Joe Rogan Experience #1349 - David Sinclair

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (clears throat) David Sinclair, Lifespan:…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (clears throat) David Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age & Why We Don't Have To. I'm so happy there are people like you out there, 'cause I don't wanna age. I'm aging, clearly, but, uh, I'm not interested in it. I don't like it.

   2. DSDavid Sinclair0:17

      Yeah. Well, I don't know anybody who does, uh, Joe Rogan. Thanks for having me back on.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      Thanks for coming back. The first one was a, a smash hit, man. People loved it. Uh, all my friends were very excited. But, uh, I had a question for you right off the bat, um, regarding Metformin. There was actually an article, I'm sure you saw it, recently, um, like within the last couple of days, that was going around through all the mainstream papers. It was, uh, talking about how for w- the use of Metformin, uh, DHEA, and w- was there something else as well that was taking two years-

   4. DSDavid Sinclair0:49

      Human growth hormone.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:50

      ... human growth hormone, taking two years, two biological years off of people's lives in terms of their, their age, which are natural eight, which are actual ... I'm 52, it would make me 50.

   6. DSDavid Sinclair1:00

      Right. Even 49.5, according to the study.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:02

      Ooh.

   8. DSDavid Sinclair1:02

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:02

      That's what I'm looking for.

   10. DSDavid Sinclair1:04

       Yeah, that was a-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       Get back to the fours.

   12. DSDavid Sinclair1:05

       ... that was a good study. Uh, it, you know, it's only nine people, so we have to repeat this. Um-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Were they studs? Did you get like nine super athletes or did you get like schmoes that don't exercise?

   14. DSDavid Sinclair1:15

       Uh, I, as far as I know, these were just, uh, regular-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       Schmoes?

   16. DSDavid Sinclair1:19

       ... schmoes, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:20

       (laughs)

   18. DSDavid Sinclair1:20

       Which is good news for schmoes like me.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       Yes. Good news. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what you want. You don't want like ... Some people just respond better. They're, they have super bodies, you know?

   20. DSDavid Sinclair1:29

       Well, the gre- great thing about that, uh, study is first of all, I, I was with the first, uh, the main author on that paper, uh, while it came out. I was over in Israel, uh, as part of my journey up the, the great rift of Africa, ended up in Israel. Anyway, the guy there, uh, Steve Horvath is his name, uh, he and I and a couple of other guys are trying to figure out, uh, not just why we age, why we don't have to, but is aging, uh, truly reversible? And that's what this study suggests is that it's not just about slowing down aging, but one day we could be 80, but biologically 30.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:04

       Now, when we're talking about the biological age, how is that measured? Is this measured by the length of the telomeres? Is this measured by physical performance? Is it measured by a combination of these factors?

   22. DSDavid Sinclair2:17

       It's none of that.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:18

       None of that?

   24. DSDavid Sinclair2:18

       It's something brand new.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:19

       Ooh.

   26. DSDavid Sinclair2:19

       Most people don't know about it. So it's called the Horvath Clock. And what Horvath and others have discovered is that if you read the DNA and you don't just look at the letters A, C, T, G, if you look at what's on the letter C, cytosine it's called, there are chemical modifications. And those chemicals change as we get older in very linear and predictable ways. If you use a computer, AI, you can say, if I took your blood sample right now, I could read your DNA, look at those chemical groups on the Cs, and I could say you are, okay, you're 52, you might be 46 according to that clock. Uh, and also I could predict when you're gonna die.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       Whoa.

   28. DSDavid Sinclair2:59

       Scary thought, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:00

       Yeah, like a fortune teller.

   30. DSDavid Sinclair3:02

       Yeah. But the good news is, well, now that we know what's not just, uh, measuring aging, we actually think that clock is part of the aging process, we're learning how to reverse it too.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   All right, let's do…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      do hot yoga in the morning and then cryo after a podcast. That's how I like to mix it up.

   2. DSDavid Sinclair15:05

      All right, let's do it.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      All right.

   4. DSDavid Sinclair15:07

      I don't have a cryo, uh, handy at my place, but I do, uh, the sauna and then the cold tub, and-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      You, you should get a cryo set-up. They're not that expensive. You can get one.

   6. DSDavid Sinclair15:16

      What about these infrared boxes? Are they any good?

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      Oh, for saunas?

   8. DSDavid Sinclair15:19

      Mm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:21

      I do not know. But, um, some people swear by them. Laird Hamilton, who we were talking about earl- ... Uh, by the way, how good is that coffee?

   10. DSDavid Sinclair15:27

       It's fantastic. I might need a top-up.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       This Laird Hamilton superfood coffee. Well, w- we'll get you more. Oh, uh, oh, Jeff is, uh, going off to pick up our Pablo Escobar, uh, mugshot picture. I'm obsessed with mugshots for some strange reason. Always collecting-

   12. DSDavid Sinclair15:41

       You can tell.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       ... new mugshot pictures. I got a giant Pablo Escobar. It's very nice. Um, the Laird Hamilton stuff is, uh, that's got turmeric, it's got, uh, coconut milk, it's, uh, organic coffee. I'm so addicted to it. I drink that stuff like water.

   14. DSDavid Sinclair15:57

       Yeah, I'm gonna have to get myself some.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Yeah, it's delicious. He s- I mean, you could just, you don't need a machine either. You can mix it yourself. He has all the stuff, you just pour it into coffee.

   16. DSDavid Sinclair16:04

       Yeah. I mean, he's a, he's a hero of mine for, uh-

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       He's a stud.

   18. DSDavid Sinclair16:07

       What is he? He's 50-something now.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:08

       He's a thousand years old.

   20. DSDavid Sinclair16:10

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       Guy runs mountains, fucking surfs things as tall as the Empire State Building. He's a very interesting character. The last I saw him, uh, I was watching something on Instagram and I saw him in a sauna with oven mitts on, riding a bike, like, uh, one of those, uh, Echo bikes, like those Rogue, you know, those, uh, aerosol bikes. Riding one of those fucking things in a sauna.

   22. DSDavid Sinclair16:34

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:34

       I was doing his sauna routine. I did not like it. I was cranking the sauna up to 220 degrees, and, uh, I think I cooked my lungs a little bit. Not bad, but people who listened to the podcast afterwards, my apologies, 'cause I was (coughs) . I was coughing like that for, like, four or five episodes. And then I had decided, "Okay, this is fucking stupid." Like, "I don't think this is good for me."

   24. DSDavid Sinclair16:57

       Right. Well, you know hormesis?

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:59

       Yes.

   26. DSDavid Sinclair16:59

       Uh, what doesn't kill you makes you live longer. That's not exactly true.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       (laughs)

   28. DSDavid Sinclair17:03

       You can push it a little too far sometimes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:04

       Yeah. How about booze? Booze doesn't kill you, but it definitely doesn't make you live longer.

   30. DSDavid Sinclair17:08

       That is true.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. DSDavid Sinclair30:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      Yeah.

   3. DSDavid Sinclair30:00

      Uh, we gotta fix that. It's gotta be personalized, tailored-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      Yeah.

   5. DSDavid Sinclair30:03

      ... measured.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      I think if I wanted to go on safari like that, like you did, I'm, I would, I would have to make sure that I wasn't around any cheering assholes like that. I, I go- I would have to take some sort of a solo trip and I'd have to be heavily armed.

   7. DSDavid Sinclair30:17

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      And then wearing armor, some sort of armor.

   9. DSDavid Sinclair30:20

      Well, so that was in Tanzania.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       (laughs)

   11. DSDavid Sinclair30:22

       I had a flamethrower.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:23

       Yeah.

   13. DSDavid Sinclair30:23

       I'll bring the-

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       There's the flamethrower over there.

   15. DSDavid Sinclair30:24

       ... Elon Musk flamethrower with me. Right, right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:27

       Fuck those things, man.Did you ever see Survivorman? Do you know Survivorman?

   17. DSDavid Sinclair30:31

       Yeah, sure.

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       Yeah. Les is a great guy. But, uh, he's committed to finding Bigfoot now. That's all he's doing these days.

   19. DSDavid Sinclair30:37

       All right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:37

       Yeah, but, um, anyway, Les, uh, did an episode where he did Survivorman in Africa and he- the scenario, he would create these s- fake scenarios, you know, just manmade scenarios. Like, what if you were in a hot air balloon and the hot air balloon got a hole in it and crash landed in these lion-infested territories? So, he literally did that-

   21. DSDavid Sinclair31:03

       That's insane.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:03

       ... in the basket. So, he had a few items in the basket and the- the- the flamethrower for the- for the hot air balloon with him to ward off the fucking lions. So, here he is, it's nighttime in Africa, and by the way, he self-films everything. You know, the reason why they came out with that other show, with that ... Who was that other dude? The other dude that- that got busted, like, sleeping in the Holiday Inn? He got- (laughs) He just-

   23. DSDavid Sinclair31:29

       Uh, Grylls?

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       He was going to the F- yeah, Bear Grylls. He was going to the Four Seasons at night. He's like, "This is how you could do it, but I'm not gonna do it." (laughs) He would-

   25. DSDavid Sinclair31:36

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       He would show you how to do it. "You could sleep in an igloo." But meanwhile, he was fucking-

   27. DSDavid Sinclair31:39

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:40

       ... he was getting room service and eating steaks and shit.

   29. DSDavid Sinclair31:42

       Yeah, that's what I'd do.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:43

       But Les Stroud really does it. I mean, he brings a series of cameras. So, this is him and Les went and he- th- so, the- he pretends the thing crash landed. So, this is his scenario that he's created for himself, but the reality is, he really is surrounded by lions. And so he has a limited amount of propane and he would fire up ... Look it. Look, look, look.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Are you allowed to…

   1. DSDavid Sinclair45:00

      it's a-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      Are you allowed to do anything with them?

   3. DSDavid Sinclair45:01

      I don't know.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      What happens if you find a fossil?

   5. DSDavid Sinclair45:04

      You have to stick it in your pocket.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      Do you have to contact the university, or do you just, like, shut the fuck up?

   7. DSDavid Sinclair45:07

      (laughs) Well, actually, I, I, I probably shouldn't confess this on, uh, on, on live media.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:12

      (laughs) Don't, don't do it, bro. Tell me later.

   9. DSDavid Sinclair45:15

      It's, it's not so bad.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:16

       Okay.

   11. DSDavid Sinclair45:17

       Uh, you can actually find a whole bunch of stuff in Africa that's interesting if you look down rather than out. And, uh, my oldest daughter, our oldest daughter, Alex, uh, she looked down. She's a scientist, and so she, 16-year-old scientist, she found a whole bunch of stone tools.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       Whoa.

   13. DSDavid Sinclair45:33

       Not there. Not, not in Olduvai Gorge. That's sacred. But, you know, just out on the Serengeti or wherever.

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:39

       Did you get them analyzed?

   15. DSDavid Sinclair45:41

       Uh, not yet.

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:44

       They've recently found stone tools in the United States that they've brought back to 16,000 years ago, the oldest known stone tools of any human being, and it's sort of, they're, they're slowly but surely pushing back the dates of human civilization in America.

   17. DSDavid Sinclair46:03

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       And one of the more recent discoveries was stone tools that are from 16,000 years ago. So people had made their way over here, or, here it is.

   19. NANarrator46:12

       Oh, no, this is something else.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:13

       Oh, oh, the monkey.

   21. NANarrator46:13

       I remember asking you about this and you said you never saw it. I don't know if you saw it yet.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       (sighs)

   23. NANarrator46:18

       They said a, there's v- I don't know if they have video of it, but they said they saw this monkey sharpening that stone before it was actually breaking the glass with it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:24

       (exhales)

   25. NANarrator46:25

       I don't know if that's true, but-

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:25

       Monkey shatters zoo glass with sharpened stone. Impressive prison break attempt. Man, fuck keeping monkeys in a cage. That drives me so crazy. I, I hate it. I went, I took a pot edible once, like a real strong one, and I went to the zoo, and it was so depressing staring at the chimps. I just sat across and watched the chimp cage. I'm like, "Oh my God, these things are in hell."

   27. DSDavid Sinclair46:47

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:48

       They're just in prison.

   29. DSDavid Sinclair46:49

       Even keeping little birds in cage, little cages like this, I swear, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:52

       Yeah, but the monkeys are wailing.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:11:29

   40 flights of stairs…

   1. DSDavid Sinclair1:00:00

      stairs. So he managed to climb, um, I think it was 40 stairs in 15, 40 flights of stairs in 15 minutes, which for an 80-year-old was, was quite a record.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      40 flights of stairs in 15 minutes? Holy shit.

   3. DSDavid Sinclair1:00:14

      Yeah, the guy's a phenomenon. What, what has happened though is that his outlook on life has changed. He was depressed, not, not just because, uh, he was fearful of getting old, and my mother was sick at the time. But now he's looking forward to another ten years of vigorous life, traveling, and it, you know, when you're healthy, you're happy.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      So when he was depressed, was he sedentary?

   5. DSDavid Sinclair1:00:37

      No. No, he was depressed because, uh, he was worried about his health. He figured...... he's gonna be like all his other friends, getting frail, can't, can't walk, losing your mind. Uh, and it hasn't happened to him, so he, just a few years ago, he went back and started a new career.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

      Whoa. Oh, we talked about this last time, I believe. What, what's his new career again?

   7. DSDavid Sinclair1:00:57

      Uh, he's on a committee that evaluates clinical trials for ethics.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:01

      Wow.

   9. DSDavid Sinclair1:01:02

      Which is what you want older people to do, use their wisdom and knowledge to-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       Be excited about something as well.

   11. DSDavid Sinclair1:01:07

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       Something that stimulates you and keeps you going and gives you something to be interested in.

   13. DSDavid Sinclair1:01:11

       And talk about wasting human flesh. What a waste it is for someone with that knowledge to die prematurely.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Right. That's the more interesting thing to me about longevity, is, look, I'm so much wiser at 52 than I was at 42. I just am. I make less mistakes, I'm more aware, just across the board. And I'm wiser at 42 than I was at 32, and at 22 I was basically a chimp. So it's like as time goes on, you understand how you're interfacing with the world. You, you communicate with people better. You know how to get by. You know what you have to do and what the consequences are of not doing what you have to do in terms of being disciplined and being healthy and just meditation and making sure you, you understand the consequences also of not doing the work that you're supposed to do in terms of like the way you feel about yourself, your self-respect, and the way you just feel about, like your sense of self-satisfaction. It's, it, to me, takes a big hit when I'm lazy. Takes a big hit when I don't get things done. And I don't expect everybody to do the same things that I do or have the same sort of work ethic or d- d... and I don't, and I don't even say work ethic 'cause that implies like some sort of, um, superiority. It's more of, um, just, uh, uh, the idea of what you wanna accomplish, like your tasks. Everyone has their own idea of what th- ... But if you enjoy doing something and you're working towards something, I feel like there's more purpose to life. You have more satisfaction in accomplishing tasks. And that's one of the things that's been highlighted when you read books on happiness and studies on happiness. One of the things that seems to be most important is goal-setting, goal-setting, working towards those goals, and achieving progress, th- these are critical components to happiness for human beings. And without them, there's this aimless sort of drifting of life. People, for the most part, obviously everyone's different, but for the most part, people don't find satisfaction in just an aimless sort of drifting existence.

   15. DSDavid Sinclair1:03:23

       Yeah, 100%. I'm, I just turned 50 while I was, uh, over in Africa, or just before that. You know, imagine being 80 and healthy, uh, like my dad-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:03:31

       Yeah.

   17. DSDavid Sinclair1:03:31

       ... or 90 or 100. It just keeps getting better-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:03:34

       He must be so wise.

   19. DSDavid Sinclair1:03:34

       ... of course.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03:34

       Yeah.

   21. DSDavid Sinclair1:03:34

       Of course. I'm so less stressed than I was in my 20s and 30s. Um, and anyone who's listening who's in their 20s and thinks that they're, you know, way better than a 50-year-old, I can tell you from experience, like you do, when I was in my 20s, I thought I knew everything, or at least I, I, I looked at myself as, as a 50-year-old and I thought, "What an old fart."

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:03:54

       Yes.

   23. DSDavid Sinclair1:03:54

       Yeah. It, it's not like that at all, especially with today's, um, you know, health and, you know, 50-year-olds are just like they were, uh, like a 30-year-old was 20 years ago.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:04

       There was no 52-year-olds like me when I was 20.

   25. DSDavid Sinclair1:04:08

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:08

       They didn't exist. Maybe Jack LaLanne.

   27. DSDavid Sinclair1:04:11

       Right. Well, the, it's, uh, been talked about, I think it was in The New Yorker, uh, that this movie, Cocoon. Uh, I don't know if everyone's seen it, but it's a, it's a pretty interesting movie where these 50, 60-year-olds, uh, were given the Fountain of Youth, and they still look old, but it was really supposed to be quite funny to see these older people with gray hair, uh, jumping in the pool and, and acting 30 years old. But a 50-year-old isn't old anymore. A 50-year-old is just getting going.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:04:36

       Yeah, that's what's crazy about it. You know, I mean, if you see old movie stars from like the 1960s when they were like 50, they looked like they were dead men. You know, like we w- we were, we were looking at... I forget what the movie was, but it was, uh, a movie where I was like, "How old was he when they made that movie?" It turned out he was 44. I'm like, "That guy looks 100 years old." And he said he's never worked out, he probably smoked cigarettes all day long, never exercises, never... drinks constantly. He just looks like a dead man. It's crazy.

   29. DSDavid Sinclair1:05:07

       Right. So, so in the future, 90 will, 90 will feel like 50 and 40.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:12

       Well, we were talking about Laird earlier.

Episode duration: 2:19:26