We Can Now Drive Aging Forward and Backward at Will — Here's What That Means | Impact Theory W. Tom Bilyeu Dr. David Sinclair

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

Episode:

We Can Now Drive Aging Forward and Backward at Will — Here's What That Means
Podcast: Impact Theory
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Dr. David Sinclair
Date: April 18, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode features renowned aging researcher Dr. David Sinclair discussing the latest breakthroughs in age reversal, regenerative medicine, and the provocative idea that aging can be experimentally driven forward and backward. The conversation dives into Sinclair’s team’s work with stem cells, mini-organs ("organoids"), upcoming clinical trials in age reversal, real implications for fertility, nerves, skin, and brain health, and practical advice on how to maximize longevity with current knowledge. The tone is upbeat, candid, scientifically rigorous, and at times, mind-blowing.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Growing and Testing Mini-Organs

• [01:15] Sinclair's lab is actively growing "mini-brains" (organoids) from stem cells, using them as real-time aging models.
  • "We grow them from single cells...turn them into stem cells." — Dr. Sinclair [01:15]
• Without blood vessels, these organoids reach a size limit; adding vascular cells could enable larger growth, but raises ethical questions around sentience.
• [02:29] They observe "fireworks" (neural calcium spikes) that decrease with aging in the mini-brains. Introducing a "three chemical cocktail" can rejuvenate their function, restoring "sparks".
  • "With the old brains that are a year old, that's old for a brain organoid—if we give them our genes or our chemical cocktail, the firing comes on again." — Dr. Sinclair [03:24]

2. Chemical Age Reversal in Mice, and Human Prospects

• The rejuvenation cocktail can be delivered as a pill; some of these chemicals are already being used by self-experimenters.
• [03:53] Early-stage clinical trials in humans are starting soon.
  • "We're getting permission to give them to people in a clinical trial to see what would happen." — Dr. Sinclair [03:53]
• Some people have already self-injected with the OSK gene therapy (unregulated).

3. Extending Female Fertility & Uterine Rejuvenation

• [06:07] The team is growing uterine organoids to study infertility and reversal of menopause.
• [06:54] Prior work in mice showed reactivation of fertility in aged females with NAD-boosting molecules.
  • "We could reverse infertility in old, very old mice, female mice, and they could produce fresh eggs and have children." — Dr. Sinclair [06:54]
• Recent promising human pilot studies use NAD IV treatments for low fertility, showing up to a 3x difference in egg/embryo quality.
• FDA clinical path for drugs is 5–10 years, but Sinclair is optimistic for dramatic fertility extensions in 10–30 years.

4. Brain Health, Cognitive Enhancement, and Alzheimer’s

• Ketones as acute cognitive enhancers; intermittent fasting and exogenous ketones can boost neural function.
  • "Ketone levels will go up [with fasting]...the clarity is there. We know that ketones are very good for the brain." — Dr. Sinclair [15:12]
• Ketones and similar molecules can induce favorable epigenetic changes in brain cells, not just provide energy.
• Rejuvenation therapies might help memory even in the presence of neurodegeneration (like Alzheimer’s), possibly by enabling brains to work around plaque.
  • "We don't need to be clearing any plaque for the animals to get better memory." — Dr. Sinclair [21:23]

5. Nerve Regeneration: Optic Nerves, Paralysis, and Beyond

• Sinclair’s team has achieved full regrowth of optic nerve connections in animals—previously a biological impossibility.
  • "We got 100% [regrowth]." — Dr. Sinclair [24:48]
  • "For a disease like ALS...we can regrow those." — Dr. Sinclair [25:39]
• Human translation will be slow because of safety/ethics, but the science is not a bottleneck.
• "If this ends up being predictably repeatable, this would be huge." — Tom Bilyeu [23:32]

6. From Laboratory to Consumer: Molecules, Supplements, Creams

• Dr. Sinclair anticipates both the pharma route (slow, disease-specific) and “consumer” path (supplements, over-the-counter cosmetics).
  • "We're developing consumer products...natural, safe versions of the super drugs we're developing." — Dr. Sinclair [32:10]
• Preliminary data in mice: a 4-week treatment led to measurable age reversal across physical and cognitive tests.

7. Risks and Challenges

• The major risk is cancer (if reprogramming causes uncontrolled cell growth), so therapies will start in targeted tissues, e.g., the eye.
  • "That's why I think it's too early to be trying this systemically in our whole body. We'll start with the eye and see how that goes." — Dr. Sinclair [37:54]
• Regulatory approval, massive funding needs, and rigorous clinical design are crucial.

8. Sinclair’s Personal Longevity Protocol

• Baseline Supplements:
  • NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) — [56:10]
  • Resveratrol (taken with fat for absorption) — [58:09]
  • Metformin or Berberine for healthy blood sugar — [62:18], [63:10]
  • Nattokinase (cardiovascular support) — [63:43]
  • Niacin (vitamin B3) for LP(a) cholesterol — [64:54]
• Principles: Focus on plant-forward diet, polyphenols, exercise, tracking biological age & methylation, minimizing sugar and processed foods.
  • "95% plant." — Dr. Sinclair [61:05]

9. Avoidance List for Longevity

• Smoking, overconsumption of alcohol (even 1 drink/day correlates with smaller brains), sedentary behavior.
  • "The more alcohol you drink, the smaller your brain will be." — Dr. Sinclair [78:16]
• Excess sugar, processed foods—especially for children.
  • "I avoid sugar like the plague...I think of it as a toxin. It's not really a toxin, but long term it is." — Dr. Sinclair [79:42]

10. The Future: Timelines and Predictions

• Within 1 year: Human trial results of age reversal in the eye; potentially a “ChatGPT moment for biology” if successful.
  • "If this works...the world goes nuts." — Dr. Sinclair [50:44]
• 3 years: Consumer products (creams, drinks) with natural molecules to visibly and biologically rejuvenate skin/hair.
• 20 years: Probable age reversal for many organs, people looking middle-aged for longer. Permanent “youthful” appearance for decades possible, especially if starting young.
  • "It's possible that my father...could look like us after treating himself for a few months." — Dr. Sinclair [52:34]
• Biological limits: Genetic information loss is a harder limit than epigenetic drift.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Organ Regrowth:
  • "When we reversed the age of the retina in a mouse that had those protein inclusions, they went away and the retina regrew...." — Dr. Sinclair [22:06]
• On Human Trials:
  • "I'm going to find out if this...age reversal technology ... works in people. The world will probably find out a year from now." — Dr. Sinclair [50:44]
• On Motivation and Hope:
  • "It's a pivotal year for humanity if it works." — Dr. Sinclair [84:40]
• On Longevity as a Game:
  • "Treat it like a game. It's not that serious." — Dr. Sinclair [82:33]
• Sinclair’s optimism:
  • "We’ve shown the biology is there and we can do it." — Dr. Sinclair [53:24]

---

Practical Longevity Takeaways

What To Do Now ([54:31] – [79:39]):

• Start/track intermittent fasting
• Take NMN, resveratrol (with fat/yogurt), and consider metformin/berberine after medical advice
• Emphasize plant-based polyphenols, colorful vegetables, olive oil, green tea/matcha
• Minimize sugar, alcohol, inactivity, and of course—don't smoke
• Do regular vigorous activity (raise heart rate, lose breath, 3x/week)
• Reduce stress; prioritize deep sleep, meditation, relaxation
• Get biomarker testing (DNA methylation, comprehensive bloods, C-reactive protein, LP(a)), annual health scans as affordable

What To Look Forward To:

• Next wave of consumer-grade, naturally derived age-reversal products within a few years
• Human clinical trial outcomes for genuine organ/tissue rejuvenation
• A “gold rush” of biotech investment, making therapies more accessible

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:15] – Growing and testing brain organoids
• [03:02] – Rejuvenation of neural activity in organoids & mice
• [06:46] – Fertility restoration in old female mice and human pilot studies
• [12:46] – Timeline musings: fertility and uterine rejuvenation
• [15:12] – Cognitive enhancement with ketones
• [19:07] – Alzheimer’s, amyloid plaques, and mini-brain models
• [23:17] – Nerve regrowth and implications for neurodegenerative diseases
• [32:10] – Over-the-counter, cosmetic, and supplement approaches
• [35:26] – Observable mouse rejuvenation in four weeks
• [54:31] – Sinclair’s personal protocol summary
• [63:43] – Additional supplements: nattokinase, niacin
• [79:42] – Behavior to avoid: sugar, sedentary lifestyle, alcohol, smoking
• [82:18] – The importance of sleep, stress reduction

---

Resources and Further Engagement

• Dr. David Sinclair: Lifespan.com, Instagram/Twitter, Friends of Sinclair Lab (friendsOfSinclairLab.org)
• Book: Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To (see p.304 for protocol)
• Podcast: Lifespan (relaunching soon)

---

This episode captures a fascinating, hope-filled look into the future of aging and human health. With both concrete strategies for now and a clear window into what’s coming, it offers a wealth of actionable science, candid cautions, and inspiration.

---

Transcript

[A]

When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[B]

Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go. Okay, so you guys are able to replicate micro brains. How do you make them small?

[A]

Well, we grow them from single cells.

[B]

We.

[A]

We turn them into stem cells.

[B]

Would they just keep growing and growing and growing and growing if you fed

[A]

them they size where they don't keep growing because they don't have blood vessels.

[B]

Do they have a pituitary gland?

[A]

They don't have blood. I don't know if they. How do they stay alive? We shake them in liquid and the oxygen diffuses through. But if they get too big that the core becomes hypoxic and doesn't grow well. But what we need to do is to mix them with blood vessel cells which people are working on, and then we could grow them really big.

[B]

This is so interesting. Oh, my God.

[A]

And then it's ethical questions about if you can grow a brain from scratch, should you teach it something? Should you give it something to think about? Anyway, it's a good model for aging, dude.

[B]

So wait, there are. It's my understanding AI that right now can do like, these really rough. Like, this person is thinking about this, and it, like, shows you like a horse. And you're like, it's kind of a horse. It's just like sort of blobby shapes. We need to apply immediately this AI to these brains. I need to know if these things are, like, screaming out, I'm bored, bro. Like, come on, give me something to do. This is wild. Okay. And everything.

[A]

And here's the other thing is we see them get old, they lose their firing and we can look at them in real time. They're actually. You see these sparks, like looking at fireworks. When they get older, there's fewer. Fewer sparks.

[B]

How are you monitoring the brains?

[A]

Well, you put them under the microscope and we can see calcium changes. When calcium gets. These are the fireworks, the nerve cells. When they get calcium, they.

[B]

Under the Microsoft. Are they now dying at this point?

[A]

No, they're living. We put them back.

[B]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

So we see the calcium changes. And wherever calcium comes in, which is what's happening in our brains right now with the firing, it lights up with a dye. Not naturally. We have to give them a dye that lights up, but you can see that. And so you see with the old brains that are a year old, that's old for a brain organoid. If we give them our genes or our chemical cocktail, our three chemical cocktail, the firing comes on again. And we did that to a mouse, as I mentioned. And the mouse, Ron, like the human brain now? Well, we. We hope. How close we hope to be testing this in humans for the brain as well.

[B]

Adult humans, you're saying adult humans? Yeah. I don't know that I want to leave the baby brains yet, but. Okay, so adult humans. What condition would they have to. Have to subject themselves to this? Because this sounds experimental.

[A]

Well, the three chemicals are. We're getting permission to give them to people in a clinical trial to see what would happen.

[B]

But people just like, hey, I'm Bob, I'm doing fine, but hit me with the three chemicals. Let me see what happens.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People do that all the time. This is amazing.

[A]

It's called a phase one clinical trial.

[B]

Wow. Yes. Okay. Hey, cool. That's amazing. And all right, so people are gonna volunteer to have. These are. How are you getting the chemicals into their brain?

[A]

Oh, you just swallow it.

[B]

You can take it in a pill.

[A]

That's the goal.

[B]

That's wild. How does this survive metabolism?

[A]

Well, it's. At least two of these molecules have been taken by humans already. So we know maybe all three actually by now. Wow. We know that they're metabolized.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

But we need AI to make improve that three chemical cocktail.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that. I don't think that's the ultimate drug that I'm going to put on the market. I think, though, if I mention those three molecules, you could bet that people be out buying this stuff already. Yeah.

[B]

Didn't you say them at the top?

[A]

No, I said the genes or something. Those are OSK genes.

[B]

Very careful. Smart.

[A]

I have to be. I mean, hopefully people won't Go and inject them with some solvent.

[B]

Oh, it will. Apparently they'll even just sign up for a clinical trial, because. Why not? Okay.

[A]

I do know some people have injected themselves with OSK already, which is.

[B]

Okay, so people are injecting themselves with this stuff. Fascinating. Because. Because they think this de aging thing will work.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay. Even though you're saying it's. There's more to it than just that.

[A]

Well, just to be clear, these are. These are not FDA sanctioned clinical trials. Yeah, there is. There's a fringe.

[B]

I think people should be able to do their own body what they want.

[A]

Do you think so then it's a few people in the world that are willing to try anything not to age, but getting back to really mainstream science and drug development.

[B]

But I was having so much fun with the baby brains.

[A]

And we can go anywhere you want, Tom. It's your show. Yes, the. I do want to say, though, that we. I'll just tick off the diseases that have worked. Well.

[B]

Yes, please.

[A]

No, I already did that.

[B]

You're talking about in the baby brain, though, or. I thought those were like thin sheets.

[A]

Yeah, I know. What I wanted to tell you that we don't just grow brains.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

We grow other things.

[B]

Such as?

[A]

Well, we're growing a uterus.

[B]

Why not? Are we impregnating said uterus?

[A]

No.

[B]

Why a uterus? Why are we building a uterus?

[A]

Because.

[B]

Oh, to see if you can reverse fertility problems.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

Well, we just In. In all public disclosure, I have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. So I'm a male.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So we males are fairly dumb when it comes to female health.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And my partner Serena is much more expert in female fertility. That said, I'm a scientist, and so I want to be able to help women have children for longer and even have children after they've gone through menopause.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

And so we've. We've already shown a number of years back that using a sirtuin. Remember the sirtuins?

[B]

I do.

[A]

Sirtuin activating molecule that we could reverse infertility in old, very old mice, female mice, and they could produce fresh eggs and have children. That we published. That's real. But we. I want something more potent than that that will truly reverse the age of all parts of the female reproductive system, including the uterus. And I have a student, Maria, is working on that. That's her project.

[B]

Damn. So this is wild. Okay, so we grow. You give me. Give me just a quick timeline for this stuff has to work. Its way through the FDA. Like when are we talking about a 65 year old woman de aging her uterus and having babies?

[A]

Well, you don't actually fully have to de age a uterus. You can have a surrogate. So I, I could hear people screaming at us that we don't need to fix the uterus. What we need is healthy eggs and a healthy sperm.

[B]

Wait, I'm not, I'm not tracking the caveat. So you just said you want to help de age the uterus. Well, I do because now we're trying to soften it for the screaming people, the chattering masses in the comment section. But talk to me about when. So. Got it. There are other things that people can do right now, today. Yay. But I'm saying, when are we going to de age a woman who's 65, she's been through menopause for a decade. When are we going to get her producing eggs again and a womb that can like house a healthy baby to term? Ballpark me.

[A]

The uterus is early stages. We're still growing those in the lab and looking at menstrual fluid and that kind of stuff.

[B]

Wild.

[A]

Is this a menstrual fluid?

[B]

This isn't, this isn't flat cells. This is like I would actually recognize the uterus.

[A]

Yeah. We grow it from scratch and it's three dimensional and it's in the dish. Yes. And then we're going to age them and hopefully de age them, obviously. So what. But what I can predict with more certainty because I can see where we're going with more clarity that this discovery that we made in the mice is now being tested by others in humans already. So discoveries are to an activator. Okay. It was, I think about eight years ago we published that raising the levels of a sirtuin activator called nad, that chemical which we make less of as we get older by raising that the eggs became produced and fresh again just from NAD in a month from raising nad. And just last week I saw a study testing women who were not very fertile, receiving for 10 weeks an IV each week of NAD. And if there's no placebo, egg count of egg count, egg quality, embryo quality, very rigorous actually. And although it's the first of hopefully many studies, it was extremely promising. There was a dramatic difference, two, three fold difference between those that got the NAD IV and those that didn't.

[B]

I have a feeling you want me to let go on the timeline, but I'm not going to so ballpark me knowing. Certainly I know that whatever you say isn't going to be accurate. It'll just be directional. But if you had to swag me, if that was.

[A]

If that study is true, Again, be cautious. It's one study. But let's say it's true, then I think it's likely that nadivs are going to help women who want to get pregnant.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. But timeline. We're rejuvenating uteri here.

[A]

Well, the uterus is different. Uterus is more challenging. But the egg story, 10 years, might be here 30 years already.

[B]

Okay, so nad for somebody on the cusp. But I want to know when we're.

[A]

When's the uterus?

[B]

Yeah, I'm talking. I'm giving you the very specific stuff.

[A]

It sounds like you really need a fresh uterus.

[B]

No, but this is so interesting. Yeah. That the. So never did I think that already on the sort of pipeline of things to be tried, would we be growing brains, Actual mini brains in a lab. Actual uterus in a lab. Like, this is thrilling, exciting, shocking. But I just. This was not on my bingo card. So now I want to know because it's clearly closer than I thought. Given that we have to get through all the FDA and all that. Like, are we talking 30 years? We talking 15 years? Like, what are we talking about?

[A]

All right, well, there's, there's actually, there's two options. One is the FDA route, which is novel molecule. AI gives it to us. We take that. I've got a company, Life biosciences, that's ready to go, and they're all set to go. So that usually takes five years to get through the FDA with a small molecule that's been shown to work in animals.

[B]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere this summer.

[A]

Don't squeeze in, spread out. Find homes big enough for your whole guest list on VRBox. From family reunions to trips with friends, VRBO has spacious summer stays for every group size and budget. That's vacation rentals done right. Start exploring on VRBO and book your next stay. Now. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[B]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. But do we have 20 years of discovery still on the de aging of the uterus, or are we already pretty deep in that process?

[A]

Well, we're going parallel. We're going AI to find the molecule. And I said we've already done a lot of that. And then we're building the uteri in the dish right now and we'll just put those two together when they're ready.

[B]

This is so wild.

[A]

And then if that works and the mice work, then we can apply to test this in humans with, you know, adequate safety studies. Wow. In animals, the safety studies take a couple of years.

[B]

That's wild. All right. I want to go back to the brain. The brain is my thing. If ever there was something I wanted a fresh, new one, it would be to keep my brain healthy forever. So there are things that people do now. So you've got stuff like ketones. I will take ketone supplements. I will take caffeine, obviously nicotine. So I do things to sharpen my brain. Now, now, how does that stuff compare to what you're talking about?

[A]

Well, right now I think stuff like ketones are excellent for the brain. Yeah.

[B]

Similar mechanism or totally unrelated.

[A]

We don't know. It's possible they're related because beta hydroxybutyrate can actually not just affect energy in the brain. And that's why I drink. Actually, there's a group that I'm collaborating with scientifically as well that are doing good studies at ketone iq. The science looks really good. The brain is what I use it for. I. I chug it before I do. Recording of the podcast that I'm relaunching. Season two coming up. But yeah, I find that when I'm. I'm stressed and I'm having to basically take 15 pages and, and remember it in a few minutes, then I need that extra fuel. And we know that ketones are very good for the brain. But you're asking me, is it related to my work? What's interesting is that these ketones and one is one that's related to seedo related molecules. They're kind of related to vinegar. These molecules actually go in and they change the structure of how the DNA is packaged to help with the methyls.

[B]

It's so acute though. It's not like I can take one shot of ketones and my brain is better for a month. It's very, at least for me, very short acting.

[A]

Yeah. So that's, that's. Yeah, there's so that's probably two things happening. The first is the ketones are good fuel for your brain. So what we know is when we're fasted for, let's say, about over 15 hours, ketone levels will go up because we run out of glycogen from the liver. And then the clarity, mental clarity, you might be a little angry because you're hungry, but the clarity is there. We all. We've probably all done this. If. If we. If we study and we're not eating a lot, we can focus. Yeah, I know I need that because I get distracted by every little bug around me. But the. The. So the focus is there, and the ketones really help with the focus. And I can mimic fasting, and I can even enhance my fasting. I try to do intermittent fasting as best I can. And some of these ketones, if you take it with fasting, can actually improve your ketosis.

[B]

Those sound like separate mechanisms to me. One feels very acute and is a. Hey, there's this molecule that you put into your brain. I'm fumbling for the mechanism here. And it's essentially like giving it food to run its processes faster. The other is reaching into this black box and finding these magical. The observer and getting that to work. It's magic.

[A]

Yeah, let's. Let's just take a. Take a pause on. You are what you eat. And it's not just energy. It actually does modify the DNA and the structures that package the DNA. So let's just get back the ketone or, well, the ketones, like beta hydroxybutyrate, these molecules actually get attached. So let me briefly explain to you how is DNA packaged in the cell, because that determines whether a gene is on or off. We talked about these methyls. It's methyl. It's blocked. But it's not just a string with chemicals on it. It's actually wrapped up tightly in proteins that are like balls, tennis balls. And the tennis balls come together. So now you got this big structure. If you look at them, it's called a chromosome. So these balls, they aren't just tennis balls. They actually have flags on them. Imagine a tennis ball with little flags that say, read me or ignore me. Some of these flags are methyls as well on the DNA and on the bowls, the protein balls called histones. But there are other things. There's a whole semaphore of flags that tells the cell what to do at that point in the genome. And two of those chemicals. One is butyrate that gets attached to the ball. The other Is acetate attached to the ball on amino acids, lysines, usually. And these histones have tails. So it's a tennis ball with a, a tail, protein, amino acid tail. And it's that tail that accepts these little flags. So when we know this for a fact, that if you drink acetate or butyrate or molecules like we're talking about these ketones, you can change the pattern on these little flags in ways that are healthy. So that's another reason why fasting may give you a buzz or focus for a while, but long term, if you do it for months, you will actually change your gene expression and slow down, I believe, slow down the rate of aging as well.

[B]

Okay, so we have reason to believe that's true. Through fasting, can you supplement your way there?

[A]

We don't know. But there's no reason to believe that that wouldn't work. Because what we're drinking in these bottles, like the 13 butane dial, is that is naturally there in our body anyway. We're just giving the body more of it. These are breakdown products of fat, right? So after 15 hours of fasting, we get these fatty acids out of our fat. That's how the body uses fat, turns them into these ketones that give fuel, but also change the regulation of genes, some temporarily, some long term.

[B]

Okay, so that's the exogenous stuff that may or may not have long term sort of stacking effects. But what you guys are doing now, now on the brain, the brain is insanely complicated. I've always assumed that part of the problem with Alzheimer's, not that the amyloid plaque is the cause, but that you would have built up so much plaque. I don't see how you start unwinding that if you're not clearing the plaque out. Do you think the plaque is the brain knows how to get around it or does it get cleared in some way? Like how would this look?

[A]

That's a really great question and one that we are addressing. The reason I don't know the answer yet. And I can tell you what I think is going on based on other experiments in different tissues which do clear out proteins like beta amyloid, but we don't know in the eye, sorry, in the brain for sure. And the reason we don't know is we don't get a lot of plaque. In the mouse model. We get all these other problems. There's a protein called tau, phospho tau. We do see that and we turn that on in the brain, but we don't know for sure yet. If the plaque goes away or if the brain just can handle it better.

[B]

What about all of our little mini brains? We haven't run those yet.

[A]

No, the mini brains are not getting plaque. They just get dysfunctional with the APOE4

[B]

gene because you're racing forward. They're aging so much.

[A]

Well, it's partly that, but also the APOE4 is producing this APOE protein, which can cause problems inside the cell. You don't need to have these collections, these crystal crystals outside the cell to be defective.

[B]

But doesn't that tell you that there's something different going on? So if Alzheimer's were just pure aging and part of the. The phenotypical expression. Which fancy word for what does it look and act like? If the expression of aging is the some damage occurs that causes the buildup of amyloid plaque. If you artificially. I'll put that in air quotes. But if you artificially age it and it does not build up amyloid plaques. And we know there's some different mechanism happening for sure.

[A]

Not everybody gets Alzheimer's, but we all get old.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So the Alzheimer's is accelerating the aging of the cell and causing it to be dysfunctional. But what we know is that we don't need to be clearing any plaque for the animals to get better memory. And it may not be necessary in humans as well, but just to really

[B]

beat this to death. And maybe this is what you were just about to say. But how do you interpret the. I get two different results. When I age up my mini brain, it does not build up plaque.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Human life seems to build up plaque.

[A]

You might be right that the mini brains don't age 80 years, which is what humans do. Maybe we're only aging them to 40 and we don't get there.

[B]

It's not a perfect mimic direction to travel.

[A]

But yeah, I mean, every model in the lab has its caveats. You gotta take what you can get. And right now the state of the art is mini brains getting old but not getting plaque. But we do put those genes in there and they do get dysfunctional quicker. I think it's interesting to point out that the age reversal may clear out the plaque. And the reason that I'm optimistic that it would in humans is because we've done this in other tissues. The eye, for instance, builds up proteins. Lipofuscin causes macular degeneration. And to my surprise, when we reversed the age of the retina in a mouse that had those protein inclusions, they went away and the retina re grew and became flat. And nice and functional again. So what we're finding is it's not just reversing aging, it's actually rebuilding the body to be young again. And the best test of that was we actually pinched optic nerves and destroyed them. That's one way to test this. And what we found was the optic nerve regrew back to the brain. So even something as bad as crushing nerves causes them to regrow like they were embryos again.

[B]

Whoa, hold on. For my whole life, I believe that nerves don't regrow.

[A]

They don't.

[B]

So this really is like, if this ends up being predictably repeatable, this would be huge.

[A]

Well, that's why in part it got the COVID of nature, which was, oh, my God, we're able to regrow nerves again. And it's huge. Not just for the eye, of course. Anyone who's broken or. Or could.

[B]

What about, like, spinal injuries? Yeah, that's right.

[A]

That's. That's low hanging fruit as well.

[B]

Huh? Are there people right now? Because let me tell you, if I was a quadriplegic, I'd be like, yes, I'm first in your trial. Inject the life out of me. Give me whatever you need to give me. Do we have people lining up for that one? And is there a reason that we're not already doing that?

[A]

It's regulation that's stopping us from doing it because we need to make sure it's safe.

[B]

Are you by any chance connected? You must be, you know so many of the same people. Are you connected to Elon Musk? No, I don't know him at all, but I know Peter Dandis. Knows him. Well, I know you know Peter well, just because obviously what they're doing with trying to sort of bypass all that stuff, maybe they wouldn't care. Maybe it's even contrary to their business model. But being able to fix somebody who broke their back would be obviously massive.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's not technology that's holding us, it's safety and rigor and regulations. Yeah, I think we're there. It probably would work because the eye

[B]

is no different than how profoundly is the nerve regrowing.

[A]

Well, you're right. Luna's don't regrow. And there have been some small advances over the years. Other labs have regrown nerves, maybe 5%. We got 100.

[B]

What the, man? This is one of those. There's a. There's always such a big gap between what works in the lab and what works in real life, so. I'm aware of that. But this is. This is Very interesting if you're able to. So my wife's grandmother, I think she actually died from cancer, but she had Alzheimer's for the last God knows how many years of her life. Absolutely tragic. My great fear is losing my brain. The thought of being paralyzed has always been so hopeless my entire life. The thought that you can regrow nerves is absolutely wild.

[A]

Yeah. And for a disease like als, where the nerves that are holding onto your muscle are retreating, degrading, regressing, we're finding that we can regrow those. One of the reasons people have falls and can't control themselves physically when they're older and maintain balance is that problem. The nerve muscle junction get retraction, these nerves go away. We've got images in my lab. When we treat with our chemical cocktail, those nerves then regrow for the first time ever in biology to go back to where they came from.

[B]

What's going to stop this from being real like this? When something seems to be too good to be true, it is too good. So what's the. What's the catch in all this?

[A]

Making a drug period, whether it reverses aging or not, is. Is hugely challenging from bench to bedside, as they say, there are biological issues. So you might be wrong about the theory. Don't think that's the case. It may not be relevant to humans. It could just be in rodents or mice. Don't think that's true. Because it's working in monkeys already. There could be safety issues. Right. But we've ticked all those off so far, so what's left? Well, there's funding. You need hundreds of millions of dollars. So I spend a fair amount of my time traveling with Serena around the world to raise money to do these trials. And thank you to all the investors that have come in to help us with that. And that's the company's called Life Biosciences, which I'm chairman of the board of. That company has a great team. You gotta have a great team because you can mess up a clinical trial and not get great results. You got to do it the right way with the right controls. And then, I don't know, I think that's. That's pretty much it. And then it does. It works or it doesn't. And if you're wondering what's the chance now, I've. I've pegged her at at least 80%, given that it's worked well in the

[B]

monkeys multiple times, in that you're clamping down on the nerve, effectively killing it, and then regrowing it. What Nerve.

[A]

Are you clamping down on the entire optic nerve?

[B]

Okay, so you make them blind and then unblind them, then they can see again. That is wild.

[A]

Okay, so by the way, that, that's, that's required by law. It's not something I want to do.

[B]

What do you mean?

[A]

Well, the government makes us drug developers do these safety studies in animals before we can touch a human.

[B]

Meaning they force you to blind and unblind the monkey.

[A]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that. But that's what we've done. Unfortunately. It worked. Cured them. They're all good and wild. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. And so are you just clamping the nerve and the pressure is what makes them blind and just unclamping it by any chance?

[A]

No, it's done differently than a clamp because it's harder to do with a clamp. It was done with a bright light.

[B]

So you burned the nerve essentially.

[A]

I don't know if you don't like that word choices. It's not really burning, but it is.

[B]

Right. Permanently damaged.

[A]

They're not going to see again unless we treat them.

[B]

Okay. Are you doing it just by shining a light into their eye?

[A]

It's a laser.

[B]

Interesting. Okay. Okay, so we are overloading, frying, whatever word feels accurate. The optic nerve, and then you're able to regrow it. That is crazy. Okay, so.

[A]

Oh, let me say in humans, we're not treating laser induced blindness. We're treating glaucoma, which is the leading cause of blindness in the world.

[B]

Is that nerve related?

[A]

Oh, yeah. People think it's the pressure, but it's. It's actually the pressure that's just disrupting the function of the nerves at the back of the eye, which we can.

[B]

Don't you have to alleviate the pressure first or do you just have to keep doing this? Like the pressure takes time to crush the nerve again and well, the pressure

[A]

may come back, but there are good drugs already to lower pressure. But even if you lower the pressure, the nerves are still not going to work.

[B]

Wild. Wild. Why? Do you have a guess as to why nerves don't regrow? I've never understood that. Like so many other things in the body do. But it's like, oh, you broke your back. Sorry, done.

[A]

Yeah. Well, that's unfortunately the cruelty of evolution. If it's not 100 necessary. Necessary for a person to survive. And it's rare enough pretty necessary. If, if all of us in, in on the savannahs of Africa, we're getting back damage, we would have figured out how to Regrow. But it was so rare by the

[B]

time you broke your back you were getting eaten.

[A]

So that sort of one of us is expendable. But you got to keep the children coming. And it was mostly men who were getting broken backs anyway from war and whatever. We're expandable. So wild. Yeah. But there are some species that do regrow their nerves and grow regrow arms. Even salamanders.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I thought you were saying for humans for a second I was like wait, I wish.

[A]

Not yet. But we know that it's possible in biology and we actually have evidence that what we're tapping into to regrow the optic nerve and fix the liver and skin is the same process as lizards and salamanders use to regrow limbs.

[B]

Interesting. Okay, so what's the approach with skin? How do we. Same idea. It doesn't matter the cell type. We're going to get these three. So wait, can you. Then if it's not an injection and we do turn this into a pill, is it just everything that can't be positively impacted by this will be. How will that work in terms of flash me forward? It's 10 or 15 years from now. We've identified the single molecule or the best combination of these. And are we. Do you see this as a targeted thing where we go in and say okay, this is the optic nerve treatment, this is the broken back treatment, this is the liver treatment or is it just like take this thing and it goes and ages all your cells?

[A]

Yes is the answer. What I mean by that is I talked about two paths. The first path is fda, which takes a decade or more. Fortunately we're in the clinic this, this next quarter. So we've come a long way. That's on its way. But there's another path to getting this technology to, to everybody and democratizing it and making it cheaper and available. And that's the non FDA path which is going down the consumer product route

[B]

and just making it what, like a supplement?

[A]

It could be a supplement, could be a cream, could be a spray, it could be even an iv. I guess that's not to consumer but, but it's. There are some IVs that are. If it's a natural molecule you can get deliver like a supplement. So where we're at now is so we've formed a company to spin out the molecules that we're finding. We have a patent already that's been filed and spun out Paradigm88 with Serena, who's the CEO, my partner. And we are developing consumer products that we hope that will not be 10 years. It may be a lot less pretty soon that we have natural, safe versions of the super drugs that we're developing that will be available much sooner and cheaper. And it could be something for the hair, for the skin, could be a drink, could be something like that. I won't reveal what it is. We're developing the product right now.

[B]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

[A]

If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[B]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. My base assumption is that if it can be delivered in that sort of over the counter fashion, that it's like some bullshit, that it's not like the real deal. How is it possible that it could be so effective to regrow a nerve and yet be over the counter in an I.V.

[A]

bag? Yeah, well, we're not developing something to cure blindness that's super potent. Gene therapy, currently, gene manipulation, what we're talking about here or gene introduction. We're not manipulating anybody's genes. What we're talking about here is something that undoubtedly will be less potent. But you don't need to cure blindness just to regrow hair or make your skin look better or to feel better. So we're going to have something we believe available that will show by clinical trials. I'm not going to put something out there that isn't proven to work that will rejuvenate the body over time that will turn on the same mechanisms that we're currently working on. And I believe it's possible because we already have three molecules, some of those are already natural that we can get it to work. And it works within four weeks. And what do we get in the mice? Might be people want to know what the heck do you see in the mouse? Well, we don't know about the hair yet because we were, we were. The mice weren't bald, but we did see and this was a year ago, we gave it to the mice down their throats for four weeks. And what we saw was rejuvenation. So they were better on tests of strength, memory balance. We have a whole set of tests, about 20 of them, that tell us whether a mouse is young or not. And based on those parameters, the mouse was de aged in four weeks.

[B]

Okay, so your job right now is basically to tell the AI hey, here's what we've got. In the industrial strength version, I need you to find a natural correlate that I can do over the counter that will work and then build the. Already done.

[A]

We're at the stage of testing, but yes, we have those natural molecules that list.

[B]

Okay. And are you already taking these bad boys?

[A]

Some of them.

[B]

Interesting. Interesting. Well, I got to say, up close and personal, you look good.

[A]

Hey, thank you.

[B]

You look good, man. Keep me posted on when these become available. So skin, hair, Those are the ones that we're focusing on right now.

[A]

Well, and whole body for. Because it's working as a drink in the animal. We'll. We'll see if we can make a drink.

[B]

Gotcha. So you'll feel better. But skin and hair, you'll be able to see.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You either have less gray hair or you don't. That one, the hair is probably the most like non placebo zone one that you're going to get.

[A]

Yes. And. And it's by popular demand. Everywhere I go, it's like, David, what am I going to do for my hair? Cuz it.

[B]

Will it help people regrow hair or just go from gray to color?

[A]

We, we still have to prove it out. But we've de aged the skin so we know that the skin gets younger. The hair is next. And the way we're testing that is one of the tissues that we grow in the lab besides brain. And, and the placenta. Not placenta, the. The uterus. Uterus is. We're growing skin, human skin, from scratch.

[B]

And you age it and then de age it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wild.

[A]

Yeah. And it's pretty cool. Do you have to see the hair

[B]

video, anything like that of this stuff?

[A]

Yeah, I could get permission. I mean, my employer, Harvard University, isn't that keen on sharing pictures of mice growing human hair on their backs. But. But maybe we could.

[B]

I mean, if you want to talk about a great marketing campaign, brother, like, if you're able to show like, here we are aging it up, here we are aging it back down. Like people go crazy now. Needless to say, people are going to come out of the woodwork and be like, yeah, it's all good at first. And then you're going to Benjamin Button or whatever. I guess he was the opposite direction that there's going to be some complication that only manifests itself ten years down the road. And the immediate one is going to be, well, if the catastrophic fail state is cancer, how do I know this isn't going to give me cancer in 10 years?

[A]

Well, that's why we, we don't rush into these things and why I think it's too early to be trying this systemically in our whole body. We'll start with the eye and see how that goes.

[B]

You said you're already taking some of this stuff.

[A]

Oh, the natural molecules, yeah. And some of these molecules have been in ancient medicine for a while, so not too worried. The safety is known. I'm not taking anything where.

[B]

So you're saying there's sort of two grades of this stuff. There's the hardcore stuff. Is it the hardcore stuff that's going to degray your hair or is it the over the counter ancient herbal Chinese medicine that's going to degrade the hair out?

[A]

My expectation is that we'll find natural versions in the tens of thousands of molecules that have been in the human food supply, that the right combination of those, or maybe one, will be sufficient to fix hair. Because in skin it's working beautifully. The wrinkles go away, the thin skin gets thicker.

[B]

What's the. I mean, I guess you're saying we're reaching into the black box and we're just getting it to solve the information problem. This isn't like, oh, it's collagen.

[A]

Right. It's a lot more powerful than that. You hit a good point just there. The approach with disease and of cosmetics up until this point is let's fix one thing that's missing or over produced. We're fixing everything. We're going in and changing the biology back to what it was when it was young, which affects tens of thousands of processes with a single treatment.

[B]

It's crazy.

[A]

It's crazy that it works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's crazy that it's so far safe. I mean, it's a gift to humanity. Maybe that's the best proof that we're in a simulation that this stuff is actually happening. Because in a, in the real world you're like, what's the chance that you get AI and you get age reversal? Come on. But it's happening. So whoever's watching and making this happen, maybe they're having fun.

[B]

It's bananas. Did your dad age as well as you?

[A]

He's aging better than me.

[B]

But I'm saying, like before you came up with all this stuff, like, because if dad looked like you at whatever 50 years ish you are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then okay, you just have good genes. But if this is dad look like a normal 55 year old, there's yeah. More hope.

[A]

Well, my. My mother was. Did better off though. She died of cancer, but lung cancer. She had good skin and, and not a lot of gray. But my father, yeah, he. He looks like when he was my age, 56. He looked like a 56 year old.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Though it slowed down. Anyone who's seen the photos out there, he slowed down over the last 20 years.

[B]

His aging because of apparently protocols that you've been advising him on or.

[A]

Well, I'm not experimenting on my dad. He's a scientist as well. But he, he listens and he takes a few of the things that I do. About five of them. And he's. He physically doesn't look like he's aging. And at 86, he's in better health than he has been in decades. No aches or pains. He's. If you see him walk, he doesn't, he doesn't walk like an 86 year old. We just climbed the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, which is a massive thing for anybody and for him it's no big deal. Actually Serena and I, we did like 20,000 steps around the city before we climbed the bridge. And at 86, most men are in. In the ground or gone. And my father's run out of friends his age that he can hang out with and go for walks because they're all very frail and he's like, what's the. What's the big deal? I got nothing wrong with me and I'm going out every night. So, you know, it might be coincidence. It's a n of 1 which is basically you can't draw any conclusions. But like you say he was old at my age looking. He'd lost his hair, it was all gray, in his 50s, 60s. But it physically he hasn't changed since then, since he started working on it, which is about 25 years of work. Yeah.

[B]

Well, if it. If you can regrow hair, you've got a monster hit. If you can de gray hair, you've got a hit. And man, if you can make especially women's skin look younger. Oh, buddy.

[A]

I'm really optimistic that we will have a new approach to cosmetics. Like what products out there, they all say they DH skin, but which one's like permanently DH skin? None.

[B]

And you might understand you're saying it permanently de ages if you keep using it. Because my understanding was that you have to pulse this Stuff so that as you use it, it ages, but then it starts aging again. Then you use it again.

[A]

Right. But it's not like collagen or moisturizer, where a week later you don't see it, or Botox, which is gone in months or whatever. What we see in our studies is in the case of the mouse, we cured its glaucoma, it could see again, and then it wasn't for another third of its life that it lost its sight again. But the good news is we could turn it back on again. So the timeline for us is you treat, and then you treat maybe five, ten years later, and you just keep treating. And the treatment is interesting that we've engineered it so that you don't need to get an injection every time. You just take a drug to turn on the genes and de age the eye or de age the body. And that's a proprietary system. And we used a molecule, doxycycline. It's used to treat Lyme disease, but we're using it over a matter of a few weeks or really six weeks, to turn on those three genes, osk. And so really, the de aging comes down to one shot and then antibiotic treatment for as often as you need it.

[B]

And is that an altered variation of the antibiotic or literally, if you want to dh, go take Lyme medication?

[A]

Yeah, it is the drug, and we chose it because it was well established as a gene inducer, the way it was engineered. Ideally, we want to change that and get away from an antibiotic because, of course, you know, you want your gut bacteria.

[B]

Yeah. I was going to say, my wife has been hammered from too many antibiotics.

[A]

Yeah. That said, it was the most reliable system. And if it works, we will engineer a new system, but we know we need to make sure it works. If it fails, we're going to set the field back by years. So we've got to make sure it works. Then we can use something else to turn it on besides doxycycline. That said, you know, if. If you're a paraplegic or you've lost your eyesight, you'll take some probiotics, right, to restore your gut.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Wild. Okay, talk to me about personal protocols,

[A]

and when I take a molecule, I see what happens to me before I take something else. I'm very scientific about it. So it's taken me 25, 30 years to get to the point where I'm taking a set core set of things, and I know what each one does, and in combination, taking a lot more simultaneously and when you do that, it's impossible to know exactly what the interactions are, what's affecting what. Exactly. Right. So it's different. And so it's hard to figure out if you take something, what is the effect of that molecule alone, which is the way science is generally done.

[B]

Now do you trust that? Like, if I could run a similar protocol in terms of being able to afford it if I were to go that crazy. Are you like. Yeah, if you're taking 80 things but you're looking at these 36 biomarkers or whatever, if those biomarkers are going in the right direction. I can't tell you which One of the 80 things is actually doing the work or what combination. But yeah, those are the biomarkers. Go for it.

[A]

Well, I, I want to be cautious because there could be long term negative consequences that you can't see with a blood test. So first of all, it's not for everybody. It does require doctor supervision and testing. Otherwise if you start taking that stuff, you could react very badly. You can measure the rate of aging by looking at how these methyls change over time. And it's called a DNA methylation clock. If you want to look it up. I would say that there's not one clock to rule them all. But we also. It's still an association. The association is never conclusive in science. The association, though, mostly from my good friend Steve Horvath, who developed these clocks originally. He found that people with slower rates of, of change in those clocks or had less age in those clocks tended to live longer and have fewer diseases. That's pretty good. But we don't know if changing the rate of your clock midlife makes a difference. Probably right, but that's, I got to, you know, you're very rigorous in what's bullshit and what's not. So I'm being very careful about delineating what we know and what we don't.

[B]

His major assertion is I'm slowing my aging down because I believe that AI on a long enough timeline is going to make it so that humans can live forever. Do you see a stopper in biology that will make that impossible? Obviously nobody knows how to do it yet, but do you see anything where it's like, because of that there's no way we're going to be able to do this or to you is it just.

[A]

I don't know, it's in between and now. I'm not a kind of guy that, that I'm not stupid. I don't want to bet against Ray Kurzweil too much. He's been right a lot, and he's talking about singularity. Do you remember the day? It's in the mid-2045, I think. Yeah, it's something like that. Now. I'd be the happiest person on the planet if. If our stuff works and we can live forever, that's. That's not a bad day. But I think that being at the forefront of this change, there is something that concerns me that may prevent us within that time frame of becoming, living for a thousand years at least. Immortality, I think, is so far out there. I think it's better to talk about is there going to be a small change of 5 years, or is it going to be hundreds of years or thousands? And one of the problems with aging is that there are two types of information. There's the methyls, which is the epigenetic information. And I know how to reverse that 75% multiple times, probably. Eventually it'll, you know, we'll lose information eventually. There's. There's no way it's 100% re, you know, pure reversal. So there's noise in the system even if I reverse it. But where we're not very good at reversing is the genetic information loss. Epigenetic is cool. There's a backup copy. We found that. But there. If you've lost both copies of the gene for X in a cell, there's no backup. All right? And so trying to do that for those cells is very difficult right now. We do know how to edit genes. We can fix genes. But doing that on a cell by cell basis is beyond current imagination and technology, even imagining technology to do that.

[B]

But you can't just flood the body with stem cells or whatever.

[A]

Not currently, no. Because the stem cells that people inject, they stick around, but they don't find their niche. You know, you can't yet cure gray hair, as far as I know, by injecting stem cells. And the reason is you have to get them into that very small Mac, Almost microscopic niche hole where they sit.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So, no, not yet, but hopefully someone will come up with either a type of stem cell or a type of gene therapy that can go into a cell, figure out what's missing or broken, and correct the genome. And then, you know, my stuff will come along and reverse the epigenome. And then I could imagine living thousands of years, because I can imagine it. People say a thousand years. That's crazy. The reason that I think it's doable is there are already living things that last that long? Why? Because they're very stable information. There's a plant in the Nabib desert that lasts for. It's been around since the pyramids. Some of these plants. Whoa. And when you look at their genome, they have a very special genome that protects the information and preserves it for thousands of years. We lose our information pretty fast. We've kind of lost a lot of our information by age 80. Whereas these plants. And somewhere in between, a whale preserves information even better than we do.

[B]

It's incredible. Okay, give me one prognostication. Where do you think this goes in the call it near term. So what are we looking at? What changes will we actively experience in the next three years? And then I'll really give you some wiggle room and tell me what it looks like 20 years from now.

[A]

The next few months are critical. I'm going to find out if this gene therapy. I shouldn't call it gene therapy. It's more of a gene introduction. The age reversal technology, if it works in people, the world will probably find out A year from now. I'm going to be sworn to secrecy. I'm not even going to be able to wink. It's that important. But I'm going to know in a few months if this works. But anyway, let's say a year from now, everyone knows that it works. This is best case scenario. And again, It's I think 80, 90% chance. Then the world goes nuts. That's a chatgpt moment for biology, for aging, because we've got it to work in humans now. The question is now what do you do with that technology? There's going to be a gold rush. Already there are billions of dollars spread across my company and others competitors. Sam Altman's company, Brian Armstrong, even Jeff Bezos is in this. There's going to be a massive gold rush to try and catch up, to break my patterns, to get around them and to treat other things besides vision. And just like AI is now, what is it? It's only three years since ChatGPT came. Yeah, it's crazy.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

So there's going to be that kind of a momentum if this works where the world will just be listening to every result, every pundit on this topic. That's my prediction for the short term. In 20 years, I think that whether I'm successful or not, we're still going to have somebody achieve what I'm talking about. And it could be age reversal for many organs. And again, there's billions of dollars put to this. So it's.

[B]

Does everyone just look 25. Like what does that actually look like?

[A]

It's possible that my father, who looks 86, could look like us after treating himself for a few months.

[B]

That's wild. So you think though it's shave maybe 30 or 40% off your life, it's not. Not you go back to looking 25 because like fat storage, the type of fat, where it's stored, all that stuff matters. It's not just skin.

[A]

Exactly. So I'm, I'm hedging my bets here, saying that he's going to look middle aged.

[B]

Right. So it's going to be far more complicated. It's not like you take an IV drip and like death becomes her. Like her boobs get perky again and her ass tucks up and her skin changes. It's not. Yeah, it's not gonna quite be that.

[A]

We don't know. We really don't know. I've seen nothing to suggest that that won't happen. It's just we're at the beginning. We're at the beginning. It'd be like asking again the Wright Brothers. Do you imagine that there'll be a Concord jet that can fly around the world? They're like, yeah, of course. But we're still building the right flyer right now. So it's coming, no question. We've, we've shown the biology is there and we can do it. But it's going to take some work to get to that kind of a molecule. I think we can take a pill and truly regenerate our entire body back to being 20, you know, that said, you do want to stick around because this technology is coming and if you start early now, eventually imagine the, the drug. I don't know if it'll ever be over the counter, but imagine that it is. You can go down to your local store and get this stuff. It might be $5 a pill, I don't know, something like that. And start when you're 25 and you just stay 25 for a while. For a long while. Right. De aging my father from 86 is much more challenging than starting at 25.

[B]

Yeah. Hurry, please. Okay, so given that we've got to buy ourselves a little bit of time while the technology gets finalized, proven, all of that, how should people be approaching their health with things that they can do right now, today?

[A]

But I, I want to start by saying I do some experimental stuff and some regular stuff. So I'll tell you as much as I can tell everybody. One of the reasons that I'm starting restarting my podcast is because every day, literally on the street, people say, when's your podcast starting?

[B]

Yeah, brother, It. It is about time.

[A]

Yeah, thanks. I've been busy working on these drugs, but now that they're in the clinic. Yeah, yeah, I've got the time now. You know, the future is set. It's going to happen or not. So I want to start ed re educating everybody about what have we. What's happened recently that everyone needs to know about. And so that's coming. We're just editing now, so. That's exciting, man. Very exciting.

[B]

Very exciting.

[A]

And it's new and improved, so you'll see. Also, I just want to remind everybody that the stack that I had when my book came out in Lifespan, the book Lifespan is still true. I'm still taking what's on page 304, but I've added a few things, which we'll talk about. All right, so let's start with the fundamentals that my father takes and I take, and we've been taking them for over a decade. So far, so good. I'm still alive. He's still alive, which is good. When we started taking them, by the way, people said, what are you taking that stuff for? It's. It's not known. So now, 10 years later, first one is NMN. NMN. Do not confuse with N with M and M's. Right.

[B]

Very different.

[A]

Not making much to my dismay. Yeah, yeah. And I heard your podcast about Sugar the other day, but not a fan. Me neither. No. And we should talk about what to avoid, actually. But what you should consider taking, what I've started taking with my father is nmn, and I take a gram of that as capsules every day. And you just want to make sure it's really pure. It should either taste slightly sour, like a sour Patch kid, if you're in the US or there's a form of it that tastes a bit like sweet popcorn.

[B]

Do you have. Well, say more. Do you have a brand that you can recommend? Or is that weird, given your position?

[A]

Yeah. You know what happens, Tom, is if I mention a brand, it's all over the Internet now. I'm used to sell millions of dollars of product. Yeah, yeah. That's not fair to. To anybody. And even if I don't mention it, my name is all over the products as well. So I don't want to endorse product, but I will guide people to say, look for GMP pure. And you can look for it. It should be pure white. If it's not pure white, it's not pure. And and it should taste like those two things. And that, that's the best thing. But I won't mention brands I don't want to be lumped in. Already people think I sell supplements for a living, which is bs. I don't want to make that worse. I'm just a scientist developing medicines.

[B]

Yeah, but you're. You're on the Internet. Welcome.

[A]

Well, yeah, you and I know how AI is getting crazy.

[B]

It's wild. I can only imagine how many AI David Sinclair's are out in the world.

[A]

There's a new number and. And the. The biggest one where there were millions of views got taken down last week. Thank God.

[B]

God, yeah.

[A]

Yeah. But that's the future. So everyone listening, be beware of fake versions of me giving out health advice. So lifespan.com and the lifespan podcast is the original. It's going to be real. So there's nmn. Next one is resveratrol. That's the. A staple of mine for 15 years. Resveratrol is that red wine molecule. But I don't drink red wine anymore. Serena told me it's better not to drink.

[B]

And I don't. Smart.

[A]

Yeah, and you don't drink alcohol either, so it is smart. I'm not as funny as I used to be, but. But I do have mental clarity like never before since my twenties.

[B]

Now it's rough. I love alcohol. If it was optimizing me, I would do it all the time. It is very enjoyable. But alas.

[A]

Yeah, so what you want to do is take out the molecule without. And take it without the alcohol, which is what I do. I take a small spoonful. It's about a gram of resveratrol. Again, look for white or slightly gray. If it's brown or brownish, throw it away. It's contaminated with other stuff that can give you diarrhea.

[B]

Fun.

[A]

Yeah. So there's plenty of resveratrol out on the supplement. And again, look for 98, 99. Pure stuff. And I mix that with something that dissolves it because it. If you put it into a cup of water, it'll sink to the bottom and it will just go straight through your tract. Most of it. You will not get absorbed. You can increase that fivefold by mixing it with either olive oil or a bit of yogurt. I do either.

[B]

Is it fat soluble? Is that why?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's like brick dust otherwise. Yeah. So most people don't know that. And even clinical trials that have been done on resveratrol have failed because they just gave it to them with Water.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah. All these little details matter.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The third thing is a glucose lowering medicine.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Or supplement.

[B]

Why not just eat low sugar?

[A]

That too. The combination.

[B]

Because people don't do it. Or even if, like me, my glucose is low because I am, I'm a discipline freak and if I decide I'm not eating something, that's that. So my glucose lives in the mid-80s. You're saying even there I should take something to push it down even more?

[A]

Well, me to 80s, you could go slightly slower, lower. But I mean, if it was fasting. 80.

[B]

No, I don't fast at 80. If I'm fasted, it's mid to low 60s.

[A]

I see. Okay, then you're good. It might actually be, you know, it might be too much for you to take one of these things. You might get hypoglycemia, though that's not common. I, on the other hand, have diabetes in my family and without a very strict diet and one of these medicines, I'm. I'm probably going to be about 100.

[B]

Really? What are you eating?

[A]

And then fasted.

[B]

Well, wait, hold on. Because you're like super veggie forward, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you're probably intaking a lot more carbs than I am.

[A]

Yeah, Well, I don't know exactly your diet, but I am taking a lot more vegetables than I used to for health reasons. But I'm taking in the plants because I want the polyphenols in the plants as well as part of my diet, which meat does not have.

[B]

Okay, Give me percentage of total calories over a year. Meat versus vegetable matter.

[A]

95. Plant.

[B]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

Yeah. And I, I changed the plants because Serena is actually vegan and I tried it and within 30 days the inflammation in my body came way down and glucose came down, actually, so.

[B]

But I was, I was measured by C reactive protein. What were you measuring for the inflammation?

[A]

C reactive protein was the big one that came down. But I'm also measuring things like TNF, Alpha IL1, Beta IL6. But yeah, CRP is a good way to get it down is to, to cut out. I cut out dairy and I cut out meat for a while. I still occasionally eat meat. I'm not total vegan anymore.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, 5% over a year. That's not a lot. Okay, cool.

[A]

I will say that I'm, I have an advantage, which is that Serena is in LA and I'm in LA a fair bit. It's great food in this city. Boston, not so much. But I also, I can afford good food. So I Buy the best quality foods. Fresh, organic, good restaurants that cook. Don't overcook the food.

[B]

Listen, my wife and I eat from a vegan restaurant routinely. I just put meat on it. I'm not kidding. But their stuff is so flavorful that I'm like, give me more. Yeah, but I gotta add meat.

[A]

Yeah. So the drugs that. The drug that people typically take is Metformin. I think that's pretty well known. And you can get that online or from a doctor, but it is prescription. You need to talk to a doctor. And you want to monitor your blood glucose levels accordingly and your liver.

[B]

Now, from other podcasts, you go on and off Metformin. You don't stay on Metformin.

[A]

I do a couple of things that's worth. That are worth noting. The Metformin that I get in the US wreaks havoc on my stomach. I'm one of the 40% of people that have a stomach upset. The stuff that I don't get from the US let's put it that way. When I'm acting like an Australian, for example, their. Their version is coated, and I don't get that problem. So that's actually one of the reasons that I. I change from metformin to this other more natural or totally natural form called berberine.

[B]

Okay. Same idea, though.

[A]

Yeah. Berberine.

[B]

Berberine over the counter.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I take Serena's supplement because I can trust her supplements being pure and. But yeah, Berberine has been shown clinically to reduce blood glucose very similar to what Metformin does. So those are three big ones. You good with those?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So my father's on that. We recently added a couple of things to my father's regimen. Not we. He did. One is nattokinase, which is an enzyme that comes from fermented soybeans.

[B]

Just like powder format.

[A]

It's a capsule powder. Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I have cardiovascular disease in my family.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And my father also has cardiovascular risk.

[B]

Do you have a marker that you look for? Do you. Are you getting ultrasounds or what?

[A]

I do. I'm getting. And actually, I want to qualify. If you get really, really low LDL C, you can also reverse some plaque. So it's not the only thing, but it's the most natural way. And yeah, so I get carotid ultrasounds and look at the. In IMT you know about that?

[B]

No, not by that name. How about that?

[A]

Yeah, so that. That measures the thickness of the wall of.

[B]

Yeah. And the flexibility and all that. I've had my arteries scanned before, years ago. How Often do you do it yearly. Okay. And have you seen an improvement or it just stays steady?

[A]

Not yet, because I've not been on it for a year.

[B]

Got you. Okay. Report back.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah, I will. Good. So there's nattokinase. I'm also taking half a gram of niacin, vitamin B3, these days because I have high levels of something that everybody should measure called lp. Parentheses, little A.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

What is it? It is a lipoprotein that carries cholesterol in the bloodstream and is thought to be responsible for the deposition of cholesterol and inflammation in the artery.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

And it was first found just by association. People had high levels of this lipoprotein Lp were susceptible to cardiovascular disease. But over the last 10 years, it's been steadily showing that people with high levels are really at risk in as much as having high LDL C levels.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Okay. And so much so that there's a lot of money being spent in the pharmaceutical industry to make a drug that will lower ldl, little A levels. Of course. And there's one that's in phase three that looks promising. But I'm one of the people that my father is, because of our Ashkenazi Jew heritage, that we have a version of the LP that is highly expressed. So my levels were 34, and you'd want it to be more like 10 or less.

[B]

Yo.

[A]

So I immediately increased the levels of the statin. And I know there's pluses and minuses for statins, but I've been on a statin successfully since I was 29.

[B]

What? Wow.

[A]

My grandmother had a stroke at 30, bro. The fact that I'm still alive is. Is good news.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Was this, like a stress induced? Was she like, in World War II? Like, what are we talking about?

[A]

Might be that. Yeah.

[B]

Because 30s young, she.

[A]

Well, she didn't have a very healthy childhood because she grew up after the depression in Hungary. Then there was the Second World War where part of our family was wiped out.

[B]

Yeah. She Ashkenazi as well?

[A]

No, we haven't been Jewish for the last four or so generations, but I recently did my family tree and could trace back a thousand years. So I'm a one of probably many descendants of some of the most famous rabbis from the Middle Ages. I didn't know that till this. This season. But anyway, the. The point is, that gene coming from that line makes me highly susceptible to heart disease, and I've had to fight it since I was 29.

[B]

Statin, though, doesn't make your joints hurt.

[A]

And Stuff like that.

[B]

Like, I hear horror stories about statins.

[A]

Not for me. No. I. I, of course, make sure that I'm okay on a particular drug because we'll react differently. And for me, the statin's been great. It's not for everybody, of course, and they're actually alternatives now that are not statins. There's PCSK9 inhibitors, which are really effective for lowering LDL. And there's more to come. The drugs that are getting there for blood pressure, for cholesterol, and now for blood sugar are amazing. We really shouldn't be dying from those diseases anymore.

[B]

That's wild.

[A]

Yeah. And even cancer, the prevention for cancer is getting to the point where getting scans, getting DNA, blood tests. We're at a point where you have to be really unlucky to get cancer.

[B]

So I just got cancer, so say more about that. So skin cancer. I have lived my whole life with an abundance of caution around the sun. So nobody. I've been clowned on by my wife for decades because I stay out of the sun. I wear hats. Like, ridiculous hats.

[A]

I've never seen you with a tan, bro.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we barely need lights in here.

[B]

Yeah. So what the, like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Any guesses?

[A]

Well, people can get lung cancer without ever smoking.

[B]

There is a skin cancer. You getting skin cancer without overexposure to the sun.

[A]

For real, like, it can happen for real, for real. Like, what.

[B]

What do I. How do we fight that fight? What's the protocol?

[A]

Well, so the. The start is stay out of the sun, which you've done your whole life brought.

[B]

Well, first of all, I grew up in Tacoma, Washington, so there is no sun. And then here, I've always stayed in the shade. Now, because my wife is Greek and loves the sun more than anything in this universe, there's no doubt that I'm sun adjacent a lot. So I'll be under the umbrella while my wife suntans. But I. I can burn in the shade, just to give you an idea of where we're at here. So I've had to be paranoid because I will burn so easily.

[A]

Do you have any family history?

[B]

My dad has had skin cancer multiple times.

[A]

If I did your genome.

[B]

Have you hear the.

[A]

Have you done your genome?

[B]

No.

[A]

See, because you could be susceptible in some ways.

[B]

Well, apparently I am susceptible.

[A]

Yeah. And that's another good reason for getting your genome done. If you can afford, can really make sure that you do the right thing. Now, besides staying out of the sun, you can also, with your diet, maybe not prevent, but reduce your chances of getting Certain types of cancer, including skin cancer. Like I thought you'd ask.

[B]

Are we in the avoid mechanism here now you said we should talk about.

[A]

For sure. Avoid, that's. That's the easy stuff.

[B]

Is that where we're headed with skin cancer or.

[A]

No, Say what you can take.

[B]

Say more.

[A]

So the polyphenols in plants. One of the reasons I take a lot of plants, especially colored ones. Serena says take, eat the rainbow.

[B]

Isn't there a ton of polyphenols in olive oil?

[A]

Yes. Okay, so olive oil, most olive oil and green tea. Matcha. The thick, dark green stock with matcha.

[B]

But maybe I should.

[A]

Okay, those are highly anti cancer and they're preventing DNA damage, they're reducing inflammation. That all can drive cancer.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About to go hard on Matcha then.

[A]

So we do Serena again. You can tell Serena played a big role in my life. The Matcha. We drink every morning, at least one. And I don't drink coffee much anymore instead. And then throughout the day I'm drinking tea and eventually caffeine free tea at after lunch, but I'm always with liquids. And the match has been a great change to my life. And I don't own shares in any Matcha companies by the way, but I do love it. And so the kind of foods, I mean, there are some good books about that about how to eat to prevent cancer or treat cancer as well. And if you do have cancer, look into it. We talked about ketosis and drinking ketones. Those are.

[B]

They have anti cancer properties.

[A]

Yeah. There are certain types of cancers. So cancer loves sugar. Just like the brain, but they don't. Just like the brain, but not like the brain. They don't like ketones. So what often is recommended for someone? I'll give you an example. My neighbor developed prostate cancer. Very common in men. Of course, most of us may.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

My age. We have something coming along. We. He went immediately. And he was. He's an expert. I say was because he's not around anymore, but he specialized in oncology.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

And he immediately went on a keto diet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And took loads of metformin. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. We studied this back at Quest.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Huh. But he died. So the punchline here is not great. Unless he was hit by a bus. And totally unrelated to the prostate cancer.

[A]

He didn't die from cancer.

[B]

Really. What he died from,

[A]

I don't know if I should say. But it.

[B]

Yeah, I'm too curious now.

[A]

You gotta say it was depression really.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Secondary effect of the cancer though, like the treatments. Yeah.

[A]

What what happened to him? And of course, I haven't mentioned his name, so I think it's okay to talk about it. He was on testosterone therapy, anti testosterone therapy, which for men is. Is tough. And he lost libido. He lost will to live.

[B]

It was the middle of incoming off of it.

[A]

No. While on the drug, knocking down the levels of his hormones so that the tumor wouldn't thrive.

[B]

Right, right. Because that.

[A]

He lost his manhood.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And went into depression because of its common back. And it was the middle of the pandemic too.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

So he didn't. He didn't choose to stick around.

[B]

Yo, that's rough.

[A]

Okay, so on that note. Yeah. Do what you can to prevent cancer. Get yourself scanned. Have you got that?

[B]

I. Well, I've obviously now I get visually scanned routinely. But no, I have not done the like, full body. I'm waiting for Peter Diamandis to open his LA branch. He's been trying to get me out to Florida or wherever the other ones are, which now obviously when I got the skin cancer, I was like, damn it.

[A]

Well, we'll get. Get that scan for sure. MRI scans are good. Serena and I get one of those every year. And that's full body. It won't pick up melanoma, most likely because it's small. So you do need to be visually scanned. You can either get that done by your physician or by.

[B]

This wasn't melanoma. Melanoma. I would have been like, this is a diet problem. This was another one. I forget what it's called, but they say this is from sun exposure.

[A]

Oh, so it was on a place which is exposed then.

[B]

Yeah,

[A]

that's good. That's probably. Yeah, that's good. No, no, that's not good. I don't think I said that's good. I said, that makes sense that it was on your phone. If I said that's good, I didn't mean that.

[B]

It's all right. I'm glad that's considered happy for my.

[A]

No facial. But it's gone now and I can't see.

[B]

Yes, it's gone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No.

[A]

Did you. Is it okay if I ask you about it?

[B]

Yeah, I'll go crazy.

[A]

Did you treat it with any cream?

[B]

No. So we looked at that option and it was going to be like three weeks of open sore on my face and then may not work. And so they were saying, listen, you should just get it removed. And then I was like, I don't trust you. I need to go get another opinion. And so I went and did Like a deep dive on, like, what are the pros and cons? And given that it itself can leave a scar because it's basically like chemotherapy topically hydroxyurea. I was like, oh, yeah. So I said, let's just go to the one that's like 98%. Sorry. So I did that.

[A]

And.

[B]

Yeah, so far, so good. So.

[A]

Okay, good. Yeah. This cream is. Is tough. Yeah, it's. It's probably 5 floracil, which gets stuck in the replicating strand of DNA and kill cells that are dividing.

[B]

That's wild.

[A]

Yeah. Actually, my father recently, for the same reason, skin cancer on his head, his bald head. Put the cream on. So, yeah, if you, if you are losing your hair, how did it go? Okay, Be careful. Wear a hat. It went okay, but you peel and it's, you know, it's not good.

[B]

Did it get rid of it?

[A]

He had a surgery as well.

[B]

Yeah. See, that's why I was like, I don't want to do the one, two punch. It's like, if I'm going to have the surgery, let's just do the surgery.

[A]

Yeah. But he, he also put the cream on everywhere because just in case to

[B]

like, get some early stage.

[A]

That's what's often done.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

And a friend of mine did it all over. His face was like a yo. Burning your face. But he had a few. And just to try and get rid of what's. What's left. They do that in case there's little ones that you can't see. But I'd recommend you do a blood test as well.

[B]

I've done the blood test.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the great irony was, like, I knew I. It had already been diagnosed. Like, I'd had the biopsy. And so when I got the blood test back, and it's like, you're fine. I was like, well, then I know this thing isn't 100% because I actively have it right now.

[A]

Yeah, well, that's, that's also something that everyone should know, is that these are adjuncts, that these tests, these blood tests, if they say you're cancer free, doesn't mean you're cancer free.

[B]

Means you don't have anything that we know how to detect.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. And there's also false positives as well. So I, I use the test as a warning sign, not as a diagnosis.

[B]

Very smart.

[A]

But still, if you can afford it and you really want to put money into your health rather than, I don't know what toys, then it's a good way to invest. Get. Get the full Body MRI and get a blood test for cancer. And you may miss something, but you may pick something up as well. But there are also probably doctors who are listening to this saying, great, everyone's going to go out and get an MRI and find that they've got some disease that isn't real. There is some truth to that. On an mri, you can find things that are not going to kill you. And you might want to investigate. My personal view about that, as a scientist, not as a doctor. I'm a PhD, is that more data is better in biology, in health, and that's why I science the out of myself. And I'm also a guinea pig that I want to learn and educate, but I don't want to shy away from learning something even if I find a false positive. You know, I'll. I'd rather not live in ignorance.

[B]

Yeah, no, I'm with you on that.

[A]

And then you get a baseline. So my baseline over the last few years has been perfect health. But if something changes, AI will. The doctor will detect it. So it's better to get a baseline before you're sick.

[B]

No doubt. All right, you just gave us a bunch of stuff that we should do. What about the things we should not do?

[A]

Well, the easy ones are if you smoke, please quit. My mother did not, and she is no longer with me. And she would be if she didn't smoke. Do not deny. I'm. I know you don't smoke. I never have. But don't live in denial that you'll be one of the lucky ones. It's the best thing you can do for your health is to not smoke. You'll age prematurely, too, and you'll look like at my age, drinking occasional drink. Okay, but don't drink consistently. I was drinking red wine every day. That was too much. We know that people who drink even just one glass of alcohol a day tend to have smaller brain size.

[B]

Oh, that.

[A]

Yeah, there's scatter in the plot. Not everybody has this, but the trend line is down with the more alcohol you drink. And the more you drink, the smaller your brain will be. No, thanks. Yeah, so skip alcohol, smoking, sedentary behavior. We're all prone to it. We're doing it right now. Get a standing desk at a minimum. Walk, take your stairs.

[B]

Standing desk.

[A]

And if you. If you. If you can run, lose your breath three times a week, at least. I don't care what kind of exercise you're doing. Right.

[B]

I can think of some fun ways.

[A]

There are fun ways, and you only need 10 minutes. You don't need to be a marathon man.

[B]

Perfect.

[A]

Yeah. You're like, is two minutes enough? But 10 minutes will be fine for us. And you know, even if it's a rowing sport, it's all great, but lose your breath three times a week if you can. I joke that I. My exercise is running to the terminal to catch a plane. Yeah, it's kind of like that. And that does make it difficult, but gotta move, gotta move. Don't sit. And at work, if you come, I hope you come see me in the lab. I'll be at a standing desk most days. Nice. And people on Zoom think that I'm floating in space because I'm doing this, but I don't. I'm not still throughout the day. I even hold meetings while I'm standing. I just pace around. They think I'm crazy. But sitting is. Is the new smoking, as they say. So those are the. The big do nots.

[B]

You left out one that I think is mahusive, which is sugar.

[A]

Thank you. I. For me, it's just a way of life. So that's why I didn't think of it. I avoid sugar like the plague, like you do. I think of it as a toxin. It's not really a toxin, but long term it is. It will attach. Physically. Glucose will attach to your proteins, HbA1c. That's a prediction for diabetes, right? If you go, you probably know this. Not everyone knows HbA1C is what your doctor tests for diabetes. That's literally glucose attached to your hemoglobin. As a bellwether, as a canary in the coal mine for glucose attaching to all the proteins in your body. You don't want that. Glucose attached to proteins will make them dysfunctional and who knows what else is going wrong. But we know that that causes diabetes. Glucose also will give you a spike. It'll give you a real high initially. But anyone who's worn a glucose monitor will know the consequences. You will have a crash, brain fog, hunger, distraction. Whereas if you don't eat sugar, you've got this steady flow of glucose coming out of your liver through gluconeogenesis, which is the term for making glucose naturally. And my liver is much smarter than my mouth. It will make pure, minimal amounts of glucose that my body needs and supplement that with ketones by a drink. And it's. It's bliss. I power through the day. I rarely get tired. If your kids are eating a lot of candy, please give them something else.

[B]

No joke, right?

[A]

Because by the way, kids epigenomes, the methyls on their body, on in their cells. Those marks are laid down during the teenage years as well. And it's known that kids that eat badly will have consequences decades later because of this memory in how the genes are turned around and on.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And kids today are aging faster than they used to.

[B]

That is not a surprise.

[A]

And I think it's because the diet.

[B]

Yeah, no doubt.

[A]

And it's no surprise that girls are getting fertile more. More earlier. That one is distressing because they're getting older earlier. We are aging our children. Interesting. And it starts at the birth. Is aging actually aging begins at the week, second week of conception.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we, we, we're not immune even when we're in our 20s and we eat pizza and you know, a lot of us experiment with drugs and alcohol. That's aging us. And you feel it at our age.

[B]

Thankfully, I didn't do drugs and alcohol, but I did a lot of junk food.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'll tell you that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Woof. All right, man. Now that I've got you, is there anything else? Any parting shots you want to leave people with? Super secret thing they should be doing or know about? Pay attention to anything like that.

[A]

There's, there's sleep, but there's a lot of experts on that. Make sure you get good deep sleep. Deep sleep will clear out the proteins in your brain that you need to get rid of, including probably the Alzheimer's protein A beta. Another thing that would be important to mention would be that stress in your life is a killer.

[B]

Yeah. And it's difficult shortening my life. For sure.

[A]

High achievers are the worst. And if you're high achiever, and I am by choice trying to be a high achiever. I spent the first 50 years of my life on edge almost every day. Even if I'd go for a walk in the forest, I was thinking about the mistakes that I'd made the day before. That kind of guy in the shower, I'm. I'm swearing to myself, you're an idiot. All that is, almost all of that is gone again. Serena was a big influence. She taught me how to calm my mind, not worry about things so much. But it's hard. It's super hard. Because we are by nature, many of us are driven and we want to be perfect. We'll never be perfect and we'll always have stress. So try to think about life in the long run. Treat it like a game. It's not that serious. It may not even be real, as we discussed. So go for it, have fun. But don't worry too much and get, get sleep because if you don't sleep enough or get deep sleep, you will have a higher heart rate. You will feel stressed throughout the day. And I have times during the day now that I, I breathe, I shut my eyes, I do box breathing. I've even, even on occasion set an alarm at 11 o'. Clock. I'm going to take time out to lower my nervous system down again and it's been great.

[B]

Very smart. All right, well, you've got the podcast rebooting. Where can people follow along and engage with the you.

[A]

Hey, thanks. Well, it's lifespan.com and on social media you can find me. I'm pretty prominent on most of those platforms. I would say I do work at. That's fun. I like educating. So I tell people about the latest findings in science there and what I'm doing. And then I've got a, a a Friends of Sinclair Lab to fund my lab now that all the government funding got terminated. And so if you're interested, check out Friends friends of sinclair lab.com okay. Friends of sinclairlab.org you'll find me there.

[B]

Love it. Man, this is awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time. It was wonderful to sit across from you again and I could not be more excited about the things you're working on. Fingers crossed that they get across the finish line. Be incredible.

[A]

Cross your fingers for us, really, because it's a, it's a pivotal year for humanity if it works.

[B]

No doubt.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

All right, everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.