
13:38	will trigger this same defenses that we're talking about as fasting and this is the theme ad is that this hormesis
13:45	effect it can be triggered in many different ways through the same mechanisms one is lack of these amino
13:51	acids the other is I just mentioned exercise and low oxygen but you can also do a cold plunge you can do a sauna
13:58	there's even hyperbaric oxygen Chambers if you've heard of these of course yes so yeah yeah big thing in California
14:04	here it is not so much in Massachusetts but yet but what we're doing is putting the body out of its normal healthy state
14:12	for a little bit to see now when you weight lift your teary muscle right that's what I want I think I was hoping you were going to tell me that physical
14:18	strenuous training like that is in fact putting your body in that survival hormesis type State 100 okay and there's
14:25	a type of hormesis that's particularly beneficial which I don't talk about much so it's good to share it here it's
14:30	called mitoormesis okay so you know mitochondria the power packs of the cell they're little
14:35	ancient bacteria that swim in our cells and they can multiply and we want more of them to be healthy and as we get
14:41	older we have less and less of them and they're not very active now one way to trigger their activity to make them younger and more
14:48	uh abundant is to give them some stress give them some perceived adversity or hermesis mitochhermesis so
14:55	one way to do that is to exercise okay and you'll get free radicals damage the mitochondria they'll go holy crap I
15:01	don't make enough um energy I'm just gonna say money I can tell what's on my mind I need both yeah
15:07	uh they don't make enough energy and then they multiply and then you get younger okay the other thing you can do
15:12	is um because you're running out of oxygen those mitochondria get worried that there's not enough need to make more but
15:20	also having high pressure high barometric pressure oxygen this hbot I
15:25	think that it's working in part because it's also causing free radicals in mitochondrion making a mitochondria
15:31	Panic so it's interesting right you can you can run out of oxygen by running literally running or have too much
15:37	oxygen and this I think it's the same effect it's those power packs of the cell getting worried that something's
15:43	out of whack okay and they adjust and it's just like exercise um you get the benefits and the same is
15:49	true for all these other things that we do if you're cold okay that cold shock will boost your mitochondrial activity okay so this idea
15:56	of these cold plunges everybody talks about which I've been talking about for like six years I didn't do it for that reason I did it more for the discipline of it the breathing the I'm going to do
16:03	something difficult early in the morning it's going to wake up my nervous system now I'm finding out that it's going to help me get into this hormesis state and
16:10	potentially live a little bit longer I gotta ask you about this because it's just stuff the topics that I keep
16:15	reading about to keep coming back ampk okay my understanding of it is it helps
16:22	it's active somehow in lipid metabolism somehow right am I am I getting in the right area here it does both okay its
16:29	main role is controlling sugar metabolism okay so sugar so let's just step back a little bit because you talk
16:35	about glucose monitor earlier and I know that my both my heart doctor the people are trying to get me to live longer
16:40	they're obsessed with my ability to metabolize glucose and that whole process in the body and
16:46	so why does what what what does glucose do to us why is it important that we metabolize it well or have less of it
16:53	does that cause inflammation in the body overall or are there other detrimental effects in the body from glucose yeah so
17:00	so having high blood sugar is just known to accelerate aging there's no question about it but then why though why yeah
17:05	why so there's a couple of reasons that there's a very simple reason and a very
17:10	um practical explanation which is that the glucose that circulates in your body can be used for fuel but it can also
17:18	inadvertently get attached to your proteins okay yeah and then when you've got this glucose attached to proteins
17:25	they malfunction so that's part of this buildup this way you want to have some intermittent fasting restricted feeding
17:32	just turn over these glucuronidated proteins okay and one of
17:38	the ways to measure diabetes yes is to measure the glucose that's attached to your hemoglobin which is an abundant
17:44	protein in your red blood cells and doctors take that measurements called hba1c that tells you how much glucose
17:51	you've had in your body roughly for the last month because hemoglobin lasts the in the body for about three months and it's turned
17:57	over and that number gives you a good idea of whether you've been eating badly
18:03	and or you've got type 2 diabetes which is the inability to utilize that blood sugar and I don't want to hurt you but
18:09	or trending towards correct yeah that's the big is that not the big thing that most people that are going to go that
18:15	are having this monitor they're not probably a type 2 yet but they're trending in that direction if they don't do something about it for sure and
18:21	that's why it's important to measure it even when you're young right you don't want it to be going up and up and up by the time it's your type 2 diabetic it's
18:27	often too late and so I measure I've been measuring mine for the last uh over a decade I'll bet the vast majority of
18:33	the people listening to this have never done that or do it once every three years in some random lab test that they
18:38	do right yeah so well doctors don't pay a lot of attention to it until you're old or really obese so you're starting
18:45	to show signs of type 2 diabetes which will accelerate your aging for sure so that's one problem with glucose it'll
18:51	attach to proteins and make them malfunction and it's a sign of type 2 diabetes by the way the numbers are
18:57	based on the percentage of your hemoglobin that has glucose attached to it stuck to it anything below five
19:02	percent it's really great between five and seven is pre and then roughly and
19:08	then over seven then you've gotta you know be worried and your doctor will start to treat it and one of the drugs
19:13	that's used we'll talk about later I think is metformin but but what's also
19:18	important I think is to understand that there's probably another mechanism to how this is working because it's not just about blood sugar
19:24	by activating this ampk you mentioned yes it's actually I gotta take it a real
19:31	quick step back because there are three main things that keep us healthy when we feel hormesis or do hormesis you've
19:38	mentioned mtor which is sensing amino acids the ones that I work on are called sirtuins they measure NAD and a whole
19:46	bunch of stress in the body exercise diet the one that we're talking about is the third one which is called ampk and
19:52	it registers the amount of energy in the body glucose and chemical energy which is
19:58	called ATP that mitochondria make yes okay and as we get older our body makes less and less energy and ampk is the
20:06	control system and ampk is activated by a bunch of things which are include being hungry
20:13	and exercising or taking the drug metformin and that's probably why they're all good for you because it
20:19	turns on these defenses this is awesome okay I'm getting it all right and so think of it think of your glucose as
20:26	doing two things one is sticking to proteins and Wrecking the proteins and you need to turn those over by fasting or eating less regularly but also if you
20:33	always have sugar in your body high levels either diabetically just eating cake every day yes or or sugar in your
20:40	coffee what you're doing is telling the body there's an abundance right now and your ampk defenses are not turned on
20:47	unless you take Metformin which might bypass that yeah but what I try to do in my life is to turn on all of those three
20:54	systems the sirtuins with boosting NAD K by taking metformin and exercising and
21:00	then the mtor not taking an abundance of those three amino acids I mentioned leucine is loose invalent and together I
21:07	think they work as a system we know they talk to each other yeah and you tweak one the other works we don't know what the optimal combination is yeah that I'm
21:14	experimenting on myself as a kidding on you brother the all of humanity is waiting on you here so let's let's go
21:20	but I I want to I want to step back in here if you're listening this you're learning a ton for most of you and for
21:27	me it's just stuff like hey I'm going to investigate this mtor stuff a little bit more I'm going to start to learn more about it if I was you this ampk what is
21:32	glucose doing in my body start to learn about these things and then now we'll step back and get a little bit practical just for a second here I want to ask you
21:38	some specific things so just detailed stuff you mentioned earlier this idea of
21:44	hyperbaric oxygen I've had someone on the show who's this proponent of doing cardio with oxygen under so getting
21:50	oxygen under load meaning that when you're taking as a big oxygen tank that
21:56	I do it and I take this oxygen under load but one of the other things that he's a proponent of is following that and there's a protocol before it as well
22:02	is red light therapy I'm wondering if you've done any reading about red light therapy any research on it and just
22:10	straight up what are your thoughts on red light because it's sort of like I don't know if it's the new thing but it's kind of like the new thing right
22:15	well it's my job to stay up on on these things and even to try them myself it brought a smile to my face when I was
22:22	reading the science on the red light therapy okay and the hyperbaric oxygen and the oxygen High oxygen under under
22:28	training you're doing yeah under load just load you know you're under stress got it yeah so they all point to
22:34	mitochondria again even the red light uh there are scientific papers that I could pull out that show that the red light at
22:40	that at that wavelength is disrupting the ability of mitochondria to make energy
22:46	the way mitochondria make energy is that it's like a hot potato they take electrons and they pass them along red
22:53	light disrupts that and then you have low energy and your ampk system detects low energy
23:01	and starts to give you the health benefits because it's worried that you're going to run out of energy so the
23:07	light oxygen hunger simulating low energy or in some cases actually is low
23:15	energy good so I'm doing the right thing so you so in English in in layman's terms red
23:22	light probably good well for sure I mean it's been shown to protect against hair loss and improved
23:28	skin so there's something to it um I tried shining some red light on some nematode worms to make them move longer
23:34	it didn't work okay but that was a few years ago um I think there's a lot more data now that it's it's likely to be
23:40	working similar to exercise and fasting but through a light mechanism which is actually easier sure these other things
23:46	uh and stimulating stem cells yeah you can buy a cap you can get a cap that you put on your hair I mean you've probably
23:53	seen on not you but you must be nice I'm losing my hair and I did it and then I've also I lay in a red a light bed
23:59	they're very expensive so it's not something everybody can do you can go to a spa and do it yourself you know and
24:04	pay every time you go but it I have actually acquired one of those beds so have you noticed that I have I'll be
24:10	honest with you I've noticed um I've noticed well I mean everyone can judge I notice a little bit of improvement in my skin but I've noticed a difference in
24:17	I think the two things I've noticed for me and they could be completely anecdotal right but I've noticed certainly an improvement in my skin but
24:23	I've noticed my sleep is better um and I would say that my overall ability to sustain energy has been
24:31	better and frankly I have not gained weight even though my diet deteriorated since I've begun it's not something I'm
24:38	proud to admit on the show but I'm a pretty pretty uh you know focused guy when it comes to what I eat and I put in
24:43	my body and I've went through a little window here the last three or four months where I just wasn't as diligent
24:49	or Vigilant about it and I've not gained weight and I don't know that any of that is connected to the two but it's
24:54	certainly something that I've experienced since I've been doing it huh yeah and then and how long do you spend
25:00	in the light uh the Cycles are usually 15 to 20 minutes and I like I try to do it twice a day oh and my bed has
25:06	different settings you know one's for immunity one could be for energy and things like that and I just you know it's one of those things that you're doing you're like am I am I wasting my
25:13	time here or is there some benefit to it so I'm glad to hear that at least the studies say that there is yeah okay good
25:19	all right let's talk about other things we can do that are that are beneficial so we'll get to practical stuff people can do first thing is that we talked
25:25	about this the last time you were here but you know telomeres has been sort of one of the newer age or was ways of
25:32	measuring aging and you sort of told me nah that's not it how do we you said my
25:37	my real age is younger than or your your actual age is younger than your real age how are
25:44	you measuring that how is one measuring age now well a couple of ways okay uh I've been
25:49	working with a company and in disclosure I was um I am an advisor to them uh
25:55	inside tracker they came out of MIT saw them about 12 years ago uh joined the board I'm not on there
26:01	anymore but have nurtured this company because I really believe in it what they do is it's a blood test you can have it done at your local Lab Core request or
26:08	even have someone come to your kitchen which is what I do and I do it you know every three to six months and it's a
26:14	dashboard on my body and then those 40 measurements of things that I mentioned like hba1c there's other things like CRP
26:21	for inflammation okay of course blood glucose levels there's testosterone vitamin levels it's a compendium
26:28	that's put into an algorithm that's based on how these things change over time with age for your sex and
26:35	um I guess you're you're uh your race and other things and then it's back calculated to say all right compared to
26:40	other humans on the planet are you older or younger than them the average male so I can plot I have plotted myself for all
26:47	of these parameters individually and as a compendium as an algorithm for one score called the inner age 2.0 score
26:53	where do I sit compared to other 52 year olds that are white Caucasian so young yeah uh and I'm I'm in the the top you
27:02	know I'm not that I'm better in terms of that number of uh than 98 of people my age and that two percent bothers me I'm
27:08	very competitive and I'm working to get it higher I want to be I think there's one or two people out of thousands that
27:14	are they're better than me but um I did go off of Statin just to check because I was I was losing my memory but
27:21	yeah with I am on a Statin now okay but I went off it and my cholesterol spiked
27:26	so your cholesterol did spike it did I mean that I need a Statin it's in my jeans uh my father my grandmother have
27:31	had I'm on one as well oh you are yeah okay yeah yeah I mean I wouldn't say if you if you don't have any problems and
27:37	you can't if you can get it down with diet do that because there are effects on the brain and one of them is memory yeah yeah one of the other things too is
27:43	that your cholesterol can get too low your LDL can get too low and that's not healthy for your brain either correct
27:48	that's really true yeah and so yeah I'm just saying I'm in the top two percent or one percent right right uh but anyway
27:55	that people are gonna think I'm a little bit uh too competitive but um I I have plotted my my blood
28:01	biochemistry over the years against the average human and optimized each one and it takes it's an experiment it's long
28:07	term you can't just do it overnight but I think that's what modern medicine should be is that we're constantly
28:13	monitoring ourselves not going to the doctor once a year for a checkup where they say how do you feel are you sleeping you feel like okay go home
28:18	that's not medicine yeah that's therapy yeah my medicine is and the future of
28:24	medicine and for some people who want to invest in this on and put in their time and money you can get devices to read
28:31	your body continuously we've talked about continuous glucose monitors in our arm but there are rings I've got this oh
28:37	the ring too I'm just not wearing it today I've got the water ring yeah um there are even there's a bio button
28:42	um I brought one today in case this came up I'm I'm holding up a little um gray
28:48	squarish device that is maybe one quarter of an inch thick that I stick on my chest usually and it measures my
28:54	heart my vibrations my movement and this thing can tell you if I'm if you're gonna have a heart attack next week kind
28:59	of important yes but other things he can even tell you if you're uh if you have a cold or a flu or whether you need
29:05	antibiotics or not and this is the future I raised this actually as an example of of the way medicine should be
29:11	which is you are monitored not once a year but a thousand times a second
29:16	and when that's going to be ubiquitous then the old way of doing medicine is going to seem medieval it's so true and
29:22	you know guys I'm fortunate enough that I have that as well and it's things like you know why do you want things
29:28	monitored because the truth is most cancers caught early or very treatable it's catching them late that's a problem heart disease caught early is treatable
29:34	like we've talked about with with uh you know statins or anything like that I'm not making any medical recommendations nor am I a doctor nor am I even close to
29:41	that and that's why I want to ask you some medical stuff now because I know that you don't feel good about a couple
29:47	of the things that I do and I want to ask you about why so let's talk about things that we can do so you talked a
29:54	minute ago about hormone levels and so I have been on and I know what you're going to say but I want you to explain
30:00	your point of view on this to the audience full transparency the audience knows this I've been on testosterone
30:05	some form of testosterone replacement therapy my gosh it's gonna be 10 or 15 years and
30:11	I know that that testosterone at least in my case negatively we're getting real detailed here but it can negatively
30:16	impact HDL for example it can suppress HDL which mine is already genetically pretty low so there's a danger HDL being
30:24	your good cholesterol I know that that's a negative to me taking the testosterone having said that I watch friends of mine that I know that
30:30	are in their 70s that have been males that have been on testosterone therapy for say 20 years and I compare that
30:36	visually to somebody like my father who passed away last year and Visually externally these guys that
30:43	were on testosterone look 20 years younger than my dad did and so this I'm not arguing with you
30:49	about I want to understand it that's why the first thing I asked you today is If you visually look younger are you likely
30:55	to be internally younger because visually if you take somebody like a very well-known actor that most people
31:02	know has been open about taking testosterone who's a friend of mine who makes a lot of like boxing movies and
31:08	stuff right and so you compare him to my father who is about the same age and
31:14	Visually they really looked like different species almost at that age so what are
31:20	your thoughts about hormone replacement and if you're not for it which I think you probably aren't specifically why
31:27	well I'm all for keeping your hormones at Young levels okay I'm all about keeping the body the way it was when it
31:33	was 20. uh and however you can do that and it's safe do that okay so I'm I'm on board
31:39	with hormone replacement therapy for women and men if needed okay uh but but
31:45	you think maybe not needed I'm interrupting you well that's that's the point that that I have
31:51	um tried my best to find ways in in myself to so you're filthy too you're in that 300 to 700 range of testosterone in
31:58	your body you're saying right now your hormone levels are that normal in your 50s without any um I'm I'm actually naturally higher
32:04	than an average 20 year old and it but naturally meaning I've worked at it I've changed things okay in my
32:11	diet um I've done things and it's gone what are similarious things well uh exercise helped building up um
32:18	I'm not as bulky as you that's for sure but but from my basal state which was pretty puny to having some muscle
32:24	uh my quads mainly big muscles back muscles as well doing um deadlifts this kind of stuff um so that helped a lot and got it up to
32:32	was around hovering around 500 okay um it's gone close to double that
32:38	um over the last couple of years with changes to my diet um changes with supplements but I I didn't actually I
32:45	can't tell you scientifically which one of those has contributed but it's steadily gone up which which is good
32:52	um if it had plummeted I would have stopped taking X whatever it was okay
32:57	um but it's I'm happy with these numbers so it's just under or near a thousand now
33:03	my that's amazing uh it's it's shock shocking actually because I'm I haven't done anything
33:10	obvious you know you read it online what boost testosterone I'm not doing a lot of that stuff
33:16	um so I guess I'm lucky so that was one of the genetic good hands you were dealt compared to some of the other stuff that wasn't so favorable that's because
33:21	that's unbelievably high for 52 years old yeah well so you know I want to be helpful
33:28	practically uh so some of the things that I do are so this fasting has helped
33:33	I think that when I started well I don't call a pheasant eating once a day I got you call it fasting yeah that's okay
33:39	people know what that is um om 80 80 is the other way to do it to call
33:47	it one meal a day but that seemed to help and so also become giving up a lot of fat and a lot of meat now that's not
33:55	gonna sound good to everybody I know I I don't want them to know yeah but I think that that's helped and I did lose weight
34:01	and that may have contributed it too right I mentioned how much weight I've lost
34:07	um but here's the thing I don't think it's a bad thing to supplement at all I'm not against it I think what you're doing is perfectly acceptable but I
34:13	heard you say something about burning the candle at both ends what did you mean by that yeah so it's it's an
34:19	abundant signal testosterone is okay yeah times are good build muscle
34:25	but then I have to look at the clinical data um and while it won't extend your
34:30	lifespan and that's really clear there have been probably 50 million dollars worth of clinical trials saying that
34:35	testosterone won't make you live longer um it will help you have more muscle which will prevent you falling over and
34:42	breaking your bones which is a problem for most olderly so that's good um but there's also not a lot of
34:48	downside there's very little if if any that I've seen there's not more cancer there isn't no no so
34:55	put it this way it's not going to hurt you if you feel better and you're stronger and you look better you know by
35:00	all means and this is why doctors prescribe it um otherwise you know there'd be a warning uh but is it is it going to make
35:07	you live longer doesn't look like it unfortunately but one of the challenges I think with it is that you know for most people if some is good a whole
35:15	bunch is better and what I find with people that start to take um hormones is you need to be I think it
35:20	can become a form of an addiction and that you're like well I'm at 800 I look like this let me get this thing to 1500 and see what I really look like and then
35:27	there are some unhealthy things your hemoglobin levels things like that that you've mentioned already there are things that can get out of whack that if
35:34	you're not you know you're really careful with it so that's some of the stuff I just want to ask you that because it's it's been very common for
35:39	women to become on you know some form of hormone replacement too and I'm just in my own case I'm it my last Labs I was
35:46	only at 400 with supplementation and one of the negatives I think certainly for me is that my own body has probably made a
35:53	decision that it doesn't need to work at it anymore or produce it because I've got this exogenous stuff I keep shoving in my body so I do know that once I've
36:00	made that commitment I'm sort of committed for life so there are some I'm not proponent or or of it necessarily I
36:07	wouldn't I would certainly wouldn't recommend starting until you need to until those levels are lower and here I am telling you what I propose which is a
36:13	really fascinating part of the interview so um so we've got that how about um any of the peptides so I'm curious
36:21	about uh growth hormone yay or nay nay nay why well because there's a lot of
36:28	evidence both human and mouse that when you have low amounts of growth hormone you live longer
36:33	and well again it's this abundance versus adversity you'll you'll feel better with growth hormone you'll heal
36:40	better uh but long term all the evidence points to the opposite that having low levels of these growth
36:46	signals is better or you um tumor wise as well this mtor pathway
36:51	thing part of the other part of it is um its impact on tumors right is there some relationship between those two
36:57	things with tumors and does growth hormone impact the size of a tumors they're telling everything in your body to grow for example potentially I mean
37:05	potentially but fortunately there's there's not a lot of uh evidence that growth hormone does cause cancer okay
37:12	um so I would say that it could cause a cancer in your body to grow potentially well if you've got one yeah yeah I mean
37:19	that's part of the downside of all of these treatments is that it's it's all fine until you get a tumor and then and
37:24	then you could actually help the tumor do you feel the way about testosterone or are you saying that about growth hormone or both uh growth hormone more
37:31	testosterone I think that it's fine okay I know this is stuff you don't normally get asked that's why I wanted to go
37:37	there uh sure yeah um and then um the other thing that I take that I think
37:42	keeps my I think um at least let's say the evidence points to I have to speak like I have a
37:48	professor sometimes is that um by by activating these other enzymes that are
37:53	the the second component out of those three this sort of two ones I work on you can activate those by doing the kind
38:00	of things I do in my life but I can also take a supplement uh which raises NAD
38:05	Capital NAD and they're people are taking IVs of NAD supplements it's a big
38:10	thing it was discovered in my lab um uh in part uh what about 2002 when I was
38:18	a kid uh but it's now a big thing and the reason that NAD is popular is that
38:23	it activates these sirtuins and we have seven of those in the body we talked about this last time the seven uh sir
38:28	Tunes are the Protectors of the body there are three of them that protect the DNA and the clock slows down uh we think
38:35	and then some of them are in mitochondria there's three there and then there's one that floats around in between in the in the water that's in
38:42	between all of that and that's number two I'm now 32 controls hormone
38:47	production uh and if you give it to cells they'll make more androgens and
38:53	one possibility is the reason my testosterone is doing pretty well is I've got super high NAD levels because
38:58	I've been supplementing for about seven years now with n m n which is a precursor to NAD stay there okay I want
39:05	to go there so that was the next thing on my list was NAD so of the people that I know that look
39:13	freakishly and unusually young for their age that I have met in say the last 36 months I cannot get over how many of
39:20	them have told me that I'm on NAD and I'm on Metformin and I'm talking about everywhere from a
39:26	gym to a golf course to a business meeting and I'm talking about visually shockingly looking young people
39:33	mainly people in their 50s that look like they could be in their 30s or early 40s to me so when you say NAD
39:40	do you believe in the IV Therapy do you believe in the the stuff you can inject with the subcutaneously
39:47	or are you speaking specifically about this precursor that you were referencing well what I believe
39:53	um doesn't so much matter but the scientific evidence points to taking a supplement every day a gram of
39:59	anime which is this precursor uh stands for nicotinamide mononucleotide for the
40:04	aficionados I'm just swallowing one of those uh or a thousand milligrams is enough to double your NAD levels in the
40:11	bloodstream and triple it if you take two grams now I'm 52 so if I'm if if I'm
40:17	an average human I would have half the levels of this NAD molecule than a 20 year old so doubling it is the goal for
40:24	me so I've been taking a gram of nmn swallowing it every day or you know the last whatever it is doesn't use seven
40:31	years at least um then the question is what about the NAD IVs there's very little data on that
40:37	yeah I would say that I have tried it um I've found that it it felt fine uh
40:44	especially afterwards during it have you tried it's I have got a little cramping in the tummy area it does yes I found
40:51	that on the IV and also I've taken it sub q and I get a real burning uncomfortable sensation on my stomach
40:58	it's ironic that you say that yeah it's exactly my experience so that there's some evidence that it's good for uh
41:04	treating addiction but really no solid scientific evidence that it helps in
41:10	other ways yet but that doesn't mean it doesn't help it just means that it hasn't been studied enough doctors haven't done enough Placebo controls and
41:16	it's hard to give people a placebo especially if they're paying for it yeah right so I would say the jury is still out but the science I think is is there
41:24	that it should activate the sirtuins kick them into action and at least for those few hours that you're getting it
41:29	and it'll go up probably double triple the levels in your bloodstream uh it'll help but I don't know long term
41:37	I'm so fascinated by the stuff as everybody can tell so you're getting stuff here you don't get most other places you guys so
41:43	um these are just things to think about these aren't necessarily recommendations thinks about things to think about then there's metformin and
41:50	um so so just you know I must say this to you you and I met this is a passion of mine I've also had a not great
41:56	genetic Handy by the way guys there's all kinds of stuff we could talk about on genetics today that you can get study right now to see if you predisposed to
42:02	heart disease or different cancers you can even find out if it came from your mother or your father's side there's all kinds of things you could figure out
42:07	right now my genetic hand is crap it's just Mom and Dad's side both not good and both Cancers and heart disease so
42:14	when I met David originally this conversation really mattered to me and
42:19	so I did start on Metformin this is just me personally I'm telling everybody my own medical stuff I uh did start um
42:26	on uh the uh precursor for NAD and I've tried the IV stuff and I've tried the
42:32	Sub-Q stuff myself so metformin helps with glucose in the body somehow the
42:39	metabolism of glucose correct so why does that why do you think metformin
42:44	works and and um do you feel real strong like you did last time that you're here about it
42:50	yeah I feel even stronger there's a lot of data from looking at tens of thousands of people that went on Metformin and people who go on Metformin
42:57	who have type 2 diabetes who normally would live a short lifespan because they have more cardiovascular disease they're aging faster they're actually protected
43:04	from these diseases relatively and those type 2 diabetics on on Metformin live longer than people that don't have type
43:09	2 diabetes that's a remarkable observation and because once you start
43:14	to study tens of thousands of people it starts to look real um especially for those people that are
43:20	predisposed like you are to cardiovascular disease and other issues like cancer there it's very clear that
43:26	metformin on average protects you against those diseases because it's not just working on keeping
43:32	your glucose levels down remember it's turning on the mitochondesis and protecting the body through these
43:38	defense mechanisms now people might be thinking well okay you've got these protective mechanisms but what are they
43:44	actually doing to make you healthier well I've mentioned only one of the things they do which is turning over those old proteins that are either
43:50	oxidized or have glucose stuck to them but they do other things they do protect telomeres when you turn them on but they
43:56	they do another thing that's really interesting uh and that is that they can rejuvenate stem cells and so you get
44:03	stem cells protected and then they can divide and then they can repopulate the body another thing that they do really
44:09	well particularly the stratuans is that they help repair broken DNA anyone who's been in the sun I was Australian I've
44:15	been damaged badly by the Sun that ages you it actually is we know that damage to DNA accelerates Aging in my lab we
44:22	can cause a mouse to be 50 older by doing this process the Saturns will slow that down we had a paper in science in
44:29	2000 and yeah 2018 that showed that by raising NAD Levels by giving mice and a
44:35	man same molecule that I take their DNA repair systems were much more efficient and if you damage them with radiation
44:42	which we were trying to simulate space radiation but it's also similar to cosmic rays that you get if you fly a
44:47	lot which I know you do and a man was protecting those Mice from the damage and you can see the damage you look in
44:52	their livers there was damage damage damage in a normal Mouse and give give the men amend and it wasn't there for
44:58	the most part so that's another way it can protect against aging good so good
45:04	um we're gonna keep going because I love this any disclaimers on any of this that we've said so far that you would say to
45:09	somebody who says I gotta get on this metformin or NAD is there any disclaimer any downside anything you would advise
45:16	them to do just so that I make sure everyone's heard the totality of your thoughts about it yeah well one
45:22	disclaimer is I'm actually not a trained physician a trained physician but I'm not a trained physician I'm a PhD who
45:27	studies molecules um and so there's that so anytime you want to change something in your body
45:33	even if it's diet but if it's a supplement and of course a drug you need your doctor uh you want to consult them
45:39	so your doctor needs to know everything that's going on in your body because supplements are sometimes just as powerful as drugs okay and if you cannot
45:46	get for example this is a good point I think to bring up is if you cannot convince your doctor to get metformin
45:51	yeah there is an alternative and you know what I'm going to say it's a plant molecule called berberine from the
45:58	Berber plant and if you in clinical trials if you take it at 2 grams a day uh it does lower blood glucose similar
46:05	to metformin and that you can buy on you know any pharmacy or online
46:11	that's where I began after we did our interview I went to my doctor and I said we're getting on Metformin and she said
46:16	no we're not not right now not yet and um and so that's where I began and
46:22	then after a period of time she did a little bit more research and agreed if you've done any reading on Mott's C
46:28	at all I've done more than reading okay what do you know about mod C let's see well I know the scientists involved and
46:34	I helped them start a company come on now really okay I'm kind of embedded in this field I know but this is all around I'm older
46:41	than you might think um so much C is really interesting I really like it okay I liked it so much I started a company
46:48	yeah so motzi is is a super interesting molecule from from a an academic standpoint okay uh
46:56	and from a physiological standpoint okay motzi is made not by the DNA
47:01	uh from the DNA in the nucleus which is most of our chromosomes it's from the chromosome that's in mitochondria it's
47:07	mitochondria because they're like these bacteria they they had their own circular DNA it's not
47:13	a chromosome it's circular and embedded in that Circle piece of DNA in the mitochondria is a little Gene called
47:19	Motz C Capital mot Dash C and the mitochondria make this little
47:26	peptide a little piece of a protein peptide is just a small protein that gets leeched out into the bloodstream
47:32	and tells the rest of the body that a certain part of the body is experiencing hormesis so when you exercise your body
47:40	is secreting mot C into the body and mozzi is really small you can synthesize it and you can even get it I don't know
47:46	if it's still available in the US but uh it it's in clinical trials right now in
47:51	this company it's called Cobar cohbar okay uh and it's looking promising as a
47:57	treatment for fatty liver but hopefully other age-related diseases maybe even plaque removal and stuff like that right
48:04	and there's all kinds of fascinating stuff so I'm so glad that we got a chance to talk about all this stuff today okay so some practical stuff just
48:11	for a second or exciting stuff um crispr we've talked a little bit about crispr
48:17	but this concept where are we enable being able to actually alter DNA like
48:22	I've had some friends of mine that you know knew I was going to be talking to you today and they're like please get
48:28	like the update so every tell everyone here what crispr specifically is but where are we at on our where right now
48:35	where are we and if you were to forecast say within the next five years where do you believe we are unable to actually
48:41	alter DNA that way yeah well right now it's it's possible to add genes to humans
48:48	we've cured my wee bit scientists and doctors have cured genetic diseases incredible blind people are seeing again
48:54	yes but it's only small it's it's thousands of people it's not Millions yet but we are getting better at it and
49:00	eventually probably in certainly in this decade uh we'll see people being able to
49:05	add genes to their bodies more commonly but crispr is different crispr is not
49:11	adding genes it's actually changing your genetic makeup permanently uh and so
49:16	where we're at is there are some genes or some studies that have shown that it works in humans you can correct sickle
49:22	cell anemia and fix that that one's a little easier because it's in the bloodstream trying to fix Alzheimer's
49:28	with crispr is going to be a lot more challenging the blood is easy to access and the way we do it is we put a crispr
49:35	system which is an enzyme that you can direct to change the DNA uh with a
49:40	barcode um so our DNA has different letters there's six feet of this DNA molecule in every cell and there are these four
49:47	letters actg and they're different or um sequence and what crispr does that's
49:54	kind of incredible if you think about it is that you can give it a code that says go find the sequence that's a t g c a g
50:03	c and you'll find it in billions of combinations in that six foot and go in
50:09	and just change that incredible it is it's a barcode and uh and so I would say
50:15	in the next five years it'll be fairly common to fix genetic diseases with crispr
50:21	and then and then things get really interesting when we start to fix things that aren't genetic maybe we want to all
50:26	fix our predisposition to diabetes we could potentially go in and fix that before we actually get that disease in
50:32	and make up for not having great genetic lineages would you if you put a
50:37	Time Horizon on that well would you think something like that would be well probably for the healthy people it's going to take longer right doctors would
50:43	rather do no harm than do good um and so that's probably 15 years away
50:49	for from being mainstream there are other Technologies one one called SI RNA
50:54	which is similar but it it actually stops the production of protein rather than changing the genes
51:00	it's one step down and that's being shown and there's a drug on the market to treat high cholesterol and even
51:08	there's a drug for fatty liver and so increasingly we're able to change the genetic code or the codes that are
51:15	coming off the genetic code which is RNA which we all have heard about because of covert right but yeah we're it's amazing
51:22	that we can now read the DNA and rewrite it uh and it's
51:27	and in my work we've just recently figured out how to turn on three embryonic genes in the body okay uh and
51:34	when we do that just the right three genes that resets the age of of the tissue and it gets rejuvenated are you
51:41	kidding me you this is work you're doing right now so in addition I'm just processing all this like I
51:47	think when we first talked about this I'm like yeah it'll be in there like the adding jeans thing they'll do a little of that but like to actually alter the
51:54	genetic sequence of somebody that won't be in my lifetime and you're saying that you believe that in some
52:01	form of that will be in the next five-ish years we'll be doing that well there are patients already that have had
52:06	it done but for it to be mainstream history yeah five to Fifteen depending on the disease the more severe the
52:13	faster the FDA acts what are the what are you most excited about right now like in your work what are you just this
52:19	is the stuff I'm the most excited about right now that's easy your face just changed too by the way it's easy yeah uh
52:24	so we published a year ago on the cover of nature magazine which is the highlight of any scientist's career that
52:30	we could reset the age of a complex tissue we chose the mouse's eye we let
52:36	mice get old and blind and we reprogram their eye using these three genes they're called OS and K for short yeah
52:43	and we turned the age back 80 and they became they were able to see again
52:50	and so what what we're talking about is having found that there's a reset switch in the body to be young again and the
52:56	information in the body to be young is still there so theoretically you could take someone who's 100 years old oh my gosh
53:02	and reset their body to be young again now the exciting thing is we've been doing clinical trials or pre-clinical
53:08	trials and there's no apparent downside to this year isn't that great that's incredible yeah and so I went home that
53:16	day and I said hey we've cured blindness and my family went yeah can you just unpack the dishwasher that was a sad day
53:21	that's when I knew I could never impress my family uh but we have been working ever since so we first made this discovery about three years ago it ended
53:28	up being in my book a little bit of it and uh it was a thrill to make this discovery but since then we've been
53:34	doing the hard work which is to figure out is it safe enough to put into humans and we're now testing it in non-human
53:40	primates just to see if it's safe oh my gosh and if all goes well in the next two years we'll hopefully cure blindness
53:46	in people that is absolutely freaking incredible there's absolutely banana but it gets better okay the eye was just
53:53	something we chose I didn't think it would work any better in the eye in fact I thought it'd probably worked worse but we found that there's a universal
54:00	reset switch so you can reset different parts of the body you can reset the skin which one you can reset muscle
54:06	uh you can res what have you done uh yeah the skin was easy so using the same genes so we're just
54:12	basically turning on an embryonic program in older people or middle-aged um in their cells and in mice and they
54:19	get young again what does this mean this means one day it's going to be possible to reset the
54:24	age of the body we've done that we've done that in mice now the question is how soon can we get
54:30	it into ourselves that's bananas is there here's the here's the uh guy that
54:35	grew up with Skeptics all over his house let's assume that that's true did everyone just hear what he just said
54:40	by the way that we may be able to reset the age of a human we've already been able to do this now and other organisms
54:46	that's let's admit it just process that right and as I process it I go wow that's
54:52	exciting I hope I can live long enough so that I can reset my clock that's the key right the stuff we've talked about
54:57	today yeah the the the aiding the exercise um well what what's the other thing hot
55:04	called these are designed and the supplements to keep us all alive until this
55:09	technology becomes available because it's not just one thing to slow down aging which we can do pretty easily just by doing these lifestyle changes but to
55:16	reset the age there's a there's a study from UCLA that shows Louise that's crazy it gets crazy there's a study um by
55:23	Steve Horvath and Greg Fay was published during the first few months of the pandemic they treated people for a year
55:30	with a combination of metformin a bit of growth hormone and and um DHEA
55:36	to offset some of the problems with growth hormone that can cause type 2 diabetes and they found that when they measured
55:42	the clock of the body it went back by about two years and at the time I
55:47	thought yeah okay two years that's not a lot but then I started thinking if you could do that every year right right
55:53	that'd be pretty interesting you're literally Aging in Reverse right right and I don't know about immortality I'd
55:59	just be happy with an extra 10 years of hap of healthy life or even two years but we're at a point now where we're
56:05	able to control aging pretty easily in my lab we can drive aging forwards and backwards in my set will aging is
56:11	maleval now that we have an understanding of how it's controlled and what causes it and we even have many brains in the lab we can take human
56:17	cells so Ed I can take your skin cells I can make them into stem cells that are pluripotent meaning I can make anything
56:23	from you if I wanted to and this is not kidding I could make a sperm out of your skin cells and an egg and fertilize that
56:30	so you can clone me I could I could clone you I won't do that because it's illegal but biologically we could do
56:36	that oh my gosh I'm gonna get all sorts of phone calls you are there we go yeah no but what what I'm what what's
56:43	important is I can make organs many organs from you and test drugs and I
56:48	could what we're doing in the lab is we have wow yeah yeah personalized medicine yeah
56:54	wow so when you come to my lab and you have to promise you're gonna come I'll show you we grow these mini brains in the lab and we've got them from people
57:00	that are predisposed to Alzheimer's or not and we have a way to age those brains so that they're now 80 years old
57:07	even though they're only a few months old and they lose their ability to fire electrically they they become demented
57:14	in the dish little mini brains on Instagram I've shown some photos of these they're pretty cute and so we give
57:19	them Alzheimer's and Dementia in the dish and then what we do is we have a system to turn on those three embryonic genes
57:25	OS and K and those brains go back in age but here's the cool thing Alzheimer's goes
57:32	away they get the electrical activity comes back now we do this in a mouse we make the mouse older just let them age
57:38	out or accelerate it and we've been now reversing the age of those brains in the mice and you can guess what happens they
57:45	get their memory ability to learn back unbelievable do you hear what you're saying it's
57:50	unbelievable this is my day job so it doesn't seem that exciting but it is when I talk about it it's the most exciting stuff listen we're in this time
57:57	where there's all this Doom and Gloom about you know our wellness and health and the pandemic and all these other
58:04	things and it's stuff to be very cognizant of and pay very close attention to but right with the same
58:09	time I feel like Sergey young and I were talking about this too who I know you
58:14	you know Sergey and like Sergey as well it's almost like if you can find a way right now to stay on this planet healthy
58:21	for the next 10 or 20 years if you can manage to do that that there might be an extension of your life at a magnitude of
58:27	another 20 or 30 potentially healthy years possibly and you said 10 earlier
58:33	did you just find a way to extend your life into finding the way is what we're describing the hot and cold the not
58:39	eating so that gum much right the look really getting sure about your glucose and how you process it in your body and
58:46	taking a look at this metformin and NAD and these other things and if you can really start to get that stuff together
58:51	and exercise and eat healthy and put the right foot you there may be a completely different world we're living in and a
58:57	matter of a decade yeah exactly right and already because technology is changing so fast already and it's only
59:03	going to go exponential every year that you stay alive you get another three months of life right now
59:08	right now stay alive because eventually it's going to be forever you stay alive you get another year and eventually you
59:14	can have negative birthdays I used to say that this was futuristic
59:21	yeah you did this is why it has so much credibility with me you used to say many years ago this is far off this is
59:26	possible so for you to be the one telling me no here's the window that it's possible in probable or possible
59:34	we'll carry so much credibility you've got some of the the best scientists working with me on this not just at Harvard but in in companies who know how
59:40	to make drugs so this isn't just oh one day it'll happen there's investors
59:46	um yeah sure other investors have jumped in so uh Jeff Bezos and others have put large amounts of money there are
59:51	billions now to figure this out um so even if I don't make it you know I
59:57	I God willing I don't have a heart attack but if I do you know the Genies
1:00:02	out of the bottle this is going to happen it's just great a question of when yeah what it means to be I'm just thinking myself as you're
1:00:09	talking what it means to be a human being it's going to potentially be very different experience within a decade
1:00:14	what it means and all of the uh just the pain and suffering so many people have
1:00:20	gone through in lives with Cancers and heart disease and losing people that are still here to Alzheimer's and things
1:00:26	like that to think about the quality of life and people ask me all the time I was just on a call before we did this with a coaching group I have with all of
1:00:33	the stuff going on in the world right now you know and I and I I told them I'm optimistic I'm optimistic about Humanity
1:00:39	I'm optimistic about life I'm optimistic about our world and that's not Pollyanna I have reasons to believe it and you
1:00:46	know you my friend are one of those reasons I just learned from you and feel so inspired by you is there a negative
1:00:51	to people living so much longer I think of things like food supply or things like that do you ever think about those
1:00:57	things like we got to be really careful here because you know there might be an issue we've not factored in in other
1:01:03	words do other Technologies need to be keeping Pace if humans are going to live longer yeah the answer is yes and that's
1:01:09	the subject of my next book actually how do we get out of this mess that we're in this mess that we're in of living longer
1:01:14	and longer the mess that the world we've created okay gotcha the the stress and the bad food around us living longer is
1:01:21	part of the solution actually okay so by helping yourself you actually help save the planet and that may sound
1:01:28	counter-intuitive but let me explain first of all there's an economic benefit to living longer
1:01:33	healthy right productivity sure spending the economy is driven by people who are
1:01:38	healthy and dragged down by people who are not healthy good point yeah and we did the calculations by we I mean a
1:01:44	couple of brilliant economists in London I was just the the Third Wheel but they calculated that if you could just extend
1:01:51	lifespan by one year let's say everyone went on Metformin who could take it then the Savings in the long run to the
1:01:58	US would add up to 86 trillion dollars to extend it to a decade it's 365
1:02:05	trillion with a t dollars this is more money than you can get by doing anything you know you know save um stopping all
1:02:11	military spending which we wouldn't do but that kind of money can be put towards solving issues uh like climate
1:02:18	change food supply sure the other thing that I do and I I don't often mention this because it's often you know not the
1:02:24	subject that people want to hear about but I also work on other problems on the planet um I have a company that detects viruses
1:02:31	and bacteria can diagnose anything from your blood that's just one but the one that's relevant that you reminded me is
1:02:37	um actually I wrote a code wrote a pattern on the plane over here to California from Boston to preserve uh
1:02:42	fruit and so the same molecules and Coatings on fruit that
1:02:48	um while the same molecules that work in our bodies also work in plants in fact plants make most of these molecules that
1:02:55	we ingest it's one of the reasons I eat stress stressed out plants because they make these molecules long story short I
1:03:00	I'm hoping to extend the shelf life of fruit around the world and there's a huge amount of fruit and vegetables that
1:03:06	are thrown away every day perishes yeah you're remarkable brother is there something that keeps you up at night
1:03:12	that you worry about um I don't get kept up at night worrying
1:03:18	I get kept up at night working and talking to people hmm um I do worry a bit that I'm not going
1:03:25	to achieve my life's goal which is to have a medicine that helps millions of people that would satisfy me I don't
1:03:31	care about prizes and all that stuff that's doesn't you know I've won a few and it doesn't do anything you know what
1:03:37	will what I'm hoping for is for a little vial of a drug some medicine that saves millions of
1:03:44	lives and then I'll then I'll be honestly I'll be happy and I'm Guided by a mentor of mine uh Philip sharp who is
1:03:52	at MIT and he actually literally won a Nobel Prize does he have his Nobel Prize on the wall no he has a little vial of
1:03:59	the drug that he made and that's what he tells me is important to him that's so good David okay a couple more
1:04:05	things is there any other additional I'm just processing we've talked about today I feel so good that you were here
1:04:11	I I want you I want to just say this to you I always learn when you're around me
1:04:16	and I feel more optimistic with evidence based in fact of why I feel more
1:04:22	optimistic and I'm grateful that I get to share the conversation today with millions of people that listen to the
1:04:29	show like there are some shows when I do them and I'm in the midst of doing them and I'm like I'm so grateful for this
1:04:34	experience and that's now twice with you and I just want to acknowledge that with you is there any other gift you'd want
1:04:40	to give the audience of hey here's another supplement or tip or something that could extend the quality or length
1:04:46	of one's life is there something we haven't covered that you would just add to what we've talked about is anything even related to mental health or
1:04:53	anything like that yeah well there are a couple of things mental health is very important to me as well um I I I've
1:05:00	learned to reduce stress don't worry about the little things think about will this matter in five ten years I know
1:05:05	you're very very good at this I'd listen to you as well I'm I'm grateful to you as well thank you um and uh
1:05:12	the the ability to cope with pressure yeah um I was a very nervous kid and in
1:05:18	my 20s and in my 30s getting a job at Harvard was pretty scary in my 40s and now in my 50s I'm a relatively calm guy
1:05:25	and you have to work at it it doesn't come naturally some breathing
1:05:30	um I'm more recently now trying meditation at night oh yeah just for a little bit just for 15 minutes or so a
1:05:35	day but I find that I can even get by with less sleep um I have uh what's a helmet and a
1:05:41	headset that helps me I'm not very good at meditation because my mind is everywhere but it's called brain tap and
1:05:47	I have no connection to them but I like it brain tap is a is has headphones you listen to calming music and it's shining
1:05:53	light in your eyes at frequencies that get you to calm down so mental health very important because if you're always
1:05:58	overly stressed a little bit of agitation is good right gets us going but if you have cortisol coursing
1:06:04	through your veins it will accelerate aging okay um the other thing is I'm working on
1:06:10	democratizing another type of test for age which is your true biological age which is measuring the chemicals that
1:06:17	are on DNA that actually determine biologically how old you are and it starts at conception and it ticks away
1:06:24	even when you're young and I can basically take a blood test or a cheek swab from you or anybody and predict how
1:06:31	old you are but also when you might die if you don't change your life