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- [00:00]
Mangesh Tikathur
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.
- [00:05]
Chelsea Handler
This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. If you travel a lot with your dog like I do with Doug, feeding them well on the road can get surprisingly complicated, especially when you're touring 30 plus cities, staying in hotels, flying, driving, and basically living out of a suitcase. Frozen dog food sounds great until you realize you don't exactly have a freezer backstage. That's why I started bringing just fresh from Just food for dogs. It's real fresh dog food made with human grade ingredients with meat and vegetables you can see in the bowl. But the difference is it's shelf stable, which means I don't need a freezer or a cooler and there's no prep. So now I can throw a few packs in my bag and Doug still gets a healthy meal wherever we are. Doug absolutely loves it and I like knowing I am feeding my baby something that's actually good for him. It's also the number one vet recommended fresh dog food made without preservatives or fillers. Go to justfoodfordogs.com and get 50% off your first order.
- [01:10]
Lizzie Jacobs
Warning.
- [01:10]
Mangesh Tikathur
Despite Mangesha's grandmother's greatest wish, he is 100% not a doctor and nothing in this episode should count as medical advice. You will, however, hear about looks, maxing, colonialism, and there will be references to the Golden Girls and the Odyssey. There will also be disclosure of one or more annoying astrological predictions, as well as adult language and mention of suicide. So sensitive listeners, take care. Yeah, I can never die like this. Yeah, I can never die like this. Oh my God. Hi, I'm Mangesh and I am so happy you're here. I've had a heck of a year, so let me catch you up real quick. Anna, would you pull up the deck? Silicon Valley loves the deck. This is a show about longevity. These are some things I heard over and over again. We can still be doing a triathlon at 90 or 100. The maximum lifespan just keeps increasing faster than you age. And then somebody figures out how to stop us from dying permanently.
- [02:35]
Chelsea Handler
Longevity sort of feels like this rarefied tech bro, brainchild of the already wealthy, already healthy individuals that somewhat selfishly want to live an extra few decades.
- [02:46]
Mangesh Tikathur
I think death is a great evil and I think it takes people away from us way too soon. See, everyone wants to live forever. This is me as a kid reading 3, 2, 1, contact. I liked it because it was filled with weird science and discoveries and facts. The very matter that makes this is me now still obsessed with weird science and discoveries. And facts. Except my hair is gray, my face is rounder. I'm lucky to have a wife and kids who make me smile.
- [03:21]
Lizzie Jacobs
You don't look bad, you know, like you have untapped potential. Right? Of course.
- [03:30]
Mangesh Tikathur
And I guess I'm supposed to be a grown up. But I can't believe I'm 47. I mean, I do get more tired. My reflexes aren't what they used to be, but my spirit, that's a different story. I always have a pen on me for doodling. When I sit at the front of a bus, I like to inch my toe slowly over the do not cross line because it's harmless. Also, I don't really like being told what to do. This is my childhood friend Jathan. He's a rule breaker too. I'm actually a superhero now. I know. Can't wait for you to come back and see how I can scale walls. And I've X ray vision now. There's a new peptide. He's lost weight, has loads of energy. And honestly, I don't want to live forever. But what Chathan has. That sounds appealing. That's where my journey begins. This is a longevity doctor I saw while working on this show.
- [04:38]
Dr. Ron Primus
This is how much fat you have. It's like 9kg, which is a lot. You know, you're almost on the obese side.
- [04:47]
Mangesh Tikathur
This is a genetics expert telling me trauma lives in your epigenetics for eight generations. We see Indians aging faster, probably because of generational traumas due to colonization. So. So even if I take a lot of pills, colonialism kind of screwed me. This is my great grandmother. She saw it all. Colonial rule, world wars, partition, independence, generations of family, both entering and passing. When I was a kid, I thought she was the coolest. She was funny and surly and drank strong coffee with her morning newspaper. She loved Callan and Hobbes and hated to lose its gravel. The fact that she lived to 103 felt like an achievement. But these days, when I talk to Biopunks and Longevonauts, 103 barely seems worth bragging about. This is a graph of people who've lived past 120. There's only one of them. Jean Calment from France. She was a smoker. This is a graph of the number of people scientists expect to live past their 110s in the year 2080. That's 300,000 people right there. These are some old people. We asked for advice. I look in the mirror and I give my girl a rink.
- [06:18]
Lizzie Jacobs
See?
- [06:18]
Dr. Ron Primus
You look all right.
- [06:19]
Mangesh Tikathur
Girl, we can do this.
- [06:20]
Lizzie Jacobs
I learned my lessons from my grandmother and my dad.
- [06:23]
Mangesh Tikathur
Keep it moving.
- [06:25]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
To live forever is just a fantasy.
- [06:27]
Mangesh Tikathur
So, yeah, I might as well. Can I fly too? This is a biohacker who injected himself with cow brains just to see the effect. We've got all these peptides right here, and I'm going to inject this one into him. And I go, yeah, he is. This is a scientist who thinks some men are overdoing it.
- [06:51]
Lizzie Jacobs
MRI scans are like horoscopes for tech
- [06:53]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
bros.
- [06:57]
Mangesh Tikathur
And this is where I find myself eventually talking to a startup founder who lives on an island populated mostly by monkeys. She's going to make her dad heart attack proof, and she wants to do the same for you.
- [07:09]
Chelsea Handler
So I'm like, wait, could I grow him a new heart that will never develop heart disease because I genetically engineered it that, like, stage one.
- [07:18]
Mangesh Tikathur
This year, my friends and I set out to make a show about longevity. I wanted to go to Blue Zones and MIT and meet people at the Fringes who were developing new drugs and new therapies. I wanted to investigate the line between substance and snake oil and hear from folks implanting computer chips into their arms and the young scientists trying to replace their brains with a totally new one. One cell at a time. Not people who just talk about the future, but are brave enough to actually do it. This is a show about life, but really it's a story about time. The time we have, the time we think we have, and the ways as human beings. We're still asking for an extension from Kaleidoscope and iheartradio. I'm Mangesha Tikathur. Welcome to Skyline Drive. How to Live Forever. Chapter one, the new 50. If you asked me in third grade, Mrs. Fletcher was the definition of old. You remember Mrs. Fletcher? Fletcher. Right. I've fallen, and I can't get up for sending Help immediately. Mrs. Fletcher. Back in the 1980s, these Life Call commercials were always on TV. And they've really drilled into this idea that anyone who was older and living alone was constantly on the precipice of some massive accident. In home accidents. Last year, over 3 million people were disabled. 100,000 either suffered permanent disabilities or died. Stairs, slippery floors, a bunched carpet. These were all treated like murder weapons. And the commercials were so melodramatic, you can see why they became a national punchline. I've fallen and I can't get up. All that's to say, I've been thinking about those commercials a lot, and it's made me wonder. Did old Age on TV look older than it does now. So I called up my friend, the comedian Ken Reid.
- [10:01]
Ken Reid
I more or less on every issue of TV Guide magazine like a normal person.
- [10:05]
Mangesh Tikathur
Ken has been making his podcast TV Guidance counselor for more than a decade. So he seemed like the perfect person for me to run my theory by. I'm about to turn 47 and I was trying to imagine like what was old age on TV as a kid, like what was my perception of it. And the thing I kept coming back to was the I've fallen and I can't get up commercial.
- [10:28]
Ken Reid
Yeah, yeah. That was what we all had to look forward to. Being alone and injured and your, your family doesn't remember you or care about you anymore.
- [10:38]
Mangesh Tikathur
Just to be clear, this was never how I pictured my own old age. As a third grader, I just assumed I'd be living this very able bodied, Sherlock Holmes esque life, you know, like playing music and chess, solving mysteries with my best friend, wearing a lot of tweed. Not exactly life call territory. I mean, I didn't know about this and I don't know if you did before, but when I did some research, like it was a true story. Like the woman who played Ms. Fletcher was named Edith Foer and she had actually fallen.
- [11:09]
Ken Reid
Yeah. Although it was a dramatic recreation, I don't think she hit her head on every step like she does in the actual recreation. But yeah. And it's funny for a lot of reasons. That's such a weird, weird snapshot because a, it's pre Internet, pre cell phone. So like, I think people younger than us now would be like, why do you need that if you fall? Like, doesn't your phone automatically send in the military?
- [11:31]
Mangesh Tikathur
Yeah, no. Like you look at that commercial and you think this woman is not leaving her house. Like maybe she gets escorted to like a piano recital or something every once in a while, you know, I mean,
- [11:40]
Ken Reid
you and I, we're the same exact age almost. My birthday's in June and I'll be 47 somehow. And my dad's in his early 70s and yeah, I mean, obviously he doesn't look like a 70 something year old woman from the mid 8 generally. But I don't think of them in the same way. And part of its perception as well.
- [11:57]
Mangesh Tikathur
I was looking back and I didn't realize that like Edith Bunker on All in the Family dies at like age 50 of a stroke.
- [12:05]
Ken Reid
Yeah.
- [12:07]
Mangesh Tikathur
Like the idea that they used to kill off beloved characters who were not that much older than me feels bonkers. Or here's another example As a kid, the Golden Girls seem like the oldest people on tv. Three senior citizens and one of their mothers tucked away in Florida. I just assumed they were in their 70s.
- [12:25]
Chelsea Handler
Proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks and if anyone knows about tricks.
- [12:32]
Mangesh Tikathur
But when I researched it, Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche, was just 51.
- [12:39]
Ken Reid
You know, like Mona. Mona from who's the Boss? Prime example, right? The whole joke on that was like, she's sex crazed and she's an old lady and she's like 50 maybe.
- [12:52]
Mangesh Tikathur
What's hard to swallow though, isn't just that 50 was considered old age. It's also how fragile 50 used to seem.
- [12:59]
Ken Reid
When you go back and look at Clapper ads, they're mostly focused on old people at the beginning because why wouldn't they be? It's like, hey, you're old. You can't get up and turn a light off.
- [13:10]
Mangesh Tikathur
Amazing. I mean, I remember the Clapper phenomena, but I had not realized that it was targeted at old people. That's really.
- [13:16]
Ken Reid
Oh yeah. The first few ads, it's like old people in Craftmatic chairs clapping because they've fallen asleep in their chairs. They want to shut the light off because you'll live alone and you're really old at 50.
- [13:28]
Mangesh Tikathur
But think about what those mid-50s look like now. Matt Damon as Odysseus is not feeble. He's 55 and ripped and in the best shape of his life. But also think about how much better we all look. Our skin is better, the air quality is better. There's less pollution. We haven't been exposed to homes full of cigarette smoke. Our food has less trans fats. And those are hard won battles that turned into real public health wins. We also just care more. We use moisturizers and eye creams and inject things like Botox. And that shows up not just in how we look, but in the stories we tell. Ken told me that TV shows about seniors took a turn too. It used to be that stories about older people focused on struggle.
- [14:19]
Ken Reid
It was almost like all your resources are gone. Now everyone you knew was gone. So you need help because it's just like nothing.
- [14:27]
Mangesh Tikathur
It's just you.
- [14:27]
Ken Reid
Yeah. And then they kind of focused it on second chances or like a second act.
- [14:36]
Mangesh Tikathur
And now it seems like everyone's pushing for third and fourth acts. But at some point, doesn't every story have to end? Chapter 2 another prediction. Making a show is a funny thing. On one hand, I don't think I've listened to Skyline Drive since we made it. At least not the hard parts situation
- [15:26]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
doesn't look good for father. There is risk to father and you should take every possible. Yeah,
- [15:35]
Mangesh Tikathur
back then I thought I was making a show about astrology. And then my dad passed and the show ended up being about something else. About death and how to accept, to grieve, how to hope again. And also how astrology was this prism to do all of that. But I have re listened to the interviews and there's something wonderful about having these records of chats with my mom or my friends, things we said, but I don't remember. And recently, looking back through old recordings, I stumbled into something odd. A tape of a tantric astrologer I met in Chennai. For me, this was one of the most meaningful parts of the show. That year, I had heard a prediction about my dad's death and it came true. And as part of this astrologer's apprenticeship, he had to predict the exact time his father would die. And that came true as well. And he told me, as a guru, I'm asking you when I will die. I'm asking you, you see? And tell me. And unfortunately, I was the person who told dad, you'll have a cardiac arrest. It may sound silly or fantastical, but in that moment, I felt so connected to him by the strange, invisible string of our shared experience. He told me with sadness how he didn't want to be accurate about his father, but he was. And how certain fates etched into the stars are undeniable. That's the part I remember. But as I re listened, I heard another part of our conversation. A part I'd forgotten. So from 2034 of 10th month till 2039 of 3rd month, you will retain what you are then. Boom. End of this life. Sorry to say this, it turns out that July 29, 2039, is a critical date. And if I somehow happen to make it past that, you may live for other four to five years, but there will be some kind of issues. So if I trust his interpretation of the stars, I have an expiration date of 64 years, which, you know, not bad. Could be worse. Or at least that's what I thought when I told my wife. Except maybe I regret sharing my revelation with Lizzie because while I fell asleep pretty quickly after my bedtime confession, the conversation kept her up and she can't let it go. So we talked about it a little later.
- [18:14]
Chelsea Handler
I don't know if you noticed, you keep laughing. I don't think I've laughed once.
- [18:17]
Lizzie Jacobs
I don't find this funny at all.
- [18:19]
Mangesh Tikathur
I mean, either it'll happen or it won't happen.
- [18:21]
Lizzie Jacobs
Right.
- [18:22]
Chelsea Handler
You're deflecting. You're deflecting because my beef was not
- [18:25]
Lizzie Jacobs
with the fact that he predicted it, and you weren't mad that he predicted it.
- [18:28]
Mangesh Tikathur
I don't know. If I get 64 years of life, that's okay.
- [18:33]
Lizzie Jacobs
It's wonderful, like, to not take things for granted and. Yeah.
- [18:36]
Mangesh Tikathur
And be present and be present.
- [18:38]
Lizzie Jacobs
But no, I'm not okay with that.
- [18:41]
Chelsea Handler
Especially because our children would not be
- [18:43]
Lizzie Jacobs
very old at that point.
- [18:44]
Mangesh Tikathur
I mean, I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. Obviously, it would be difficult.
- [18:47]
Lizzie Jacobs
You were in your 40s. So you want your children to have less time with their father than you had with your father.
- [18:54]
Mangesh Tikathur
No, but, like, in the context of, like, I don't know, we made space ninja suits on a snow day.
- [18:59]
Lizzie Jacobs
Right?
- [19:00]
Mangesh Tikathur
Like, we. We've done so many fun things and so many weird things, and it's just been, like, very joyous. And so I'm sure it would be difficult, but, like, I don't regret things that I've done.
- [19:12]
Lizzie Jacobs
No, of course not. I'm just saying I'm. But voting for you, sticking your ass. Okay. Okay.
- [19:23]
Mangesh Tikathur
But it isn't just Lizzie who has feelings about my early departure. She and my friend Chathan started talking about this prediction.
- [19:30]
Chelsea Handler
Vongesh's general attitude about all of this
- [19:32]
Lizzie Jacobs
is like, yeah, that's fine.
- [19:35]
Mangesh Tikathur
What's wrong with him? Why would he be. Why he'd be okay with that? So, of course Chathan wants to talk to me. I am a little concerned about your health. I think we're at this age where we don't get a whole lot more free passes as we both approach our mid-40s.
- [19:51]
Lizzie Jacobs
Right.
- [19:53]
Mangesh Tikathur
Our early 50s is what we're fucking approaching.
- [19:55]
Dr. Ron Primus
Yeah.
- [19:57]
Mangesh Tikathur
Our health is a slow burn in terms of decline. I don't know if this is true, but I feel like I played a lot more sport than you, and so I feel like I wore down my body more than you might have. So I guess my lack of athletic ability is finally coming to my advantage. Like, I was good at math and bad at sports, and finally, like, that's, like, working out for me somehow. Everyone's got thoughts, even my kid.
- [20:23]
Lizzie Jacobs
Ruby, why are you doing a podcast that, like, helps you find out when Anu's gonna die? Like, isn't that sad?
- [20:33]
Mangesh Tikathur
I mean, that would be a sad podcast. But even when we corrected Ruvi about the topic, they still had an opinion.
- [20:42]
Lizzie Jacobs
Do you want Anu to live longer than he might? Yeah, I do. I think you shouldn't take your life for granted. Do you want to live a long time? I would like to live long. I think it would be nice. But I also think it would be sad to grow and, like, have a lot of people who you love, like, leave, you know? You don't think you'd want to be the last one left? No.
- [21:07]
Mangesh Tikathur
I'm a lot like Ruby. I figure when it's over, it's over. And I've never really thought about negotiating for extra time. The thing is, I do love to push a deadline. I'm a writer, after all. Plus, I was semi famous in high school for being able to get teachers to push back tests for our classes. So maybe I'll fall back on old habits when I get to 60. I don't know. What I do know is I feel out of sync with my social feeds. The noise is cheap, just oppressive. With influencers and looks maxers and billionaires and talking heads all chattering about a zic and life hacks and living forever, you just cannot escape it. So it's comforting to hear my kid talking about the future the way I do.
- [21:56]
Lizzie Jacobs
Do you have an idea of how
- [21:58]
Mangesh Tikathur
old you'll be when you're very old?
- [22:00]
Lizzie Jacobs
I want to get to my late 80s and hopefully 90s, but I don't want to, like, hang on by a thread just to live longer. I want to, like, enjoy it. And when it's done, it's done. I mean, look at Jo Snaka, dude. She doesn't need longevity. She's like, thriving.
- [22:30]
Chelsea Handler
Foreign. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Traveling with Doug is one of my favorite things. But when you're on tour, like I am bouncing between 35 cities, feeding your dog can get complicated. And that's why I started bringing just fresh from Just Food for Dogs. It's real fresh dog food made with human grade ingredients that he's been obsessed with. But it's shelf stable, so I don't need a freezer or a cooler or a whole travel operation just to feed my dog. Doug loves it and I feel good giving it to him. So go to justfood for dogs.com and get 50% off your first order.
- [23:17]
Mangesh Tikathur
Chapter 3, 100 candles
- [23:25]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
there are a few things I want to talk with you about before we start. Sure. For example, I. I usually walk like that with untucked shirts.
- [23:33]
Lizzie Jacobs
Perfect.
- [23:34]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
Okay.
- [23:34]
Mangesh Tikathur
Is that better for aging? I think it's.
- [23:37]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
I want to reflect youth. Okay. Okay.
- [23:43]
Mangesh Tikathur
Dr. Nir Barzilaya, 70, has a boyish charm with a mischievous sense of humor on his office wall. There's an Austin Powers poster that his students have photoshopped him into because there's a clear resemblance. But his super spy looks aren't the reason I'm talking to Near. Near has been obsessed with one problem since he was a kid.
- [24:02]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
What happens that you grow up and then you get old?
- [24:06]
Mangesh Tikathur
Which is funny to me. Like, what's to wonder? Isn't that life? But not to Near. Which put him ahead of the curve when it was time to choose a residency after med school and there were no age, right.
- [24:19]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
I'm one of the first, so there was nobody that I could go and say, train me. We had to kind of invent that.
- [24:27]
Mangesh Tikathur
He started in endocrinology, the study of hormones, because he had a hunch that since hormones go up as we grow and then go down as we age.
- [24:35]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
And I thought, wow, maybe if you just supplement those hormones, you'll stop the aging process. Which proved to be largely wrong. Okay. But it gave me enough knowledge to know how to ask the next questions.
- [24:50]
Mangesh Tikathur
And then fast forward. He's the director of the aging center at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx.
- [24:57]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
When you don't have a lot of competition, you can become a leader really
- [25:01]
Mangesh Tikathur
fast Nier says the modern science of aging geroscience really kicked off with one observation.
- [25:08]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
If you take any animal and give some of the brothers or sisters to eat whatever they want, and the others you caloric restrict them, they live much healthier and much longer.
- [25:20]
Mangesh Tikathur
This was one of the original breakthroughs in aging science. Longevity. Researchers at places like ucsf, MIT and the Buck Institute were trying to understand why low calorie diets made worms and mice and other creatures live longer. And they uncovered key mechanisms of aging, from telomere attrition to cellular damage. Things that later became part of what we now call the hallmarks of aging. Because by itself, starve the mice and they live longer. Isn't exactly useful medical insight, because of
- [25:52]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
course, telling people to eat 40% less is not going to work.
- [25:56]
Mangesh Tikathur
And along the way, they started to understand something wildly important that had nothing to do with mice diets. This thing we all know on an intuitive level that not all people age at the same rate. Meaning your driver's license and your blood panels might not say the same thing.
- [26:14]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
There is a biological age and a chronological age. And a 75 year old woman can be with all systems totally fucked up. And a 90 year old person that maybe a little bit of antibiotics, he can get to age hundred.
- [26:29]
Mangesh Tikathur
Also, as your biological age increases, so does your risk for the big four diseases of cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and diabetes.
- [26:40]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
This biology of aging drives diseases. In other words, it's not that you get disease and you get old. You get old with the years, and this biology brings out the disease.
- [26:53]
Mangesh Tikathur
This is the biggest idea behind the current longevity revolution. If you can slow aging, maybe you can keep sickness at bay a little longer and death even further off. I want to talk to Nir, especially because he founded the Longevity Genes Project, a landmark study of over 500 centenarians and their children to witness the benefits of slow aging up close. Nir knows this 106-year-old in finance who still goes to work every day. Siblings who've reached 109 centenarians who were smokers and overweight. And by studying all these slow agers in the wild, Neo realized he could figure out how to learn the secrets of aging well and make drugs and other recommendations to help those of us born without those lucky genes.
- [27:44]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
So we had 35 years to realize, and those centenarians have realized probably 20 of them. So what can we learn from them?
- [27:55]
Mangesh Tikathur
And what they learned is a few things. They learned that there's a strong genetic factor, as in if your parents lived a long time, you're pretty likely to as well. And it doesn't even have to be both parents. It can even be one grandparent. And that there are some strong links about having high hdl. Though Nir has feelings about cholesterol, lipid
- [28:16]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
is very boring subject. I want to get over it.
- [28:24]
Mangesh Tikathur
But there was another learning from his centenarians that truly stunned him.
- [28:30]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
They were sick very little time at the end of their lives. Of our centenarians, 30% didn't have any disease and didn't take any medications.
- [28:40]
Mangesh Tikathur
If you can crack this longevity code, you can reduce not only medical costs, but also suffering. And honestly, if there's a correlation between extending my life and not spending my final years getting sick or in hospitals, I'm in. Before I take my leave, I have one more question. One thing I was curious about is your own aging.
- [29:05]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
Why would you be curious about my own Aging? I'm 70 years old. I have no interest in retiring. Okay. I feel like I'm in the prime of my activities, but I'm also practicing very aggressively a longevity medicine. So how am I doing that? I have a longevity doctor. Okay. Because I don't want to have a fool as a client. Right.
- [29:45]
Mangesh Tikathur
Chapter four the other shoe. Doctor Ron Primus's office is on the Upper east side with a view of Central park and a mini waterfall. But the thing that really catches my eye, a framed profile of Dr. Primus from some years ago titled the Doctor is out celebrating his work, doing house calls for the rich and famous. Allegedly, Dr. Primus was one of the inspirations for that USA TV show Royal Pains. And I do feel like royalty. Dr. Primus has generously waived his fees. But when my producer asks about costs for the tests he runs, the staff doesn't know offhand because clients here aren't concerned with prices. As Dr. Primus enters the room, he's asking his assistant about his meals. He's on this very specific feed schedule. He tells me he's short and trim and good looking. And as he organizes his desk and pulls out a laptop, I launch in with the big question. Why longevity?
- [31:05]
Dr. Ron Primus
Everybody's got a story, right?
- [31:06]
Mangesh Tikathur
Right.
- [31:07]
Dr. Ron Primus
And like, my mother died when I was a kid of leukemia. My grandmother died of leukemia. Her father died when we came here. And so I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- [31:15]
Mangesh Tikathur
And then he goes to med school.
- [31:17]
Dr. Ron Primus
I mean, clearly you have patients that have genetic propensity for cancer and things like that, but, you know, barring those patients, almost everybody else is in there of their own, Dev, like handguns, you know, car accidents, drinking and driving, whatever. Just, I was like, there's gotta be a better way.
- [31:33]
Mangesh Tikathur
So he gets into preventive medicine and public health, ends up directing an AIDS clinic. But then he has a revelation.
- [31:41]
Dr. Ron Primus
I read Ray Kurzweil's book with Terry Grossman called Transcend, and I was like, this makes a lot of sense.
- [31:49]
Mangesh Tikathur
And this, this is what leads Dr. Primus to fall down the longevity rabbit hole, this glimpse into a not so distant future. Kurzweil is the computer scientist and futurist who, among other things, helped popularize a concept that would come to be known as longevity escape philosophy.
- [32:13]
Dr. Nir Barzilay
If you're diligent, you'll use up a year of your longevity with a year passing. But you'll get back a full year and past 2029, you'll get back more than a year.
- [32:23]
Mangesh Tikathur
I feel like you go backwards in time. It's a heady concept, but the idea of basically not aging or getting time back, it's one that feels less far fetched in an age of AI and miracle drugs. But just hearing the name Ray Kurzweil makes me realize how embedded and entwined with Silicon Valley ideology the whole longevity movement seems to be. As Dr. Primus digs deeper into the field and starts testing out ideas, he sees the impact on Himself.
- [33:06]
Dr. Ron Primus
I was overweight. I was about 50 pounds bigger than this at my heaviest, and no matter what I was like, could not lose the weight.
- [33:14]
Mangesh Tikathur
By his early 30s, Dr. Primus is very dialed in on optimizing his health. He's mastered his diet, exercise, sleep.
- [33:22]
Dr. Ron Primus
Because of all of this, my personal health trajectory, like, I'm like the poster boy for longevity, right? So Brian Johnson spends like, what, a couple million dollars a year on himself, right? And I spend nothing just to break
- [33:34]
Mangesh Tikathur
here for a second. Every single person I've told about this podcast has wanted to talk to me about Brian Johnson. And I feel like in every conversation, he's just this looming WWE character getting hyped backstage for his walk in. Ladies and gentlemen, making his way to the ring from the biohacking lab of the future, the founder of the Don't Die movement. A man so incredible, he doesn't chase greatness. He tracks it by the millisecond while you mortals are still asleep. He's awake at 4:30am Optimizing human existence when you're having a second cup of coffee. He's finishing dinner at 11 in the morning because science said so. Piles of pills and powders every day. Precision workouts, blood therapies, red light therapies. Because he could eat for pleasure. He could sleep for comfort. He could choose not to keep track of every erection he has every night. Instead, this human machine lives for data. So hide your sugar, lock up your processed carbs, because stepping into the ring tonight, it is the blueprint, the uber biohacker, the man who refuses to die. Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson is so pervasive in culture that somehow even my kid Ruby knows about him.
- [35:05]
Lizzie Jacobs
Yeah, I know. What do you know about Brian Johnson? He's doing all this stuff. And didn't he, like, take his kids, like, blood, right, to like, make him feel or be younger, Which I think, again, that's a lot to do. Like, I think, are you gonna give a new blood? No, I don't think he wants it. I'm keeping it to myself.
- [35:25]
Mangesh Tikathur
All that's to say, Brian Johnson has single handedly done more to popularize the idea of living forever than any other modern human. And he supposedly slowed his aging to a reported 0.503. Aging half a year for every year he lives. That's all according to the Dunedin pace clock, the gold standard for tracking how you're aging biologically. But Dr. Primus says it doesn't take 100 pills and $2 million a year to compete with that. Not even close.
- [35:56]
Dr. Ron Primus
I just Train really hard. I eat really healthy, I sleep eight hours a day, I take a bunch of supplements. And my Dunedin pace of aging is only 0.65 and his is something like 0.62. So I'm like close to him and I do almost nothing that he does.
- [36:13]
Mangesh Tikathur
Dr. Primus tells me that his clientele fall into two groups. It's either these Brian Johnson inspired men in their 30s who want to live forever, or people in their 80s and 90s who want to live as well and long as they can. It turns out people like me are an outlier. Not a lot of 47 year olds in that mix. Then the exam begins. Over the course of the next hour, Dr. Primus starts peppering me with questions. We go through some of my family history, which I'm expecting.
- [36:46]
Dr. Ron Primus
Any alcoholism?
- [36:49]
Mangesh Tikathur
Yeah, there's alcoholism in the family. Who my dad saved.
- [36:57]
Dr. Ron Primus
Any suicides?
- [37:00]
Mangesh Tikathur
Yes. I debate how deep I need to go to tell him about my genius cousin my age who took his life, or one of my grandaunts who jumped down a well. The fact is, my family never talked about addiction or depression, so I don't really know how to get into it with him. We talk about my dad's cancer and how much I drink. Not that much these days. Also, what else runs in my family? Diabetes, High blood pressure.
- [37:35]
Dr. Ron Primus
Which brings me to the next question. So do you have a fire extinguisher or a fire blanket in your kitchen when you cook? Yes. And do you wear a seat belt in the car all the time?
- [37:44]
Mangesh Tikathur
Yeah.
- [37:44]
Dr. Ron Primus
Even an Uber or taxi?
- [37:46]
Lizzie Jacobs
Yeah.
- [37:47]
Dr. Ron Primus
Do you go on a bike at all?
- [37:49]
Lizzie Jacobs
Barely.
- [37:50]
Dr. Ron Primus
Do you have a helmet? Yes. Any firearms in the house?
- [37:54]
Lizzie Jacobs
No.
- [37:55]
Dr. Ron Primus
You know, people have it. You got to make sure you keep it safety on and all that sort of thing. It's important.
- [38:02]
Mangesh Tikathur
It's funny, these are such simple questions, but also so different from the 15 minute cursory checkup I'm used to getting. Is this a glimpse into what preventive care could look like for everyone? None of this costs any money. What it costs is time. How many lives would be saved if everyone's doctor asked them these questions? When we finish, we go into another room. I put on a paper gown and we do a series of tests. Some have me standing on something that looks like a scale curving onto what feels like a handlebar of a bike. Some are blood draws. Some are just routine eye and ear things. Takes about 20 minutes. And then we walk out. It's December 8th and I'm feeling pretty good in the exam room. My eyes and ears Checked out. My lungs sounded fine. There didn't seem to be any irregularities. And sure, I was expecting, like, maybe a little note that I'm getting older, maybe a pat on the back for playing tennis and walking so much. Instead, I hear this.
- [39:05]
Dr. Ron Primus
This is your fat mass index. This is how much fat you have. Totally. And it's like 9kg, which is a lot. You know, you're almost on the obese side. Waist circumference is definitely high for you. This is body composition chart. You want to be down there, not there. So it just takes some work.
- [39:23]
Mangesh Tikathur
The whole thing is kind of a gut punch. I'm hearing about how unhealthy I am. He's encouraging, but also sounding the alarm. I need to control the things I can control and start putting real effort into them or risk losing years. He tells me to intermittent fast and to start tracking everything. As he's telling me all this, I feel overwhelmed.
- [39:50]
Dr. Ron Primus
You track your data at all? I feel like a watch and whoop or bio strap work really well. You should wear a glucose monitor just to kind of stay on top of your apartment at like 62 degrees and walk around with like a little set, a constant sleep schedule and, you know, trying, not naps and straight training. I'd be in quite short off medication. So you got your work cut out a little bit.
- [40:17]
Mangesh Tikathur
I'm skeptical I can pull this off. Like, I can take a pill. A pill is easy. I can show up for injections, but sleeping at regular times for eight hours, breaking my day for cold plunges, finding time to exercise. How am I going to do any of that? Then I think about what's at risk and who's giving me the advice. Dr. Primus tells me he had an older patient who was very high functioning and had the markers for Alzheimer's. And then he had a sudden decline.
- [40:49]
Dr. Ron Primus
I was like, wow, something's wrong. He went off the cliff. Like, he literally was good, good, good. And then bam. So I was like, look, we gotta do something about this.
- [40:58]
Mangesh Tikathur
So Dr. Primus teams up with his friend Nir, who is also his patient, and they send the man to a third friend in Tel Aviv.
- [41:06]
Dr. Ron Primus
Nir has a friend called Shai Efrati there. Shai has this protocol for Alzheimer's patients using hyperbaric. And he had intensive four months daily hyperbaric. I put him on a keto diet,
- [41:18]
Mangesh Tikathur
and then with a tweak to his diet, daily sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and a regimen of games and apps to stimulate his brain. Dr. Primus tells me than just four months.
- [41:28]
Dr. Ron Primus
He's completely back to normal. All of the testing that they did showed dramatic improvements.
- [41:34]
Mangesh Tikathur
And as I gather my things to leave, I keep returning to this story. Maybe it's just that an anecdote, an N of 1, but I can't stop being excited by the possibilities. So I started thinking about bellying up to my to do list from Dr. Primus. And then as I'm walking out into the brisk December air, I get one more gentle nudge towards the future. We bump into another of Dr. Primus patients, this man who looks to be in his 80s. He tells us his mother is also a client. She's 106 and is hard to keep up with on the dance floor. I really don't want to go to the gym, but being able to dance until the end of your life, that seems like a wonderful thing. If there's too much that meets the.
- [42:49]
Chelsea Handler
Foreign. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. If you travel a lot with your dog like I do with Doug, feeding them well on the road can get surprisingly complicated, especially when you're touring 30 plus cities, staying in hotels, flying, driving and basically living out of a suitcase. Frozen dog food sounds great until you realize you don't exactly have a freezer backstage. That's why I started bringing just fresh from Just Food for dogs. It's real fresh dog food made with human grade ingredients with meat and vegetables you can see in the bowl. But the difference is it's shelf stable, which means I don't need a freezer or a cooler and there's no prep. So now I can throw a few packs in my bag and Doug still gets a healthy meal wherever we are. Doug absolutely loves it and I like knowing I am feeding my baby something that's actually good for him. It's also the number one vet recommended fresh dog food made without preservatives or fillers. Go to justfoodfordogs.com and get 50% off your first order.
- [43:50]
Mangesh Tikathur
Chapter 5 the Odyssey of It all so remember that part where my wife and my child were complaining about me being okay with my life sentence of 64? There's one more thing I need to tell you. Every few years, whenever we could afford it, my mom would take us to India for a whole summer. For us, India was this bizarro world with completely different rules. A place of pure chaos and colors. At the edges of my grandparents lush garden beyond the bougainvillea and the tall jamun trees, you could spot mongoose and beautiful gray langur monkeys at Night, you sneaked into bed under these lacy mosquito nets that hung from the bed frames like some Victorian relic. And of all the people in the house, I was most enamored with my grandfather, who bridged all these incredible worlds. I love that he was this gentleman who studied botany at Oxford and kept volumes of National Geographics on the bookcase and played weekly bridge games with his friends on the veranda. And I loved how magical time with him could be. Like late one night, how he woke me up and led me outside to peek at a Bethlehem lily, this flower he'd been cultivating that only opens once a year in moonlight. We're hearing him talk about his adventures as a chief of forestry, how he'd briefly fostered some bear cubs at home because he'd found them abandoned in the woods. Or how he'd killed a king cobra that was attacking him, how he tried to shoot it as it raced towards him, and when he missed, he took his rifle and turned it around and swung it like a cricket bat, knocking the creature out. But more than any of that, I love that he was so loving and sensitive, too, that he had this deep empathy for others. When I was nine, he was taking a bus to visit a salt mine. He breathed in deeply and in a minute disappeared from a heart attack. When I heard the news, I was devastated. On the bus where he passed away, the young man recognized the initials and last name on his briefcase and stayed. Lend a hand. His father had been in the forestry service, too, and my Aja had helped him when he became disabled and couldn't work. And I always thought, if you can do that in 72 years, if you can live in a way that your grandkid several continents away, growing up in a completely different culture, wants to mirror the best parts of you, well, then maybe 60 or 70 years is enough. That feels like enough time. And that's how I felt and lived my life. 47 years, in fact. Happy to savor the time I have, making the most of it. But then there's this.
- [47:07]
Lizzie Jacobs
I would prefer for you to plan on and work as if we're gonna live, you know, much longer lives together.
- [47:17]
Mangesh Tikathur
How can I ignore that? Because what if Chetan And Nier and Dr. Primus and, yes, even that WWE wrestler looming in the back of my head are right? What if I could prove the astrologer wrong and defeat death by a year or 10 or 20? Doesn't my family deserve that? Right now, there are scientists using dancing molo molecules to make paraplegic mice walk again. There are Geneticists curing babies of lifelong diseases before they'll take their first steps. There are entrepreneurs designing new drugs, delivering miracles in labs. And there are world leaders talking on hot mics about how they might extend their lives and reigns by 75 years or longer. And I don't know if there's a pill or an injection or a transplant that's to going, going to give us an endless life. But I keep hearing about these secrets that only scientists and the elite know about right now. They sometimes don't like going on the record just because of the nature of what they do. And since I still have a little time on my hands, I might as well chase those secrets down. This season on how to Live Forever. So you have a testable brain essentially in a feature dish, right?
- [48:51]
Chelsea Handler
Please be gentle, you guys. It totally does work. People were just filling up their bottles.
- [48:55]
Mangesh Tikathur
I learned about da Vinci writing his notebooks mirrored. So that just seemed like the pure, most symmetric form of just physically developing. Sixteen for floors, but eight of them are themed we have a floor for AI, a floor for crypto, a floor for longevity, and so on.
- [49:10]
Chelsea Handler
I told him I'm new to the
- [49:11]
Mangesh Tikathur
building and was here for an event, and he asked me, point blankly, if
- [49:15]
Lizzie Jacobs
I want to live forever.
- [49:17]
Dr. Ron Primus
From 22 to 25, I have frozen blood samples and data of how my plasma proteins and also my immune cells have changed.
- [49:26]
Mangesh Tikathur
The more weights, the more muscle loss.
- [49:29]
Lizzie Jacobs
You're almost there.
- [49:30]
Mangesh Tikathur
So what age am I at right now?
- [49:33]
Chelsea Handler
You can kind of see the appeal of it. You want to try and get as
- [49:36]
Mangesh Tikathur
much as you can, but then you're
- [49:38]
Lizzie Jacobs
also downplaying every single other element of your existence. Our families and the people we work with and the people that we see in the street, you know, are those maybe the more important parts of our existence?
- [49:49]
Dr. Ron Primus
Everybody holds each other up with their arms. They're holding each other up so they
- [49:53]
Mangesh Tikathur
can do these more difficulties called movements. One of the cool things about death is that it completes the story. I mean, I want to say, is it really a story without an end?
- [50:16]
Ken Reid
Yes.
- [50:17]
Mangesh Tikathur
I'm going to live twice. Don't know about you.
- [50:18]
Dr. Ron Primus
We did it.
- [50:19]
Mangesh Tikathur
Thank you so much for listening. I feel so lucky to be making a show. I have so many people to thank. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcast. This show is hosted and written by me, Mangesha Tigloo, with a ton of help, like, so much help from these wonderful humans. Lizzie Jacobs, AKA my wife, who I'm so lucky to have conned into leading this production and spending a lifetime with me. I also have massive, massive help from the most talented and most cat loving Mary, Phillip, Sandy and the unbelievably cast in science producer Mark Stephen Allen, who knows everyone from congressmen to exiled journalists to superstar kids in Brooklyn who have put magnets into their hands. Mark Lotto is the very very best story editor who had to go away to a hammock on an island just to handle editing me. That's how rough it is. This episode was mixed with by our genius pal Anna from Computer City Productions with lush and wondrous scoring from Botany Spencer, how could we do this without you? Also, the beautiful Indian hip hop is courtesy of Azadi Records who is so amazing and there are gorgeous tracks from the artist Bliss, Samsa Mo and Nathan. Thank you so much. If you want to hear more, we made you a mixtape. You just have to check out the show notes. Additional production research support from the wonderful link Lucas Riley. The show is executive produced from iheart by my good friends Ali Perry and Katrina Norvell. The show would not have happened without the support of my friends at Kaleidoscope, starting with my business partner pal Oswald, who somehow still believes in the show. Julian Meador is our head of studio and has been bearing with me and passing along so many great story notes. Costas Linos, thank you so much for keeping the lights on with this smile, making everything go smoothly. Costas, you are the best. Kate Osborne for getting the show off the ground. Thank you Kate, Rachel Strom, we owe you so big. You are the very best lawyer and neighbor and human. Also, Christy, David, Sheena, Dara, Calypso, Elle Viney for coming out from retirement to do the beautiful collage art again. Anyone who lent a hand, there are way too many of you. I also want to give a little special thanks to all the kiddos who bore with us through this production. Henry, Ruby, my two little maniacs who now yell off the record at me at the dining table. Also Julian Grendel, Lou Little Enzo and Pearl Etor. All my friends at iHeart including Bob Connell, Will, Carrie, Nikki, Jason, Jerry and more. My New York and Atlanta crews. There are too many to name. Also Shanta Sa, my family in India, my family in the States. The very, very biggest thank you to Josh Clark from the legendary podcast Stuff. You should know. Josh read this episode's warning and he once told me he hated his voice until someone told him he sounded like a Muppet. So from one Muppet to another, thank you so much. I just want to say thank you to my teachers, Mrs. Leary and Ms. Anderson, who were just two of the greatest elementary school teachers ever. They made me believe my my talents, made me fall in love with creative projects and for some reason they still listen and root for me. The world needs more teachers and people like you. And just one last thank you to my Amma and my dad, Lalitha Nomesha Tighadur, who I thank my lucky stars for. Thank you so much for listening.
- [53:44]
Chelsea Handler
I love the little everyday moments with my dog especially especially treat time But Dental care Not always so fun. Until we found Greenies dental treats. These are more than just tasty. They're vet recommended and designed to support the four areas Vets check the plaque, tartar, gums and breath. Their unique texture cleans down to the gum line and supports cleaner teeth after 28 days when fed daily. It's a simple daily habit that supports their health and gives us another moment to enjoy together. Greenies Make Health a treat. Shop now@greenies.com this is an iHeart podcast.
- [54:20]
Mangesh Tikathur
Guaranteed human.