What To Do For Longevity | Lifespan with Dr. David Sinclair Rewind Episode

Introduction to Lifespan Podcast00:00

Welcome to Lifespan, a show discussing cutting-edge science of aging and how to live healthier at any stage of life. David Sinclair is a scientist and professor working on understanding why we age and discovering ways to slow and reverse aging. The show shares insights from his lab, the field, and upcoming advances.

Lifespan season 1 was an 8-episode experiment to explore demand for aging science and its everyday applications. It became the number one ranked health and fitness podcast, sparking global interest in longevity science. While running his lab on age reversal and advancing the first age reversal drug into humans, Sinclair was frequently asked about season 2. Now both endeavors are on track, Lifespan returns for season 2, starting with two rewind episodes. This episode covers how to live longer and healthier, featuring key insights from season 1 on what to do and avoid, surprising discoveries about aging and its influencers.

Longevity is driven by daily habits, not complexity, just consistency.

Even if viewers watched season 1, these rewinds are relevant today and prepare for season 2. Every insight meets Lifespan's rigorous scientific standards and remains true. Lifespan is part of a larger global community connecting people with Sinclair, thought leaders, evidence-based insights, and latest longevity research advances. A team of PhDs produces Lifespan Magazine, the most accurate source for living better longer. The community supports journeys, learning what works together, and funds medical research and young scientists' careers. For deeper access: lifespan.com for early sign-up, bonus content, Lifespan Magazine, exclusive AMA sessions, book club, and more. This show is informational, not medical advice; consult healthcare providers as results vary. Views are Sinclair's own, not Harvard's. Full disclaimer in show notes.

Eat Less Often for Longevity03:00

The starting place for longevity: eat less often. This does not necessarily mean fewer calories, though that's beneficial. Many struggle with calorie restriction, but it comes naturally with one meal a day. Sinclair now does one meal a day, shed weight, regained his 20-year-old body, and maintains weight with a larger dinner to avoid malnutrition. It's about packing calories into a shorter period, leading to fewer calories inevitably, but the key is the biology of not eating.

The period of not eating boosts body's defenses against aging for maximum longevity. Lab studies on obese mice tricked into thinking they are fasted show they live as long as skinny mice. Benefits occur at any weight by inducing a defensive state, though excess weight accelerates aging. Optimal waist-to-height ratio for humans is about 0.5; losing weight helps. Eating less often leads to weight loss as a side effect; Sinclair lost 15 pounds since the pandemic start and feels/looks better.

Time-Restricted Feeding Protocol05:01

Aim for at least 16 hours of not eating (or very little) and 8 hours eating window. Skip breakfast for late lunch or skip dinner. Sleep counts as a non-eating period, so extend fasting hours before and after sleep. Skipping lunch is less helpful. Sinclair skips breakfast (habit since teenager), has tea/coffee and minimal yogurt to mix supplements. He avoids eating until a large enjoyable dinner, creating over 20 hours without external glucose.

Sponsor: Ketone IQ07:01

Partners support the free educational resource and medical research. Ketone IQ is a drink Sinclair has used for years. Power is key for performance: generating force quickly from energy into movement. Short-term: improves performance, reduces fatigue. Long-term: sustains cardiovascular health and strength for longevity.

Ketone IQ's active ingredient is R-1,3-butanediol (ketone precursor), liver converts to beta-hydroxybutyrate (ketone for muscle/brain energy). A 2025 randomized placebo-controlled trial in healthy college-age adults: 0.5g R-1,3-butanediol per kg body weight daily for a week. During 10-second sprints: 10% improved peak power, 16% average power, 30% fatigue reduction (p<0.01). Lifespan listeners get 30% off first monthly order at ketone.com/lifespan or code 'lifespan'.

Fasting Tips and Mistakes09:00

All fasts Sinclair tried were beneficial, but skipping lunch without preparation failed multiple times; he couldn't eliminate love handles. Success came with preparation: fill body with fluids (constant coffee, tea, hot water) to eliminate hunger. If needed, nibble nuts or protein to rapidly reduce hunger. Cardiologist John Day advises patients: handful of nuts, wait 20 minutes, hunger gone.

Story: Steven Simpson in Australia studied locusts; protein lack turns them into swarms that eat everything, including each other ('hangry'). Low-protein mice get aggressive and attack each other. Avoid being too low in anything. Sinclair drinks liquids, nibbles nuts if hungry, regained 20-year-old body. Expect initial hunger; it's worth it. This is intermittent fasting with adequate nutrition (trademark idea: add 'a' for adequate).

Avoid Sugar and Excess Protein11:31

Glucose/fructose is pernicious: causes fatty liver, diabetes. Sugar spikes attach glucose to proteins ('glum up' like caramelized body parts), leading to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, reduced longevity. High glucose shuts off protective mechanisms, especially sirtuins. Three meals plus snacks keep defenses minimal.

First step: eliminate sugars. Sinclair quit dessert at 40 (occasionally steals some; 'doesn't count'). No need to be draconian; steal ice cream scoops occasionally, but avoid giant bowls nightly. People skip dessert after his talks.

Avoid super high protein: activates mTOR, preventing autophagy (recycling defenses). Carnivore diets lack long-term longevity evidence despite short-term gains (e.g., athletes bulking). Populations and studies show high-protein red meat diets harm long-term; sirtuins switched off. Aminos essential (from plants/animals); plants less bioavailable (2/3 of steak), but body working harder activates defenses. Sinclair recently went vegetarian (loves meat but enjoys vegetables more); vegan likely better.

Dietary Recommendations15:30

• Eat less often, don't snack.
• Avoid sugary drinks/foods; use naturally occurring sweeteners.
• Reduce meat intake for longevity dieting (data shows red/processed meat reduction prevents cancer, long-term health benefits).

Red meat contains TMA → liver → toxic TMAO accelerates cardiovascular disease in animals. Limit preserved meats; occasional steak fine. Push plant-based focus, olive oil (oleic acid activates sirtuins). Mediterranean diet easiest in West, biggest impact. Sinclair lived on it over a decade; studies (e.g., year 2000, backed by 5+ since) show under 80: 31% reduced mortality. Works even late in life; never too late. Reanalysis shows leanness beneficial in elderly (nursing home observation: skinny little women survive, not obese men).

Eat veggies (stressed ones for xenohormesis). Meal order: sugar/dessert at end reduces blood sugar spike (don't start with carbs/sugar; causes lethargy). Candy during day worsens energy.

Exercise for Longevity20:00

Sitting atrophies muscle (especially hips), causes pain, bone breaks from falls. Get off butt: stand, walk, run, cycle for hypoxic state (suck more oxygen). Pursue exercise for adversity mimetic effects despite comfortable sedentary lives.

Exercise prevents/stops diseases: slows cancer (23% prevention), 30% cardiovascular reduction with moderate exercise (50 minutes/week or 3x10 minutes). Ties to all-cause mortality (diseases as aging symptoms). Slows Horvath clock (biological age measure).

Best exercise: what you love (sport, wind surfing, sailing). Just move. Sex burns ~4.2 calories/minute, average 5 minutes (20 calories); not optimal, needs consenting partner for aerobic version. WHO/Mayo Clinic: at least 75 minutes vigorous exercise/week (10-15 minutes/day, spread out). Benefits: feel/look better, lower resting heart rate (<50 good; mid-40s for 50s age excellent). High rate indicates stress/unfitness; measure easily.

Wearables and Measuring Health24:50

There's all kinds of wearables now that are going to help you do this. I'm a big proponent of measuring things because otherwise you're flying blind.

Here at Lifespan, one of our most important missions is to support medical research so down the line all of us can lead longer and healthier lives. We're grateful to you, our community who supports us in this effort. We're also grateful to our partners who help us in this mission.

One of the most consistent findings in longevity science is that small and measurable behaviors add up over time. For example, in 2011, a study was published in the Lancet where researchers followed over 400,000 individuals. What they found was that just 15 minutes of moderate exercise per day was associated with a roughly three-year increase in life expectancy.

Sleep shows a similar pattern. Large-scale analyses published in the Journal of the American Heart Association show that both too little and too much sleep are both associated with increased cardiovascular and mortality risk.

Whoop Wearable Recommendation26:00

This brings me to a wearable that I'm particularly fond of, mostly because of its scientific foundation, both here at Harvard where I work, but also the founders's own research and scientific rigor. They're only a couple of blocks away from this studio up the street. And whenever I visit, I see a thriving company that's mission-oriented to help people live better, longer lives, including all of us. And of course, I'm talking about Whoop, the Whoop band, which is the one that I rarely take off my wrist. This wearable to health and fitness coach that gives me insights into my sleep and my recovery and also my body's strain. So, I can see really how my daily behaviors are impacting my health day-to-day.

For example, wearing the Whoop over the last two months, I've seen dramatic improvements in my personal biomarkers, indicating that the changes that I'm making to my lifestyle, including a much healthier diet, cutting out a lot of the extra carbs that I was eating, and a bit more exercise, they definitely were having positive effects on my body. I was talking about this with Andrew in the studio here about my resting heart rate which has gone down to 45 and my heart rate variability which you want to be higher. This HRV number has shot up to 90 putting me in the top percent or so for my age.

It's not only interesting and useful on a daily basis, but I'm building up a record about my body that I can aim for when I'm older. So when I'm 90, I can go back to being 50 or younger.

As I mentioned earlier, Lifespan and I only partner with companies like Whoop who we really believe in and these are products we use daily and also who align with our mission of supporting medical research. You, our Lifespan community and listeners can get a free Whoop band and one month off membership by going to join.whoop.com/lifespan or using the code lifespan.

Exercise Takeaways28:00

Let's put a wrap on exercise, but let's have a few takeaways here. There's really three big ones.

The first is a low level of exercise and this is just steps. Get off your butt and take steps. Standing desk or a desk with a treadmill. Walk around the block after dinner or lunch. Those are the simple things. And you don't have to hit 10,000 steps, but shoot for four. Four is great. That's the low intensity exercise that everybody should be getting throughout the week every single day.

You should also get high intensity exercise a few times a week, 10 or 15 minutes. Lose your breath. It can be the form of HIIT high-intensity interval training or running on a treadmill. That will get your blood vessels flowing and your mitochondria amplifying. 10 to 15 minutes a day. Yeah, that's 75 minutes a week. That's what all the experts recommend.

And then muscle building. Weights. That's just as important. So maintain that muscle mass. Exercise the big muscles particularly. Don't forget about those. Don't just work on your upper arms so you look good. But it's pretty simple. You don't need a gym in your bedroom like I do. You can do push-ups, sit-ups, or just have some weights lying around. That's sufficient.

All of this is aimed toward the goal of longevity through alerting your genes, your cells to a state of adversity. Exercise is one way to challenge the body, but it's not the only way. There are other forms of controlled stress that can activate these same longevity pathways, including something a bit more extreme, cold.

Cold Therapy29:30

Cold therapy, people call it cryotherapy. You've done this before, right? You did this with Rogan, didn't you? Yeah. Joe said, "Let's go do that after the show," which I did. It was pretty chilly. I had to strip down to my underwear and put gloves on and socks and whatever. But you get to play music at least. I got to choose Help by the Beatles, which was quite appropriate because by the end of those three minutes, you wanted out.

Well, the first two minutes I'm like, "What's the problem? This isn't cold." But that last minute, I really thought I was going to get hypothermia and my ears might break off. You're chattering and shaking. You really start to shiver, which is your body's way of generating heat by moving your muscles. But it was really enjoyable. I found afterwards I felt stimulated. I felt lucky to be alive and I felt good for a number of days afterwards, which is probably because my mitochondria were revved up.

The one thing I think it's worth pausing here to talk about is why would you do this now? Why don't you wait till you're old to do cold therapy? And what's been found, at least in mice, is that old mice don't make brown fat as well as young mice. So, what you want to do is middle age, do these treatments. So that you're ready for old age when it becomes harder.

Just like right now, we need to be doing vigorous exercise. We can't wait until we're old to do vigorous exercise. Though, it's never too late. We do find that things work in elderly mice and elderly people, but it doesn't work as well if you start midlife or even earlier.

Cryotherapy stuff is sort of akin to a vigorous exercise. But you still have to have that low level of perceived adversity just like we have to get lots and lots of steps in every day. We live in these environments, these temperature controlled environments where it's like 68 to 72. That's not how our ancestors lived at all. No, we were shivering probably most of the time during the ice age for sure. And our bodies recognize that. We've got those genes that respond and they keep us healthy.

So, there are a number of ways you can if you don't have a cryotherapy center near you, what do you do? Well, you can take cold showers. Some people do that. I don't. I find that unpleasant, but you can do that. It's very cheap to do that. Or you can do something that I do actually do, which is sleep with very few covers on my bed and lower down my body temperature. And that's also been shown to activate these uncoupling proteins and build brown fat.

Heat Therapy and Sauna32:00

The opposite side of this is heat, taking your body out of its comfort zone. And all of these things are about taking your body out of its comfort. They are. And some of them are really enjoyable. I think sauna bathing is super enjoyable. It also is good for your skin. You get to sweat and get those pores unclogged.

But this is one of the most ancient therapies for longevity. Even before Roman times, they were bathing in these saunas though the Romans would use fires under the floor. But this is something that Europeans still carry on as a tradition, particularly in Finland and other Scandinavian countries where these studies are typically performed on men for some reason.

But the data that I've looked at is that there's absolutely no doubt that men who partake in sauna bathing a few times a week, often at home cuz they build this into their houses, have a dramatic reduction up to 20% in the rate of cardiovascular disease and mortality caused by heart attacks.

This isn't happening for the same reason as cold therapy work. This has nothing to do with brown fat. There's another thing that's going on here. What we think goes on in a sauna is you're activating HSPS and these heat shock proteins are helping to fold proteins correctly and also stimulate pathways that are beneficial such as building new blood vessels, making more mitochondria.

And one of the reasons that I believe it's true is that in model organisms, if take a worm, if you turn up heat shock proteins, either by giving them a lot of heat or genetically modifying them, they also live longer.

Before the pandemic, I used to go at least once a week and do multiple bouts of the heat shock in the sauna for about 15 minutes and then jump in an ice bath, which was nearby for 4 minutes and then cycle that. You should probably consult your doctor before you do that. I would definitely. But yeah it can put some stress on the body certainly on the heart but yeah the idea though is to shock the body heat cold heat cold and that way you have I think you get the maximum benefit from these adversity mimetics.

And again you don't necessarily need to have access to a sauna to do this I mean some people can build them into their homes some people have them in their gyms that's kind of a point of privilege most people have a bath or shower. I certainly do that. I like to turn the heat way up.

There are a variety of different saunas. There's the old-fashioned type which is the cedar planks sitting in there and you just throw water on hot rocks. That's traditional. There are new ones such as infrared saunas and the infrared light actually penetrates the skin and is thought and there's some evidence real believable evidence that also in the skin layer can reverse aspects of aging as well and including improve hair growth.

Protocols for Adversity Mimetics34:32

So let's talk about a basic protocol with the caveat that everybody's going to be a little bit different but if we're trying to get exercise cold heat and hyperbaric what are what's a good way to do that?

Well, as I mentioned, I used to do and I will do again the cycling of the heat and the cold about five times during one day of the week. This was on a Sunday with my son Benjamin. But I would say more is better. There's no evidence that you can overdo this. You could even do it every day.

If you don't have access to a gym, you can always use your house. You can turn down the temperature. Or you can use your shower. And that will work almost as well as dunking yourself into a cold bathtub. Or you could do what Gabby Reece and Laird Hamilton do, which is shove us into an ice bath with literally with ice in it. I think that, you know, you don't need to do that every day.

Didn't you almost drown? I did, but that was different. That was hyper hypoxia. What they do is they make you do exercise with weights at the bottom of a pool below your height. So, you're underwater and you have to jump up with those weights to get a breath there. We're not recommending that at this time. It's but you can get hypoxia from exercise. It's very similar.

So, we've talked about hot and cold. The hyperbaric is more of an issue. There's not a lot of these centers around and it's expensive. It's hundreds of dollars per treatment, but that's in the future. I think that I wanted to mention that because it's really interesting how it's so similar to exercise and hypoxia at the molecular level, but for most people right now that's out of reach.

Supplements for Longevity Pathways36:31

Beyond lifestyle, there's growing interest in molecules that may amplify these longevity pathways. While this area is still evolving, I'll share what I personally take and the science behind it.

When you started investigating resveratrol, you also started taking resveratrol. How did you know how much to take though? Because you were giving resveratrol to yeast and eventually to mice.

Well, it's not a one to one. It's not like you should take 3,000 times as much as the mouse had because we're 3,000 times bigger than a mouse is. It's actually more related to our surface area and how much the drug can get into our bodies versus the mouse. And the calculation for a mouse, which is called the allometric scaling, is about 12. So you multiply. Let's say if the mouse has 100 mg, 1.2 g for a human. For a rat, it's three. For a mini pig, it's one to one. Turns out we have about the same surface area as a mini pig.

And so you take about a gram of resveratrol every day. I do. And I've been taking that since about 2004. But like I said, it's you can't just put it in water and drink. You got to add some fat to it. So I typically have some yogurt, a couple of spoonfuls, not a lot cuz I'm trying to fast until dinner. But I could mix it with olive oil. Olive oil recently seems to be really good for activating sirtuins but also you can dissolve resveratrol in it. You get a twofer. I don't have a lot of it. There's a lot of calories in olive oil. I don't want to break the fast severely. But mix it with bit of vinegar and basil leaves and it doesn't taste too bad.

So resveratrol you're taking about a gram a day in the morning. Also in the morning you take NMN. I do. And there you don't have to worry about food. It's dissolved easily. You can put it in water or swallow it, put it under your tongue. That's my main combo in the morning.

How much NMN are you taking in? Again, it's gram, but that's not a guess. That's actually based on the human studies that we've done that show that a gram over 10 days raises your NAD levels about twofold. And that's sort of the dosing amount that we're seeing in a lot of the human studies. Now both the past studies and the current studies that are ongoing.

I take one gram of NMN every morning along with my resveratrol. The reason is in humans we know that that doubles NAD levels which is important because someone my age has half the levels of NAD than I did when I was 20. But you can go as high as 2 g and triple the amount.

It's important to mention that I take these at a certain time of day based on science as well. I take these in the morning because that's when the natural rise in NAD and certain sirtuin activity should happen. And we actually know this that the SIRT1 NAD cycle is part of our body's natural 24-hour clock. So one regulates a protein called BMAL that controls the genes that tell us whether it's night or day, should we be hungry or not, whether we should have jet lag or not. And I do find anecdotally that NMN is remarkably good at preventing jet lag as well. I can reset my body's clock sensibly through this sirtuin BMAL pathway.

You're also taking metformin. Yes. How much when? I take 800 milligrams at night. And you take that at night because doctors tell me that it's a good time to simulate a fast. I take it with my dinner just after and then through the night I'm presumably having low levels of glucose and my body has all the benefits of stimulating those repair pathways, those survival genes.

And that's the most recent thing that you've added to your regimen. It is actually what happened was I had terrible blood biochemistry. I was eating badly. I gained weight. I wasn't sleeping. I was stressed. And those numbers just went through the roof and I said, "I got to do something." So, I went on NMN and things were somewhat rectified. And then I added Metformin. And they really got back to my optimal.

We mentioned earlier some concerns about exercise metformin. Your practices were concerned. Yeah, I pulse metformin. It doesn't sit well in my stomach anyway. So on days where I know next day I'm going to exercise and lift weights, I might skip metformin that night before.

And then there's also spermidine. There is you can buy it now. So that's not something you've adopted and you're like I'm definitely sticking with it. This is I'm adopted and I'm testing it out to see how it works. I am. How much of that are you taking? A gram as well.

You are also periodically taking fisetin quercetin aimed at senescent cells. There are clinical trials being run out of the Mayo Clinic for fisetin and for quercetin. These are high doses. They're typically two grams taken one day a week for a matter of months. I'm myself I'm on a maintenance dose. I take about half a gram of each every day.

Daily Supplement Routine41:02

Let's take this morning through night just really quickly. Resveratrol 1 gram in the morning with yogurt or olive oil. NMN as well. A gram. Fisetin and quercetin. Half a gram in the yogurt. Spermidine. Definitely spermidine. Yeah. In the morning about a gram. And then in the evenings if you're not working out the next day. Metformin. How much? 800 milligrams. That's it.

Now, you're not most people. A lot of other people are going to be different. You don't advise people, but it might be a good place for people to start their conversation with their doctor, though. Well, I think so. Most doctors are open to hearing about the latest science. It's very difficult for them to keep up with it. It's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast in the first place.

Of course, supplements are just one layer. For some, the next step involves medical interventions, but these require a very different level of caution and oversight.

People need to have a naturally healthy level of hormones in their bodies and there are ways to do that naturally. So for testosterone, you can work out the bigger muscles in your body and that also help with growth hormone. So I work out my thighs and my back particularly keep those nice and strong. And I found my natural testosterone levels go up to normal levels with that. So that's a way to do it.

With growth hormone, it's all about eating at the right time and sleeping. So, if you eat not too close to sleep time and then you rest through the night and have a good night's sleep, that's the best way to improve your growth hormone levels.

And if you're doing all of that and you're still struggling to keep these levels up, that's the time to talk to your doctor about supplementation, but that supplementation needs to be aimed not at hyper-increasing the levels of these in your body, but just keeping them at that natural healthy level. Well, exactly. But I would encourage everyone to try it naturally first.

Skin as Indicator of Aging43:01

Interestingly, many of these internal processes don't just affect how long we live, they influence how we look. And the skin offers a visible window into biological aging.

Largest organ in the human body is the skin. And it's sizable. It's 1/6 of your total body weight, which is massive. And it's the barrier to the world. The health of your skin is super important for the health of the rest of your body and vice versa.

And monitoring the health of your skin can give you a lot of insights into the health of your body. When we were talking before, I likened this to going to the grocery store and looking at a piece of fruit. If you see some bruises and some damage on there, you can assume that it wasn't handled very well, but also it might be old. So you give it a squeeze, you see how it is. And we can talk about ways to do that with our own bodies to really have a quick test and even some molecular tests to determine how molecularly old we actually are.

You can't optimize what you don't measure. That's what we do as scientists. It's true also when it comes to body metrics. Many people only measure their total body weight, if anything, but this only tells a small part of the story. You don't know if you're losing fat or muscle or even where the fat is being lost from. For instance, visceral fat, what I call the evil fat that sits around your organs. It's associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and death. Getting rid of visceral fat, or at least minimizing it, can have a strong impact on your long-term health and longevity.

Withings Devices for Body Composition44:30

Since they first came out with their Wi-Fi scale over 13 years ago, I've actually been using Withings devices. And if you've never heard of Withings, they make some of the coolest devices that you can measure yourself with. The scale is one of the devices that I particularly love. I've got all the valuable data over 13 years on my scale and on my phone along with those of my kids as they were growing up.

Let me show you what my body looks like in 3D, my digital twin. There I am. You can see that on my arms 11-12% fat, legs 10.7% and torso 13%. I'm pretty happy with this. I'd like to be a little bit more cut on my torso. But it's telling me that I'm doing well and I'm on the lower end compared to other people in my age range.

And you can do this for muscle as well. And I've actually watched my muscle grow as I've changed my exercises. This is just one motivational and very fun thing to have on your phone and it's fun to show others as well.

In the past couple of months by changing my diet and my exercise regimens, I've lost over 12 lbs. And importantly, I was able to ensure that I didn't also lose any of my muscle mass, which is a common problem. And though I didn't use a GLP-1 drug, if you do take one, a Withings scale can help ensure that you lose fat, not muscle.

So, Withings is really cool. It's the only smart scale that comes with an FDA cleared ECG that can analyze your heart rhythm and even detect atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that can cause stroke and heart failure.

As a Lifespan listener, we invite you to join us. Learn more about Withings or get a scale or one of their other cool smart devices at withings.com/lifespan or use the lifespan code for discounts.

Skin Pinch Test46:31

There's one you've been doing all morning this morning. Do you want to do it now? The skin pinch test. Sure. Well, so what you do is you rest your hand on a table so it's relaxed normally and then you grab the back of your skin, pinch it up, and it should, if you're young, pop straight down in less than 2 seconds. Someone in their 30s and 40s, it'll pop straight down. Once you get into your 50s, it's going to take many seconds. And the chart that you found said like when you get into your 80s and 90s, it can take what, like 20, 30 seconds, something like that.

Oh, even worse. So for people like us, we're in our 40s and 50s, it should be less than 10 seconds. By the time you're 60, it typically takes 10 to 15 seconds to come down. Over 70, between half and a whole minute to go down. And you're 50 and yours went down right away. So that's good.

Well, I've been doing the right stuff for a number of years, but that's pretty good for someone my age. Looks like yours that in the video. Well, it also helps if you tense. But it's obvious. I am aging faster than you are aging, but I'm still doing okay on the skin pinch test.

You mentioned earlier sun damage. Staying out of the sun's really important. Smoking is really bad for your skin. That's probably the fastest way to accelerate aging in your body and it shows up on your skin. There's no question you can even see the difference in people.

A lot of people don't know this, but alcohol also shown in research to be pretty bad for our skin. So, if you don't need, right, I didn't know that. I only recently gave up alcohol and having seen that study.

Lifestyle Factors and Diet Impact on Aging48:22

Smoking, alcohol, bad food, processed foods, and foods rich in fats and chemicals accelerate aging in the body and skin. Food profoundly affects body and skin aging; changing a dog's diet shows visible improvements in skin and hair, similar to effects seen in mice fed good food.

What's good for skin is generally good for hair too.

Reversing Aging and Delivery Methods49:00

Big takeaway: We're on the verge of reversing aging internally and externally, leading to a world where people live longer and feel better about themselves. Methods include injectables, edibles, and smearables to deliver molecules into the body, surface, and needed layers to slow and reverse aging. Future developments in the next 5 to 10 years will be covered in a later episode.

This isn't just about looking good.

If you can keep yourself looking good by doing the right things, you'll probably end up living longer, too.

Mediterranean Diet Benefits for Brain Health49:32

Mediterranean diet protects the brain from aging and can reverse aspects of aging in the elderly with mild cognitive impairments, confirmed in over a dozen studies.

Study led by Tomaso Bolerini from a large international research group: Higher adherence to Mediterranean diet associated with less amyloid beta, less tau, larger gray matter volume—all linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Second study by Anastasio Adel (2017) on nearly 2,000 people: 10% reduction in dementia risk for those on Mediterranean diet. Actually, 10% risk reduction for each point increase in Mediterranean diet score—the more Mediterranean, the better.

Includes olive oil and not a lot of red meat. Research team from Greece.

Chemical components helping the brain: Vitamins (deficiencies to address, related to the clock later), polyphenols like resveratrol (lab has worked on it for years; directly activates SIRT1, making the enzyme like Pac-Man that controls genes faster; beneficial for preventing cancer, metabolic and brain-enhancing effects).

Olive oil works on SIRT1; Doug Massan showed oleic acid (major component of olive oil, also in avocados) directly activates the enzyme by sticking to it, making Pac-Man chomp faster.

Other molecules like xenohormetics: Plants make them to survive stress; when eaten, we benefit as bodies perceive potential food shortage.

Plant-Based Diets Mimic Adversity52:31

Plant-based diets like Mediterranean or Okinawan mimic adversity: Body works harder to get nutrients, signaling times aren't great, activating longevity pathways.

Contrast with high-fat carnivorous or Western diets: Full of calories signaling abundance, no need to protect, burn candle at both ends.

Mediterranean and Okinawan diets (low protein, mostly plant-based) trick body into thinking food supply is scarce and could run out.

Nutrient Deficiencies in Plant-Based Diets53:31

On plant-based diets, ensure no deficiencies:

• Vitamin B12 (critical; low levels impair DNA methylation, mess up epigenome, accelerate clock and aging; linked to heart disease, dementia).
• Other B vitamins: B6, B3 (builds NAD for sirtuins).

B vitamins ensure methyls added/subtracted from DNA for DNA methylation clock. Deficiencies accelerate diseases by speeding aging.

Sleep as Key Factor54:30

Nutrition, exercise, brain health tied together by sleep. Without it, longevity pathways don't function. Aging reduces sleep ability, creating feed-forward disaster. Intervene with eating well, exercising, supplements.

For sleep and rhythm:

• NR (nicotinamide riboside): Raises NAD levels; take 1g in morning; resets body when traveling, avoids jet lag.
• Other supplements: Magnesium, L-theanine (calms at night).
• Avoid late emails; relax brain.

Counterintuitive: Best for night sleep is morning light exposure to reset circadian rhythms—get outside early for energy boost.

Top Five Biomarkers to Monitor56:00

Ideal constant monitoring device for:

1. Glucose.
2. Heart function.
3. Inflammation: CRP (C-reactive protein; keep low, predicts cardiovascular issues); TNF-alpha, IL-6 (predict longevity).
4. Cortisol (manage stress, detect over-exercise).

Recipe for Long Life57:00

To partake in longevity future, put in work: Eat right (Mediterranean-style diets, less often, periodic fasting), multiple exercise types, hormesis (stress body: cold, heat), supplements, new monitoring technologies.

The longer you live, the longer you will live. Right now, an extra year gives another three months of life due to fast technologies. Soon, 6 months per year, eventually a year per year.

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