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2022-01-14 - Interview Dr. David Sinclair - Reverse Your Age: What To Eat & When To Eat For LONGEVITY: Difference between revisions

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== Transcript ==
== Transcript ==
is there a diet that makes them live
=== Introduction ===
 
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longer any mixed combinations of
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| is there a diet that makes them live longer any mixed combinations of carbohydrate protein and fat and was
carbohydrate protein and fat and was
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hoping to see finally what works and he
| hoping to see finally what works and he found out they all did the same thing
 
|-
found out they all did the same thing
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| they all had short life spans but there was a one group what specifically sparked your mind to be to have this
they all had short life spans but there
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was a one group what specifically
| idea that we could extend our lifespan uh well to me it's it's plain
 
|-
sparked your mind to be to have this
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| it's obvious it's in plain sight um and what i'm trying to do with my life is to shake the world up to realize that
idea
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that we could extend our lifespan
| we don't have to accept what we think is the inevitable um and so the mantra in my lab and in my
 
|-
uh well to me it's it's plain
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| in the book that i wrote is uh nothing is inevitable and the problem with aging is that we
it's obvious it's in plain sight um and
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what i'm trying to do with my life is to
| accept it because it's so common we see everything around us get old and we say well maybe there's we just have to accept it and it was my
 
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shake the world up to realize that
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| grandmother who taught me that that didn't have to be the case uh she raised me because my mother was
we don't have to accept what we think is
|-
 
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the inevitable
| working and she was young she had my father when she was only 15. and so that going back to the 1930s that
 
|-
um and so the mantra in my lab and in my
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| was a big deal right she was kicked out of high school and but she came to australia ran away from europe from hungary
in the book that i wrote is uh nothing
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is inevitable
| and raised me and her view was adults screw up everything because she'd seen what happened during the war and after afterwards
 
|-
and the problem with aging is that we
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| and but she was a huge rebel she was the ultimate rebel my my our 16 year old daughter has the same
accept it because it's so common we see
|-
 
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everything around us get old and we say
| genes so it's it's tough raising her but the attitude when i was young was rules are meant to be broken so she would
 
|-
well maybe there's
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| she taught me and you know the police probably uh will remember a few of these things she told me you
we just have to accept it and it was my
|-
 
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grandmother who taught me that that
| don't have to wear what people say you have to wear so she was kicked off bondi beach for wearing a bikini which in in
 
|-
didn't have to be the case
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| those days was illegal she used to drive like a maniac not speeding so much but she would drive
uh she raised me because my mother was
|-
 
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working and she was young she had my
| like this looking around and dance to the music so the car is going like this to uh beethoven's ninth
 
|-
father when she was only 15.
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| and that kind of thing so i i've grown up saying we don't have to accept the way the world is adopts adults grew up
and so that going back to the 1930s that
|-
 
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was a big deal right she was kicked out
| everything but she also was a humanist and she wasn't religious but she said david you have to do the best you can to
 
|-
of high school and but she came to
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| leave your mark and allow humanity to reach its potential and not let others screw it up
australia ran away from europe from
|-
 
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hungary
| so i've spent every day doing that but why aging because to me it's obvious this is the biggest unsolved problem if
 
|-
and raised me and her view was adults
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| aliens came down to see us and judged us as a species they'd say pretty good on
screw up everything
|-
 
| style="min-
because she'd seen what happened during
 
the war and after afterwards
 
and but she was a huge rebel she was the
 
ultimate rebel my my our 16 year old
 
daughter has the same
 
genes so it's it's tough raising her but
 
the attitude when i was young was rules
 
are meant to be broken so she would
 
she taught me and you know
 
the police probably uh will remember a
 
few of these things she told me you
 
don't have to wear what people say you
 
have to wear so she was kicked off bondi
 
beach for wearing a bikini which in in
 
those days was illegal
 
she used to drive like a maniac not
 
speeding so much but she would drive
 
like this looking around and dance to
 
the music so the car is going like this
 
to uh beethoven's ninth
 
and that kind of thing so i i've grown
 
up saying we don't have to accept the
 
way the world is adopts adults grew up
 
everything but she also was a humanist
 
and she wasn't religious but she said
 
david you have to do the best you can to
 
leave your mark
 
and allow humanity to reach its
 
potential and not let others screw it up
 
so i've spent every day doing that but
 
why aging because to me it's obvious
 
this is the biggest unsolved problem if
 
aliens came down to see us and judged us
 
as a species they'd say
 
pretty good on
 
atomic theory quantum mechanics but this
 
aging thing you don't even realize it's
 
a problem that you can solve we figured
 
that out 50 000 years ago what are you
 
doing and that's what i'm trying to do
 
here with the time that i have yeah and
 
you said in the book and it was very
 
jarring to see you know you said that
 
there is no biological reason for us to
 
age and in fact you said that aging is
 
and you you approach it as being a
 
disease well it is a disease it's just
 
we can call it whatever we want but what
 
is a disease a disease is something that
 
happens over time that causes you to
 
have a disability which you know well
 
and it causes frailty and eventually it
 
can cause death okay
 
that's aging right
 
is it not
 
what so what's the difference why do we
 
separate disease
 
from aging the only difference is
 
because aging happens to more than 50 of
 
us
 
and that's a crazy distinction i would
 
say that that's even more important that
 
we focus research development
 
policy on actually what kills most of us
 
this is really fascinating because
 
for me
 
just you bringing up the conversation
 
the way that you did
 
i realized that we know pieces of aging
 
like what it looks like and we're
 
attempting to address different pieces
 
but there is no unified theory of aging
 
as you pointed out but there are these
 
uh characteristics of aging that we're
 
all trying to attack
 
well that that that was true a few years
 
ago what i've put forth in my book
 
is a theory that
 
i think can explain why we age and
 
explain why all these other things
 
happen
 
now we scientists have we love to put
 
things into categories and we came up
 
with about seven or eight causes of
 
aging we call these the hallmarks
 
don't want to get too carried away call
 
them hallmarks
 
um and we've been very satisfied for the
 
last probably eight years
 
uh that this is the the road map to
 
extending lifespan if you can solve or
 
treat each one of these eight then we'll
 
live longer now that
 
i have no
 
qualms with i think that's true
 
but that still begs the question
 
what causes those to happen and so my
 
theory i've called it the information
 
theory of aging if you boil it down to
 
an equation if you want its first
 
principles
 
i think aging is a loss of information
 
and that's what's causing the problem so
 
what we need to do is a preserve the
 
information and see if there's a backup
 
hard drive of youthfulness that we can
 
tap into and reset
 
our computers
 
this is so fascinating
 
you specifically just this is a great uh
 
segway into
 
looking at the digital nature of dna
 
and i like when i read this in your book
 
it really just flipped a switch for me
 
because there's a a digital aspect and
 
then when we're talking about our genes
 
in our gene expression there's an analog
 
aspect so let's talk about this digital
 
aspect of dna
 
yeah well
 
this is the crux of everything and most
 
scientists don't talk the way i do we've
 
had to invent our own vocabulary and
 
metaphors
 
so dna we all are very familiar with
 
without dna that we get from our parents
 
we're screwed right without uh the
 
ability to encode proteins and run the
 
cell it's important but that information
 
is much more robust than we realize we
 
think of it as this very fragile
 
chemical it's actually not fragile you
 
can boil it you can find it in fossils
 
it's pretty strong
 
yeah so this is robust and it can
 
certainly last 80 years our lifespan it
 
can probably last a thousand years if
 
we're good to it
 
so what's the other problem so that you
 
said that's the digital part of the the
 
genome or the the information so there's
 
atcg okay
 
people will remember from high school
 
days if they're not biologists it's just
 
a digital code encoded in chemicals four
 
of them
 
instead of being as ones and zeros it's
 
just four letters
 
but there's this other type of
 
information that's just as important for
 
our survival and that's the epigenome
 
okay so what's the epigenome it's just
 
that's a complex
 
word for the control systems that
 
control the genome
 
in the way that
 
i'll forgive my uh anachronism here but
 
the dvd
 
uh is the digital information
 
and the analog is is the ability to read
 
that so the digital
 
the dvd player is analog so it's moving
 
around and it can move in any possible
 
direction
 
what does that mean for the cell well
 
what's actually literally happening is
 
that as we develop as embryos we're
 
spooling out parts of dna in every cell
 
differently in every cell so if you're a
 
nerve cell at this part of the brain
 
that's developing you'll have this big
 
loop of dna and those genes will stay on
 
for most of your life if not all but
 
there are parts that you don't want on
 
you don't want a liver gene on in the
 
brain so it spools out uh very tightly
 
like you would a
 
hose reel
 
and that keeps these genes off
 
hopefully for a hundred years or more
 
but what i'm proposing is that insults
 
to the body and if our body becomes
 
complacent
 
and we there you know there are good
 
things we can do to our bodies
 
what we lose is that structure these
 
loops and these these tight bundles and
 
those fall apart we can see that in our
 
studies
 
and we can actually measure that and
 
it's a clock
 
it's a clock of aging if we measure
 
those loops and the changes to this
 
epigenome
 
i can actually tell you how old you are
 
biologically and i can predict with high
 
accuracy when you're going gonna die
 
almost to the month wow
 
that's nice
 
scary right i haven't had it done would
 
you get your clock down
 
i mean um
 
and this is just a little sidebar here
 
but
 
this brings to mind the science behind
 
telomeres and measuring that as this
 
biological marker but there's more
 
there's much more to it that's just one
 
aspect yeah and what's
 
um comforting about this theory and and
 
it's the mark of any decent theory is
 
that it should be able to explain not
 
just one aspect but all aspects of a
 
very complex system and aging is the
 
ultimate
 
complex system and we've also got
 
a thousand years of observation that we
 
have to explain and if it doesn't
 
explain half of it throw the theory out
 
but as i've described in in my book the
 
theory does actually
 
explain everything
 
even telomere loss telomeres are the
 
ends of chromosomes that that wear down
 
over time
 
the epigenome the proteins that package
 
those loops and those those bundles are
 
also packaging the ends of the
 
chromosomes
 
and the unraveling leads to acceleration
 
of that loss as well
 
and uh and actually the factors that
 
stabilize our epigenome
 
and we work on some of these they're
 
called sertons we've worked on them for
 
20 years we can activate them by being
 
healthy
 
they are involved in protecting the ends
 
of chromosomes as well and bundling them
 
tightly so they don't erode and cause
 
aging to happen as well yeah i i want to
 
talk about these sir tunes this is
 
really really fascinating so
 
you are is this under that umbrella of
 
what you're calling longevity genes yes
 
okay and how many are there
 
well in total the th there's dozens but
 
they fall into three main categories
 
that we know of the sertuan's there are
 
seven of them you know we all have some
 
of them well you better have all of them
 
or you're dead
 
they're really important but we have
 
better copies than others some people
 
have variants that predispose them to
 
long life there's one called 3t6 and
 
if you have your genome we can have a
 
look to see if you've got the right
 
variant to live long time
 
but by the way only 20 of
 
longevity is genetic so the good news is
 
that a lot of it's in our hands because
 
it's epigenetic that's what's great
 
about this theory is that if i'm right
 
genes are only a tiny part of the story
 
but these genes are still important
 
because they protect the epigenome and
 
make sure that dvd is read correctly and
 
doesn't get scratches so you can read
 
the symphony for longer
 
this is so fascinating and i love that
 
so much um
 
and just to know and to have the
 
affirmation with science that only 10 to
 
20 percent
 
of our longevity has to do with our
 
genetics
 
and this goes back because as i was
 
reading before i got to this part i was
 
thinking about the human genome project
 
just automatically my mind always goes
 
there when i hear about genes and all
 
the work that went into it i think it
 
was like at least a billion dollars to
 
try to map the human genome when we get
 
back like it's like 20 000 genes and
 
we're thinking we'll have hundreds of
 
thousands or whatever the number might
 
be
 
but the the big missing piece
 
was this junk dna right this there was
 
all this other data that was just
 
ignored because it didn't fit into the
 
category of being a gene
 
well that's right and we still we still
 
don't have a complete human genome
 
because the these missing pieces are
 
very repetitive and they're also little
 
genes that were missed by the computer
 
algorithms in the 2000s which we in my
 
lab and others we've gone back and we've
 
compared humans to chimps and macaque
 
monkeys and these little genes there are
 
thousands of those we think and with
 
proteins swimming in our bloodstream
 
that control health and longevity we
 
have a lot to learn about the genome but
 
what people have mostly missed is the
 
epigenome because that's a lot harder to
 
read
 
you can read a code that's a
 
one-
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