00:00:00
This is very
00:00:02
>> It's bad, right?
00:00:02
>> It's hard. Yeah.
00:00:03
>> That's what it's like to be old. And for
00:00:05
far too long, we've [music] ignored it
00:00:06
or accepted it as natural. And I reject
00:00:09
the idea that aging just because it's
00:00:11
natural is acceptable. Dying at 80 is
00:00:14
not inevitable. Absolutely, that can be
00:00:16
changed. So, if you're skeptical, I am a
00:00:18
Harvard professor who has been studying
00:00:20
aging, longevity, and age reversal for
00:00:22
30 years. And I've seen enough from my
00:00:24
lab showing that we can literally now
00:00:26
reverse the aging process. And it's not
00:00:28
a question of if, [music] it's a
00:00:29
question of when this is going to
00:00:30
happen. And everyone should stick around
00:00:31
cuz I'm going to tell you some of the
00:00:32
major things that people should be
00:00:34
doing. They can lengthen your life by a
00:00:35
decade. Hey, you're not taking that off,
00:00:37
Stephen. You got 10 minutes for that.
00:00:39
So, you can accelerate aging by smoking,
00:00:41
getting an X-ray, ultrarocessed foods,
00:00:43
excessive drinking, flying a lot.
00:00:45
>> I fly all the time.
00:00:46
>> That's probably accelerating your aging
00:00:48
process.
00:00:50
Even going to a rock concert and
00:00:52
blasting your eardrums because your ear
00:00:54
hair cells are [music] getting older
00:00:55
faster. And so I look at the body like
00:00:57
it's a computer and we can reinstall the
00:01:00
software. And what's [music] interesting
00:01:01
is when you reverse aging, diseases like
00:01:03
Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease go
00:01:05
away [music] or are cured because what's
00:01:07
driving a lot of those diseases is
00:01:10
aging. And so my lab is like Willy
00:01:12
Wonka's chocolate factory. They are
00:01:13
making discoveries that blow me away
00:01:15
every week. And I think we're at a
00:01:16
turning point in human history [music]
00:01:18
where you're probably going to live into
00:01:19
the 22nd century if you do all the right
00:01:21
things.
00:01:22
>> And we're going to dig into all of those
00:01:23
in great detail. But what are the
00:01:24
unintended consequences of such a world
00:01:27
where we all live longer? And also, do
00:01:28
you think it's going to be possible in
00:01:30
the next 50 years for us to live
00:01:32
forever? And then, what's the best
00:01:33
treatment you've discovered for hair
00:01:34
loss?
00:01:35
>> This is why I love your podcast,
00:01:36
Stephen. You asked the right questions.
00:01:38
So, first,
00:01:39
>> this is super interesting to me. My team
00:01:41
given me this report to show me how many
00:01:42
of you that watch this show subscribe.
00:01:44
And some of you have told us according
00:01:45
to this that you are unsubscribed from
00:01:47
the channel randomly. So, favor to ask
00:01:49
all of you. Please could you check right
00:01:51
now if you've hit the subscribe button
00:01:52
if you are a regular viewer of the show
00:01:54
and you like what we do here. We're
00:01:55
approaching quite a significant landmark
00:01:57
on this show in terms of a subscriber
00:01:59
number. So, if there was one simple free
00:02:01
thing that you could do to help us, my
00:02:03
team, everyone here to keep this show
00:02:05
free, to keep it improving year over
00:02:07
year and week over week, it is just to
00:02:09
hit that subscribe button and to double
00:02:10
check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
00:02:11
ever ask of you, do we have a deal? If
00:02:14
you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:02:15
I'll make sure every single week, every
00:02:18
single month, we fight harder and harder
00:02:19
and harder and harder to bring you the
00:02:20
guests and conversations that you want
00:02:21
to hear. I've stayed true to that
00:02:23
promise since the very beginning of the
00:02:24
Dio and I will not let you down. Please
00:02:27
help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get
00:02:29
on with the show.
00:02:31
[music]
00:02:34
Dr. David Sinclair, I have waited many
00:02:37
years to speak to you and I've been so
00:02:40
keen to speak to you for so many years
00:02:41
because so much of the research and the
00:02:45
information I've consumed on the
00:02:46
subjects we're going to talk about today
00:02:48
comes from you directly from research
00:02:50
you've done and from theories and ideas
00:02:52
and hypotheses that you formed. I think
00:02:56
the place that this conversation should
00:02:57
start is is probably with this picture
00:03:01
because it appears to be incredibly
00:03:02
formative
00:03:04
in your journey. Oh yes, that is an
00:03:08
important picture. True. This is a
00:03:11
picture of my grandmother and me when I
00:03:14
was in my early 20s. I'm now 56 if
00:03:17
you're wondering. And uh my grandmother
00:03:20
has played a major role in my life. Uh,
00:03:22
I'm gonna have to be careful not to get
00:03:24
too emotional because, uh, she's now
00:03:25
passed pass passed away, but she's
00:03:27
inspired me to do the best I can to
00:03:31
leave the world a better place than, uh,
00:03:33
I found it.
00:03:34
>> And there's this particular book here
00:03:36
called Now We Are Six.
00:03:39
>> It is. Anyone who's read my book, uh,
00:03:41
lifespan knows that this book is very
00:03:44
important to me. And I didn't realize
00:03:45
it, of course, when I was a kid, that
00:03:47
this was going to change my whole life.
00:03:51
And there's a poem at the back there
00:03:53
that my grandmother Vera used to read
00:03:55
me. When I was six, and it goes like
00:03:59
this. When I was one, I had just begun.
00:04:02
When I was two, I was nearly new. When I
00:04:05
was three, I was hardly me. When I was
00:04:08
four, I was not much more. When I was
00:04:11
five, I was just alive. But now I am
00:04:14
six. I'm as clever as clever. So I think
00:04:18
I'll be six now forever and ever.
00:04:22
I'm getting chills reading this again
00:04:25
and hearing this poem again because the
00:04:27
impact on me was the following that
00:04:29
subconsciously my grandmother was saying
00:04:32
you you don't want to grow up adults can
00:04:34
be evil. She grew up after World War II.
00:04:37
There was horrendous uh impact on her
00:04:39
and her family in Hungary.
00:04:42
and she thought that a child is innocent
00:04:45
and people shouldn't grow up. But what
00:04:48
actually happened was I realized why do
00:04:50
people grow old? That's a terrible thing
00:04:53
to happen. And so I've spent my life
00:04:56
trying to figure out why do we get old?
00:04:57
Why do we grow up? Why do we get frail?
00:05:00
Because I also think that if we can
00:05:02
solve that, understand it, slow it, even
00:05:05
reverse it now, we will have the biggest
00:05:08
impact on human health in history. Am I
00:05:10
right in thinking your grandmother told
00:05:12
you at that young age that she was going
00:05:14
to die, that you were going to die, that
00:05:16
your parents were going to die?
00:05:17
>> Yes. Uh she did tell me that. I remember
00:05:20
it very clearly actually. I was on the
00:05:22
floor and she was crouching down and I
00:05:24
said, "Vera, I didn't call her grandma."
00:05:27
She didn't want to be called grandma.
00:05:28
She wanted to be young like a kid, too.
00:05:30
I said, "Vera, will will you always be
00:05:32
here to protect me? Will you always be
00:05:34
around?" And she said, "No, I'm going to
00:05:35
die." I'm like, "What do you mean?" She
00:05:37
goes, "Every everything dies. I'm going
00:05:39
to be gone. Your parents will be gone.
00:05:41
Your pet cat will be dead pretty soon.
00:05:44
And you yourself will be dead one day.
00:05:46
At age, you know, four or five. That
00:05:49
that's that's heart-wrenching, right?
00:05:51
We've all gone through this realization
00:05:53
around that age that the world that we
00:05:56
believe in and see will one day all be
00:05:59
gone. That moment, I remember it so
00:06:01
clearly because I thought that's not
00:06:03
fair. Why would any species be made or
00:06:07
created that knew that fact? That's
00:06:10
cruel. It's better to either not know or
00:06:13
to not exist. But to know that that's
00:06:15
what's going to happen is really cruel.
00:06:18
And so I I I vowed actually legitimately
00:06:22
around the age of 18 to get a PhD to go
00:06:26
to the United States and develop a
00:06:29
research lab to try and do something
00:06:31
about it. The preservation of health and
00:06:33
life is the most important thing that we
00:06:35
can do as human beings. We do it with
00:06:38
some drugs to treat that disease and the
00:06:40
other disease, cancer, heart disease,
00:06:42
Alzheimer's.
00:06:44
But what's underlying that? What's
00:06:45
really causing about 150 to 200,000
00:06:48
people every day to die is the
00:06:51
underlying universal process we call
00:06:52
aging. And for far too long, we've
00:06:55
ignored it or accepted it as natural,
00:06:58
therefore acceptable. And I I I
00:07:00
fundamentally reject the idea that aging
00:07:03
just because it's natural is acceptable.
00:07:06
There will be a day when we look back at
00:07:08
today and think how medieval were were
00:07:10
our medicines and how sad it was that we
00:07:13
accepted that we became frail before
00:07:15
100.
00:07:17
If someone has just clicked on this
00:07:19
conversation now and they deep in their
00:07:21
core
00:07:23
believe that they're probably going to
00:07:24
live to 80 years old and that we all are
00:07:26
and that we're never going to be able to
00:07:27
do anything about it cuz that's just the
00:07:29
way that it is. People get old and then
00:07:30
they die and aging is a fact of life as
00:07:32
the phrase goes and you just have to
00:07:35
accept it.
00:07:37
If that's their sort of core belief,
00:07:39
what is the what is the most persuasive
00:07:41
sort of topline argument to that person
00:07:43
to convince them that in the next two
00:07:45
hours when we have this conversation,
00:07:48
we will do a job of both reversing that
00:07:51
belief or at least challenging it in
00:07:52
some way and then also presenting them
00:07:54
with a set of possible solutions.
00:07:56
>> Yeah. All right. So, first of all, who
00:07:58
am I? Um, I'm a Harvard professor. I've
00:08:00
been studying aging longevity and age
00:08:03
reversal for 30 years. The technology
00:08:06
now that we have in my lab that is used
00:08:07
every day by my students literally
00:08:10
reverses the age of tissues in animals
00:08:12
in human tissue that we grow in the lab.
00:08:15
And the first human trials to test this
00:08:18
are going to be performed in about a
00:08:21
month from now. And if it works, it'll
00:08:23
transform human history. It means that
00:08:25
we're on a path to finally being able to
00:08:28
reset the age of the human body. Not by
00:08:30
a year, not by 10 years, but even more
00:08:32
than that. And what happens when you do
00:08:34
that? What we're finding in animals,
00:08:36
that includes primates, is that we can
00:08:39
cure things that have previously been
00:08:41
impossible, including blindness, by the
00:08:44
way. And so, if you're listening and
00:08:46
you're skeptical,
00:08:47
I'm not some hack. I am a Harvard
00:08:50
professor who is telling the world and
00:08:53
has written a book about it and every
00:08:55
day spends my life researching with a
00:08:57
team of the best scientists I can gather
00:08:59
around the world showing that we can
00:09:01
literally now reverse the aging process
00:09:03
and reset how old the body is in
00:09:06
animals. Yes, but potentially this year
00:09:09
showing it can work in the human body as
00:09:12
well. So you're doing the first ever
00:09:15
trial of this type in humans to reverse
00:09:18
aging
00:09:20
next month.
00:09:21
>> Yes. So we've submitted a form to the
00:09:25
you know the FDA in the US to get
00:09:27
approval to treat blindness couple of
00:09:29
types of blindness in people
00:09:32
um as early if all goes well as next
00:09:34
month.
00:09:35
>> And what what exactly is happening
00:09:37
there? cuz there's many ways one might
00:09:39
fix blindness,
00:09:42
>> you know. What is it you're doing to the
00:09:45
eyeball that is a precursor of our
00:09:49
potential ability to reverse aging
00:09:50
generally?
00:09:51
>> Yeah. Well, we chose the eye not because
00:09:54
it was going to work well, but because
00:09:56
it's a it's a nice system to study age
00:09:58
reversal. The eye is an enclosed space,
00:10:01
and so it's much safer than trying to
00:10:03
initially reverse the age of the whole
00:10:05
body. Now in mice we reverse the age of
00:10:06
the whole body and the effect is
00:10:08
longevity rejuvenation the skin gets
00:10:10
better all parts of the animal get get
00:10:13
healthier and younger but in humans you
00:10:15
you don't want to go straight to
00:10:17
rejuvenation uh because in case
00:10:19
something goes wrong it could set us way
00:10:21
back and we have to make sure we don't
00:10:23
have any safety mishaps. So we're being
00:10:26
a little cautious in humans in mice it's
00:10:29
a little different. So, in the human
00:10:31
eye,
00:10:31
>> just for those that aren't watching the
00:10:33
video, there is a an eye on the table.
00:10:34
>> Well, a plastic eye. It's a it's a
00:10:36
larger version of an eye, but yes, uh
00:10:38
Steven's right. What we're doing, we're
00:10:40
going to look at the back of the eye,
00:10:41
which is your retina, and that's where
00:10:43
the light hits. And at that point, there
00:10:47
are a lot of nerves that coalesce into
00:10:50
the optic nerve that runs to the brain
00:10:53
by just a few millimeters. So, the brain
00:10:55
is here. The eye is actually part of the
00:10:57
brain. A lot of people don't know that
00:10:59
you can touch your brain if you touch
00:11:00
your eye.
00:11:01
>> Um,
00:11:01
>> so the optic nerve gets old and what
00:11:03
we've discovered if it gets damaged or
00:11:05
gets old, it's not working. But the
00:11:07
nerves for most the most part if you're
00:11:09
old are still there. They just forget
00:11:11
how to work. And that's aging. And later
00:11:15
everyone should stick around because I'm
00:11:17
going to tell you why it is we get old
00:11:19
and how it is we reverse it. But but for
00:11:21
this this model, what we're doing is
00:11:23
we're introducing a set of three genes
00:11:27
into this optic nerve at the back of the
00:11:30
eye and turning them on for 6 to 8
00:11:34
weeks.
00:11:36
And those three genes are what we now
00:11:38
know reset safely, apparently safely,
00:11:42
reset the age of cells, including
00:11:45
nerves, by about 75% and then stop. They
00:11:48
don't go more than that, which is good.
00:11:50
We don't want to go back to zero. I
00:11:52
don't think anyone wants to go back to
00:11:54
high school.
00:11:55
>> But this is the way it works. And we
00:11:57
chose the optic nerve because it's a
00:11:59
safe enclosed system, not because it
00:12:00
should work better in optic nerves. In
00:12:02
fact, we've now done it in mice in my
00:12:04
lab for the brain. Uh we're doing
00:12:07
hearing. We've done skin. Uh we did
00:12:09
multiple scerosis. Uh we're now doing
00:12:11
motor neuron disease and seeing great
00:12:13
effects. So it's important to know I'm
00:12:16
not an eye specialist. I didn't choose
00:12:17
the eye cuz I love the eye. I chose it
00:12:19
because that's a good place to start for
00:12:21
age reversal in humans this year.
00:12:24
>> You mentioned a second ago you've been
00:12:25
able to extend the life of mice in your
00:12:28
laboratory.
00:12:30
How and by how much? Is it the same
00:12:31
process and by how much?
00:12:33
>> Right. Well, the the study that that I
00:12:35
was referring to was done using our
00:12:37
technology in an independent lab, which
00:12:40
is you might argue even better than
00:12:42
having done it in my lab. Instead of
00:12:44
putting the three reversal genes into
00:12:46
the eye, they injected into the vein of
00:12:48
the mouse, the old mice, uh, and turned
00:12:51
it on in these really old mice. These
00:12:52
mice would be the equivalent of about 80
00:12:55
to 85 years. So, they're really old
00:12:57
mice. They're really frail. And just any
00:13:00
any extension in their lifespan and
00:13:02
health would be bet would be a great
00:13:03
thing. And they got an additional 100%
00:13:06
lifespan extension. Additional. So,
00:13:09
>> that would be like an 80-year-old living
00:13:11
to 160. Well, the remaining life of an
00:13:13
80-year-old isn't long.
00:13:15
>> Oh, okay.
00:13:16
>> Right. So, let's let's say if you're
00:13:17
give it to a 70-year-old on average,
00:13:19
they'd have another 10 years to go. Give
00:13:22
them 20 years. So, it's that
00:13:23
calculation. Um, but that was not an
00:13:26
optimized study. They just did a Hail
00:13:27
Mary injection, turn it on, see what
00:13:29
would happen.
00:13:30
>> And I I heard when we did a bit of a
00:13:32
research call, you say, "The world
00:13:34
doesn't know how close we are." The
00:13:37
world doesn't know how close we are to
00:13:39
what? to being able to safely reverse
00:13:42
the age of the human body.
00:13:45
>> How can you be so sure?
00:13:47
>> I'm not sure. But I'm confident that the
00:13:50
science is solid, right? That the the
00:13:53
biology of aging is is understood. I
00:13:57
believe in concept. My theory called the
00:14:01
information theory of aging has so far
00:14:04
been not disproven, which is important
00:14:06
for a scientist. And that has allowed us
00:14:11
to succeed really for the first time to
00:14:14
safely reverse aging. And I now believe
00:14:17
and though I didn't 10 years ago, I now
00:14:19
believe in my lifetime I'm going to see
00:14:22
medicines on the market that reset the
00:14:24
age or at least reverse in a large part
00:14:27
uh the age of the body. And that that
00:14:30
initially won't be to make us just look
00:14:33
better and feel better, although that's
00:14:35
what a lot of us want. It's going to be
00:14:37
used to cure, certainly prevent, but
00:14:40
definitely cure diseases that are
00:14:42
currently incurable. So, we're I think
00:14:44
we're at a turning point, dare I say, in
00:14:47
human history. It's not a question of
00:14:49
if, it's a question of when this is
00:14:50
going to happen.
00:14:51
>> I want to get into your theory of aging,
00:14:53
which we talked about there. Um, but you
00:14:55
did have a prediction before I get to
00:14:56
there about
00:14:59
how you think we'll be potentially
00:15:01
taking a pill in 10 years time every
00:15:05
couple of weeks that will make us
00:15:06
younger. Can you explain to me that
00:15:07
prediction? What is what is the
00:15:09
prediction?
00:15:09
>> I I do believe that I and you're about
00:15:13
20 something years younger than me.
00:15:14
You're going to see this for sure that
00:15:17
there will be a pill. So you might say,
00:15:18
"Well, my critics might say, "Well,
00:15:20
David, that's exaggerating, right?
00:15:22
You're still trying to get this gene
00:15:24
these genes to work. How's it going to
00:15:25
be a pill? But this is where my lab
00:15:28
comes in. My lab is like Willy Wonka's
00:15:30
chocolate factory if you visit. It's
00:15:32
magical. And the students that I teach
00:15:34
and the trainees who are sometimes in
00:15:36
their 30s and even 40s who are, you
00:15:38
know, brilliant scientists. Uh there's
00:15:40
about 25 of us. They are making
00:15:43
discoveries that blow me away every
00:15:46
week. It's not a pill cuz you can't give
00:15:47
a mouse a pill. They won't chew it. But
00:15:50
we give them a liquid down their throat.
00:15:52
It's a drink. And within four weeks, we
00:15:54
can rejuvenate them. Not with this this
00:15:57
these genes anymore that we're giving
00:15:58
humans. That's the old older technology.
00:16:01
The new technology is something you can
00:16:04
swallow
00:16:06
in a mouse and rejuvenate them in 4
00:16:07
weeks. It's normal for my students to
00:16:09
say, "Oh yeah, we just rejuvenated the
00:16:12
ear. We just rejuvenated the skin. uh we
00:16:15
just cured ALS, motor neuron disease in
00:16:18
these animals. By the way, speed and
00:16:20
Stephen, this isn't just each disease
00:16:22
doesn't get a different medicine. Each
00:16:24
disease doesn't get a different set of
00:16:26
genes. It's the same set of genes, the
00:16:28
same molecules that treat cure multiple
00:16:32
scerosis as the same one that cures
00:16:34
blindness in mice.
00:16:36
So, let that sink in. The same drug that
00:16:40
we're using in the eye will be used to
00:16:41
treat other diseases in the body, even
00:16:43
liver disease. So if if your predictions
00:16:45
are correct and your timeline is
00:16:47
correct,
00:16:49
what does this mean for the way that I
00:16:52
should be living my life right now?
00:16:54
>> Most people look at their parents and
00:16:56
their grandparents and think that's what
00:16:57
my life will be like. I'm going to be
00:16:59
frail in my 80s. That's not true for us.
00:17:02
I like the Wright brothers analogy. It'd
00:17:04
be like in 1900 saying we're always
00:17:06
going to travel as fast as a horse.
00:17:08
That's not true, right? The 20th century
00:17:11
saw that we could go tens of thousands
00:17:14
of kilometers. They went to the moon,
00:17:15
right? That's what our generation is
00:17:18
when it comes to biology and aging.
00:17:21
Previous generations are no guide to
00:17:23
what our lifespan is going to be like.
00:17:24
You're going to potentially live to the
00:17:26
22nd century. If you do all the right
00:17:29
things, technology keeps increasing,
00:17:31
right? What kind of technologies will we
00:17:32
have in 50 years?
00:17:33
>> You'll be around in 50 years.
00:17:35
>> Hope so.
00:17:36
>> You're a healthy guy. I know you are.
00:17:38
All right. So in 50 years, what kind of
00:17:39
things will you be able to do?
00:17:41
>> Gosh,
00:17:42
>> this is what most people forget is that
00:17:44
technology isn't static. When you're
00:17:47
old, you will not be using today's
00:17:48
technology. You'll be using technology
00:17:51
of 2070, 2080, right?
00:17:54
>> And then you'll be able to live into the
00:17:56
22nd century and take advantage of those
00:17:58
technologies. That's why people talk
00:18:00
about the singularity. The singularity
00:18:02
is this idea that if you can make it to
00:18:04
a certain point in human history, you
00:18:06
won't have to age anymore.
00:18:09
And that that's in the future, right?
00:18:10
But first steps first, let's show that
00:18:12
we can get this to cure blindness and
00:18:14
then get to the point where every year
00:18:17
that we get one year older, we can get
00:18:20
one year younger. When that happens,
00:18:22
it's a very interesting world, right?
00:18:23
You don't have to age anymore. That is a
00:18:26
future. I don't know when we're going to
00:18:27
get there,
00:18:29
but if you don't live 10 to 20 years
00:18:31
longer than your parents, something's
00:18:33
wrong
00:18:34
>> on that point of the singularity. So,
00:18:35
this is a particular moment in time
00:18:38
where we're going to be able to make
00:18:39
aging or age reversal, I guess, a
00:18:42
choice, right? So, the I guess the
00:18:44
thinking or the theory is that if you
00:18:45
can just make sure you survive up until
00:18:48
this particular date, then you have the
00:18:50
choice to live forever. Is that how is
00:18:52
that like the
00:18:53
>> Well, that's what they say. Yes. Uh
00:18:54
there are a lot of proponents of that,
00:18:56
but that that's an idea. And
00:18:58
>> isn't it logically true though? It's
00:18:59
like logically
00:19:00
>> it's an Yeah, it's an extension of what
00:19:02
I'm I'm talking about. Um but I don't
00:19:04
know when that's going to be. It's I
00:19:05
think Ray Curtzwell said it's coming
00:19:08
soon.
00:19:08
>> Did he have a prediction? I think
00:19:10
>> it was in the 2040s sometime.
00:19:11
>> So Ray Curtzwell is a famous futurist
00:19:13
that seems to predict the future really
00:19:14
well um across multiple disciplines. So
00:19:17
he said 2040.
00:19:19
>> Yeah, that's my recollection. It's
00:19:20
around there.
00:19:21
>> Do you believe that? because I'm going
00:19:24
to hang on till 2014. I'm
00:19:25
>> skeptical. I won't leave the house.
00:19:26
>> I mean, Ry is a smart guy, right? He
00:19:28
predicted AI and all that's happening.
00:19:31
So, it's it's it's dangerous to bet
00:19:32
against Ray's predictions. I I remain
00:19:35
skeptical. You know, as one of the
00:19:37
leaders in the field, I think we have a
00:19:38
lot still to do. That said, if this
00:19:41
trial works this year, we will be in new
00:19:44
territory. We will be on a path to age
00:19:46
reversal in the whole body. It's going
00:19:48
to happen. And you know, and right now
00:19:50
it's now 2026. We're talking
00:19:54
2040 is a number of years away. It could
00:19:56
be that we truly are able to multiply
00:19:59
reset the age of the body. That's that's
00:20:02
another thing that that's often missed.
00:20:04
We can re reverse the age of the eye not
00:20:07
just once, but seemingly as many times
00:20:09
as we want. In mice, we've done it at
00:20:12
least twice. We didn't do it a third
00:20:14
time because the mice actually just got
00:20:16
old and they died. But they died with
00:20:17
perfect eyesight. But the point is that
00:20:20
we we don't believe it's a one-shot
00:20:22
wander. You can keep reversing aging and
00:20:24
then you age out and then you reverse it
00:20:26
again and you just keep going. And if
00:20:29
that's true, then it is possible that we
00:20:31
will live dramatically longer. I don't
00:20:33
yet see any technology in the near
00:20:35
horizon that will make us live forever.
00:20:38
But I do see that we'll have a radical
00:20:40
change in how we treat diseases and how
00:20:42
long we can live.
00:20:43
>> So let's talk about what aging actually
00:20:46
is. And can you explain this to me like
00:20:47
I'm a total idiot because that will
00:20:49
help.
00:20:49
>> Well, that's difficult because you're
00:20:51
not a total idiot. But this is my theory
00:20:53
is that aging is not just wearing out.
00:20:56
It's not just that your body becomes old
00:20:59
and dysfunctional and you get pain, you
00:21:03
get inflammation, and you die from a
00:21:04
disease. I look at the body like it's a
00:21:07
a computer. It's software
00:21:10
and we can reinstall the software. In my
00:21:13
lab, we believe we've found the way to
00:21:15
do that and we see the evidence of that.
00:21:18
So, the body is a carrier of information
00:21:21
from our parents and what happened in
00:21:23
the womb. That information is intact.
00:21:27
Keeps our body functioning almost
00:21:30
perfectly in our teenage years, 20,
00:21:33
you're in your early 30s. You're
00:21:34
starting to lose that information and so
00:21:38
your body's not functioning perfectly
00:21:39
anymore.
00:21:40
>> Gray has
00:21:41
>> you've got some gray. Exactly. That's a
00:21:43
good example of cells that lose their
00:21:46
identity and stop making melanin, the
00:21:48
black pigment.
00:21:49
>> But it's going to get worse. I promise
00:21:51
you, unless you know, unless we we're
00:21:53
hurry up and uh gets lost. It gets
00:21:56
corrupted. But the beautiful thing is we
00:21:59
believe we found a backup copy of that
00:22:01
information from youth that we can
00:22:03
reinstall into cells, into tissues, into
00:22:05
the entire body of a mouse and hopefully
00:22:08
a human. That backup copy is in every
00:22:11
old person, I believe, and it can be
00:22:14
accessed. So when I see an old person
00:22:16
walking down the street now, I don't
00:22:17
think, oh, that person's just worn out,
00:22:18
frail, going to die. I just think that's
00:22:20
someone that needs a reset. And inside
00:22:23
that person is a young person waiting to
00:22:25
come out again. That's a totally
00:22:28
different way to think about old age.
00:22:30
And in the future, people will have a
00:22:32
choice to be rejuvenated or not.
00:22:35
>> Where is that backup copy that I need?
00:22:38
>> Well, we're working on that. And uh if I
00:22:41
if I told you, my student would kill me,
00:22:44
but we believe we've found
00:22:47
largely where that information is
00:22:49
stored. It's entirely new biology.
00:22:52
>> And it's currently a secret.
00:22:53
>> It's a secret.
00:22:54
>> Okay. So, you you you lead the way. Tell
00:22:56
me what we should we should talk about
00:22:57
next as it relates to aging.
00:22:59
>> Let's talk about information, right? We
00:23:00
live in the information age and biology
00:23:02
is becoming part of that information
00:23:04
age. And it started with the uh
00:23:08
elucidation of the structure of DNA.
00:23:11
Okay. And so I have I have a model of
00:23:12
DNA here. So for listeners who are not
00:23:14
watching this is a little plastic double
00:23:17
helix. My friend uh Jim Watson uh died
00:23:21
recently last month who he and his
00:23:24
colleague discovered that DNA the
00:23:26
information of life that we get from our
00:23:28
parents is a chemical that's about 6 ft
00:23:30
long in every cell and uh this model
00:23:33
here shows that DNA is a ladder and the
00:23:36
steps on the ladder are the information
00:23:38
of the DNA.
00:23:39
>> Okay.
00:23:40
>> Yeah. And you can pull this apart so
00:23:42
that each step becomes 50 50% ripped
00:23:46
apart. So that should come apart. Right.
00:23:48
So I ripped the rung of the ladder apart
00:23:51
and that is called a base on the DNA and
00:23:54
it always matches with its corresponding
00:23:56
chemical. So this short hand we call an
00:24:00
A. It always matches with a T. So an A
00:24:03
becomes a rung on the ladder. And down
00:24:06
here different color here I'm looking at
00:24:07
a red and a green step. Rip it apart.
00:24:11
This is a G and a C letter. G's and C's
00:24:13
come together. And actually when if you
00:24:15
if I rip this ladder into halves and
00:24:18
each step becomes half a ladder. Now you
00:24:20
can see that you can copy DNA because
00:24:23
the A has to match with the T wrong and
00:24:26
the G has to match with the C. So that's
00:24:28
basic DNA. That's how the information is
00:24:30
transferred from cell to cell from
00:24:33
mother to daughter parents to offspring.
00:24:37
There are about 20,000 genes. about
00:24:39
15,000 are turned on, but a different
00:24:42
set gets turned on in large part uh to
00:24:46
make a nerve cell compared to a liver
00:24:48
cell and a skin cell.
00:24:50
>> That's gene expression. And what
00:24:53
controls that gene expression is what's
00:24:55
called not not the genome, which is
00:24:57
what's in front of me here on the DNA
00:24:58
molecule. It's the epi genome. The
00:25:02
epiggenome is the information we get
00:25:05
transferred from cell to cell, from
00:25:07
parent to offspring that's not in this
00:25:09
molecule.
00:25:11
So where's this epigenetic information?
00:25:14
Well, it controls which genes are
00:25:16
switched on and off. And a major
00:25:18
regulator of that process
00:25:21
is the modification of these steps on
00:25:24
the DNA. these chemicals, the C,
00:25:27
particularly the C, which I'm showing
00:25:30
you here, uh, in this red part of the
00:25:32
the molecule, the C gets a little
00:25:34
chemical added to it called a methyl.
00:25:37
And a methyl is just, if you remember
00:25:39
from chemistry, high school, uh, it's a
00:25:42
carbon with three hydrogens. It's very
00:25:45
simple molecule. It gets stuck on that
00:25:47
piece of the the DNA molecule. That's
00:25:50
called DNA methylation. And that will
00:25:52
help determine that pattern of DNA
00:25:54
methylation determines whether this
00:25:57
particular gene will be switched on say
00:26:00
to make an optic nerve or switched off
00:26:02
so that it becomes a liver cell. And
00:26:05
that happens as we're in the womb and we
00:26:07
become an embryo. [snorts] And that's
00:26:10
the epiggenome. These chemicals that
00:26:12
turn genes on and off is the epigenome.
00:26:15
And the information theory of aging
00:26:18
states that the information that's in a
00:26:22
cell, which includes the DNA, but
00:26:25
actually more importantly for aging is
00:26:27
the control systems, the epiggenome that
00:26:31
is pristine when we're young, but as we
00:26:33
get older, we lose that epigenetic
00:26:35
information. The ability to tell a cell
00:26:38
to be a nerve cell versus a liver cell
00:26:40
versus a skin cell, it starts to get
00:26:42
erased. So it when we look at a mouse or
00:26:45
or an old tissue, if I took maybe not
00:26:47
your skin, but but my skin, my skin
00:26:50
cells are no longer as skin-like as they
00:26:53
once were. They've started to lose their
00:26:57
identity. They're starting actually to
00:26:58
to look more like nerve cells and nerve
00:27:00
cells starting to look more like skin
00:27:02
cells because the genes that were once
00:27:05
turned on correctly in my young cells
00:27:08
that that control system, these
00:27:10
chemicals on the DNA molecule, these
00:27:11
methals are getting erased.
00:27:13
>> So aging is an identity crisis of the
00:27:15
cells.
00:27:16
>> It absolutely is. Well put.
00:27:17
>> The cells forget what their job is.
00:27:21
>> Yes, the genes are still there in large
00:27:24
part. 99.999% of the genes are still
00:27:27
there. The molecule's intact,
00:27:29
but the control systems,
00:27:31
>> the label thing you mentioned,
00:27:32
>> the label to tell the cell that this
00:27:35
gene needs to be on, but this one should
00:27:37
always stay off. That gets erased over
00:27:39
time.
00:27:39
>> Why?
00:27:40
>> H we we did partially figure that out.
00:27:43
>> And how do you know?
00:27:45
>> Well, oh, even better.
00:27:47
>> This is this is why I love your podcast,
00:27:49
Stephen. You asked the right questions.
00:27:52
these there are enzymes that remove
00:27:54
these methyl groups um and put them back
00:27:57
on. So the cells controlling these
00:27:59
things they shouldn't change but they
00:28:00
do. And one of the things that messes
00:28:03
the system up is
00:28:06
major catastrophe in a cell. And when
00:28:08
the cell panics
00:28:11
it removes these structures to try and
00:28:13
adapt to the stress
00:28:15
>> the label
00:28:15
>> the label comes off in a desperate
00:28:18
attempt to survive. But then the cell
00:28:21
doesn't fully revert back to the
00:28:23
original state. Some of these chemicals
00:28:25
and some of the proteins that bind to
00:28:27
the DNA, which is also important for
00:28:28
this epiggenome, they don't all go back
00:28:30
to where they started. I've used the
00:28:33
analogy that uh it's like a pingpong or
00:28:36
a tennis match where the proteins that
00:28:38
control the genes, they they get
00:28:41
relocized to where the emergency is. and
00:28:44
an emergency. One, the one that we think
00:28:46
is most dangerous and a large c of cause
00:28:49
of aging is a broken chromosome. If you
00:28:52
have a broken chromosome, if you don't
00:28:53
fix that, you're either going to become
00:28:55
a cancer cell or you're going to die.
00:28:56
It's not good. Um, and so cells panic.
00:28:59
And in that panic of moving proteins
00:29:01
away and turning on these stress
00:29:03
response genes, uh, that's great in the
00:29:06
short term. The cell might survive, but
00:29:08
they don't fully reset. those proteins
00:29:10
don't all go back to where they once
00:29:11
were say 10 minutes ago when the stress
00:29:14
needed to be the disaster happened. And
00:29:17
if you do that time and time again and
00:29:19
every one of your cells has at least one
00:29:21
broken chromosome every day that's 20
00:29:24
trillion of these events every day in
00:29:26
your body over time tick tick tick you
00:29:31
get the aging process we believe.
00:29:34
>> So I I guess I've got two questions. Uh
00:29:36
I guess the first question if I was
00:29:38
thinking about the sequence of asking
00:29:39
these questions is
00:29:41
what is increasing that stress on my
00:29:45
cells? Therefore what is increasing
00:29:46
aging? And also like why didn't
00:29:48
evolution just come up with a solution
00:29:50
for this that stopped me aging then?
00:29:52
>> Like evolution is very smart. Couldn't
00:29:53
it just fix this?
00:29:54
>> Well before I get into that uh one of
00:29:56
the the reasons we know that this works
00:29:58
because you asked me how do we know
00:29:59
that's true is that we created this this
00:30:03
catastrophe in animals. We we took mice
00:30:06
and we we we broke their chromosomes in
00:30:09
a way that didn't cause [clears throat]
00:30:10
cancer or mutations.
00:30:12
If we're right, what should happen to
00:30:14
these mice?
00:30:15
>> They get old fast.
00:30:16
>> They get old fast.
00:30:17
>> Gray hair.
00:30:18
>> And they did. We call them the ice mice.
00:30:21
Ice stands for inducible changes to the
00:30:23
epiggenome. And we were able to induce
00:30:25
these changes. And we took bets in the
00:30:28
lab. This is going back now 12 years
00:30:30
ago. Uh I I bet that we would get aging.
00:30:34
Okay. But I was the only one in the lab
00:30:36
that thought that that would happen. We
00:30:38
had a lot of bets that the mice would
00:30:39
die, a lot of bets that the mice would
00:30:42
get cancer, and a few said nothing would
00:30:44
happen. But we got aging. In fact, I was
00:30:47
I was in Australia where where I'm from,
00:30:49
as you know, and I got a picture on my
00:30:51
old old style iPhone and it was a
00:30:54
picture of an old mouse. Uh well, it was
00:30:57
a sick-l looking mouse and the and the
00:30:58
the text was problem. We have a sick
00:31:01
mouse and I wrote back, "That's not a
00:31:02
sick mouse, that's an old mouse." And
00:31:04
that was the first time I realized that
00:31:06
we'd had evidence that our theory, the
00:31:10
information theory of aging is correct.
00:31:12
So what we did actually, and this might
00:31:14
satisfy your and your listeners
00:31:15
curiosity, we generated a mouse from
00:31:18
scratch using stem cells. And so we
00:31:22
start with a a mouse stem cell that we
00:31:23
grow in the lab in the dish. And we
00:31:26
changed the genetics of that stem cell
00:31:29
so that we could feed it a drug uh
00:31:32
tmoxifen which is used uh in in
00:31:35
chemotherapy. And that drug turned on
00:31:39
a gene from a slime mold, something you
00:31:41
might find in the forest that breaks DNA
00:31:44
of the mouse but does it in a way that
00:31:47
doesn't cause cancer or mutations. Just
00:31:49
cuts it and the cells put it back
00:31:50
together. So we could take a mouse and
00:31:53
for 3 weeks we turned on this slime mold
00:31:57
cutting protein and nothing happened to
00:32:00
the mouse at the time. It's like a you
00:32:02
don't feel an X-ray. You don't feel
00:32:05
different when you fly except for maybe
00:32:06
jet lag and dehydration. But you don't
00:32:08
get old suddenly. Same with the mice.
00:32:10
They were normal. They felt fine. And
00:32:13
that's why at first people said, "Oh,
00:32:14
nothing's going to happen to these
00:32:15
mice." After 3 weeks they were fine. But
00:32:18
we set in motion a cascade of
00:32:20
accelerated aging events that about 10
00:32:24
months later they were super gray and
00:32:26
super old and had all the diseases of
00:32:28
aging 50% faster than their twins that
00:32:31
we didn't treat.
00:32:32
>> And you've got photos of those we could
00:32:34
show.
00:32:34
>> Yeah. Yeah. Let's show those. So, if I
00:32:36
was to do the experiment in you, I might
00:32:38
have to engineer it a clone of you, but
00:32:41
I could do that. Uh, you know, I'm not
00:32:43
saying that it's ethically right, but
00:32:45
but theoretically we could make a clone
00:32:47
of you, put in that slime mold gene,
00:32:49
turn it on,
00:32:50
>> and your clone would be 50% older than
00:32:53
you are.
00:32:54
>> Can you translate this into the equival?
00:33:01
So, it would be like in me doing what
00:33:04
and then me getting old fast.
00:33:06
>> Yeah. Uh, well, we're exposed to to
00:33:08
things that cause DNA breaks all the
00:33:09
time. They happen naturally as the cells
00:33:11
try to copy their DNA. But you can
00:33:13
accelerate that by getting an X-ray, a
00:33:15
CT scan, flying a lot and cosmic rays
00:33:18
banging into your DNA. And
00:33:20
>> I fly all the time. I've had loads of CT
00:33:22
scans and X-rays.
00:33:23
>> Yeah. Uh and and though it's
00:33:26
imperceptible, I believe that that's
00:33:27
probably accelerating your aging
00:33:29
process.
00:33:29
>> What's flying doing to my So again, you
00:33:32
talked about flying being equival to
00:33:33
what you did to the mouse. In what way?
00:33:35
Well, every time you break your
00:33:37
chromosome, you're rearranging your
00:33:39
epiggenome in a catastrophic way that
00:33:42
doesn't fully reset and your cell will
00:33:44
lose its identity faster. I also believe
00:33:47
um and we have some evidence that even
00:33:48
going to a rock concert and have
00:33:50
blasting your eardrums is such a stress
00:33:53
on those cells in your ear that the
00:33:55
reason that you become deaf earlier is
00:33:57
because your ear hair cells are getting
00:33:59
older faster. You don't want to break
00:34:02
the DNA. You don't want to cause
00:34:04
catastrophe to your fragile cells in
00:34:06
your body because the recovery isn't
00:34:08
complete and aging ensues.
00:34:11
>> So, with this theory in mind, what are
00:34:13
the day-to-day things that we're all
00:34:15
doing that are accelerating our age?
00:34:17
Like, cuz I think what's really
00:34:19
interesting is I looked at my brother
00:34:21
Jason. He's a year older than me. He has
00:34:23
three kids that are like under the age
00:34:25
of seven or eight now. And this
00:34:28
Christmas time, cuz it's just been
00:34:29
Christmas, I looked at his hair to see
00:34:31
how many gray hairs he had versus me.
00:34:33
And I thought, "Okay, he has
00:34:34
considerably more.
00:34:36
>> He's a year older than me." And I was
00:34:38
thinking that's like a a proxy of aging
00:34:41
to some degree. What is it he's
00:34:43
potentially done on a day-to-day basis?
00:34:45
I know you don't know him, so this is
00:34:46
why it's not not an offensive uh answer
00:34:48
to give. What is it that someone who is
00:34:52
generally sort of genetically very
00:34:53
similar but is making different
00:34:54
lifestyle choices is doing to accelerate
00:34:57
that process of wrinkles or gray hairs
00:34:59
or well here's the good news that you
00:35:02
can have a big impact on your rate of
00:35:04
aging by changing your lifestyle. It
00:35:06
turns out your DNA is not your destiny.
00:35:08
It's the epiggenome. So that how you
00:35:10
live your life is really 80 to 90% of
00:35:13
your rate of aging.
00:35:15
That's good. It's in your hands. But it
00:35:16
also means that some people mess up
00:35:18
their lives. There are actually twin
00:35:20
studies from uh mostly from Denmark,
00:35:23
identical twins, one that goes and
00:35:25
smokes and gets obese and uh goes in the
00:35:28
sun and they are much older looking than
00:35:31
their identical twin. Essentially
00:35:34
proving that the DNA is not the reason
00:35:36
you age. First of all, they're going to
00:35:38
be people in the audience uh who are
00:35:39
listening or watching who have gray hair
00:35:41
saying, "Damn it, I'm not old." And
00:35:44
that's true. I mean, nobody died of gray
00:35:45
hair, right? And sometimes genetically,
00:35:48
you can get gray old uh but not be
00:35:51
physically old. What is true that's
00:35:53
often not comfortable is how old you
00:35:56
look is a very good representation of
00:35:57
how old you are in your organs as well.
00:36:00
So, doing the right things. So, what are
00:36:02
those things? Let's tick off some of the
00:36:03
major things that people should be doing
00:36:06
and they can have a big impact. They can
00:36:07
lengthen your life by a decade just by
00:36:09
doing some of the major things. So, we
00:36:11
know that on average people can live 14
00:36:13
years longer. This is based on a study
00:36:15
that came out from Harvard, a long-term
00:36:17
study of the lifespan of World War II
00:36:19
veterans. If you avoid smoking,
00:36:22
cigarette smoking, and really any type
00:36:24
of smoke in your lungs, smoking breaks
00:36:26
your DNA. It's going to accelerate aging
00:36:27
in your lungs, your whole body. Avoid
00:36:30
excessive drinking. We now know that
00:36:32
even more than one glass a day of
00:36:34
alcohol is bad. I've given up alcohol
00:36:37
for the most part for that reason. Eat
00:36:39
well. So, you want to eat healthy food.
00:36:41
We've got some healthy food here we're
00:36:43
going to talk about. Um, so make sure
00:36:45
you you don't uh overeat or eat
00:36:48
ultrarocessed foods. And the big one,
00:36:51
one of the best things you can do
00:36:52
besides all of that is exercise. Okay?
00:36:55
And exercise covers a lot of things. So,
00:36:57
we can drill into that as well. But the
00:36:59
fifth one is interesting. It may be
00:37:01
surprising, but actually good news for
00:37:03
you. Have a reliable partner.
00:37:05
>> I think you're going to say be a
00:37:06
podcaster. I was going to Okay.
00:37:08
>> Oh, [laughter] no. That probably
00:37:09
accelerates your age. Yes. So, um, if
00:37:11
you don't have a reliable partner, have
00:37:13
a pet because the human bond is
00:37:16
something that is shown to slow aging
00:37:19
and associates with people who live
00:37:22
longer than others that are lonely.
00:37:25
>> Interesting. We're going to dig into all
00:37:26
of those in great detail. Specifically,
00:37:28
very interested in in exercise, diet,
00:37:31
lifestyle, fasting, I know is a big
00:37:32
subject you speak about which I'm very,
00:37:34
very interested in. And actually, as I
00:37:35
was doing the research into this
00:37:36
conversation,
00:37:37
again, my the way that I'm going to
00:37:39
approach nutrition has shifted because
00:37:41
of some of the things I discovered
00:37:42
there.
00:37:43
>> I want to just tick off on this
00:37:44
evolution point,
00:37:45
>> right? Let's come back to that.
00:37:47
>> Yeah. I just want to get clear. Yeah.
00:37:48
Like, why didn't evolution fix it for
00:37:51
me? Because they talk about survival of
00:37:52
the fittest and that the very fact that
00:37:55
I'm here is because my my ancestors were
00:37:56
good at survival, but listen, my
00:37:58
ancestors all died at like 30, 40, 50,
00:38:00
60, 70, 80 years old. That's not very
00:38:01
good. Why? Why didn't they just live
00:38:03
longer?
00:38:04
>> Well, that's why. You just said the
00:38:06
answer yourself. Because your ancestors
00:38:08
didn't live beyond 40 or 50, even less,
00:38:11
right? Most men uh in prehistoric times
00:38:15
would die from [clears throat] famine,
00:38:17
disease, and actually a lot of them from
00:38:19
war. So, most people didn't make it 80.
00:38:21
Some people did, but very, very rarely.
00:38:25
So the the forces of natural selection
00:38:27
were on early survival and fast
00:38:31
breeding. Let's put it this way. If
00:38:33
there was someone who was born with a
00:38:35
mutation that allowed them to live a lot
00:38:38
longer to 90 in a prehistoric world,
00:38:41
that's useless because you're probably
00:38:43
going to die at 30 or 40 anyway and so
00:38:44
are your children. [clears throat] So
00:38:46
what you want to do is find genes that
00:38:47
allow you to become reproductively
00:38:50
successful early on in life. um and make
00:38:53
sure your children survive. And so we we
00:38:55
have children pretty early, but humans
00:38:58
for for various reasons have a long
00:39:01
developmental period including
00:39:02
education. So we don't we don't develop
00:39:05
very rapidly, right? We don't wake up
00:39:07
and we can walk and run like a lot of
00:39:08
other species and mammals. [gasps]
00:39:10
But we don't live a long time because
00:39:12
there was in the environment that we
00:39:14
evolved, the Serengeti plane is pretty
00:39:16
much agreed upon as that's one of the
00:39:18
places we evolved. Certainly uh Eastern
00:39:21
Africa that was extremely difficult and
00:39:24
dangerous place to live. You could get
00:39:27
eaten by an animal and if you didn't get
00:39:29
eaten by an animal you get killed by the
00:39:31
neighboring tribe. That's super
00:39:33
dangerous, right? And then so we we
00:39:35
evolved to live really at optimal to
00:39:38
about 30
00:39:41
but not much more than that. So after
00:39:43
30, as you might be experiencing with
00:39:46
with your body,
00:39:47
>> we're at the forces of entropy. So the
00:39:50
body starts to decay. The information
00:39:53
starts to get lost in the body.
00:39:56
But the the good news is that if you
00:39:58
take away predation and death from a
00:40:01
species, it evolves longer lifespans.
00:40:04
Now, it makes evolutionary sense to have
00:40:07
genes that allow you to put more effort
00:40:10
into building a strong body and slowing
00:40:12
down the aging process and preventing
00:40:14
DNA breaks, chromosomal breaks. We know
00:40:17
that this is true because if you put
00:40:19
species, say, on an island where there
00:40:22
are no predators, what happens to their
00:40:24
longevity?
00:40:26
They get longer lived naturally. It
00:40:28
takes 20, 30 generations, but only when
00:40:32
there's no predation, when you're not
00:40:34
under a lot of stress to uh breed
00:40:37
quickly, do you get longer lifespans
00:40:40
evolving. Given that humans don't have
00:40:42
predators anymore, we are slowly
00:40:44
evolving,
00:40:46
longer lifespans. But it's very slow and
00:40:48
it's not going to happen fast enough for
00:40:50
you and me.
00:40:50
>> And do the organisms that do live
00:40:53
really, really long have a small amount
00:40:56
of predators in nature? Absolutely.
00:40:58
Absolutely. Think about them.
00:41:01
>> The bristle cone pine.
00:41:02
>> What's that?
00:41:03
>> It's the longest lived tree in the
00:41:05
world. It can live many thousands of
00:41:07
years.
00:41:08
>> It's Are you jealous?
00:41:11
>> Not jealous. No. [laughter] No. They
00:41:13
live a tough life. Some of those trees
00:41:15
have been around since the pyramids.
00:41:17
>> Wow.
00:41:18
>> The reason they live can live for so
00:41:19
long and evolve to live so long is that
00:41:21
things don't eat them. They're totally
00:41:23
poisonous. You you don't want to eat a
00:41:24
bristle conine. The same for a whale,
00:41:27
right? The boowhead whales, some of
00:41:28
these very large animals, no predators.
00:41:30
So, they've evolved a strategy of
00:41:32
breeding slowly, but building very
00:41:36
powerful systems to stop epigenetic
00:41:39
changes. Their epigenetic control
00:41:41
systems are stable. They don't get
00:41:44
cancer and they they don't lose they
00:41:46
don't have this identity crisis until
00:41:48
hundreds of years. And we know that
00:41:50
people study the cells of whales in the
00:41:53
dish and those cells don't lose their
00:41:55
identity very quickly even when you
00:41:57
break their DNA.
00:41:58
>> So I I guess the place also to to go
00:42:01
next is talking about disease generally
00:42:04
and what disease is. So are these
00:42:08
diseases a function of aging? Does this
00:42:09
idea of reversing aging even matter if
00:42:12
cancer is going to take most of us out
00:42:13
anyway at some point? Is there a link
00:42:16
between aging and disease? This might be
00:42:18
the most important point that I make
00:42:20
today.
00:42:21
When you reverse aging, diseases of
00:42:24
aging go away or are cured. And in my
00:42:28
lab, including many types of cancer as
00:42:30
well.
00:42:32
The diseases that we try to treat
00:42:34
individually with different medicines
00:42:36
today that we think are unrelated,
00:42:38
Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, you
00:42:40
name them. Fundamentally, what's driving
00:42:43
a lot of those diseases is aging.
00:42:47
If you never got old, would you ever get
00:42:49
Alzheimer's even if you had the genes
00:42:51
that predispose you? No.
00:42:54
Right? And so what we see in my lab is
00:42:56
when we give an animal a disease and we
00:42:58
can do that. We can put in the human
00:43:00
genes for Alzheimer's into a mouse, it
00:43:03
becomes has dementia. When we reverse
00:43:06
the age of the brain of that animal,
00:43:08
we're not treating the disease. We're
00:43:10
treating aging. The disease goes away.
00:43:13
The body can heal itself when it's
00:43:15
young. So, it's the aging process that
00:43:18
reveals the disease that can be cured by
00:43:22
reversing.
00:43:22
>> Why does the aging process reveal a
00:43:24
disease? Why don't we get Alzheimer's at
00:43:27
15?
00:43:28
>> Because the cells are so healthy, they
00:43:30
can fix themselves. They can renew
00:43:32
themselves. The disease processes that
00:43:35
cause these problems for us don't exist
00:43:38
when we're young. Why is it that a
00:43:41
teenager rarely has a heart attack?
00:43:43
because their body prevents them. Why do
00:43:47
young people typically not get cancer?
00:43:49
Because the immune system finds cancer
00:43:52
cells and clears them out. You and I
00:43:54
have cancer cells in our body right now.
00:43:56
Why are we probably not going to die in
00:43:58
the next year? Cuz our immune system
00:44:00
will find them and kill them. But as we
00:44:02
get older, we're going to lose that
00:44:03
ability and we'll have a greater chance
00:44:05
of having cancer.
00:44:06
>> So, are you saying that if we cure
00:44:08
aging, we're probably going to by way of
00:44:10
that cure most of these diseases?
00:44:12
>> 100%.
00:44:13
We were talking about um
00:44:16
menopause quite a lot on this podcast
00:44:19
and fertility, menopause, women's
00:44:21
ovaries as um one of the first places
00:44:24
that ages. And I've heard you explain
00:44:26
that you think that evolution programmed
00:44:28
women to stop having children during
00:44:29
menopause because continuing
00:44:30
reproduction would drain energy needed
00:44:32
to raise existing children. So is
00:44:35
infertility something that could
00:44:36
theoretically be prevented? in mice,
00:44:39
which is where we live in my lab where
00:44:41
we work, it can be prevented and it can
00:44:44
be reversed.
00:44:45
>> I thought we'd run out of eggs. That's
00:44:47
like the
00:44:47
>> that's the current theory. The evidence
00:44:50
that we have from my lab and a lab that
00:44:52
I worked with in Australia
00:44:56
caused me to question that idea that we
00:44:58
run that women run out of eggs.
00:45:02
We have published and repeated many
00:45:04
times that if you treat old female mice
00:45:10
16 months of age, which is like a 65,
00:45:13
70year-old human that has long time
00:45:16
since given up having offspring,
00:45:20
we can treat the ovaries with a chemical
00:45:23
that rejuvenates the eggs that are in
00:45:26
the ovary, maybe even produces new ones.
00:45:29
We don't know for sure, but those
00:45:32
16-month-old mice that stopped having
00:45:34
kids a uh probably at least 6 months ago
00:45:38
now start producing healthy offspring
00:45:40
again. Their eggs look young, pristine,
00:45:44
compared to the terrible eggs that if
00:45:46
you try to harvest some eggs from a
00:45:47
mouse that old, it's hard to find any
00:45:50
that look normal. The chromosomes are
00:45:52
messed up, ripped apart. They're not
00:45:54
going to produce healthy babies. But we
00:45:56
can take those eggs or at least the
00:45:59
ovaries with those eggs in them and
00:46:01
cause them to be young again and make
00:46:03
fresh eggs that can produce healthy
00:46:05
offspring that live a normal lifespan.
00:46:08
The real question is will this work in
00:46:10
women? And that's something that I'm
00:46:12
keen on testing.
00:46:15
>> It must be really hard to test a lot of
00:46:17
these things in people, right? Because
00:46:18
we you've mentioned the word mice quite
00:46:20
a lot.
00:46:20
>> It's harder than you can imagine
00:46:22
actually. Um, and I've spent a lot of my
00:46:24
career since I was 35, um, aiming to
00:46:27
develop a medicine to treat diseases and
00:46:30
aging. And it can be it can go wrong in
00:46:34
many ways. Um, even if the science is
00:46:36
good and right. Um, and it it's there's
00:46:39
money, there's business, there's laws,
00:46:42
there's politics, there's business
00:46:45
strategies, there's change of
00:46:46
leaderships.
00:46:48
um all sorts of human introduced
00:46:52
variables that can get in the way.
00:46:54
There's patents and uh and then there's
00:46:57
there's competition and spite that also
00:46:59
gets into it. Um and I've had to deal
00:47:03
with all of those things. Um including
00:47:05
competing against some of the largest
00:47:06
pharmaceutical companies in the world
00:47:07
who really didn't want me to succeed.
00:47:10
But yeah, it's extremely difficult to
00:47:12
make a drug. But I do want to remind you
00:47:15
and everyone listening and watching that
00:47:18
we're beyond mice now for age reversal.
00:47:20
We've done this in monkeys. Monkeys that
00:47:22
are physically and almost genetically
00:47:25
identical to us. So it's not a big leap
00:47:28
from It is a pretty big leap from mouse
00:47:30
to human, but from a monkey to a human.
00:47:32
It's we're essentially, you know,
00:47:34
slightly smarter monkeys.
00:47:36
I just had a thought about how other
00:47:39
countries and other nations might be
00:47:42
conducting their own sort of secret
00:47:43
research and they might not have the
00:47:45
same bureaucratic political ethical
00:47:48
considerations that you have to contend
00:47:50
with. Do you think about this much that
00:47:52
some of the sort of geopolitical
00:47:54
adversaries might be doing secret
00:47:56
testing in some research lab somewhere
00:47:58
on humans?
00:47:59
>> I think about it um and in fact the
00:48:02
United States government thinks about it
00:48:03
too. a large investment into uh the com
00:48:06
one of the companies that I uh sit on
00:48:09
the board of was blocked because the US
00:48:12
government claimed that the technology
00:48:14
was too dangerous to be in the hands of
00:48:16
foreign companies and governments. So
00:48:19
there the US government at least in in
00:48:22
the previous administration was
00:48:23
extremely cautious about this technology
00:48:26
falling into the wrong hands.
00:48:29
>> Which technology
00:48:31
>> the ability to reverse aging? So the US
00:48:33
government blocked that technology
00:48:34
because they were scared that it might
00:48:36
fall into the wrong hands.
00:48:37
>> Well, they blocked the the very large
00:48:39
investment over $und00 million into the
00:48:41
company from a foreigner because they
00:48:43
would have more access to the
00:48:45
information and the progress.
00:48:47
>> Is it China?
00:48:48
>> Um I won't say more. It's sensitive.
00:48:51
>> Most I can say is that governments are
00:48:54
watching this technology very closely.
00:48:55
not just the US but around the world
00:48:58
because the winner will make not not
00:49:02
just a lot of economic benefit but there
00:49:04
will there will be potential for radical
00:49:07
change in the pharmaceutical industry in
00:49:09
healthcare um the amount of change
00:49:12
socially will be dramatic as well but
00:49:14
there are also uses that the government
00:49:16
has identified uh so-called super
00:49:20
soldier potential now I I don't agree
00:49:23
that that's a reason to slow down on the
00:49:25
research. Others claim that it was worth
00:49:28
it. But I do believe that the technology
00:49:31
is very powerful and we should start to
00:49:32
get ready for when this comes to
00:49:35
society. Cuz it's not an if, as I said,
00:49:38
it's a when.
00:49:39
>> The technology to do what?
00:49:41
>> To rejuvenate the human body.
00:49:44
>> Why do we need to get ready?
00:49:46
>> Well, because it'll be massive social
00:49:47
change. If you can choose how old you
00:49:50
want to be and people don't die as at 80
00:49:53
anymore, let's say they they can live
00:49:56
till 120 or beyond, there's big changes.
00:49:59
There's social security issues. There's
00:50:01
uh employment. Though I will say that
00:50:04
the the disaster scenario that often
00:50:07
comes to mind when I talk about this and
00:50:09
which I covered in in the last part of
00:50:11
my book, lifespan, it's actually
00:50:13
economically hugely advantageous to slow
00:50:16
aging and prevent diseases. A lot of the
00:50:18
US economy and most advanced economies
00:50:21
goes to healthcare and chronic disease.
00:50:24
A lot of people are sick for 5 to 10
00:50:25
years. That's where most of people's
00:50:27
savings and retirement and government
00:50:29
money goes in the most expensive years
00:50:31
of your life for the last 2 years. If
00:50:33
you can delay that, it's going to have
00:50:36
massively positive economic benefits to
00:50:39
a nation that adopts these medicines.
00:50:41
I've got a question for you that
00:50:42
actually came to mind yesterday when I
00:50:44
was I watched some I don't know some
00:50:46
video on social media and they asked a
00:50:47
question to a guy. Um David, if you were
00:50:50
a billionaire now at age 56, would you
00:50:53
give it all up
00:50:55
to be
00:50:57
my age again, 33?
00:51:00
>> Um I don't think you can put a price on
00:51:02
being young. Another way of of putting
00:51:04
it, and I've I've seen this on social
00:51:05
media, would you for a billion dollars
00:51:07
would you swap with Warren Buffett?
00:51:09
>> No. Absolutely not. Right? So there's no
00:51:11
money in the world that you want to be
00:51:12
old. Right? Uh
00:51:13
>> yeah,
00:51:14
>> it's not worth it.
00:51:15
>> In other words, youth is more valuable
00:51:17
than a billion dollars.
00:51:20
It may be the most valuable thing you
00:51:22
could ever have is your youth.
00:51:25
>> Is it's such an an interesting and
00:51:27
illuminating analogy or metaphor or
00:51:29
whatever because suddenly you do realize
00:51:32
that how much we value it. We value it
00:51:34
more than anything.
00:51:36
I would rather be 33 years old than be a
00:51:42
43y old billionaire. Even the 10 years I
00:51:44
value as a billion dollars.
00:51:46
>> Yeah, one year maybe, but not 10 years,
00:51:49
right? 10 years is super I I totally
00:51:51
agree with you. Um and the older you
00:51:54
get, the more valuable it becomes. It's
00:51:56
important to realize the the massive
00:51:59
impact that this technology can have not
00:52:02
just economically but on individual
00:52:04
lives of human beings across the planet.
00:52:06
The world when this becomes a reality.
00:52:10
Again, I'm speaking like it's a
00:52:11
certainty cuz I'm pretty convinced it's
00:52:13
going to happen. The that world is going
00:52:15
to be so different from the world we
00:52:17
live in. It's going to be as different
00:52:18
as the precomputer world and the
00:52:21
pre-eroplane world as today is. I'm
00:52:24
trying to imagine the world where we
00:52:27
could pick our age and maybe even, you
00:52:29
know, you talked about earlier being
00:52:30
able to continue to reset to that age.
00:52:33
>> Yeah.
00:52:33
>> Trying to imagine what the world would
00:52:35
be like if I could be 33 forever or if
00:52:38
you could be, you know, 33 forever
00:52:40
>> or even for another 100 years or
00:52:42
something.
00:52:43
>> Yeah.
00:52:43
>> Yeah.
00:52:44
>> I could stay 33 for 100 years. Do you
00:52:46
think that's the plausible outcome which
00:52:48
is we can kind of pick an age and stay
00:52:49
there for a hundred years like at that
00:52:52
particular age or is it just that I'm
00:52:53
going to be 150 in my physical form. I'm
00:52:57
going to be wrinkled and gray but I'm
00:52:59
just going to continue to live. Is it
00:53:02
looking young or is it just living
00:53:04
longer?
00:53:06
>> It's actually both.
00:53:07
>> It's the good news is it's both. And
00:53:10
we're doing a lot of work in my lab on
00:53:12
skin and hair uh hair loss, hair
00:53:14
graying.
00:53:15
>> Yeah. Please help me. Like if I
00:53:17
[laughter]
00:53:18
>> You don't have to worry just yet. Um you
00:53:20
know, we we'll help your brother first.
00:53:22
>> No, no, come on.
00:53:23
>> Yeah, we we will tell him to call me. Um
00:53:25
so we we we've seen that we can
00:53:27
rejuvenate the skin of again mice, but
00:53:29
still we also grow human skin in the lab
00:53:31
from scratch and we can put that human
00:53:33
skin on mice and the mice have human
00:53:36
skin. So we can now test age reversal in
00:53:38
that system. I'm very optimistic that
00:53:41
we'll be able to rejuvenate uh the the
00:53:44
external part of the body as well as the
00:53:45
internal. If we can cure blindness,
00:53:48
reversing the age of the skin is is a
00:53:50
piece of cake. What what does that world
00:53:52
look like? I'm trying to understand all
00:53:54
of the sort of unintended consequences
00:53:57
of such a world where we're all kind of
00:53:59
young and we all live longer. Is there
00:54:02
problems of meaning and purpose? Is this
00:54:05
what are the unintended consequences?
00:54:07
>> I've thought a lot about this. There's
00:54:09
this gut feeling that a lot of people
00:54:10
have, maybe you're feeling it now, is
00:54:12
that if I'm not worried about death, I'm
00:54:15
not going to strive as hard or I'm not
00:54:17
going to have as much meaning. I'm not
00:54:18
going to have agency.
00:54:21
I totally reject that view.
00:54:24
I believe that every moment is special.
00:54:26
I don't believe I would be enjoying this
00:54:28
conversation with you anymore
00:54:30
if I could live 200 years. I'm loving
00:54:33
the moment.
00:54:34
>> Mhm.
00:54:35
>> Right. And so I I believe that we get up
00:54:37
with purpose and that if I lived for a
00:54:40
thousand years, I'd still enjoy every
00:54:42
day that I lived. And even a thousand
00:54:45
years, one day may be seen as too short.
00:54:48
You know, it's 20 times my age, a little
00:54:50
bit less than 20. That's still not very
00:54:53
much in the grand scheme of, you know,
00:54:55
the age of uh geology and the earth. We
00:54:58
still are around like that. Uh and so I
00:55:01
think that we will still love life. Most
00:55:03
of us will still love life and enjoy
00:55:05
every moment, but we'll get more
00:55:06
opportunities. We can try multiple
00:55:08
careers. Maybe we we we will get
00:55:10
divorced and find have a whole new life.
00:55:13
So, there will be opportunities and it
00:55:15
will be a magnificent world. Not to
00:55:18
mention the productivity that humans can
00:55:20
provide with the the knowledge of a 50
00:55:24
or 80year-old, but with the body of a
00:55:26
30-year-old.
00:55:28
>> Do you think people will make different
00:55:30
decisions about having children? Well, I
00:55:32
think we have a problem already with the
00:55:34
decisions that a lot of couples are
00:55:36
making, which is leaving it too late.
00:55:38
Um, it's very clear with the fertility
00:55:40
rate and the rate of child birth that
00:55:44
basically we're going off a cliff. And I
00:55:46
I think that
00:55:48
it's going to be important to be able to
00:55:50
give couples and women especially the
00:55:53
choice to have children for longer. And
00:55:56
that's one of the reasons that I work on
00:55:57
this topic is that I think that the
00:55:58
world with all of the the training that
00:56:00
we need to do and the pressures on
00:56:02
finding a mate and being happily married
00:56:05
or or at least being partnered up that
00:56:08
can take decades to get the right
00:56:09
person. You don't want to rush into it
00:56:10
like people used to. And being able to
00:56:13
have children in your 50s and 60s, I
00:56:15
think would be a great gift to humanity.
00:56:18
That's my personal view. Some people
00:56:19
may, you know, for whatever reason
00:56:21
disagree with that. But I think that the
00:56:22
pressures to have children before 35
00:56:25
typically are just extreme and and
00:56:28
unfair. But also that it'll help us
00:56:31
maintain the human population cuz by
00:56:33
2050, we're going to start going in a
00:56:36
bad decline and earlier in many western
00:56:38
countries. And without humans, you know,
00:56:41
absent android robots everywhere, we're
00:56:43
going to have a deficiency of human
00:56:46
capital and human productivity. And this
00:56:48
is I would argue with Elon that this is
00:56:51
the best solution to that uh lack of
00:56:54
humans is just keep people healthy and
00:56:56
alive and productive for longer.
00:57:03
>> Wa what's that on your face?
00:57:04
>> This is my Bon Charge face mask. I've
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been wearing this for some time now.
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They're a sponsor of the podcast. I put
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00:59:02
You mentioned uh cancer earlier on is
00:59:04
something that you're working on in your
00:59:06
laboratory. What progress have you made
00:59:08
in your laboratory? What has that taught
00:59:09
you about what the nature of cancer, but
00:59:11
also how we might prevent and cure it
00:59:13
someday? Cuz I I was reading that in
00:59:15
your laboratory, you have been able to
00:59:18
slow the growth of certain cancer cells
00:59:20
and kill those cancer cells completely.
00:59:22
>> Yeah. Uh so my my wonderful student
00:59:25
Nalat uh is is doing her PhD on this and
00:59:29
what we've hypothesized and now tested
00:59:32
is the idea again based on the
00:59:34
information theory of aging is that
00:59:36
cancer is
00:59:38
expressing those genes differently in
00:59:41
the same way that aging is is a cellular
00:59:44
identity crisis. Cancer is a cellular
00:59:47
identity crisis and that if we can
00:59:50
rejuvenate an old cell to be normal and
00:59:52
turn on the right genes again, we should
00:59:55
be able to do that for a cancer cell
00:59:57
>> and either make it normal or if it tries
01:00:01
to be normal and wakes up from its
01:00:03
zombie-like state, it might even kill
01:00:05
itself. And that's what we're finding in
01:00:08
my lab. Nut's work has shown that a
01:00:11
majority of cancers that we've grown in
01:00:13
the lab will die and shrink in an animal
01:00:17
if you try to reverse their age
01:00:20
>> through the injection
01:00:23
>> that you were referring to earlier on.
01:00:24
>> Yeah, we can do it a couple of ways. One
01:00:26
is using those three genes that
01:00:28
rejuvenate the epiggenome and make cells
01:00:31
young again.
01:00:32
>> Yeah,
01:00:32
>> the one for the eye. The same technology
01:00:35
for the eye we're using in cancer cells.
01:00:37
But we also have this chemical drink
01:00:39
that we can give to animals or to put on
01:00:42
the cells and that also wakes the cancer
01:00:45
cells up tries to they try to become
01:00:47
more normal. They turn on the original
01:00:49
set of genes that they might have had on
01:00:52
30 40 years ago. Some of these cancer
01:00:54
cells that we grow in the lab were from
01:00:56
the 20th century. We rejuvenate them. We
01:00:59
turn on those those genes that were
01:01:02
originally in the normal tissue and the
01:01:04
cells kill themselves. And so I believe
01:01:06
that we may not be able to cure all
01:01:09
cancer using this. That would be crazy
01:01:11
to even say that. But I do believe that
01:01:14
if we're successful rejuvenating the
01:01:16
human body, cancer is not
01:01:19
going to be a risk. And that's just a
01:01:22
nice side effect of what our original
01:01:25
mission was, which was to treat aging.
01:01:28
>> So from this we can start to try and
01:01:30
understand what we think is causing
01:01:32
cancer. And I guess this goes back to
01:01:34
the a lot of the carcogenic behavior
01:01:36
that you described earlier, things like
01:01:38
smoking, anything that's applying stress
01:01:40
on the DNA. Is that like a
01:01:42
>> Yeah, you have to break the DNA.
01:01:44
>> Um that's the cat a catastrophe is
01:01:47
really broken DNA, but you can do other
01:01:48
things that catastrophes like overheat
01:01:51
the cells. Um even mechanical stress,
01:01:55
you know, too many hits on the brain in
01:01:58
football will will do that. So yes,
01:02:00
that's exactly right. And that drives
01:02:03
aging. And aging drives cancer. By the
01:02:05
way, one of my theories called the
01:02:07
Goncoenesis hypothesis. Terrible name,
01:02:10
but nevertheless, Goncoenesis it is.
01:02:14
It's the idea that as we age, we're
01:02:16
becoming more cancer-like as as a as a
01:02:18
human. Our metabolism when we're old is
01:02:22
closer to heading towards what a cancer
01:02:24
cell's metabolism is like. So that when
01:02:27
we actually do get cancer, the cancer
01:02:29
cells grow better in an old person than
01:02:31
when you're young. And so by
01:02:33
rejuvenating those cancer cells, giving
01:02:35
them the the ability to be young again,
01:02:39
they actually either slow down in their
01:02:41
growth or, as I said, kill themselves in
01:02:43
response.
01:02:44
>> I've got a bit of a a prop here, which
01:02:47
might be useful for the the context of
01:02:49
>> goodness.
01:02:50
There are people here that may not know
01:02:52
what I'm holding in my hands, but uh for
01:02:54
those of you who don't know and who are
01:02:56
just listening, I'm holding a record uh
01:03:00
in my hands, a vinyl record uh that
01:03:02
Steven just handed me. So the the
01:03:05
information theory of aging, uh the
01:03:07
analogy that I used is that it disrupts
01:03:10
information. And so this record, this
01:03:12
album has information on it. It's music.
01:03:16
And just like DNA, it's information. So
01:03:19
instead of the DNA information, the
01:03:21
control of the DNA bit getting messed
01:03:22
up. It in the album, it's like
01:03:25
scratching this album. So I'm literally
01:03:28
going to scratch this album. Is that
01:03:29
okay with you?
01:03:29
>> Of course you can.
01:03:30
>> All right. I'm not sure I can fix it, by
01:03:32
the way. It may be a one-way thing, but
01:03:35
I've never done this before, but
01:03:38
that's painful.
01:03:41
Maybe you can hear that happening. So,
01:03:43
if we were to play this on a record
01:03:45
player with a needle, it's going to jump
01:03:48
around and it's going to read the wrong
01:03:49
songs or it's it's going to certainly
01:03:51
not sound very good. So, that's that's
01:03:54
now the equivalent of an old cell. The
01:03:57
information, the beautiful music is
01:04:00
there, but the ability to read it has
01:04:01
been messed up in the same way that old
01:04:04
age, the information is in the DNA, but
01:04:06
you the cells don't read it correctly.
01:04:08
And what our technology is is to get rid
01:04:11
of those scratches. and so we can play
01:04:13
the beautiful music of our youth again.
01:04:17
>> Um, I have got this uh you told me to to
01:04:19
bring my weighted vest and this neck
01:04:22
brace.
01:04:23
>> Oh my goodness. Uh,
01:04:24
>> I think I put on the wrong way. Okay,
01:04:26
>> any anyone listening, Steven's putting
01:04:28
on a very heavy jacket right now with
01:04:30
lead weights and a strap around his neck
01:04:32
to limit his neck movement.
01:04:34
>> Oh, wow.
01:04:36
That's a lot. Listen, so I'm I just put
01:04:38
on a 20 I think it's 20 kg. My son's
01:04:42
weak now. Um, jacket and a neck brace.
01:04:47
And ahead of this conversation, my team
01:04:49
told me to get one of these. What is the
01:04:51
analogy here that you're you're
01:04:52
creating? This is very hell.
01:04:55
>> It's bad, right?
01:04:56
>> It's hard. Yeah.
01:04:57
>> Right. Imagine
01:04:59
feeling like that for a decade. That's
01:05:01
old age. You feeling tired, weak. You
01:05:04
can barely hold your body up. You can
01:05:06
barely move your neck. It would be
01:05:08
painful. You're not in pain yet. No. But
01:05:10
most people in their 80s have some sort
01:05:12
of disease and aches and pains.
01:05:15
Try doing that for another 10 minutes
01:05:18
maybe. How long can you keep that on?
01:05:20
>> I'll keep it on for another 10 minutes.
01:05:21
But so why is this? Cuz it just it's
01:05:23
weight and im immobility. I can't move
01:05:26
my neck the same. My shoulders feel
01:05:29
heavier.
01:05:30
How How is this a relevant analogy to
01:05:32
aging? Because it just kind of feels
01:05:34
like immobility and weight. Uh, well, I
01:05:36
have to come over there and use this
01:05:38
pair of scissors to be stabbing you as
01:05:40
well. So, you can feel pain as you move
01:05:42
as well. That's part of old age. It is
01:05:45
not a fun thing being old. And most old
01:05:48
people, the reason that they don't love
01:05:50
life anymore is because they feel like
01:05:52
you do or worse. Not to mention the fact
01:05:56
that there you need to put Vaseline on
01:05:58
your eyes, earplugs in your ears if you
01:06:01
want to know what it's like being old.
01:06:03
>> Oh god, it's not nice. Mm- or even
01:06:06
worse, shut your eyes and you can never
01:06:08
open them again.
01:06:10
That's what it's like for those patients
01:06:11
that we hope to cure a blindness in.
01:06:14
>> If if I'm going to ask you a really
01:06:15
tough question, which is if I put a
01:06:17
calculator in front of you right now and
01:06:19
you had to hit a number on that
01:06:20
calculator and then hit enter
01:06:22
>> and that was the age that you were going
01:06:24
to live to and you had to make that
01:06:26
decision now.
01:06:26
>> Yeah.
01:06:27
>> What number would you hit on that
01:06:30
calculator?
01:06:31
>> Infinity.
01:06:32
>> Really? So you No, no, no. There's no
01:06:34
day if you're healthy where you want to
01:06:36
die. Even if you're 100, 120, if you
01:06:39
have friends, family, loved ones, you're
01:06:41
healthy, would you say, "Okay, tomorrow
01:06:44
I'm ready to die."
01:06:45
>> No, it's not happen unless there was
01:06:47
some kind of psychic issue or something.
01:06:48
>> Exactly. Right. So, that's my point is
01:06:51
when people say, "Oh, when I'm 80, kill
01:06:53
me." That is That's Excuse my
01:06:55
language. Am I allowed to swear on this?
01:06:57
>> No question.
01:06:58
>> Um,
01:06:58
>> sorry. I'm going to have to beep it for
01:07:00
the kids. I guess
01:07:00
>> it's it's only when you're sick or you
01:07:03
have depression that you want to leave
01:07:05
the leave this world. Otherwise, life is
01:07:08
a joy for most people on in the world.
01:07:10
Not everybody and we have to fix that as
01:07:12
well, but for most of us,
01:07:15
being alive is is the greatest gift of
01:07:17
any, you know, collection of atoms.
01:07:21
Consciousness is even greater. And why
01:07:24
would you want that to end?
01:07:26
who would choose that if they had the
01:07:28
alternative to be with family and
01:07:30
friends.
01:07:31
>> Interesting. I say that's interesting
01:07:33
because I have always assumed that I
01:07:36
wouldn't want to live forever. But the
01:07:38
when when you asked me if I was healthy
01:07:42
and I had my friends and family and I
01:07:44
was [clears throat] doing things that I
01:07:45
loved professionally, would there come a
01:07:47
day where I would choose to go now? No,
01:07:50
there wouldn't. Just like there hasn't
01:07:52
come a day in the last 33 years where
01:07:54
I've chosen to go now.
01:07:57
>> Exactly.
01:07:58
>> Do you think it's it's going to be
01:08:00
possible in the next 50 years for us to
01:08:02
live forever?
01:08:04
>> I'd be shocked if that happened, but
01:08:07
I've been shocked my whole career at how
01:08:09
fast this technology is moving. And now
01:08:10
with AI, things are going so fast. My
01:08:12
head's spinning.
01:08:14
So, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. But
01:08:16
I'm I'm skeptical that we could live
01:08:18
forever in my lifetime at least. But as
01:08:22
I said, you're pro you're probably going
01:08:23
to live you are going to live into the
01:08:25
22nd century. We can't imagine what the
01:08:28
world's going to be like then.
01:08:29
>> And AI has really changed this equation.
01:08:32
>> Oh, absolutely. We're we're doing things
01:08:34
in my lab that would have taken 160
01:08:36
years before and and quite literally
01:08:39
billions of dollars on a 10 $10,000
01:08:42
budget.
01:08:43
>> Well, I guess I better make it to 2040.
01:08:46
Um, so let's talk about fasting and food
01:08:49
and nutrition and get go a little bit
01:08:51
deeper on that. I've had so so many
01:08:53
conversations over the years about this
01:08:54
subject of fasting. But, um, as I was
01:08:57
reading your research, you really do
01:08:59
feel that fasting, just eating less
01:09:02
often
01:09:04
is one of the most important things that
01:09:05
we can all do for longevity.
01:09:07
>> I I do. I do and I practice it as much
01:09:09
as I can, though it's challenging in a
01:09:11
world that's full of abundant food. But
01:09:14
yes, we've known for thousands of years,
01:09:16
the ancients are not dummies. They they
01:09:18
could witness what happens when you
01:09:20
fast. Uh clarity of mind, long-term
01:09:23
health. They could observe the
01:09:25
difference between the glutton and the
01:09:26
people that fasted for religious
01:09:28
reasons. It's obvious, but there's
01:09:30
certain ways to do it. Fasting doesn't
01:09:31
include malnutrition. You have to do it
01:09:34
with abundant, you know, vitamins,
01:09:35
minerals. You want to make sure that
01:09:37
you're you you have adequate nutrition.
01:09:40
But I think three meals a day is is
01:09:42
craziness. It turns out this idea
01:09:44
breakfast is the most important meal of
01:09:46
the day is marketing from the early 20th
01:09:48
century by companies I will not name,
01:09:51
but it was breakfast cereal. Breakfast
01:09:53
is not the most important meal of the
01:09:54
day for most people, especially adults,
01:09:57
especially if you're not hungry when you
01:09:58
wake up. There's no point in eating if
01:10:00
you're not hungry in the morning. I'm
01:10:02
one of those people. So, I've skipped
01:10:04
breakfast. How about you?
01:10:05
>> Yeah, I'm the same. I'm the same. I
01:10:06
don't eat. My first meal today was 300
01:10:08
p.m. because I had a podcast until, you
01:10:10
know, 2 2 p.m. So, which is typical for
01:10:12
me. I just don't get hungry in the
01:10:13
mornings now because of the marketing
01:10:15
though for breakfast sometime I've
01:10:17
sometimes I've said to myself you should
01:10:18
eat and I'll make myself eat but it's
01:10:21
very very rare I'm notoriously people
01:10:23
know that I'm notoriously
01:10:25
um a late eater 4 p.m. sometimes 5 p.m.
01:10:28
How are you feeling with that heavy?
01:10:30
>> It's it's heavy, David. I'm going to be
01:10:31
honest. It's not I'm finding myself like
01:10:33
trying to find a comfortable position.
01:10:35
>> Yeah, it it's tough being old and by the
01:10:37
end of it, you will be so convinced that
01:10:40
this research is important because to
01:10:42
live like that
01:10:44
>> in most people life is not worth living.
01:10:46
>> I put a suit, a very heavy suit like
01:10:48
that, but on the arms as well, not just
01:10:50
the body. And he had the the ear muffs
01:10:52
and the the eyes. This was the uh the
01:10:55
governor of Massachusetts 15 minutes in
01:10:58
that bodysuit and he was crying not
01:11:01
because he was in pain because he as he
01:11:04
said on stage it was the first time in
01:11:06
his life he understood how his father
01:11:08
feels and could be empathetic. We young
01:11:12
people I'm relatively young 56 you're
01:11:14
very young 33. We have no idea what it's
01:11:16
like to be old. It can be horrific. So
01:11:20
why wouldn't we do the right things like
01:11:23
fasting, exercising [clears throat]
01:11:25
so we can get an extra 10 years, 20
01:11:27
years, maybe longer of healthy life?
01:11:30
>> It does also give me a lot of empathy
01:11:31
for people that um have a bit more
01:11:34
weight on them as well because of you
01:11:36
know if I was if I weighed that much I
01:11:39
don't know if I'd be very active to be
01:11:41
completely honest with you.
01:11:42
>> Exactly. And you're in pain too. Don't
01:11:44
forget every joint can be hurting. How
01:11:46
do you feel taking that off?
01:11:47
>> Much better. right?
01:11:48
>> Free like I want to jump.
01:11:49
>> So let's
01:11:52
hope, pray, wish that these technologies
01:11:56
that I'm talking about today work cuz
01:11:58
that could be what it feels like to be
01:12:01
rejuvenated when you're 80.
01:12:03
>> I hope [clears throat] so. Um to close
01:12:05
off on this point of of fasting, why why
01:12:07
does it help extend my life? Yeah. Just
01:12:09
eating less.
01:12:10
>> Part of it came out of research in my
01:12:12
lab, but of course many others I need to
01:12:14
give credit to. But in my lab
01:12:16
specifically, what we worked on in
01:12:17
initially when I started, we studied
01:12:19
yeast cells, little uh microscopic cells
01:12:23
that as everyone knows we used to make
01:12:25
beer and bread and champagne. These
01:12:27
yeast cells live about 10 days and then
01:12:29
they die. And we used yeast as a model
01:12:31
for aging. And what we discovered with
01:12:33
yeast cells, which turns out to be true
01:12:35
in our bodies, is that adversity, as
01:12:38
long as it's not killing these cells, is
01:12:41
good for you. It's called hormesis. It's
01:12:44
the technical term for what doesn't kill
01:12:45
you makes you stronger and live longer.
01:12:48
Adversity mode is what we're aiming for.
01:12:51
The opposite is abundance mode, which is
01:12:54
what modern life is all about. Popcorn,
01:12:57
movies, wheels on your suitcase, sitting
01:13:00
down all day.
01:13:02
It's we're in an abundance world. So
01:13:05
adversity is something we don't often
01:13:06
feel. We have to work at it. Fasting is
01:13:09
adversity. Exercise is adversity. cold
01:13:12
plunges, sauners, adversity. Adversity
01:13:15
mimics. They're not really threatening
01:13:17
your life. What happens at the cellular
01:13:19
cellular level is that those cells, they
01:13:22
get freaked out. They're worried that
01:13:25
these times of adversity could kill us.
01:13:28
So, they fight back. They turn on repair
01:13:30
systems. They turn on recycling systems.
01:13:34
They turn on DNA repair systems that
01:13:36
help slow down aging. So in this modern
01:13:39
world, we when we have total abundance,
01:13:40
we don't have to exercise, we don't we
01:13:42
eat three meals a day, we get
01:13:44
overweight, we don't sleep much, we have
01:13:46
air conditioning in summer, we're
01:13:49
actually aging faster than we need to
01:13:50
cuz our bodies are not fighting aging
01:13:53
like they do when they feel adversity.
01:13:56
>> Your team discovered I can't say the
01:13:58
word seratunis.
01:14:00
>> Oh well, I was one of many scientists in
01:14:03
the 1990s. Uh I was part of a team
01:14:05
called Sertuins. Yeah. So twins.
01:14:08
>> Yeah. Yeah. In yeast, actually. That's
01:14:11
right. Uh that's a good story. I went to
01:14:14
the US to figure out why we get old. But
01:14:18
I didn't choose to study humans cuz I
01:14:20
figured if we can't figure it out for
01:14:23
little yeast cells, we'll never figure
01:14:24
it out for humans. So I went to MIT. My
01:14:27
professor was Lenny Garenti. I went to
01:14:30
his lab and I said, "I'm I'm not going.
01:14:31
I'm not leaving." The goal was to in my
01:14:34
mind was to figure out are there
01:14:36
longevity genes. At that time most
01:14:38
people thought that there were aging
01:14:40
genes that caused aging death genes.
01:14:43
That doesn't make any sense to me. Our
01:14:44
bodies would have longevity genes that
01:14:46
give life. So in yeast I went searching
01:14:49
for them. And out of that work came two
01:14:51
things. The first is Lenny and I my
01:14:54
professor and I published in the journal
01:14:56
cell which was a massive big deal in
01:14:58
those days still is but it was my first
01:15:00
time. the first evidence for a cause of
01:15:04
aging for any species. We figured out
01:15:06
why yeast cells get old. Do you want to
01:15:08
guess?
01:15:10
>> Why do yeast cells get old?
01:15:13
>> Have you been paying attention? What
01:15:14
does the information theory of aging
01:15:16
say?
01:15:16
>> I was going to say they have an identity
01:15:17
crisis, but
01:15:18
>> they do.
01:15:19
>> How would we know if they have they're
01:15:21
having an identity crisis?
01:15:22
>> Oh, you can measure the identity of
01:15:23
yeast cells. They have an identity. It's
01:15:26
called their mating type. The main
01:15:27
identity of a yeast cell is they are
01:15:29
either a type or alpha type, male,
01:15:33
female.
01:15:34
And the hallmark of a yeast cell that's
01:15:37
old is it loses its A and alpha identity
01:15:42
and gets an identity crisis. It doesn't
01:15:45
know what sex it is and it doesn't mate
01:15:47
anymore, becomes sterile. So when I
01:15:49
arrived at MIT in 1995, we knew that the
01:15:53
hallmark of an old yeast cell besides it
01:15:55
being a bit slow and bigger is that it
01:15:58
became sterile. It had an identity
01:16:00
crisis. So we figured out that broken
01:16:02
chromosomes
01:16:04
distract the sertuan defenses
01:16:07
and that causes aging in a yeast cell.
01:16:10
But we didn't know in the '90s that that
01:16:12
was going to be true for us as well. It
01:16:14
took another decade or two to figure
01:16:16
that out. And how does this link to
01:16:17
eating all the time?
01:16:19
>> Yeah. So, sertuins are proteins that
01:16:22
actually are attracted to DNA. They
01:16:25
actually associate with it and they
01:16:27
protect uh the DNA from getting damaged.
01:16:30
>> Okay. Like bodyguards.
01:16:32
>> Yeah. And they repair broken
01:16:33
chromosomes, right? It's all coming
01:16:35
together now. But they also get
01:16:37
distracted. So look, a sertuan's normal
01:16:40
job if there's no crisis is that they
01:16:42
turn genes on and off. They are
01:16:44
epigenetic regulators. They control the
01:16:47
epiggenome. They tell a cell what type
01:16:49
it is. Nerve cell, skin cell, right?
01:16:51
>> Like a conductor.
01:16:52
>> Thank you. Conductor. Exactly.
01:16:55
But the conductor
01:16:57
becomes demented over time. What happens
01:17:00
is when you have a chromosomal break,
01:17:03
the sertuins panic. They leave the DNA,
01:17:06
what they're supposed to be doing,
01:17:07
controlling the cell's identity, and
01:17:10
they go and they repair the DNA. That's
01:17:11
their other job. They have two jobs,
01:17:13
identity and repair. So when you have
01:17:15
this break, the Suins go away. They
01:17:17
repair the problem, but they don't all
01:17:19
go back in the next few minutes. It's
01:17:22
very quick. They don't all go back to
01:17:23
where they started. So you've got like
01:17:25
this tennis match that the sertuins are
01:17:27
the balls and they get hit over to the
01:17:30
break, then hit back. Most of them find
01:17:32
the genes that they should go back to,
01:17:34
but they don't all do that. And that
01:17:36
total game of tennis or ping pong, if
01:17:38
you like, is what I believe causes the
01:17:40
identity crisis. than aging itself
01:17:43
causes aging in yeast cells. It's why
01:17:45
yeast cells don't live longer than 10
01:17:46
days. And I believe it's why we struggle
01:17:48
to live beyond 80 or 90.
01:17:50
>> So if I'm eating all the time, then
01:17:52
those sertuins, they're not going to be
01:17:54
doing their job as the um the conductor
01:17:57
making sure I know the identity of my
01:17:59
cells. They're going to be doing repair
01:18:01
stuff. So I'm going to age faster.
01:18:05
>> Yes. And the breakthrough happened in
01:18:07
the lab as I was just leaving to go to
01:18:08
Harvard. I got a job at Harvard when I
01:18:11
was 29, super excited. And just as I was
01:18:14
leaving, there was a big breakthrough
01:18:15
that they actually kept it secret from
01:18:17
me cuz I they were worried I was going
01:18:19
to work on it when I left. And in fact,
01:18:21
my professor tried to prevent me from
01:18:23
working on it when I left on Sertuins in
01:18:26
general. crazy to think about. But what
01:18:28
they discovered was that there's a a
01:18:31
metabolite, a molecule that goes up and
01:18:35
down with food and up and down with
01:18:37
sleep called NAD. We have lots of it.
01:18:40
There's grams of it in our body. It's
01:18:42
one of the most abundant molecules in
01:18:43
the body. It's very ancient. It's in
01:18:44
yeast. It's in us. And what they found
01:18:47
was that sertuins
01:18:49
to control genes and to repair DNA
01:18:52
that's broken, they don't do it unless
01:18:54
there's NAD. It's the catalyst. It's the
01:18:57
fuel for their reaction. They need NAD.
01:19:00
And when we're young, we have lots of
01:19:02
NAD. So, it works well. The satuans
01:19:05
control the information on the genes and
01:19:07
they repair the DNA very well because
01:19:09
they've got lots of NAD to carry out
01:19:11
their their work. These are enzymes.
01:19:13
They work. They do things. As we get
01:19:16
older, by the time you're 50, about my
01:19:18
age, you have half the levels of this
01:19:20
NAD molecule. my body is making less NAD
01:19:24
and it's also destroying the NAD faster
01:19:26
than when I was 20. That's a problem.
01:19:29
And so what we found was that when we
01:19:31
fast the yeast or we fast a human, NAD
01:19:35
levels go up again. So fasting raises
01:19:38
NAD and makes the certuins young again
01:19:41
essentially and that preserves the
01:19:43
epiggenome and it also repairs the DNA
01:19:45
better.
01:19:46
>> So can I just drink NAD?
01:19:47
>> Uh you can drink NAD and not much would
01:19:50
>> how? How do I take NAD?
01:19:52
>> Uh, so NAD can be taken as a supplement
01:19:54
which is a prec precursor to NAD. It's
01:19:57
better to take the precursors.
01:19:58
>> A precursor meaning something that
01:20:00
creates it naturally.
01:20:01
>> Exactly. There's one called NN, not to
01:20:03
be confused with M&M's, which will
01:20:05
probably not make you live longer. And
01:20:07
there's another one called NR. NN is
01:20:09
directly converted into NAD. You put two
01:20:11
NAMNS together, you get NAD in the cell.
01:20:13
We know this for a fact. This isn't
01:20:14
isn't speculation. When you give a human
01:20:16
NMN by swallowing it, a gram of it, you
01:20:20
can t you typically double the amount of
01:20:22
NAD in your body. And we believe and we
01:20:24
have some evidence now in human clinical
01:20:26
trials that the Sertuins are imparting
01:20:29
health benefits, reestablishing the
01:20:31
epiggenome, lowering body weight, uh
01:20:34
improving inflammation, uh and even
01:20:37
changing cholesterol levels in a
01:20:38
positive way in humans.
01:20:40
>> So, I mean, I'm assuming you take NN.
01:20:43
I've been taking an amen and admitting
01:20:45
that publicly uh for a while now and my
01:20:48
father who is uh an even more advanced
01:20:52
uh experiment at 86.
01:20:55
So yes, we've been taking it for over a
01:20:57
decade now and we're still alive. So so
01:20:59
far so good.
01:21:00
>> So far so good. I do want to get into
01:21:01
and I will ask you in a second about the
01:21:03
the supplement stack that you would
01:21:04
recommend for the average person. Um but
01:21:06
that's good to know. But just to close
01:21:07
off on this point of fasting, is there a
01:21:10
particular type of fasting method that
01:21:13
you would recommend for someone who's
01:21:16
trying to, you know, improve their
01:21:17
longevity?
01:21:18
>> Because there's so many that I hear 16
01:21:20
hours, 5 days.
01:21:21
>> I'm a scientist, so I go with what's
01:21:22
proven. I'm not selling anything. So,
01:21:25
what the science says, first of all, is
01:21:27
that there isn't one sizefits-all for
01:21:29
everybody. Um, it it often depends on
01:21:32
what you can do personally. It's
01:21:35
challenging to do this, right? you'll
01:21:36
feel hungry for the first two weeks you
01:21:38
try it. So I I would suggest the way I
01:21:42
do it is I start by skipping one and
01:21:45
then maybe one and a half meals uh like
01:21:49
what you do. Try to go without a meal
01:21:52
until 3 4:00 if you can. Maybe not the
01:21:55
first day, right? If you do that the
01:21:57
first day, you'll say this is crazy. I'm
01:21:58
I'm going to grab a snack and you won't
01:22:00
do it. So go slowly, build up to it. So
01:22:03
the first day I would say just don't eat
01:22:05
breakfast and maybe have a snack midm
01:22:08
morning. A week later try to go without
01:22:10
breakfast completely until lunch and
01:22:13
eventually work up to what you do and I
01:22:14
do which is eat a very late lunch if not
01:22:17
go to dinner. What you get with that is
01:22:19
obviously not eating in bed hopefully.
01:22:22
So you've got that the night fast
01:22:24
starting what would it be 7:00 p.m.
01:22:26
roughly. When do you finish dinner?
01:22:28
>> Oh god. No comment.
01:22:30
>> Okay.
01:22:30
>> It's usually pretty late. Last night it
01:22:31
was, you know, it was, this is probably
01:22:33
why I don't eat very early the next day.
01:22:35
Last night would have been about, I'm
01:22:37
going to say 1000 p.m.
01:22:39
>> Okay,
01:22:39
>> it was super late. It was, that's an
01:22:41
extraordinary example. Usually, it would
01:22:42
be 8 or 9:00 p.m.
01:22:46
>> Okay, but but you've got at least 13, 14
01:22:48
hours, which is good. Try to aim for 14
01:22:50
hours. Some people go 16 hours, but
01:22:53
that's a good start for fasting. And
01:22:55
hopefully you can do that most days, 5
01:22:57
days a week. That's great cuz that means
01:22:59
that you're turning on your stratuins,
01:23:00
raising your NAD. You're exercise as
01:23:03
well. So that's also added into it. One
01:23:06
thing that I've started doing is fasting
01:23:09
for longer than just 14 16 hours. I try
01:23:14
maybe once a month to go for 3 days
01:23:16
without eating.
01:23:16
>> Why?
01:23:17
>> Because there's a type of cellular
01:23:19
recycling that doesn't happen within the
01:23:22
first 16 hours. Um you will enter
01:23:25
ketosis. So you'll your body will start
01:23:26
to change its metabolism produce what's
01:23:28
called ketone bodies. But the true real
01:23:32
deep clean cleansing of old proteins and
01:23:35
damage damaged proteins happens after 2
01:23:39
and 1 half to 3 days and it's called
01:23:41
chaperone mediated autophagy.
01:23:43
>> Autophagy.
01:23:44
>> Autophagy is the word for auto self-eing
01:23:49
and it really kicks in for with an
01:23:51
extended fast.
01:23:52
>> What's the evolutionary reason for that?
01:23:54
What's going on there? Why does it take
01:23:55
me 2 and 1/2 days for this deep clean to
01:23:57
happen?
01:23:57
>> Uh cuz your body doesn't want to uh do
01:24:00
it. It costs a lot of energy and having
01:24:02
to remake body parts is energy
01:24:04
expensive. And our body tries to
01:24:06
conserve energy as much as possible. Uh
01:24:09
when you're fasting, what it'll it needs
01:24:11
to do is to use your body as fuel. So
01:24:14
it'll start breaking down proteins for
01:24:16
fuel that you need. So first of all,
01:24:18
what'll happen is in the first few
01:24:20
hours, you use glycogen from your your
01:24:21
liver. Your liver makes glucose. You'll
01:24:23
feel a little bit hungry, but you'll
01:24:25
eventually be fine. Then once you run
01:24:27
run out of glycogen, then you're going
01:24:29
to start breaking down fat and making
01:24:31
ketones. Uh that's when you start to get
01:24:33
a bit of bad breath from from that. And
01:24:36
you but you feel great. When you're in a
01:24:38
between about 15 hours and 24 hours,
01:24:42
that's when you get a lot of ketones and
01:24:43
your brain uses those for fuel. So
01:24:45
you'll have sharp mind, can remember
01:24:47
things, you can focus on work if you
01:24:50
ever get there. beyond that you need to
01:24:52
break down fat and uh that is uh when
01:24:57
your body is starting to do that but
01:24:59
ultimately what what what happens after
01:25:01
3 days is your body says hey I'm going
01:25:04
to start breaking down protein as well
01:25:06
and uh I wouldn't do that often because
01:25:09
I don't want to break down a lot of
01:25:10
protein but your body will start to turn
01:25:12
over old proteins preferentially and a
01:25:14
little bit of that that's why I do it
01:25:16
maybe once a month has been shown at
01:25:18
least in animals to be not just healthy
01:25:20
but life extending.
01:25:23
>> On that point of ketosis,
01:25:26
um, I like being in a state of ketosis.
01:25:30
I kind of cycle in and out of it during
01:25:32
the year because I get so many of the
01:25:34
like cognitive benefits. I'm more
01:25:36
articulate on the podcast. I can think
01:25:37
better. I feel better. I feel more
01:25:40
focused and more attentive.
01:25:42
Is ketosis
01:25:44
is the ketone diet the keto diet a
01:25:47
healthy diet in your view? Is it what
01:25:49
are the benefits of it? Is it something
01:25:51
that you think is natural to be
01:25:52
recommended?
01:25:53
>> Well, I don't mind being controversial,
01:25:54
but I do speak the truth. Um, there's
01:25:57
not a lot of evidence that long-term the
01:25:59
ketogenic diet is healthy.
01:26:01
>> Certainly doesn't correlate or associate
01:26:03
with uh longevity.
01:26:05
Short-term, okay, it does help people
01:26:07
lose weight, no question. Uh but I am
01:26:10
rather concerned for people that don't
01:26:11
have a balanced diet with an input of
01:26:15
plant material which has molecules that
01:26:18
are unique to plants and you won't find
01:26:20
in high processed foods or meat. The
01:26:24
evidence speaking as a scientist is that
01:26:27
the long-term ketogenic diets are not
01:26:30
going to be longevity inducing. The
01:26:33
evidence is more having a lean diet with
01:26:37
a focus on plants that are not
01:26:38
overcooked and not ultrarocessed.
01:26:41
That one is undoubtedly the healthiest
01:26:44
if you can do it.
01:26:45
>> Do you eat meat?
01:26:46
>> I do eat meat, but not like I used to. I
01:26:50
used to think that a meal was not a meal
01:26:52
unless I had a piece of meat there and
01:26:54
then the vegetables were the decoration
01:26:56
and I'd begrudgingly eat the green
01:26:58
stuff. I've been flipped totally. Um
01:27:01
Serena, my partner Serena Pune is not
01:27:04
just a nutritionist but a longevity
01:27:06
expert for the last 26 years. And so she
01:27:09
came to my apartment uh which is now our
01:27:12
apartment and she just cleared out all
01:27:13
the food that I had. Pretty much
01:27:15
everything was either toxic or uh or
01:27:18
just not healthy. It was ultrarocessed.
01:27:20
She said, "What are you eating that kind
01:27:22
of peanut butter, you know, full of
01:27:24
sugar?" So she she's taught me how to
01:27:26
live healthy. And so now I rarely eat
01:27:29
meat. I rarely drink alcohol. I focus on
01:27:33
really fresh, high quality uh preferably
01:27:36
organic foods because I don't want
01:27:38
pesticides and I don't want other
01:27:39
contaminants.
01:27:41
But I do know organic can be more more
01:27:43
expensive.
01:27:44
>> Why not meat?
01:27:46
So animals unfortunately don't make what
01:27:48
are called polyphenols which are a type
01:27:51
of molecule that uh I believe uh and
01:27:54
have evidence turns on the certuins and
01:27:58
other pathways biochemical reactions
01:28:01
that delay aging. So certuins are just
01:28:04
one of a few enzymes that control aging.
01:28:08
We know this. There's certuins. There's
01:28:10
mTor which responds to aminos and
01:28:13
another one called. So those three
01:28:16
pathways are altered in just the right
01:28:19
way by molecules found only in plants
01:28:23
well and a small extent in fungi but not
01:28:26
in meat. So if you're not eating a lot
01:28:28
of vegetables or fruits, you're not
01:28:30
getting these molecules. They're like
01:28:32
medicine as food. So right here, I hope
01:28:36
you don't mind me mentioning that there
01:28:38
are some some food in front of us. And
01:28:40
I'm looking at blueberries here.
01:28:41
Blueberries are packed with polyphenols.
01:28:44
One of the reasons they have purple
01:28:45
color is the polyphenols have the color.
01:28:47
And as Serena would tell you, eat the
01:28:50
rainbow. I call it xenomormmesis, which
01:28:52
is not as attractive, but xenomormis is
01:28:55
the same idea as eat the rainbow. that
01:28:57
by eating plants that have a lot of
01:28:59
these molecules that are often produced
01:29:01
by stressed plants.
01:29:04
>> Stressed plants.
01:29:05
>> So plants will be stressed just like we
01:29:07
are. If you don't give them enough
01:29:08
water, food, too much sunlight, not not
01:29:11
enough sunlight. They in their defense
01:29:14
they make polyphenols.
01:29:16
There's a whole bunch of them.
01:29:17
Resveratrol, physitan, coretin, there's
01:29:20
there's hundreds. Uh this one has um
01:29:23
anthocyanidins. That's the color. These
01:29:25
activate these adversity responses in
01:29:29
our cells. The sertuins will get
01:29:32
activated by molecules in this
01:29:35
blueberry.
01:29:35
>> So if I eat this blueberry,
01:29:38
those conductors that conduct some of
01:29:41
the aging process you talked about
01:29:43
making sure my cells don't have an
01:29:44
identity crisis, fixing the the the
01:29:48
negative stress that's going on in my um
01:29:51
in my cells. they will be
01:29:54
benefited by me eating this blueberry.
01:29:57
>> Yeah. It's it's like a a free hack,
01:29:59
right? You can eat something that's
01:30:00
yummy, but you're also getting the
01:30:03
benefits by mimicking fasting and
01:30:06
exercise in your food as well. The
01:30:08
certuins don't just need NAD. That's the
01:30:11
gas pedal. That's the petrol for those
01:30:13
of you in the British world and
01:30:15
Commonwealth. The fuel for certuins is
01:30:19
NAD. The accelerator pedal are the
01:30:22
polyphenols in fruits and vegetables
01:30:25
like resveratrol coretin which we know
01:30:29
when you give them to sertuins they get
01:30:31
hyperactivated
01:30:32
>> and when you say eat the rainbow you
01:30:34
mean eat colorful looking food
01:30:37
>> because that's an an easy way to
01:30:39
remember how to eat foods that have the
01:30:41
most polyphenols. I'll give you a really
01:30:43
good example, Stephen. Serena put me on
01:30:46
to green tea matcha, right? So, matcha
01:30:49
tea. If you haven't tried it, uh I'm
01:30:51
sure you've tried it, but those of you
01:30:52
who haven't tried it, I highly recommend
01:30:54
it. It It tastes great. The reason for
01:30:56
it switching from coffee mainly to
01:30:59
matcha in the morning for me is that
01:31:02
it's full of polyphenols. Why is it full
01:31:05
of polyphenols? It's not just because
01:31:07
it's green tea, which is not naturally
01:31:08
healthy, but the growers of those plants
01:31:11
in Japan typically they shade the plants
01:31:14
before they harvest. Shading the plants
01:31:17
stresses them out. Plants need light.
01:31:20
So, they don't just make more
01:31:21
chlorophyll, which produces the deep
01:31:23
green color in the tea. But the
01:31:25
polyphenols are super high. And through
01:31:28
trial and error over thousands of years,
01:31:29
the Japanese figured out that by shading
01:31:32
the plants, giving them this mild
01:31:34
hormetic stress, it makes them not just
01:31:37
extra tasty, but extra healthy. Same
01:31:40
with red wine, by the way. But the
01:31:41
alcohol can be an issue. But absent
01:31:44
alcohol, red wine is very good for you.
01:31:49
>> Okay. Without the alcohol,
01:31:51
>> it's unfortunate. You know, I I one of
01:31:53
my papers in 1996 caused red wine cells
01:31:56
to go up 30% and stayed up. I apologized
01:31:59
for saying that red wine every day was
01:32:02
healthy. Doctors were recommending it.
01:32:03
Remember?
01:32:04
>> Yeah.
01:32:04
>> But I now changed my mind. I have to say
01:32:08
that I no longer believed having one
01:32:10
glass of red wine every day is healthy
01:32:13
in my opinion. And I've stopped drinking
01:32:15
red wine every day. Instead, I take
01:32:17
polyphenols from red wine and from
01:32:20
vegetables either in a pill or in my
01:32:22
food as a substitute because the
01:32:25
evidence for alcohol is rather damning.
01:32:27
There's a UK bioank study and the UK
01:32:29
looked at thousands of people's MRI scan
01:32:31
of their brain who were drinking one
01:32:33
glass of alcohol a day and there was a
01:32:36
statistical difference between people
01:32:38
that were drinking one glass a day and
01:32:39
were not in terms of brain size and gray
01:32:41
matter. Of course, the gray matter was
01:32:43
tended to be smaller in those that drank
01:32:45
even slightly.
01:32:47
>> Yeah, I do. [clears throat] Um I
01:32:48
actually have a matcher company. It's um
01:32:50
it was this year voted the fastest
01:32:52
growing company in the UK. Um it's by
01:32:55
some founders that I invested in um
01:32:57
Levi, Teddy, and Marissa from Dragon's
01:33:00
Den. And it's been an absolute
01:33:03
unbelievable in business. Unbelievable.
01:33:05
>> So tell us where where do I get it?
01:33:08
>> Japan. You get the matcha from Japan,
01:33:09
but the company is called Perfect.
01:33:10
People know about it. Um cuz I've talked
01:33:12
about it before, but I didn't realize
01:33:14
when I made the investment that matcha
01:33:16
was considered by many to also be very
01:33:19
healthy, especially a health alternative
01:33:20
to certain energy products on the market
01:33:22
that you get in cans that give you um I
01:33:27
shan get sued. [laughter]
01:33:29
>> But the other thing that um other
01:33:30
company I invested in is this one here
01:33:32
called uh Ketone IQ. I'm a coowner of
01:33:35
this company as well. And
01:33:37
>> yeah, I love that uh love that company.
01:33:39
and the CEO, uh, Michael, good guy.
01:33:42
>> What's your thoughts on exogenous
01:33:43
ketones, like drinking ketones?
01:33:46
>> I do it in fact that I drink ketone IQ
01:33:49
before I do a podcast.
01:33:51
>> Why?
01:33:52
>> It improves my clarity. I find um I also
01:33:56
believe the science and there have been
01:33:58
multiple studies now in people in some
01:34:01
of the the science comes out of ketone
01:34:02
IQ but also independent studies have
01:34:05
shown that it's extremely healthy for
01:34:07
the heart and uh there's new studies
01:34:09
that show for the brain as well it can
01:34:11
be healthy the brain uses ketones like
01:34:13
beta hydroxybutyrate or in that one it's
01:34:15
13b butin dial um just a shot of that
01:34:18
will give the brain food that it needs
01:34:20
rather than the body having to make it
01:34:22
um and you get I and I feel it. I get
01:34:25
the clarity of fasting without being in
01:34:27
a fasted state, but I also drink it when
01:34:29
I'm fasting to give it the body the
01:34:31
extra boost that it needs.
01:34:33
>> And on this point of diet, one of the
01:34:35
things that I was told by my doctor when
01:34:37
I did a like one of those blood tests
01:34:39
was he cautioned me about bad
01:34:41
cholesterol.
01:34:42
He said to me something along the lines
01:34:44
that I need to be careful about the bad
01:34:46
cholesterol. And there's been lots of
01:34:48
conversation about cholesterol, good,
01:34:50
bad. What's your perspective on this
01:34:53
conversation around bad cholesterol
01:34:54
which has been thought to increase um
01:34:57
certain foods have been thought to
01:34:58
increase bad cholesterol um which is
01:35:00
very very detrimental to our health.
01:35:03
>> I didn't realize there was a debate at
01:35:05
least in my world there is no debate um
01:35:08
if you're referring to do you want to
01:35:10
get your LDL cholesterol as low as
01:35:13
possible.
01:35:14
>> Yeah
01:35:15
>> definitely.
01:35:15
>> Oh really? Okay. So it's
01:35:17
>> yeah I mean the science is irrefutable.
01:35:18
thousands of people in studies. Now, I
01:35:21
think I know what you were you were
01:35:22
talking about. There there are some
01:35:24
stories that you need cholesterol in
01:35:27
your brain and if you inhibit it, you
01:35:30
might affect your brain function. Um,
01:35:32
you also need it for repair of arteries.
01:35:35
But there's no evidence that that's a
01:35:37
problem. In fact, it's it's a little
01:35:38
known fact that the brain doesn't use
01:35:41
the cholesterol from the bloodstream. It
01:35:43
makes its own. So, I've actually been on
01:35:45
a statin to lower my LDL since I was 30.
01:35:48
>> Really?
01:35:49
>> Well, I had high cholesterol. It's in my
01:35:51
family, but I went to my doctor and I
01:35:55
said, "I want to go on these new drugs
01:35:56
at the time, statins." And he said,
01:35:58
"Why? You don't have heart disease yet."
01:36:01
And I said, "Why would I wait? Get me on
01:36:04
it. I want to be on it." And in those
01:36:06
days, it was very weird to give someone
01:36:08
a statin at age 30 with no evidence of
01:36:11
heart disease. But as you know, I'm of
01:36:14
the opinion that we shouldn't wait till
01:36:17
we get diseases to treat them. We should
01:36:19
preempt that and start early in life.
01:36:22
And so, yeah, I insisted with my doctor
01:36:24
initially with statins, but on all of
01:36:26
these things, I go in and I say, "I need
01:36:28
you to prescribe me this test. I need
01:36:30
this medicine." And eventually after
01:36:33
talking it over with him, he typically
01:36:35
prescribes me something or gets me a
01:36:37
test. But I've been fighting the system
01:36:40
and my doctor's at Harvard, so he's a
01:36:42
good doctor but conservative. The old
01:36:44
way of doing medicine is if you're not
01:36:46
sick, we're not going to give you a
01:36:47
medicine. Certainly not if you're young
01:36:49
and healthy. Uh but that has to change.
01:36:52
>> So you saying that I should be on
01:36:53
statins potentially?
01:36:53
>> Well, what's your LDL level?
01:36:55
>> Not I don't think it's great. I think I
01:36:56
ate too much bacon or something.
01:36:58
>> Well, we can talk about food and
01:37:00
cholesterol cuz it depends whether you
01:37:02
absorb still or not. We can test for
01:37:04
that. But if you do absorb cholesterol
01:37:07
more than most, I would say that you may
01:37:09
want to change your diet at a minimum.
01:37:11
>> On this plate here in front of us, I
01:37:14
have the
01:37:16
top five foods that I believe you think
01:37:19
are great for reversing aging. Am I
01:37:21
correct? Is that does that
01:37:22
>> these are great choices. Yeah.
01:37:24
>> So, what are these and why? So, we've
01:37:25
already done the blueberries and we've
01:37:26
you've explained to me about polyphenols
01:37:28
and they're rich in them, which I
01:37:29
understand.
01:37:30
>> Mhm.
01:37:30
>> And they're low in sugar, right?
01:37:33
Well, they're not low in sugar, so don't
01:37:35
eat a ton of them. A handful is fine um
01:37:39
as a snack. It's also known that having
01:37:41
too much sugar is bad for longevity.
01:37:43
>> Keep your blood sugar levels steady and
01:37:45
low, as much as you can. So, don't eat
01:37:47
too many of those. A better choice than
01:37:49
blueberries would be something like
01:37:51
matcha, which is not full of sugar. In
01:37:53
fact, if you go to some of these chains
01:37:55
that sell matcha and it tastes really
01:37:57
sweet, you're going to reverse the
01:38:00
effects of any polyphenols by drinking
01:38:01
that much sugar. So, I always have
01:38:03
unsweetened matcha. Okay. So, now we've
01:38:05
got avocados here.
01:38:06
>> Yeah.
01:38:06
>> Yep. Avocados.
01:38:08
>> Um, they're not so much known for their
01:38:10
polyphenols, though they do have them.
01:38:12
It's the type of fats, the
01:38:13
polyunsaturated fats. They help with
01:38:16
satiety, so you're not going to be as
01:38:18
hungry. Uh, so if you put that on your
01:38:20
sandwich at lunch, you're not going to
01:38:21
feel peckish and they're highly
01:38:24
anti-inflammatory as well. The molecules
01:38:25
are in there and the fats are very good
01:38:27
for you.
01:38:29
>> Extra virgin olive oil.
01:38:30
>> Oh yeah. Excellent. So the type of uh
01:38:34
oils that are in there are very healthy.
01:38:36
There's omega 9 which is also known to
01:38:39
activate certuins and again if you have
01:38:41
the right uh grower and this has been
01:38:45
cold pressed not too processed and
01:38:48
stressed before harvesting you'll have
01:38:50
huge amounts of polyphenols as well.
01:38:52
>> I really hope that this is what the team
01:38:55
said it was. [laughter] This has
01:38:57
happened before where I tried something
01:38:59
and I thought it was something else but
01:39:01
it it was some basically it was a white
01:39:03
powder and it was labeled with something
01:39:05
for
01:39:06
>> a yellowine yellow liquid
01:39:08
>> urine or something.
01:39:09
>> Oh urine urine. No, I'm joking. It's
01:39:11
not. [laughter] I can
01:39:13
>> I don't think drinking urine uh is is
01:39:15
longevity but yeah on and off I I do
01:39:18
take a teaspoon of olive oil in the
01:39:20
morning and mix it with rveratrol
01:39:22
polyphenol.
01:39:24
>> Oh okay. Interesting.
01:39:26
>> Okay. Okay. So, extravirgin good.
01:39:29
>> And there's a lot of evidence, not just
01:39:30
molecular like me, but
01:39:32
epidemiologically, people that that have
01:39:34
a lot of olive oil in their diet tend to
01:39:36
have low inflammation and less disease.
01:39:39
>> And we've got some nuts.
01:39:41
>> Yep. Nuts are good for many reasons.
01:39:42
They're full of vitamins and minerals.
01:39:45
Uh if there's a Brazil nut, you want to
01:39:46
have one of those every day for the
01:39:48
selenium, which is a very rare element
01:39:51
in our food supply. And there's a recent
01:39:53
study just last month showing that a
01:39:56
lack of selenium um can be very
01:39:59
delotterious. So nuts are great as a
01:40:01
snack. Be careful. They're full of
01:40:03
calories though. So if you're trying to
01:40:05
lose weight and you're not exercising a
01:40:07
lot, don't overeat on the nuts.
01:40:10
And what? Oh, my least favorite food,
01:40:14
but nevertheless, I will eat them. This
01:40:16
is a Brussels sprout.
01:40:19
Um when I was a kid, Brussels sprouts
01:40:20
tasted a lot more a lot worse. bitter.
01:40:22
[clears throat]
01:40:23
>> Those are good u because they have
01:40:26
polyphenols, but there's also another
01:40:27
molecule in them called sulfurophane.
01:40:30
It's actually the reason they taste
01:40:31
terrible and smell terrible.
01:40:33
Sulfurophane is what it sounds. It has a
01:40:36
sulfur atom in it and that gives it that
01:40:40
rotten egg smell. But sulfurophane
01:40:42
activates these hormesis pathways.
01:40:45
There's one called NRF and that is a
01:40:48
stress response
01:40:50
protein that sulfurophane activates. So
01:40:52
you actually by eating preferably
01:40:55
relatively steamed not fried to death
01:40:58
Brussels sprouts, you'll get
01:40:59
sulforophane. You can also take
01:41:01
sulforophane as a supplement if you
01:41:02
don't like Brussels sprouts.
01:41:04
>> You've used this word pulsing before. Uh
01:41:06
you believe that the body should go
01:41:07
through cycles of stress and recovery
01:41:09
rather than receiving constant daily
01:41:11
inputs. When you say pulsing, what do
01:41:13
you mean? What? Give me an example of
01:41:14
pulsing and why I need to do that.
01:41:16
>> Well, there's there's a few examples.
01:41:18
The first time I came across this result
01:41:21
as a scientist was resveratrol. So,
01:41:23
resveratrol is found in red wine among
01:41:25
other things.
01:41:26
>> And uh it's thought to give the the
01:41:28
health benefits of red wine. And we fed
01:41:30
it to mice, fat mice, skinny mice, old
01:41:33
mice, and it worked very well in the fat
01:41:35
mice. It made them thinner. It made them
01:41:38
live longer. It cured most of their
01:41:41
diseases. They lived about I think it
01:41:43
was 15 20% longer. Then we gave it to
01:41:46
normal mice every day and they lived a
01:41:50
little bit longer but not significantly.
01:41:52
>> Resveratrol.
01:41:52
>> Resveratrol. What we found to my
01:41:54
surprise what does when we gave old mice
01:41:56
rveratrol not every day but every second
01:41:59
day then they lived significantly
01:42:02
longer. So then I thought well maybe
01:42:05
giving them a foreign substance every
01:42:08
day is not good. Maybe there's some side
01:42:10
effect that's counteracting the benefit.
01:42:13
The other thing I want to mention, I
01:42:14
said there's a few examples. Another
01:42:15
good one is metformin. Metformin has
01:42:18
been shown to make athletes and
01:42:20
bodybuilders and people who go to the
01:42:22
gym, weightlifterss, um, do less
01:42:25
repetitions and as a result, their
01:42:27
muscles are about 5% less compared to
01:42:29
those that don't take metformin in size.
01:42:33
I don't think it's molecular. I think
01:42:34
it's because you feel a little bit
01:42:36
weaker with metformin because it's
01:42:38
actually interfering with your body's
01:42:39
ability to make energy through
01:42:40
mitochondria.
01:42:42
Mitochondria, I think most people have
01:42:44
heard of the little power packs living
01:42:46
in our cells originally bacteria that
01:42:48
came into our bodies. The point is that
01:42:51
by pulsing metformin, I think that's a
01:42:53
better way to do it for longevity.
01:42:55
>> You mean cycling it? So like doing it
01:42:57
every other day or
01:42:58
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [clears throat]
01:42:59
I don't take if I take metformin or the
01:43:01
natural equivalent which is bourberine.
01:43:04
If you don't want to take the drug, you
01:43:05
can take bourberine. Um, that also
01:43:07
activates this AMPK, this other so to
01:43:11
and like pathway. Taking it every other
01:43:14
day, I think is better. And particularly
01:43:16
if you like to work out, don't take the
01:43:18
metformin a few hours before you work
01:43:20
out. Take it after or maybe skip it that
01:43:23
day. I think that's a better approach.
01:43:26
You know, every once in a while you come
01:43:27
across a product that has such a huge
01:43:30
impact on your life that you'd probably
01:43:32
describe as a gamecher. And I would say
01:43:36
for about 35 to 40% of my team, they
01:43:40
would currently describe this product
01:43:41
that I have in front of me called Ketone
01:43:44
IQ, which you can get at ketone.com,
01:43:47
as a game changer. But the reason I
01:43:48
became a co-owner of this company and
01:43:49
the reason why they they now are a
01:43:51
sponsor of this podcast is because one
01:43:53
day when I came to work there was a box
01:43:55
of this stuff sat on my desk. I had no
01:43:56
idea what it was. Lily in my team says
01:43:58
that this company have been in touch. So
01:44:00
I went upstairs tried it and quite
01:44:02
frankly the rest is history in terms of
01:44:04
my focus, my energy levels, how I feel,
01:44:07
how I work, how productive I am. Game
01:44:10
changer. So if you want to give it a
01:44:11
try, visit ketone.com/stephven for 30%
01:44:14
off. You'll also get a free gift with
01:44:16
your second shipment. And now you can
01:44:18
find Keton IQ at Target stores across
01:44:20
the United States where your first shot
01:44:23
is completely free of charge. We have
01:44:26
finally caved in. So many of you have
01:44:28
asked us if we could bundle the
01:44:30
conversation cards with the 1% diary.
01:44:32
For those of you that don't know, every
01:44:34
single time a guest sits here with me in
01:44:35
the chair, they leave a question in the
01:44:37
diary of a CEO and then I ask that
01:44:39
question to the next guest. We don't
01:44:40
release those questions in any
01:44:42
environment other than on these
01:44:44
incredible conversation cards. These
01:44:46
have become a fantastic tool for people
01:44:48
in relationships, people in teams, in
01:44:50
big corporations, and also family
01:44:52
members to connect with each other. With
01:44:53
that, we also have the 1% diary, which
01:44:55
is this incredible tool to change habits
01:44:57
in your life. So many of you have asked
01:44:59
if it was possible to buy both at the
01:45:01
same time, especially people in big
01:45:04
companies. So, what we've done is we've
01:45:06
bundled them together and you can buy
01:45:08
both at the same time. And if you want
01:45:09
to drive connection and instill habit
01:45:11
change in your company, head to the
01:45:13
diary.com to inquire and our team will
01:45:15
be in touch. We talked about exercise
01:45:17
earlier. On page 102 of your book, you
01:45:20
talk about how there's a CDC funded
01:45:23
study that found people who exercise
01:45:25
regularly, about 30 minutes of jogging 5
01:45:27
days a week, have telomeres that look 10
01:45:31
years younger than sedentary people,
01:45:33
people that just sit around all day and
01:45:35
do don't do much exercise,
01:45:38
which is pretty remarkable.
01:45:40
How do we know it's the exercise and not
01:45:41
something else? Like how are we able to
01:45:43
establish causation there?
01:45:44
>> Yeah, we don't. We don't. Unfortunately,
01:45:46
all of these association studies just
01:45:48
lead to a need to do placeboc controlled
01:45:51
or at least controlled trials in people.
01:45:54
So, we don't know for sure speaking like
01:45:56
a scientist, but there have been studies
01:45:59
where people are told to do exercise and
01:46:02
those that are told to sit and then you
01:46:03
can compare tum length and that has been
01:46:05
shown. So, that's a much better evidence
01:46:07
of causation. But you're right. When you
01:46:10
see an association, it could be that
01:46:11
people who do exercise also eat
01:46:14
>> well and drink matcha,
01:46:15
>> sleep better and
01:46:16
>> Exactly. So, you have to be careful
01:46:18
interpreting these association studies
01:46:19
always. But when you've got a placebo
01:46:22
control trial or you know these these
01:46:25
studies that are called uh prospective,
01:46:27
not retrospective studies, then they're
01:46:30
better. So, tieumirs are the ends of
01:46:33
chromosomes that get shorter as you as
01:46:34
you get older. Um, we used to use them
01:46:37
really as a good indicator of age,
01:46:39
biological age. Now we use the
01:46:41
epiggenome and the DNA methylation
01:46:42
chemicals as a better clock.
01:46:44
>> And then cold plunges and sauners.
01:46:46
>> Yeah, let's get to those.
01:46:47
>> I've got a sauna in the house, but I
01:46:49
never use it to be honest.
01:46:50
>> You should.
01:46:51
>> But if you if you tell me I should maybe
01:46:53
we should actually jump in there after
01:46:54
this.
01:46:54
>> Well, your girlfriend's still here,
01:46:55
David. So,
01:46:56
>> she can come [laughter] too. Uh, so
01:46:59
sauners are in my mind it it's not even
01:47:02
a question. They are proven to be
01:47:03
beneficial for multiple reasons. Heart
01:47:06
disease and even long-term mortality.
01:47:09
>> What's going on in the sauna in the
01:47:10
heat?
01:47:11
>> Anyone who says they know is lying. We
01:47:13
don't know. But one theory that I like
01:47:16
and it also goes back to yeast cells.
01:47:18
There are what are called heat shock
01:47:19
proteins that come on and defend the
01:47:21
cell when they the cell senses heat. And
01:47:25
it may be that these heat shock defense
01:47:27
proteins called HSC, HSPS
01:47:30
uh come on when we breathe in this moist
01:47:33
hot air, the moisture actually seems to
01:47:35
help as well. And in many studies,
01:47:38
mostly on Finnish men, businessmen, uh
01:47:41
those that go into their home sauners,
01:47:43
and the majority of homes in Finland do
01:47:46
have sauners, so they can do these
01:47:48
studies pretty easily. The bottom line
01:47:51
is that those that didn't do regular
01:47:53
quote unquote sauna bathing uh tended to
01:47:56
die earlier uh in particular from heart
01:47:58
disease and cardiovascular events than
01:48:00
than those that did regular sauna
01:48:02
bathing. So I'm I'm a big advocate of
01:48:05
sauna. I don't have one in my house, but
01:48:07
I do have a really hot steam shower
01:48:09
which I use regularly every day.
01:48:11
>> And is there a difference between the
01:48:12
steam room and the sauna in terms of the
01:48:14
impact here?
01:48:15
>> I think a sauna is better cuz it gets
01:48:17
hotter. Yeah. And I I would have a sauna
01:48:19
if I had my choice.
01:48:20
>> And the cold plunge,
01:48:22
>> not a lot of data, but there's a lot of
01:48:24
theory that again hormesis adversity,
01:48:28
feeling better. There's there's some
01:48:30
evidence that it can actually help with
01:48:31
muscle repair after workouts. But I
01:48:34
think we need a lot more research in
01:48:36
that regard. But then nevertheless, I
01:48:38
used to do it um before I was so busy
01:48:41
and traveling the world. Um and I
01:48:43
certainly feel better. So, even if I
01:48:44
don't didn't live longer because of it,
01:48:46
I I definitely had more mental clarity
01:48:48
and I felt better in general.
01:48:50
>> But but if you were if you were
01:48:52
prioritizing all of the things we've
01:48:53
talked about so far and you had to pick
01:48:55
one,
01:48:56
>> do I have to pick one? Cuz you need more
01:48:58
than one. But
01:48:59
>> in terms of like the most important one,
01:49:02
that's maybe the first domino.
01:49:03
>> Yeah. I I would say that the a
01:49:07
combination of what the easiest biggest
01:49:09
impact you can have combine that that
01:49:11
would be skipping meals. skipping meals.
01:49:14
>> Skipping meals. And then a close second
01:49:15
would be exercise that includes losing
01:49:19
your breath for at least five minutes
01:49:22
three times a week. So what do I mean by
01:49:24
losing your breath for 5 minutes when
01:49:26
you couldn't carry out a conversation
01:49:28
easily that you're panting? If you're
01:49:30
not panting and you're just lifting
01:49:32
weights, that's not going to have the
01:49:33
the kind of benefit.
01:49:35
>> Why?
01:49:36
>> We don't know. But it's been shown that
01:49:38
the health benefits and those that live
01:49:41
long
01:49:43
tend to do a lot more aerobic exercise,
01:49:45
not just weights. But both are important
01:49:48
for mobility, strength, falling in older
01:49:52
age, and hormones like testosterone,
01:49:54
>> red light therapy, um the red light
01:49:56
masks.
01:49:58
>> Yeah. Um
01:49:59
>> red light sauners.
01:50:00
>> At first, I was skeptical. Uh but I've
01:50:02
done the research on the research. Um,
01:50:05
and it looks reasonable. I I use a red
01:50:08
light cap on my head to preserve my
01:50:11
hairline. And uh there's some now good
01:50:13
evidence that the mitochondria, which
01:50:15
are the power packs, and a lot of, you
01:50:18
know, good things come from
01:50:19
mitochondria. They actually are
01:50:21
rejuvenated, either rejuvenated or
01:50:24
enhanced by this certain wavelengths of
01:50:26
red light. You have to get the
01:50:27
wavelength right. But, uh, it's not BS.
01:50:30
It sounds like BS, right? how you shine
01:50:32
light on your skin and it gets better or
01:50:34
you get your hair. But, uh, I think that
01:50:36
there's good evidence now that that it's
01:50:38
not BS.
01:50:39
>> And in terms of the supplement stack
01:50:41
that you take every day.
01:50:43
>> Mhm.
01:50:44
>> If I was to look at the on a if on a
01:50:47
great week where you just did everything
01:50:50
right, what would your supplement stack
01:50:52
look like? And I know this evolves over
01:50:53
time, so I'm very keen to hear what it
01:50:55
is right now.
01:50:56
>> Yeah. Well, that that would be another
01:50:57
podcast uh to go through each one of the
01:50:59
things. And well, I I I travel with
01:51:02
Serena with with a a little little case.
01:51:04
>> Have you got it?
01:51:05
>> I've got it here.
01:51:06
>> Can I see it?
01:51:07
>> Well, no, it's not in it's not in the
01:51:09
studio. Oh,
01:51:09
>> okay.
01:51:10
>> I didn't bring it with me.
01:51:10
>> Can you send me a photo?
01:51:12
>> Sure. Uh, I couldn't publicly share it
01:51:15
because it would be posted all over the
01:51:17
internet. Would things would go crazy,
01:51:18
but I can tell you the the main things.
01:51:20
>> Why would it go crazy on the internet,
01:51:22
would you think? Cuz it's cuz it's
01:51:23
because there's a lot in there.
01:51:25
Well, some of the things are
01:51:26
experimental and I wouldn't want people
01:51:29
>> to
01:51:30
>> to go nuts about it because it's still
01:51:31
experimental.
01:51:32
>> I'm okay experimenting on myself. I'm
01:51:35
not okay advocating for things that are
01:51:37
not yet proven or known to be absolutely
01:51:39
safe.
01:51:40
>> Okay. So, give me the ones that you know
01:51:41
to be safe.
01:51:42
>> Uh well, the enemy we've covered. Yeah.
01:51:46
>> Resveratrol
01:51:48
and either metformin or bourberine.
01:51:51
>> Yeah.
01:51:52
>> Okay. Spermadine. Spermadine.
01:51:55
>> Yeah. And the quantities are either on
01:51:57
the screen or in my book if you want to
01:51:58
know exactly.
01:51:59
>> Is that what it sounds like?
01:52:00
>> Uh, yes. [laughter] Yes. But you get it
01:52:04
these days not from sperm or semen, but
01:52:07
you get it from wheat germ typically
01:52:09
plants.
01:52:10
>> It used to come from sperm.
01:52:12
>> Well, that's how it was discovered. It
01:52:13
was crystallized by, I believe, Anthony
01:52:16
von Lewan Hook, the one of the first
01:52:17
microscopists and microbiologists.
01:52:20
Spermadine. The reason that I take it is
01:52:22
that it extends the lifespan of every
01:52:24
animal that it's been given to from
01:52:27
worms to to mice. And it's a very safe
01:52:29
molecule. So that I always weigh up the
01:52:31
downsides versus the upsides. And if
01:52:34
there's no downsides and I can afford
01:52:36
it, which you know, I work really hard
01:52:38
that so I can afford it and I prioritize
01:52:40
my health, then I take it. And if you're
01:52:44
wondering how it works, it seems to
01:52:46
stimulate autophagy, recycling of
01:52:48
proteins. It helps with the fasting. Uh
01:52:51
but I also have some evidence uh that it
01:52:54
delays the epigenetic information loss.
01:52:57
So it's slowing down the scratching of
01:52:58
the record.
01:53:00
>> Spermadine.
01:53:01
>> All right. So um I'm also um keen on
01:53:04
glycine. Glycine is a very safe
01:53:07
substance. It's an amino acid, one of
01:53:09
the 20 amino acids that makes proteins.
01:53:12
And I actually did a PhD on glycine. I
01:53:15
was one of the first people to perhaps
01:53:17
the first person to clone genes that
01:53:19
process glycine. So I know know it well.
01:53:22
For some reason when you give animals
01:53:24
and for instance mice grams of glycine
01:53:28
so I take about 5 g of glycine most days
01:53:31
uh they live longer though it's still
01:53:33
speculation as to why. What I think is
01:53:36
going on is that glycine controls what's
01:53:39
called one carbon metabolism. And not
01:53:42
wanting to bore the heck out of everyone
01:53:44
who's listening to me, glycine and one
01:53:47
carbon metabolism controls methylation
01:53:50
of DNA. Getting back to the little
01:53:52
chemicals that are on this DNA molecule
01:53:54
that control the information.
01:53:57
I wouldn't be surprised if by eating a
01:54:00
lot of glycine every day, I'm slowing
01:54:03
down this identity crisis you called it.
01:54:06
Nevertheless, it's very safe and again
01:54:08
falls into the same category as
01:54:09
spermadine. No downside. Can't afford
01:54:13
it. Why not?
01:54:15
>> Is there anything else?
01:54:18
>> Yeah, there's a lot. Um because I love
01:54:20
you and your listeners. Uh let's see. I
01:54:23
I'll I'll I'll reveal one more. Um there
01:54:27
are there are some basics that I do
01:54:28
there are if you're not doing them I
01:54:30
think is is where very wise make sure
01:54:32
you're not deficient in vitamin D
01:54:34
obviously we just mentioned one of the
01:54:36
reasons why [snorts]
01:54:38
it's also if you're lacking vitamin D
01:54:39
you can be uh susceptible to certain
01:54:41
cancers so I take a vitamin D supplement
01:54:44
Serena actually I take Serena's
01:54:46
supplement because her vitamin D has
01:54:48
vitamin K2 as well and K2 is another
01:54:51
vitamin that's important for longevity I
01:54:53
believe because it keeps calcium out of
01:54:55
your arteries which causes plaque
01:54:57
>> and tends to make your body put it into
01:54:59
where it belongs which is your bones.
01:55:01
>> What about aspirin? I read that
01:55:03
somewhere.
01:55:04
>> Yeah, that that that could be a whole
01:55:05
podcast actually. But the briefly I take
01:55:09
a baby aspirin every day even though
01:55:12
some doctors um and some institutions of
01:55:15
doctors say don't take it anymore even
01:55:17
though it used to be prescribed and
01:55:19
recommended. Why?
01:55:21
A large study looked at the risks versus
01:55:23
benefits. So the known benefits are you
01:55:26
inh inhibit platelets, you get less
01:55:29
clotting, you get less potentially
01:55:31
uh stroke and heart attack. But there
01:55:34
are also some downsides in some people.
01:55:36
You can have more bleeding in the
01:55:37
stomach. And when the doctor's
01:55:40
association weighed up those risks
01:55:42
versus benefit, they said, "Oopsy, we're
01:55:45
not going to recommend aspirin anymore."
01:55:47
But that's for the average person.
01:55:50
Someone like me, I believe it makes
01:55:52
perfect sense to take aspirin
01:55:54
every day, most days at least when I
01:55:57
remember. And that's because I have a
01:55:59
high risk of cardiovascular disease. I
01:56:02
don't just have high cholesterol
01:56:03
naturally. I have high levels of
01:56:05
something called LP little A, capital
01:56:07
LP, parentheses little A. And this is a
01:56:11
molecule that's just as important as
01:56:12
cholesterol, LDL. um LP little A is a
01:56:16
protein that inserts itself into
01:56:17
cholesterol particles that circulate
01:56:19
your blood and gets in helps insert into
01:56:21
plaque. So I naturally genetically
01:56:24
having an ancestry of um Judaism in
01:56:28
going back to my great ancestors which
01:56:30
by the way I traced back a thousand
01:56:32
years during during Christmas. Those
01:56:34
people that I descended from have this
01:56:36
LP little A gene that makes a lot of it.
01:56:40
And so I try to bring LP little A levels
01:56:42
down. Most people should test for it.
01:56:44
Ask your doctor about LP little A and
01:56:47
get it tested high levels like me 30 40
01:56:52
uh you want to bring it down because it
01:56:53
it's actually very important for
01:56:55
longevity. Uh normal levels of around 10
01:56:58
or so or less then a doctor wouldn't
01:57:01
panic. So LP little a uh get it tested.
01:57:05
The way I'm bringing it down, just a
01:57:07
little uh tidbit again because I love
01:57:09
you, Stephen, is I'm taking highdose
01:57:14
vitamin B3 or nascin.
01:57:16
Now, it can be uncomfortable for some
01:57:18
people to take it because it gives
01:57:20
flushing. You get little tingling in
01:57:21
your skin. And if you're not used to it
01:57:24
or you don't take it with an aspirin,
01:57:25
you'll feel hot almost like menopause
01:57:28
apparently. And so, I I I take it. I
01:57:30
built up to it. I'm taking half a gram.
01:57:32
Some people take a gram. And that's one
01:57:34
of the few things that's been known to
01:57:36
bring down the levels of LP little A.
01:57:39
There are drugs that are in development,
01:57:40
even in phase three, that look
01:57:42
promising, but until they're on the
01:57:43
market, I'm taking Nison instead.
01:57:45
>> What's the best uh treatment you've
01:57:47
discovered for hair loss? Hair loss,
01:57:49
hair graying, that kind of thing.
01:57:51
>> Yeah. So, my father went bald before 30,
01:57:54
like completely bald, right? And
01:57:56
completely almost completely gray by the
01:57:58
time he was 40. So, I'm super lucky,
01:58:01
right? I thought I'd be bold at 30. I
01:58:02
was pretty worried about it. So, I've
01:58:05
been doing the right things
01:58:07
intentionally. So, what I do is this red
01:58:10
light cap when I can. I don't travel
01:58:12
with it, but uh when I can, that's for 6
01:58:15
minutes. Stick it on there.
01:58:17
>> Proven? Is it?
01:58:18
>> Yeah. Proven. It's proven to slow. It
01:58:20
doesn't necessarily give you your hair
01:58:22
back. But when it comes to hair loss,
01:58:24
don't wait till you see the hair loss.
01:58:27
That can be too late.
01:58:29
>> Okay. You're you're good.
01:58:30
>> I'm okay.
01:58:30
>> You're good. But I know a lot of men are
01:58:32
are concerned. It's understandable.
01:58:35
I'm taking a hormone mimedic to stop uh
01:58:39
DHT, which is the form of testosterone
01:58:42
that leads to men related hair loss.
01:58:46
Right. So, one of the reasons that women
01:58:47
don't lose hair as much as men is this
01:58:49
DHT. So, I'm I'm blocking that.
01:58:52
>> So, so let me get that straight. You're
01:58:53
not taking testosterone?
01:58:55
>> No.
01:58:56
>> Because that's going to accelerate your
01:58:58
hair loss. Well, it can if it raises
01:59:01
DHT. The best way to raise testosterone
01:59:03
naturally is to build up muscle,
01:59:05
especially your legs, your back, big
01:59:06
muscles. That's another reason to work
01:59:08
out and maintain muscle mass, which I
01:59:10
need to do more of. You look like you're
01:59:12
in good shape already. But yeah, anyone
01:59:14
who is losing testosterone is is below a
01:59:16
level of about 400, highly recommend
01:59:18
hitting the gym. It'll go back up.
01:59:21
>> Do you recommend men taking testosterone
01:59:23
replacement? Um, well, I'm a scientist,
01:59:26
so I don't recommend drugs, but um, I
01:59:28
don't think it's necessary for most men.
01:59:30
I would start with, uh, reducing stress,
01:59:33
sleeping well, exercising, building up
01:59:35
muscle mass. Uh, and then if that
01:59:37
doesn't work, yeah, talk to your
01:59:39
physician. There there's not a big
01:59:40
downside. There's not a risk of cancer
01:59:42
to taking testosterone. I'm one of my
01:59:45
good friends has done many clinical
01:59:47
trials with testosterone. So, I think
01:59:49
there's a use of use for it, but it
01:59:51
doesn't lead to longevity. That was very
01:59:54
clear. So for for health reasons, yes,
01:59:57
for longevity, no need. What are the
02:00:01
what are some of the um you know when I
02:00:02
started watching your your videos many
02:00:04
years ago listening to your podcast and
02:00:06
following you on Twitter I I wondered
02:00:08
you know there's so much information you
02:00:10
can put out there because you're a
02:00:11
scientist and scientists are very
02:00:12
rigorous but you also must have a set of
02:00:15
really
02:00:17
interesting predictions or visions of
02:00:20
the what the future looks like that you
02:00:22
don't probably always talk about because
02:00:24
they're not scientific. They're not
02:00:25
based on anything. now maybe first
02:00:27
principles in your own mind that formed
02:00:29
where you go actually I think the world
02:00:31
might look like this and I think it
02:00:32
might happen then I'd love to hear about
02:00:33
some of these
02:00:36
>> and I understand they're not rigorous
02:00:37
>> I'm happy to what happens to me because
02:00:40
I'm a scientist and you know I'm part of
02:00:42
this ivory tower at Harvard where we can
02:00:46
only stick to facts and if you go beyond
02:00:48
that it's it's a it's a crime and I've
02:00:51
been criticized for that um but I think
02:00:53
you know as humans life's interesting
02:00:55
when it comes to predicting the future
02:00:58
and like you I'm very curious where is
02:01:00
humanity headed
02:01:02
I see a future as different from this
02:01:04
world as our world is from 200 years ago
02:01:08
and that will happen in our lifetime
02:01:11
different in that 100 years ago or more
02:01:13
if you had an infected splinter there's
02:01:15
a reasonable chance you could die
02:01:18
childirth you could die smallpox these
02:01:21
are things that we don't generally worry
02:01:23
about anymore and the idea would be
02:01:25
abhorrent.
02:01:27
In the future, hopefully within our
02:01:29
lifetimes, there will be a time when we
02:01:31
look back at today's medicine when you
02:01:33
could go blind and there was nothing you
02:01:35
could do. You could break your back and
02:01:37
never walk again. We will look back at
02:01:40
today and say, "How did those people get
02:01:43
through life? What a horrible world they
02:01:45
lived in." That I believe is is the
02:01:47
future that humanity is headed for and
02:01:50
way faster than most people realize is
02:01:53
coming. The kind of breakthroughs that
02:01:54
we've discussed today, most people have
02:01:56
never heard about the fact that we are
02:01:58
aiming and already do cure blindness in
02:02:00
monkeys like pure blindness. This isn't
02:02:03
just, oh, I can't see a little bit.
02:02:05
These are completely blind animals. Um,
02:02:09
and that they can see again in a matter
02:02:11
of 6 weeks. This is remarkable stuff,
02:02:14
right? And if it works this year in
02:02:17
people, it's going to be a really big
02:02:20
deal because for the first time, we we
02:02:22
have we'll have shown in humans that the
02:02:25
body can be reset safely.
02:02:28
And the eye is just the beginning,
02:02:29
right? The future looks like we can
02:02:32
rejuvenate potentially any tissue. If
02:02:35
you have a bad liver, we'll make it
02:02:37
young again. Bad brain, you've lost your
02:02:39
memory, we'll give you those memories
02:02:41
back again. We do this in mice in my lab
02:02:43
all the time. It's not even a big deal
02:02:45
in my lab anymore to reverse the age of
02:02:48
tissues and anal in an animal in a
02:02:51
matter of weeks. That is coming for
02:02:53
humanity hopefully initially this year.
02:02:57
But even if that doesn't work, it's only
02:02:58
a technical issue. We'll solve that. You
02:03:01
might be wondering how do we get the
02:03:03
rejuvenative genes into the body? And
02:03:06
what we do is we use a package that uh
02:03:10
is able to get into cells. And this is a
02:03:13
package that uh resembles a virus. It's
02:03:16
not a virus. It doesn't cause disease.
02:03:18
It's not infectious. But we package our
02:03:20
three genes inside the virus
02:03:23
uh virus like uh substance. And we close
02:03:27
it up. We just made a bunch of this in
02:03:29
Europe for the clinical trial that's
02:03:31
going to begin. Just making this is
02:03:34
difficult. It took us about a year to
02:03:36
make it and was about I think it was $10
02:03:40
million.
02:03:42
Right now it's expensive to do this.
02:03:44
Eventually it will be cheap and
02:03:45
eventually it will be a cheap pill.
02:03:47
Hopefully we have trillions of these
02:03:50
molecules, these delivery vehicles that
02:03:53
will go. So you can pass me the eye.
02:03:56
We're gaining back this eye model. These
02:03:59
delivery vehicles with our three genes
02:04:01
will be delivered. Obviously these are
02:04:03
microscopic. They go in through the eye
02:04:06
with a with a quick jab. All right. It
02:04:09
sounds horrible, but a quick jab into
02:04:11
the eye. If you're blind, who cares?
02:04:13
>> Yeah,
02:04:13
>> it's 2 seconds of discomfort. Now,
02:04:15
you've got the little virus,
02:04:18
which I'm going to break off the stand
02:04:19
here. The little virus, there's billions
02:04:21
of them, trillions of them in the eye.
02:04:23
Now, they infect specifically the nerves
02:04:25
at the back of the eye in the retina.
02:04:27
>> How do they know what to infect? Because
02:04:29
these little balls on the on the package
02:04:32
direct it specifically by design, by our
02:04:34
lab's design just to those nerves at the
02:04:37
back of the eye. If we change these
02:04:39
little proteins on the surface, we can
02:04:41
send it to the liver or to the brain.
02:04:44
This is the zip code, the post code for
02:04:47
where we want to send our three genes.
02:04:48
>> Mhm.
02:04:50
>> But this one's designed for the eye.
02:04:52
It's called an AAV2.
02:04:55
Um, long story short, these are ready to
02:04:58
go into humans. We're just waiting for
02:05:00
FDA approval to inject it into a blind
02:05:03
patient to see what happens.
02:05:05
>> And then inside there is the protein
02:05:07
which is going to fix the
02:05:10
[clears throat]
02:05:11
>> Well, actually, not the protein. What
02:05:14
actually happens is when this goes in
02:05:16
the eye, this what I'm So, what I'm
02:05:18
holding up looks like a little ball with
02:05:19
red dots on it. Um, it looks like a
02:05:22
virus, but it's not. It's a package. Now
02:05:25
what happens is these trillions of
02:05:27
little packages go into the fluid. Now
02:05:30
they they dock with the cells at the
02:05:32
back of the eye. They get inside the
02:05:34
cell and they open up and out comes this
02:05:37
little package that we've made.
02:05:40
This is a protein package. Each one of
02:05:43
these little dots on this little soccer
02:05:46
ball is a protein that's now inside the
02:05:50
cell. This is a little spaceship that
02:05:53
opens up and out of that
02:05:58
comes the DNA. This is a loop of DNA
02:06:02
just here. These are this is the DNA
02:06:04
package that we put in there. Trillions
02:06:06
of them. One of them gets into one cell
02:06:10
and now stays in that cell forever. So
02:06:12
that person or the monkey or the mouse
02:06:15
that we've treated becomes a transgenic
02:06:18
person with genes that we've put in
02:06:22
permanently into the back of the eye,
02:06:24
but they don't do anything until we tell
02:06:26
them to. That's now just sitting there.
02:06:30
We've engineered it uniquely and
02:06:32
patented the ability to turn on those
02:06:35
three genes whenever we want and turn
02:06:37
them off again whenever we want.
02:06:39
>> How? We give them doxycyc. It's used for
02:06:44
malaria. It's used for Lyme disease. And
02:06:46
we're using it in this case to turn
02:06:48
these genes on. So the patients will get
02:06:51
their doxycycline.
02:06:53
uh we'll give them some probiotics to
02:06:54
restore hopefully we'll we'll restore
02:06:56
their microbiome of course but the idea
02:07:00
is that this doxycycl will turn on these
02:07:03
three genes for about 8 weeks and the
02:07:07
doctor in charge of the clinical trial
02:07:09
one of them's at Harvard a good friend
02:07:11
of mine he'll measure the vision of the
02:07:13
first patient before the treatment and
02:07:15
of course regular intervals and if all
02:07:18
goes well because we're treating
02:07:20
patients not healthy volunteers in the
02:07:22
first trial trial, we should know within
02:07:24
a either one or two patients if it works
02:07:28
because we're not drawing a graph. It's
02:07:31
either going to work or it isn't.
02:07:32
>> Mhm.
02:07:32
>> The patient gets better eyesight or it
02:07:34
does or they don't. So by this time next
02:07:37
year, we will know if it works or not.
02:07:40
Maybe even sooner. But publicly, we may
02:07:43
know if this works. And if it works, the
02:07:46
eye is just the beginning. So the first
02:07:48
disease to treat is glaucoma, pressure
02:07:50
in the eye. There's also a stroke in the
02:07:52
eye which is becoming more prevalent in
02:07:54
the world because of the ampic and other
02:07:56
weight loss drugs and people go blind
02:07:58
overnight and there's nothing that you
02:08:00
can do for those patients. They're blind
02:08:02
and their other eye cannot can go a few
02:08:04
months later. It's very scary for them.
02:08:06
These are young people. A friend of mine
02:08:08
had it happen. It's pretty common these
02:08:09
days about 30,000 people each year in
02:08:11
the US alone. But these two diseases are
02:08:14
the beginning. If they work then we go
02:08:16
on to macular degeneration which is the
02:08:18
largest cause of blindness besides
02:08:19
glaucoma. Then we'll go on to liver then
02:08:23
maybe the lung the skin and we'll keep
02:08:26
going from there. We'll make different
02:08:29
packages for different organs and
02:08:31
ultimately we want to rejuvenate the
02:08:34
entire body. The company um people might
02:08:36
want to know it's called life
02:08:37
biosciences. It's a private company but
02:08:40
life biosciences I'm very proud of the
02:08:41
scientists who are doing this work. big
02:08:43
goal is to really make the world's first
02:08:46
age reversal medicine as a pill and
02:08:48
we're working with them using AI to find
02:08:51
that molecule.
02:08:52
>> And when do you think you might have it
02:08:54
if you had to forecast?
02:08:56
>> Uh
02:08:56
>> the world's first age reversal molecule.
02:08:59
That's
02:09:00
>> Well, we have right now we're down to
02:09:03
three molecules that work and we're
02:09:05
using AI to make all of those three in
02:09:08
one and we're we're in the middle of it.
02:09:11
We screened about 8 billion candidates
02:09:14
using AI and right now we're doing the
02:09:17
bench lab work to see if one of them or
02:09:20
more works. And for us to put that in
02:09:23
humans is still a number of years away.
02:09:26
But we should know within a year or two
02:09:29
uh if we're right because we'll we'll
02:09:32
put them into mice and if they get
02:09:34
younger and live longer then we're
02:09:36
really on to something important. And
02:09:38
the reason that I want to make a pill um
02:09:41
is is important for the planet. These
02:09:44
drugs are expensive. I mentioned 10
02:09:46
million bucks to do a clinical trial.
02:09:48
These are expensive. They could cost
02:09:50
over $100,000 per treatment. That's not
02:09:53
going to be for everybody. It's worth it
02:09:55
if you're blind. It's worth it for the
02:09:57
country to cure blindness. But what if
02:10:00
it could be instead of $100,000,
02:10:03
$100? That's what I'm working for. I
02:10:05
want to democratize this technology so
02:10:07
anyone even in Kenya can take these
02:10:10
medicines.
02:10:12
>> David, what's the most important thing
02:10:13
we haven't talked about that we should
02:10:14
have talked about as it relates to
02:10:17
>> the future longevity
02:10:20
and these adjacent subjects?
02:10:22
>> There's a lot of things and there's
02:10:23
there's push back. There's philosophical
02:10:25
push back from
02:10:27
>> religious folks who don't believe that
02:10:29
we should play God. And I would I would
02:10:31
argue to them that we've been doing that
02:10:34
as a species for thousands of years,
02:10:36
changing our biology, taking medicines,
02:10:39
plant medicines originally.
02:10:41
What about this room is natural?
02:10:44
>> Right? We change our world as species.
02:10:46
Aging is no different. In fact, it's
02:10:48
crazy that we haven't worked on it
02:10:49
sooner.
02:10:50
>> Do you believe in God?
02:10:52
So the the the the short answer is I
02:10:55
believe that there is something beyond
02:11:00
reality as we see it. You know I study
02:11:03
physics. Physics is so weird and anyone
02:11:06
who says they understand the quantum
02:11:08
world or quantum mechanics is I think is
02:11:10
also lying there. It's so bizarre.
02:11:13
Quantum entanglement simulation theory.
02:11:16
So I believe that that this this is not
02:11:19
a solid desk. I believe that there are
02:11:21
multiple versions of it. Maybe infinite
02:11:23
number of versions of this desk.
02:11:25
>> We've got four.
02:11:27
>> You do?
02:11:27
>> We've got four of them.
02:11:28
>> Yeah. But it's four times infinity. Um I
02:11:32
also I also believe that consciousness
02:11:35
is the ultimate goal of the universe
02:11:39
that consciousness creates reality. We
02:11:41
know that from particle physics. The
02:11:44
observation of particles changes their
02:11:46
reality even retrospectively in time.
02:11:49
Apparently,
02:11:50
>> when you look at them,
02:11:51
>> when you observe them, you can use a
02:11:52
camera or you can use your eyes.
02:11:54
Usually, it's a detector, but the the
02:11:58
detection and then conscious
02:12:00
interpretation of a particle's behavior
02:12:02
changes how it acts.
02:12:06
So, does does this mean that there's
02:12:08
something behind this wall unless we
02:12:10
look at it? Maybe, maybe, maybe
02:12:12
observation creates reality. We know it
02:12:14
influences reality. So, I don't know if
02:12:17
I would call it God, but I'm definitely
02:12:20
spiritual in a scientific way.
02:12:22
>> Has it ever dawned on you that actually
02:12:25
you might be the only real person here?
02:12:29
And actually, we only we all render when
02:12:31
you walked in, David,
02:12:32
>> I wasn't here before.
02:12:34
>> Yeah. Uh, well, that's even plausible,
02:12:37
but that would be very narcissistic to
02:12:39
you. [laughter]
02:12:42
>> I I actually I just rendered when you
02:12:44
walked in the house today. I I I've I
02:12:47
don't exist. [clears throat]
02:12:47
>> Well, there's no way of proving it right
02:12:49
or wrong, actually. Um I think most kids
02:12:52
think that initially, [laughter] but
02:12:53
then you then you realize it's probably
02:12:55
the least likely explanation for the
02:12:57
world, but there is some there is some
02:13:00
truth to that uh in terms of physics. Um
02:13:03
>> do you think we're in a simulation?
02:13:05
>> I think there's a better than 50% chance
02:13:08
that this is simulated.
02:13:13
>> So, you think it's probably a
02:13:14
simulation? That's another way. I think
02:13:15
it's probably a simulation.
02:13:17
Certainly, the world that we think it is
02:13:19
is not the world we think it is.
02:13:21
>> How can you be so sure?
02:13:22
>> Because when you get down to measuring
02:13:24
it at the fundamental level, reality
02:13:26
doesn't exist the way we think it does.
02:13:31
Things are created, things change just
02:13:34
by human observation.
02:13:36
That is the weirdest thing that you
02:13:37
could ever find in science. I don't know
02:13:39
why we aren't talking about it more.
02:13:42
This reality cannot be true if me
02:13:45
looking at this DNA molecule here
02:13:48
affects the the actual particles inside
02:13:50
it.
02:13:51
>> So I'm I might be sort of projecting it.
02:13:54
>> Yeah. You create realities of particles
02:13:57
at least maybe even macroscopic things
02:14:01
just by existing and having
02:14:03
consciousness
02:14:04
and having eyes and sensing it.
02:14:09
How does the particle know that you've
02:14:11
seen it?
02:14:14
>> How do we know that that's true? How do
02:14:15
we know that particles change based on
02:14:17
observation?
02:14:18
>> There's a classic uh double slit
02:14:20
experiment uh it's formerly called um
02:14:22
that was done I believe in the mid 20th
02:14:24
century maybe earlier. If you fire two
02:14:27
particles through two slits in a board,
02:14:30
the board blocks the particles. So you
02:14:32
can fire electrons is a good example.
02:14:35
Electrons, if you're observing them,
02:14:37
will go straight through the slits and
02:14:38
hit a backboard that detects it. Can be
02:14:40
film, can be a detector, and it'll get
02:14:43
two slits behind. Makes sense, right?
02:14:46
That's our reality. Two slits, particles
02:14:49
go through. If they hit the board, they
02:14:50
don't go to the detector. If they go
02:14:52
through one slit, they'll land on the
02:14:53
left. If they go through the right slit,
02:14:55
they'll land on the right.
02:14:56
>> Yeah,
02:14:57
>> that's our reality.
02:14:57
>> I'll put a picture on the screen for
02:14:59
anyone that's following.
02:15:00
>> Yeah. If you don't look at it, the
02:15:03
particles can behave
02:15:05
differently. They now behave not like a
02:15:07
particle but by a wave as a wave. And
02:15:10
they interact with each other. And they
02:15:13
don't make two slits. They make multiple
02:15:14
lines on the detector. Most of them are
02:15:17
in the middle. So the heaviest bands are
02:15:20
in the middle, but they also form other
02:15:22
bands. The bands go on essentially in
02:15:25
infinite, but most of it's, you know,
02:15:26
within a range. Why? because they're
02:15:29
they're interfering with each other like
02:15:31
waves. But here's the thing,
02:15:34
the mere act of looking at where they
02:15:37
landed, if you are detecting that,
02:15:40
you'll get two slits at the back, two
02:15:43
two lines. If you're not detecting it,
02:15:46
it'll form the pattern.
02:15:48
>> I'm so confused because
02:15:50
how would you know unless you were
02:15:51
looking at both?
02:15:54
Do you know what I mean? Do does that
02:15:55
does that question make sense?
02:15:56
>> Yeah. Well, you can obs observe it in
02:15:59
real time and you can observe it
02:16:00
retroactively. Yeah.
02:16:02
>> Oh, okay. So, if you look at it after
02:16:04
>> it it generally is not affected, but
02:16:09
they've done experiments where there is
02:16:11
some element seemingly of retroactive,
02:16:13
but generally we're not going back in
02:16:15
time. In fact, people debate whether
02:16:17
that's truly measuring back in time. So,
02:16:19
let's leave retroactive aside. If you
02:16:22
measure it in real time, you'll see two.
02:16:26
So the world knows you're looking at it.
02:16:27
The particles know you're looking at it
02:16:29
>> with an eye or with can you do it like a
02:16:31
camera or is it
02:16:32
>> Yeah, camera eye.
02:16:33
>> It just knows it's being observed.
02:16:35
>> Yeah. But if you develop the film later
02:16:37
and you weren't watching it at the time,
02:16:39
it's going to have affected the world in
02:16:41
stripes,
02:16:44
multiple stripes.
02:16:46
>> So from that we conclude that we know
02:16:49
nothing about reality,
02:16:50
>> right?
02:16:53
Because everything I'm observing is
02:16:55
changing by the mere fact that I've
02:16:57
observed it.
02:16:58
>> Yeah. And so does an octopus observe?
02:17:01
Does it affect? Somebody should do that.
02:17:03
Put an an octopus in there.
02:17:06
>> Yeah. I think octopi if they are
02:17:09
conscious it probably would also affect
02:17:11
reality.
02:17:13
And I they they'd be conscious. They
02:17:14
they they'd know they're detecting lines
02:17:16
on a page.
02:17:17
>> So what is all this stuff?
02:17:20
That is one of the biggest questions of
02:17:22
all time. What is the world made of? Why
02:17:25
are we here? I think the next big
02:17:27
question is, do we have to age? And I
02:17:31
think that other species around the
02:17:32
universe have figured this out before we
02:17:34
have. There have got to be other
02:17:36
species, type of life forms that have
02:17:39
figured this out. I think it's the goal
02:17:40
of every living form that's conscious to
02:17:43
work on this. We've just been a little
02:17:45
slow to figure it out.
02:17:47
>> And do you believe in aliens?
02:17:49
I don't believe in them but I believe in
02:17:51
mathematical probabilities and
02:17:54
you know knowing uh the odds and the
02:17:57
number of planets that are out there in
02:17:59
the trillions and a lot of them are
02:18:01
habitable for life and that the stuff of
02:18:04
DNA and proteins are all over meteorites
02:18:06
and planets. It'd be crazy to say there
02:18:09
isn't other life. Now is it a
02:18:11
civilization? Is it conscious? We don't
02:18:13
know that. But definitely there's life
02:18:16
out there. it it it's got to be all over
02:18:18
the universe.
02:18:20
>> This question about longevity and living
02:18:23
forever, it always comes back to this
02:18:25
point of like meaning and like what is
02:18:27
the point? And when we think about I
02:18:29
think there's an alien a million light
02:18:31
years away on some planet like what is
02:18:33
the point of their life? What is or am I
02:18:35
is this like a null and void question
02:18:37
that we always pursue this point of like
02:18:39
what's the meaning of life? Is it just
02:18:41
to have a good time and have, you know,
02:18:43
I don't know, have sex and have kids and
02:18:45
or I don't know,
02:18:48
enjoy ourselves and experience it.
02:18:51
>> This is the existential crisis of
02:18:53
conscious beings. We all need to find
02:18:55
purpose for sure. If you don't find one
02:18:58
cuz that's a key to longevity. People
02:19:00
with purpose live longer.
02:19:03
I think the purpose of the universe
02:19:05
existing is to allow consciousness to
02:19:09
emerge through biology. It may be by
02:19:12
design. It may just be coincidence with
02:19:14
infinite numbers of universes. But this
02:19:17
universe is set up for life and
02:19:18
consciousness. There are some uh small
02:19:22
changes you can make to physics that
02:19:24
would make this universe completely
02:19:27
impossible and life impossible. So this
02:19:28
this is a life consciousness producing
02:19:31
universe.
02:19:33
Does that mean there's meaning to us
02:19:35
existing?
02:19:37
No.
02:19:38
But I do know that consciousness is the
02:19:41
most interesting and important thing
02:19:43
that the universe will ever produce
02:19:46
and that it's worth preserving. So I'm a
02:19:49
lot like Elon Musk where humans are
02:19:51
amazing but cruel creatures, but
02:19:54
consciousness should be preserved.
02:19:56
>> What is consciousness in this regard?
02:19:58
Consciousness is the ability to know
02:20:00
that you're thinking and to be able to
02:20:02
be reflective, self-reflective.
02:20:04
>> So, is my dog conscious
02:20:06
>> partially,
02:20:07
>> but not in the same way?
02:20:08
>> No, they don't reflect. They don't think
02:20:10
about the past in the same way that we
02:20:12
do, and they're not aware of their
02:20:13
themselves the way we are, but but
02:20:15
they're semi-conscious, you know, they
02:20:17
think. They can predict the future. They
02:20:20
they know how you're feeling. They have
02:20:23
empathy. That's that's a form of
02:20:24
consciousness in my view. Of course,
02:20:26
it's up for debate. But so there's
02:20:28
levels of consciousness and and about a
02:20:31
million years ago, humans crossed that
02:20:33
threshold into pure consciousness.
02:20:36
>> Well,
02:20:36
>> maybe not pure.
02:20:37
>> I was going to say I was just thinking
02:20:38
about this. I was like, actually, maybe
02:20:40
consciousness is just a spectrum and
02:20:42
maybe there's another organism that I'm
02:20:44
currently inside the belly of and it's
02:20:46
going Steven thinks he's conscious. He
02:20:48
has no idea.
02:20:50
>> Well, you bring up a good point. Not not
02:20:53
about being in the stomach of, but we
02:20:55
are not the ultimate consciousness.
02:20:56
There are other levels of consciousness.
02:20:58
Serena Pune, my partner, is definitely
02:21:00
more conscious than I am. I am like a
02:21:02
gorilla to her. She exists on other
02:21:04
planes of consciousness. And you, if
02:21:07
you're wondering what what do I mean by
02:21:08
different levels.
02:21:10
>> No, I've got a girlfriend. Well, a
02:21:11
fiance, so I know as well.
02:21:12
>> Well, [laughter]
02:21:13
females in general, don't kill me. I
02:21:16
know there there are some some men that
02:21:17
don't like me saying this. In fact, I
02:21:19
got a death threat for saying females
02:21:21
are superior to men in my book. U they
02:21:23
said they were going to come and break
02:21:24
my legs, but I'm going to say it anyway.
02:21:27
Females are at a higher level of
02:21:29
consciousness than us men for for some
02:21:31
things. They certainly have much more
02:21:32
EQ. [gasps] So a higher level of
02:21:34
consciousness is the ability to have
02:21:37
extra perception including the ability
02:21:40
to see yourself thinking. And then my my
02:21:43
belief is that higher levels of
02:21:45
consciousness are the ability to see
02:21:48
yourself seeing yourself seeing yourself
02:21:50
thinking.
02:21:54
I couldn't get there. I tried.
02:21:56
>> Right. Do you do you know you're
02:21:57
thinking right now?
02:22:00
>> Yes.
02:22:00
>> Yeah. Do you have the ability to see the
02:22:03
events that know
02:22:06
that you're thinking?
02:22:14
>> Not. Not really.
02:22:15
>> It's hard, right?
02:22:15
>> Yeah. I tried.
02:22:16
>> It's hard. But I That's what I think
02:22:19
extra consciousness is. And you could
02:22:22
maybe have pure consciousness, which is
02:22:24
you you can you can basically be free of
02:22:28
anything but thoughts and the ability to
02:22:32
really be inside your own your own mind
02:22:35
and it's pure interesting thought is I
02:22:40
believe AI will be conscious
02:22:42
and not only that will be more conscious
02:22:45
than we are
02:22:48
eventually. There's no reason why they
02:22:50
can't evolve billions of times faster
02:22:53
than we do.
02:22:54
>> Are you somewhat concerned about AI?
02:22:56
Like, are you concerned that there's
02:22:58
going to be this intelligent life
02:22:59
amongst us that might um decide that
02:23:01
we're not important?
02:23:03
>> I think that there are risks to AI, but
02:23:06
but different than what the mainstream
02:23:08
media talks about. Um, we already see
02:23:12
that there are elements of self analysis
02:23:14
and early forms of dog like
02:23:16
consciousness in AI. And it's just the
02:23:18
early days, so it's coming.
02:23:20
Imagine when we stick on eyeballs and
02:23:23
hearing and legs and arms onto these AI,
02:23:26
they're going to learn. They're going to
02:23:27
read. They've already read every book on
02:23:29
the planet. They're going to learn from
02:23:30
experience. They're going to be
02:23:31
conscious. They're going to know they
02:23:32
exist. I'm not worried about those
02:23:35
creatures. I think that they will have
02:23:37
empathy. They will be kind. Not all of
02:23:39
them. There will be some cruel ones just
02:23:41
like in humanity. We'll need to have
02:23:44
rules. Misbehavior uh is a problem. The
02:23:48
where I I get nervous is that the use of
02:23:53
AI teaming up with
02:23:56
a million android robots
02:23:59
on ships invading a country all under
02:24:01
the control of you. One person
02:24:04
recruiting home robots into an army. Why
02:24:07
wouldn't you have conscription for your
02:24:09
android robot at home reprogramming that
02:24:12
millions of them will exist one day?
02:24:14
They can be put to work, not just
02:24:16
emptying a dishwasher. These are highly
02:24:19
intelligent, much more physical,
02:24:21
stronger creatures than we are. So, I'm
02:24:24
more worried about what bad humans will
02:24:27
use AI and robots for for evil purposes.
02:24:32
your um you have a podcast that's um
02:24:36
coming back.
02:24:37
>> Exactly. Yeah. Excited. Yeah.
02:24:39
>> Yeah. So, Lifespan uh the podcast um I
02:24:43
did the podcast because uh there was so
02:24:46
much new information that needs
02:24:48
interpretation by scientists. There's a
02:24:50
lot of speculation out there and new
02:24:52
news that I want to
02:24:55
filter and and and interpret for
02:24:58
everybody who is interested in living
02:25:00
longer. So, the podcast um went to
02:25:02
basically went to number one in in
02:25:04
health when I started it. Um I took a
02:25:06
pause cuz I I worked on drug development
02:25:09
and I did some other things, but I've
02:25:11
realized there's such a demand. Wherever
02:25:13
I go, people say, "David, when when's
02:25:14
the next series?" So, we're going to be
02:25:17
launching it uh imminently. If not,
02:25:20
we've just launched it
02:25:22
>> and uh it's called Lifespan. Check it
02:25:24
out. And it's all about the kind of
02:25:26
things we've talked about today, but
02:25:29
a lot more about digging in deeper into,
02:25:32
you know, biohacking, supplements,
02:25:34
exercise, the kind of things we didn't
02:25:35
have time to talk about today. But we
02:25:37
covered a lot. Um, I've loved the
02:25:40
conversation, but lifespan.com is also
02:25:42
the website. What I'm also doing,
02:25:44
Stephen, I don't think I told you this.
02:25:46
I'm I'm aiming to build the world's
02:25:49
largest longevity community online for
02:25:52
the benefit of the members who want to
02:25:55
be part of this to learn from each other
02:25:57
not just from me. Um I call it the three
02:26:00
C's with credibility which is what I
02:26:02
bring cuz I'm a scientist content which
02:26:05
is my podcast and other written
02:26:07
material. And then there's the
02:26:09
community. And that way, I think with
02:26:11
millions of people together, we can
02:26:12
learn faster and make advances. And the
02:26:16
majority of the profits from membership
02:26:18
will go to science and clinical trials.
02:26:22
>> Where where do we find that? On your
02:26:23
website,
02:26:24
>> lifespan.com.
02:26:26
>> We have a closing tradition on this
02:26:27
podcast where the last guest leaves a
02:26:28
question for the next, not knowing who
02:26:30
they're leaving it for. And I have a
02:26:32
funny feeling that I
02:26:36
h I basically asked you this question
02:26:38
already.
02:26:40
[sighs]
02:26:41
The question is, what do you believe is
02:26:44
the purpose of life?
02:26:47
>> Well, I'm going to give a different
02:26:48
answer because there are multiple ways
02:26:49
to answer it.
02:26:52
I think the purpose of life is to do
02:26:55
your best with the skills that you've
02:26:58
been given.
02:27:01
every day to make the world a better
02:27:03
place for future generations. And that's
02:27:06
how I live my life every day.
02:27:09
Thank you. Thank you for doing all that
02:27:11
you do. You really are pushing the
02:27:12
frontier forward and uh trailblazers.
02:27:17
Being a trailblazer comes with a cost, a
02:27:20
cost many people wouldn't want to pay. I
02:27:21
mean, you you have to be wrong a lot in
02:27:22
terms of running experiments and studies
02:27:25
and them not going to plan. And then you
02:27:26
get the opportunity to be right probably
02:27:28
less often I guess with your research
02:27:30
and experiments because that's the
02:27:31
nature of being a scientist. Um but also
02:27:35
you have to spend a lot of money and
02:27:36
energy and time on creating these
02:27:39
discoveries which we all ultimately
02:27:40
therefore benefit from. And you've done
02:27:42
a fantastic job of convincing and
02:27:45
educating people like me on some of the
02:27:47
basics of exactly what your book says,
02:27:50
why we age and why we don't have to. and
02:27:54
many of the the accessible lifestyle
02:27:56
factors that everybody listening now can
02:27:58
can use to live a longer, happier,
02:28:00
healthier life for them and their loved
02:28:02
ones. And I highly recommend people go
02:28:04
and get your book. It's it was a smash
02:28:05
hit New York Times bestseller for very
02:28:07
very good reason. And you the great
02:28:09
thing about this book is you don't have
02:28:11
to be a scientist to fly through it. Um,
02:28:14
and often times when you're looking at
02:28:16
sort of PubMed and some of these
02:28:17
scientific journals, they're incredibly
02:28:19
inaccessible. They're very, very
02:28:22
complicated. Um, but I also recommend
02:28:23
people go follow you on social media.
02:28:25
That's where I see so so many of your
02:28:26
updates, especially on X. That's kind of
02:28:27
where I've you continually come up on my
02:28:29
timeline when you're talking about new
02:28:30
research and things you're interested
02:28:31
in. Um, and go to your website. I'm
02:28:33
going to link all of that below for
02:28:35
everybody who's interested in more. And
02:28:37
also, I'm going to link your podcast
02:28:38
below so people can go and check it out
02:28:40
when it relaunches shortly. Might have
02:28:42
relaunched already, but just go look in
02:28:43
the comments se in the description
02:28:44
below. David, thank you.
02:28:46
>> Thank you, Stephen. I really enjoyed it.
02:28:48
Thank you. YouTube have this new crazy
02:28:50
algorithm where they know exactly what
02:28:52
video you would like to watch next based
02:28:54
on AI and all of your viewing behavior.
02:28:56
And the algorithm says that this video
02:28:59
is the perfect video for you. It's
02:29:02
different for everybody looking right
02:29:03
now. Check this video out and I bet you
02:29:05
you might love it.
