2023-07-14 - Interview Dr. David Sinclair - mindbodygreen - AGING is a disease we can REVERSE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mhJ9XElJaA&t=3s&ab_channel=mindbodygreen
- Interviewer: Jason Wachob
- Length: 1:01:52
Transcript
[Music]
David welcome
thanks for having me on it is an honor
to have you here I'm a big fan of your
work and congrats on the new book
lifespan
so what you say in the book is so
there's so many interesting things I'm
going to start the highest level where
you say aging is a disease
let's talk about that
well so aging is a disease is a shock to
most people because we thought we knew
what aging was
but what I'm saying is that we should
look at aging as we do a disease
definition of of a disease is that over
time you lose function
you become
disabled and eventually if it's a bad
disease you die from it that sounds a
lot like aging right and if you go to
the medical dictionary the only
difference between aging and a disease
is that a disease affects less than half
the population
so if aging affected 51
we as we do we separate it from disease
if it was affecting 49 percent
we'd be studying this and putting
billions and billions of dollars into
trying trying to solve it and that 50
cut off is completely arbitrary
the problem with having aging separate
from disease and remember it's just a
word definition it's not a biological
difference they're actually totally
intertwined aging is the major cause of
all major diseases on the planet
but we put into a separate category
partly because of History because we
didn't understand it it seemed natural
whereas cancer was unnatural but it's
all natural and we've always fought
against diseases like cancer and heart
disease we didn't know how to until
recently same with aging but we're at a
point now like we were with cancer 30 40
years ago we Now understand we think
what drives the process and we're having
some really great success in the lab and
in some clinical trials with people of
being able to at least slow down and
some evidence that even reversing aging
is possible and when you can do that
then I think we should start taking
aging as a disease very seriously so in
your opinion we're at that point where
we can slow aging and it is reversible
in mice it's pretty easy it was it was
shockingly easy but we're not mice so we
have a bit of work to do but there are a
number of studies that already published
that you can reverse aspect of Aging in
people boost their immune system improve
endurance improve metabolism
in fact there's a drug on the market
called metformin which we may delve into
yes uh which is our our best guess is
it's a longevity molecule it actually
slows down aging because diabetics you
take this molecule
are relatively resistant to heart
disease and cancer and Alzheimer's and
Frailty even though they have diabetes
and we think that if healthy people or
pre-diabetics take this drug they'll
also be protected
um but yeah it's here right now that's
what I'm trying to say in my book and
that there are things we can do with our
lives today and there are things that
are coming down the pike just a few
years from now so let's stay on
Metformin for a minute I think it's so
interesting because essentially it's
refined our real medicine it's French
lilac but it's a drug
and so let's just talk about what it is
and you mentioned diabetes that's where
it originated from but there was a
recent study where it was a combination
of Metformin DHEA and growth hormone
that took it was a small study I think
it was like nine or ten people but took
two and a half years off of the
biological clock
so let's just yeah talk about that for a
second
right well until recently we didn't
really know how to measure aging
telomeres are a bit wishy-washy they
move around it's not super accurate
these are the ends of chromosomes that
shorten
um there are blood biomarkers which a
company that I work with called inside
tracker measures so I've been estimating
my biological age using five different
measures in blood but recently we've
developed What's called the epigenetic
clock and Stephen Horvath a colleague of
mine
gives his name to it so why is that
important now we can take a DNA sample
from any part of your body typically
it's blood because that's easy to get
and I can I could tell you how old you
are exactly within a few percent
biologically I don't have to see you I
don't need to measure you I don't need
to see birthday candles and then I can
predict accurately when you're going to
die as well wow so where can I do this
test if you show up at your lab it's
right on the cusp of being commercially
available
I'm working on something with Steve
there are a couple of others
it's almost ready for prime time so this
time next year you should be able to
fairly cheaply figure out when you're
going to die have you figured out your
bio I'm sure what's your biological age
well I haven't done this test yet okay
um I want to I've Been Working on mice
and
getting that to work also and we're
working really hard to bring the test
down from 300 bucks down to three three
bucks so that that'll really change
things but yeah your your point is what
HMI well the best estimate came from
that inside tracker company and uh it's
an independent thing even though I'm a
small time investor they didn't know it
was my blood right so but they
I was actually at 58. aged 58
biologically when I was 48 which freaked
me out I didn't want to be 10 years
older I wasn't exercising I wasn't
eating the right things I wasn't taking
nmn which I do now we'll talk about that
later
um and I wasn't on Metformin so I added
a few things step wise and had a look at
what happened to my body
and pretty quickly it was in less than
six months as I added things and got
better and better
uh looking at my blood biochemistry the
algorithm independently determined that
I went down to 31.4 wow now people look
at me and say David
that's not science and it's true that's
not a clinical trial uh but if nothing
else I improved a lot of the parameters
that go up with age and I brought them
back down
and that that's if nothing more it makes
me feel good about myself and it was
motivational and what I've learned from
that experience is that the more you can
know about your body like a dashboard
the better you can respond
um if you go for a run or if you change
your life if you eat a certain new diet
you exercise too much or too little how
do you know it's working you have to
measure things to really be able to a
know if it's working and B just be
cognizant of of what you're putting in
your mouth and what you're doing with
your body so you think we're a year away
from this okay so the clock yeah getting
back to the clock yeah it's
it's really interesting you take the DNA
out and you just treat it with a
chemical and run it through a sequencing
machine and determine the DNA code and
what we're measuring is not just the
code but there are chemicals that bind
to the letter c you know how DNA is actg
on the C's we get what's called a methyl
chemical that's
six there binds to it and doesn't come
off and they accumulate essentially in
different places as we get older and we
can read that sequence and that pattern
is very predictable between people in
fact the same pattern can predict the
age of a dog as well so that there's
this common what we call epigenetic
basis for the Aging clock between all
mammals and seemingly all the way back
to jellyfish
so
I want to talk about the what we can do
in terms of Lifestyle because metformin
it's a drug we're talking about we're
going to talk about NAD and nmn and R
and all the other things we can kind of
do there
but for for many listening they're going
to say okay I have this information
maybe a year from now or today or I want
to do there are things I can do in terms
of Lifestyle yeah in your opinion as
always our friend Rich Roll says you uh
you know hell begins on the plate for a
lot of people so if we start with
nutrition in your opinion what's the
optimal diet for longevity
yeah well so the the good news is that
that clock will tell us if we're doing
the right thing
and we didn't know that until now so
what are the things to do uh well the
first thing that I started to do based
on all the evidence was to eat less
often
and I have propensity to diabetes and
obesity in my family and in my genome so
I have to be extra careful if I didn't
watch what I ate I would be probably
over 200 200 something pounds you were
far from it uh yeah what am I a
135 or something
um but I have to work at it and so that
means I cannot eat and I shouldn't eat
three meals a day
um I try to eat one meal a day if I can
sometimes it's a bit hard with all of
the work and brain activity that's going
on
but yeah that's one thing is the three
meals a day with snacks in between never
get hungry
I think that's the worst for people it's
it's I know it's against what your
mother said uh probably
um and the old idea was that you don't
want to stress out your system you don't
want to have big spikes in ups and downs
in glucose because that'll stress out
your pancreas and that'll lead to
diabetes
but what we've learned is that yeah
overeating is bad but under eating is
not so bad as long as you're not
malnourished you know we're not talking
about malnutrition here we don't want
particularly young uh kids thinking that
they should be too little but we're
talking about adults here who are
clearly given too much food in their
lives and have access to too much food
um which leads not just to obesity but
even those who are healthy always being
satisfied and never feeling hungry it
puts the body into a state of
complacency we've worked in my lab on a
set of genes called the sirtuins for the
last 30 years we found them first in
baker's yeast and they're in our bodies
these are very ancient genes that evolve
to to survive when times were tough
and we think that's why diet or healthy
diets and being hungry and even exercise
give us health benefits that's why we
live longer if we exercise it's not
because blood flows around the body it's
because you're turning on these ancient
defenses to survive and if we're sitting
around and we're eating as as much food
as we want
and we're always in a thermo neutral
zones we're always just perfectly air
conditioned and heated throughout the
year our bodies just say hey great no
need to fight disease I'm good
and so fasting I'm going to stay there
for a minute a lot of people have
different definitions of fasting whether
it's
over a night or 16 8 or 18 6 or and then
people will debate well what what is
autophagy kick in and the power of
autophagus so let's talk in your opinion
what what is the
optimal way too fast for longevity right
well let's get one thing clear because
there's a lot of debate about this
uh we don't know what's best for
the average human because there is no
average human
and that's why I say when when you come
to me and ask me for advice I'll say
well I know what works for me because
I've been doing this for 15 years very
fair point all right but let I'm not
judging the question I think that that
what I do is good for me in part because
it fits my lifestyle but if I could just
do whatever I wanted to I would try to
skip food for three days in a row
at least once a month
um our friend Peter otia does does that
he goes for even a week once a quarter
now I can't do that I just find it
really tough but I think it's good
because after three days we know that a
different type of autophagy kicks in to
scrape the barrel and recycle proteins
and it's called chaperone mediated
autophagyin do you say that again it was
a mouthful so chaperone okay we've got
that uh mediated autophagy
okay and it's really what it means is
there are proteins called chaperones
that hold on to proteins and guide them
where to go and in this case they push
them into the garbage can to be recycled
and that takes a lot of hunger
uh I would say starvation but a lot of
uh yeah three days is no joke pretty
close to starvation right
and so your body will say okay now it's
time I've run out of all my fat or uh
run out of my certainly my liver stores
I'm gonna start chewing up the protein
to make energy and that's what's going
on and that's when you get rid of the
really bad misfolded proteins in the
body which accumulate cause diseases
like Alzheimer's and other things so
that's all good and so I think that
being able to do that would be wonderful
um there are other ways to do it there's
there's that drug that's fairly toxic
called rapamycin that stimulates a lot
low amino acids I haven't gone there yet
because it's it's got some side effects
but it has been shown in humans to to
boost their immune system so it does
have some problems the other good thing
to know is that there's a clinical trial
about to read out the results really
soon phase three which means that's the
final result
um and there might be a new drug that's
safe and effective to boost this pathway
this protein sensing pathway
but in the in the absence of that drug
which is still many years away for the
average person the best thing to do is
to go hungry for three or more days
so for the average person yeah probably
not going to happen
what's more likely is 14 hours 16 hours
18 hours and in your opinion is one I
know we're all Unique Individuals I'm
six seven 200 plus pounds I'm very
different from you and our average
listener
what and it's hard to generalize but is
is there sort of a minimum in your
opinion to get the benefits of fasting
for longevity
yes specifically autophagy too yeah
there is and you can also look at look
at um
places on Earth where people live a long
time
now there are plenty of places where
people don't eat breakfast but they
don't live a long time most people not
most but a lot of people skip breakfast
anyway before this whole intermittent
fasting periodic feeding uh thing came
into the mainstream so I think it's got
to be more than just skipping breakfast
so that's why I try to skip lunch too
um so I think if you can't skip
breakfast do it
and if you don't then try to skip
another meal dinner perhaps have a very
early dinner or not at all
my metabolism by the way is
the type where my my blood sugar goes up
as I wake up and therefore I'm full with
sugar and I don't need any more and that
explains why I'm not hungry in the
morning so if you're not hungry in the
morning you're probably like me you
don't need breakfast so don't don't have
it
um
and we actually just as an aside we have
a son uh Benjamin who has my metabolism
and my wife as old parents thought it
was essential that he goes to school
with a full stomach so he can
concentrate
um and he developed obesity as a result
so he gets a tiny breakfast now but
that's a consequence of our genetics
but yeah anyway the the point being more
you can skip the better and I don't
think breakfast is enough got it so
you're I'd say 60 from what I'm 16 18 at
the minimum if you go longer I go longer
so with regards to diet
so what what do I eat
so we've established of what we're when
we're not eating how often you know but
during the eating window what is what is
the optimal diet in your opinion how do
you eat yeah well so I've always been of
the opinion that you can learn from
other cultures uh and we we know that
what we eat in the U.S
or at least served up when you're at
airports is the worst you can it feels
good it tastes good but that doesn't
mean it's good for you in fact it's
similar to the the point that you have
to get your body out of a state of
complacency if you're eating a lot of
sugar and fat uh you're you've got
complacency in your your mind and your
body just is thanks for that I'm not
going to try hard so how do you trick
your body into feeling like times are
about to be tough
uh so one way is to have fewer calories
in General so the best way I've found to
do that is not to eat High caloric food
which is for me is a very tasty
vegetarian meal and uh and salads and
actually I think many of the listeners
will know that once you get used to that
the idea of eating a giant steak fatty
steak is is not that appealing
occasionally I'll still eat meat
um in part because it's it's often the
only only thing you can eat on a menu
and and I don't mind some social
social life but I also exercise and if
I'm exercising a bit of meat I think
it's not going to hurt me but generally
I try to
be more of a uh a guinea pig than a than
a lion I look for particularly uh plants
that are highly colored deep colored
plants and you might ask why that would
be well I'm curious why and what what
well so things like
um
so leafy vegetables that are really deep
green or deep red
and uh those are the particularly the
good ones and I also look for organic
foods not because I'm scared as much of
the pesticides though that's important
it's because organic foods aren't
held with you know with gloves they're
they're a little bit more stressed out
usually
and the more stressed out your food is
first of all the brighter colors they'll
have because they're producing these
colors as a defense
and those colors are actually an
indicator of other molecules that plants
produce to try and survive when they're
stressed we call these xenor Xeno
hermetic molecules now that's a mouthful
so I'll break it down Xeno just means
between species and hormesis hermetic
means what doesn't kill you makes you
stronger and you're getting the theme
here right we need to trick our bodies
into thinking that times are tough even
though we live in Utopia compared to our
ancestors and so the the plant molecules
that are produced such as I could list a
bunch of them so Resveratrol comes on
quercetin butene um so the the green tea
and turmeric and curcumin we've all
heard about this but has anyone ever
really thought why are they so helpful
how come they tweak the right Pathways
in the body
in just the right way and my best
explanation is that we have evolved to
sense when our plants are running out of
uh their own food or their own water and
that's important because you've got to
know when you're going to run out of
food and get ready for that and that
puts your body in a state of Defense
and we can trick our bodies into
thinking we're running out of food even
though we can always just go down to the
supermarket by eating foods that have
been stressed themselves and those
chemicals like Resveratrol which we've
studied for decades
turns on those sirtuin defenses
mimicking exercise mimicking fasting
without actually having to do those
things though before you ask me I know
you can ask me it's not an excuse to
take these molecules in high doses and
not
lead a healthy lifestyle because when we
add them together
what we see at least in the lab is that
they are doubly beneficial when done
together right
so if you had to put together your list
of Dr David Sinclair's superfoods
I'm walking in the Whole Foods what
what's on that is it broccoli I'm just
guessing you're you're like what are
your what are your top five superfoods
everyone's got to get out their pen and
paper put their note this is what I must
I must eat
all right well the first thing I I do is
not in the supermarket it's a yogurt
Farm Farmers Market thank you
um yeah so the the first thing is I
actually order online sachets of of a
yogurt that I make religiously and it
lasts for about three or four weeks in
the fridge so it's not not a lot of work
it takes me five minutes and I'm gonna I
have a newsletter on my website that I'm
gonna put out the recipe but it's
wonderful and I haven't been sick since
I started two years ago taking this
stuff gotta share a little bit what's in
the yogurt I'm dying to know well
there's a blend of about 15 different
bacteria that are normally in the human
gut in small amounts and the doctor that
makes this says that they're highly
anti-inflammatory and I was skeptical I
bought this stuff for my son who I
thought maybe we could reduce his
obesity issue and we all we both started
taking eating it and found we were
transformed in terms of our health
including not getting sick anymore
so it's it's you know not a clinical
trial again but I used to get sick every
few weeks because I fly a lot sure we'll
talk about flying later yeah you got to
get this yogurt on the market well it's
it's it is on the market I have no
connection to it so I think I'm free to
to say what it is
do you mind sure
um on if you just um type into your
browser uh Bravo yogurt bravo bravo
yogurt and uh I'll put out the full
recipe but essentially you don't need to
follow their recipe there's a quick and
easy way to do it
um they suggest boiling the milk and
sterilizing everything and then lowering
temperature blah blah blah so I'm a
microbiologist I figured out a way to do
this without apparently any risk
a bit of hot Clean Water Rinse out a big
mason jar
about you know a bit bigger than the
ones we've got here on this table mix
that with whole milk
um you know if you're lactose intolerant
then I guess you could try your own
brand but whole milk grass-fed
pour it in mix it up shake it put it in
the oven on defrost
at 95 degrees overnight and then you've
got two weeks worth of yogurt wow and uh
it it tastes like the best yogurt I can
buy
or better actually there's there's no
sugar in it of course and uh so it's
yeah I don't like the taste of really
sweet anything anymore after my diet
anyway so that's my first one let's go
to the farmers market
I'll give everyone the full recipe later
but the um
first thing I would go for would be uh
so a dark green leafy vegetable so that
would be
unfortunately kale I say unfortunately
because a lot of people don't like cake
that's just Dave raspberry yeah well
that part yeah I like kale yeah kale or
anything I think baby um broccoli is
good
all that uh good leafy stuff
I'd also would do brussels sprouts
um
I would avoid grapes actually uh grapes
so Rhonda Patrick and I agree that
grapes are overrated
there's huge amounts of sugar and you
eat one and you can see actually if you
monitor your blood like we do she sends
it through the roof so that's just one
thing I'd walk past and then the next
aisle so we've got two three items
already I think
um if you include the yogurt then then I
would go and I'd get
I get fruit I'm not a verse to fruit
it's a nice snack in between if I need
it so I'm pretty good on on apples but I
don't go for a really sugar Laden fruit
you know I don't want another sweet
um banana I think things like um oranges
uh stink you know they're fine with the
the pulp but still I'd rather keep I'd
save my glucose intake for something
that is really really great the other
thing that I noticed actually on this
diet and having monitored myself is
food special now it's a treat and so if
I stick something in my mouth that isn't
great
I've been known to go spit it out not
religiously and not at a restaurant but
if it tastes like crap I'm not going to
swallow it because that's that's
something else I can't eat later sure
it's a good way you know I don't eat a
lot of meat anymore and what I do it's
gonna be a damn good piece of meat yeah
yeah I'm not gonna do it it's like I
don't want a burger just for a burger
when I'm like I do it it's going to be
amazing and do it once a quarter or
whatever yeah so I I also ate beans and
things um I'm not okay with electives
I'm not sure what about about Dr
gundry's uh thing I have to be convinced
about that
okay that's good so you're okay with
beans too
yeah I am I'm a little bit more cautious
now that I've read his book
um
but I've been eating that stuff my whole
life I think people struggle with
autoimmune and could have issues but if
you you'd know if there was a problem
that's my take at least my my uh my
I don't have a medical opinion
but that's my personal opinion well it's
all personal here's the thing that
like you say what what works for
someone's microbiome and Physiology and
immune system might not work for another
and so you can feel what works for you
and you can monitor
uh not just how you feel and how how
many times you get sick but you if you
want you can do a blood test at one of
these questions but also what you can do
is um
uh you can measure things like blood
sugar and see that
it's working or it isn't
the other thing that's important is that
um it's taken me about 15 years to to
optimize things for myself wow it's not
just
I'll just switch to one diet and hope
that it works
and that's often a misunderstood because
my colleagues
who are scientists they say well you
know David's doing this doing that how
does he know anything this is you know
and they say n of one n of one that's
the criticism
well it's an end of one but you know
over 15 years every day you'll you do
learn a lot and you can repeat the
experiment over and over again
give you a quick example I had cacao a
big thick chocolate drink as part of a
ceremony uh
we uh I was just out in San Diego and I
drank it and it had a bit of sugar in it
which is not going to kill me but I
expected my blood sugar levels to go up
which they did because I've got a
monitor here
uh but then what happened was really
weird my blood sugar went way down as I
went to bed and through the night stayed
Baseline couldn't even go lower
according to the sensor when I woke up
it came back up I've never seen that
happen and I'm curious if I try it again
will it happen again is there something
in chocolate that particular type that
that really made my insulin sensitivity
go up which would be great and those are
it's an example of the kind of
experiments that I can do on my body
I was going to ask you I think for
someone who does a lot of experiments on
their body and so when it sounds like
who also listens to their body
do you mostly find when you when you've
feel good after eating something and
then you look at the lab results that
they're in line and vice versa when you
when you feel like crap and then you
look at the Bloods or whatever Mark
you're looking at
marker's not good do you find that
mostly to be true I do and that's been a
surprise I've only been monitoring my
glucose for a couple of months now but
now I know what what it feels like to
have good blood glucose and what it
doesn't and that's a surprising thing
about it besides great seeing bad and
potatoes not being as bad as I thought
and white rice being horrendously bad
unfortunately I ate sushi for 10 years
so that was a mistake but but here's
what I also learned is that if I overdo
it let's say
well maybe I'll tell you for sure last
week I I ate a lot of food and I drank a
fair amount of alcohol regrettably
I felt bad I slept poorly
and that's to be expected but what I
didn't expect was the next three days
my metabolism was out of whack my I
couldn't get my blood sugar down I I saw
it was just massively high and I thought
this has never happened this is weird
what I think has happened is that my
liver then filled up with fat and is
releasing it into my bloodstream even
though I'm hungry and actually felt
hungry
while my blood sugar was still high so
I'd really messed up my system and I
think that's how most people
exist because they're not uh well not
most people but a lot of people who eat
a lot of food are still hungry even
though they've got a lot of blood sugar
in their body
and then it took three days to go away
the other thing that I was I was
fascinated was that I jumped on a
treadmill to try and get that blood
sugar to go down thinking wow this is
crazy I got to get it down let's see
what happens so I ran on a treadmill for
about
10 minutes pretty fast and I got it to
come down as soon as I stopped running
it just went straight back up again oh
and so that has taught me very clearly
in the past week don't overdo it because
it's not just that it's one day your
body suffers for many days after that so
two things that you mentioned I want to
touch on one is fat specifically healthy
fats and what's your take on healthy
fats
and then two we're gonna
go to working out exercise yeah high
intensity real training what does that
look like well let's go go to fat fat is
very with keto and fat and lots of
different opinions what what's your take
on on fat yeah I I don't think fat is is
evil I just think fat is calorific
and you just have to eat less of it
otherwise you will build up
um adiposity
and adiposity is the killer I've found
is that it's not the fat that's so bad
it's what the fat signals to the body
um in terms of inflammation and other
things and the fatter you are and if
you're a fat mouse or a fat rat you'll
you'll be suppressing the activity of
your longevity genes your Saturns and
these other genes
um and that's really bad that means that
you might be healthy you think you're
healthy but if you've got adiposity a
large amount
you know it's healthy I've I've got some
fat on me I'm not too skinny but I see
with my body if it gets over a certain
amount let's say a BMI goes up to
I'm probably a BMI of 23. if I go up to
25 26 I immediately start to see
problems
um including evidence that my longevity
genes are being shut down
so getting back to what to eat though I
think it's fine eating fat in fact I
used to avoid fat like the plague
because of recommendations from
nutritionists sure in the nine remember
slack Wells and all the yeah I just eat
sugar instead low fat low-fat muffin in
the morning to start your day it's a
nightmare so I've changed my mind and
and actually I would love to get my
childhood back
but for about 20 years I didn't eat eggs
very little milk almost never ate milk
or yogurt thinking that any form of fat
was gonna hurt me and now I lead a
wonderful life I eat cheese and I eat
yogurt and
I think I'm healthier than I ever was
but it's you can't eat the same quantity
of cheese as you do plant food you just
gain too much weight in terms of healthy
fats now clearly cheese is not the
healthiest my healthy fats that I like
are um if I eat meat I eat fish if I
have a choice and then I take my
omega-3s
so do you how do you rank your fish do
you go by the river of Smash
salmon mackerel anchovy sardines and
herring
them accordingly I I try to rate them
based on taste that's a good way to rate
them but in terms of longevity I'm just
curious well Salmon's good I know that
um
but I I don't break it down that finally
okay
and in terms of your healthy fats
other than fish
a lot of people here love avocados olive
oil good by you oh yeah yeah okay sure
so plant fats I'm I'm I always have a
couple of avocados in the fridge that or
on the table
um
now I'm trying to figure out should I be
putting it on toast that's how I usually
eat it but maybe I don't want the toast
the good Australian in you avocado toast
yeah
yep so avocado fantastic for sure olive
oil I'm becoming more and more convinced
olive oil is the thing to do so I've
always put liberal amounts on bread and
on
um
on on salads but there's more and more
evidence that just taking a spoonful of
this stuff is good for you and uh it was
Dave asprey who put me on no no it
wasn't it was country country loves
olive oil gandry was the one who was
saying it's got 10 000 times whatever
yeah
um that makes sense and some of my
colleagues are also uh real devotees of
the olive oil which is great it's one of
those foods that not only tastes good is
good for you well he'll joke I'll have a
side of bread with the olive oil
um so let's go I want to go back to
exercise sounds like you're a fan of
high intensity interval training hit
um I'm a big fan it's mostly a spectator
sport unfortunately
for me um I would love to do more I'm
mostly on airplanes or in behind a
computer
um so I
only once a week do I always do high
intensity exercise it's terrible it
should be three times a week at least
occasionally I'll go to our home gym but
usually I'm just naked um so I go
because it's only once a week I spend
three hours in the gym everybody said
that I broke and he was like what are
you doing
for three hours
making up for the rest of the week so we
spend an hour so my son and I do this
and it's the best thing I
I probably wouldn't do it as much if it
wasn't for my son being there um I took
him to the gym for his benefit which
turned out to be the best thing we've
ever done as a family
but so we spent an hour with a trainer
who really works us hard uh we were
doing deadlifts and uh wow yeah my son
is in the top one percent for his age
now because wow how old is he he's 12
okay
almost as much as me wow
uh he's very proud of that and then um
then we do you know a lot of muscle
strength training and then a lot of
stretching and then we do boxing
and uh he's getting to the point where
where he can actually cause some damage
on on me to me uh and he recently got
his his own set of boxing gloves so he's
very happy about that so that's all
that's fairly aerobic if you do that
right
and then we'll do some treadmill and
some StairMaster and some stretching and
then we did then we go that's that's
about an hour and a half to two hours
then we go downstairs to our steam room
the sauna and the hot tub and then the
cold bath
and we cycle through those for an hour
and uh I hate getting cold I'm from
Australia I hate the Boston Winters but
my son grew up in New England so he he's
up to 15 minutes in the cold bath wow
every time he's breaking his record
um whereas a minute for me is is painful
but anyway what I I believe is that
these sirtuin genes are activated by a
cold and probably by heat we don't know
for sure but there's enough evidence
from both of these that if you look at
groups of people who do these things
they tend to be protected against heart
disease among some other things now you
can argue all day that that's just a
correlation and that people go to the
sauna are probably not the same ones who
are in hospital fair enough
but at a minimum I'm feeling pretty good
and we know that in mice if you make
them cold they develop what's called
Brown fat and we have brown fat we've
discovered the last 15 years and
branford's very good for us it burns
energy and it puts out these proteins
that help the rest of the body so for
someone who also hates the cold
and I'll try anything I I am not I think
the last time I did like an ice bath was
in college for basketball like and that
was it I swear once I'm done I'm done
like what's the bare minimum for someone
to get the health benefit of going from
extraordinarily cold to heat and back
and forth can't do the hour or 15
minutes like what's the bare minimum if
I'm at home and I got the shower what
can I do
well it's a guess because no one studied
it um
so what I what I'm thinking
scientifically is
the shock is the biggest part always
with this hormesis effect it's you want
the shock get your body out of that
state so that's why I think for a minute
up to my neck is is enough okay once
your body starts to get used to it the
effects gone right so that's with most
things
um that's why I don't eat all the time
and you don't want to always be running
all the time either you need to recover
and then you hit your body again and
cycle it that way so a minute cold then
hot then change it well I love what you
said because I I found personally
everything works until it doesn't
to some degree
and it's listening
well yeah
the other thing about it is so we know
what's going to happen to us if we don't
do anything okay we've seen what that
happens all of our ancestors who didn't
look after themselves it's not pretty
and many in my family don't live beyond
about 70. uh so
like you say it if it doesn't work
I'm not gonna cry it's a lot of fun I
feel great I'm with my son
um a minute of cold is really you know
it gives me a little bit more mental
strength as well I just I need that and
uh
at the at best I'm gonna give myself
another 10 20 years of healthy life so
that's a calculation that I think is
pretty easy to do and with regards to
exercise
seems like a there there's a lot of
interesting research lately that less is
more with regards to interval training
exactly yeah so in my book I've got a
fair amount of um references yes it's
like half the book if I remember I got
the book like all the footnotes in here
wow yeah I had to hire somebody just to
format the fitness but I'm a scientist
so everything that I say is backed up by
science it had to be this isn't a
self-help made-up book
um it's it's really is scientifically
valid as I could make it but in in the
book I talk about
um what you were saying which is that we
used to think you had to be a marathon
runner to live a long time that's
actually not true you you can actually
wear out your body parts from sport you
probably have some friends who are
feeling it already
so you want to be able to get the
maximum
bang for the buck and what we're finding
we scientists is that just 10 minutes on
a treadmill as long as you lose your
breath you become hypoxic that means
that you're you're unable to carry out a
conversation during this one if you do
that for 10 minutes a few times a week
that seems to be
nearly as good as pro athletes
so yeah a little bit goes a long way
when it comes to exercise but you've got
to push yourself you can't just
uh you know walk up a flight of stairs
and think you're done for the week run
up run up like five flights
right still walking is good if you're
elderly and you can't run clearly
walking helps a lot of
people who are in you know in their
hundreds didn't run a day in their lives
and but they did walk a lot but you got
to keep moving
what about sleep
wow sleep is really really important
more than I thought which I wish we all
knew this when we were in our 20s all
right
and you came from a red eye talking to
two guys didn't sleep last night yeah we
should practice what we preach
um but I do try more than I used to I
especially as I get older it's harder to
recover from a night like that on an
airplane
and again it's this biofeedback really
helps me because it makes you more aware
of what's going on and so that's why
I've got this ring on my finger which is
used by now many people to monitor their
sleep not just when they sleep but how
well they sleep and I learn what causes
me not to sleep well of course being on
a plane doesn't help but even if I'm at
home in my bed if I have a drink late at
night or two messes up my sleep and I'll
feel it the next day a large meal a big
steak late at night yeah nine o'clock
won't sleep and I used to wonder why I
would feel up I wake up feeling bad and
now I've figured out it's it's the Sleep
disruption and so you mentioned planes
you are not a fan we have to and you're
not a fan of TSA either but for
different reasons than most of us yeah
well so what what I've discovered in our
lab is that
one of the drivers of Aging we think and
again this isn't brand new we've been
doing this for now at least 20 years but
it is new to most scientists and the
public is that
aging is driven by this clock that I
mentioned and this clock is What's
called the epigenome which
at a very high level you can think of
the epigenome as scratches on a corner
CD or a DVD and the digital information
is the genome and we what scratches the
CD is uh largely its broken DNA because
the cell has to reorganize all of your
genes to deal with the broken DNA and
even when it's put back together it
doesn't fully reorganize itself the way
it was you know 10 minutes before and if
you keep doing that over a lifetime you
lose the ability to read the right genes
the right time in your cells we think
lose their identity
so
with that said and also I should say
that long-lived species have very good
capability of repairing broken
chromosomes and proteins that or genes
that help DNA repair
if you put them into animals they live
longer there's one called 36 which is
one of those or two ones that we work on
you can make a mouse live longer if you
give it better DNA repair all that to
say avoid DNA breaks as best you can
because I think that's one of the main
drivers of Aging now you can break your
DNA by going out in the sun we know that
any kid who grew up in Australia myself
being one of them will look older
because well purpose is a layer there's
right uh yeah ozone and uh and the
culture
um you know I grew up in the 80s when
having a tan was if you didn't have a
tan people wouldn't talk to you you're a
loser so you had to get brown we used to
just sit out there with oil on our skin
cooking and our places would peel it was
horrible especially our backs but yeah
um
so here's the thing I try to avoid the
sun occasionally as long as I don't
overwhelm my skin I'm happy to sit in
the Sun for 10 minutes 15 minutes it
feels great and it's good for vitamin D
but beyond that you don't want to
overwhelm the system because then you
get this aging effect
there are other ways to break
chromosomes there are toxins in the
environment so pcbs will do it microwave
food and Plastics will do it even the
yellow ink in a an enchant jet printer
will do it that's surprisingly toxic
I've found
and then speaking about the TSA the
original scanners that they had at the
airport did break DNA and it was they
were quite penetrating
and they first banned them in Europe and
for about a year or two uh
I knew that most people didn't and I
would say to the people in the US do you
know that these abandon Europe because
they're dangerous and they'd say oh shut
up and go through it and they would
force me to go through it and I would
say no give me a pat down
anyway long story short that they've
improved them somewhat but I'm still
aware of the dangers of even low-dose
radiation and these mice that we've aged
in the lab by 50 we don't trash their
genomes we just cut them very precisely
a little bit stop it after three weeks
and 10 months later they look really old
compared to their brothers and sisters
so you don't need a lot of DNA damage to
accelerate this aging clock
uh which tells me
avoid radiation unless you actually have
to so an x-ray or chemotherapy
these are ways to break your DNA but you
you need those right if your doctor says
do that you you listen to them as you
should but these avoidable ones I think
we should study those more I would love
to see a group of animals that have been
exposed to those scanners not just for
cancer that's just one thing that can
happen from broken DNA but go for two
years and see what happens to them do
they get older or Not by messing up not
the DNA but not the genome but the
epigenome which is the organization of
the DNA so you mentions your two in so
when I come back to NAD and for our
audience something we've talked about
here before but
as a primer what is it why should we be
paying attention to it
to certain NAD NAD yeah well so certains
are think of them as the protective
enzymes of the body
uh they if you we think in Upstream
Downstream mode so Downstream of them
what are they doing they're repairing
DNA as I mentioned they're stabilizing
the epigenome so they're packaging the
DNA making sure it stays in a youthful
package but they have to jump between
DNA repair and packaging this is their
job they have two two jobs and over time
they lose their position
similar to if there's another hurricane
Katrina the Army Corps of Engineers will
go down fix it but some of them won't
ever come back or they're distracted by
something else some other disaster and
we think that's what the certains are
doing they're moving back and forth
between these two activities
um what's good about them
is that they sense the environment and
the way they do that is they measure how
much NAD is in the cell so NAD is the
world's most boring molecule it if
anyone who remembers biology from high
school will remember NAD is used by
enzymes to carry out reactions about 500
different ones in the cell
and then they made us learn those damn
reactions remember the Krebs cycle or
TCA cycle and all that stuff you
probably don't you put it out of your
memory but but that's that that's what
NAD does and it was
it was considered the most boring
molecule up until the 2000s
when it was discovered that these
sirtuans are sensing them out of NAD in
the cell
and protecting us
and then we realized that Ned even
though it's a very important chemical
which you might think therefore you
don't want to change the levels always
which we need the same level of NAD
turns out a few things happen NAD Cycles
throughout the day so when you wake up
in the morning you're getting more NAD
getting ready for the day
um
and it's cycling it's responsible for
our sleep wake Cycles which is one of
the reasons why sleep is so important
you want to make sure that it's all in
sync
by the way if you disrupt sleep cycles
you get aging that's not in animals so
certains control that NAD is cycling but
the other thing that's now known is that
we lose NAD over time as we get older
not so much in our blood but in our
tissues it goes down by about half
between the ages of 20 and 50. if you
just say if you take a skin sample which
is really scary because NAD is essential
for life
uh you're dead at zero you're definitely
dead at zero uh if if you if we stop
making an ad we would definitely be dead
within about 10 seconds it's like taking
cyanide in fact that's what cyanide does
it blocks the ability to make NAD and
energy
so NAD is important and you don't want
to have half the levels for two reasons
right you're not going to have enough
energy to make these chemical reactions
go but even more important these sort of
ones will be weak and not active and not
repairing DNA and stabilizing the
epigenome so the scratches on the CD get
faster and more and more and more it's
basically rubbing sandpaper on there and
eventually the reader of the CD is
playing a cacophony or or rejecting the
CD which is what we think is aging and
so what can we do to increase NAD
well we know you can exercise and you
can be hungry that's why those things
work we think all right so that I love
it that's the place to start that's what
um in my book is it's not just how to
live but why it works which is important
because it helps you tweak your own body
uh other ways to raise NAD would be
uh
so metformin will raise NAD that his
take a little setback there are three
main categories of longevity genes
there's the sirtuins that I work on
there are seven of those there's a one
that's usually put in the middle called
ampk or amp kinase which senses energy
in the cell low energy
it turns on which is good
and then the third one senses amino
acids and if you have a lot of branched
chain amino acids which are found a lot
in meat it will not be as helpful it's
one of the reasons why I like to
sometimes keep my amino acid intake low
to try and get that pathway going that's
the pathway that'll stimulate that
autophagy that we talked about earlier
um so NAD and all of these pathways are
talking to each other that's my point
and we used to fight as scientists over
whose pathway was more important it was
pathetic uh you know sort of two ends at
the best no M2 is the best no we don't
turns out if you tweak mtor you'll
affect the other two or vice versa so
you can if you tweak the others NAD will
go up and if you tweak NAD the others
will will go but what we don't
understand which is a little confusing
especially for the public and also
scientists is what's the best way to
tweak those three main things in what
order when how
we don't know that yet we've just
figured out that they talk to each other
but the optimum isn't known and what's
interesting is about is people like
myself and thousands of other people now
are trying out their various versions of
diets and exercise when to eat what to
eat to try and optimize that longevity
pathway and together we're figuring this
out and clinical trials are underway but
in a clinical trial you can only change
one thing at a time
and they cost about 15 million dollars
to to complete so it's going to take the
rest of our lives to figure this out the
traditional way or we can try a few
things and see what we can learn which
is what I've done in parallel
but so you can also boost NAD
artificially
if you want there are molecules that we
make in our bodies that are safe enough
we think to take as a supplement so at a
hour and then we've talked about people
are experimenting with injections and
NAD NAD injections but not there and
then a man but it's like it's exciting
there are lots of things we're trying
out right now
that can potentially increase NAD and
tied to longevity and
it's interesting exciting
well it's it it is exciting and uh so
far there's been no downside that this
is the right the potential risk here is
that we've got 100 000 people or more
trying this out and you know God forbid
that there's some downside right we
don't know of what what that is yet and
I want to be the first to know
um and I'll tell the world if we find
something don't worry about that I'm not
going to hide anything uh because my
whole family is now taking and the NAD
booster called nmn yeah yeah not to be
confused with Eminem's uh but yeah my
father my wife even our dogs
um not our kids by the way we don't
think it's worth the risk and besides
young people make a lot of NAD anyway so
there's no need probably
but yeah we want to know what the
toxicity is there doesn't seem to be any
I will tell you that unpublished data
we've been doing clinical trials with
molecules like nmn and uh trying to
develop drugs for diseases like
friedrich's Ataxia which is a energy
deficient disease people end up in
wheelchairs midlife
uh those studies look good we can raise
NAD effectively with an oral pill it's
not sublingual it's just a pill
swallowed we don't need injections it
works just as a pill but um so that
whole debate I'm not jumping into
because I think there's a lot of
not disinterested parties involved sure
um can I just say that uh if anyone
looks at on the internet they'll see
pretty much every company has my name
and quotes from me on their website
trying to say don't believe them this is
Sinclair stuff trust me he works with us
I don't work with any of them okay I
barely even look at their websites first
of all I just get too too upset when I
look at them just like we were talking
about all the people who have your who
have lifespan on Amazon who aren't you
they're ripping off my book too
yeah I guess it's popular sign of
success but it's uh but NAD is is really
interesting we don't think there's any
issues with it there are a lot of
supplements out there I have a
newsletter where I talk about what to
look for sure so that that's how I'm
helping but I have to be very careful
because if I start
being biased or jump into the supplement
world or I start selling something sure
then nobody should believe what I say I
can only imagine
uh so so with regards to longevity
where do you think the conversation is
going to be a year from now three years
you know Dave asperi said he's going to
want to do 180 and he'll go through his
reasons like what what do you think is
attainable for people today and what's
going to be attainable for our children
yeah well so in in my book lifespan I
paint the pictures of what the future
looks like in the very near future and
and for our future and what that means
for the world good and bad and so if you
want a view of that it's in there what I
think is going to happen
and I'm right on The Cutting Edge I see
things that most people don't sometimes
years ahead so consider that what I see
coming is that there are drugs that are
in development that could be on the
market within the next year or two that
look like they would slow down aging the
problem is that aging isn't a disease
at least based on the regular regulatory
authorities anywhere in the world
that may change in the next 10 years too
there's a lot of push from
Grassroots as well as from the top down
so that's probably one country starts
doing it everyone's going to follow
because it's going to be great for that
country
and something like metformin is only a
couple of cents appeal so it's not going
to bankrupt donation trying to prevent
diseases like heart disease and cancer
so I think within 10 years you'll you'll
have a blood test you'll have your
biological age identified if you're
above a certain age let's say it's 50
you can be prescribed Metformin and some
of these other things and that'll be
quite acceptable just the same way we
now have cholesterol drugs to prevent
something once you know it's safe enough
and it's cheap enough then Things become
adopted and I think it'll be quite
normal in 10 years for people to be
working on slowing their aging whereas
now it feels weird because we think of
Aging as something that's
acceptable but increasingly and I think
anyone who reads my book will come to
hopefully the same conclusion I have
which is we are kidding ourselves if
this is something that we should accept
right not just because it'll
help the Healthcare System but because
what we're doing right now is knocking
individual diseases on the head and
we're playing whack-a-mole and even if
we could stop all cancer today we're
only going to live on average an extra
two years because all the other problems
with aging come along right up behind
there and so if we're going to have a
meaningful impact on our lives we have
to start early
watch what we eat
when we eat exercise if you do
supplements you know I think that that's
going to augment that we know in animals
at least if you take Resveratrol which
is one of the other things that my
family and I take from red wine if you
combine that with every other day
feeding in mice you get the longest live
mouse in the experiment so you're a fan
of red wine
uh I am just not late and in abundance
it's full of a lot of these Xeno
hermetic molecules I was talking about
because the grapes are picked when
they're stressed they're either covered
in fungus or are they dehydrated so
people figured out that's what makes a
wine taste good what they didn't realize
was that that also boosts these
molecules that give our body that that
extra boost for longevity so as we're on
the subject of potentially healthy
unhealthy bases red wine good anything
else on there
or vices well snacking at night is
something I'd love to stop doing
uh yeah I'm you know I'm trying not to
eat but
when all the families in bed and I've
just got
work on my mind it's comfort food for me
not every night sometimes I'm good but
it's so bad that I've thought about
locking up the cupboards what's the
what's the cover for the guts yeah demon
comes out
are anything salty uh
nuts
hopefully not chips not so good not not
that many yeah I'll just eat like a
maniac uh it's a it's a real disorder
that I have
um but it's definitely stressed when I'm
feeling good and everything's going well
I don't feel the need for it let's close
with stress that's a good place to you
know we're talking about we we've
covered everything we've covered
nutrition NAD
student metformin let's close with
stress something that I think every
everyone can relate to and stress and
the toll it takes on one's life
yeah well there's two types of stress
the stress that I talk about is
biological stress which is not the same
as psychological biological stress is
good as long as it doesn't hurt you too
badly you recover and you're more
resilient
psychological stress though is not good
to a certain amount you know a bit of
adrenaline's not going to hurt you in
fact it's probably beneficial I've spent
most of my life with adrenaline every
day doing things that are out of my
comfort zone
but chronic stress you you do that to a
mouse and it'll age faster you just see
that happen anyone who's had a fish tank
the the small one in the tank is
is not doing too well same same for us
we get cortisol we get a whole bunch of
immune defects and uh so you want to
avoid stress so how do you do that
it act it's really hard actually it's
taken me about
the first 40 years of my life to figure
out what works for me uh
I'll make it a little bit personal
because it it's some people might be
like me I'm I'm a fidgeter I'm a warrior
I'm a perfectionist and so every day I
am saying David you're an idiot why did
you say that why did you do that how can
I get better or get better get better
and that's very stressful when you put
that on yourself
so I've learned to not take it all so
seriously
I have reminders including this
wristband here I have a a gift from a
Maasai tribe in Africa we we visited
this year that what I worry about isn't
really that problematic it also helped
that I watched my mother die and it
sounds terrible but that taught me what
a bad day really looks like
and everything else doesn't matter sure
so I used to go home and complain to my
wife ah you wouldn't believe it so and
so it's fighting someone said this and
now I get home and I say it was a great
day nobody died right I literally say
that just about every day I get home and
if you live like that then the stress
goes away because you realize
what we worry about these are really
small things now
I've been fortunate that I've gotten to
my career where I'm in a good place and
I'm not worried about
putting food on the table
not everybody's at that stage
but I do think we over worry about
things we're looking at Instagram and
what if people posted and all that stuff
that's really silly stuff to worry about
so try to do meditation if it works for
you yoga is good I found for me
and yoga I don't know if anyone else
feels this but when they say
breathe and and detest your body and get
untense I I didn't didn't realize how
tense I am until somebody says I'll
relax you wow I have really been tense
every part of my body so that that
really helps
I think just take the Long View take the
realize that we're all here for a short
time realize that problems go away and
the other thing I've realized is
everything that you think is going to be
super fantastic never turns out to be
that good everything you think is is
really really bad never turns out to be
that bad and if you remember that it's
also less stressful Amen to that David
Sinclair thank you so much everyone
check out his new book lifespan lifespan
I must read thank you thanks for having
me