PROFESSOR DAVID SINCLAIR | Can Humans Live For 1000 Years?

Chris Williamson 0:01 What's happening? I'm coming to you from the beautiful Harvard Medical School in Boston. I arrived last night. I've had the requisite amount of caffeine, and I'm about to go and sit down with David Sinclair, who is a biologist and a professor of genetics here at Harvard Medical School. You may have recognized him from the Joe Rogan podcast he did a couple of months ago. That was interesting and exciting to say the least. Introduced me to a lot of topics that I didn't know about before and I'm super excited to follow up on some of them today. So yeah, stay tuned. Professor David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School. How are you today?

David Sinclair 0:39 I'm doing really well, Chris.

Chris Williamson 0:40 I'm very, very glad to be here. I'm, uh, off to see your friends at InsideTracker later on. Uh, I'm gonna go straight over there and have a sit down with them and go through my, uh, my results. See what, see what they've got to say.

David Sinclair 0:53 Oh, really? You've had your blood drawn?

Chris Williamson 0:54 I have indeed, yeah.

David Sinclair 0:55 Uh-huh. That'll be exciting.

Chris Williamson 0:57 I went to Quest Diagnostics, uh, a week and a bit ago in California, um, and I went through my results with Stacy. If it's not, if she's not called Stacy, I'm gonna be in so much bother. Um, with one of the analysts at InsideTracker, and they took me through all of my stuff earlier on actually, which was super interesting.

David Sinclair 1:17 So are you, uh, older or younger than your actual age?

Chris Williamson 1:20 I am 31 in real years, and the inside of my body's 36-

David Sinclair 1:25 Oh, wow. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:25 ... unfortunately. Um, that is because glucose being out of range-

David Sinclair 1:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:32 ... weighs very heavily. Um, and the only thing I've got is slightly out of range glucose, and my lipids are a tiny little bit out as well. So I need to eat soluble fiber.

David Sinclair 1:47 Yeah. You'll, you'll enjoy that. Um... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:51 (laughs) Soluble fiber, when I was looking at the list of potential groups of foods, it was just 20 different types of beans.

David Sinclair 2:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:00 And I was like, "I have-"

David Sinclair 2:02 Oh, no.

Chris Williamson 2:03 "... I have no types of beans in my diet." Like, are baked beans, like does that count as a bean? Uh, I-

David Sinclair 2:09 I'm sure it does. It has the desired effect, I bet.

Chris Williamson 2:12 It does indeed. So the first question I've got for you, what, what do you do here? I know we're in Harvard Medical School. (laughs) I haven't got the first idea about what it is that you do.

David Sinclair 2:24 Well, so I, I come in every day to my lab. Uh, there's about 30 to 35 people in, in my lab. Um, and I instruct them to discover really cool stuff. And that's basically my job. Uh, and they'll come to me and they'll say, "I've got an idea to discover something." And I'll say, "That sounds good, go do it." Or, "That sounds really boring, don't bother doing it. And by the way, how much is that gonna cost?" And they'll tell me, "It's gonna cost about $2 million."

Chris Williamson 2:52 (laughs)

David Sinclair 2:52 So it's my job to bring in the money and let them, uh, figure it out. But the theme of my lab is focused on aging, and has been since I started the lab, uh, about 20 years ago here at Harvard. And so I, I run a center for aging research here, and we are really working, uh, not just on trying to understand why we age, but also how do we slow down and reverse that process as well.

Chris Williamson 3:19 And that's all being conducted here, but also offsite at one of your multiple companies? Or is it mostly here or is it... How does it work?

David Sinclair 3:28 Well, there's a giant ecosystem. Um, this is the Menlo Park version, uh, of the ecosystem where we do the very basic discovery. We can ask fundamental questions about what is the clock of aging? Uh, can we reprogram the body? Is it safe? Uh, and can we extend lifespan? Mostly of animals we work with here. Uh, these are, um, laboratory animals. Uh, outside of the university is, uh, a network of companies, um, institutes, colleagues, collaborators, um, literally thousands of people around the globe. Uh, Europe, Asia, Australia, and others, uh, all working with us on trying to understand these questions, answers to these questions. But also what makes my lab rare, uh, and unusual is we're very innovative. So that we file patents once every few months. We spin out a company, uh, at least a couple times a year. Uh, and the reason for doing that is not because... Well, I do like starting companies, but that's not why I do it.

Chris Williamson 4:32 (laughs)

David Sinclair 4:32 Uh, I do it because I'm not satisfied with just publishing work. I feel that my role on this planet, if I have one, is to try and help people with their lives. To live longer and healthier and more productively. And just making a discovery in a yeast cell or a mouse isn't doing it for me. That's just part of what I'm here for.

Chris Williamson 4:52 You need to apply that as well.

David Sinclair 4:54 Exactly. So most of the companies that come out of this lab are biotech companies working on medicines, but we also do a whole range of other things. We have biosecurity, so protecting the world from pathogens and, and other nasty things that can go on. Um, we also work on bioinformatics, so trying to understand... So like InsideTracker, how do you estimate somebody's age and help them with their living and what they're eating? Um, but mostly it's molecules that we hope will be drugs one day to not just treat one particular disease of aging, say diabetes or heart disease or cancer, but to have a radical type of medicine, uh, that would actually slow down all diseases as, at once with a single pill.

Chris Williamson 5:37 Is it likely that there is a, I don't know whether panacea is the right word, but a out there, a particular way to manipulate molecules, which will be, uh, the equivalent of an aging panacea?

David Sinclair 5:50 Uh, well, there certainly will be. Uh, a lot of people who hear that we're close to finding something that'll slow down aging, um, they're right to be skeptical because-

Chris Williamson 6:01 It sounds like turning back time, right?... like, literally feels like, "Oh, you're slowing down aging? Yeah, cool. And can I go and get in a DeLorean at the same time, please? Is that all right?"

David Sinclair 6:09 Right. But actually figuring out how to slow down aging or reverse time is, is a lot easier than building a time machine.

Chris Williamson 6:17 (laughs)

David Sinclair 6:17 And I think it's gonna be easier than curing cancer. Uh, it's not that hard. We actually understand as a field over the last 20 years what controls aging. We have genes in our body called longevity genes that slow the process down. And in recent breakthroughs, just in the last couple of years, uh, the field and my lab have discovered that you can reprogram the body and reset the body's clock to be young again. And when I say body, I mean it's still in the l- in the lab. But we hope that within a couple of years, we'll be actually be doing human clinical trials to literally reverse aging in cells.

Chris Williamson 6:49 What's the mechanism that this works on? Can you take us through it?

David Sinclair 6:52 Yeah. Well, there are three main approaches that we're taking, um, and I'll just summarize them. The first that we've been doing for a long time is activating the body's defenses against aging. So normally, you have to be hungry or exercise to do that. We found genes and molecules that you can give to animals and to people actually that slow down the effects of aging. So that's one. So that, think of that as activating the body's natural defenses against deterioration and disease. That, we've been doing for 20 years at least. The second is to delete cells that are actually causing the problem. So there are cells called senescent cells that you might think of as zombie cells, and those zombie cells are causing havoc, and you can actually get rid of them. And when you do that in a mouse, it'll live longer and be healthier. Then the third approach, which is much more recent but much more powerful than any of those, is called partial cellular reprogramming. And, uh, my lab and some others have actually shown, just a few others around the world, that currently, if you put a combination of resetting genes into cells in the dish and actually in an animal, you can quite literally reverse the age of those cells so that they become young again. And in mice, what we're discovering, we're writing these papers up now, is that you can drive aging forward and accelerate it with this technology, and you can reverse it just as easily and make cells behave as though they're almost embryonic.

David Sinclair 8:23 I'll give you an example.

Chris Williamson 8:24 Yes.

David Sinclair 8:25 When we're, when we're born, one of the first things that ages in our body is our, is our spinal cord and our central nervous system. And you, you might say, "Well, David, why do you say it's aging?" Well, a young neuron will be able to repair itself and regrow. But we know that if we damage our eye, our optic nerve, or our spine, we're never gonna walk again or see again. But if you're young or if you're a salamander, you can actually regrow the, the central nervous system. So we've got ways now of reprogramming those cells or an entire mouse to make it ostensibly younger again, and they regrow their optic nerves so that they can see again.

Chris Williamson 9:08 That sounds like science fiction.

David Sinclair 9:11 I thought so too. Um, but in May this past year, 2018, um, one of my students who was working on this, Juan Cheng, he thought it was never gonna work, but he thought he'd try it anyway. So he injected this gene combination into the eye of a mouse, and he damaged the optic nerve so that it was all dying-

Chris Williamson 9:30 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 9:31 ... turned on the system, and it grew back. And he texted me the picture and said, "I cannot believe this is working." And I said, "You know what? I can see the future right now." And, uh, he's since tested it on glaucoma, which is damage due to eye pressure. He's tested on, on just on regular old mice that don't have good vision. You know, I'm f- almost 50, and I can already tell my retina's not as good as it used to be. Uh, we can actually treat old mice and get them to see like a young mouse within just a few weeks.

Chris Williamson 10:06 (sighs) I, to me, aging feels a little bit like the passage of time. So it feels like something that you are along for the ride with, and it would appear that that's not quite the case and that... I think I'm a good avatar for the layperson. Um, I understand that cells regenerate, and I think that your entire body, every cell is redone within a particularly... not a hugely long window of time. Um, but for some reason, the concept of them actually growing or getting younger just seems at odds. It feels like we would be going back in time.

David Sinclair 10:47 Well, we're going back in age. Uh, and you can disconnect biological age from chronological age. The... one of the main reasons I believe we age is that, uh, we have a... we, we have what's called an epigenetic clock that ticks over as we get older due to time, but also how we treat our bodies. If we smoke, we don't exercise, or we're obese, the clock will tick faster. But now that we understand what the clock is, we're finding that we can actually revert that age and get the biological clock to go backward, not just slow it down. And so those nerve cells that I was talking about regenerating, we do literally make them biologically young again. And how that actually happens is on the cutting edge of science right now. But we have some clues as to how the cell is accessing the youthful information that is locked away inside it.

Chris Williamson 11:38 Can you explain how that works?

David Sinclair 11:40 I can to the very extent of what is known to science right now.

Chris Williamson 11:43 Yes. Your best, your best idea. Is it what's on this whiteboard? Is that it?

David Sinclair 11:47 Some of it. That's a messy diagram that I drew trying to explain it. Uh-

Chris Williamson 11:51 It looks like bunches of grapes. Those are some mice running towards other mice. That's a little boat at sea.

David Sinclair 11:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:57 Um, that is... that's a cloud. That's a cloud with birds coming out of it.

David Sinclair 12:00 That's exactly right.

Chris Williamson 12:01 Cricket-

David Sinclair 12:01 You've solved it.

Chris Williamson 12:02 Cricket balls there at the top.

David Sinclair 12:04 Yep, yep. Actually, that's a tennis game within our cells literally.

Chris Williamson 12:08 (laughs)

David Sinclair 12:09 Maybe not, not literally, we don't have tennis balls.

Chris Williamson 12:12 (laughs)

David Sinclair 12:12 But what we do have are proteins that act like tennis balls that bounce around inside the cells going from one thing to another, and that's a tennis game. And what we've discovered is that normally those tennis balls, those proteins will sit on parts of the genome to tell a cell it's a liver cell, or it's a brain cell, muscle cell.

Chris Williamson 12:33 So it doesn't regenerate the wrong thing?

David Sinclair 12:35 Right.

Chris Williamson 12:35 Okay.

David Sinclair 12:36 Right. And those are laid down, those structures in the cells are laid down when we're born. So a l- muscle cell is not gonna give rise to two liver cells, it's gonna give rise to more muscle cells.

Chris Williamson 12:45 Yes.

David Sinclair 12:45 And we understand pretty much how that works. These proteins that sit on the DNA, they control which genes are on and which are off at any one time.

Chris Williamson 12:52 Okay.

David Sinclair 12:54 But those balls actually get distracted. And so th- here's where the tennis analogy comes in. We can distract those proteins by doing things to the cell. One really great way of distracting them is to break a chromosome, and then those proteins, they panic and the cell pulls them to the break to help repair the broken chromosome, leaving those genes at, to, to wreak havoc for a short period. But then once the repair is complete, they'll go back and reestablish that program again, so that the liver cell stays a liver cell. The problem is with the tennis analogy, if you keep whacking balls back and forth over 70 or 80 years, you're gonna lose balls. You're gonna not hit them back to where they came from, and it ends up being a huge mess. And so there's balls scattered all over the court-

Chris Williamson 13:40 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 13:40 ... or in this case, the, those proteins that were once laid down in the right place to turn the cell, the s- the genes on at the right time are now scattered all over the, the cell, the nucleus and the cell loses its identity. So a liver cell is ... an old liver cell is more like other cells in the body, and actually they forget to be liver cells.

Chris Williamson 14:01 Okay. So can you explain the difference between what would look like a young cell and what would look like an old cell? Or what is, (phone ringing) what categorizes that? That's someone who needs to know what a young liver and an old liver cell look like. That's what that person is.

David Sinclair 14:16 Well, I can pretty much guarantee you that it's someone calling me to find out how much of a certain molecule they should ingest.

Chris Williamson 14:22 (laughs)

David Sinclair 14:22 That's usually the phone call.

Chris Williamson 14:23 Is that really what you're getting at the moment?

David Sinclair 14:25 Uh, hundreds of emails a day, yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:26 Really?

David Sinclair 14:27 It's a lot. Um-

Chris Williamson 14:27 I mean, this is the Joe Rogan effect, isn't it?

David Sinclair 14:31 Well, it's always been a lot, but yeah, Joe, uh, did, uh, increase the level-

Chris Williamson 14:35 Orders of magnitude.

David Sinclair 14:36 ... of interest, for sure. Uh, also, you know, um, um, fairly rare as a scientist, I talk about research as it's happening.

Chris Williamson 14:44 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 14:44 And it's, it sparked people's imagination.

Chris Williamson 14:47 To segue briefly here, um, one of my friends who spends a fair bit of time on Reddit, uh, mentioned that him and some of his buddies loved the episode that you'd done with Joe. And that they were part of the, uh, r/longevity, uh, thread, uh, on Reddit. And, uh, he just decided that he would post, um, "One of my buddies is going to go and do a podcast with Professor David Sinclair. Does anyone have any questions?" And I thought it would be like, I don't know, th- sh- "How many, how many pieces of fruit and veg should I eat a day?" Or, uh, "How long is the optimal window of a fast? Like, you know, 16:8 or should I be doing like a, a, a 18:6?" Or whatever it might be. And the list of questions that I had to try and translate, I've not even ... uh, they're in Evernote, but they're just staying there because I can't pronounce half of the words that are in there.

David Sinclair 15:35 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:35 But I think one of the things that it definitely did identify to me is that-

David Sinclair 15:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:39 ... uh, longevity at the moment appears to be a very emerging field within kind of the, the general public or becoming more of a, a general public concern.

David Sinclair 15:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:50 Um, I mean, everyone's aging, right?

David Sinclair 15:52 Right. Well, we've always been aging as a species for ... ever since we were, you know, primordial cells in the soup four billion years ago. Uh, and we've always been conscious of our mortality. But I think there are two things happening, Chris. One is that the science is mature, and it's no longer an if, it's just a when. We have the technology. We understand how to slow down aging, maybe even reverse it. And the other is that the world I see is bifurcating into two types of people. Uh, those that wanna understand a topic in detail, so your listeners are those type of people, and God bless them. Um, this is the level of detail that typically members of the public would never know about. Uh, and then the rest of the world watches cats playing pianos and stuff. But-

Chris Williamson 16:36 (laughs)

David Sinclair 16:36 ... thank goodness there are people who really care about the world and what's happening and, and wanna learn in detail beyond what, uh, typically a newspaper used to tell people.

Chris Williamson 16:45 I agree. Uh, I think that we've emancipated the ability for people to, uh, to learn, uh, in as much detail as they want. And there is a, there is a horse for every course, uh, with regards to what people want to learn. Um, you're totally right, that for myself, I ... w- we get comments all the time on the, on the YouTube videos and stuff, like a too long, didn't read, like, "Can someone do a TL;DR of this particular podcast?" And I'm like, "I- i- if you want a shortened version of this, there's someone ... or if you want to watch something which is short, YouTube is awash with three and four-minute videos. Like, feel free to go and watch that." I particularly, and I know that the listeners do as well, they enjoy the nuance and the subtlety and the detail and, and deconstructing things down to its component parts over the course of one, two hours. That's what I think is important. And it definitely sounds like that's helping people to buy into more difficult topics potentially like this.

David Sinclair 17:41 Oh, for sure. Uh, because when a newspaper reporter, not all of them, but many of them over the, my career, which now spans 25, 30 years, uh, they latch onto this, and it's always hyped. "Oh, we're gonna live forever. You should drink more red wine." Blah, blah, blah.

Chris Williamson 17:56 (laughs)

David Sinclair 17:56 And I can tell you as a scientist who's spent his career working on the cutting edge of research at Harvard Medical School, publishing in the world's best scientific journals, it's really frustrating. And it, it's actually taken a lot of willpower to make it through those times, because the nu- almost every time what I say comes out-... changed, misshapen-

Chris Williamson 18:16 And you get a bastardized version of whatever it is that you've said.

David Sinclair 18:19 And no wonder the public says, "Yeah, this is another stupid story-

Chris Williamson 18:22 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 18:22 ... it can't be true." But if you listen to two hours of someone like me talking, uh, you really do realize that the science is way more advanced than people ever knew about. And as a scientist, I, I just, you know, thank heaven, thank people like you-

Chris Williamson 18:37 (laughs)

David Sinclair 18:38 ... who can actually allow people like me to, to reach many people at a level that never was possible before.

Chris Williamson 18:44 (smacks lips) I totally agree. Um, how much ... This is a question that's been percolating around in my head. How much do you think the increasing interest in longevity with the general public is due to a fear of death?

David Sinclair 18:59 Uh, probably m- most of it. Most of it.

Chris Williamson 19:02 Most of it?

David Sinclair 19:03 Deep down, I think we're all afraid of dying. Or maybe not the, actually the day we die, we're not afraid. "Oh, I'm not afraid of dying." I've looked death in the face a few times in my life, it's not that scary. But I think we're all fearful of, uh, of not being around. It's gonna be pretty boring. We're never g- probably never going to see our loved ones again, or our friends. That's pretty sad-

Chris Williamson 19:28 (laughs)

David Sinclair 19:28 ... if you really think about it. And it actually takes a lot of courage to think about our own mortality. Mostly by the time we're age six, we forget about it and don't think about it again till we're about 50 years old. Uh, and that interim period we assume we're immortal. Of course we're not, uh, and I don't think we ever will be. Uh, but I think what's going on is that, that once you realize that something can be treated potentially, then it gets exciting. You know, a hundred years ago people used to say, you know, cancer, and gangrene, dying from a splinter, childbirth, these were things that were just the way life is or was, just the way it goes, and so people didn't really care that much about it. Once antibiotics were developed and other medical treatments, people actually were okay talking about it. And the same is happening with aging right now. Uh, the best analogy I could give in terms of human history, uh, it's like the Wright brothers, where in 1902 they built their Wright Flyers and, uh, we're, we're strapping on engines and, uh, and seeing where we can fly.

Chris Williamson 20:25 Yeah. Uh, you are right that the frame is moving with regards to w- the fidelity and the resolution with which we see life. That a splinter could have killed you a hundred years ago, or that ... I read a, an article not too long ago about the fact that so many prehistoric, uh, people died from, uh, issues with their teeth. That they had, uh, m- mouth infections, that was one of the-

David Sinclair 20:48 Really? Hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:48 ... one of the, the main things, 'cause they, they had no way to be able to, uh, comprehensively clean their, uh, their mouths. And, um, you are right. As, as time begins to move forward and as the, um, public perception hasn't yet caught up with the technology that's available, the status quo as it is at the moment, well, aging's always gonna be there. We've always got older and now we, we will forevermore, was the same as a hundred years ago. People have always died in childbirth, or people have always died from gangrene, or a splinter, or scurvy, or whatever it might be.

David Sinclair 21:19 Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's why I think that especially younger people who tend to listen to this kind of show more than older people, uh, really get it. They get that we're going through a scientific transformation and that the future that most people think is coming, that's not gonna happen. The future is something quite different, and people who are born today, or people in their 20s and 30s are going to see radical changes that are far bigger and far more important than the iPhone. You know, does anyone really care about the next, you know, additional memory in an iPhone? I think we reached a point where a lot of that technology frankly is, is being, you know, quite disappointing with the new releases.

Chris Williamson 22:01 I would agree.

David Sinclair 22:02 So what's the next big thing for huma- for humanity? Well, s- some of it's artificial intelligence. I just had one of the world's leading AI people visit the lab this morning, bef- just, that was one of the reasons, uh-

Chris Williamson 22:14 Wow, so that was the reason that we were running-

David Sinclair 22:16 I was-

Chris Williamson 22:16 ... half an hour late.

David Sinclair 22:17 ... tied up a bit.

Chris Williamson 22:17 I mean, if, if Elon Musk's in here then it's fine. Like, Elon, mate, I'll forgive you. Uh, I would like a Tesla Roadster please, if it's available, um, but yeah, i- it's okay.

David Sinclair 22:30 Well, yeah. I, I agree with Elon about a lot of things, but on AI I think he's wrong. Right? I think that we can build AI systems and enough checks that we, we will not be overrun by evil robots.

Chris Williamson 22:43 Have you read Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom?

David Sinclair 22:45 Not yet. It's good?

Chris Williamson 22:47 Highly, highly recommended. Do you know who Nick is? Prof- uh, the head of the Future of Humanities Institute? Um-

David Sinclair 22:53 Where, where's that?

Chris Williamson 22:54 Uh, over in London.

David Sinclair 22:55 Ah.

Chris Williamson 22:55 It's k- I think it's Oxford, um, Oxford University. Um, he's recently done a podcast with Sam Harris, which is absolutely fantastic.

David Sinclair 23:03 Okay.

Chris Williamson 23:03 Um, I would recommend checking it out. It will be in the show notes below for anyone who wants to, uh, to find out what I'm talking about. Um, I don't wanna segue on, uh, AI, but we've touched on it so I'm gonna do it anyway. Um, the control problem for AI is something that's difficult, I think, uh, not allowing our, um, creations to get out of hand. Is there a similar concern with regards to developing these tools for longevity, that you could, um, i- a nefarious group could get ahold of the technology and then weaponize it or do something really, really sort of, uh, untoward?

David Sinclair 23:40 Uh, well yeah, always you can turn technology against humanity. Uh, I'm, I'm not worried about that so much with what I do because, uh, even though we have the technology to make mice and probably people age rapidly, uh, it'd be about the slowest way to, to damage your enemies.

Chris Williamson 23:58 (laughs)

David Sinclair 23:59 There are much more efficient ways-

Chris Williamson 24:00 Shooting someone in the head has al- has been created as a pretty efficient way to-

David Sinclair 24:03 There's, there's that, and somewhere in between, you know, we, we could pretty easily unleash a, a deadly virus that wouldn't be too far beyond what we could even do in, in this lab. Not that we would, but-

Chris Williamson 24:13 Yeah.

David Sinclair 24:14 But in terms of making people age prematurely, uh, we should, can certainly do it.

Chris Williamson 24:18 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 24:18 And I could take you downstairs or maybe somewhere, I shouldn't say-

Chris Williamson 24:22 Yeah.

David Sinclair 24:22 ... and there are, there are, uh-... mice that we can control the aging process forward and backward. So, that's doable.

Chris Williamson 24:28 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 24:29 Um, where I think people get uncomfortable with this technology is, um, so we now understand that there are genes that control how long we live. There's one, for example, called FOXO, which is turned on in whales and longer-lived animals than us. There are even human variants. Uh, my children were lucky enough, two of them out of three, to inherit two really good copies of, of this longevity gene. And so they're probably gonna live a lot longer than, than my wife and I will. Um, so we, we know a lot about that. So, why does this get weird? Well, now that we can CRISPR engineer babies, what's gonna happen when the world's most, uh, intent helicopter parent wants a kid that can live to 120? That's probably doable right now. Whether or not we should is another question.

Chris Williamson 25:14 Whose job is it to work out whether or not we should?

David Sinclair 25:17 Well, right now there's a worldwide debate amongst scientists about whether we should come out against it. Uh, interestingly, when, when human stem cells were first discovered, uh, and that you could reprogram cells and clone animals, there was a, a much greater backlash. Uh, you probably remember the, the Blair Bush days where there were all these in- these committees set up and it was banned here in the US, blah, blah, blah. We had something just as big happen, uh, last year, was that a Chinese researcher, a professor, he had a couple of, uh ... well, engineered a couple of twins, twin girls who were res- are resistant, going to be resistant to HIV infection, and he engino- engineered those genetically. Now, there was a little bit of upset. Lot of scientists got upset because this was announced without any warning at a scientific conference. There was no oversight, there was no consultation with governments or other scientists. So, the shock really took us all by surprise. But there was no major backlash. There hasn't been yet. There hasn't been any outlawing. You certainly don't hear a lot of backlash at the higher levels of government over here in the US, at least. Um, I think that's healthy. I think that what we've got is a very rational debate and that we shouldn't just overreact just because something feels weird or isn't, has never been done before.

Chris Williamson 26:41 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 26:41 Now, we need to discuss, uh, not just the ethics but is it safe? And that, I think safety is more important than, than ethics actually. Um, and what I mean by that is someone's ethics might be different than yours. I mean, usually, uh, I come down on the side of freedom to, to do things as long as they're safe and that they're beneficial, um, and there's some consent. Um, but in this case, what's tricky is the ch- your children don't have consent. So, that's why I think-

Chris Williamson 27:08 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 27:09 ... it's, it's a hard one. But what if your child was definitely going to get, say, a dominant genetic disease and there was no way to get around it except, um, either have new parents-

Chris Williamson 27:21 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 27:21 ... or don't breed, um, or to, uh, have an abortion?

Chris Williamson 27:25 What would be an example of a dominant genetic disease?

David Sinclair 27:28 Uh, so Huntingdon's for example. If both parents have Huntingdon's, you can ... or even one, you can have a, a child with Huntingdon's. Um, I mean, you can always select the embryo, but maybe you don't wanna kill embryos, so maybe you could create, uh, an embryo that you go in with this CRISPR editing system and chop out the bad Huntingdon's gene and create a healthy child. That should be doable.

Chris Williamson 27:53 There's a big ethical question there, isn't there?

David Sinclair 27:56 Uh, well, the- there is, though i- if you're making people healthier and not suffer, I always say that that's what we humans have always done. That's why we invented aspirin and antibiotics. We're just going into a new era where we can really have a big effect because it's not just on one person's life, it's generations forever-

Chris Williamson 28:19 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 28:20 ... beyond that person.

Chris Williamson 28:21 What's the second order, third order, fourth order effect of this particular decision?

David Sinclair 28:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:25 I guess the, the more subtle, the more subtle question is, between Huntingdon's disease and a, a healthy, uh, human baby, the line appears to be quite clear, uh, as what is preferable. But as the fidelity of that becomes, "Well, I've got two ginger parents and my dad got bullied at school for being ginger, like, I don't wanna have a ginger child," uh, you know, where do we begin to draw the line here? Because in essence all we're talking about at the lowest or the highest resolution is preference.

David Sinclair 28:58 It is, and then it gets really crazy when parents say, "I want the smartest kid I can have," uh, or, "The best-looking kid."

Chris Williamson 29:05 Can we identify the, uh, contributing factors to that?

David Sinclair 29:09 Well, there, there was a gene published last year that is thought to contribute to, to human intelligence and speech-

Chris Williamson 29:17 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 29:17 ... uh, that differentiate, differentiates us from the chimps. And perhaps having more copies of that gene could make us smarter. We don't know that yet. So, I think that that's still in science, the realm of science fiction. But, you know, looking ahead 30 years from now, you could probably engineer your child to have these traits of-

Chris Williamson 29:38 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 29:38 ... certainly height, disease resistance, we can protect against cardiovascular disease. Um, and what about intelligence and longevity? Um, and then we also, it gets into a crazy zone where imagine a hundred years from now that you can have a- an army of clones or of people who are robust, who heal better, don't bleed out, they don't get diseases.

Chris Williamson 29:58 Super soldiers.

David Sinclair 29:59 Yeah. I mean, this is not beyond possibility in terms of technology today-

Chris Williamson 30:04 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 30:04 ... here in the, uh, the second decade of the 21st century. 22nd century, it's gonna be quite something to see. And biology, getting back to the iPhone, I think biology is gonna really make a much bigger difference to our lives than any electronic technology.

Chris Williamson 30:19 Wikipedia.

David Sinclair 30:20 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:21 I do love Wikipedia. Um, did you listen to Alex Jones on Joe Rogan, the most recent one?

David Sinclair 30:26 I did, yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:28 Um, I mean, I don't really even know where to start with that. But the, the-... trans human-animal hybrids in the flesh farms, wherever it is. Like, is, is, that the sort of thing that's doable at the moment with current technology?

David Sinclair 30:43 Oh, (sighs) yeah, we, we do create, uh, chime- chimeric animals, uh, in the lab.

Chris Williamson 30:50 Right. Yeah.

David Sinclair 30:51 Uh, and so-

Chris Williamson 30:52 What's-

David Sinclair 30:52 ... that, the Island of Dr. More-

Chris Williamson 30:53 Can you define chime- chimeric, please?

David Sinclair 30:54 Well, admit to, it's a, an organism that's comprised of cells with different genomes. And, uh, so it's a, it's a mixed organism. And yeah, we, we could do that but, uh, I mean, that, that to me seems highly unethical and even unnecessary.

Chris Williamson 31:12 Well, I, I think everyone would, would agree that that's the case. But it doesn't necessarily stop the technology from occurring. And I suppose the line between how do you... What if you had to do a lot of iterations of chimera, um, proliferation, and X number of years from then you would develop this unbelievable new, uh, solution to something you've been looking to work on? Does the cost-

David Sinclair 31:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:41 ... outweigh the, the benefit?

David Sinclair 31:45 Right. Well, I think we all, we all have personal views on that. Um, one area that I think is really interesting in this building right here at Harvard Medical School is, uh, whether or not you think it's okay to use animal organs for humans. And so one of the reasons we don't use pig, uh, livers for transplant is they're full of pig viruses. But George Church in his, uh, spin-out company are actually removing those viruses, cutting them out of the pig genome so that these livers might be useful. Um, and you might say, "Well, we, we shouldn't be breeding pigs to, to have transplants." But if we're eating the rest of the animal and throwing away the livers, why not?

Chris Williamson 32:25 That's a very good question. I'll be interested to hear what the listeners think about that particular ethical dilemma about, I suppose, the vegans and the vegetarians might be firmly on one side of that already. They don't need-

David Sinclair 32:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:36 It doesn't matter whether or not the liver's going into someone's body. I think they, they've already made their stance on that.

David Sinclair 32:41 Yeah, I, I would charge the, the listeners with the following thought. What if it was your mother or your child who needed a liver transplant and there were none available, would you sacrifice a pig?

Chris Williamson 32:55 That is a difficult question to answer, isn't it?

David Sinclair 32:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:58 So moving back onto the, uh, questions that you get all of the time ringing through the phone. What are the, um... What would you say are the foundational, uh, strategies that people right now should be looking to incorporate into their lives to improve longevity?

David Sinclair 33:20 Right. Well, one of the, the reasons that this field is, is taking off also is because there are things that people can do right now that we've learned are actually helpful for turning on these longevity genetic pathways. Uh, if I could give one piece of advice, only one, uh, and I will give more, but if I could only give one, the most important thing would be eat less. Eating less has been shown for, for centuries, but also in labs for the last 70, 80 years to be extremely effective in extending lifespan of everything from yeast cells, to worms, to flies, to mice, to monkeys. And if humans don't live longer for fasting and calorie restriction, then, then we'd be the exception on the planet. And I don't believe that we're an exceptional species, biologically speaking. Um, so eat less. What does that mean? Well, nobody knows what the perfect diet is. I get a lot of those questions.

Chris Williamson 34:11 What should I eat?

David Sinclair 34:13 What should I... Well, what you eat is important, but when you eat and how much you eat are just as important as well. Uh, so why don't I, I give you an example of what I do as, as... You know, I do a fair bit of research and I've come up with my own best practices. Um, so I do intermittent fasting. And now there are a variety of those, and I think many of your listeners probably know them by name. But there, there's fast every other day, there's fast, uh, two days out of five, there's, uh, skip breakfast and perhaps have a late lunch and don't have a late dinner as well. Uh, that's the one that I prefer. I find it easier to skip breakfast and have a late lunch than to really go through days of, of being hungry. I can't tolerate it for too long. But I don't mind hunger pains for a few hours. Um, on top of that, uh, I take a, a drug called Metformin, which is prescribed for diabe- diabetics, type 2 diabetics, age-associated diabetes, which has two main effects. First of all, obviously, it low- lowers blood glucose. That's what it's prescribed for, for, for patients. Uh, but it also is, is quite rough on people's stomach, and I find that it actually stopped me from being hungry.

Chris Williamson 35:25 It curbs the hunger pangs.

David Sinclair 35:26 Yeah, it really is effective. And so I have the kind of biology, uh, and so does my son, uh, that we like to eat. We feel hunger s- more strongly apparently than other people. We're kind of like Labradors of the human world. Uh, but we also gain weight, uh, rapidly. We put on muscle, but we also gain weight pretty quickly. And so I would... If I was allowed to eat what I wanted to without a lot of mental power and a little bit of help from Metformin, I would be quite an obese person. And, and my son, uh, God bless him, he hopefully is not listening to this podcast, he's put on a lot of weight. Uh, he's 11 years old and we go into the gym, but, uh, you can see that it's, it's pretty hard for people with our genotype to, uh, keep the weight off. And so-

Chris Williamson 36:06 His body's raring at the, chomping at the bit to get bigger?

David Sinclair 36:09 Well, it is, it is. And so he's, he's getting strong, but he's also covered in a layer of fat. And so my point is that if I can do it, and you know, I'm, I've got a BMI of about 21, 22.

Chris Williamson 36:20 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 36:20 If I can do it, anyone can.

Chris Williamson 36:22 'Cause you are genetically predisposed to have a, a poor thin person, uh, body type?

David Sinclair 36:30 Yeah. Well, you know, my, my father, uh, it- was prone to obesity. He has di- he has diabetes. And his grandmother, well, my grandmother, his mother, had a stroke in her 30s and-... had type 2 diabetes. So my, I, I have half Ashkenazi Jew genetics-

Chris Williamson 36:44 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 36:45 ... coming out of Hungary. Sinclair is not my real family name. It's Szigeti. Uh, those genes are pretty crap when it comes to longevity and, uh, so we're fighting it, my, my father, my son, myself, trying to live at least a normal lifespan.

Chris Williamson 36:59 I understand. So you mentioned that fasting is effective due to calorie restriction. What's the mechanism that that works on?

David Sinclair 37:07 Right. So we didn't know how calorie restriction worked until recently, and it's exciting we understand it. So how does it work? Well, this is partly what we've discovered in my lab. There's many others in the world as well, but we can put a little brick in the wall for that. We showed that there are longevity genes. Uh, they've got the name sirtuin. Um, actually named after a ye- yeast gene called SIR2. And that gene controls which genes are switched on and which genes are switched off. It's called a silent information regulator. That's what SIR2 stands for. And this gene really gets back to that clock of aging that I started talking about earlier. It controls which genes should be off to maintain youth, but over time, it actually gets distracted and goes to other places to repair broken chromosomes, for example, and ends up causing a yeast cell to lose its identity. It actually bec- loses its sexual identity, becomes sterile, and that's a hallmark of yeast aging. So what that tells us is that there are genes in a yeast cell that control its longevity. Turns out if you give a yeast cell more SIR2 genes or more copies of SIR2, it'll live longer. Um, take it away, it'll live shorter. Okay, so that's the fundamental knowledge that you need to understand what I'm about to tell you. SIR2 makes a protein that controls these, the epigenome, these genes, but it, it doesn't work well unless it has a molecule in the cell called NAD. The long-term... The long, uh, word for that is nicotinamide, uh, adenine dinucleotide, but let's call it NAD.

Chris Williamson 38:47 NAD is much better, yeah.

David Sinclair 38:48 Yeah, NAD or nad, some people call it, but it should be called NAD.

Chris Williamson 38:51 Let's not call it nad. I'm British.

David Sinclair 38:52 Don't call it nad.

Chris Williamson 38:53 I'm British and nads are not, not what I want to be taking.

David Sinclair 38:56 No, it... Well, you know, some people want larger nads.

Chris Williamson 38:59 That's true (laughs) .

David Sinclair 39:00 We, we have, we have nad boosters in the lab. That's what, that's what my dad takes. So these nad, NAD boosters, the relevance of that is that these SIR2 proteins, these sirtuins in, in our body, they don't work well unless they have a lot of NAD in the cell. Uh, as we get older, and even as yeast cells get older, they lose their NAD so that by the time you're 50 years old, uh, like me, you have about half the levels of NAD that you had when you were 20. Without the NAD, the sirtuins are lazy. They don't control the genes of youth well, and they don't repair broken DNA well, and that leads to aging in organisms, we believe, among other things. But that's one of the main causes. So what does calorie restriction and fasting have to do with it? By fasting and calorie restricting, we actually boost the levels of NAD in the cell so that those repair genes and those protectors of the, of the genome sirtuins are more active. That's one of the explanations for calorie restriction. There are other genes that control aging. There's one called mTOR. There's one called AMP kinase. And all of these longevity pathways that I'm telling you about are boosted by fasting. And so we think that by being hungry, what you're really doing in a general sense is telling the body, "I'm under threat. I might be dead in a month from now. My food supply is running out. I'm gonna hunker down. I'm gonna build a stronger body. I'm gonna survive. I'm gonna breed less." Remember, the yeast cells become sterile. We become less fertile if we're starving as well, by the way.

Chris Williamson 40:35 (laughs)

David Sinclair 40:35 Especially women. Um, and that's a survival response that we kick into action just by being hungry or by exercising for that matter.

Chris Williamson 40:42 Is that one of the reasons why bodybuilders when they diet down for a show and they're at super low body fat will have trouble with, uh, maintaining erections and, and sex drive and things like that? Is that likely to be the same pathway?

David Sinclair 40:54 Well, so I didn't know that for a fact. Uh, but it perfectly makes sense that it's a balance between growth and reproduction and hunkering down and surviving. And we call this the disposable soma theory. So this is actually a, a Brit, uh, Tom Kirkwood dis- pro- proposed this back in the 1970s. And the idea is that species as a whole and individuals also are exercising a trade-off between growing fast and reproducing and hunkering down and building a body that lasts a long time. So by stimulating growth and reproduction, so if you take a lot of testosterone, that triggers a lot of growth, take a lot of protein, amino acids, it's great. Bodybuilding, you'll repair things better, but it's probably at the expense of building a long-lasting body eventually-

Chris Williamson 41:42 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 41:43 ... that, that may run out. So you might wanna pulse between growth and reproduction and then shut it down a little bit by fasting. And so testosterone is one of those molecules that tells the body, "Grow muscle."

Chris Williamson 41:54 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 41:55 Which is shut down by being hungry, so you'd survive.

Chris Williamson 42:00 So the, the actual hunger itself, is it the sensation of being hungry that causes this beneficial effect? Or is it the fact that the blood glucose is lower? Is it- what's the actual mechanism that it's working on?

David Sinclair 42:18 Well, it, it's actually thought to be both based on mouse experiments. If you cut back on calories, but still fill the stomach with cellulose, that is sufficient to extend lifespan. So part of it is the, the biochemical response to low calories and low amino acid.

Chris Williamson 42:35 Okay.

David Sinclair 42:36 But it's not everything. Uh, so the, the-... uh, uh, th- 'cause you can be full, uh, and you can still get the benefits of low calories.

Chris Williamson 42:46 That's interesting.

David Sinclair 42:47 Right? But on the other hand, some people have done the opposite, which is, uh, give a lot of calories but stimulate hunger. And you can do that by tweaking the brain in, in ways.

Chris Williamson 42:57 Like in- i- increasing ghrelin release and stuff like that.

David Sinclair 42:59 Exactly. Uh, and w- people can also tweak the hypothalamus, uh, which, uh, in itself can extend the lifespan of an animal.

Chris Williamson 43:07 True. I mean, tweaking the hypothalamus sounds-

David Sinclair 43:10 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:10 ... like a terrifying (laughs) thing to do. It's not taking your car in to get the MOT done or have a service. It's like poking your brain.

David Sinclair 43:19 Right, it's changing glucocorticoids which signal to the body that it's hungry or it needs to grow, uh, and that also extends lifespan. Uh-

Chris Williamson 43:27 Does anything not extend lifespan? 'Cause I, I, I'm-

David Sinclair 43:29 Plenty of things. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:30 I feel like, I feel like everything that we've talked about today, I, I f- should just live to 120 just by pretending, just testing stuff. I'll open that drawer, I'll see if that drawer extends lifespan. I'll, like, use the, use my left hand to, to put that coat on, and that'll extend lifespan.

David Sinclair 43:45 Well, obviously we don't, we don't read about those studies that failed.

Chris Williamson 43:49 Yes.

David Sinclair 43:49 So there's a lot of things in my lab, for example, that never extended lifespan.

Chris Williamson 43:52 Are there any, uh, notable examples of that, that you thought ... Or was there anything that you thought would really ... was a real winner and then it turned out to not be a winner?

David Sinclair 44:02 Well, let's see. So usually we don't embark on a mouse experiment that'll take three v- or four years without some pretty good science behind it. Uh, we've tried some plant molecules that, that didn't extend the lifespan of some, some species. Gee, let me think. Uh, we, we tried some versions of rapamycin which are, uh, turned down this mTOR pathway, one of those longevity pathways, and that didn't extend yeast cells very much, um, because we think there were some side effects of toxicity.

Chris Williamson 44:34 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 44:35 Um, let's see. Oh, we overexpressed the SIRT1 gene, one of these mammalian sirtuins, and that didn't work and we figured out why. Turns out that, uh, in the brain, SIRT1 actually has a negative impact, uh, in the pituitary. We haven't published this yet. But even though SIRT1 made a robust mouse and it was protected against pretty much all diseases we could give it, diabetes and heart disease, it didn't live longer. And we found out because in the pituitary, it needs to be off rather than on.

Chris Williamson 45:05 Ah, so you've got this physically incredibly robust mouse, but it's actually suffering with dementia and it's, like, super old and super wise.

David Sinclair 45:14 Uh, well, what happens with the pituitary is it controls grow- growth hormone.

Chris Williamson 45:18 Yeah.

David Sinclair 45:18 And so, uh, by, by turning it down in the pituitary rather than up-

Chris Williamson 45:23 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 45:24 ... uh, we actually ... It created small mice that lived a long time if we just tweaked it in that part of the body.

Chris Williamson 45:30 Yeah.

David Sinclair 45:31 But by turning it on in the whole animal, that turning it on in ... and gave the mouse a lot of growth hormones-

Chris Williamson 45:37 Yeah.

David Sinclair 45:37 ... we got a, a bigger, more robust mouse, but it, it didn't live longer unfortunately.

Chris Williamson 45:41 You touched on growth hormone there. I remember watching, uh, Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Chris Bell's, uh, documentary a long time ago where he was talking about, uh, recreational steroid use in America and said that, uh, a- amongst that, one of the, uh, commonly used compounds is human growth hormone. Uh, the UK is very different to the way that it is out here in terms of getting a prescription from your doctor and all that sort of stuff. One of the places that he went to was an anti-aging convention, um, and he made a joke about there being loads of old people there walking around. And pretty much every single stall was, uh, offering human growth hormone, I think exogenous human growth hormone, as a, a, a, a solution.

David Sinclair 46:26 Right.

Chris Williamson 46:26 What's the truth in that, if there is any?

David Sinclair 46:30 Well, I don't think there's any evidence in humans that it extends lifespan, growth hormone, uh, unless-

Chris Williamson 46:35 Okay. Does it shorten it?

David Sinclair 46:36 Well, that's the debate. Uh, it's really not known. Anyone who says they know the answer really doesn't, doesn't know what they're talking about.

Chris Williamson 46:42 (laughs)

David Sinclair 46:42 But, uh, theoretically, it could, it could shorten lifespan for a couple of reasons.

Chris Williamson 46:47 Okay.

David Sinclair 46:47 One is, uh, so testosterone and growth hormone could make preexisting tumors grow faster-

Chris Williamson 46:53 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 46:53 ... potentially. Uh, but there've been a lot of studies where it's seemingly safe, at least over the course of a year or two. Uh, and so I think that... I hate to say this 'cause we all want perfect answers, but the jury's still out about the long-term safety.

Chris Williamson 47:08 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 47:08 Uh, I think replenishing testosterone and growth hormone to levels that are natural in, in young people I think should be okay.

Chris Williamson 47:16 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 47:16 Uh, that's my personal view. Uh, testosterone has been studied quite a lot in the elderly, and even though there were some benefits in terms of strength and, and muscle maintenance, uh, there was apparently no change in mortality. So we need to do more than just raise testosterone, I believe.

Chris Williamson 47:31 Interesting. I guess there's a, a balance as well between quality and length of, of life as well, that you could potentially take something which may shorten your life, but if it only reduces your life by 5% but doubles your mobility, your, um, quality of life, however it may be-

David Sinclair 47:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:49 ... I suppose that there's a, a very big balancing act that you guys constantly need to play when you're looking at these.

David Sinclair 47:54 Well, it's not as hard as you might think. Uh, by turning on these sirtuin genes and changing mTOR and this AMP kinase, this metformin pathway, we actually find that we lengthen the healthspan of the animals. Uh, and so what that means is they don't get cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes until much later in their life. That's why we call it the healthspan. And you know what happens when animals don't get sick? They live longer.

Chris Williamson 48:20 (laughs)

David Sinclair 48:20 That's a nice side effect, right? Animals don't die if they're healthy. Same with humans. And so it hasn't been a hard, uh, thing to balance. In fact, if you focus on healthspan, lifespan is a nice byproduct of that.

Chris Williamson 48:34 That's a very good way to look at it. So you've mentioned fasting would appear to be the, the Pareto or the 80/20 of, of what we're looking at here for the vast majority of people. It's free. I mean, it's, it's actually better than free-

David Sinclair 48:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:47 Like, it's- it's cheaper-

David Sinclair 48:49 Right.

Chris Williamson 48:49 ... than what you're doing at the moment. Um, what else would you... As a disclaimer, we are not your doctor. This is not medical advice. Please seek a physician, et cetera, et cetera. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Um, what else do you think is an optimal strategy that some people, if they chose to, would be able to undertake?

David Sinclair 49:09 Sure. Well, what I do is I, uh, besides intermittent fasting, uh, I also exercise. Uh, exercise is the other thing that raises NAD and boosts these longevity pathways. And we've also known, uh, for centuries that this is healthy, right? Uh, so we're not discovering anything that new other than what types of exercise seem to activate these longevity pathways the best. And what seems to work best is the high-intensity interval training, is to get the body stressed. So just as intermittent fasting tricks the body into thinking your food's running out, exercise is tricking the body into thinking-

Chris Williamson 49:43 Something's chasing after it.

David Sinclair 49:43 ... "I might have to run a-a marathon," or yeah, exactly, there's a saber-toothed tiger in town, um, or cat. So that- that's exactly right. So the- the high intensity seems to really stimulate the body's defense networks even more than just a- a long walk or- or a- a- a steady long run.

Chris Williamson 50:01 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 50:01 It's all about varying it, right? The high, the low. So intermittent fasting, it's- it's food, no food, and intensity training is running, stop, running, stop, hypoxia, ox- oxygen, hypoxia. And it's that up and down that seems to work really well. That's why whatever you're doing, do something different and get your body into shock. So the- the thing to think about is... The concept is called hormesis, but really it- the c- concept of hormesis is just whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and longer lived, by the way.

Chris Williamson 50:34 (laughs)

David Sinclair 50:35 So keep your body on edge.

Chris Williamson 50:36 It sounds like all of the things that are good for you are really uncomfortable or a lot of the things that are good for you.

David Sinclair 50:43 Yeah. Well, that's the say- I think people say, "Oh, why is cake taste so- why does it taste so good?" And why doesn't sitting on the couch feel good?

Chris Williamson 50:50 (laughs)

David Sinclair 50:50 Uh, no, other way around, "Why doesn't exercise feel good?"

Chris Williamson 50:52 Yeah.

David Sinclair 50:52 "And why is sitting on the couch bad for you?" Um, I mean, that's exactly the reason, is that you've got to put your body in the- this slight painful experience to get it to react. Otherwise, it becomes complacent and your body just falls apart.

Chris Williamson 51:07 It'd be nice if cake extended your life though, wouldn't it? It'd be fantastic if that was the case. Um, so what (laughs) what else- what else is it that- that you're doing?

David Sinclair 51:14 What else? Well, so I mentioned metformin. That's been a- a recent change, uh-

Chris Williamson 51:19 Is that-

David Sinclair 51:19 ... an addition.

Chris Williamson 51:20 Some of this- some of this is, uh, available without prescription, but I think metformin is something which you do need a prescription for, is that right?

David Sinclair 51:27 In Western countries, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:29 Okay.

David Sinclair 51:29 In Eastern countries less so.

Chris Williamson 51:31 Over the counter?

David Sinclair 51:32 Well, yes, in Thailand.

Chris Williamson 51:32 You can get everything in Thailand over the counter.

David Sinclair 51:34 Yeah. You can, and- and actually it's smart of them, I think, because they- they have rampant diabetes like we do, and metformin is one of the safest drugs in the world. Uh, you'll get an upset stomach. It's extremely rare that there's anything more serious than that. Um, it's not perfectly safe. No drug is. Um, but in terms of drugs, this one's pretty safe. It's a derivative of a molecule from the French lilac. It's an- basically a version of a plant molecule. Uh, so anyway, so I take metformin, uh, every morning. Uh, sometimes I vary it, you know, I'm not strict with everything, but sometimes it's half a gram, sometimes it- it's a gram.

Chris Williamson 52:11 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 52:12 A typical diabetic will take somewhere between a gram and two grams, so it's a bit below that.

Chris Williamson 52:16 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 52:17 Uh, what else do I do? Let's get this all on the table.

Chris Williamson 52:19 Throw it out there, come on.

David Sinclair 52:20 All right. Again, disclaimer, I'm- I'm not recommending it.

Chris Williamson 52:22 The internet is waiting, David. The internet is waiting to find out what you do to live- make yourself live so long.

David Sinclair 52:26 Oh, well, no, I'm- I don't know if I'm gonna live longer. I'm- I'm- 50 people can judge how am I doing.

Chris Williamson 52:31 You look fantastic, man. Don't listen to- don't listen to-

David Sinclair 52:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:33 ... the general public.

David Sinclair 52:35 Well, see, till- let me know if I have a gray hair.

Chris Williamson 52:38 Not yet.

David Sinclair 52:38 That's been one thing that's going all right.

Chris Williamson 52:39 Not yet.

David Sinclair 52:40 Anyway, okay, so let's lay it out. Uh, so an NAD booster.

Chris Williamson 52:44 Yep. How much?

David Sinclair 52:45 Uh, I take a, uh, a gram of an NAD booster every morning.

Chris Williamson 52:51 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 52:52 Uh, and it's water soluble, so I just take it with a drink, with coffee.

Chris Williamson 52:55 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 52:56 Um, along with metformin. Um, I also take, uh, a gram of resveratrol, uh, which isn't s- a strict amount. I actually just shake some powder into a yogurt and mix it up, a few spoons of yogurt. I've also been asked over the internet, uh, on Twitter that, uh, asked, "Don't you think that that's breaking the fast? It's no longer fasting." I- I thought you said, Sinclair, that you'd-

Chris Williamson 53:17 (laughs) Because you're having a yogurt in the morning.

David Sinclair 53:18 Yeah, well, it's not actually a yogurt.

Chris Williamson 53:19 Your pâté falou has ruined the- (laughs) the fast.

David Sinclair 53:22 Well, I don't regard that as- as a lot of calories. I- I actually make my own yogurt. It's, uh, it's one made out of special bacteria.

Chris Williamson 53:30 Are you considering marketing it? I bet people would buy it. If you- if you released Sinclair yogurts.

David Sinclair 53:35 Well, it's not mine. It's actually commercially available.

Chris Williamson 53:38 Okay. Where?

David Sinclair 53:39 Where? Well, I don't know the people who make it, so this is not an endorsement, but it's called Bravo, and I know it's in America and Europe.

Chris Williamson 53:47 Okay.

David Sinclair 53:48 Uh, but it's- works out great. Uh, I don't follow the instructions. I just get full cream milk.

Chris Williamson 53:53 (laughs)

David Sinclair 53:54 I get a jar about that big, uh, and I just sh- pour it all in, shake it up, put it in the oven on- on defrost or whatever it is.

Chris Williamson 54:01 Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Sinclair 54:01 I think it's- it's body temperature. Leave it for about 24 hours, and it's beautiful, thick yogurt. And for breakfast, I- I take a- a couple of spoonfuls with water or something.

Chris Williamson 54:10 I'm gonna guess that's probably not super calorie dense anyway.

David Sinclair 54:14 Probably is. High f- full-fat yogurt?

Chris Williamson 54:17 Full-fat milk though? Like-

David Sinclair 54:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:19 How- how much are you having? Like is it a big bowl?

David Sinclair 54:21 Well, I make it in- in a jar that big.

Chris Williamson 54:23 Well, yeah, how much are you eating?

David Sinclair 54:24 Two spoonfuls, two or three. It's nothing.

Chris Williamson 54:26 Not breaking the fast.

David Sinclair 54:27 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 54:27 Anyone that says you're breaking the fast-

David Sinclair 54:28 Chris, thank you. Now my guilt is over.

Chris Williamson 54:29 They need to leave the- they need to leave the room. Don't worry. Um, so what else you doing? What else do you do? You're exercising, you're fasting.

David Sinclair 54:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:34 You've got your NAD, you've got your resveratrol, you've got your metformin.

David Sinclair 54:37 Right.

Chris Williamson 54:38 Is that...

David Sinclair 54:38 That's- that's the main thing. I mean, I'm... My doctor gives- gives me, uh, a statin 'cause I've had high cholesterol since I was in my 20s.

Chris Williamson 54:45 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 54:46 So that's another, you know-Thanks, Jewish genes. I'm kind of screwed there.

Chris Williamson 54:49 (laughs)

David Sinclair 54:50 Um, I take a- uh, still take a baby aspirin a day, even though the-

Chris Williamson 54:54 A baby aspirin?

David Sinclair 54:55 Well, it- we- it's, it's 81 milligrams of, uh, aspirin.

Chris Williamson 54:58 Okay. What's that, for blood thinning?

David Sinclair 55:00 Right. Right. And, uh, the, the current recommendation in general from the Medical Association, just so we're clear, I- I'm not a doctor but I read the literature, is that if you haven't had a heart attack, maybe, maybe not take it. Uh, I haven't had a heart attack yet, but I'm, I'm convinced that it will help with my blood flow.

Chris Williamson 55:21 Thought you were gonna say, "I'm convinced I'm gonna have one soon." (laughs)

David Sinclair 55:24 (laughs) Gosh, I hope not. That would be a, a bad look for the field of medicine-

Chris Williamson 55:26 That would be a really bad look, wouldn't it?

David Sinclair 55:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:28 Um, one question that did come out of the Reddit furor, which I think was actually pretty pertinent, was when do you think that people should begin thinking about longevity? Obviously, we think about health our whole lives. Like, we don't just let the kids go loose on a b- uh, like a bag of sugar. But is there... you know, should people be taking NAD at 18 years old?

David Sinclair 55:50 I love that question because, uh, I have new answers to that based on new research, partly in this lab.

Chris Williamson 55:57 Unleash it. Unleash it on the world, Dave.

David Sinclair 55:58 So, so here-

Chris Williamson 55:59 The internet is waiting.

David Sinclair 56:00 Here is something that almost f- no scientist, let alone in the public, understands. The clock of aging, the epigenetic clock that we measure and other scientists have published now just a few months ago, begins even before birth. We are aging constantly.

Chris Williamson 56:17 Oh, shit.

David Sinclair 56:18 Yep.

Chris Williamson 56:18 Okay. (laughs)

David Sinclair 56:19 Uh, and it actually tracks with development. Girls who go through puberty early have a faster aging clock that's ticking.

Chris Williamson 56:27 So they're old- older?

David Sinclair 56:28 They're older. They're literally older. So even though you think you look old, you're actually getting older. And you might age faster than others. It'll show up later in your life, but it's pretty scary, right? So the other thing that we know is that if your mother, while you were in her uterus, ate certain foods, you can be predisposed either to obesity and diabetes or to health and longer life, which is crazy. So you might... one answer could be the earlier, the better. Even before you're born, you should be working on this. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:00 (laughs) Give you NAD as an embryo.

David Sinclair 57:01 Yeah, right.

Chris Williamson 57:02 (laughs)

David Sinclair 57:02 If you've got, you know, helicopter parents who'll genetically engineer you-

Chris Williamson 57:06 Yeah. Yeah.

David Sinclair 57:06 ... and feed you the right food and... anyway. But I... the other, the other answer is, um, and this is a, a really important one, is that in, in animal studies, in mouse studies particularly, the earlier we start, after development of course, we're not gonna, uh, calorie restrict or interfere with these pathways before an animal reaches adulthood.

Chris Williamson 57:26 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 57:26 Let alone a person. But after adulthood, say 24, 25, uh, equivalent of a mouse-

Chris Williamson 57:34 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 57:34 ... we put them on these regimes of molecules or genes and that's where you get the biggest bang for your buck. Start early.

Chris Williamson 57:40 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 57:41 Uh, if we start mid-life, let's say on a 50-year-old equivalent of a mouse, you get about half the effect of, of when you start early. Uh, and that's why actually, uh, I've been... I started way early compared to my peers-

Chris Williamson 57:55 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 57:55 ... my scientific peers. I started resveratrol when I was in my early 30s.

Chris Williamson 57:59 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 58:00 And I probably would've started earlier knowing now, if I knew then what I know now.

Chris Williamson 58:05 Well, I guess when you're talking maybe 10, 20 years ago it's this experimental drug, no one really knows what the effects are and you're just like, "Ah, fuck it. Might make me live longer, I better just take it."

David Sinclair 58:14 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 58:14 Like, that's a big risk to take, right?

David Sinclair 58:16 Well, it wasn't that risky. We, we had fed it to mice, I knew that it didn't kill them. Uh, and it was in red wine so I was just taking an overdose of the red wine molecule. But, um, I'm prepared to, to, to die for my science. I've never said that publicly, but, uh, I believe so strongly in what I do and the benefits for humanity, if I had died I would've been pissed off, but I would've-

Chris Williamson 58:39 It would've sucked.

David Sinclair 58:40 Yeah, but, but I, I did it knowing that there were risks.

Chris Williamson 58:43 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 58:44 And everybody who's listening, um, should know that what I'm saying I do comes with risks, right? I don't know if this gene, or this molecule combination with exercise and all the rest is shortening my lifespan. So far it's okay, I'm not dead yet, my cardiovascular system and everything else that's been measured comes out pretty healthy. Uh, but there are risks. And especially when I was in my 30s, it could've been toxic over 20 years or even toxic for a few months. But I didn't... I wasn't scared of the consequences. I was more scared of not knowing than actually f- finding out the truth.

Chris Williamson 59:16 Well, that's the true, uh, inquisitiveness and I guess the ex- exploratory nature of someone who is a, a scientist at the, uh, kind of the cutting edge of this sort of stuff. Um, one of my favorite podcasts that's ever been done is Matthew Walker, the guy who wrote Why We Sleep, on Joe Rogan, and I think that the topics that particularly resonate with people are the ones that the, um, broadest cross-section of people can relate to. Everybody sleeps, everybody's aging. And I think that that's one of the reasons why there is such a, such an interest in this particular subject. Um, I, uh, I, I, I was totally unexposed to the whole topic area before your podcast with Joe, and I'm super excited now knowing about this whole new subdivision of science that I didn't really even know was, was this big. I'm super excited to see what happens, the same way as I read Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom and now I wanna know w- I, I'm super excited to see what happens, I'm terrified, but what might happen with AI. And it's the same for that. Um, do you feel like a very f- i- in a very fortunate position to be... have your finger in so many different longevity pies?

David Sinclair 1:00:31 Yes. Uh, there's no question that I wake up every, up every day, and most days, uh, I pinch myself that I'm in this position. Uh, it hasn't been easy and it's been not just hard work, I don't mind working hard, I love what I do. But it's been, uh, there's been criticism, there's been ups and downs, um, getting to-

Chris Williamson 1:00:50 There was nearly a bankrupt company at one point, wasn't there, and you took a big risk at some point. I think there was a...

David Sinclair 1:00:55 Ah, sure. I mean-There's been so many things. So I've helped build about 15 companies and they all go through strife and running out of money. And a lot, most of the money that I make, I pour back into companies.

Chris Williamson 1:01:10 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 1:01:11 Um, you know, I've made more money than I would ever know what to do with. But what I want to do with that is, is pour it back in. And so my wife chews her fingernails because, you know, we're, we're multi- multimillionaires for about a month until I find a way to get rid of it.

Chris Williamson 1:01:28 (laughs) The next, the next

Narrator 1:01:29 cool thing comes along.

David Sinclair 1:01:29 I don't want the money. I want to see that humanity progresses. I wanna see what the future holds. I want us to get to the future faster and that's my way of doing it. But anyway, the adversity, all scientists get criticized if they stick their neck out to do something that's different, whether it's discovering a longevity gene or saying that we could live longer or saying that aging is a disease, which I truly believe it is. All of those things have been tough. But fortunately I, I'm very stubborn and I, I'm not taking my eye off, off the prize in the end, which is that we all get to live ... Hopefully all of us get to live longer, more productive lives. And when we do that, uh, we'll look back at today and think, "What were we thinking? Why weren't we doing a, um, Manhattan Project," or maybe, maybe I should call it the, a moon shot on this, because it's so important. Um, one of the things I truly believe is that we look at all the problems on the planet; it's global warming, there's, um, poverty, uh, there's bankruptcy for countries, or at least economic burden of people being sick. All of these are real problems. Social security, um, welfare in, uh, around the world. I think the, the biggest solution to that, um, and admittedly I'm somewhat biased but I do crunch the numbers on this, is if we can solve people's health and make them more productive for another 10 years, maybe even longer, but 10 years would be enough to save trillions of dollars every year across the planet. Even in the US it would be a saving in the tens of trillions of dollars. This is money that can be put to work saving the economy and working on other big problems that we need to solve, like the, saving the environment, saving species, uh, preventing global warming.

Chris Williamson 1:03:06 Would there be an issue of over-population with that?

David Sinclair 1:03:09 Yeah, good question. It, it ... There's no question that if people aren't dying as fast as they, they would, there will be more people. But it's not as many as you might think. If we stopped everybody dying today, uh, and which we can't do that, but if nobody died again, the rate of population growth would be less than the rate of immigration here in the US, which, um, you know, the government's trying to limit that as well.

Chris Williamson 1:03:31 Yeah.

David Sinclair 1:03:32 Uh, but it's, it's not as though suddenly there's, there's five times as many people. Uh, and the good news is that, that we're not gonna stop aging any time soon, we're just going to hopefully live another five to 10 years. What that means is, though, that, uh, we'll probably plateau around 10 billion, maybe up to 13 billion. But most of that problem is not driven by people living longer, it's driven by the birth rate. And over the last decade we've seen an extraordinary change in our birth rate as a species and it's going down all the time and going to plateau. The World Health Organization and the UN have agreed, and Bill Gates has given a wonderful podcast on this, that we're gonna plateau out over the next 30 years and we're not gonna be overrun with humans. In fact, places like Europe and Asia are, especially Japan, are struggling with not enough-

Chris Williamson 1:04:22 Need some more humans.

David Sinclair 1:04:22 ... babies. Exactly, more humans. But what you wanna do is also preserve the productivity of the older people. So when we look at a, a 70-year-old now we think, "That's an old person." 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 70 will be middle-aged, uh, well, we certainly see that happening already. Look at Tom Cruise. He's ... What's he now? In his mid-50s, he's riding motorcycles.

Chris Williamson 1:04:44 He's, he's easily 105 and he looks-

David Sinclair 1:04:45 Looks great.

Chris Williamson 1:04:46 ... fantastic. Straight out of Cocktail-

David Sinclair 1:04:48 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:04:48 ... Top Gun. And I couldn't agree more. That, that was the question that I wanted to finish on, was, um, well, two parts. Firstly, would it be possible to make someone live for a really inordinate amount of time, like a thousand years? Is that possible? Presuming they don't, you know, get shot or one of the easier ways of, uh, of killing someone that we identified earlier on. Is there, is there a realistic upper limit on the amount of time that a organism could live?

David Sinclair 1:05:15 Well, we know that there, there isn't. There are immortal organisms on the planet. There are trees that live for thousands of years. There are jellyfish that go on hydra, these little jellyfish-like things, they live for, for seemingly immor- immort- uh, go for immortality. The, the mistake that, that most people have is that they think that there is a biological limit to humans. And they look at human history and they say, "Looking back in time, there's never been anyone who, as far as we know, has lived beyond 122." And even that's doubtful.

Chris Williamson 1:05:49 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 1:05:49 That's been, that's been challenged.

Chris Williamson 1:05:51 I was in the Guinness Book of World Records, uh, store on Hollywood Boulevard a couple of days ago and they had the photo of the guy that was 120 that was the oldest certified, I think. But I mean, I'm going to guess-

David Sinclair 1:06:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:05 ... that the standards to which you hold your research may be a little bit higher than that, that the Guinness Book of Records does.

David Sinclair 1:06:12 Well, whether or not, uh, Jeanne Calment in France lived to 120 or not doesn't matter. Um, there are still plenty of people who make it to 115, 117. So let's say that's the, the current limit. But looking backwards doesn't tell you the, the future when it comes to technology. When you looked at the Wright Brothers, looking backwards from 1902 doesn't really tell you that we're gonna go to the moon within 60 years. Uh, so that actually happened. Um, so what I, I think is that there is no biological limit to human lifespan. We are living things. We fix ourselves, we repair ourselves. Uh, we succumb to entropy, no question. We, we lose information over time. But what we've discovered with this reprogramming stuff is that we can regain information that-... is still there as we get older. We just need to access it. Those genes are still there to make us young. We just need to tell the cell to read the right genes at the right time and we can reverse aging. Um, um, we don't know how many times you can reverse aging. But it's possible you could. Uh, so let me tell you a s- a bit of a story but it's based on results in the lab. You know how I was telling you we can reprogram neurons to grow again? We can actually use that same virus to infect an entire mouse and turn on these reprogramming genes and get the mouse, we think, to, to be younger. That's what we're working on. So imagine a future where you could have your genome changed so that you have these reprogramming factors injected. So I'll, I'll come along, Chris, today. We can go to my lab. If we wanted to, literally, I could take a vial of the virus. I could get, give you an injection and it would be compatible with your body and you would be genetically modified to be able to be reprogrammed. Now, we've engineered that virus, literally, we have done this, to be turned on by an antibiotic called doxycycline which you can go get from your doctor.

Chris Williamson 1:08:08 I've been on it for a while. I've been on and off it for the last few years, yeah. It's used as a, a ... Doxytetracycline is used as a acne drug.

David Sinclair 1:08:18 Yes, or anti-malarial or if you have Lyme disease here in the US. It's pretty safe. I mean, you wouldn't wanna take a long time-

Chris Williamson 1:08:24 Be careful you don't accidentally take that when you've got this super gene that's potentially active inside of you.

David Sinclair 1:08:29 Well, he- so here's the thing. We ... Imagine a future where you now have this virus in your body and it's switched off. You've ... nothing's happening to you. But you start to, uh, experience aging. Let's say you're starting to build up cardiovascular disease in your, in your veins or you're losing your memory. How about you just take antibiotic for a few weeks, your reprogramming factors come on, your body gets rejuvenated, it finds the youthful information, your nerve cells remember how to be nerve cells again and you get rejuvenated. You go back another decade. You don't go, don't go too far. You stop taking the antibiotic before it causes a tumor or something really bad. Um, and you get reset and then you wait another 20 years and you turn it back on and you get rejuvenated time and time again. And maybe that's the path to, to living for a thousand years. But for the first time in my career I can actually see how it would be possible to do that.

Chris Williamson 1:09:29 It was just conjecture before whereas now there's, there's an actual mechanism, there's a pathway?

David Sinclair 1:09:35 It wasn't even conjecture. It was insanity to think that it was possible.

Chris Williamson 1:09:38 (laughs)

David Sinclair 1:09:38 And anyone who would say that we could live a thousand years was considered crazy. And I, I'm on record saying that the first person who's born today could live to 150. Uh, and I get criticized by a lot of people for saying that 'cause it sounds outrageous. Um, and I don't know if that's true but I do know that someone who's born today is most likely going to make it to the year, what, 2220 at least?

Chris Williamson 1:10:04 Mm-hmm.

David Sinclair 1:10:04 What kind of technologies will they have then?

Chris Williamson 1:10:08 You're totally right and I suppose as well if, as you've suggested today, aging is a ... not only something which can be paused at its current point, uh, and kind of held where it is, but can also be reversed, it means that as soon as sufficiently sophisticated technology becomes available, everyone who is alive at that time is potentially brought back to wherever they need to be.

David Sinclair 1:10:36 Right. And actually the longer you live, the longer you get to live.

Chris Williamson 1:10:38 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, which is very bizarre.

David Sinclair 1:10:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:41 So everybody should be working on not getting shot and not stepping out into open traffic and not eating cake, not sitting on a couch.

David Sinclair 1:10:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:49 Because the longer that you live is the potential that you'll get towards being around when we do have this particular solution.

David Sinclair 1:10:56 Yeah, I th- I think the number is every year you live, you get another three months extra of life. Uh-

Chris Williamson 1:11:02 That's so crazy. (laughs)

David Sinclair 1:11:04 Yeah. Uh, it gets kind of weird when you, when you get to technology where every year you live you get another year to live.

Chris Williamson 1:11:11 Wow. That's like the, um, uh ... It's not Dunbar's number, but what's the one that talks about, uh, processing power doubling every three years?

David Sinclair 1:11:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:11:20 For computers it's the equivalent but for lifespan.

David Sinclair 1:11:22 Yeah, it's Moore's Law based for lifespan.

Chris Williamson 1:11:23 Moore's Law for human beings?

David Sinclair 1:11:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:26 That's fascinating. Well, I mean, I, I, I really appreciate your time. I appreciate you, uh, kicking Elon out so that I could come and, uh, come and have a sit down-

David Sinclair 1:11:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:11:34 ... a sit down in your office. Um, hopefully I'll be back in, in, you know, five years' time looking f- at the same age that I am now and you will be as well and, uh, we can discuss about how far the, the research has moved from then. If, um, if any of the listeners, and I'm sure that there will be as you've been inundated with requests, uh, over the last few years, if they want to do some further reading or, uh, uh, look at some things online, have you got any resources or blogs or books that you would recommend?

David Sinclair 1:12:04 Uh, I do. Uh, so I, I, I tweet out new discoveries and new things that I'm thinking about and things that other people have discovered. So my Twitter handle is davidasinclair, no E at the end. Uh, and so that's the main way I get daily information out. But I've also poured everything that's in my brain, uh, into a book that's coming out, uh, later this year. In the US it's coming out in September, early September. It'll be out in the UK and then globally. Uh, it's called Lifespan: Uh, The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To. And I'm pretty excited about it, um, because it's, it's gonna answer pretty much all of the questions that people have been asking me over the last couple of decades.

Chris Williamson 1:12:47 That's so fascinating. It must feel ... I, I, I once said this. I did a podcast that was essentially me answering a bunch of questions I get asked all the time. Will you look forward to receiving all of the emails about, "How much NAD should I be taking? When should I start doing it? Is my testosterone out of optimal?" And all that you ever need to do is just send them one Amazon link. That's like just (laughs) ... That's the panacea answer, right? Just, "There you go. Read the book. Read the book."

David Sinclair 1:13:13 Well that, that ... Yeah, it's all in the book, uh, plus more. Uh, what I, I wanna do with the book is to give readers a, a front row seat on this world that I'm experiencing every day which is blowing my mind and making my head spin off. Uh, in terms of the input, I try to w- answer most emails. It, it gets pretty hard sometimes. Uh, I do also do a LinkedIn blog so also that's a longer format of, of things that I think about and, and answers to questions like this. I wanna do more, uh, Ask Me Anything AMAs on Reddit too, but ... So look for that.

Chris Williamson 1:13:43 The, uh, the number of requests ... I'm sure that the, the people on Reddit who are currently writing nasty comments about the fact that I can't pronounce the words that they sent me to give to you will be very happy to hear, uh, that you will go and do an Ask Me Anything. Guys, if you do want that, don't forget. Make sure that you comment below on YouTube or hassle David. I'm sure that he'll have some, some form of hassling. Tweet him. Tweet him and a- annoy him and then he'll go back on and he'll do, he'll do another Ask Me Anything. David, it's been, it's been absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate you, uh, you coming on today and having me in your beautiful office. And, um, I'm looking forward to the book coming out. I'm really excited.

David Sinclair 1:14:20 Well, thanks Chris. It's been great to be on here.

Chris Williamson 1:14:26 Outro: Love hands. Get away, get love hands.