2021-12-31 - Interview Dr. David Sinclair - mindbodygreen - How to look & feel 15 years younger
- Length: 35:38
- Interviewee: Dr. David Sinclair
- Interviewer: Jason Wachob
Transcript
democratizing longevity
| 0:00 | david welcome hey jason it's great to see you great to have you back on the show and |
| 0:06 | it was so awesome to see you mentioned in our wellness trends specifically |
| 0:11 | around longevity and something we're particularly excited about and you're excited about is this |
| 0:18 | idea of democracization you know when people tend to think of longevity |
| 0:23 | they tend to think of really expensive tests and potential potentially pharmaceuticals and |
| 0:29 | supplements and so on they think of silicon valley and billionaires and all that crazy stuff you read |
| 0:35 | but let's take a step back and and talk about democratizing longevity and i'm curious you know what is democratizing |
| 0:42 | longevity mean to you yeah well you're right that there is a group of |
| 0:48 | individuals that i meet more and more often that have the means and the wealth and |
| 0:54 | the connections to extend their lifespan i think by 20 30 years |
| 1:00 | but it's a small group of people and what we need to do is to give that that information |
| 1:06 | to everybody and that involves not just making it available but truly being educational |
| 1:12 | and interesting and so what i've decided to do with my career as this harvard professor from a lab |
| 1:19 | is to use hopefully decent abilities at storytelling to educate people and make |
| 1:25 | it interesting i have a podcast coming out early next year january 5th where |
| 1:30 | hopefully it's an interesting uh journey through the longevity world of |
| 1:35 | science and nutrition and and exercise but also supplements and |
| 1:40 | some of the more far out things that these billionaires are into and so it's about education primarily but the second |
| 1:48 | part of that that i'm very into and driven by is to make the |
| 1:53 | medicines that will come out of this field of aging research available to everybody |
| 1:58 | uh because if it's just for the rich and it's cost a hundred thousand dollars treatment then that's really not going |
| 2:04 | to help me achieve my goal in life which is to really make millions hopefully billions of people live |
| 2:10 | healthier lives and in doing so lengthen their life as well and so the science that we do and the |
| 2:16 | drug developments on i've started about a dozen companies now the companies are very focused on making those drugs |
| 2:23 | are cheaply and widely available and the kind of technologies for the most part |
| 2:28 | are drugs that could be just a few cents a day once they |
| 2:34 | eventually uh get widely used what do you think was the biggest update |
whats been interesting to you
| 2:39 | that impacted our understanding of longevity in the last year you're on top of everything |
| 2:44 | what's been interesting to you over the course of the last year yeah well |
| 2:50 | what's actually happening in society is super interesting i used to be uh the pariah of biology i'm so sure harvard |
| 2:57 | wanted to kick me out a few times but there's been a real shift both in mentality of doctors and researchers and |
| 3:03 | the public that aging is something that is more akin to a medical condition |
| 3:08 | a disease and that it's treatable so there's this zeitgeist mega trend if you want to call it in society that's |
| 3:15 | changed but in terms of research and breakthroughs a really big one and forgive me for focusing on myself for |
| 3:21 | one second my lab and the research team and our collaborators a year ago exactly |
| 3:27 | to the day almost that we could reset the body in terms of age go back by about 80 |
| 3:34 | and do a permanent reset of the body now this is in animals but these are mice that are very similar biologically to us |
| 3:40 | and we've done it now in human cells and human tissue so we're optimistic that the same |
| 3:47 | principles that i'm going to tell you about in mice apply to humans and that is that we have a backup copy of youth |
| 3:53 | in our bodies that can be accessed we're now using gene therapy because that's what we know works but we're hoping |
| 4:01 | uh to find natural molecules that will achieve the same result to not just slow down the aging process which we know we |
| 4:08 | can do by eating well at a training kind of diet and exercising lose your breath a few times a week at least |
| 4:14 | but by actually taking a supplement that would reset the body within a matter of a few months to go back |
| 4:21 | not just by six months but many many years and i truly believe that's going to be |
| 4:27 | possible in the next five to 10 years and our goal now is as a society is to |
| 4:33 | stay alive until these discoveries become mainstream and so you you think we're five or so |
whats next
| 4:40 | years out from having that smart drug if you will or that |
| 4:45 | we can take and that alone will extend health span |
| 4:51 | yeah i know it sounds crazy right unfortunately i'm at harvard so people tend to take me a little more seriously |
| 4:57 | but the big breakthrough was the discovery that we have this backup copy |
| 5:03 | of youthfulness the easy part is figuring out how to reset the system it's similar if you |
| 5:09 | want to use the analogy of the wright brothers i know it's used a little too much but it it works the wright brothers |
| 5:15 | the hard part was figuring out how to glide around the dunes strapping on the engine flying |
| 5:21 | eventually transcontinental flight now global that's just extensions of what they did in kitty hawk |
| 5:28 | and we basically in aging we've done that now we know how to fly |
| 5:33 | and now we're going to strap on the engine and see how quickly and how cheaply we can do |
| 5:38 | this so i'm quite confident that we will find molecules that will do this in fact there was a paper that just came out |
| 5:45 | that shows a natural molecule called alpha ketoglutarate that i predicted in my book lifespan |
| 5:52 | probably would work was able to reset the age of 40 people i think out of 42 people 40 |
| 5:59 | people had their biological age reversed by an average of eight years within just |
| 6:05 | uh under a year of taking this supplement so akg right and we can take that that is |
| 6:12 | currently a supplement that's out there or can it be found in food naturally or where can we find it i think a lot of |
| 6:17 | people are going to be very intrigued yeah me too like like most of these molecules |
| 6:23 | that plants make in response to stress these molecules are called xenohermetins that we name them that |
| 6:30 | they uh you need to a lot of them a lot of plants to get the |
| 6:35 | amounts that are medicinal and so i it's better to |
| 6:40 | eat a purified source of it you can buy akg or of ketoglutarate on the internet |
| 6:46 | i look for trust and supplier very high quality high content of alfie kimku right there are |
| 6:53 | some companies that are selling it that are combinations with vitamins in the case of this human study that's what |
| 6:59 | they sell but yeah it's widely available and it would be really quite a thing for humanity to have a safe molecule that's |
| 7:07 | similar to an amino acid that we could just pop and if it's true take our years our age back by half a decade or a |
| 7:14 | decade now i'm quite skeptical because it sounds way too good to be true |
| 7:19 | but then again some things are true so we're going to repeat the experiment and see what happens but i will say that |
| 7:25 | the reason i think it's it's plausible is that if you give alpha ketoglutarate to yeast cells that make beer and bread |
| 7:33 | to fruit flies and to mice they also live longer so there's something really important going on here |
resveratrol
| 7:39 | building off of akg resveratrol you've always been a fan of resveratrol in many ways i feel like you |
| 7:46 | put resveratrol on the map are you still a fan of resveratrol in terms of supplementation and in terms of some of |
| 7:53 | the magic can do in terms of our longevity well i i am since we first made this |
| 7:58 | discovery in 2003 or there are something like 5 000 papers showing that it's beneficial to cells |
| 8:05 | human cells and animal studies and and even now there's about a dozen |
| 8:10 | positive human studies with resveratrol now the downside of resveratrol is that you cannot get it from red wine you'd |
| 8:17 | need to drink 200 glasses a day and that even when you buy it purified it's it's insoluble so if you put a |
| 8:24 | spoonful of resveratrol which i did take every morning into water it'll sink to |
| 8:29 | the bottom so you need to mix it with something i i have a low-fat yogurt i recently am |
| 8:35 | doing vegan yogurts which work well coconut base or with a bit of olive oil which itself is a |
| 8:41 | xeno-hermetin product but not too much because i like to fast until about late afternoon or dinner but then it gets |
| 8:47 | absorbed in the body we know that from human studies as well and unfortunately most people don't know that and they just swallow whereas resveratrol peeled |
| 8:53 | with water and they think that'll work and it doesn't so keep that in mind now in terms of red wine i did raise the |
| 9:00 | the sales of red wine by 30 by our discoveries uh and it stayed up and i'm known as the red wine guy but my |
| 9:07 | my good friend um and colleague serena poon who's a nutritionist among other skills and a chef had |
| 9:14 | looked at my diet and said there's too much dairy there's too much meat and there's also too much alcohol so i'm a |
| 9:21 | kind of binary guy i don't like making decisions so i just said okay i'm cutting it all out and we'll see what |
| 9:26 | happens and i've done that i'm currently vegan uh no alcohol and i feel great i think i can continue |
| 9:34 | doing this i'm grateful to serena actually for making those recommendations but not everybody can do |
| 9:39 | it and a little bit of red wine really doesn't hurt unless um you've got a medical condition well on the subjective |
lifestyle
| 9:46 | diet you know if we're gonna have to wait five years we've got a lot of work to do between now and then in terms of |
| 9:52 | lifestyle so in terms of you know working on feeling good |
| 9:58 | working on you know our health span for the next five years because a lot can happen between now and then |
| 10:06 | what does the latest science say about lifestyle in general in terms of nutrition how i know it's highly |
| 10:12 | personalized but if you were to generalize you know still plant-based for longevity still |
| 10:19 | high-intensity interval training still some hot cold therapy i'll just stop there like what in terms of lifestyle |
| 10:26 | what should we what should we all be focusing on right now yeah well the science is really strong |
| 10:31 | on those areas it's not really up for debate and i say that because some people don't |
| 10:37 | bother changing their lifestyle because they think oh next year there's going to be something new but that's not true |
| 10:43 | when it comes to the benefits of plant-focused diets |
| 10:49 | um and exercise there's nothing no science that i could see ever coming along saying |
| 10:55 | the opposite of that now there are a lot of people who are excited about |
| 11:01 | meat-based diets there are the carnivores as they call themselves if you look at the science and that's what i do you know i love me i wish meat was |
| 11:08 | going to make me live to 200. that would be my dream but the science says that a |
| 11:15 | plant-focused plant-based diet is associated with longevity and meat-based diets are not that's just |
| 11:22 | a fact and we even know the molecular mechanisms that likely promote longevity amino acid ratios in plants turn on the |
| 11:30 | body's defenses against aging and meat amino acid ratios do not and you know the other issues with meat |
| 11:36 | as well but those are the main things and so the the longest lived people |
| 11:42 | are either on a mediterranean diet which as you'll is mostly plant-based there's a little bit of fish a little |
| 11:49 | bit of meat not a lot of olive oil and unsaturated fats and monounsaturated fatty acids |
| 11:54 | um as well as a little bit of wine preferably red wine that's your mediterranean diet now those people live |
| 12:00 | the longest on the planet there's a variant in asia called the okinawan diet which is also mostly plant-based and not |
| 12:06 | a lot of calories and then it's the opposite for red meat it's inflammatory and you'll end up with high levels of |
| 12:12 | cholesterol among other issues but if you want to build up muscle and you want to temporarily feel great you |
| 12:18 | know by only all means eat eat a lot of steak but i wouldn't do it for a long period of time over your lifespan it |
| 12:23 | won't have a lot of benefits and the way to think of this jason is that there are adversity mimetics that mimics |
| 12:31 | that that mimic adversity and the body hunkers down and builds a stronger longer lasting body that's the lifestyle i've chosen |
| 12:39 | so by eating these plants and by exercising and being a bit hot and get |
| 12:44 | cold the body thinks heck i could die next week i better build a stronger body |
| 12:50 | that's what i do then there's the abundance memetics which is i'm going to take growth hormone i'm going to eat a |
| 12:55 | ton of meat i'm going to burn the candle at both ends which will make things brighter for a while but you'll burn out |
| 13:01 | but both lifestyles can make you feel great and i can vouch for that with my lifestyle and |
exercise
| 13:07 | in terms of exercise what have we learned about high |
| 13:14 | intensity interval training recently you know there's lots of debate around you know it's five minutes or it's ten minutes or |
| 13:19 | it's this percentage of your this is what you need to get your heart rate up on like is there consensus on high intensity interval trading in terms of |
| 13:27 | benefits for longevity uh yeah uh some is good |
| 13:33 | that's what it is it really is don't sit around so that the the worst |
| 13:40 | for you is don't move okay sit in a chair all day and then go home and or stay at home watch movies okay that's |
| 13:47 | the baseline that'll probably take 15 years off your life the next thing that's good is you you can have a standing desk i'm standing |
| 13:53 | here pretty much all day and behind me you can see gym so when i have a break i go do a bit of working out that's what it |
| 14:00 | says the next level minimum a lot of people like walking minimum seven thousand steps twelve thousand some |
| 14:06 | people do above that doesn't give you benefit but you asked me about interval training i i looked at the science i |
| 14:12 | think three times a week losing your breath for at least ten minutes is a good thing above that doesn't hurt unless you're |
| 14:18 | really over doing it but it's hard to overdo it rowing watch out for your back it's good |
| 14:23 | cycling even better but yeah just move and maintain flexibility maintain muscle |
| 14:28 | mass as well because it'll help with your hormones and if you fall over you won't break a bone |
push yourself
| 14:34 | and what about those who push themselves probably |
| 14:41 | a little too much who maybe run a little too far |
| 14:46 | who you know look we have a lot of people in our audience who love being well love feeling great and they |
| 14:54 | go to the gym every day or they run every day or they do yoga what how do you think about the line that's crossed where potentially too |
| 15:00 | much is detrimental for longevity yeah well so the clients that i work |
| 15:07 | with are often for whatever better term fitness fanatics |
| 15:12 | and many of them exercise every day and what we see in response is a spike |
| 15:19 | in cortisol and that will age you there's no doubt about that |
| 15:24 | and so to you can overdo it you can overstress the body and so my |
| 15:30 | recommendation or advice is every other day exercise let your body rest and that's also true for some |
| 15:37 | of these supplements i occasionally skip a day and let my body recover and you know that's i think the recipe |
| 15:43 | for for success is that just going full bore the whole time |
| 15:49 | is is not going to be optimal you do need those recipes and then what about hot cold therapy and |
hot cold therapy
| 15:55 | how you view that right now well covert makes a little tough unless you have these in your in your house |
| 16:01 | which i i don't but i used to do cold plungers i used to do cycles of four degrees celsius which it will you |
| 16:08 | know almost shivering cold water up to my neck stay in there for as long as i could bear which was about five minutes |
| 16:15 | jump out go in a sauna for 20 minutes feels great and then repeat that a few times and i i never |
| 16:23 | felt better after that you know so it may not make you live longer but you certainly feel invigorated but the science is really getting |
| 16:30 | stronger on that i would say that five years ago we didn't know but now we |
| 16:35 | do know that sauna protects you against heart disease if you do it regularly i would say at least do it once a week and |
| 16:42 | cold plungers are increasingly thought to be helpful for a reason that's interesting what it does is it activates |
| 16:47 | the production of brown fat which exists mostly in your back and brown fat is super healthy it puts |
| 16:53 | out signals that increase your metabolism and also again this adversity |
| 16:58 | signal that your body will defend itself better and i think we're just going to learn more and more that keeping your |
| 17:04 | body or getting your body out of the comfort zone in temperature wise and oxygen wise and nutrition wise is |
| 17:11 | the trick so in the spirit of democratization what does that practice look like in the |
hot shower therapy
| 17:17 | shower can we hack it in the shower with temperature well of course you can uh just |
| 17:22 | don't turn on the hot water and get under there for a few minutes but for some reason i can't do that myself |
| 17:28 | but if you can i think it'd be great i instead like to turn it up to almost scolding hot hope |
| 17:34 | that's mimicking a sauna but yeah all of that i i totally would do that if if i |
| 17:41 | could manage it but i just love warm showers in the morning so it's not for me so so do i |
intermittent fasting
| 17:46 | that's that's the one i i i pretty much will try and practice everything with that one i'm having part of it's made me |
| 17:52 | psychosomatic because back in college when i played basketball you know i lived and i i used to hate that sitting |
| 17:59 | in that tub after practice you still want to go back there at cold tub another one which is |
| 18:04 | emerging but you know so many people are excited about myself included intermittent fasting what's your take on |
| 18:11 | intermittent fasting these days and what does the science say so adopting intermittent fasting in my |
| 18:17 | life has been the single biggest change to how i feel and also how i look |
| 18:22 | and i've taken off i've been getting younger past decade and the biggest impact has been this change in my eating |
| 18:30 | habits and so what the science says let's leave me aside for a minute what the |
| 18:36 | sign says is that it's not just about what you eat it's when you eat and |
| 18:42 | the body should not always be fed so what actually happens in the typical american western is |
| 18:49 | you eat you wake up you have some food for breakfast your blood sugar will spike up to about 120 130 megs per |
| 18:55 | deciliter you'll feel great a lot of energy sugar and then the body produces insulin and |
| 19:01 | sends the glucose way down now you're in a deficit and they go way down below like a roller coaster now you're you're |
| 19:06 | feeling like you need a snack it's eleven o'clock i gotta be hungry i just had breakfast so you start snacking then |
| 19:11 | you have lunch and you're up again and then you shoot down again in deficit now it's the the middle of the day and |
| 19:17 | you've got low glucose you're tired you've got the brain fog i can't wait till dinner and |
| 19:23 | then you snack and you eat and you repeat this cycle every day so i don't eat breakfast |
| 19:30 | i have tiny bit of yogurt or olive oil but that's nothing for fasting and then i don't eat if i'm |
| 19:35 | on a good day i don't eat until 7 o'clock at night now there are stressful days where i might grab a handful of |
| 19:41 | nuts or something that's healthy and you can't always you know be perfect and i'm not but most |
| 19:48 | days i try my best to get through the day with hot teas and vitamin drinks and |
| 19:53 | this kind of stuff just fill up my stomach with liquids now what that's done to me is that now my liver after just three weeks of doing |
| 20:00 | this and now it's been many months is well close to a year is it's now putting out |
| 20:06 | its own sugar my liver is way smarter than my mouth in my brain |
| 20:12 | and i wake up in the morning and you know you can measure these things i use levels health device but there's a bunch |
| 20:19 | and i can see that my liver is smart it builds up my blood glucose as i'm waking up even before i actually wake up |
| 20:25 | and then it's leveled throughout the whole day steady like that a few little blips so i have a nut or i exercise or something |
| 20:31 | and then at dinner it'll go up but not a lot and then i sleep through the night so that's |
| 20:36 | optimal for longevity we know that that it's very healthy to have relatively low blood sugar levels and steady ones so |
| 20:43 | i'm hugely in favor of intermittent fasting and i've had i've got my 20 year old body back as |
| 20:49 | well i never thought i could i had love handles for most of my life and they're gone finally you mentioned levels and glucose |
glucose monitoring
| 20:56 | monitoring [Music] it is how should we be thinking about that in |
| 21:02 | terms of you know it you said it's optimal to to have i guess a baseline |
| 21:07 | that's relatively consistent you know i found the experience fascinating when i |
| 21:14 | did my trial just understand which foods had an impact on me and which didn't you |
| 21:19 | know for example i love black coffee i love espresso coffee negligible it actually lowered my |
| 21:26 | glucose slightly you know i would have fun i would do these experiments i'd say like all right i'll have an impossible |
| 21:32 | burger and some fries and a frozen margarita and then i'll have a doughnut after this was like at a weekend you |
| 21:39 | know weekend i eat more literally let's see how high this thing can go it's like you know i was like a kid like |
| 21:45 | a teenager in like a sports car like let's see let's get this on the freeway and let's see how fast we can go |
| 21:51 | and sure i got it pretty high it was a double spike it came down and then you know during the week i'm |
| 21:56 | pretty healthy i do my thing you know what did i learn you know when i have my my my beans my refried beans less of an |
| 22:03 | impact when i had a healthy fat you know some avocados in there versus just the beans and so forth but i'm curious like |
| 22:10 | if in terms of longevity you know look life happens cake happens |
| 22:16 | donuts happen and and that's also part of the the beauty of life living a long |
| 22:21 | healthy joyful life is also about celebration every once in a while so how |
| 22:26 | do you think about the fine line between all right i'm going to keep this thing low and forever or or |
| 22:33 | 90 of the time versus all right i'm going to enjoy this street over here and there and it's going to go up with |
| 22:39 | it but it's going to come down and it's how do you think about balancing that well that's key you know there's no point me saying you cannot eat during |
| 22:45 | the day or you can never have dessert or never have wine or beer |
| 22:50 | that's really not the point you know if you live a life like that and you're not enjoying it life may not be longer |
| 22:57 | but it'll certainly feel that way and you don't want that and you know sometimes people see me eat |
| 23:04 | a sorbet or you know i'll have a lunch a salad or whatever and they say oh david |
| 23:09 | you said you don't eat lunch well i never said that i just said i try my best not to |
| 23:14 | and that's what it's all about and you should be able to indulge yourself but you know try to focus on certain |
| 23:21 | types of diets mediterranean you know that can include dessert but i'd like to have some rules in my life because i'm |
| 23:27 | i'm not that good at being ambiguous and so my rule that i set for myself when i was 40 |
| 23:32 | was no more desserts at dinner but i've modified it i'm allowed to steal tastes |
| 23:38 | of other people's desserts and that's worked really well and i think that's the key to success is don't be too hard |
| 23:44 | on yourself and if you fail at something or you eat something that you probably shouldn't have don't be hard on yourself |
| 23:50 | everybody needs a treat once in a while and otherwise life's not worth living anyway 100 agreed |
| 23:57 | so yeah we've talked about nutrition we've talked about intermittent fasting we've talked about |
| 24:04 | exercise i think everyone understands sleep you need sleep you can't run on is that true just uh something you you |
| 24:10 | can't run on no sleep well you can but you'll crash plus it's going to accelerate aging as well the genes that |
| 24:17 | we work on called the sertums that control aging they also control the sleep wake cycle |
| 24:22 | and so those two things are totally connected and if you disrupt your biological age get older you'll disrupt |
| 24:27 | sleep and sleep will disrupt longevity so you just got to keep both of those in check in parallel because they're going |
| 24:33 | to affect you and so the last one i'll i'll touch on |
anxiety loneliness
| 24:39 | anxiety loneliness we're experiencing a mental health epidemic you know there's obviously a |
| 24:45 | big trauma but the big t and then little trauma with little t and and you know being in this pandemic you know there's |
| 24:51 | definitely collective trauma for some it's the little t for others it's the big team i think it's safe to say it's been difficult for most everyone |
| 24:58 | and so how do you think about anxiety stress mental health in general |
| 25:03 | and the role plays and longevity yeah well it's really important getting |
| 25:09 | back to the cortisol levels um your brain controls your longevity you know this uh |
| 25:15 | in my lab we've manipulated mouse brains uh to make them turn on longevity genes and then the whole mouse |
| 25:22 | is healthy so we just know that the brain is putting out factors that will either accelerate aging or slow it down |
| 25:28 | so your mental state's important it's also important for immunity a beautiful paper was published last week in one of the world's top journals |
| 25:34 | that showed that if you change a few neurons in the center of the brain again in a mouse but |
| 25:40 | pretty interesting that you'll change the amount of circulating |
| 25:46 | immune cells in the body and those immune cells can pick off cancer cells and viruses |
| 25:52 | and so you know i used to i believed that the mind could control |
| 25:57 | the body but now we just have proof that's actually working and which neurons are doing that so what does this |
| 26:02 | all mean it means that you should keep your stress levels down if you can up meditate i now meditate as often as i |
| 26:10 | have time for again serena poon has been a good influence on me in that regard |
| 26:16 | but if you have the big stress the big t then you do need some help and |
| 26:21 | increasingly you can go online and speak with a therapist and i've seen some really great results from |
| 26:27 | particularly young people who become anxious you know in this day and age with social media |
| 26:32 | with school and college and the stresses of all of that and code 19 on top of it |
| 26:39 | it's really it's hard to be a young person without the coding skills that we had also to want agreed it's |
top 5 longevity foods
| 26:45 | tough out there it really is and you know i'm an optimist i like to think |
| 26:50 | there's a silver lining here but we shall see going into 22. so just rounding out lifestyle we kind of |
| 26:56 | covered everything but i'll bring it back to food since we all love going grocery shopping |
| 27:02 | i'll put you on the spot if you had to pick you know your top five longevity foods that |
| 27:08 | everyone would be better off consuming as frequently as possible what's on david sinclair's longevity food grocery |
| 27:16 | list oh food lots of yeah okay so good food so as a as a |
| 27:22 | guide i try to choose foods that have been grown under stressful conditions |
| 27:27 | so these would be organic for a start a locally grown |
| 27:33 | and not in a just a regular hot house with lots of nutrients and water so |
| 27:38 | if i can go to a local farm i'll do that and but the other way you can do it is you |
| 27:44 | can look for foods that have a lot of color the purples the reds the very deep greens |
| 27:50 | these are signs that the plants are making healthy molecules for you these xenohormetans as i mentioned so that the |
| 27:56 | top foods would be if i could only eat one food it would probably be avocados the next one i do |
| 28:03 | like very high quality fresh very tasty you know with maybe a little bit of bread or gluten-free bread |
| 28:09 | dipped in there but not a lot i've tried to avoid carbs like that so we've got two the third one would be a roasted brussels |
| 28:16 | sprouts pan fried bit of garlic and salt pepper that's three but the next would be um |
| 28:24 | cantaloupe or rockmelon as i would call it as a fruit that's the most nutritious |
| 28:30 | you can get and if i could pick another one in that category i'd say blueberries |
| 28:35 | as well i snack on those pretty often and then the fourth category our fifth category that's important would be the |
| 28:41 | nuts and so cashews are my favorite but i also have brazil nuts basil and just a whole variety of nuts during the day so |
| 28:48 | if i'm peckish i'll take a few and the protein in the nuts suppresses appetite |
avocado
| 28:53 | i love it everyone get out their pencils go on their instacart or amazon prime or go to their local farmer's market |
| 28:59 | wherever you go shopping you got your list personally i think you made me very happy with avocados |
| 29:06 | taking the number one spot i'll never forget there was a moment on the podcast where we had walter longo |
| 29:12 | the famous walter longo on the show this was like two years ago and we were talking about avocados and |
| 29:19 | he said i'm not sure we don't have the data if if all this avocado consumption is good |
| 29:25 | for us and i was like hold on you just said like there's no santa claus to everyone |
| 29:33 | so i'm very happy to hear avocados well well i'm i'm a good friend and colleague of falters we've known each |
| 29:39 | other since we were kids actually in our 20s and we like to debate but where i would disagree about that is |
| 29:45 | that we know that avocados have high levels of oleic acid as well as sodas olive oil and oleic |
| 29:52 | acid will activate cert-1 which is an enzyme that controls longevity in our bodies and so we know at least some of |
| 29:58 | the components such as oleic acid are extremely beneficial as well as those unsaturated fats that come along |
longevity movement
| 30:05 | so in closing there's so much happening in the longevity space |
| 30:10 | is there something specific you're just beyond excited about in the movement that you'd |
| 30:17 | like to share in the movement this is the movement this is a longevity movement i feel like everyone longevity |
| 30:23 | wasn't in the lexicon i feel like a couple years ago right yeah yeah you're right about that it's |
| 30:29 | been really a thrill for me to see this movement occur because i was banging my |
| 30:36 | head against the wall for 25 years and no one would listen my book helped it's sold close to a |
| 30:42 | million copies around the world so that was good but what i'm most excited about is the fact that the younger generation |
| 30:48 | has embraced longevity unexpectedly because you know stupid me i thought only old people cared about aging but no it's |
| 30:56 | you know gen y and gen z that have realized that humans can achieve anything if they put their minds to it |
| 31:01 | and we now realize a lot of young people realized is that aging begins before |
| 31:06 | birth and every day is important and the clock is ticking and you can slow that down by living well and eating well and even |
| 31:13 | some supplements that i mentioned these will slow the process down and the longer they live the more technology |
| 31:19 | they can be exposed to so many people who are born around now in the last 10 years can |
| 31:24 | make it to the 22nd century and imagine what's going to be available then if you know the last five years has |
| 31:30 | totally changed everything and we can now reverse aging so yeah that's mostly what excites me is |
| 31:36 | that every day i'm contacted by young people in their 20s and 30s who are excited about what we do and want to |
| 31:43 | join the movement and either get involved in social media or medical research and devote their |
| 31:49 | careers to it and for the record again what is your biological age versus your uh |
my biological age
| 31:56 | your real age if you will well i'm 52 and uh |
| 32:02 | my biological age is in my low 40s depending on the measurement but |
| 32:07 | when i'm really good then i can get it down into the low 30s but yeah right now my blood by chemistry if you looked at |
| 32:14 | it you'd say and you didn't know me you'd say i'm in my early 40s you know i'm still waiting for that gray hair to |
| 32:20 | appear so so far so good the good news is that what i'm i've been |
| 32:25 | doing to myself which is listed also in my book page 304 if you want to jump to |
| 32:31 | that it doesn't seem to be hurting me which is a good start but also as i get older seems to be benefiting me as well |
David Sinclair program
| 32:37 | i gotta get on the david sinclair program i'm getting up there i'm 47 now so you know i gotta do the biological age |
| 32:44 | test i i'm somewhat i did you know look i believe |
| 32:50 | wellness is a journey and and it doesn't matter how old you are it's |
| 32:55 | never too late to start yet there are times when i look back at my 20s and oh man i was just a mess |
| 33:03 | right and and we did damage to our uh bodies in those days and we we think we're immortal in when we're 20 |
| 33:10 | but now that we can measure the biological clock we can take a blood test we're developing in my lab |
| 33:16 | this cheek swab which will be a lot cheaper than the current tests |
| 33:21 | that can tell us our biological age and we know that even in your 20s you're aging your body if you don't look after |
| 33:27 | it and that goes for things you might not think of when you go to a rock concert and you listen to super loud music |
| 33:34 | you're aging your ears so that by the time you're our age you'll have less hearing so that actually leads me okay |
Whats under the radar
| 33:40 | this this is the real last question so is there something that's really under the radar you know that's a great |
| 33:47 | example that is either on on one hand it's |
| 33:52 | aging us that we're not aware of like like going to a rock concert or on the other hand the behavior |
| 33:59 | that is promoting longevity that we're unaware of like what are we unaware of that is working for us or against us in |
| 34:06 | terms of the longevity that'll be i mean it that's the last question yeah well what we have found is that if you break |
| 34:13 | dna that accelerates the aging clock dramatically in my lab we can drive aging forward in a mouse and make it get |
| 34:19 | old within a few months but the good news is we can now reprogram them to be young again so we're driving aging forwards and backwards but what this |
| 34:26 | tells us is that things that break chromosomes are really potent accelerators of aging now |
| 34:32 | smoking will do that going in bright sunlight for hours and burning your skin will do that we know that from |
| 34:39 | experience we didn't realize it was aging but it really is but there are other things that break dna in our lives there are chemicals |
| 34:46 | from plastics even the new car smell is breaking our dna when we fly |
| 34:52 | at high altitudes we're breaking dna because the cosmic rays hit us i'm skeptical of these scanners that they're |
| 34:58 | neutral on breaking dna and getting an x-ray and a ct scan will break your dna |
| 35:04 | now we need ct scans and x-rays for good reason i wouldn't refuse one from your |
| 35:09 | doctor but don't get ct scans and x-rays if you don't need them so i've had big arguments with my dentist |
| 35:15 | please don't x-ray my mouth every year i don't want it and they say you gotta have it |
| 35:20 | and i say why because you need to pay for your machine so i i try to reduce my exposure to radiation |
| 35:27 | in general for that reason david always a pleasure thank you so |
| 35:33 | much jason it's been great to see you thanks |