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