My Current Longevity Stack
In a Nutshell
The speaker's longevity stack emphasizes basics—sleep, exercise, healthy eating—plus vitamin D, creatine, intermittent fasting (with occasional 3-7 day fasts for autophagy), and cautious experiments like ketone esters/salts for brain health, urolithin for mitochondria, and pulsed rapamycin combined with interval training. He avoids unproven interventions using a "no biological free lunch" heuristic, while exploring "system reboots" such as stellate ganglion blocks, photobiomodulation, GLP-1 agonists, and ibogaine (noting its brain age reversal potential via GDNF in TBI studies). Bullish on brain stimulation and bioelectric medicine for psychiatric and performance gains, with future interest in rapamycin, eye drops, and neurosensory/cosmetic aging fixes.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Recalls attending the first quantified self meetup in 2008 at Kevin Kelly's house with 12 people discussing measuring things with Excel spreadsheets. Notes the world has changed with armies of tens of thousands of self-described biohackers talking about longevity, much of it nonsense.
Guest's Current Stack: Focuses on basics that matter: sleep well, exercise a lot, eat well. Takes one or two helpful supplements. Waiting for real drugs that impinge on longevity. Interested in experimenting with rapamycin or similar.
Future Interests: Eye drops for aging-related lens muscle weakening affecting focus. Neurosensory aging interventions worth funding a startup for. Cosmetics of aging: funded a clinical trial at Stanford; invested in peptides like 5HKCU and melatonin, which are cosmetic in nature.
Short List: Vitamin D and creatine.
More conservative than expected. Experimented with many things earlier, including first-generation Dexcom continuous glucose monitors in 2008-2009, unpleasant to wear, no non-type 1 diabetics using them at the time. Avoided questionable gene therapy like fist statin abroad.
Heuristic: No biological free lunch—simplistic but avoids pitfalls.
Current Experiments:
- Different forms of ketone esters and salts for cerebral vasculature, given family history of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and APOE4 risk.
- Monitoring obetropib (not ready for prime time).
- Rapamycin interesting with asterisks—can screw you up if mishandled, especially as immunosuppressant; requires caution.
Potential Experiment: Combining Norwegian 4x4 interval training with rapamycin pulsing to assess volumetric changes in hippocampus and other areas.
Basics: Creatine, vitamin D. Monitor magnesium if on medications like omeprazole that inhibit absorption or have methylation issues.
Urolithin interesting; data mounting, keen interest in mitochondrial health.
Fasting Practices: Regular intermittent fasting, occasional 3-7 day fasts or fast-mimicking diets to foster autophagy and mitophagy, per Dr. Dominic D'Agostino—not all the time.
Compares fixing computers by rebooting to human equivalents: anesthesia? Nerve freezing like stellate ganglion block.
Stellate Ganglion Block: Mentioned as potential reboot.
Conceptual Reboots:
- Photobiomodulation (PBM) through eyes or transcranially (caution advised).
- GLP-1 agonists lead to systemwide impulse control changes (e.g., stopping smoking, cutting drinking).
- For opiate addicts: flood dosing of ibogaine (high doses under medical supervision due to fatal cardiac risks; co-administer magnesium). Provides window without physical withdrawal symptoms. Credit to Howard Lotsof and wife.
- Ibogaine shows potential brain age reversal per MRIs; Nolan Williams' lab studied pre/post-dosing in veterans with traumatic brain injury, possibly via GDNF (similar to BDNF).
Cautions on Anesthesia: Opted for local over general for recent head surgery. General anesthesia poorly understood, can destabilize memory recall and personality. Often unnecessary, driven by financial incentives. Many put under who don't need to be.
Broader Point: Many common medications have poorly understood mechanisms despite appearing well-tolerated.
Most Interesting Reboot: Beyond dopaminergic system, ibogaine demonstrates possibilities.
Bullish On: Brain stimulation and bioelectric medicine for psychiatric disorders and performance enhancement. Why now: strong field momentum. Expect experiments with non-invasive stimulation, some invasive implants. Could be outpatient procedures (1-2 hours).
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