This is very

>> It's bad, right?

>> It's hard. Yeah.

>> That's what it's like to be old. And for

far too long, we've [music] ignored it

or accepted it as natural. And I reject

the idea that aging just because it's

natural is acceptable. Dying at 80 is

not inevitable. Absolutely, that can be

changed. So, if you're skeptical, I am a

Harvard professor who has been studying

aging, longevity, and age reversal for

30 years. And I've seen enough from my

lab showing that we can literally now

reverse the aging process. And it's not

a question of if, [music] it's a

question of when this is going to

happen. And everyone should stick around

cuz I'm going to tell you some of the

major things that people should be

doing. They can lengthen your life by a

decade. Hey, you're not taking that off,

Stephen. You got 10 minutes for that.

So, you can accelerate aging by smoking,

getting an X-ray, ultrarocessed foods,

excessive drinking, flying a lot.

>> I fly all the time.

>> That's probably accelerating your aging

process.

Even going to a rock concert and

blasting your eardrums because your ear

hair cells are [music] getting older

faster. And so I look at the body like

it's a computer and we can reinstall the

software. And what's [music] interesting

is when you reverse aging, diseases like

Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease go

away [music] or are cured because what's

driving a lot of those diseases is

aging. And so my lab is like Willy

Wonka's chocolate factory. They are

making discoveries that blow me away

every week. And I think we're at a

turning point in human history [music]

where you're probably going to live into

the 22nd century if you do all the right

things.

>> And we're going to dig into all of those

in great detail. But what are the

unintended consequences of such a world

where we all live longer? And also, do

you think it's going to be possible in

the next 50 years for us to live

forever? And then, what's the best

treatment you've discovered for hair

loss?

>> This is why I love your podcast,

Stephen. You asked the right questions.

So, first,

>> this is super interesting to me. My team

given me this report to show me how many

of you that watch this show subscribe.

And some of you have told us according

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thing that you could do to help us, my

team, everyone here to keep this show

free, to keep it improving year over

year and week over week, it is just to

hit that subscribe button and to double

check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll

ever ask of you, do we have a deal? If

you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.

I'll make sure every single week, every

single month, we fight harder and harder

and harder and harder to bring you the

guests and conversations that you want

to hear. I've stayed true to that

promise since the very beginning of the

Dio and I will not let you down. Please

help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get

on with the show.

[music]

Dr. David Sinclair, I have waited many

years to speak to you and I've been so

keen to speak to you for so many years

because so much of the research and the

information I've consumed on the

subjects we're going to talk about today

comes from you directly from research

you've done and from theories and ideas

and hypotheses that you formed. I think

the place that this conversation should

start is is probably with this picture

because it appears to be incredibly

formative

in your journey. Oh yes, that is an

important picture. True. This is a

picture of my grandmother and me when I

was in my early 20s. I'm now 56 if

you're wondering. And uh my grandmother

has played a major role in my life. Uh,

I'm gonna have to be careful not to get

too emotional because, uh, she's now

passed pass passed away, but she's

inspired me to do the best I can to

leave the world a better place than, uh,

I found it.

>> And there's this particular book here

called Now We Are Six.

>> It is. Anyone who's read my book, uh,

lifespan knows that this book is very

important to me. And I didn't realize

it, of course, when I was a kid, that

this was going to change my whole life.

And there's a poem at the back there

that my grandmother Vera used to read

me. When I was six, and it goes like

this. When I was one, I had just begun.

When I was two, I was nearly new. When I

was three, I was hardly me. When I was

four, I was not much more. When I was

five, I was just alive. But now I am

six. I'm as clever as clever. So I think

I'll be six now forever and ever.

I'm getting chills reading this again

and hearing this poem again because the

impact on me was the following that

subconsciously my grandmother was saying

you you don't want to grow up adults can

be evil. She grew up after World War II.

There was horrendous uh impact on her

and her family in Hungary.

and she thought that a child is innocent

and people shouldn't grow up. But what

actually happened was I realized why do

people grow old? That's a terrible thing

to happen. And so I've spent my life

trying to figure out why do we get old?

Why do we grow up? Why do we get frail?

Because I also think that if we can

solve that, understand it, slow it, even

reverse it now, we will have the biggest

impact on human health in history. Am I

right in thinking your grandmother told

you at that young age that she was going

to die, that you were going to die, that

your parents were going to die?

>> Yes. Uh she did tell me that. I remember

it very clearly actually. I was on the

floor and she was crouching down and I

said, "Vera, I didn't call her grandma."

She didn't want to be called grandma.

She wanted to be young like a kid, too.

I said, "Vera, will will you always be

here to protect me? Will you always be

around?" And she said, "No, I'm going to

die." I'm like, "What do you mean?" She

goes, "Every everything dies. I'm going

to be gone. Your parents will be gone.

Your pet cat will be dead pretty soon.

And you yourself will be dead one day.

At age, you know, four or five. That

that's that's heart-wrenching, right?

We've all gone through this realization

around that age that the world that we

believe in and see will one day all be

gone. That moment, I remember it so

clearly because I thought that's not

fair. Why would any species be made or

created that knew that fact? That's

cruel. It's better to either not know or

to not exist. But to know that that's

what's going to happen is really cruel.

And so I I I vowed actually legitimately

around the age of 18 to get a PhD to go

to the United States and develop a

research lab to try and do something

about it. The preservation of health and

life is the most important thing that we

can do as human beings. We do it with

some drugs to treat that disease and the

other disease, cancer, heart disease,

Alzheimer's.

But what's underlying that? What's

really causing about 150 to 200,000

people every day to die is the

underlying universal process we call

aging. And for far too long, we've

ignored it or accepted it as natural,

therefore acceptable. And I I I

fundamentally reject the idea that aging

just because it's natural is acceptable.

There will be a day when we look back at

today and think how medieval were were

our medicines and how sad it was that we

accepted that we became frail before

100.

If someone has just clicked on this

conversation now and they deep in their

core

believe that they're probably going to

live to 80 years old and that we all are

and that we're never going to be able to

do anything about it cuz that's just the

way that it is. People get old and then

they die and aging is a fact of life as

the phrase goes and you just have to

accept it.

If that's their sort of core belief,

what is the what is the most persuasive

sort of topline argument to that person

to convince them that in the next two

hours when we have this conversation,

we will do a job of both reversing that

belief or at least challenging it in

some way and then also presenting them

with a set of possible solutions.

>> Yeah. All right. So, first of all, who

am I? Um, I'm a Harvard professor. I've

been studying aging longevity and age

reversal for 30 years. The technology

now that we have in my lab that is used

every day by my students literally

reverses the age of tissues in animals

in human tissue that we grow in the lab.

And the first human trials to test this

are going to be performed in about a

month from now. And if it works, it'll

transform human history. It means that

we're on a path to finally being able to

reset the age of the human body. Not by

a year, not by 10 years, but even more

than that. And what happens when you do

that? What we're finding in animals,

that includes primates, is that we can

cure things that have previously been

impossible, including blindness, by the

way. And so, if you're listening and

you're skeptical,

I'm not some hack. I am a Harvard

professor who is telling the world and

has written a book about it and every

day spends my life researching with a

team of the best scientists I can gather

around the world showing that we can

literally now reverse the aging process

and reset how old the body is in

animals. Yes, but potentially this year

showing it can work in the human body as

well. So you're doing the first ever

trial of this type in humans to reverse

aging

next month.

>> Yes. So we've submitted a form to the

you know the FDA in the US to get

approval to treat blindness couple of

types of blindness in people

um as early if all goes well as next

month.

>> And what what exactly is happening

there? cuz there's many ways one might

fix blindness,

>> you know. What is it you're doing to the

eyeball that is a precursor of our

potential ability to reverse aging

generally?

>> Yeah. Well, we chose the eye not because

it was going to work well, but because

it's a it's a nice system to study age

reversal. The eye is an enclosed space,

and so it's much safer than trying to

initially reverse the age of the whole

body. Now in mice we reverse the age of

the whole body and the effect is

longevity rejuvenation the skin gets

better all parts of the animal get get

healthier and younger but in humans you

you don't want to go straight to

rejuvenation uh because in case

something goes wrong it could set us way

back and we have to make sure we don't

have any safety mishaps. So we're being

a little cautious in humans in mice it's

a little different. So, in the human

eye,

>> just for those that aren't watching the

video, there is a an eye on the table.

>> Well, a plastic eye. It's a it's a

larger version of an eye, but yes, uh

Steven's right. What we're doing, we're

going to look at the back of the eye,

which is your retina, and that's where

the light hits. And at that point, there

are a lot of nerves that coalesce into

the optic nerve that runs to the brain

by just a few millimeters. So, the brain

is here. The eye is actually part of the

brain. A lot of people don't know that

you can touch your brain if you touch

your eye.

>> Um,

>> so the optic nerve gets old and what

we've discovered if it gets damaged or

gets old, it's not working. But the

nerves for most the most part if you're

old are still there. They just forget

how to work. And that's aging. And later

everyone should stick around because I'm

going to tell you why it is we get old

and how it is we reverse it. But but for

this this model, what we're doing is

we're introducing a set of three genes

into this optic nerve at the back of the

eye and turning them on for 6 to 8

weeks.

And those three genes are what we now

know reset safely, apparently safely,

reset the age of cells, including

nerves, by about 75% and then stop. They

don't go more than that, which is good.

We don't want to go back to zero. I

don't think anyone wants to go back to

high school.

>> But this is the way it works. And we

chose the optic nerve because it's a

safe enclosed system, not because it

should work better in optic nerves. In

fact, we've now done it in mice in my

lab for the brain. Uh we're doing

hearing. We've done skin. Uh we did

multiple scerosis. Uh we're now doing

motor neuron disease and seeing great

effects. So it's important to know I'm

not an eye specialist. I didn't choose

the eye cuz I love the eye. I chose it

because that's a good place to start for

age reversal in humans this year.

>> You mentioned a second ago you've been

able to extend the life of mice in your

laboratory.

How and by how much? Is it the same

process and by how much?

>> Right. Well, the the study that that I

was referring to was done using our

technology in an independent lab, which

is you might argue even better than

having done it in my lab. Instead of

putting the three reversal genes into

the eye, they injected into the vein of

the mouse, the old mice, uh, and turned

it on in these really old mice. These

mice would be the equivalent of about 80

to 85 years. So, they're really old

mice. They're really frail. And just any

any extension in their lifespan and

health would be bet would be a great

thing. And they got an additional 100%

lifespan extension. Additional. So,

>> that would be like an 80-year-old living

to 160. Well, the remaining life of an

80-year-old isn't long.

>> Oh, okay.

>> Right. So, let's let's say if you're

give it to a 70-year-old on average,

they'd have another 10 years to go. Give

them 20 years. So, it's that

calculation. Um, but that was not an

optimized study. They just did a Hail

Mary injection, turn it on, see what

would happen.

>> And I I heard when we did a bit of a

research call, you say, "The world

doesn't know how close we are." The

world doesn't know how close we are to

what? to being able to safely reverse

the age of the human body.

>> How can you be so sure?

>> I'm not sure. But I'm confident that the

science is solid, right? That the the

biology of aging is is understood. I

believe in concept. My theory called the

information theory of aging has so far

been not disproven, which is important

for a scientist. And that has allowed us

to succeed really for the first time to

safely reverse aging. And I now believe

and though I didn't 10 years ago, I now

believe in my lifetime I'm going to see

medicines on the market that reset the

age or at least reverse in a large part

uh the age of the body. And that that

initially won't be to make us just look

better and feel better, although that's

what a lot of us want. It's going to be

used to cure, certainly prevent, but

definitely cure diseases that are

currently incurable. So, we're I think

we're at a turning point, dare I say, in

human history. It's not a question of

if, it's a question of when this is

going to happen.

>> I want to get into your theory of aging,

which we talked about there. Um, but you

did have a prediction before I get to

there about

how you think we'll be potentially

taking a pill in 10 years time every

couple of weeks that will make us

younger. Can you explain to me that

prediction? What is what is the

prediction?

>> I I do believe that I and you're about

20 something years younger than me.

You're going to see this for sure that

there will be a pill. So you might say,

"Well, my critics might say, "Well,

David, that's exaggerating, right?

You're still trying to get this gene

these genes to work. How's it going to

be a pill? But this is where my lab

comes in. My lab is like Willy Wonka's

chocolate factory if you visit. It's

magical. And the students that I teach

and the trainees who are sometimes in

their 30s and even 40s who are, you

know, brilliant scientists. Uh there's

about 25 of us. They are making

discoveries that blow me away every

week. It's not a pill cuz you can't give

a mouse a pill. They won't chew it. But

we give them a liquid down their throat.

It's a drink. And within four weeks, we

can rejuvenate them. Not with this this

these genes anymore that we're giving

humans. That's the old older technology.

The new technology is something you can

swallow

in a mouse and rejuvenate them in 4

weeks. It's normal for my students to

say, "Oh yeah, we just rejuvenated the

ear. We just rejuvenated the skin. uh we

just cured ALS, motor neuron disease in

these animals. By the way, speed and

Stephen, this isn't just each disease

doesn't get a different medicine. Each

disease doesn't get a different set of

genes. It's the same set of genes, the

same molecules that treat cure multiple

scerosis as the same one that cures

blindness in mice.

So, let that sink in. The same drug that

we're using in the eye will be used to

treat other diseases in the body, even

liver disease. So if if your predictions

are correct and your timeline is

correct,

what does this mean for the way that I

should be living my life right now?

>> Most people look at their parents and

their grandparents and think that's what

my life will be like. I'm going to be

frail in my 80s. That's not true for us.

I like the Wright brothers analogy. It'd

be like in 1900 saying we're always

going to travel as fast as a horse.

That's not true, right? The 20th century

saw that we could go tens of thousands

of kilometers. They went to the moon,

right? That's what our generation is

when it comes to biology and aging.

Previous generations are no guide to

what our lifespan is going to be like.

You're going to potentially live to the

22nd century. If you do all the right

things, technology keeps increasing,

right? What kind of technologies will we

have in 50 years?

>> You'll be around in 50 years.

>> Hope so.

>> You're a healthy guy. I know you are.

All right. So in 50 years, what kind of

things will you be able to do?

>> Gosh,

>> this is what most people forget is that

technology isn't static. When you're

old, you will not be using today's

technology. You'll be using technology

of 2070, 2080, right?

>> And then you'll be able to live into the

22nd century and take advantage of those

technologies. That's why people talk

about the singularity. The singularity

is this idea that if you can make it to

a certain point in human history, you

won't have to age anymore.

And that that's in the future, right?

But first steps first, let's show that

we can get this to cure blindness and

then get to the point where every year

that we get one year older, we can get

one year younger. When that happens,

it's a very interesting world, right?

You don't have to age anymore. That is a

future. I don't know when we're going to

get there,

but if you don't live 10 to 20 years

longer than your parents, something's

wrong

>> on that point of the singularity. So,

this is a particular moment in time

where we're going to be able to make

aging or age reversal, I guess, a

choice, right? So, the I guess the

thinking or the theory is that if you

can just make sure you survive up until

this particular date, then you have the

choice to live forever. Is that how is

that like the

>> Well, that's what they say. Yes. Uh

there are a lot of proponents of that,

but that that's an idea. And

>> isn't it logically true though? It's

like logically

>> it's an Yeah, it's an extension of what

I'm I'm talking about. Um but I don't

know when that's going to be. It's I

think Ray Curtzwell said it's coming

soon.

>> Did he have a prediction? I think

>> it was in the 2040s sometime.

>> So Ray Curtzwell is a famous futurist

that seems to predict the future really

well um across multiple disciplines. So

he said 2040.

>> Yeah, that's my recollection. It's

around there.

>> Do you believe that? because I'm going

to hang on till 2014. I'm

>> skeptical. I won't leave the house.

>> I mean, Ry is a smart guy, right? He

predicted AI and all that's happening.

So, it's it's it's dangerous to bet

against Ray's predictions. I I remain

skeptical. You know, as one of the

leaders in the field, I think we have a

lot still to do. That said, if this

trial works this year, we will be in new

territory. We will be on a path to age

reversal in the whole body. It's going

to happen. And you know, and right now

it's now 2026. We're talking

2040 is a number of years away. It could

be that we truly are able to multiply

reset the age of the body. That's that's

another thing that that's often missed.

We can re reverse the age of the eye not

just once, but seemingly as many times

as we want. In mice, we've done it at

least twice. We didn't do it a third

time because the mice actually just got

old and they died. But they died with

perfect eyesight. But the point is that

we we don't believe it's a one-shot

wander. You can keep reversing aging and

then you age out and then you reverse it

again and you just keep going. And if

that's true, then it is possible that we

will live dramatically longer. I don't

yet see any technology in the near

horizon that will make us live forever.

But I do see that we'll have a radical

change in how we treat diseases and how

long we can live.

>> So let's talk about what aging actually

is. And can you explain this to me like

I'm a total idiot because that will

help.

>> Well, that's difficult because you're

not a total idiot. But this is my theory

is that aging is not just wearing out.

It's not just that your body becomes old

and dysfunctional and you get pain, you

get inflammation, and you die from a

disease. I look at the body like it's a

a computer. It's software

and we can reinstall the software. In my

lab, we believe we've found the way to

do that and we see the evidence of that.

So, the body is a carrier of information

from our parents and what happened in

the womb. That information is intact.

Keeps our body functioning almost

perfectly in our teenage years, 20,

you're in your early 30s. You're

starting to lose that information and so

your body's not functioning perfectly

anymore.

>> Gray has

>> you've got some gray. Exactly. That's a

good example of cells that lose their

identity and stop making melanin, the

black pigment.

>> But it's going to get worse. I promise

you, unless you know, unless we we're

hurry up and uh gets lost. It gets

corrupted. But the beautiful thing is we

believe we found a backup copy of that

information from youth that we can

reinstall into cells, into tissues, into

the entire body of a mouse and hopefully

a human. That backup copy is in every

old person, I believe, and it can be

accessed. So when I see an old person

walking down the street now, I don't

think, oh, that person's just worn out,

frail, going to die. I just think that's

someone that needs a reset. And inside

that person is a young person waiting to

come out again. That's a totally

different way to think about old age.

And in the future, people will have a

choice to be rejuvenated or not.

>> Where is that backup copy that I need?

>> Well, we're working on that. And uh if I

if I told you, my student would kill me,

but we believe we've found

largely where that information is

stored. It's entirely new biology.

>> And it's currently a secret.

>> It's a secret.

>> Okay. So, you you you lead the way. Tell

me what we should we should talk about

next as it relates to aging.

>> Let's talk about information, right? We

live in the information age and biology

is becoming part of that information

age. And it started with the uh

elucidation of the structure of DNA.

Okay. And so I have I have a model of

DNA here. So for listeners who are not

watching this is a little plastic double

helix. My friend uh Jim Watson uh died

recently last month who he and his

colleague discovered that DNA the

information of life that we get from our

parents is a chemical that's about 6 ft

long in every cell and uh this model

here shows that DNA is a ladder and the

steps on the ladder are the information

of the DNA.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. And you can pull this apart so

that each step becomes 50 50% ripped

apart. So that should come apart. Right.

So I ripped the rung of the ladder apart

and that is called a base on the DNA and

it always matches with its corresponding

chemical. So this short hand we call an

A. It always matches with a T. So an A

becomes a rung on the ladder. And down

here different color here I'm looking at

a red and a green step. Rip it apart.

This is a G and a C letter. G's and C's

come together. And actually when if you

if I rip this ladder into halves and

each step becomes half a ladder. Now you

can see that you can copy DNA because

the A has to match with the T wrong and

the G has to match with the C. So that's

basic DNA. That's how the information is

transferred from cell to cell from

mother to daughter parents to offspring.

There are about 20,000 genes. about

15,000 are turned on, but a different

set gets turned on in large part uh to

make a nerve cell compared to a liver

cell and a skin cell.

>> That's gene expression. And what

controls that gene expression is what's

called not not the genome, which is

what's in front of me here on the DNA

molecule. It's the epi genome. The

epiggenome is the information we get

transferred from cell to cell, from

parent to offspring that's not in this

molecule.

So where's this epigenetic information?

Well, it controls which genes are

switched on and off. And a major

regulator of that process

is the modification of these steps on

the DNA. these chemicals, the C,

particularly the C, which I'm showing

you here, uh, in this red part of the

the molecule, the C gets a little

chemical added to it called a methyl.

And a methyl is just, if you remember

from chemistry, high school, uh, it's a

carbon with three hydrogens. It's very

simple molecule. It gets stuck on that

piece of the the DNA molecule. That's

called DNA methylation. And that will

help determine that pattern of DNA

methylation determines whether this

particular gene will be switched on say

to make an optic nerve or switched off

so that it becomes a liver cell. And

that happens as we're in the womb and we

become an embryo. [snorts] And that's

the epiggenome. These chemicals that

turn genes on and off is the epigenome.

And the information theory of aging

states that the information that's in a

cell, which includes the DNA, but

actually more importantly for aging is

the control systems, the epiggenome that

is pristine when we're young, but as we

get older, we lose that epigenetic

information. The ability to tell a cell

to be a nerve cell versus a liver cell

versus a skin cell, it starts to get

erased. So it when we look at a mouse or

or an old tissue, if I took maybe not

your skin, but but my skin, my skin

cells are no longer as skin-like as they

once were. They've started to lose their

identity. They're starting actually to

to look more like nerve cells and nerve

cells starting to look more like skin

cells because the genes that were once

turned on correctly in my young cells

that that control system, these

chemicals on the DNA molecule, these

methals are getting erased.

>> So aging is an identity crisis of the

cells.

>> It absolutely is. Well put.

>> The cells forget what their job is.

>> Yes, the genes are still there in large

part. 99.999% of the genes are still

there. The molecule's intact,

but the control systems,

>> the label thing you mentioned,

>> the label to tell the cell that this

gene needs to be on, but this one should

always stay off. That gets erased over

time.

>> Why?

>> H we we did partially figure that out.

>> And how do you know?

>> Well, oh, even better.

>> This is this is why I love your podcast,

Stephen. You asked the right questions.

these there are enzymes that remove

these methyl groups um and put them back

on. So the cells controlling these

things they shouldn't change but they

do. And one of the things that messes

the system up is

major catastrophe in a cell. And when

the cell panics

it removes these structures to try and

adapt to the stress

>> the label

>> the label comes off in a desperate

attempt to survive. But then the cell

doesn't fully revert back to the

original state. Some of these chemicals

and some of the proteins that bind to

the DNA, which is also important for

this epiggenome, they don't all go back

to where they started. I've used the

analogy that uh it's like a pingpong or

a tennis match where the proteins that

control the genes, they they get

relocized to where the emergency is. and

an emergency. One, the one that we think

is most dangerous and a large c of cause

of aging is a broken chromosome. If you

have a broken chromosome, if you don't

fix that, you're either going to become

a cancer cell or you're going to die.

It's not good. Um, and so cells panic.

And in that panic of moving proteins

away and turning on these stress

response genes, uh, that's great in the

short term. The cell might survive, but

they don't fully reset. those proteins

don't all go back to where they once

were say 10 minutes ago when the stress

needed to be the disaster happened. And

if you do that time and time again and

every one of your cells has at least one

broken chromosome every day that's 20

trillion of these events every day in

your body over time tick tick tick you

get the aging process we believe.

>> So I I guess I've got two questions. Uh

I guess the first question if I was

thinking about the sequence of asking

these questions is

what is increasing that stress on my

cells? Therefore what is increasing

aging? And also like why didn't

evolution just come up with a solution

for this that stopped me aging then?

>> Like evolution is very smart. Couldn't

it just fix this?

>> Well before I get into that uh one of

the the reasons we know that this works

because you asked me how do we know

that's true is that we created this this

catastrophe in animals. We we took mice

and we we we broke their chromosomes in

a way that didn't cause [clears throat]

cancer or mutations.

If we're right, what should happen to

these mice?

>> They get old fast.

>> They get old fast.

>> Gray hair.

>> And they did. We call them the ice mice.

Ice stands for inducible changes to the

epiggenome. And we were able to induce

these changes. And we took bets in the

lab. This is going back now 12 years

ago. Uh I I bet that we would get aging.

Okay. But I was the only one in the lab

that thought that that would happen. We

had a lot of bets that the mice would

die, a lot of bets that the mice would

get cancer, and a few said nothing would

happen. But we got aging. In fact, I was

I was in Australia where where I'm from,

as you know, and I got a picture on my

old old style iPhone and it was a

picture of an old mouse. Uh well, it was

a sick-l looking mouse and the and the

the text was problem. We have a sick

mouse and I wrote back, "That's not a

sick mouse, that's an old mouse." And

that was the first time I realized that

we'd had evidence that our theory, the

information theory of aging is correct.

So what we did actually, and this might

satisfy your and your listeners

curiosity, we generated a mouse from

scratch using stem cells. And so we

start with a a mouse stem cell that we

grow in the lab in the dish. And we

changed the genetics of that stem cell

so that we could feed it a drug uh

tmoxifen which is used uh in in

chemotherapy. And that drug turned on

a gene from a slime mold, something you

might find in the forest that breaks DNA

of the mouse but does it in a way that

doesn't cause cancer or mutations. Just

cuts it and the cells put it back

together. So we could take a mouse and

for 3 weeks we turned on this slime mold

cutting protein and nothing happened to

the mouse at the time. It's like a you

don't feel an X-ray. You don't feel

different when you fly except for maybe

jet lag and dehydration. But you don't

get old suddenly. Same with the mice.

They were normal. They felt fine. And

that's why at first people said, "Oh,

nothing's going to happen to these

mice." After 3 weeks they were fine. But

we set in motion a cascade of

accelerated aging events that about 10

months later they were super gray and

super old and had all the diseases of

aging 50% faster than their twins that

we didn't treat.

>> And you've got photos of those we could

show.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Let's show those. So, if I

was to do the experiment in you, I might

have to engineer it a clone of you, but

I could do that. Uh, you know, I'm not

saying that it's ethically right, but

but theoretically we could make a clone

of you, put in that slime mold gene,

turn it on,

>> and your clone would be 50% older than

you are.

>> Can you translate this into the equival?

So, it would be like in me doing what

and then me getting old fast.

>> Yeah. Uh, well, we're exposed to to

things that cause DNA breaks all the

time. They happen naturally as the cells

try to copy their DNA. But you can

accelerate that by getting an X-ray, a

CT scan, flying a lot and cosmic rays

banging into your DNA. And

>> I fly all the time. I've had loads of CT

scans and X-rays.

>> Yeah. Uh and and though it's

imperceptible, I believe that that's

probably accelerating your aging

process.

>> What's flying doing to my So again, you

talked about flying being equival to

what you did to the mouse. In what way?

Well, every time you break your

chromosome, you're rearranging your

epiggenome in a catastrophic way that

doesn't fully reset and your cell will

lose its identity faster. I also believe

um and we have some evidence that even

going to a rock concert and have

blasting your eardrums is such a stress

on those cells in your ear that the

reason that you become deaf earlier is

because your ear hair cells are getting

older faster. You don't want to break

the DNA. You don't want to cause

catastrophe to your fragile cells in

your body because the recovery isn't

complete and aging ensues.

>> So, with this theory in mind, what are

the day-to-day things that we're all

doing that are accelerating our age?

Like, cuz I think what's really

interesting is I looked at my brother

Jason. He's a year older than me. He has

three kids that are like under the age

of seven or eight now. And this

Christmas time, cuz it's just been

Christmas, I looked at his hair to see

how many gray hairs he had versus me.

And I thought, "Okay, he has

considerably more.

>> He's a year older than me." And I was

thinking that's like a a proxy of aging

to some degree. What is it he's

potentially done on a day-to-day basis?

I know you don't know him, so this is

why it's not not an offensive uh answer

to give. What is it that someone who is

generally sort of genetically very

similar but is making different

lifestyle choices is doing to accelerate

that process of wrinkles or gray hairs

or well here's the good news that you

can have a big impact on your rate of

aging by changing your lifestyle. It

turns out your DNA is not your destiny.

It's the epiggenome. So that how you

live your life is really 80 to 90% of

your rate of aging.

That's good. It's in your hands. But it

also means that some people mess up

their lives. There are actually twin

studies from uh mostly from Denmark,

identical twins, one that goes and

smokes and gets obese and uh goes in the

sun and they are much older looking than

their identical twin. Essentially

proving that the DNA is not the reason

you age. First of all, they're going to

be people in the audience uh who are

listening or watching who have gray hair

saying, "Damn it, I'm not old." And

that's true. I mean, nobody died of gray

hair, right? And sometimes genetically,

you can get gray old uh but not be

physically old. What is true that's

often not comfortable is how old you

look is a very good representation of

how old you are in your organs as well.

So, doing the right things. So, what are

those things? Let's tick off some of the

major things that people should be doing

and they can have a big impact. They can

lengthen your life by a decade just by

doing some of the major things. So, we

know that on average people can live 14

years longer. This is based on a study

that came out from Harvard, a long-term

study of the lifespan of World War II

veterans. If you avoid smoking,

cigarette smoking, and really any type

of smoke in your lungs, smoking breaks

your DNA. It's going to accelerate aging

in your lungs, your whole body. Avoid

excessive drinking. We now know that

even more than one glass a day of

alcohol is bad. I've given up alcohol

for the most part for that reason. Eat

well. So, you want to eat healthy food.

We've got some healthy food here we're

going to talk about. Um, so make sure

you you don't uh overeat or eat

ultrarocessed foods. And the big one,

one of the best things you can do

besides all of that is exercise. Okay?

And exercise covers a lot of things. So,

we can drill into that as well. But the

fifth one is interesting. It may be

surprising, but actually good news for

you. Have a reliable partner.

>> I think you're going to say be a

podcaster. I was going to Okay.

>> Oh, [laughter] no. That probably

accelerates your age. Yes. So, um, if

you don't have a reliable partner, have

a pet because the human bond is

something that is shown to slow aging

and associates with people who live

longer than others that are lonely.

>> Interesting. We're going to dig into all

of those in great detail. Specifically,

very interested in in exercise, diet,

lifestyle, fasting, I know is a big

subject you speak about which I'm very,

very interested in. And actually, as I

was doing the research into this

conversation,

again, my the way that I'm going to

approach nutrition has shifted because

of some of the things I discovered

there.

>> I want to just tick off on this

evolution point,

>> right? Let's come back to that.

>> Yeah. I just want to get clear. Yeah.

Like, why didn't evolution fix it for

me? Because they talk about survival of

the fittest and that the very fact that

I'm here is because my my ancestors were

good at survival, but listen, my

ancestors all died at like 30, 40, 50,

60, 70, 80 years old. That's not very

good. Why? Why didn't they just live

longer?

>> Well, that's why. You just said the

answer yourself. Because your ancestors

didn't live beyond 40 or 50, even less,

right? Most men uh in prehistoric times

would die from [clears throat] famine,

disease, and actually a lot of them from

war. So, most people didn't make it 80.

Some people did, but very, very rarely.

So the the forces of natural selection

were on early survival and fast

breeding. Let's put it this way. If

there was someone who was born with a

mutation that allowed them to live a lot

longer to 90 in a prehistoric world,

that's useless because you're probably

going to die at 30 or 40 anyway and so

are your children. [clears throat] So

what you want to do is find genes that

allow you to become reproductively

successful early on in life. um and make

sure your children survive. And so we we

have children pretty early, but humans

for for various reasons have a long

developmental period including

education. So we don't we don't develop

very rapidly, right? We don't wake up

and we can walk and run like a lot of

other species and mammals. [gasps]

But we don't live a long time because

there was in the environment that we

evolved, the Serengeti plane is pretty

much agreed upon as that's one of the

places we evolved. Certainly uh Eastern

Africa that was extremely difficult and

dangerous place to live. You could get

eaten by an animal and if you didn't get

eaten by an animal you get killed by the

neighboring tribe. That's super

dangerous, right? And then so we we

evolved to live really at optimal to

about 30

but not much more than that. So after

30, as you might be experiencing with

with your body,

>> we're at the forces of entropy. So the

body starts to decay. The information

starts to get lost in the body.

But the the good news is that if you

take away predation and death from a

species, it evolves longer lifespans.

Now, it makes evolutionary sense to have

genes that allow you to put more effort

into building a strong body and slowing

down the aging process and preventing

DNA breaks, chromosomal breaks. We know

that this is true because if you put

species, say, on an island where there

are no predators, what happens to their

longevity?

They get longer lived naturally. It

takes 20, 30 generations, but only when

there's no predation, when you're not

under a lot of stress to uh breed

quickly, do you get longer lifespans

evolving. Given that humans don't have

predators anymore, we are slowly

evolving,

longer lifespans. But it's very slow and

it's not going to happen fast enough for

you and me.

>> And do the organisms that do live

really, really long have a small amount

of predators in nature? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Think about them.

>> The bristle cone pine.

>> What's that?

>> It's the longest lived tree in the

world. It can live many thousands of

years.

>> It's Are you jealous?

>> Not jealous. No. [laughter] No. They

live a tough life. Some of those trees

have been around since the pyramids.

>> Wow.

>> The reason they live can live for so

long and evolve to live so long is that

things don't eat them. They're totally

poisonous. You you don't want to eat a

bristle conine. The same for a whale,

right? The boowhead whales, some of

these very large animals, no predators.

So, they've evolved a strategy of

breeding slowly, but building very

powerful systems to stop epigenetic

changes. Their epigenetic control

systems are stable. They don't get

cancer and they they don't lose they

don't have this identity crisis until

hundreds of years. And we know that

people study the cells of whales in the

dish and those cells don't lose their

identity very quickly even when you

break their DNA.

>> So I I guess the place also to to go

next is talking about disease generally

and what disease is. So are these

diseases a function of aging? Does this

idea of reversing aging even matter if

cancer is going to take most of us out

anyway at some point? Is there a link

between aging and disease? This might be

the most important point that I make

today.

When you reverse aging, diseases of

aging go away or are cured. And in my

lab, including many types of cancer as

well.

The diseases that we try to treat

individually with different medicines

today that we think are unrelated,

Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, you

name them. Fundamentally, what's driving

a lot of those diseases is aging.

If you never got old, would you ever get

Alzheimer's even if you had the genes

that predispose you? No.

Right? And so what we see in my lab is

when we give an animal a disease and we

can do that. We can put in the human

genes for Alzheimer's into a mouse, it

becomes has dementia. When we reverse

the age of the brain of that animal,

we're not treating the disease. We're

treating aging. The disease goes away.

The body can heal itself when it's

young. So, it's the aging process that

reveals the disease that can be cured by

reversing.

>> Why does the aging process reveal a

disease? Why don't we get Alzheimer's at

15?

>> Because the cells are so healthy, they

can fix themselves. They can renew

themselves. The disease processes that

cause these problems for us don't exist

when we're young. Why is it that a

teenager rarely has a heart attack?

because their body prevents them. Why do

young people typically not get cancer?

Because the immune system finds cancer

cells and clears them out. You and I

have cancer cells in our body right now.

Why are we probably not going to die in

the next year? Cuz our immune system

will find them and kill them. But as we

get older, we're going to lose that

ability and we'll have a greater chance

of having cancer.

>> So, are you saying that if we cure

aging, we're probably going to by way of

that cure most of these diseases?

>> 100%.

We were talking about um

menopause quite a lot on this podcast

and fertility, menopause, women's

ovaries as um one of the first places

that ages. And I've heard you explain

that you think that evolution programmed

women to stop having children during

menopause because continuing

reproduction would drain energy needed

to raise existing children. So is

infertility something that could

theoretically be prevented? in mice,

which is where we live in my lab where

we work, it can be prevented and it can

be reversed.

>> I thought we'd run out of eggs. That's

like the

>> that's the current theory. The evidence

that we have from my lab and a lab that

I worked with in Australia

caused me to question that idea that we

run that women run out of eggs.

We have published and repeated many

times that if you treat old female mice

16 months of age, which is like a 65,

70year-old human that has long time

since given up having offspring,

we can treat the ovaries with a chemical

that rejuvenates the eggs that are in

the ovary, maybe even produces new ones.

We don't know for sure, but those

16-month-old mice that stopped having

kids a uh probably at least 6 months ago

now start producing healthy offspring

again. Their eggs look young, pristine,

compared to the terrible eggs that if

you try to harvest some eggs from a

mouse that old, it's hard to find any

that look normal. The chromosomes are

messed up, ripped apart. They're not

going to produce healthy babies. But we

can take those eggs or at least the

ovaries with those eggs in them and

cause them to be young again and make

fresh eggs that can produce healthy

offspring that live a normal lifespan.

The real question is will this work in

women? And that's something that I'm

keen on testing.

>> It must be really hard to test a lot of

these things in people, right? Because

we you've mentioned the word mice quite

a lot.

>> It's harder than you can imagine

actually. Um, and I've spent a lot of my

career since I was 35, um, aiming to

develop a medicine to treat diseases and

aging. And it can be it can go wrong in

many ways. Um, even if the science is

good and right. Um, and it it's there's

money, there's business, there's laws,

there's politics, there's business

strategies, there's change of

leaderships.

um all sorts of human introduced

variables that can get in the way.

There's patents and uh and then there's

there's competition and spite that also

gets into it. Um and I've had to deal

with all of those things. Um including

competing against some of the largest

pharmaceutical companies in the world

who really didn't want me to succeed.

But yeah, it's extremely difficult to

make a drug. But I do want to remind you

and everyone listening and watching that

we're beyond mice now for age reversal.

We've done this in monkeys. Monkeys that

are physically and almost genetically

identical to us. So it's not a big leap

from It is a pretty big leap from mouse

to human, but from a monkey to a human.

It's we're essentially, you know,

slightly smarter monkeys.

I just had a thought about how other

countries and other nations might be

conducting their own sort of secret

research and they might not have the

same bureaucratic political ethical

considerations that you have to contend

with. Do you think about this much that

some of the sort of geopolitical

adversaries might be doing secret

testing in some research lab somewhere

on humans?

>> I think about it um and in fact the

United States government thinks about it

too. a large investment into uh the com

one of the companies that I uh sit on

the board of was blocked because the US

government claimed that the technology

was too dangerous to be in the hands of

foreign companies and governments. So

there the US government at least in in

the previous administration was

extremely cautious about this technology

falling into the wrong hands.

>> Which technology

>> the ability to reverse aging? So the US

government blocked that technology

because they were scared that it might

fall into the wrong hands.

>> Well, they blocked the the very large

investment over $und00 million into the

company from a foreigner because they

would have more access to the

information and the progress.

>> Is it China?

>> Um I won't say more. It's sensitive.

>> Most I can say is that governments are

watching this technology very closely.

not just the US but around the world

because the winner will make not not

just a lot of economic benefit but there

will there will be potential for radical

change in the pharmaceutical industry in

healthcare um the amount of change

socially will be dramatic as well but

there are also uses that the government

has identified uh so-called super

soldier potential now I I don't agree

that that's a reason to slow down on the

research. Others claim that it was worth

it. But I do believe that the technology

is very powerful and we should start to

get ready for when this comes to

society. Cuz it's not an if, as I said,

it's a when.

>> The technology to do what?

>> To rejuvenate the human body.

>> Why do we need to get ready?

>> Well, because it'll be massive social

change. If you can choose how old you

want to be and people don't die as at 80

anymore, let's say they they can live

till 120 or beyond, there's big changes.

There's social security issues. There's

uh employment. Though I will say that

the the disaster scenario that often

comes to mind when I talk about this and

which I covered in in the last part of

my book, lifespan, it's actually

economically hugely advantageous to slow

aging and prevent diseases. A lot of the

US economy and most advanced economies

goes to healthcare and chronic disease.

A lot of people are sick for 5 to 10

years. That's where most of people's

savings and retirement and government

money goes in the most expensive years

of your life for the last 2 years. If

you can delay that, it's going to have

massively positive economic benefits to

a nation that adopts these medicines.

I've got a question for you that

actually came to mind yesterday when I

was I watched some I don't know some

video on social media and they asked a

question to a guy. Um David, if you were

a billionaire now at age 56, would you

give it all up

to be

my age again, 33?

>> Um I don't think you can put a price on

being young. Another way of of putting

it, and I've I've seen this on social

media, would you for a billion dollars

would you swap with Warren Buffett?

>> No. Absolutely not. Right? So there's no

money in the world that you want to be

old. Right? Uh

>> yeah,

>> it's not worth it.

>> In other words, youth is more valuable

than a billion dollars.

It may be the most valuable thing you

could ever have is your youth.

>> Is it's such an an interesting and

illuminating analogy or metaphor or

whatever because suddenly you do realize

that how much we value it. We value it

more than anything.

I would rather be 33 years old than be a

43y old billionaire. Even the 10 years I

value as a billion dollars.

>> Yeah, one year maybe, but not 10 years,

right? 10 years is super I I totally

agree with you. Um and the older you

get, the more valuable it becomes. It's

important to realize the the massive

impact that this technology can have not

just economically but on individual

lives of human beings across the planet.

The world when this becomes a reality.

Again, I'm speaking like it's a

certainty cuz I'm pretty convinced it's

going to happen. The that world is going

to be so different from the world we

live in. It's going to be as different

as the precomputer world and the

pre-eroplane world as today is. I'm

trying to imagine the world where we

could pick our age and maybe even, you

know, you talked about earlier being

able to continue to reset to that age.

>> Yeah.

>> Trying to imagine what the world would

be like if I could be 33 forever or if

you could be, you know, 33 forever

>> or even for another 100 years or

something.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> I could stay 33 for 100 years. Do you

think that's the plausible outcome which

is we can kind of pick an age and stay

there for a hundred years like at that

particular age or is it just that I'm

going to be 150 in my physical form. I'm

going to be wrinkled and gray but I'm

just going to continue to live. Is it

looking young or is it just living

longer?

>> It's actually both.

>> It's the good news is it's both. And

we're doing a lot of work in my lab on

skin and hair uh hair loss, hair

graying.

>> Yeah. Please help me. Like if I

[laughter]

>> You don't have to worry just yet. Um you

know, we we'll help your brother first.

>> No, no, come on.

>> Yeah, we we will tell him to call me. Um

so we we we've seen that we can

rejuvenate the skin of again mice, but

still we also grow human skin in the lab

from scratch and we can put that human

skin on mice and the mice have human

skin. So we can now test age reversal in

that system. I'm very optimistic that

we'll be able to rejuvenate uh the the

external part of the body as well as the

internal. If we can cure blindness,

reversing the age of the skin is is a

piece of cake. What what does that world

look like? I'm trying to understand all

of the sort of unintended consequences

of such a world where we're all kind of

young and we all live longer. Is there

problems of meaning and purpose? Is this

what are the unintended consequences?

>> I've thought a lot about this. There's

this gut feeling that a lot of people

have, maybe you're feeling it now, is

that if I'm not worried about death, I'm

not going to strive as hard or I'm not

going to have as much meaning. I'm not

going to have agency.

I totally reject that view.

I believe that every moment is special.

I don't believe I would be enjoying this

conversation with you anymore

if I could live 200 years. I'm loving

the moment.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. And so I I believe that we get up

with purpose and that if I lived for a

thousand years, I'd still enjoy every

day that I lived. And even a thousand

years, one day may be seen as too short.

You know, it's 20 times my age, a little

bit less than 20. That's still not very

much in the grand scheme of, you know,

the age of uh geology and the earth. We

still are around like that. Uh and so I

think that we will still love life. Most

of us will still love life and enjoy

every moment, but we'll get more

opportunities. We can try multiple

careers. Maybe we we we will get

divorced and find have a whole new life.

So, there will be opportunities and it

will be a magnificent world. Not to

mention the productivity that humans can

provide with the the knowledge of a 50

or 80year-old, but with the body of a

30-year-old.

>> Do you think people will make different

decisions about having children? Well, I

think we have a problem already with the

decisions that a lot of couples are

making, which is leaving it too late.

Um, it's very clear with the fertility

rate and the rate of child birth that

basically we're going off a cliff. And I

I think that

it's going to be important to be able to

give couples and women especially the

choice to have children for longer. And

that's one of the reasons that I work on

this topic is that I think that the

world with all of the the training that

we need to do and the pressures on

finding a mate and being happily married

or or at least being partnered up that

can take decades to get the right

person. You don't want to rush into it

like people used to. And being able to

have children in your 50s and 60s, I

think would be a great gift to humanity.

That's my personal view. Some people

may, you know, for whatever reason

disagree with that. But I think that the

pressures to have children before 35

typically are just extreme and and

unfair. But also that it'll help us

maintain the human population cuz by

2050, we're going to start going in a

bad decline and earlier in many western

countries. And without humans, you know,

absent android robots everywhere, we're

going to have a deficiency of human

capital and human productivity. And this

is I would argue with Elon that this is

the best solution to that uh lack of

humans is just keep people healthy and

alive and productive for longer.

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You mentioned uh cancer earlier on is

something that you're working on in your

laboratory. What progress have you made

in your laboratory? What has that taught

you about what the nature of cancer, but

also how we might prevent and cure it

someday? Cuz I I was reading that in

your laboratory, you have been able to

slow the growth of certain cancer cells

and kill those cancer cells completely.

>> Yeah. Uh so my my wonderful student

Nalat uh is is doing her PhD on this and

what we've hypothesized and now tested

is the idea again based on the

information theory of aging is that

cancer is

expressing those genes differently in

the same way that aging is is a cellular

identity crisis. Cancer is a cellular

identity crisis and that if we can

rejuvenate an old cell to be normal and

turn on the right genes again, we should

be able to do that for a cancer cell

>> and either make it normal or if it tries

to be normal and wakes up from its

zombie-like state, it might even kill

itself. And that's what we're finding in

my lab. Nut's work has shown that a

majority of cancers that we've grown in

the lab will die and shrink in an animal

if you try to reverse their age

>> through the injection

>> that you were referring to earlier on.

>> Yeah, we can do it a couple of ways. One

is using those three genes that

rejuvenate the epiggenome and make cells

young again.

>> Yeah,

>> the one for the eye. The same technology

for the eye we're using in cancer cells.

But we also have this chemical drink

that we can give to animals or to put on

the cells and that also wakes the cancer

cells up tries to they try to become

more normal. They turn on the original

set of genes that they might have had on

30 40 years ago. Some of these cancer

cells that we grow in the lab were from

the 20th century. We rejuvenate them. We

turn on those those genes that were

originally in the normal tissue and the

cells kill themselves. And so I believe

that we may not be able to cure all

cancer using this. That would be crazy

to even say that. But I do believe that

if we're successful rejuvenating the

human body, cancer is not

going to be a risk. And that's just a

nice side effect of what our original

mission was, which was to treat aging.

>> So from this we can start to try and

understand what we think is causing

cancer. And I guess this goes back to

the a lot of the carcogenic behavior

that you described earlier, things like

smoking, anything that's applying stress

on the DNA. Is that like a

>> Yeah, you have to break the DNA.

>> Um that's the cat a catastrophe is

really broken DNA, but you can do other

things that catastrophes like overheat

the cells. Um even mechanical stress,

you know, too many hits on the brain in

football will will do that. So yes,

that's exactly right. And that drives

aging. And aging drives cancer. By the

way, one of my theories called the

Goncoenesis hypothesis. Terrible name,

but nevertheless, Goncoenesis it is.

It's the idea that as we age, we're

becoming more cancer-like as as a as a

human. Our metabolism when we're old is

closer to heading towards what a cancer

cell's metabolism is like. So that when

we actually do get cancer, the cancer

cells grow better in an old person than

when you're young. And so by

rejuvenating those cancer cells, giving

them the the ability to be young again,

they actually either slow down in their

growth or, as I said, kill themselves in

response.

>> I've got a bit of a a prop here, which

might be useful for the the context of

>> goodness.

There are people here that may not know

what I'm holding in my hands, but uh for

those of you who don't know and who are

just listening, I'm holding a record uh

in my hands, a vinyl record uh that

Steven just handed me. So the the

information theory of aging, uh the

analogy that I used is that it disrupts

information. And so this record, this

album has information on it. It's music.

And just like DNA, it's information. So

instead of the DNA information, the

control of the DNA bit getting messed

up. It in the album, it's like

scratching this album. So I'm literally

going to scratch this album. Is that

okay with you?

>> Of course you can.

>> All right. I'm not sure I can fix it, by

the way. It may be a one-way thing, but

I've never done this before, but

that's painful.

Maybe you can hear that happening. So,

if we were to play this on a record

player with a needle, it's going to jump

around and it's going to read the wrong

songs or it's it's going to certainly

not sound very good. So, that's that's

now the equivalent of an old cell. The

information, the beautiful music is

there, but the ability to read it has

been messed up in the same way that old

age, the information is in the DNA, but

you the cells don't read it correctly.

And what our technology is is to get rid

of those scratches. and so we can play

the beautiful music of our youth again.

>> Um, I have got this uh you told me to to

bring my weighted vest and this neck

brace.

>> Oh my goodness. Uh,

>> I think I put on the wrong way. Okay,

>> any anyone listening, Steven's putting

on a very heavy jacket right now with

lead weights and a strap around his neck

to limit his neck movement.

>> Oh, wow.

That's a lot. Listen, so I'm I just put

on a 20 I think it's 20 kg. My son's

weak now. Um, jacket and a neck brace.

And ahead of this conversation, my team

told me to get one of these. What is the

analogy here that you're you're

creating? This is very hell.

>> It's bad, right?

>> It's hard. Yeah.

>> Right. Imagine

feeling like that for a decade. That's

old age. You feeling tired, weak. You

can barely hold your body up. You can

barely move your neck. It would be

painful. You're not in pain yet. No. But

most people in their 80s have some sort

of disease and aches and pains.

Try doing that for another 10 minutes

maybe. How long can you keep that on?

>> I'll keep it on for another 10 minutes.

But so why is this? Cuz it just it's

weight and im immobility. I can't move

my neck the same. My shoulders feel

heavier.

How How is this a relevant analogy to

aging? Because it just kind of feels

like immobility and weight. Uh, well, I

have to come over there and use this

pair of scissors to be stabbing you as

well. So, you can feel pain as you move

as well. That's part of old age. It is

not a fun thing being old. And most old

people, the reason that they don't love

life anymore is because they feel like

you do or worse. Not to mention the fact

that there you need to put Vaseline on

your eyes, earplugs in your ears if you

want to know what it's like being old.

>> Oh god, it's not nice. Mm- or even

worse, shut your eyes and you can never

open them again.

That's what it's like for those patients

that we hope to cure a blindness in.

>> If if I'm going to ask you a really

tough question, which is if I put a

calculator in front of you right now and

you had to hit a number on that

calculator and then hit enter

>> and that was the age that you were going

to live to and you had to make that

decision now.

>> Yeah.

>> What number would you hit on that

calculator?

>> Infinity.

>> Really? So you No, no, no. There's no

day if you're healthy where you want to

die. Even if you're 100, 120, if you

have friends, family, loved ones, you're

healthy, would you say, "Okay, tomorrow

I'm ready to die."

>> No, it's not happen unless there was

some kind of psychic issue or something.

>> Exactly. Right. So, that's my point is

when people say, "Oh, when I'm 80, kill

me." That is That's Excuse my

language. Am I allowed to swear on this?

>> No question.

>> Um,

>> sorry. I'm going to have to beep it for

the kids. I guess

>> it's it's only when you're sick or you

have depression that you want to leave

the leave this world. Otherwise, life is

a joy for most people on in the world.

Not everybody and we have to fix that as

well, but for most of us,

being alive is is the greatest gift of

any, you know, collection of atoms.

Consciousness is even greater. And why

would you want that to end?

who would choose that if they had the

alternative to be with family and

friends.

>> Interesting. I say that's interesting

because I have always assumed that I

wouldn't want to live forever. But the

when when you asked me if I was healthy

and I had my friends and family and I

was [clears throat] doing things that I

loved professionally, would there come a

day where I would choose to go now? No,

there wouldn't. Just like there hasn't

come a day in the last 33 years where

I've chosen to go now.

>> Exactly.

>> Do you think it's it's going to be

possible in the next 50 years for us to

live forever?

>> I'd be shocked if that happened, but

I've been shocked my whole career at how

fast this technology is moving. And now

with AI, things are going so fast. My

head's spinning.

So, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. But

I'm I'm skeptical that we could live

forever in my lifetime at least. But as

I said, you're pro you're probably going

to live you are going to live into the

22nd century. We can't imagine what the

world's going to be like then.

>> And AI has really changed this equation.

>> Oh, absolutely. We're we're doing things

in my lab that would have taken 160

years before and and quite literally

billions of dollars on a 10 $10,000

budget.

>> Well, I guess I better make it to 2040.

Um, so let's talk about fasting and food

and nutrition and get go a little bit

deeper on that. I've had so so many

conversations over the years about this

subject of fasting. But, um, as I was

reading your research, you really do

feel that fasting, just eating less

often

is one of the most important things that

we can all do for longevity.

>> I I do. I do and I practice it as much

as I can, though it's challenging in a

world that's full of abundant food. But

yes, we've known for thousands of years,

the ancients are not dummies. They they

could witness what happens when you

fast. Uh clarity of mind, long-term

health. They could observe the

difference between the glutton and the

people that fasted for religious

reasons. It's obvious, but there's

certain ways to do it. Fasting doesn't

include malnutrition. You have to do it

with abundant, you know, vitamins,

minerals. You want to make sure that

you're you you have adequate nutrition.

But I think three meals a day is is

craziness. It turns out this idea

breakfast is the most important meal of

the day is marketing from the early 20th

century by companies I will not name,

but it was breakfast cereal. Breakfast

is not the most important meal of the

day for most people, especially adults,

especially if you're not hungry when you

wake up. There's no point in eating if

you're not hungry in the morning. I'm

one of those people. So, I've skipped

breakfast. How about you?

>> Yeah, I'm the same. I'm the same. I

don't eat. My first meal today was 300

p.m. because I had a podcast until, you

know, 2 2 p.m. So, which is typical for

me. I just don't get hungry in the

mornings now because of the marketing

though for breakfast sometime I've

sometimes I've said to myself you should

eat and I'll make myself eat but it's

very very rare I'm notoriously people

know that I'm notoriously

um a late eater 4 p.m. sometimes 5 p.m.

How are you feeling with that heavy?

>> It's it's heavy, David. I'm going to be

honest. It's not I'm finding myself like

trying to find a comfortable position.

>> Yeah, it it's tough being old and by the

end of it, you will be so convinced that

this research is important because to

live like that

>> in most people life is not worth living.

>> I put a suit, a very heavy suit like

that, but on the arms as well, not just

the body. And he had the the ear muffs

and the the eyes. This was the uh the

governor of Massachusetts 15 minutes in

that bodysuit and he was crying not

because he was in pain because he as he

said on stage it was the first time in

his life he understood how his father

feels and could be empathetic. We young

people I'm relatively young 56 you're

very young 33. We have no idea what it's

like to be old. It can be horrific. So

why wouldn't we do the right things like

fasting, exercising [clears throat]

so we can get an extra 10 years, 20

years, maybe longer of healthy life?

>> It does also give me a lot of empathy

for people that um have a bit more

weight on them as well because of you

know if I was if I weighed that much I

don't know if I'd be very active to be

completely honest with you.

>> Exactly. And you're in pain too. Don't

forget every joint can be hurting. How

do you feel taking that off?

>> Much better. right?

>> Free like I want to jump.

>> So let's

hope, pray, wish that these technologies

that I'm talking about today work cuz

that could be what it feels like to be

rejuvenated when you're 80.

>> I hope [clears throat] so. Um to close

off on this point of of fasting, why why

does it help extend my life? Yeah. Just

eating less.

>> Part of it came out of research in my

lab, but of course many others I need to

give credit to. But in my lab

specifically, what we worked on in

initially when I started, we studied

yeast cells, little uh microscopic cells

that as everyone knows we used to make

beer and bread and champagne. These

yeast cells live about 10 days and then

they die. And we used yeast as a model

for aging. And what we discovered with

yeast cells, which turns out to be true

in our bodies, is that adversity, as