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Latest revision as of 02:49, 15 September 2023
- Length: 37:49
- Interviewee: Dr. David Sinclair
- Interviewer: Kalli Purie
David Sinclair is a man who claims his ‘biological age’ is 10 years less than his actual age of 53. The Harvard Geneticist is a leader in longevity science. Watch him in a riveting conversation with Kalli Purie, Vice Chairperson, India Today Group at the #IndiaTodayConclave. The two discuss the formula to look younger, how healthy sugar is for you, whether fruits are a good substitute for sugar, the newly-researched stress-busting food, the benefits of red wine and the magic of metformin
Transcript
Introduction
0:00 | good afternoon everyone we're fast coming to an Era where we |
0:07 | will be celebrating our DNA age and not our birth age our birthdays will mean we get younger |
0:14 | and not older imagine that I have with me |
0:20 | the handsome Miracle almost 54 year old doctor from Howard Middle medical school |
0:27 | who specialized in molecular genetics |
0:33 | he promises no aging no wrinkles no disease and possibly choosing your own |
0:40 | death date author of lifespan and professor of |
0:46 | genetics welcome there are many beautiful people here today in the audience but Everyone |
0:53 | likes a few tips right so first of all can you explain to the |
0:58 | audience here what is the basic theory of reversing aging and bio switches |
1:07 | well thank you Kali thank you for having me today uh so the science of aging and aging |
1:13 | reversal has come a long way in the past 20 years uh when I started at Harvard Medical School it was considered crazy to try |
1:21 | and slow down aging let alone reverse it but the science is now at a point where |
1:26 | we really do understand what drives aging and also that there's a backup copy of Youth in every one of |
1:33 | our many trillions of cells that we've just recently learned how to access and |
1:39 | reboot the body like you would reboot an old computer and reinstate the youthfulness of |
1:45 | tissues and organs and make them work again like they were young and this is only a few |
1:51 | years old now but it's the technology is far beyond what I thought I would see in my lifetime and it's only getting faster |
1:57 | in its development so can you explain the basic Theory |
2:04 | which is about keeping the body under a state of constant stress to activate the |
2:10 | longevity genes how does that work Yeah you mentioned the bio switches what |
2:15 | we discovered in my lab and in many labs around the world that is that there are genes that |
2:21 | control how long we live some of us are born with the best versions of those genes and |
2:27 | those people tend to live over a hundred those with parents like the Prime |
2:33 | Minister that lived over 100 I tend to live also for a long time but most of us |
2:39 | are not born with the perfect set of genes so we need to do a little extra and what we've discovered is that how we |
2:46 | live our life what we eat how much we move the type of molecules that we |
2:51 | ingest every day how we sleep how relaxed we are how many friends we have this modifies another type of system in |
2:59 | the body that's called the epigenome the epigenome is different from the genome |
3:05 | I think you all know that the genome is the DNA that we get from our parents the epigenome is what controls the DNA that |
3:13 | tells a brain cell to be different from a liver cell from a toenail producing cell |
3:18 | and over time we lose those instructions the epigenetic instructions become lost |
3:26 | and what we've found is that by living a healthy life the kind of life that we'll talk about |
3:31 | later you can slow that rate of Aging and prevent this this Corruption of the |
3:36 | body software and even reboot it so can we talk a little bit about this |
3:43 | style of living what are the things that we can do to slow that aging process down and activate these genes |
3:51 | yeah well there's there's some good and bad news the good news is that aging is much easier to slow and reverse than we |
3:56 | thought the bad news is that what causes us to slow our aging process is to give our |
4:04 | bodies a bit of a shock in today's lifestyle most of us have an |
4:10 | abundance many of us we have enough food and we don't need to exercise that's not the way we used to live and |
4:17 | it's not the way our bodies perform the best by sitting for most of our lives and |
4:23 | eating almost you know constantly three meals a day for many of us we end up |
4:28 | turning off these body switches and the body ages faster and faster so we've |
4:33 | built a world that's very comfortable but the backlash is that we age faster |
4:39 | so what we've discovered in my lab in studies in yeast cells that make bread |
4:45 | and beer in worms and flies and mice and monkeys and now humans is that we want to put our bodies into a state of |
4:52 | adversity make the body feel a little bit uncomfortable so how do we do that well we can skip meals we can exercise |
5:00 | we can eat food that it's that is plucked from the ground when it's also |
5:06 | stressed because they have wonderful chemicals in them that make us healthier and we can also get enough rest and calm |
5:13 | down the sleep that leads to inflammation and other things like that so really you want to make your body |
5:19 | fearful of running out of food or fearful that you're having to run away from a from a tiger and that turns on |
5:26 | the body's defenses against aging we've learned but that doesn't reverse aging |
5:32 | so much that's requires a little bit more attention which we've only recently figured out how to control |
Skipping meals
5:44 | and before can we talk a little bit about skipping meals what what do you recommend as a |
5:52 | diet for slowing down the aging process |
5:57 | there is a set of genes that I wrote about in my book lifespan that's called |
6:02 | the sirtuins and they get turned on when there's not enough energy in the body so |
6:08 | if you don't have a lot of sugar in your bloodstream or a lot of protein they will get turned on and they defend the body against the damage that causes the |
6:16 | the aging process and so what I've over time learned to do is to skip meals I'm |
6:23 | not always successful sometimes I have breakfast in in uh in beautiful places but from my my goal is |
6:31 | to not eat a large meal until dinner and then I eat a very healthy vegan meal |
6:39 | uh and very rarely alcohol and this diet that I have gone on to for now about 18 |
6:45 | months my partner Serena poon who's a nutritionist and a longevity expert as |
6:51 | well moved me from what I thought was a healthy diet Mediterranean diet with |
6:56 | some red wine and cheese I went completely to mostly well almost completely to plants and my body has |
7:03 | responded I look better I think my skin is better I feel better my memory is certainly better |
7:09 | but I think it's not just what you eat it's also when you eat and this constant eating three meals a day plus snacks is |
7:17 | making us age faster than we need to so are you recommending intermittent fasting |
7:23 | well the way we put it Serena and I is you want to eat within a certain window and so I like to eat within a period of |
7:30 | about six hours a day and not more I can snack you know some snacks might be some |
7:36 | sugar-free chocolate or some nuts or some avocado it's not a crime to eat if |
7:42 | you're a little bit hungry but don't eat a big meal and if you can until either late at night or or have it in the |
7:48 | morning because you want to have a period where your body is not ingesting food and it will turn on its defenses |
7:54 | against disease and aging see can you talk a little bit about the fact when you went almost 20 hours without eating |
8:02 | and you did that for a period of time yeah so 20 hours is a long time to go |
8:07 | without food every day but your body gets used to it I found that after two weeks of doing that I was not hungry |
8:13 | anymore if I felt a little bit hungry I would drink a lot of tea Serena and I |
8:18 | have a green tea matcha which is filled with all these wonderful chemicals from stress plants and drink drink a lot of water and tea I |
8:25 | think here in India we know how to do that and that is the solution and |
8:31 | we often think oh we need to feed the body the sugar that you know have a dessert have a have some some lollies |
8:37 | but really your body can make its own sugar your liver makes sugar you just |
8:42 | need to wait two weeks for it to get used to it our liver is pretty lazy but after two weeks it learns ah in the |
8:48 | morning I have to make some sugar and what what I found is that my liver making sugar is a lot smarter than my |
8:54 | eyes and my mouth eating sugar because when we eat three meals our sugar goes up and down and up and down and we get |
8:59 | we get lots of energy then we crash and we get brain fog and then we need eat again and we're hungry and you go like |
9:04 | this through the day when you don't eat until dinner your steady with your sugar because your |
9:10 | liver knows what to do and you can focus and just have a lot of energy so one meal a day |
9:16 | um you would recommend that and what would you recommend in that one meal |
9:22 | yeah well try to eat and try to at least skip one meal a day that would be my recommendation and if you can do two |
9:28 | even better some people go without food for three days I've never been able to do that I like food |
9:34 | but what's in the food well as I mentioned I went from drinking a lot of red wine because |
9:39 | red wine actually that the component of red wine Resveratrol was discovered in my lab to slow aging so I thought drink |
9:45 | a lot of red wine that's got to be healthy but the new research just over the last two years says that alcohol |
9:51 | drinking drinking alcohol every day is really not good for you so I've cut out |
9:56 | alcohol and I've focused on Plants so this vegan diet has no Dairy which is very difficult here in India yes uh but |
10:04 | we we do that we substitute milk with coconut and nut based milks and yogurts |
10:11 | they taste very good as well and then so a typical dinner would be |
10:16 | well plant-based meals that that taste just or even better than what I used to |
10:21 | eat and I don't feel like I'm lacking anything and you might ask well why would you do that well there's a lot of |
10:27 | science behind it the Protein that's in plants is actually has a ratio of amino acids that |
10:34 | stimulates these longevity genes the septuans and another one called mtor and |
10:39 | if you always eat meat every meal your body is just not fighting aging the way it could if you ate more plants |
10:46 | so you're against meat in that sense well I love meat I would love to eat |
10:52 | meat they taste it tastes really good it's just the science says plants give you better bang for the Bark for |
10:57 | longevity than meat I mean you can eat meat occasionally fish for example has a lot of great omega-3 fatty acids |
11:04 | um so I'm not against meat I just think try to focus more on plants if you can you say you said something about |
11:10 | stressed vegetables okay you talk a little bit about that what is that versus you know normal organic |
11:17 | vegetables yeah so when Farmers grow vegetables they try to grow them as fast as |
11:23 | possible it's much more economical the problem with that is that giving plants a lot of |
11:29 | sunlight and water and fertilizer makes them very happy |
11:34 | and as I just told you a happy organism does not is not a healthy organism so |
11:40 | when plants have a little bit of stress so a little bit of lack of water or there's a little bit of a caterpillar on |
11:46 | there or even not a lot of sun in the case of green tea matcha they put the |
11:51 | plants in the shade then those plants respond in a stress response they turn on the production of chemicals |
11:58 | called polyphenols Resveratrol from red wine is a polyphenol that's produced |
12:03 | when the plants get stressed and it's my theory which has a name a terrible name I |
12:09 | apologize it's called Xeno hormesis zenor means I was hoping you were not going to bring it up because of the |
12:15 | terrible name yeah well just remember eat if your food is stressed then you |
12:20 | get the benefits stress your food so you don't have to and so what we focus on Serena and I are |
12:26 | plants that are full of color Serena says eat the rainbow so try to eat bright red and purple dark green colored |
12:34 | vegetables because those are the ones that have these polyphenols that can turn on the body's defenses and actually |
12:40 | in my lab if we give polyphenols to mice they actually get healthier and run |
12:45 | further like they've been exercising so these little molecules polyphenols can actually not substitute but can help you with |
12:53 | your exercise and your otherwise healthy plant diet so in Superstores we're going to have inorganic organic and stressed |
13:01 | vegetables now that's a great business plan we should do that |
Sugar
13:07 | sugar sugar is very addictive of and it's a real pick me up so is there a healthy way to |
13:13 | have sugar uh depends on the sugar if you're talking about cane sugar sucrose I would |
13:21 | try to limit that as much as possible unfortunately I gave up eating |
13:26 | desserts in my 40s though I do steal it from people at the table so Serena |
13:31 | orders the desserts for me but really sugar is something that is known to be |
13:36 | toxic in the long run it's sucrose which forms glucose will attach |
13:42 | to your your body's components your proteins will become what's called glycated and that's known to drive aging |
13:48 | as well so that's why we try to not eat too much and so we don't want to eat a lot of sugar but there are substitutes |
13:54 | there's for example monk fruit produces sugar which Serena has told me to try |
14:00 | and it tastes just as good as sugar and it doesn't give you that Spike and that should be good for longevity what about |
14:07 | Stevia maple syrup honey coconut sugar um they're all on a various scale um |
14:15 | honey has is not so good in large amounts Stevia I think is okay but it's |
14:21 | all on a scale I think the best is allulose or monk fruit and then a bit above that a bit worse than that is |
14:27 | Stevia but at the bad end is glucose sucrose and honey but honey has a lot of |
14:33 | good goodness in it so I wouldn't say avoid honey just don't eat too much of it how would you classify sugar and fruit |
14:40 | like would that be something you would stand replace desserts with like at the end of a meal would you just have a |
14:46 | piece of fruit yeah for sure fruit is good um I would avoid fruit juices unless |
14:51 | they're from fruits that don't have a lot of sugar but oranges and apples and pineapple have a lot of sugar that I |
14:57 | generally avoid okay um I'm going to talk to you a little bit about your Vitality pills |
Vitality pills
15:04 | why don't you tell us a little bit about the Vitality pills and what we can do to |
15:10 | make ourselves you know eternally Young and Beautiful yeah |
15:16 | so I I've been taking supplements for and experimenting on myself for about 20 |
15:21 | years and my father has also been doing it he's now 83 and in perfect health |
15:29 | and what I learned through my research and through my own self-explanation and then clinical |
15:34 | trials in hospitals is that there's certain molecules from Mostly from |
15:40 | plants that provide the benefits of fasting and exercise as well |
15:45 | and so I was taking these separately I take a variety of them |
15:52 | do you want me to go into which yes I mean don't go into the details but we would all like to know where these pills |
Where are the pills available
15:57 | are available and what's in them sure everyone's thinking where can I get the prescription all right so if you don't |
16:03 | have a pen uh you can go to my book and I wrote these chemicals these supplements down in my book in the |
16:10 | English version it's page 304. um and there are three main things that I take and have taken for over a decade |
16:17 | the the one chemical that I take every day is Resveratrol which is the red wine chemical and that comes from grapes |
16:26 | and so that one gets sprinkled into some yogurt in the morning I also take a moment that's the one |
16:33 | where which which red wine has right but it's the amount you take is equivalent to |
16:38 | 750 glasses of red wine per day I don't recommend getting it from red |
16:44 | wine uh so the the other molecule is called nmn |
16:51 | nmn not to be confused with M M's don't don't mix those up nmn is a a version of |
17:00 | vitamin B3 that makes a chemical in the body that we need for life and that's |
17:05 | called NAD and as we get older we make less and less of this and without NAD |
17:10 | these sirtuins that we discovered slow aging remember the genes that we discovered they don't work without a lot |
17:17 | of NAD so as we get older our defenses Decline and so by taking this supplement |
17:23 | we know that it doubles the levels of NAD back to when I was age 20. and |
17:29 | there's now clinical trials that my colleagues at Harvard have done that says that nmn has some health benefits |
17:35 | in early studies such as lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and so I take that one every day as well |
17:43 | um I take a half a gram of that currently and then the third one is metformin metformin is a little bit more |
17:50 | controversial because it's a drug and it's just classified as a drug and |
17:56 | uh that doesn't mean it's necessarily dangerous in fact it's one of the world's safest drugs it's used for type |
18:02 | 2 diabetes to control blood sugar and what's been found is that people who take Metformin tend to live a lot longer |
18:10 | even those who don't have type 2 diabetes there's evidence that they are protected against |
18:16 | cardiovascular disease and Frailty and even Alzheimer's disease and so what I |
18:21 | do is I take metformin even though I don't yet have type 2 diabetes so metformin is it a form of this glp-1 |
metformin
18:29 | receptor blockers a skinny pen orozmic which all of Hollywood is apparently on |
18:36 | and they're getting thinner and thinner if you see the red carpet at Oscars is |
18:42 | that what it is a form of that well no it's actually very different metformin will activate your body's energy |
18:49 | production and boost mitochondria which are the little energy packs in your cells so that's that's a healthy way to |
18:55 | do it uh I won't say the brand name but yeah this GOP one agonistar |
19:00 | um causing your body to become more insulin sensitive and take up the sugar from your blood and burn fat and people |
19:08 | who take this drug uh it's uh they actually they do lose weight |
19:14 | um so the it I mean the drug is designed to treat type 2 diabetes and it's it's actually a blockbuster very effective |
19:22 | drug one of my colleagues over uh in New York near barzalai says that in his |
19:29 | practice he essentially now thinks of type 2 diabetes as a curable disease only in the last few years because of |
19:35 | these new drugs but people who don't have obesity or diabetes are taking it or they might have obesity but they |
19:41 | certainly don't have type 2 diabetes and they lose weight the one negative side effect that everyone should be aware of is that people can lose too much fat in |
19:48 | the wrong place including in the in the face where you don't want to lose it |
19:54 | especially if you're older and you can tell if somebody's taking this medicine because they start to look it's called |
20:01 | the brand name face right I'm not taking the brand name either but that's what it's called yeah it is so you have to be |
20:06 | very careful I would say it's much better to eat less often and exercise and you'll get much bigger health |
20:13 | benefits than taking that drug let's talk a little bit about exercise what kind of exercise are you recommending |
exercise
20:19 | like a lot of intro training running Strength yoga |
20:25 | you know yoga is very important uh I think here are you just saying that because Serena is sitting opposite us so |
20:31 | yeah screen is down there below the stage here so Serena is um the |
20:36 | equivalent of me with more of a practice and knowledge about yoga and nutrition |
20:42 | and mind and body and I missed I missed the biology and chemicals but together we we we do recommend a lot of |
20:48 | stretching and yoga meditation to reduce stress though I'm not I'm not good at it |
20:54 | and I'm also not good at exercise I'm often on planes Serena and I have been |
21:00 | traveling for two months now so we don't get a lot of exercise in that said I used to and what I used to |
21:07 | do was to exercise three times a week and Lose My Breath you want to be able to be moving so fast that you cannot |
21:14 | carry out a conversation easily that's when you know you're becoming hypoxic low in oxygen and this low |
21:21 | oxygen we think is a very good stimulator of this stress on the body and it your body |
21:28 | responds in a positive way to build muscle get better blood flow and also your tissues will put out chemicals that |
21:35 | slow aging so really if you can just lose your breath for 10 minutes three times a week that can give Remarkable |
21:42 | Health benefits lowering the rates of disease by 30 percent so a little bit goes a long way can we |
21:49 | get a mic to Serena |
yoga
21:55 | so Serena is a proponent of yoga and I want to know what she thinks about that because in yoga you don't necessarily |
22:01 | stress the body to a point where you lose your breath or you get out of breath |
22:10 | [Music] types of Yoga yoga of course especially in the U.S I'm based in La there's yoga |
22:18 | that is used more as a form of exercise and that can be quite stressful in the body |
22:24 | I think we stress our bodies in a slightly different way when it comes to yoga because we're really stressing our |
22:30 | mind you know it's really about uh how how long you can hold still |
22:37 | how you can clear your mind how you can hold a pose that's stress in a different |
22:42 | way it's really more stress on the Mind whereas Dave is talking about the stresses on the body but effectually it |
22:49 | will still have the same results so and David can share about that so we're |
22:54 | looking for that balance in a way where we're balancing our body but there is a |
23:00 | stress to our mind and getting to that stress point is then where we find balance so you two are from two opposite ends of |
what do we agree on
23:07 | the Spectrum in a way you move from a western school of thought she's moved from an Eastern school of thought what |
23:13 | are the things that you guys agree on over the dinner table and what are the things that you don't agree on |
23:19 | yeah it people wonder how do we get along because uh I'm opposites |
23:24 | attractive 100 reality and Serena is very spiritual uh but but we we bonded |
23:30 | over uh our love for health uh and wellness and respect for the human body |
23:35 | we both believe that we can help Millions if not billions of people live healthy and longer lives with our |
23:41 | message that covers both eastern and western what do we agree on we agree on |
23:46 | nutrition um basically because I do whatever Serena tells me to do uh but what we disagree on are things |
23:56 | like um how how important is |
24:02 | uh the the spiritual side of life I struggle trying to believe in things |
24:09 | that I have no evidence for and Serena has a lot of faith uh and she's always |
24:15 | right so I think she's onto something um we tend not to disagree on a lot of |
24:21 | things I think our interpretation of How It's Working is different I will say oh well it's this molecule it's this |
24:27 | molecule and she says no it's that the body has different energies and it's working this way and according to |
24:33 | aerobatic practices this is how it's working well it it really is it's a it's a |
24:39 | wonderful combination the two of us because we we learn from each other and often we we end up with a |
24:46 | an explanation for phenomena that includes both old and new science |
meditation
25:00 | that's a very that's a core practice that uh |
25:05 | David sort of dabbles in a little bit doubles in means what like two minutes a |
25:10 | day or I don't know honey how many how much do you meditate a day well my problem is I I try to meditate and I |
25:16 | always fall asleep and yeah I start snoring so I'm not good at |
25:21 | meditation what I found instead works for me is to have quiet time we call it I close my eyes for 11 minutes uh |
25:28 | hopefully at least twice a day and have some gratitude during that quiet time or listen to someone talking about stoicism |
25:36 | that's what I like to do I struggle with meditation I will admit with my crazy lifestyle and my lack of commitment to |
25:44 | that I haven't been successful really but I really should be because the benefits on controlling your mind have |
25:50 | been proven I like to talk about animal studies so in mice if you modify the |
25:56 | Mind Of Mice so you can change parts of the brain of a mouse you can actually improve immunity improve health even |
26:02 | make the mice live longer just by changing parts of the brain it's very clear that if you can control your mind |
26:08 | calm it down get it to focus have the positivity as well you can have |
26:14 | Whole Body Benefits that are often misunderstood by Western person |
26:20 | so with some of the things that you're suggesting um which are not by the way easy going 20 hours without food or you |
26:27 | know giving up sugar we differ too you differ there what what is it that well I'm I'm more about eating within a |
26:35 | window which David share that we we talk about eating Windows uh so you're |
26:42 | you know which may mean more than one meal a day so you can fast for 12 hours |
26:48 | or 14 or 16 or 18 or David can go to 20. uh but it's really about making sure you |
26:55 | get the nutrients that you need for your body during that window of time that you do eat and my belief more than trying to cram |
27:03 | everything into one meal so we differ just slightly on that as well |
27:09 | so we have um you know there's a lot of pressure to look good and nobody else has that pressure more than people who |
27:16 | are in a public space we have a few actors here who are coming in from a hit |
27:21 | Ott show called the class you can see all all the very brightly dressed fashionable people right here up in |
27:27 | front um I'd like to ask them how tough is the pressure on you guys to look good and |
27:33 | what are the extreme things you've done |
27:42 | I think uh it's it's huge I a lot of us had to de-age essentially for the |
27:50 | character and what you were saying about losing breath or being out of breath I chanced upon accidentally because while |
27:56 | I was uh working out for the role I was boxing like four times a week and I found that |
28:04 | I genuinely like now when people ask me they're like oh we can't guess your age I can't believe you're so much less |
28:10 | older than you she's not giving her age away uh no but but it genuinely I feel like |
28:17 | we kind of chanced Upon A lot of the things you spoke about today and they're all making sense now |
28:25 | I think I'm gonna hate me for this but I had fruits for like two years straight I |
28:31 | was on a fruitarianism diet I don't know if you know there's the Robert Moore's concept of raw vegan diet so I was on |
28:38 | that and I still sort of follow it not exactly because now I have temptations and I go and have something whatever I |
28:45 | need but mostly I used to drink a lot of juice uh and still in the morning I had |
28:51 | like I think a liter of juice from the hotel itself and they were like your wife just drinking you have a drinking |
28:56 | problem of juice so yeah so that was one thing with me so I I just wanted to know your version one thing if I ca if I may |
29:03 | please most of the things that you said and most of the things out there everything revolves around one thing and |
29:10 | that is uh firstly uh separating your body from mucus like the mucus we produce due to eating a lot of cooked |
29:17 | Foods one thing that hasn't been resolved yet is the uh the male pattern baldness |
29:23 | because even in fluterine is uh in the fruit diet nobody has actually given a |
29:29 | solution to that so look at David's hair just look at David's hair yeah exactly that's why I was asking because I want |
29:35 | people to this yeah I want this hair yeah so yeah |
29:40 | yeah well I I think I'm lucky um but I also think that if you slow your body's body's aging your hair will |
29:47 | also slow down in its changes I I don't yet have much gray hair |
29:53 | um I I will admit my mother also had good hair so it might be that uh but there's a lot of really good signs going |
29:59 | on in fact Serena and I have co-developed a product that uh is was developed for the skin in collaboration |
30:05 | with NASA um and it has this uh space resistant organism extract in it called bacillus |
30:13 | lysate and the clinical trials so far are showing hair regrowth I don't think |
30:18 | it's it's crazy to think in five years it'll be common to be able to get your hair back |
30:24 | um just by spraying something on the science is there what we're doing in my |
30:29 | lab is we can grow skin and hair artificially in the dish from stem cells |
30:35 | and we can age that skin forwards and then reverse the age and we're looking |
30:41 | for ways to do that with natural ways to do that so that we can put it into a |
30:46 | cream that you could put on the hair and not just make your hair look better but |
30:52 | actually make your whole skin on your head literally be younger than it used to be and that's what I want to do is to |
30:59 | make the body not just look younger but literally be younger so you know a question comes up from |
age reset
31:05 | there that if we reboot reboot our body to let's say |
31:10 | in does our mind reboot to 16 or 21 as well I mean am I going to have the same sort |
31:17 | of intelligence creative urges as a 21 year old or a 16 year old |
31:24 | uh well Serena says sometimes I I get too young uh but there's a there's a happy ending what do you do when you get |
31:30 | too young do you get frisky do you want to go dancing or what do you do uh you know what young men are like |
31:36 | they're a little bit um a little bit immature no don't don't give Serena the mic I |
31:44 | tend to be a little bit uh uh over enthusiastic let's say about |
31:49 | things and and I've learned to to calm my decision making and be be less |
31:55 | reactive in all seriousness what we're doing now in my lab at Harvard is |
32:02 | um so what we do is to reverse aging is we put we we turn on three genes that are normally only turned on in very |
32:08 | young uh embryos so when we're young we when we're just born or before we we are very |
32:16 | young and we stay young because there are three genes that are turned on they're called O S and K for short |
32:23 | and when we turn on these three genes in the adult tissue in human adult tissue or in a mouse |
32:30 | those three genes make the body younger again this is the reset of the software and uh and we can do that not just with |
32:38 | uh the eyes and cure blindness which we did a couple of years ago we recently published in January that we could |
32:45 | rejuvenate a whole Mouse and and see aspects of Aging reversed |
32:51 | um and so that's where we're going is to truly do a full age reset |
32:56 | now what we're doing is asking what happens if you reset the age of the old brain and we can grow human brain in the |
33:03 | lab if you looked on my Instagram account you can see little pictures of human brains that we grow we can make |
33:10 | them old throw them make them old in about a month make them 70 years old in |
33:15 | a month and then we can reverse that we can give them Alzheimer's disease see what happens and if we reverse it so |
33:21 | here's the punch line if we reverse the age of an old Mouse's brain to make it much younger by 70 it gets its ability |
33:29 | to learn back again and we're now just testing if it also remembers lost |
33:34 | Memories We don't know the answer but we hope to find out soon so we may have a situation where teenagers are world |
philosophical
33:42 | leaders and running the whole economy and every space I don't know what kind of decisions they would make then I mean |
33:48 | teenagers are great teenagers are great but I don't know whether we want them to be running the world we just have a |
33:55 | minute a minute left um I wanted to get a little bit into this philosophical and spiritual |
34:01 | areas with anti-aging and age reversal um we are in India we have an ancient |
34:08 | concept of Karma and God's will and here you are creating a space where nobody |
34:14 | needs to suffer or at least the rich don't need to suffer and they can choose their day to die are you playing God |
34:21 | doctor I don't think that I am I think that |
34:29 | the pursuit of health and wellness and happiness |
34:36 | is a natural human endeavor and it's a very noble cause and I'm not |
34:43 | on this Earth to make people live forever I believe my mission and with Serena our |
34:49 | mission is to increase the advances extend the advances that we made last century with |
34:56 | medicine but to make it even more effective so that with one treatment we don't just |
35:01 | treat cancer we can treat all the other diseases that affect us by making us younger and fitter |
35:08 | I don't believe that's playing God any more than developing treatments for cancer and heart disease |
35:13 | and dementia is playing God and I think as humans we've always wanted to live better we've wanted to |
35:20 | modify our environment modify our bodies to be happier and healthier what part of this room is natural I I don't think |
35:26 | make even this I think is artificial so we as humans we adapt we change our environment and this is the next step in |
35:33 | human evolution and I think it's the right step because we all have a right to decide how healthy we are we can't |
35:40 | choose when we were born but I hope that one day we'll have a choice when we die |
35:45 | what age would you like to well it's a strange question to ask but how what age would you like to die |
35:53 | um I think the answer would be uh not tomorrow and and that will always be the |
35:58 | case if you're healthy and happy and have friends uh you'll never want to die I just I know this as a human uh a trait |
36:06 | and so really the answer is as long as possible but I'd be happy with another |
36:12 | 40 years to do more good work that would be like a hundred I hope more what's happening we talk |
36:19 | about AI at this Symposium the rate of change in this field is going up |
36:26 | dramatically and so the advances that we can make now with the assistance of AI is dramatic and in our lifetimes we are |
36:33 | truly going to see the ability for our doctors to give us medicines that reverse our age and we can do that |
36:38 | multiple times and so it's an extremely exciting time to be alive and stay alive thank you so much doctor |
36:45 | so in conclusion I think basically we need to trick our body into thinking we're almost dying so that we can live |
36:52 | longer and all those people who give me trouble for causing them stress hey I'm helping you live longer |
37:00 | and I hope that after this chat about skipping meals oh I obviously I'm giving |
37:07 | stress to a lot of people here you can hear the claps right um uh after this chat I hope that you're |
37:14 | going to make different choices at lunch maybe even skip lunch the doctor is |
37:19 | going to be available at lunch he's definitely not eating any lunch so you can bomb him with some of your questions |
37:25 | I'm sure some of you have those and thank you very much doctor for being here and helping us through this process |
37:33 | and here's to all of you choosing your own day to die thank you thank you |
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