HARVARD SCIENTIST REVEALS The Surprising Secrets To AGE IN REVERSE | David Sinclair & Lewis Howes

Dr. David Sinclair 0:00 There's a clock in the body that we can measure. We can predict how long you're gonna live based on that clock. And what we found is we have a new gene therapy, but hopefully one day it could be a pill, that resets the clock and cells go back to acting and being young again.

Lewis Howes 0:14 [upbeat music] I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast and I'm super excited because my guest today is David Sinclair. He's been on the show before. It's been a massive hit, and I wanted to have him back on. He's a professor in the Department of Genetics. He's also at, at the Center for Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School, and he is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. In the last interview we had with you,

Lewis Howes 0:45 blew up the internet, so I wanted to dive in with a challenging question and an interesting question I think people are really curious about, that we touched on a little bit, but we didn't dive in fully last time, is do you think human beings will ever be able to become immortal?

Dr. David Sinclair 1:02 Oh. Yeah, that, that's a tough question. Y- He- here's the honest answer. Uh, no. I don't think so. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:12 Never? In 1,000 years, 10,000 years, never?

Dr. David Sinclair 1:17 Well, never is, is a pretty hard statement. I would say that with the technology that, that I can envisage, even the best technology, give it 1,000 years of development, I think we can live many hundreds of years.

Lewis Howes 1:30 Really?

Dr. David Sinclair 1:31 Well, well, let's get into that later. I, I, I think we've, we've got some new technology coming out of the aging field that, that makes the old stuff, even things just two years ago, look primitive. But immortality is so hard. I mean, we're fighting entropy, we're fighting the second law of ther- thermodynamics, which is a very powerful law of nature. And really what, what we've discovered in my lab and some others around the world is that it's hard to preserve adult living things for a long, long time. You can keep them together and functioning for longer. We've got some species on the planet, particularly plants, that can live thousands of years, and many hundreds of years for some mammals. Bowhead whale, for example. But going, you know, im- immortality, you're, you're fighting what turns out to be a loss of information. Um, you know, we all understand the importance of information. Our computers get corrupted. Our, uh, we, you know, we used to have things like compact discs and DVDs that got scratched. These are examples of, of-

Lewis Howes 2:32 Hmm

Dr. David Sinclair 2:32 ... the problems with trying to store information forever. You know, how, how long would an iPhone last? It's not gonna last for 1,000 years, that's for sure.

Lewis Howes 2:39 But if the information's in the cloud, then it can't be scratched.

Dr. David Sinclair 2:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 2:45 Maybe digitally scratched, but-

Dr. David Sinclair 2:47 Well, that, that's the saving grace. Maybe if we are able to upload ourselves somehow or rebuild ourselves from scratch, that's immortality. That's beyond anything that I'm seeing right now. Um, I think a lot of people who say, "Oh, let's just download our brains into the internet," are underestimating the complexity of the human brain.

Lewis Howes 3:07 Hmm.

Dr. David Sinclair 3:07 It's not like just wires contacting each other. Every one of those wires is extremely complex, com- more complex than anything in the known universe. Uh, and so you put a, a few trillion of those together into one thing, and it's very hard to map it without damaging it, um, and let alone rebuild it. Um, and store-

Lewis Howes 3:28 So the br- the brain wiring is more complex than anything in the universe?

Dr. David Sinclair 3:32 Our brains are the most complex, uh, thing in the universe.

Lewis Howes 3:35 Do you think it's more complex than, than the understanding of God or a source or the creator?

Dr. David Sinclair 3:41 I, I think that's pretty simple. You believe it or you don't. We've inherited brains from our ancestors-

Lewis Howes 3:47 Hmm

Dr. David Sinclair 3:47 ... that have consciousness and then we're able to ask these questions. Where do we come from? Is there a force beyond what we understand that gave rise to everything around us? Or are we just an accident of nature?

Lewis Howes 4:00 In your opinion, what do you think is an ideal lifespan for humans then? With the technology we have today and the technology we're gonna have over the next two decades, what do you think is the ideal lifespan where we'll be functioning, healthy human beings that have memory and not just blobs that just last longer?

Dr. David Sinclair 4:21 Yeah, y- y- that's a really good question, and I, I don't recall ever having been asked that one. Right now, the maximum human lifespan, uh, that's recorded at least, and even that is debatable, is 122 years old-

Lewis Howes 4:33 Hmm

Dr. David Sinclair 4:33 ... for the French woman, Jeanne Calment. The thing about living that long, uh, is that, and we often forget, is that that means she was still very active. I'm sure she was, you know, riding her bicycle around, uh, her village when she was 105.

Lewis Howes 4:49 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 4:49 So if you live that long, you have this period of, of health where you don't have diseases. Aging brings on those diseases. And so when you think about extending lifespan, the important thing is to realize that you don't live longer in old age, you live longer in a, in a youthful state.

Lewis Howes 5:06 What do you mean by that?

Dr. David Sinclair 5:07 Well, we, we do have technology in, in animals, let's say mice, to make them live 20% longer. They don't live 20% longer at the end of life. They actually live 20% longer, uh, in midlife so that they don't get diseases.

Lewis Howes 5:21 They stay younger longer, earlier.

Dr. David Sinclair 5:24 Right. So that you can compare these animals. You can actually do this pretty easily. Actually, anybody could do it. You take a, a mouse and, and another mouse and you give a lot less food to one of them, or feed them every other day. Uh, and yeah, they'll, they'll be hungry. I think they eventually can get used to it. Uh, but what happens is you can compare those two mice or, you know, 50 mice in one group and 50 in the other. This is what has been done for now 80 years. And the ones that have spent some time in hunger, uh, or not always satisfied, they are remarkably different. Their coats look all shiny. They have very little cancer or evidence of cancer. They're running around the cage- And the mice that have been eating as much as they ever wanted, which is kind of how we live now, uh, most people, uh, they are decrepit. They are s- you know, not moving, they've lost a lot of their ability to remember things, they don't bother making a nest. It's, it's dramatic, and this has been done for monkeys as well. It's been done for Labrador dogs. It's a really universal thing in life. So t- to get to your question, Lewis, actually, what's the optimal life if you had the chance to stay young? Uh, why would you want to die? I, I don't think anybody who's healthy and has friends and is enjoying their life says, "I wanna die tomorrow." I haven't ever met anybody like that. You know, there, there, there's, there's pain, there's suffering, there's depression, but if you don't have those, why would you want to die? I mean, maybe boredom, but you know, there are-

Lewis Howes 6:53 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 6:53 ... ways of

Lewis Howes 6:54 Right. You always wanna live. You'd always... If you had a purpose, if you had community, if you were pain-free, you'd wanna keep living, I would assume. If you were enjoying your life and you had love and connection and mission, then you'd wanna live as long as you could. So what I'm hearing you say is that it's almost like food becomes the disease if you don't manage it properly. It's what is a big cause of death the more you eat.

Dr. David Sinclair 7:21 Well, yeah. Well, the food isn't the cause of death. We need food, and we're not talking about malnutrition or starvation by any means. You know, that... I want that to be clear.

Lewis Howes 7:28 Right.

Dr. David Sinclair 7:28 We're not talking about eating disorders here. But we are talking about not having three large meals a day, and the way to think about it is not that the food is killing you. What it's doing is it's turning off your body's protective mechanisms against disease.

Lewis Howes 7:41 So creating some smaller stresses in the body turns on the immune system to fight against disease.

Dr. David Sinclair 7:50 Yeah. Well, not just the immune system, but that is a big part of it. It also turns on repair of DNA, it clears the body of old proteins that are, are just accumulating and causing issues, rejuvenates the mitochondria, which are those battery packs, the energy parts of the cell. A lot of things happen. We don't understand everything that's going on when animals or we are hungry, but we know that there are... At least we know of three main pathways that... And by pathways, I mean biochemical workhorses in our cells, proteins that do good things. Three main pathways that are activated when we're hungry and go to work and tell other parts of the cell to repair the body and clear out the old stuff.

Lewis Howes 8:32 So in your opinion, what's the ideal lifespan?

Dr. David Sinclair 8:34 Well, [laughs] it, it's personal, but I would say I wouldn't mind living for 200 years. There's a lot I'd like to see in the future.

Lewis Howes 8:42 Right.

Dr. David Sinclair 8:43 But I think if I, if I reach 200 years, I'll still feel young, uh, I might feel young, and then why would I wanna die? It's all about being healthy. Now, what's the optimal lifespan for seven billion humans?

Lewis Howes 8:56 Mm.

Dr. David Sinclair 8:56 That's a different question. Um, you know, we can't all live 1,000 years and expect the planet to do well. But what I talk about, um, in my book is that when you do the numbers, allowing people to be lo- live longer and healthier adds huge amounts of, uh, of percentage to the GDP, right? We're spending at least 17% of our GDP in the US on taking care of, of people who are sick-

Lewis Howes 9:25 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 9:25 ... and most of that is spent in the last few years of life. And it turns out the longer that somebody lives, they actually are less costly to the healthcare system because they die quicker.

Lewis Howes 9:35 Huh.

Dr. David Sinclair 9:35 Um, and so if you draw a graph and... You know, I, I tend not to draw graphs, but this, this is one I have to. So we, we used to die off as a population like this, and, and people would often get sick and stay alive for a lot longer in a sick state. I mean, now it's still possible to, to get cancer and, and suffer for, for 10 years trying to fight that disease. Heart disease the same. But in a world where we can push that out and people tend to live to 100 years, we know that's possible, there are people that do this all the time, um, then there's the very quick die off. Um, and a lot of people get to that point, would get to that point, uh, and then quickly die, die off. And, and that's a, that's a world that I think would be far better than this one where, uh, from a, from an economic standpoint and from an individual and family standpoint, um, anyone who's ha- had a grandparent or a parent who became chronically ill, you know, this is just nothing you would wish even on your enemy.

Lewis Howes 10:33 When it, when it's like five years, 10 years, and it keeps extending where it's just uncomfortable suffering pain, as opposed to what I'm hearing you say is live a great life, and then once you start to feel a little sick, die quicker as opposed to die over 10 years of suffering.

Dr. David Sinclair 10:49 That, that's the ultimate goal with this research. And, and it looks feasible based on the work that's been done over the last 20, 30 years.

Lewis Howes 10:56 Because essentially we're... I'm... What I'm hearing you say is we're not dying effectively. We should be dying in a better way that's better for us as individuals, that's better for our families, that's better for the economy, the planet, is what I'm hearing you say.

Dr. David Sinclair 11:09 Right. No, we see that today as well, people who don't take care of themselves, who never exercise and, and eat the wrong foods and too much of it. You can see that those are the people that develop diseases in their 60s and 70s that are often horrific. You know, diabetes and having limbs cut off from lack of blood flow.

Lewis Howes 11:27 That's... Yes.

Dr. David Sinclair 11:28 And this i- in large part is preventable already. We know how to do that.

Lewis Howes 11:33 It's really sad. I know some people, uh, at that stage of life where it's just... And you can't really come back from it. Once you've gotten to that point, you can't really reverse back to a healthy state. Is that correct? Maybe you can manage it a little bit, but it's not a reversible thing at, at that point.

Dr. David Sinclair 11:48 If you asked me that last year, I probably would have said it's not possible to come back from that. But this new work that I'm hinting at, uh, really does look like an age reset is possible in complex tissues, and maybe one day an entire body.

Lewis Howes 12:05 Really? So someone who's 60s, 70s who's got- ... diabetes and it's really slowing them down, and they're losing, you know, function in their, their body. You're saying that in the future potentially we could reverse that?

Dr. David Sinclair 12:18 Right, theoretically. Now, we haven't tested it in the context of diabetes. We tested it in the context of, of vision loss dur- due to aging or due to damage to the, the optic nerve. But there it was very easy. In, in three weeks we were able to recover a lot of eyesight from, in a bli- a blind old mouse by resetting the age of the eye.

Lewis Howes 12:38 We haven't tested this on humans yet?

Dr. David Sinclair 12:40 No, I'm, I'm trying to do that, um-

Lewis Howes 12:43 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 12:44 ... in, in, uh, hopefully clinical trials will be two, three years from now.

Lewis Howes 12:49 That's amazing. So I remember you saying in our last interview that you wouldn't want to live forever. But as you say, in- with research, things change, and the last year you th- would have said something and this year's different now. Uh, and you might want to live to 200. But if you were still healthy at 200, would you wanna say, "Hey, let's keep doing this another century," or would you say, "I'm healthy. Uh, I have love in my life, eh, but I wanna call it quits." Is there ever a time, if you were healthy still, you'd wanna call it quits?

Dr. David Sinclair 13:19 I don't think so.

Lewis Howes 13:20 Yeah.

Dr. David Sinclair 13:20 I, I really don't. I haven't met a happy, healthy person who wants to die. Have you?

Lewis Howes 13:25 No. So it only becomes when it's a time of, like, suffering pain, immobility to, to function at life at a normal level.

Dr. David Sinclair 13:32 Yeah, or depression. Or let's face it, there are a lot of people on the planet that are not living great lives, you know, countries that are not as well off as, as these ones are, that we-

Lewis Howes 13:42 Right

Dr. David Sinclair 13:42 ... particularly. So I can understand there may be situations where you wouldn't wanna live longer if, if you're doing a profession that every day is painful or, you know, just way too much work. Um, you know, you and I have the privilege that we can, we can do jobs from an armchair, but not-

Lewis Howes 13:59 Yeah

Dr. David Sinclair 13:59 ... everybody can do that. So I just wanna, you know, realize, mate, that, um, not everybody's in our situation. But hopefully if you have an extended lifespan, you'll be able to change professions-

Lewis Howes 14:10 Yeah

Dr. David Sinclair 14:10 ... uh, if you're in one that you don't like, and have the possibility of three, four, five different careers.

Lewis Howes 14:15 Right. Is it, in your opinion, more important to extend life or reverse aging, or live better with the years that we currently have?

Dr. David Sinclair 14:23 Huh. Well, yeah, obviously you, you wanna do both. And actually it turns out if you, if you live better during the years that, quote unquote, "you have," uh, you will live longer. If you're making the most of life, you're enjoying your life, you're have a career that you, you love, getting out in the outdoors, you know, that will lead to longer life. We know that. So a good life actually leads to a longer life.

Lewis Howes 14:47 What's your, what's your thoughts on, uh, the difference between humans and artificial beings or some other species that, uh, the more we alter our bodies in non-natural ways, like what's the difference between natural humans and kind of altered bodies with artificial beings?

Dr. David Sinclair 15:06 Yeah. Well, we're, we're already there. I mean, what about our surroundings right now is natural? Uh, maybe even, even the air is different thanks to humans. So, you know, we're, we're ... I'm wearing a computer on my wrist, right?

Lewis Howes 15:21 I too.

Dr. David Sinclair 15:22 I'm part cyborg.

Lewis Howes 15:23 Yeah. We're, we're... Or have a cellphone that has access to all the information in the world at, at our fingertips.

Dr. David Sinclair 15:29 Right.

Lewis Howes 15:29 It's alm- it's probably eventually gonna be embedded in our brain in some way in hundreds of years.

Dr. David Sinclair 15:34 Sure. For sure. That's coming. Uh, but even things that we don't think about, the vaccines that hopefully we'll have soon. That's artificial. That's partly biologically cyborg. But these are early steps. You know, eventually our, uh, grandkids will have things integrated more into their bodies. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's just an extension of what we've been doing for the last probably few hundred thousand years as, as humans.

Lewis Howes 15:59 Yeah. You mentioned vaccines. I did, I had a doctor on a few months ago, and I asked him, "What's a misconception about the, the medical world that you feel like people have that they, that they should believe in more?" And he said, "It's really sad when people don't..." I'm paraphrasing this, but he said something like, "It's really sad when people don't believe in vaccines because, especially with kids, because they don't have the choice, and a lot of kids get sick and die without... And they could just take a vaccine that would, that could save their life." And I got a lot of heat for even allowing that to be said on my show from parents and mothers who are completely against vaccines because of the side effects that they believe it had, or whether it's true or not, I don't know, 'cause I'm not the, the researcher. Um, what are your thoughts on vaccines in general? I mean, should we be taking vaccines? Is this... You know, there's, there's a lot of angry people that say, "Don't listen to the vaccine people." But what is science saying?

Dr. David Sinclair 17:04 You want some more hate mail? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 17:05 I don't know if I want more hate mail. I'm always trying to find the truth. I'm trying to find answers-

Dr. David Sinclair 17:10 Yeah

Lewis Howes 17:10 ... and I, I don't want people to hate on you or me [laughs] or anything. I'm just like, "Okay, what's the information?" And I always want everyone to do their own research and figure out what works for them, and make their own choices. But I'm just curious based on your research.

Dr. David Sinclair 17:24 Well, my, my research is really just reading the scientific literature when it comes to vaccines. There have been a number of scientific papers that have been retracted that show that vaccines were, for example, causing autism. So in the scientific literature, you know, this isn't me saying it, this is published work, uh, in journals, and other scientists have done other work and looked at that work and rep- tried to repeat it. And it's come to the point within the scientific community that some of the original work that gave rise to these fears was unfounded, uh, and was not scientifically valid.

Lewis Howes 18:04 So in normal layman's terms, there was some research that said vaccines are bad or can cause side effects like autism. There was research that said that, and now what I'm hearing you say is there's other research out there that says- That was not true

Dr. David Sinclair 18:17 Right, and when a paper turns out not to be correct, the journal or the author or both decide to retract the paper so it's no longer in the literature.

Lewis Howes 18:26 Oh.

Dr. David Sinclair 18:27 And that has happened to those original papers. Now-

Lewis Howes 18:30 But you, you said scientists are always trying to prove themselves wrong every couple of years, so all the s- all the science could be wrong still, we just don't know. But what we've found so far is that it's doesn't cause autism based on these scientific studies.

Dr. David Sinclair 18:47 Well, yeah, I think if you, if you ask 1,000 scientists, 998 roughly would say what I'm saying-

Lewis Howes 18:54 Yeah

Dr. David Sinclair 18:54 ... which is based on scientific literature. Now, please don't, you know, everyone listening, don't attack me. I'm not-

Lewis Howes 19:00 Right. You're not saying this [laughs] you're saying-

Dr. David Sinclair 19:03 But I can read scientific papers, uh, and, uh, that's just I'm stating a fact.

Lewis Howes 19:07 Makes sense. I'm always trying to find the answers and the truth, and I feel like it's always evolving and, you know, we're always trying to learn more stuff. I'm, I'm curious, with all this artificialness in us right now, it sounds like none of us are real, like, whole complete human beings anymore. If you take a vaccine, if you're wearing a, a, a digital watch, you know, w- using cell phones, the air is different, the environment is different, it's almost like there's not a real human being anymore. What makes a human human? And as medicine improves, how will we know if we're no longer human?

Dr. David Sinclair 19:43 Uh, well, I, I found out last night, uh, I took one of those little tests online and, uh, it said I'm not a robot, which was good news, right? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 19:52 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 19:53 Didn't... It came as a surprise. Um-

Lewis Howes 19:55 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 19:56 But beyond those little robot, I'm not a robot tests, we, we'll, we'll always be human, um, unless it's life synthesized from scratch or it's, it's some other life form or a com- computer intelligence. I don't think we'll lose our humanity. You know, augmenting the brain, I think, is still we're gonna retain our humanity. So I'm, I'm not so worried about that. I think more interesting is the debate about will artificial intelligence ever be close enough to be called human thought, and I, I think one day we may actually get there.

Lewis Howes 20:33 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 20:35 Yeah, as soon as computers, uh, develop their own type of consciousness, um, and we model it based on the way we think, it's quite possible that-

Lewis Howes 20:43 You think it's possible that computers could have human thought?

Dr. David Sinclair 20:47 Yeah, sure.

Lewis Howes 20:48 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 20:48 They, they could. Um, it's, it, it probably is gonna be different than human because they... We're not mimicking the human brain currently.

Lewis Howes 20:57 Right.

Dr. David Sinclair 20:57 But adv- you know, let's say in a thousand years, there are some researchers even now that are modeling the human brain in a way that's different than your typical neural net that, say, Google is working on. The idea is to mimic nerve cells rather than mimic just computer connections.

Lewis Howes 21:16 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 21:16 And these nerve cells, as I mentioned, are very complex. They, they have inner workings and they're actually analog devices, meaning they're not just ones and zeros, they have these waves that pass through, chemical waves that pass through. By mimicking an actual human neuron and then putting, uh, you know, he's got millions of them, he can actually mimic what happens in thought and in, in a, in a mouse brain and now he's b- building a human brain. So that's a new approach and I, I think-

Lewis Howes 24:21 Crazy

Dr. David Sinclair 24:21 ... it will We know from fasting for one day that you've, you activate these defenses, and that's why some-

Lewis Howes 24:29 These three defenses, we wanna, we wanna activate these three things as much as possible or once in a while?

Dr. David Sinclair 24:34 Good question. I, I think it's better to do it once in a while. You don't wanna always have them on, and the reason I can say that is based on animal studies. The best effects we've had, and my colleagues have had, is when you do things and let the body rest afterwards. For example, we did a study with resveratrol, this molecule from red wine that activates one of these sirtuins that I was telling you about. We gave it every day to mice, uh, or we gave them this calorie restricted fasting diet, but it was when we actually gave them resveratrol every second day that we got the longest lived mice, uh, in combination with caloric restriction. So that's just an example of many that we're finding that it's helpful to, to pulse the body and let it, let it rest. And it, it, it does make sense that you wanna have a hunker down period where your body is fixing itself and re- removing bad stuff, but then also a repair phase. So when you s- go back to eating regularly or, uh, you're not, you know, running marathons every other day, which some people, uh, tend to do, then your body can recover and grow and heal. So yeah, long answer to your question, but I think pulsing it is the right way to go.

Lewis Howes 25:54 Is there a calculated approach to say, okay, if you're, um, 225 pounds, male, 37 years old, how many calories should I be eating a day? Like, is there a, you know, a perfect system to this of like, okay, if you eat 1,000 calories a day for three days in a row, then you have 2,000 for a day, then you fast a day. Have you figured out this process yet with rats?

Dr. David Sinclair 26:19 No. No.

Lewis Howes 26:20 [laughs] Bummer

Dr. David Sinclair 26:20 It's not, it's not a system like that yet. Um-

Lewis Howes 26:23 That could be interesting.

Dr. David Sinclair 26:25 Yeah. The problem that we face in the field is, uh, we were talking earlier, you and I, uh, before we went on air about funding for science. We don't have tens of millions of dollars to run these clinical trials. We're, we're always sc- scrounging for money and always worried about what's gonna happen when it runs out. Um, so we can do some experiments, but consider, uh, some of these longevity experiments in, even in rats and mice, they take about three years. Um-

Lewis Howes 26:53 Mm-hmm

Dr. David Sinclair 26:54 ... and if you do it in monkeys, then your whole career is used up by one experiment. And so what, what we're trying to now figure out is what's the right combination of what you eat, when you eat, and what supplements to take, and that combination is hundreds of thousands, and you can't run hundreds of thousands of these experiments.

Lewis Howes 27:14 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 27:14 So it, it, it's hard to find the optimum. But in general, what I would say is that if you fast for one day, you get some benefits. If you fast for three days, something interesting happens. You turn on another level of, of cell cleansing, and, uh, I'll, I'll tell you a bit about that. So there's this process called autophagy-

Lewis Howes 27:35 Uh-huh

Dr. David Sinclair 27:35 ... or some people call it autophagy. It, it is what it sounds like, auto, which is self, and phagy is eating, so you're self-eating. And what that means is that-

Lewis Howes 27:43 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 27:43 ... proteins that have gotten old-

Lewis Howes 27:45 That's amazing. You're eating yourself, you're killing it

Dr. David Sinclair 27:47 ... well, eating the, getting rid of the bad stuff, recycling the bad proteins. As we get older, and also if, if we have damaged proteins, say if we eat a lot of burnt food, we will accumulate proteins that have, uh, oxidation is one, for example, and these proteins also are very hard to get rid of. They tend to clump, uh, and-

Lewis Howes 28:08 They're sticky

Dr. David Sinclair 28:08 ... they're, they're sticky. Um, and, and Alzheimer's is, is disease is a good example of that, of, uh, proteins that stick together and, and just accumulate and you can't get rid of them easily. But autophagy is this process where the cells can chew these up and recycle the amino acids in those proteins. But we, our bodies, especially as we get older, do a, a pretty crappy job at doing that, um, and it leads to things like macular degeneration, neurodegeneration, and others. Now, what, what one day fasting does is it turns on autophagy and will clear out some of the proteins. But, uh, from my reading, if you do three days of fasting, something else kicks in. It's a different type of autophagy. Uh, it's called chaperone mediated autophagy, or, um, CMA, and it was discovered by, uh, a good friend of mine in New York, Anna Maria, uh, Cuervo. And, uh, she has shown that this CMA process is really important for extending the health and the lifespan of-

Lewis Howes 29:08 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 29:08 ... of mice, and I'm, I'm helping her a little bit with, uh, one of her companies to bring this to humans and hopefully treat diseases, uh, s- for example, like macular degeneration.

Lewis Howes 29:19 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 29:19 But anyway, long story, uh-

Lewis Howes 29:22 So three days really starts to kick in the benefits. Is there a time when fasting too long hurts the body?

Dr. David Sinclair 29:29 Well, sure. You need nutrition, right? Your body needs to, needs amino acids to repair itself. I, I can't stress enough that we don't want anybody to lose so much weight that it's bad for them.

Lewis Howes 29:39 Yeah.

Dr. David Sinclair 29:39 There, there are a lot of especially young people who, who can overdo it.

Lewis Howes 29:43 Yeah.

Dr. David Sinclair 29:44 You, you always wanna have some adipose of fat on your body. You need it for, for lean times, and your body needs it for, you know, energy when you're sleeping, for example. But so I, I think that going for a week is okay. I haven't done it myself. It's too difficult. But, um-

Lewis Howes 29:59 What's the longest you've gone personally?

Dr. David Sinclair 30:01 I'm, I'm not that good at it. Uh, I-

Lewis Howes 30:03 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 30:03 ... I've gone for a day. That's about it.

Lewis Howes 30:07 I tell you what, I went four days was tough, but it was also like once I set my mind to it and I was just like, "I'm gonna commit to this," I also wasn't that hungry. I was just like, "Okay, I can go a little farther." It was just weird 'cause I'm so used to eating every, I don't know, four or five hours. It was just like- Is everything okay? Like, but I felt the effects. It felt like it was getting better, like my body was healing. I felt like the pain was starting to go away, and I just felt clear and focused.

Dr. David Sinclair 30:36 That's a common, um, thing that people report is you'd think that you'd be distracted by hunger, but what actually happens once you do it for a longer time, or you've, you've done ev- every other day eating for a while, or even in my case where I- I like to skip breakfast and have a late lunch, or maybe even go straight to dinner, your body gets used to it. You don't feel those hunger pains. If, if you drink a cup of tea or even a glass of water, it, it nu- numbs any desire.

Lewis Howes 31:04 Yeah.

Dr. David Sinclair 31:05 That's when you know you're doing it right. But also what people report, uh, and I, I can tell you from my experience, it also focuses the mind and you're not distracted at all. In fact, it's, it's, it's, it's like a high that you get. Uh, and I can get a lot of work done when I, I'm, uh-

Lewis Howes 31:20 Yeah

Dr. David Sinclair 31:20 ... in that phase.

Lewis Howes 31:21 That's true. Do you think we'll ever be able to bring people back from the dead?

Dr. David Sinclair 31:26 Um, well, we do now, but only after a few minutes. No, I don't... I think if you've been dead for, like, literally decomposing, you're not going to. But frozen bodies, still that's pretty hard, 'cause there's been a lot of damage to those cells that have been... when they've been frozen. I wouldn't say it's impossible, 'cause there are animals that freeze in winter and come back to life, some frogs, for example-

Lewis Howes 31:47 Crazy

Dr. David Sinclair 31:48 ... and fish. So it's, it's possible, but we need to learn a lot more about how those animals are able to survive. They, they make these special anti-freeze proteins, um, and that protects their cells, and I don't think we're at a point yet of where we can safely freeze our brains and expect it to thaw out and work again.

Lewis Howes 32:09 To work, yeah.

Dr. David Sinclair 32:10 But, you know, a- again, you, you can't say never, because even two years ago, I couldn't have predicted the kind of advances that we're seeing in medicine right now.

Lewis Howes 32:19 So there are, are frogs and some fish, some frogs and some fish that freeze for a period of time. Are they still breathing? Is it, are they completely heart stops? What is the process?

Dr. David Sinclair 32:30 Yeah, they're, they're solid as a rock.

Lewis Howes 32:32 No breathing, no heartbeat?

Dr. David Sinclair 32:35 No, they're solid.

Lewis Howes 32:36 They're dead, essentially.

Dr. David Sinclair 32:37 Right.

Lewis Howes 32:38 And they come back to life?

Dr. David Sinclair 32:41 Yeah, they thaw out.

Lewis Howes 32:42 That's cr- and then they function [laughs] and are still, like, swimming around and... How long are they gone for? I mean, how long are they frozen for? Is this, like, a month, three months, win- all winter?

Dr. David Sinclair 32:51 All winter, however long that is.

Lewis Howes 32:53 Wow. If we could figure out the process of how those animals do it, then potentially in the future we could do it, right?

Dr. David Sinclair 32:58 There are ways to do this, and some people are talking about infusing the body with hydrogen sulfide, uh, some other, maybe these proteins from frogs, and, uh, allowing us to be frozen.

Lewis Howes 33:09 Wow. From your perspective as a geneticist, why do people have such different physical reactions to viruses, like the coronavirus? Why are some affected and others not? Is it a genetic thing, or do you think it's something else?

Dr. David Sinclair 33:27 Well, it seems to be both. There are variations in the ACE2 receptor that seem to be involved, but most of it, as far as I can tell from my reading, uh, is actually people's age. That- that's tenfold worse than anything else. Further down the list is diabetes, heart disease. Um, but you know, we're literally talking about aging here. Aging is your biggest risk. If you've been healthy your whole life and done the right things, uh, that's gonna protect you from dying from COVID-19. Um, because a lot of things go wrong as you get older that make you susceptible to the disease. Um, one for sure is that your immune system is a lot less resilient. You know, when, when we ex- are exposed to a virus, our immune cells will multiply. Well, actually, as you get older, you have a lot less ability to do that, um, and there are even, uh, a lot less variance of your immune cells. So you can have... A 100-year-old person has a lot fewer types of immune cells available to, to fight an infection. We, we generally have clones of clones in our body as we get older, whereas when we're young, it's a, it's like a, a melange, a whole different, uh, set. So the immune system is screwed up, but there's also other issues. As you get older, you get more and more inflammation in general. There's a protein in the body called, or a complex of proteins called the inflammasome, and it controls your inflammation. As you get older, it's harder and harder to keep that at bay. And so older people in general tend to have this hyper immune response, um, that actually of- often can d- do them in, and it's not because of the virus. It's due to the body overreacting to it.

Lewis Howes 35:13 Is there anything that people that are more susceptible currently that they could do to help combat the coronavirus or viruses like that without staying at home all day and not being around it? Is there things that they could do to enhance the immune system and, and support them?

Dr. David Sinclair 35:27 Oh, sure, there are. I mean, if, if anybody is, is out of shape, uh, or is carrying too much weight, you know, th- those are the, the easiest things and most likely to work, is to lose some of that excess weight and, and get moving. Um, these things are known to greatly improve your, uh, immune system and including lowering inflammation. Now, not everybody can do that, right? People who are at an advanced age, you can't expect them to go out on a run, or even perhaps to, to restrict their food. But you know, people who are middle-aged, you know, like myself, uh, I've been working out a lot more, exercising a lot more to make sure that my body's, uh, ready, uh, if I catch it.

Lewis Howes 36:09 What is, what does exercise or shorter moments of bodily stress, why does that boost immune system and, and help us anti-age?

Dr. David Sinclair 36:18 Well, there are a lot of answers to that. Um, but in general, the, the summary is that these protective pathways that we've discovered dampen inflammation when it's too high, and they also allow the immune system to attack a virus when it's needed- Um, one possibility, and this hasn't been proven, but there's, there's some evidence in over the last six months of, of published work, is that, uh, as we get older, we lose the ability to make a molecule called NAD, which we work on in my lab. And without NAD, our bodies are not very well-equipped to fight diseases, including infections.

Lewis Howes 36:54 Mm.

Dr. David Sinclair 36:55 This inflammasome, which I'm kind of showing as a ball, but it's obviously much smaller, it is regulated by the levels of NAD. Um-

Lewis Howes 37:05 And then what does NAD stand for?

Dr. David Sinclair 37:07 Oh, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Um, it- think of NAD as a small chemical that we need for life. It controls about 500 or so chemical reactions in our body. It's needed for those.

Lewis Howes 37:21 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 37:21 But we make less of it, and we destroy more of it as we get older. Um, but here's the thing, that two of these sirtuin, um, proteins that we work on in my lab are controlling inflammation through this inflammasome protein complex. And as, as we lose NAD, one possibility in older people is that the inflammasome is now dysregulated, and that goes crazy and leads to this cytokine storm that, uh, can eventually kill people. We have drugs that we're- that people are trying to dampen that down, and one of the things that we're trying now in a clinical trial, uh, is a molecule that the body can use to make more NAD, uh, an NAD precursor we call it.

Lewis Howes 38:01 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 38:02 And there are patients being dosed right now in, I think, four hospitals, or, or at least going to be four hospitals where, uh, we'll see if that is one of the ways to give older people resilience.

Lewis Howes 38:14 So the body stops making NAD, stops producing it the older we get, and it's one of the causes that helps us defend against infections, inflammation, disease.

Dr. David Sinclair 38:24 Well, we, we think so. What, what we see is when there's an infection, um, the, the virus actually chews up a lot of NAD. So cells, even if you're not old, the virus will deplete cells of NAD.

Lewis Howes 38:37 Mm.

Dr. David Sinclair 38:37 And we think that that's a problem. Cells need NAD for life. If we don't have NAD, we're, we're dead in about 30 seconds.

Lewis Howes 38:44 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 38:45 Um, but also without that energy, you could easily imagine that the body's unable to fight the infection. But also could be an issue late in the, the viral infection where the, the body starts turning on itself.

Lewis Howes 39:00 At the moment, there's no supplements o- out there that you could buy that have NAD to help you replenish NAD. Is that right?

Dr. David Sinclair 39:07 Oh, well, so it's, you know, I'm a public professor. Uh, I don't hawk any molecules or recommend any. I have to be very clear-

Lewis Howes 39:14 Right

Dr. David Sinclair 39:14 ... about that. Um, but there, there are people, uh, some companies that are selling NAD precursors-

Lewis Howes 39:20 Really?

Dr. David Sinclair 39:20 ... out there.

Lewis Howes 39:21 Interesting. Okay.

Dr. David Sinclair 39:21 But I don't endorse or recommend any of those.

Lewis Howes 39:24 Sure, sure, sure. Testosterone is also something that men lose, uh, stop producing over time as well, which helps you... Does it just look younger or be younger?

Dr. David Sinclair 39:33 Uh, well, there, there was a set of very expensive clinical trials done with testosterone, and the results from those studies were that there wasn't a change in long-term health. The results were, though, were negative for slowing down aging.

Lewis Howes 39:48 Huh.

Dr. David Sinclair 39:49 That said, you know, testosterone will help you build muscle. Uh, and having muscle is very important as you get older, of course. You don't wanna be frail. Uh, and if you fall over, you wanna be able to be resilient and not break a bone. Ev- every few minutes somebody f- falls, an elderly person falls over, breaks a hip, and doesn't recover from that.

Lewis Howes 40:10 Oh, man.

Dr. David Sinclair 40:10 So anything that you can do to be more flexible and resilient and have more strength, you know, that to me sounds like a good thing for elderly people.

Lewis Howes 40:19 Got it.

Dr. David Sinclair 40:20 If you're in your 50s or 40s, I don't know. I couldn't say. I'm an expert on that.

Lewis Howes 40:24 I'm gonna ask you another question that might be controversial based on a couple of previous, um, doctors that I've had on. I had Dr. Rhonda Patrick on, and I asked her, I said, "Hey, what are some of the, the healthy foods that are marketed as healthy that in your opinion aren't as healthy as they claim to be?" essentially was the question I asked. And she said, "Grapes have a lot of sugar in them that spike my blood pressure." I think she wears like a glucose monitor, so she's monitoring all of her food and constantly testing it. She said, "When I was eating grapes, like my glucose levels went way up, skyrocketed, and I realized that that's not good for the body to have, you know, grapes, a lot of grapes. And you can transition into having blueberries or something else that might be better for, uh, the nutritional benefits." I put that online, and people slammed me for that. And then, uh, Dr. Gundry said that he doesn't think, uh, you know, modified apples the way they are now, how we modify them, how they're so big, how they're f- full of so much sugar, he's like, "I don't think that's good to have these big apples that are modified because of the sugar and the fructose in these big apples," like a Honeycrisp or something. And he was saying we should be having a lot less fruit because of the fructose levels. What's your thoughts on fruit in general? Uh, should we be eating fruits every day? Is it something where... You know, I've been heard in the past that like we only used to have fruits right before the winter to kind of store up the fat and, and a seasonal thing. There's a lot of fruit eaters out there that believe in eating fruits, only fruit all day. I'm just trying to find the answers. I don't know the, the truth of the matter. But what's your thoughts based on research?

Dr. David Sinclair 42:12 So research, w- we don't research fruits, of course, but we do research the effects of sugar on the body. Uh, and it's not good. So try and keep-

Lewis Howes 42:19 And i- is that all sugar, or is that fruit sugar or refined sugar? What's... Do we know that?

Dr. David Sinclair 42:25 Well, there's, there's glucose and fructose. Okay? So it doesn't really matter where you get it. These are just chemicals that... It's the same chemical wherever you get it from. Glucose, you need glucose, right? We, we, again, we die without glucose. But the foods in, in our world are so full of sugars that we're constantly feeding ourselves, uh, more sugar than we ever would have experienced even just 100 years ago, or 50 even. Um, so where, where do I come down on this? Well, let, let me tell you from my own experience. It's probably better to give you my example-

Lewis Howes 43:00 Yes

Dr. David Sinclair 43:00 ... than preach to others.

Lewis Howes 43:02 Yes.

Dr. David Sinclair 43:03 Um, I, I definitely like fruit and I eat fruit and I encourage it with my kids, for sure. Uh, but there... It's a, it's a balance. You want the most nutrition and vitamins, uh, and, and the lower amount of sugar. And on a scale of, of that ratio, uh, I think Rhonda Patrick's right that grapes have more sugar than nutrition compared to other fruits.

Lewis Howes 43:31 Hmm.

Dr. David Sinclair 43:31 So the types of fruits that I like to have are ones that have lots of polyphenols, colored fruits such as blueberries, blackberries, those things. Um, you don't want to eat too many of them of course, 'cause then you, you're basically eating tons of sugar anyway. But yeah, blueberries I would have in, in a yogurt in the morning if I had, had some.

Lewis Howes 43:50 Right.

Dr. David Sinclair 43:51 Um, the, the other fruit that I think is worth looking at is cantaloupe or rock melon. Um, that I believe has the most, uh, nutrition versus sugar of any fruit. Um, so we, we try to eat those kind of, uh, melons as well. You know, water- watermelon probably isn't in that category, but we still eat it in summer. The, the point in my family and in my life is, uh, we're not so strict that, that we avoid every type of food. I'll, I'll even eat a hamburger or whatever if I feel like it.

Lewis Howes 44:21 Right.

Dr. David Sinclair 44:22 But most of the time, I try to focus on, on plants, um, and have meat as something at, uh, like a reward, even though I, I much prefer the taste of meat than, than just leafy vegetables. But, um, I think that it's borne out just looking at people who live a long time and cultures that have a lot of elderly people over 100, the type of foods they eat typically have a lot more plant, um, than just pure meat. I know I'm gonna get hate mail as well from the carnivores, but it's important people know. I'm, I'm not saying don't eat meat. I'm just saying the kind of balance if you want to focus on types of foods, uh, for longevity, that's what the data says.

Lewis Howes 45:02 Gotcha. Do you know if, um, the people in the, the blue zones who are living over 100, are they, are they eating... I'm hearing you say they eat more plant-based. Are they eating lots of meat and lots of fruit as well, or are they limiting intake on some of those areas?

Dr. David Sinclair 45:19 Well, they seem to do all the right things. Uh, so it's, it... Don't eat a lot. Um, on the island of Okinawa, they tend to stop eating when they're only 70% full, which is a very good idea.

Lewis Howes 45:29 Gosh.

Dr. David Sinclair 45:30 A good idea.

Lewis Howes 45:30 It's like I eat- I keep eating until I'm 70% over full.

Dr. David Sinclair 45:34 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 45:34 [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 45:35 But then, then you can regr- then I regret it, but-

Lewis Howes 45:38 You're like, "Ugh." Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 45:39 Yeah. But you also... You, you work out more than I do, so-

Lewis Howes 45:43 I train hard. Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Dr. David Sinclair 45:45 Uh, they tend to eat the right types of foods, which are packed with these polyphenols, these little chemicals that are found in plants when, particularly when those plants are stressed out. They don't eat a lot of processed foods, which kills a lot of these vitamins and polyphenols as well. They eat colored foods, which, which as I mentioned is, is a good thing. They tend to have good social life. They tend to move a lot. They do gardening. They do walking as they get older. These are all things that just make a lot of sense anyway. Uh, we, we know that exercise and eating these healthy fresh foods are, are good for us, no matter how old we are. In terms of chemicals in, in the diet, olive oil for example, has a lot of oleic acid, and a lab just last year showed that oleic acid works just like resveratrol to activate the SIR2 and 1 enzyme, this protective defense enzyme that... So normally you would have to be hungry to turn this on, this enzyme on that we work on, but now we know that you can probably take some resveratrol or some olive oil to, to activate it artificially.

Lewis Howes 46:46 Well, Gundry would say the whole purpose of food is to get as much olive oil in your body as possible. He's a big believer in olive oil and how it's like helps you anti-age, so this is fascinating stuff. Again, I hope- wanna make a note that I hope all the fruit ea- eaters out there don't hate on us. I'm just trying to find the answers, and, uh, David is, uh, giving some of the research that he's seen from his experience as well. I got a couple final questions for you, David. I always love talking to you. I wanna talk to you m- many more times in the future, because I feel

Lewis Howes 47:17 like every six months you're gonna have new information for us. You said that science is driven by the question, not the technology. What are the biggest questions you have out there right now, or that science has out there right now?

Dr. David Sinclair 47:29 Well, there, there's a big one that we're chasing right now. As I mentioned earlier, we found that we can reset the age of a cell and, and literally turn its age back. Um, there's a clock in the body that we can measure. It's, uh, little chemicals that, that bind to our DNA as we get older. And by measuring the rate of those changes, um, think of it like plaque on your teeth accumulating. The older you get, s- you know, as long as you don't scrape it off, the more you'll have. Similar to our DNA accumulates these chemicals. We can measure the clock. We can predict how long you're gonna live based on that clock. And what we found is we have a, a new... Currently it's a gene therapy, but hopefully one day it could be a pill that resets the clock, and cells go back to acting and being young again.

Lewis Howes 48:14 No way.

Dr. David Sinclair 48:16 Yeah. That, that's how we, we s- we restored the vision of those old mice. We, we-

Lewis Howes 48:20 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 48:20 ... put gene therapy into their retina.

Lewis Howes 48:22 We can reverse g- reset the clock of time on our cells in our body potentially?

Dr. David Sinclair 48:29 Well, in mice, yes, uh, and in human cultured cells in the dish, yes.

Lewis Howes 48:33 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 48:33 We will know in a few years if it's true for humans.

Lewis Howes 48:36 What would that mean if we could do that?

Dr. David Sinclair 48:39 Well, th- this is why I'm more optimistic than I was even a couple of years ago. We know that we can reset the age of cells in complex tissues like the eye at least once, and it looks like it's, it's gonna be a long-lasting change. But we don't know, but I'm optimistic that we can reset multiple times. Imagine that.

Lewis Howes 49:02 Be amazing.

Dr. David Sinclair 49:03 And, uh, so the big question that we're trying to understand is similar to how a, a DVD gets scratched, how do you polish that DVD and, and allow the cell to read the young information again?

Lewis Howes 49:17 Wow.

Dr. David Sinclair 49:18 And it's quite a, a, a big idea that our cells have a backup copy of youthful information. How do they know which of these chemicals to get rid of to make the cell young again, and not go too young that you become a tumor or, or basically an egg cell again? We don't understand that yet, so we're trying-

Lewis Howes 49:39 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 49:40 ... our best. Uh, we've made some breakthroughs. We know some of the machinery that, that allows this to works, but ultimately we, we still don't know what form this information of youth is in. For instance, it could be a new type of chemical that is added to the DNA when we're an embryo or when we're very young, and we still have it in our bodies that our cells can recognize and use that as the reset switch. It could be another type of molecule, could be a protein that binds to our DNA. So we're looking very hard for where that information is stored, and when we figure that out, then I think we can really have a, a good handle on age reversal.

Lewis Howes 50:18 Science is fascinating. Now I know why you love being a scientist. D- is there a way right now to predict, like, when someone would die based on their current life, uh, their cells and say, "Okay, you're gonna live from 84 to 87 range based on what you keep doing at this r- stage, if you don't change anything"?

Dr. David Sinclair 50:39 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 50:39 Really?

Dr. David Sinclair 50:40 There are even some companies selling these clock tests. You can have a, either a swab in your mouth or a blood test-

Lewis Howes 50:47 No way. It'll tell you the predicted age you're gonna die?

Dr. David Sinclair 50:50 Uh, I don't know about specific companies, what they're offering, but in the lab we, we can do that. A good friend of mine, Steve Horvath at UCLA, does this routinely, and he's published work that can predict within a few years of when you're gonna die if you don't change your, your habits. And people who smoke, people who are overweight have a faster clock. The, it-

Lewis Howes 51:11 Wow

Dr. David Sinclair 51:11 ... there's no, there's no doubt that you can control the rate of your aging with how you live your life.

Lewis Howes 51:16 What are the effects on a lot of people moving from smoking cigarettes to vaping? I feel like vaping is taking over the world right now, and a lot of teens and smokers who are saying, "Okay, well, this is better for me. I'm gonna vape now and it's not gonna be as bad for me." How, how bad is vaping on the body, on the body's lifespan?

Dr. David Sinclair 51:36 Yeah, we don't know. Like, somebody needs to test that. Um-

Lewis Howes 51:40 I feel like that's gonna be a big issue in the next five, 10 years.

Dr. David Sinclair 51:44 Yeah. Yeah. Well, so my, my personal view, having a mother who died of lung cancer from, from smoking, is that, um, our lungs are pristine organs. They need to be, uh, free of, of particles, free of foreign material, uh, to work well. They're very fragile. And, and putting anything foreign into your lungs to me doesn't make any sense.

Lewis Howes 52:10 Vaping, smoking, any type of inhalation of a, a toxin.

Dr. David Sinclair 52:15 Right. Right. I mean, there are, there are fewer toxins, I understand it, with vaping and, um, but still we're learning that it's not risk-free.

Lewis Howes 52:24 Okay, I got one final question for you. From your study of biology, do you think aliens exist?

Dr. David Sinclair 52:30 Uh, yes. There is a, a calculation, a formula that you, you plug the variables in, and the, the one thing that we tend to underestimate are the number of stars in the universe.

Lewis Howes 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Sinclair 52:41 And there are actually... It, it's not infinite, but it, but it's, it's close to it. There are so many possibilities that there has to be life out there. It's a certainty. Uh, whether or not-

Lewis Howes 52:51 It's a certainty?

Dr. David Sinclair 52:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:54 Wow. Why is it a certainty?

Dr. David Sinclair 52:55 Whether or not we'll, we'll ever get to know them is another thing. You know, some, some of these life forms are gonna be so far away that we can never communicate with them unfortunately. But yeah, the science says they're out there. They've, they've just got to be. The, the odds of them not being there is, is infra- infinitesimal. Now, the, the problem that comes up is that just like we're learning as, uh, as human beings, uh, we tend to evolve destructive capabilities, right? The reason that we are survivors is that our ancestors wiped out the neighboring village, uh, plundered and raped, uh, you know, pretty routinely. We are not necessarily good animals at this point. We've got laws which pr- pr- prevent people from going, uh, you know, too rebellious. But, you know, deep down we do have an evil side as a species, not everybody individually. And it, it's probably true for aliens as well that they've come up the same way we have, and have a bad side as well. Uh, and that leads to destruction, and it could be that every civilization eventually wipes itself out after, uh, 20,000 years.

Lewis Howes 54:03 Yeah, I mean, because if a foreign thing came here, we probably wouldn't be welcoming something new, foreign with welcome arms. We would be worried, living in fear, stress, anxiety, and to wanna protect ourselves, kind of like, whatever, anytime someone settled into a new place, there's probably already... there was some type of worry, f- fear, or stress, right?

Dr. David Sinclair 54:24 E- exactly. Whenever I see a human trait, my mind goes to why does it exist, um, and whether or not it's, it's being altruistic and kind or evil and a liar, uh, or someone who, uh, commits adultery. These are all traits that have in, at one point in our history been advantageous, and we are descended from those people. But, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't be slaves to our DNA- This is why we have a big brain. We should be able to choose a path of survival and kindness where we can all live on this world, uh, um, and enjoy, you know, the freedoms and the luxuries of not having to worry about food.

Lewis Howes 55:04 David, you're one of the, the smartest and nicest, uh, scientists out there, my man. I really appreciate you and acknowledge you for constantly doing the research and constantly putting yourself on the line based on things you discovered 10 years ago, two years ago, where you're constantly learning new things and sharing that wisdom with us. You're doing great work, and I really acknowledge you for that. You've got a, you've got a great book out there called Lifespan. If people wanna learn more about how they can really, uh, live longer, live healthier, you're on social media, DavidSinclair on Twitter, DavidSinclairPhD on Instagram. We gotta have you come back every, you know, six to 12 months for sure because I have so many questions that I want answered, and I know your information is really helpful. And, uh, in the last interview, I asked you about your three truths and the definition of greatness. So if people wanna hear that, which was an amazing interview, go back and listen to that episode. You can hear about David's three truths, which the third truth was the most inspiring for me. I'm not sure if you remember. I'm not gonna say it, but the third one was the most inspiring. And is there any final thoughts you have, David, uh, before we let you go today?

Dr. David Sinclair 56:14 Uh, well, thank you for, for what you do, Lewis. It's, um, it's actually great to be able to have, uh, a platform, uh, to be able to speak to people directly rather than through, uh, other types of media where scientists' words just get misconstrued and hyped. So this is... I, I wanna, you know, appreciate and say, uh, to everybody listening, this is an, a fantastic world we live in where we can, through folks like you, talk directly to the public.

Lewis Howes 56:42 For sure.

Dr. David Sinclair 56:42 Um, and, and your, your podcast i- has been one of the best, uh, that I've been on, and some of the questions you've asked me, no one's ever conceived of, of asking me those. So thank you for that. Final thought, what's on my mind these days is, is the word kindness. I brought it up earlier. Uh, we're in a, in a world where there's, there's too much arguing, partisanship, um, and we're, we're facing an enemy right now. Um, we're trying to get through this, uh, period of our history, and things are gonna get tough. Things are tough for, for many people already, and I, I just want everybody to remember, you know, it's easy to say we're all in this together. But what I really wanna say is that, you know, let, let's be the best people we can be, and kindness is, is what comes to mind. And, uh, if we can just do that, I think we're all gonna get through this okay.

Lewis Howes 57:34 My man, David Sinclair, thanks so much for being here, man. I appreciate you.

Dr. David Sinclair 57:37 Appreciate you, too. Thanks, Lewis.

Lewis Howes 57:38 If you wanna learn about the key foods you need to eat to master your health, make sure to watch this video right here.

Dr. David Sinclair 57:45 Humans who eat two cups of mushrooms per week do not get Alzheimer's disease, and it's bec-

Lewis Howes 57:54 Two cups of any type of mushroom?

Dr. David Sinclair 57:55 Any type you want.

Lewis Howes 57:56 Just go to the grocery store-

Dr. David Sinclair 57:57 Go to the grocery-

Lewis Howes 57:57 ... get some mushrooms