Simple Habits That Could Add Decades To Your Life - Dr Peter Attia

The reality of it is, having a very high VO2 max, being incredibly strong, that's going to do more for your lifespan and health span than any piece of technology or biohacking, manipulation of gut biome, or any other thing that people are talking about. I mean, it- it's just not even within the same zip code. And you don't need a lot of technology to do those things. You just need to put in the work. (wind blows)

Pete Shirey, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Chris.

Would you say that you have a unique or different perspective when it comes to longevity?

Uh, I don't know. That's an interesting question. Uh, yeah, maybe in some ways I do, I suppose.

It seems to me that you're focusing on not just lifespan, but also health span as well, not just physical health, emotional health, mental health. That more holistic view, uh, seems to be different to me.

Yeah, and also, uh, I think kind of a somewhat low-tech approach as well. Um, and I'm completely interested in, you know, fascinated by, obsessed with all the high-tech stuff and the, you know, the science that hopefully will come through in the, in the coming decades, but I, you know, maybe going back to my background in, in risk management, I really think everyone should always be hedging everything they're doing. So, you know, to just assume that we're going to come up with some amazing technological breakthrough that's going to, you know, start to defy aging while not doing all of the things that we can do with the technology that exists today strikes me as unwise.

What's that background in risk management?

Um, I, after I left my first stint in medicine in 2006, I went to work for the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and, uh, though I was recruited there to do healthcare, I ultimately, uh, wound up in the risk practice because of my background in math. So, uh, I, yeah, I was doing, you know, credit risk and, uh, cool stuff like that.

All right. And how does that inform the way that you show up for your work now?

Um, I think it's essential, right? I think, I think everybody should be trained in some understanding of, of risk. Everyone should be trained in probability statistics. Uh, you know, that's, to me, the much more important stuff in mathematics, um, and I, I think that understanding how to think about, uh, symmetric and asymmetric risk, understanding expected value, uh, thinking about how to hedge risk, all those things are, you know, important not just in, you know, thinking through financial instruments, where banks are constantly making mistakes anyway, but as you think about your own life. So I'll give you an- a very silly example. So, uh, uh, two weeks ago, a friend said, "Hey, you want to come, you know, skiing?" You know, he's gonna go to this amazing place and ski, and I said, "No." He's like, "How do you not want to do this?" And I was like, "Well, I don't personally get enough pleasure from skiing to justify the downside," right? "So the upside for me to go skiing with you is this much. The downside is this much. But that's my decision. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go skiing, right?" Because for him, the upside is probably much larger-