- Adversity, right?
(lively music) What doesn't kill you
makes you live longer. - Oh, that's a good one. So put your body through pain throughout your life as
consistently as possible. Like, controlled pain, right? Going in a sauna for 15 minutes
and pushing an extra minute, like that feeling of adversity. Going in cold, working out hard, doing something where you're
not gonna kill yourself or hurt or break a leg,
but it's like discomfort. Is that what I'm hearing? - That's the most important lesson. (dynamic music)
(audience applauding) ♪ Ee la la la ♪ - Lewis Howe takes him down. ♪ Da da da ♪
(crowd cheering) ♪ Da da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da ♪ - Welcome back. In one of The School of Greatness podcast we have the iconic Dr.
David Sinclair in the house. Thank you so much for being here. Very excited about this. You are the master on
talking about lifespan, talking about how to reverse aging, talking about how to extend our life, our health, and everything. And something you said
before we got on here and that I read in your book is that aging is a disease. Is that right? - Well, that's what I think, yeah. - That's what you think it is. Would that mean death
is a disease as well? - Well, death is the end product of aging. We've cured just about
every other major disease. So you don't die from an infection. You typically don't die in
childbirth if you're a woman. So now what's left is aging. And while we're whacking
each of these diseases, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, we're trying to whack them on the head like a whack-a-mole game, we forget that the main reason
all these diseases occur is that our bodies are aging. If you don't get old, you
don't get those diseases. - Is that 'cause your
immune system is strong and so that it fights
against disease essentially? - Well, yes, it's similar but
it's not the immune system that you're thinking of. We actually have in-built defenses, we call them longevity genes, that we can activate in our daily lives by doing certain things. - Longevity genes? - Yes, that's what we call them. - How many genes do we have? - Oh, we've got about
23,000, 24,000 of them. - 23,000 or 24,000 genes. - Right, but there's only about 15 really important
ones for longevity. - Okay. And one is the longevity gene. - Well, the ones we
study are called sirtuins and there are seven of those. And they're in all parts of the body and they do all really
crazy good stuff for us. - Okay. And where do telomeres come into play? - They're part of it. There are seven hallmarks,
or eight depending. These are causes of aging. So telomeres are one of those hallmarks. Other things are like the
battery packs winding down them, those mitochondria in our cells. We lose stem cells, all this other stuff. But here's the important point. We think, A, that there's a unified cause, a whole upstream cause,
of all of those things. We can talk about that. But also these sirtuins they
defend against all of those. So while we used to think
we'd have to develop eight different drugs to slow down aging, if you just tap into
these longevity genes, they take care of everything. - Really? - [David] Mmm hmm. - They continue to regenerate good cells, they continue to fight against disease or stress or whatever it may be? - They do. They're really smart. They make proteins that
act like traffic cops telling the body how to
fend against adversity. And they've been with us on the planet since life first arose. - And it's seven of them? - Well, the ones I study, there are seven. There are others. There are seven sirtuins
and there are three classes of longevity gene, the ones I study, those seven, and there's a couple of others that you can turn on. - Why don't you study the others? Are they not credible enough? - We do, we do, but we
scientists we like to specialize. - [Lewis] Gotcha, gotcha. - But, in truth, even though 10 years ago we used to fight with each other, my longevity gene is more important than your longevity gene. It was ridiculous. (Lewis laughing) My worm's living longer than your worm. It was really silly.
(Lewis laughing) But now we've realized, most of us admit that all these genes are
talking to each other and if you tweak one set, the others will be tweaked, too. - Right, okay. So these genes, when
you say you study them, what does that actually mean? You're pulling blood
out of different humans and you're putting them in a tube and you're researching, and
like what's actually happening to study these? 'Cause I'm a non-scientist. I have no clue what that actually means. Is it like rats? Is it humans, is it you know-- - You've gotta come to the lab. You gotta see what's going on.
- Okay. - 'Cause it's crazy stuff. We do anything we can
to answer a question. - You're cloning humans in there, you're doing all sorts of stuff, right? - [David] It's crazy stuff. - Wow, okay. - So we're driven by the question not by the technology. So most labs will say,
okay, I'm an expert in rats. I don't give a rat's about a rat.
(Lewis laughing) I care about answering a question. And our question is why do we age and what can we do about it and will that transform medicine? - Wow.
And so what we do, if you came to the lab, you'd see we've got jellyfish growing, we've got mice that are living longer and running on little treadmills. - Wow.
- Up in the lab we have stem cells that we're growing and actually turning them back in time. We can reverse the aging of these human cells.
- Stem cells? - Yeah. - So what does that mean? You take a cell from a human, like a sample, a skin sample, like a blood?
- Skin, brain cells growing in the dish.
- Really? - [David] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Wait, brain cells growing in the dish? - Yeah.
- So like you take it from a living human? - Yes. - You take a little piece of brain-- - Yes. - You put it in a dish
and then you reverse the age of the brain? - [David] Correct. - Wow. - Yeah, that's what we do. And now we can actually grow
little brains in the dish, too. - (laughing) From scratch? - Well, you start with a network of cells and then you coax them into forming these networks.
- No way. - And it's like a mini brain, yeah. - Okay, so-- - And we can age them
forwards, make them older. - No way.
- Because we think we understand what's
driving the aging process. - Really? - And then we reset. - And then you reverse it?
- Right. - So you can create a brain from nothing, a bunch of little cells that come together and create a thinking brain. - Well, I don't know how much it thinks, but it'll respond to stimuli. - Wow.
- It'll fire, yeah. - And then you can make it older, like Benjamin Button, and
then reverse its aging. - [David] Right. - Wow. - I'm telling you it's crazy. But when I'm in the lab
and with my students, for us it's just every day. It's like going to work. - It's just like, uh, there's a brain, it's getting older, it's
getting younger, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, but now that
I'm talking about it with you, it does sound bizarre.
- It's fascinating for a non-scientist. - Yeah, the other thing that's weird about this profession, anyone who wants to go into it,
(Lewis laughing) is that essentially you're
an apprentice under me and you work in the lab and
you spend a few years learning how to do all this stuff. It's not easy. The first two years
basically you screw up. - Yeah. - But it's weird to think about it. You get a bench in a
lab and some chemicals and you have to make the
chemicals yourself usually, and then your job is to discover something nobody else has discovered.
- New, something new? - It's gotta be not just
slightly new, radically new. 'Cause I'm at Harvard,
they don't give prizes for discovering something obvious. - Wow.
- It's gotta be shocking. And if it's not shocking,
it's not worth studying. - And haven't you discovered tens or 30-something, 35
awards for new discoveries, or something, or 35
patents, what do you have? Something crazy. - It's some numbers like that. - You've discovered a lot of new things. - Yeah, yeah. If I didn't, I wouldn't have a job. (both laughing) There's motivation to always
be doing cutting-edge stuff. But what drives us, and the reason I think we've been successful,
is that we're driven by the question, not by the technology. And the technology comes second. So what I'll do is I'll say, okay, here's a question. We wanna figure out why
does cold improve health? Or why does fasting, not
eating, improve health? How do you figure that out? Then you gotta pull
together teams of people, molecular biologists, biochemists, mathematicians, computer software people. And we get in a room and we figure it out. - Really? So what would you say and your questions are why do we age and how do reverse it? Is that the two questions you're focused on the most right now? - Yeah, that's pretty good, yeah. - Why do we age and how
do we reverse aging? - [David] Right. - Do you think, and so you
way aging is a disease. Is death a disease as
well then in your mind? Is it like that just leads into and can we reverse death? Is that a possibility? - Uh, no, not yet. - [Lewis] Okay. - Not yet. So anyone who's had their head frozen, there's nothing I can
do for you right now. But we can turn back the clock radically. Just in the last couple of years we've figured out that
there's a backup hard drive of youthfulness in the
cell that we can access to reset it. So usually the earlier you start in turning on your
longevity genes the better. We've learned from studying
mice and now humans for many years that if
you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you wanna start. - Turn it on now. - [David] Do it now 'cause-- - Don't wait till you're 80 and then say how do I go be 60 again? - But most people do. They wait too long. - [Lewis] Why? - 'Cause they're in denial
that they're mortal. And we used to think that
aging was a one-way street. You couldn't do anything about it. We now know from studying twins that 80% of your health in old age is up to you, how you live your life. - Right, your community, your positivity, your thinking, your
food, the sleep you have, like all those things, right? - Yeah, and the reason that they work, we've discovered, is 'cause they turn on the longevity genes. That's the breakthrough. - [Lewis] Okay. - So now we're artificially
tweaking these longevity genes genetically or with supplements or hopefully medicines soon. - Gotcha. But you can do it in more
natural, organic ways is what I'm hearing. - Right now that's what we've got. And even if you just do
the five obvious things, things like skip meals, and don't smoke, and exercise, that'll get you
an extra 14 years on average. - [Lewis] Really? - It's that big. That's not even using high tech--
- It's simple. There's no technology, just
like living a good life. - [David] Right. - So what are the main things to turning on the longevity that anyone could do without technology, without money, science? - Yeah. Well, okay, so first of all, don't smoke. That'll damage your DNA, that'll accelerate the aging process. - Is that include e-cigarettes and all these other vaping? Does that also include that? - Well, I'm a big advocate for putting nothing artificial in your body including vaping. My mother died from lung cancer so I'm pretty militant about it. - [Lewis] Wow. - I don't think vaping is as bad in terms of the number of chemicals getting into your body, but we've seen recently it's
probably not healthy anyway. - Yeah, yeah. Okay, so no smoking, that's one. - That's one. Next one is don't eat so much. Eat less often. So not malnutrition of course. You don't wanna get too thin. But this three meals a day
plus snacks is ridiculous. - I know. It's been my life.
- In the future-- (Lewis laughing) You look great. - I'm gonna get rid of that. - Yeah, well, you're also working out. But someone like me who's not an athlete. The most exercise I do during
the day typically is typing. (Lewis chuckling) Three meals a day is too much. Actually one meal is
enough for someone like me. - [Lewis] Wow. - Yeah, I'm now 50 so my metabolism is way down.
- 50? You look you're 37. - Oh, thanks. You might need glasses.
- I betcha, you're like a hundred and you look 37. You probably reversed the aging. - Well, I'm glad I don't look 80 'cause that would really be bad for my message.
- It'd be bad for you-- (both laughing) Okay, so we got no smoking, eating less. - Yeah. Next one would be the obvious, high intensity interval training, lose your breath once in a while. - Lose your breath, what do you mean? Oh, just by working out like-- - Yeah, become hypoxic. Tell your body that you're being chased by a saber tooth tiger
or something like that. The reason all of this stuff works in terms of the diet and exercise, it's not that your blood flows more or that being hungry is
just healthy for the body. It's actually that your
longevity genes get turned on by these things. And why does that happen? Why does it happen in humans and mice, even in yeast cells for bread and beer? (Lewis chuckles) The reason is that the
body senses adversity and says, crap, we gotta fight back. We might die next week without food and we're running away
from tigers and lions. That's what this survival network, this longevity gene hungers.
- So it turns it on when it feels like it's in survival mode. - That's it. We wanna be in survival mode. And we spend our whole lives trying to reduce our adversity. - Right, being comfortable. - Right. Don't be hungry.
- Being warm all the time. - Don't be puffed, don't walk, valet your car, roll your suitcase, don't carry it for goodness sakes. (Lewis laughing) We've done the worst. No wonder we're getting sicker and sicker. - We're in a world of convenience. - Right, and it's the worst thing we could do
- Really? - for our bodies in terms of longevity. So those three things. The other two. Let's see, what else is there? Oh, the type of food you eat is important. There's a big debate, of course, about-- - Well, they say plant-based is gonna extend the telomeres, right? If you're eating leafy greens. That's what I've heard. - Right, among other things,
it's also going to have couple of really important
types of molecules. One are the monounsaturated
fats, fatty acids. You get that from olive oil and avocados. Those are great. And we've just learned that that's a really important trigger for a certain longevity gene.
- Olive oil? - Yeah. - I think when I had Gundry on he was like, "I drink a
cup of olive oil a day," or something like teaspoons of olive oil, he's just eating it. He's like I'm trying to get
- He's smart. - as much in as I can,
putting it on everything. - Yeah, well, let's get back to that because there's a new
discovery as of a week ago that says we think we
understand how that works. But in olive oil there's also what are called, the
other important component of a plant-based diet, are polyphenols, which are the molecules that plants make when they're under adversity,
when they're stressed. And I believe that we've evolved to sense when our food is running out. So we get that signal when
there are plant stress. So you don't wanna eat plants that are like there's white,
- Withered (laughing). - white liquid lettuce you
can buy, Californian lettuce. - Right, right. - You want these colored vegetables that are being a little bit stressed, a little bit dry out.
- Really? - Wine is a perfect example. It's full of polyphenols, one called resveratrol
that we've worked on for 20 years. And it activates these
longevity pathways really well. - [Lewis] Wow. - So stress your food.
- Stretch it. - Organic. I am for a plant-based diet, but I do eat meat occasionally.
- Yeah, me, too. - It tastes pretty good. But it's very clear,
Dan Buettner, is right. Where you go to the longest lived places in the world. - The Blue Zones, right?
- Sardinia, right? The Okinawa Island in Japan.
- Wow. - They're not eating all meat. And actually we know that
if you eat a lot of meat, you shut down some of
these longevity pathways. - [Lewis] Really? - Yeah, so you actually,
you might look good and grow muscle and that's
great when you're young, you wanna find a mate,
you wanna look good, you wanna feel good. But in the long run, I
don't think that's healthy. - ReallY? So cutting down less
and less meat at least, having more plants is the way to go. - Yeah, that's what I've done. I was on an Okinawa
diet in my 20s and 30s. - [Lewis] Which is what? Just rice and leaves and-- - It's a bit of rice. You gotta watch out for white rice cause it'll spike your sugar.
- That's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. - But it's a lot of tofu, miso soup, green leafy vegetables, dark greens for these phytochemicals. And then what else was it? There was a bit of fish. - Okay.
- Yeah. But also what's important
is not a lot of food. I mean, these days, I'm stopping eating when
I'm about 60, 70% full. And I'm trying to not eat as much.
- I just never feel full. Until I've eaten so much then
I'm like, okay, I'm full. - Well, you're a young, active, hungry man.
- So I probably-- Well, here's one of the things. I think, one, when you eat slower, you start to get fuller, you start to feel it. And I'm the youngest of four and so as a kid, we didn't
have a lotta money growing up in a small town in Ohio and
there wasn't that much food. So I learned to grab and
just shove it in my mouth. And that became a habit
that I've kinda stuck with. And I'm not starving anymore. The food's available at any time. I can afford it. And I have it all the time. But I think it's reconditioning my mind or a habit or routine of like and I'm not scarfing
my face down right now but it's that mindset of,
ah what I'm gonna go hungry? - For sure. We all suffer from that. Well, not all of us, but those of us who grew up
(Lewis chuckling) in regular families, we were
told to finish our meals. - Right. Don't leave anything on the plate. There's starving kids
everywhere (laughing). - Like my sisters, right,
they're stealing your food. My wife grew up in a very poor family and even when she was a student, she could barely afford food. She would scrounge and buy potatoes. And at the dinner table,
she'll kill me for this, but she will eat like it's gonna all go away tomorrow.
(Lewis laughing) But I have to remind her
- It's great. - and everybody, everyone
should know this, there's always gonna be another meal. There will be another meal, don't worry. But we're conditioned to eat food when it's in front of us. - I think it's a mental conditioning and it's also either
your body's tricking you or it's your brain or it's your gut or something is tricking
you like I'm still hungry even though you had 2,000
calories in 10 minutes, you're still like, ah there's food. It's like turning something on where you're like I wanna eat that. I don't know why that is. - Well, yeah, it's the reason that we're here.
- It's sugar-- - Out ancestors put on fat
and they survived the famine. We don't have famine's
anymore, thank goodness. But we've descended from those people. So we've got the genes in our
brain that say eat, eat, eat. - How do you turn that gene off? (Lewis laughing) - Well, you can take
certain types of food. I drink a lot of tea and
coffee, hot water even just to fill up my stomach. That works really well. - Okay, hot water, not cold water. - I just like the feeling of hot water. Cold water isn't as, actually
it might be something about the heat. I've never thought about it
but for me that's what works. So when I get a little
bit hungry at lunch time, I'm basically drinking tea. - [Lewis] Warm water, tea, yeah you put it like, how interesting. - Yeah, but it's a fight all the time. You know, I fly a lot and
people are bringing nuts-- - Nuts and cookies and ice cream and-- - And you gotta fight it and
it's really hard to fight all the time.
- How do you say no? - Well, I do. - I don't (laughing). - But how do I do that? I've trained myself to fight it. And the best thing that
I do besides saying can I have a cup of tea is what do I wanna look like next week? What do I wanna look like a year from now? What do I wanna look like when I'm 80? - So you tell yourself that, you ask yourself the question. I think it's also how do
you wanna feel tonight, tomorrow, next week, when you're 80? It's like look like and feel,
combination is powerful. - Right, 'cause your mind
is saying now is important and you gotta train yourself to say tomorrow and the next year is just as important.
- The rest of my life, yeah. - Right, and that's more important. - Okay, so is that the fourth thing or the fifth thing? - The fifth thing I didn't mention. There are a couple of things. Let's divide it up. One is get good night sleep. - [Lewis] Sleep is everything. - Yeah, and then surround
yourself by friends and people who'll take care of you. - Yeah. That's like the Blue Zone way, too, right? It's like be around a good community, get lots of rest and naps. Move a little bit, eat healthy, right? - Well, these are things
that most people should know but they don't do. So you and I are here to motivate people to do that.
- Exactly. - But the research that
I discuss in the book is how to take that to a new level. How to optimize those things and add some science in there. - [Lewis] To reverse it. - Well, we're getting there. - I like this. Okay, before you share that stuff, how did you get into this
fascination or curiosity of reversing aging in the first place? Was there someone that inspired you, was there a moment, was there an event, did something happen? - Yeah, it was an event that I think we've all gone through
we just forgot about. We learnt that there's
such thing as death. We don't live in a Disney movie. - Right, it's not all happily ever after. - It's not. It's shocking when we're
four or five we're told this and we realize it. And we're in denial. Oh no, that's not gonna happen. But for me, I haven't been
able to get that out of mind. - [Lewis] Really. - It's cruel, don't you think that we are a sentient beings that know that this is all gonna end. - We love people, they take care of us and then they're gone. - Yeah, and I don't wanna live forever. I would just like to leave
the world a better place. And I think one of the big
things that we're missing in medicine is that aging is
driving a lot of our sickness. And when we treat diseases,
we're treating them far too late. Once you've got, well, I
won't say which disease, but you know, take my mother for example. Let's use her lung cancer as an example. She could've not smoked, she could've done all the
things we've talked about. She could have perhaps
taken some molecules that we work on and not had lung cancer. By the time she had a
tumor that was the size of a grapefruit in her
lung, it's game over. - [Lewis] She couldn't do anything. - Right. But we've put billions of dollars
trying to cure lung cancer not prevent it. - If we just prevented it, we wouldn't have to worry about it. We could live longer.
- Prevention's easier. - Prevention's very easy. - Yeah.
- Right? So how old were you when
your mom passed away from lung cancer? - I was 25. No, let me take that back. She was diagnosed when she was 25. - When she was--
- When I was 25. - [Lewis] When you were 25. - And she went on another 20 years. - Really? - Yeah. But it wasn't really an enjoyable life. They took out her left lung. - So was she breathing from
a tube or was it like... - She could breathe but she
was always short of breath. There were times when she thought she was just gonna
suffocate in front of us. Eventually she did by the way. That was not pleasant.
- Oh my gosh. - That's not something anybody wants.
- In front of you? - Yeah, and no one
tells you what it's like to see your mother die
or your parents die. It's horrific. - Wow. - I've never experienced another death, just this one, but it was not pleasant. And we don't talk about it. We deny it. Oh, they're gonna drift off into sleep. That's not what happened to my mom.
- No, it's suffering. It's pain, it's agony,
it's suffering, right? - Yeah, my mother was turned
into a writhing lizard in front of me and all I could do was whisper into her ear, "Thanks for being the best
mum I could ever hope for." - Oh my gosh.
- And that was it. Couple of minutes later she's turned blue and choking. - No way. You can't do anything for her? - Right, that's it, you're helpless. You're helpless. Anyone who smokes please,
please, work to give it up. It's just not a good ending. - Wow, were you with her alone, were you with family,
with friends, was it-- - Yeah, my father and my brother and I. I was also in denial
'cause I flew from America to Australia to be with her. - And you're like, gosh,
she's gonna get through this. It's gonna be fine.
- Yeah, you tell yourself she's always recovered last 20 years. She'll pull through. And the doctor pulled us aside and said, "We've X-rayed her lung. "There's barely any lung
left that's working." - [Lewis] Oh my gosh. - "You better say goodbye." And I said, "What are you talking about?" - [Lewis] Oh my gosh. - "She's laughing in the bed, she's fine." And 10 minutes later she starts choking and fluid's building up in her lungs. And if you've ever seen
somebody have something stuck in their throat,
that's what it was like. - [Lewis] Oh my, and you can't get it out. - Can't get it out. - You can't, you can't
- She's drowning. - Heimlich maneuver, you can't CPR, you can't try to-- - Well, I'm running around saying, "Help me, help me." And all the nurses are like
"It's nothing we can do." - [Lewis] Wow. - So that's traumatic so please let's try to prevent these diseases as long as possible. - How old was your mom when she passed? - So she's my age when she
was diagnosed with lung cancer and then she lived till 70. - Wow. But she could've hypothetically, you know, if she didn't get
hit by a bus or something, she could've lived a
long, much longer life if she didn't have the cancer. - Oh, absolutely. And through my teenage
years, I would shout at her, "Stop smoking, you're gonna die. "When you're in hospital, I'm
not gonna come visit you." - [Lewis] Oh my gosh. - You're only given one life. 'Cause I'm pro-life. Everything about me is we
are so lucky to be alive. One in a trillion sperm from your parent, from your dad, and it's you. What's the chance?
- It's a gift. - It is, don't throw it away. And she was the opposite. She was like drinking and smoking and "I've lived a good life. "Don't bother me." And she paid the consequences. - Oh my gosh. Not only does she pay it,
but you and your family had to go through it also. - Yeah, well, I did go
and visit her in hospital. When your mum's sick, everything's out the window.
- Yeah, of course, of course. - But my father's the opposite. He's taking good care of himself. - [Lewis] Really? - And now he's 80, perfect health. No aches, no pains. Running around the world
like a 25-year-old. - Wow. - So that's the dichotomy there. If you do the right things,
it's a very different ending. - Now, were you already into anti-aging when she was diagnosed or
was it way before that? Was it shortly after that? Or when did you become
- Yeah. - kind of obsessed with being
the master of anti-aging? - Well, I've got an obsessive personality. - [Lewis] (chuckles) Yeah. - I think anyone who's become at the top of their profession
- Of course. - has to be obsessed with something. They're not normal
people, we're not normal. At age four I became
obsessed with it actually. - Four? - Yeah, four. - My first memory is four. I don't even know how do you (laughing)-- - This is my first memory. - [Lewis] - Really? - Yes.
- What was it? See your mom smoke and be like I don't wanna be that?
- Well there was that. Yeah, in the '70s, early
'70s when I was a kid, the smoke was everywhere. I couldn't stand it. But that was not really my motivation. It was that my grandmother
who helped raise me told me, "Everybody's
gonna die and so are you "and so is your cat." And my grandmother was brutal. She didn't lie. She told it as it was. But she said, "Now that
I've told you that," and here am I crying,
"My cat's gonna die." (Lewis laughing) - Santa Claus isn't real. My cat's gonna die. - [David] It was my cat that was the problem at the time.
- Oh my God. You loved this cat. - Yeah, 'cause she said,
"Oh you're cat's gonna die "before you're 20," or whatever.
(Lewis laughing) She said, "Now that you've realized that," - [Lewis] Oh my gosh. - "here's the lesson. "Make the most of life. "Do your best to make humanity "the best it can be "and don't waste a second." And that was it for me. Okay, I'm gonna go for it. - But when did you
actually start researching? Like okay now, maybe you
had this positive mindset, I'm gonna make the most of every moment, I'm gonna enjoy my life, I'm gonna learn quickly and not be stuck in these painful moments. But was it like middle
school, high school, where you're like, oh
mitochondria and telomeres and, you know? - So I was a pretty average kid. I liked to have a lotta fun and I didn't really take care of myself. Actually you'd be surprised. I was pretty chubby as a kid. - [Lewis] Really? - Yeah. But I got to college
and two things happened. One was I decided--
- And where were you in school? - I was in Sydney. - In Sydney, okay. - There aren't that
many choices in Sydney. I went to, it's called the
University of New South Wales, like the MIT of Boston. So I was there and I
wanted to get a degree in what we used to call
Genetic Engineering. And I thought that's a cool thing. Everyone's going into computing. I'll do something, 'cause
I've got also the personality that I don't like to be told what to do and I like to be different. - You be unique, one of a kind, yeah. - Yeah, I do.
- Me, too. I was the big dumb jock who never drank a sip of alcohol in college, who learned salsa dancing and guitar, who was in choir, in the musical. Whatever you thought I was gonna be, I was like, I'm gonna do the opposite. So we have that in common. - Yeah, probably your parents
learned they had to tell you the opposite of what
they wanted you to do. - [Lewis] Exactly (laughing). - So I went to college
and I realized two things. One was if I'm chubby I'm
not gonna get a girlfriend. So I started working out.
- Survival. Survival mode (laughing).
- Yeah. I ate carrots for a
month and shed 15 kilos whatever that is in pounds.
- Wow. - Got a best body I would've dreamed of. It's long gone. That was one thing. So I became healthy. And I've been this weight ever since, basically haven't changed. It takes effort. And the second thing I realized was that I think I could make a difference in the world. And I was playing cards with friends. We did a lot of drinking. They did a lot of smoking. Typical college life. And there was a moment
where somebody was talking about old age, laughing at old age, and making fun of old people, which we do sometimes as kids.
- Yeah we're young, yeah. - Yeah. - Old they are. - And I had an epiphany. I think I was 18 years old and I said, "Do you realize everybody, hold it. "No cards, shut the fuck up. "I've got something to tell you. "I've just realized that we are probably "the last generation of humans "to live a normal lifespan. "'Cause there's gonna be a breakthrough "and we're gonna miss
out by one generation." - Oh my gosh.
- Out of the how many 100,000 generations leading
up to us of primates, we're it, we're the last ones. We're pathetic.
- We're gonna die at a hundred or 80 or whatever. - Right. And our kids are gonna live
to 130, who knows what. - [Lewis] And their kids are gonna be 160. - Yeah. So then I thought hey,
that's what I wanna do. I wanna make that future be
a reality in my lifetime. - Wow. Isn't it sad, if just
give us another 50 years to be born how much farther
you could extend life, right? - Yeah, I didn't realize how
quickly the science would go. I thought that I'd probably be lucky to see a little bit of
change in my lifetime. - Like five, 10, 20 years, maybe more? - Well, we already got 14
just on what we talked about. But the kind of breakthroughs
that we've made now, you know, I get criticized
for looking too far into the future 'cause I'm supposed to be a Harvard scientist. But I think another
five, 10 years is easy. Look at my dad. He's doing all the right things. Also taking some molecules
that we've worked on in my lab. They're not doing him any harm. I hope that he makes it past a hundred. It's not a clinical trial clearly with one subject.
- Right (laughing). - But he's a role model
for what life can be and should be like. - Right. So now is this molecule the same molecule that you worked on 10 years ago that got a lotta credibility
and then was debunked, I guess, by some researchers and then now, in the
last week, has come back to be verified as true? - One of them, yes. So resveratrol is the red wine molecule. It's one of these
polyphenols that plants make when they're stressed out. And that we found, at least we thought, that when you take this
molecule over many decades or as a supplement, you'll be protected against a whole variety of
diseases including obesity. - [Lewis] Mmm, really? - Yeah. - Is that why everyone says drink a glass of wine
every night or something, it's gonna make you live longer? - Well, that's basically because of me. (Lewis laughing) There's other research of course. Other people have studied red wine and found that people who drink red wine tend to live longer.
- Live longer. Gotcha, okay. - Dan Buettner will tell you
all about the Blue Zones. - Right. So this molecule is it
something you discovered 10 years ago or you started
researching 10 years ago? - Well, so remember these longevity genes, they make proteins that tell
the cell how to survive. And we can turn on the
production of these proteins by being hungry and exercising
and being outta breath. But we wanted to do it artificially because if you're an older
person in a wheelchair or you're like my mom--
- You're not doing HIIT workouts at 90. - Yeah. You need a drug. You can't just expect them to
run marathons or go hungry. So we wanted to figure
out how does fasting, how does exercise work? That's another important
question, couple questions. And we found that this
sirtuin, number one, there are seven, number
one was very important in mice if we turned it on. We can make mice with extra
genes, by the way, in the lab. - Can make them? - [David] We make mice. - From scratch? - Well, from stem cells. - From a cell, you can
turn it into a moving mouse that thinks and breathes
- Yeah, that's easy. - and has a heartbeat.
- Come to my lab. You can make a mouse if you want.
- What? - We can make them glow green if we want. It's not that hard. - You can take cells and they just what, kind of like form together
and turn into a mouse? - Well, we need another
mouse to gestate it, but it's pretty easy these days.
- Wow (laughing). Okay, this is crazy. I'm comin', I wanna check it out. - You can take a skin cell of a mouse, turn it into a stem cell, make a sperm, make an
egg, fertilize itself and make a mouse out of it.
- What? - Yeah.
- This is nuts! - Anything's possible these days. - [Lewis] Wow. - So we engineered a mouse to have more of this sirtuin 1 gene and it was protected against
a whole variety of diseases. - Really? Were you injecting with
disease to test that or are you just natural
environment diseases? - So we have a lab where we-- - Like other mice have the disease. - We let them age. - (chuckles) Yeah? - And that's the main thing. We have a lot of old mice. And we test them if they're frail, we look at their strength,
put them on treadmills, test their memory. - What, this is crazy.
- We've got this whole floor in the building
- Oh mice! - of mouse testing machines.
- Shut up. How many mice are in the lab? Thousands? - Well, I don't want anyone to be upset 'cause we do have a large number of mice, but where our goal is
to make them healthy. - Gotcha.
- Unlike a lot of other labs.
- You're not trying to kill them like most labs. - No, no.
- You're trying to say how can we keep them as healthy and for the longest. - Our mice live longer. So we're one of the few labs
- Wow (laughing). - where we do that. But yeah, so this sirtuin 1 gene, it makes a protein that helps the cell. So we found this red wine molecule, just coincidentally, turns it on. If you put the ends, we can put
it in that little test tube, we have these little test tubes, and we put in the protein, and we can test whether it's more active or not by how much it glows or fluoresces. - Okay. - And then we tested
thousands of molecules and the one that worked
the best was this one from red wine. It made it glow really
brightly, fluoresce. And that was the beginning of this story where we found a molecule from red wine that turned on our
body's defensive enzyme. - [Lewis] Huh! - And that was great. We put it onto yeast cells. They lived longer. I did that experiment in
my dining room actually. You can make yeast cells live longer. Imagine that.
- Oh my gosh. Crazy. - We fed it to mice and
they were much healthier. They were resistant to
obesity and diabetes and cardiovascular problems. It basically made mice immune
to a high fat Western diet. - Wow. They could eat whatever and
it wouldn't affect them? They just burn it.
- And they lived just as long as those that weren't-- - They'd burn the fat quicker. - Well, they were actually still fat. That was the crazy thing. But fat didn't hurt them. They were immune to the
effects of being fat. - Wow (laughing). That's amazing, okay. - But then, and this is the one that my father started taking about a decade ago same as me. But here is what happened. That was 2003 to 2006. Things were great. We started making better molecules. We made thousands of them. They went into human clinical trials. Put it on the skin of
patients with psoriasis. Actually it was a pill and
their psoriasis got better. - [Lewis] No way. Wow.
- Yeah, we're on track to having a medicine
for aging and diseases that are related to
aging and inflammation. - Wow. - [David] But then everything fell apart. - Why? - So in 2010 a couple of companies published scientific papers that said it's all wrong. That this molecule resveratrol does not activate this enzyme. This fluorescence that we're looking at in this test tube was just an artifact. It was fluorescing for other reasons. It wasn't real.
- Really. - And yeah, my world fell apart. The company stopped working on it. And it was hell. - You stopped working on it. - Well, we didn't. Well, for about two weeks I stayed in bed. It was horrific. I went into mild depression. My lab didn't know what to do. I had friends calling me, well ex-friends, who called me and said, "You know, I'm really sorry," and didn't hear from them again. - Wow.
- It was a tough time. And this is what I built my career on. I was known in the world for this and then it went away. - [Lewis] Wow. - And if you're a scientist
and you lose your reputation, you're screwed.
- You're done. - Because you're relying on grants and your colleagues' opinion of you to give you the money, to give you those grants.
- Their endorsements, their recommendations, things like that.
- Right, right, so-- - So if no one's recommending you anymore, no one's giving you money. - Yeah. Grants dried up. I had 20 people, vibrant lab, world-leading science, top of the world, gonna make this medicine. Bam! Most people left.
- Wow. No money. Four people, tiny little lab. Even people in my lab
said, "I'm outta here. "This is crazy. "You're full of it." And there was one student who I had, his name is Basil Hubbard, and he said, "You know what,
there's something to this. "I'm not gonna give up." - [Lewis] Wow. - But the other people in the lab, one guy in particular, was really mean. He just said, "You're
working on this BS stuff." - Wow.
- This resveratrol stuff. - But he figured it out. It took him three years to figure out-- - The intern? - He was a PhD student.
- Or the person work-- Okay, I gotcha. - Basil, and just through
grit and stubbornness and genius, he figured
out that it was real and we published in
2013, three years later, that there was good evidence
that we were not wrong. So, okay, take a deep
breath, I'm swimming, I'm not drowning anymore. - This is three years of depression or just figured
- It was bad. - how am I gonna get to my life, my career, everything back on track? - Right, right. I was so mad with the world. - [Lewis] I'm sure. - I said it-- - Screw everyone, I can't
trust anyone anymore. - Well, it was that because I'd devoted my whole life to this. I'd barely taken a weekend off in my life. And to have that happen, I was like, I could have retired at that point. - [Lewis] How did you recover? - Well, so the problem
was I didn't want to die not knowing the answer. - [Lewis] Wow. - Needed to figure this out. And knowing that I was
wrong was still better than not knowing at all. So we tried to figure it out. - 'Cause it's better to be like okay, I'm actually wrong. Here's the proof, here's the science. You can live with that
is what you're saying. - [David] Right. - Knowing the truth. And then okay, how do we solve it? What's the new solution, right? Where do I go next? - Yeah, and we actually had evidence that we weren't wrong. So that's why I got out of bed,
- It's not true. - went back to the lab, and said let's figure this out. Let's do some key tests that'll tell us either way if we're right or we're wrong. It turns out we weren't wrong and there was this study you referred to that came out a week ago that said, you know what, that mechanism
that you discovered, actually is really important
for being activated when you're fasting, when you're hungry. What happens is when you deplete fat, let's say you're hungry,
you haven't eaten breakfast, you'll melt away some of the fat, and you'll generate what
are called free fatty acids. And some of them we can get from plants, from olive oil,
monounsaturated fatty acids, the good ones. A lab discovered that
the way resveratrol works is actually just mimicking
those unsaturated fatty acids that we already know are good for you and Dan Buettner in the
Blue Zones will tell you, from the Blue Zones will tell you that these are what leads to long life. And so it turns out resveratrol, if this is true, is basically
mimicking gobs of olive oil but without all the calories. So my father and I, maybe we've
been doing the right thing. - So he's been doing it,
your father's been doing this for 10 years. - Right.
- Even though people tried to say this isn't true, this is stupid, this is not
actually doing anything, but he's been taking it consistently. - Right, well, he's a scientist, too. Everyone in my family's
- Oh, got you. - a scientist including my wife. And people say, "Oh are you
testing this on your father?" No, he's a scientist. He can read this stuff for himself and he's the one that made the decision that he believed in it. And I'm glad that he did
because so far so good. - Wow. Okay, so that just happened last week. So 10 years you've been waiting for this to be like proven again. - Right, and we've always predicted, I've always said, resveratrol
isn't the big story. The big story is, A,
can we make a medicine? Which we're still trying. But, B, we call it the
endogenous activator. What's in our own bodies that
resveratrol is mimicking? And it's these monounsaturated fatty acids that come from when
we're hungry or if we eat these healthy plants. - Wow, okay. That's pretty exciting.
- Yeah. It's damn exciting. But it's not as exciting
as I thought it would be. 'Cause in life, it's always
an anticlimax, right? You think I can't wait until
this in my life happens and then it happens, you
think, yeah but tomorrow I've got something else to figure out.
- Yeah, I know. Right? Isn't that funny?
- Really maybe that's just my personality. Are you like that? - I'm very much like that. I remember, my whole life I wanted to be an All-American athlete. This is one of my first
memories is like watching a football game on TV with my dad and him continuing to
talking about these few guys on the Ohio State football team who were All-Americans. And you want your dad's approval and he's talking about
a few guys on the team. And I'm like I wanna be
an All-American athlete. If these are the best of the best, that's what I wanna be. And all I did was obsess
about being the best athlete I could be and becoming an All-American. And I remember, I was in the Decathlon
National Championships, 2005. And there's 16 athletes that go to the National
Championships per each event. But the top eight are All-Americans. So you gotta be in the top eight to qualify as an All-American. And the decathlon's a two-day event. The first day I have a pretty good day. Second day I struggle a little bit and it gets down to the last event which is the 1500. And my coach is like,
"Okay, you need to beat "these two people. "And if you get in front of
them, you're gonna make it." And I literally cross a line with one other guy next to
me that I needed to beat. It was like neck and neck
and I didn't know who went in front of the other. And so I'm waiting for like 30 minutes for the final results. And they make the announcements
of the final eight and I got eighth place. And I remember feeling
like so much excitement. I'm on the podium, I'm holding the trophy, I'm like it, my childhood dream came true. And then probably 20 minutes later I was angry, I was negative. We're all having dinner
celebrating and I'm like I don't wanna be around anyone. And I didn't know why that was. But that's like with
every accomplishment I had in my teens and 20s, I
kinda had that same nature where I was just like,
well, it's not good enough. I need to go after the,
become a professional athlete. I need to to it twice, I need to... I don't know why that is. - Well, that's why you and
I are sitting here, I think. We never rest.
- Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, so anyways, but
we have a lot in common. I'm like a scientist. (laughing) - [David] I'm gonna train you. You gotta come.
- Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna go build a rat from scratch. (David laughing) Be amazing. Okay so this paper came out,
or this finding came out a week ago. You had a nice moment
but then you were like, well, onto the next. - Right, right. I don't know why. I think it's because I
was hangry at the time on a plane drinking tea. - When you read it or
when you just found it? - Well, actually, so
the guy that trained me, so I went to MIT after Australia. Lenny Guarente, he taught me how to be a world-class scientist. And he and I have been good friends but frenemies kind of,
butting heads scientifically, but we're very close. Anyway, like all mentors,
I look up to him, his opinion of me matters. And it was he who wrote
an email to me last week and the subject line was
"Wow", exclamation point. And in there was this paper saying, damn, you were right.
- You were right. - Yeah. But he didn't write anything. That was it, "Wow", those three letters. - And then the paper. - [David] And then the paper, that's it. - And you knew what it meant, yeah. - [David] That was it. - Was he on your side after
the whole paper came out seven years ago or
eight years ago I guess? - Yeah, I gotta give him credit. He never gave up on me. - He stayed with you? - Yeah, but he's been through hell, too. This field is really tough. - Isn't that interesting? The people that have gone
through the most crap ups and downs, they're usually
ones that stick with you when you've got some
type of public shaming. - [David] Yeah. - I noticed that as well. That's crazy. So that's good. So you had a few people
that kinda stuck with you and said, hey, listen, this is gonna hurt for a few years, but eventually you're gonna do something else and then people are gonna forget, or they're gonna move on. - Yeah. Well, he's not that touchy feely but... (Lewis laughing) He was very supportive and
we're both the two guys that drove this field of sirtuins, these longevity genes, so we're comrades. - Got you. You're frenemies, but you're
like we need each other to push it forward and
to validate our research. - Right, your enemy is my enemy. - Right, okay. That's interesting. Now, you told me of a
story before we got on about how you were homeless
for a year in the UK. Is that right? - Yeah. - Can you tell me how did this happen? You're in Sydney in school and then you move to the UK and you're what, sleeping on the streets, eating rats that you made from scratch or something or what? - Kind of without the rats. But basically that kinda food. Yeah, this is a story I
haven't ever told anybody. - [Lewis] Why not? - It just doesn't come up. And, I don't know, I'm not the kinda guy that boasts about this kinda stuff. So my accent is a little bit Australian and a little bit UK. And so I spent a year and a bit in Wales, in Cardiff, in the middle of winter. So Cardiff in the middle of winter--
- My ancestors are from Wales. - [David] Are they? - Yeah. - [David] Do you know any Welsh? - No, I don't.
(David laughing) - Crazy language.
- Crazy. - Tried to learn a bit but they sing their sentences so that's why my voice is a bit more like that. Anyway, that's not important. What's important is that I
like to take a lotta risks especially when you're young
you gotta take a lotta risks, in your 20s, 30s, go for it. So when I was 23, I said,
"I'm gonna go to the UK "and do some of my PhD research." And there was one guy in Cardiff that knew how to do some stuff. So I said, "I'm gonna
come and work for you." He said, "Great, I got no money." And I said, "That's great,
I got no money either." - (laughing) Yeah. - "But I'll figure it out." But I had a few thousand dollars from delivering pizzas. - [Lewis] Sure. - So I bought a ticket, flew over there, stayed in his house for a few weeks, but he said, "You can't live here. "I've got my own family to deal with." He was a bit of a grumpy guy anyway and I didn't wanna live with him. So what I figured out
was if I go to the bar, the pub we'd call 'em,
at night and play games. So they used to have these little consoles where you'd play Trivial Pursuit and you'd make friends. And after they were drunk I'd say-- - [Lewis] Can I crash? - Yeah, "Have you got a place?" - Dude.
- And they'd say, "We don't have a bed but
we've got this bean bag "if you wanna come around." So I'd do that and I'd stay
there for a week or two and then I'd have to
go find another place. - Wow!
- Usually. And I was eating these
cans, these tins of tuna. - Tuna, yeah, Bumblebee tuna. Or ramen.
- Staple. - So for a year you did this? - [David] Yeah. - So you had no, you
weren't paying rent anywhere for almost a year. Were you making money as well,
like a little side money? - I think I still got,
it was $15,000 a year but the problem was that the pound versus the Australian dollar was two-fold. So my dollar was half the value.
- Wow. So it wasn't enough to pay rent. You were just like,
okay, I gotta eat food, I gotta get the bus, I
gotta do whatever, yeah. - [David] Yeah. - You know what's funny? Gosh, we have a lot in common. The one time that I almost
slept in the streets, I was in Philadelphia. I had no money. I went to a conference and I met someone from LinkedIn who was like,
"You gotta come to this event. "You're gonna meet some great people." I was probably 22, 23, and just got done playing professional
football, trying to figure out how to get a job, how to
find some connections. And this guy I met named
Ben Sterner was like, "Come to Philadelphia for this conference. "You can stay with me on the couch." So he ends up, I stay in a hostel for two nights and he's like, "You can
stay with me the last night "on the couch." 'Cause I only had enough for
two nights in this hostel. It was $14. (David laughing) And I took a Greyhound Bus to get there. Took like 30 hours, it
shoulda been like six. And the last night, I'm like, "Okay, tell me the address, let me know. "I'll meet you at your place
and I'll crash on the couch." And his phone dies so I
never get his address, I never get ahold of him. And I'm in the hostel,
I didn't have the money for the hostel. And they wouldn't give me a bed. So I'm walking around the
streets of Philadelphia with my suitcase and a jacket on. And it's like 3 a.m., 3:30 and I'm like what am in gonna do? There's like benches,
maybe I'll sleep on a bench 'cause my Greyhound Bus was
leaving later that next day. And I don't drink, right, but I was like for some reason I figured
if I go into a bar, I'm gonna meet someone, and
I'm gonna build a relationship, and maybe they've got
some couch or something. And I did exactly what you said you did. I met some people there playing darts. I went in there and I was like, "I'm gonna play some darts with you." And I just built a relationship. After 30 minutes I said, "Hey, I don't have a place to crash. "Do you guys have like
a couch or something?" And they had a futon,
they let me come in there. I let myself out in the
morning, and that was it. But that's how you sleep
not on the streets, and you meet friends at bars. - Yeah, it's a tip to
everybody who's watching. - That's it!
- That's how you survive. - That's how you survive. Go to the bars. - Yeah. So Benjamin Franklin said
he slept on the floor and knew that he could survive. If you can get through that then the rest of your life is easy. - Just sleep on a floor. No pillows, not sheets. - Yeah, and that's how I've lived my life at least up until fairly recently which is I know what it's like to be poor and not have anything. So I'm, gonna go for it, 'cause the worst that can happen is I just go back to that.
- Go back to that. What was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself with a
year of being homeless? - Being homeless isn't so bad. It's a lotta fun. But also that have grit. And I grew up in a pretty easy family. I was in the suburbs of Sydney. My parents weren't wealthy but they certainly weren't starving. I didn't know if I had
what it took to survive. So that was my real test. - You needed that experience. - [David] Yeah. And everything after that was easy. - Yeah. Well, except being debunked, fake debunked by researchers and peers.
- Yeah well, physically I can handle anything but mentally I'm not that strong. - [Lewis] Really? - Well, I try. - Do you think this made you more emotionally, mentally strong going through this worst-case scenario for your career? - I like to think so. But I still get beaten up even in my 50s now. - [Lewis] Really? - We just had, I just had 10 years of work with 15 labs collaborating
with me guiding them. And it's 55 scientists. We submitted this
research, we wrote it up. It took a year to write. We've sent it to a journal
and, as a scientist, your work gets reviewed
by your peers anonymously. So they can write whatever they want.
- Don't put their name on it. Yeah. - So what happened just before (Lewis laughing)
the holiday break was there were four
people who wrote comments about our work. Three of them said, this
is paradigm shifting, brilliant, got to be published, will change the world kinda stuff. - And you didn't know
who those names were? - I didn't. There was one that wrote,
"This isn't exciting. "We already knew this." Which is not true. And the journal said we're gonna side with the one naysayer. - Oh, that's the worst. - That really was a blow.
- Isn't it crazy? - I felt like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. - Isn't it crazy, but we also focus on the one negative when there's thousands of positive reviews of a book or something and you see one negative and you're like why, why is it?
- I felt rejected. So that's 10 years of work.
- That's work. Oh my gosh. With 15 different labs
working on this is that right? - It was everything. And I had this in my mind
that we're gonna get it into this world-class journal. And I talked to the journal and they said we're waiting for it, let's do this. And that was the future. It was supposed to be
this and nothing else. And then to have it rejected. And editors are usually they go with the majority, majority rules. - Why would they go with one? - I still don't know. That's what, it doesn't make any sense. - Is there a way to resubmit? - We're gonna challenge it. So I'm writing up a defensive letter, an appeal as we call it. - [Lewis] Gosh. - Yeah, I thought I was resilient and nothing could get to me but that did. - It's kinda like being
an Olympic gymnast. It's like you could have
your best performance but if one judge didn't like
the way you pointed your toes and they gave you a 9.2
as opposed to a 9.9, you could lose. Based on an opinion of one person. I don't like that. That's not, I thought science
was like black and white. - Oh boy, there's a lot of politics. - Really? But it's like if you've
got, here's the proof, 15 labs, independent case studies, and like triple checking, I don't know. - That's how it's supposed to work. That's why this was such a blow. Because everything I thought
about how science worked was thrown out the window in this case. - (sighs) Why do we even have science if it's--
(David laughing) - It'll get published, don't worry. - But I mean, if you can't
prove something through science, why do we even do it then? It seems like
- Well, we can prove it. - deflating to me.
- It'll come out. Well, what'll happen is
either we'll get this appeal and that'll be great, hopefully. Cross your fingers. But we're gonna have to
rewrite it potentially for other journals which'll
take us a long time. So the world won't find
out about this for a while. - Man. Can you just write it
yourself and publish it on your website and say,
this isn't published in a journal yet, but
here's all the research, here's all the proof, here's the studies.
- Well, you can. No one will--
- It's just not looked at as credible.
- Right. No one will give you credit for it. Now, there are what are
called pre-publications. So now we can put our work online and, in fact, you can go
online and see this work if you go to a place
called bioRxiv, R-X-I-V, and type in my name,
you'll see that the work is publicly available but
most people don't see it and the press
- Got it. - can't comment on it. - But I mean, how many of these journals have published things that
people said yes, this is true, but it wasn't true? You know what I mean? It's like--
- Yeah, quite a lot. Probably a third of
what's published turns out to be wrong, but that's
true for all science. That's evolution.
- Why do they publish it? I mean it's like-- - Well, we do our best. We can always be wrong.
- Got you. - Even Newton was wrong. Even Einstein was wrong
until quantum mechanics overturned it all. - [Lewis] We're all wrong. - All science is wrong. - We're right until we're wrong. - We are, but those steps along the way are stepping stones to more knowledge. But science goes forward and backwards in little steps but overall it's forward. - Seems exhausting, gosh. Just wanna hang up the rats. (Lewis laughing) - Yeah, it is. I mean, you try not to make a mistake. You try not to conclude
things that are wrong 'cause that'll damage your reputation. Fortunately so far in my
career that hasn't happened. - That's why it takes so long
to do the research, right? That's why it takes so many trials, so many rechecking, years and years. - Well, most labs don't
spend 10 years on a project. You'd spend maybe two or three. This was the big one for me. - Oh my gosh. Just sad. - This was figuring out why we age. - Oh my gosh (laughing). - Well, that's not important apparently. - Was there anything new in there that you discovered in the last year that hasn't been out yet,
that hasn't been talked about? - Yeah. Well, it's in my book but other than that. That might be why the journal's angry that some of it ended up in the book. Maybe I jumped the gun. - [Lewis] Got it. - What we think we've discovered here is that cells lose their
ability to stay young 'cause they lose information. - 'Cause they lose information. - Yeah. So there are two types of
information in our cells. One is the genetic information that we get from our
parents of course, DNA. But there's another level of information that's just as important but
we just don't talk about it. It's called the epigenome which is the instructions to tell the cell which of those 25,000,
23,000 genes to read. And if you read the right
ones at the right time, you'll be a nerve cell or a skin cell. 'Cause you don't wanna
read all 23,000 at once. - Got ya.
- That doesn't work. - Doesn't work. - So the epigenome is like the pianist that plays the piano. And what we think we've figured out is that aging is that the
pianist becomes demented. - Demented. - [David] Just can't play
the tune right anymore. - Interesting. - [David] The wrong genes come on. - What is that called? The pianist? What's that called? - The demented pianist? - What's it called? - The epigenome. - The epigenome. Okay, so the epigenome becomes demented. Loses function in some way. - Right, and we can cause that to happen. One of the main reasons
that it happens we think is chromosomes break every day, a trillion times in our body every day, and in the process of
having to open up the DNA and fix it and put it back together, the epigenome gets messed
up and we lose the ability to read the right genes. - So how do we stop it from breaking? - Well, you can't always prevent it. Start by not smoking, start by
not getting burnt by the sun. - Really?
- Yeah. - Don't be in the sun for too long? - No, no. I mean we know that it ages your skin. Any Australian will tell you that. - What about like what's
the amount of time we should be in the sun without aging? Or is it always have
sunscreen on at all times? Isn't that chemicals
that affect, I mean... - Yeah, there are some
people will tell you that zero is the best. - [Lewis] Zero sun? - Well, that's what some people say. - Isn't vitamin D supposed
to help you live longer, too. - Well, yeah, they would say
to take a supplement instead. But I'm not that-- - This is human nature, right? - Sun for me makes you feel good, a bit of UV, but you don't
wanna overload the body. - Got it.
- It's very easy to overdo it. - So 10, 20 minutes in the sun.
- When your skin is starting to tingle. Don't get red. But in Australia, we used to pull pieces of skin off our--
- Burn, like blisters, right? Yeah. - Yeah. So I've only been burnt
maybe once or twice in my adult life for good reason. - So don't stay in the sun too long. - Right, right. Unfortunately it ends up
you look white and pasty but for Caucasians anyway. - Right. - But that's the price you pay. If you suntan a lot in your 20s, by the time you're 40 or 50, you will look about five, 10 years older. - (sighs) Okay. - Now, it's not all about vanity but skin cancer is also an issue. - Yeah, yeah.
- In Australia we learn a lot about that. - Wow. So you can be in the sun
just put protection on is what I'm hearing. - [David] That's right. - It's like or just stay inside all day. - Yeah, no, put protection on. - (chuckles) I mean, it's
like enjoy Mother Nature, you can go to the beach,
you can go on hikes, just wear a hat, put sunscreen
on your face, your arms, your hands, right? - Right. - Okay, I'm just (chuckles), okay, cool. - Yeah, yeah, you gotta
go outside for sure. I mean, otherwise what's life worth living.
- Wouldn't like that, okay. Now, I just did this trip to Poland with Wim Hof. We were with a group of guys where we do this intensive breathing
and ice therapy training where we were in the ice for 10 minutes up to our neck, breathing, and exposing ourselves to the cold. We also hiked fours on a mountain that was about 50-miles-an-hour
wind at the top minus 22 Celsius and with
no clothes on, just shorts, hats, gloves, and shoes. So exposing our legs and
our chest and our face to the wind and the cold and pelting us with hail, essentially, at the top. How important is heat
therapy and cold therapy to aging or anti-aging? - I wanna hear all about this story.
(Lewis laughing) This sounds fascinating. Definitely tell us more about that.
- Yes. - But yeah, so when I
started writing the book, my editor said, "You oughta
talk about this cryotherapy "and also sauna." And I said that's not science, can't be real.
(Lewis laughing) So I looked into it. And we'd also actually, I must admit, we'd done some work on cold already. One of these sirtuin protective genes, not number one that I talked about, but number three responds to cold and actually turns on healthy production of what's called brown fat. So the more I looked into it
and the more I kinda pondered my own research I thought maybe being cold does help your health. And so I write about it. But I think that the
data, it's not as strong as fasting and exercise, but it's believable that what you're doing when you're cold, or
actually when you're hot, is turning on those protective longevity genes.
- Really? - Yeah, yeah, I mean not internally. You're not gonna freeze
internally and be cold. But on your skin and just under your skin you're gonna have what's called brown fat which is full of energy-producing and heat-producing mitochondria, the battery packs of cells. And those mitochondria are really dense and it's one of the
reasons that it's brown not white fat. And the brown fat, it's
not like normal fat where you're just storing energy. It's actually metabolically active so it's burning energy.
- Mmm, it's burning. - But it also seem to be healthy because it's secreting
these little proteins that tell the body to stay young. We don't know what they all are, but there's a lot of evidence that having it--
- That's it's doing that. Stay young. - Well yeah, so brown fat
is found mainly in babies. - [Lewis] Wow. - Because they can't shiver. Little babies, did you know they can't shiver?
- I don't understand. Why can't they shiver though? - I don't know. It's weird isn't it?
- How old do you become until you can shiver for the first time? - [David] Oh, I don't know. I'd have to guess. But newborns don't shiver.
- Two years old. - And they have to use this brown fat. They're full of it. But as we get older, we lose it. In fact, when I was, 20 years ago when I was just starting out, people thought there was no such thing as brown fat in adults. And then they did PET, PET scans and found that this brown fat,
it was mostly in people who were cold and experiencing cold and found across the back mainly. - So you can recreate brown fat as an adult.
- Exactly. Yes, or beige fat. You can turn your white
fat into brownish fat by being cold.
- Really? Do we know how much cold
therapy you need to do? Is it once a month, is it once a week, is it daily? Is it for a certain amount of time? - Well, we're still figuring that out, but it seems like the more
the better unfortunately. So what you were doing sounds perfect. - So like every day doing a cold shower, an ice plunge for a couple minutes a day, or just something like that
helps generate brown fat which is a layer of
mitochondria, dense mitochondria, under the skin which
helps you burn more fat. - Yeah. - [Lewis] Is that what it is? - That's a good way to put it. - [Lewis] Okay. It's designed to keep you warm, but it also is telling the body, hey times are tough. We could freeze to death. Adversity, right? What doesn't kill you
makes you live longer. - Ooh, that's a good one. So put your body through
pain throughout your life as consistently as possible. Like controlled pain, right? Going in a sauna for 15 minutes
and pushing an extra minute, like that feeling of
adversity, going in cold, working out hard, doing something where you're not gonna kill yourself, or break a leg, but it's like discomfort. Is that what I'm hearing? - That's the most important lesson. We call it hormesis. And it's basically your
body will be complacent if you don't tell it to work hard. And the problem with our society is everything is designed to be comfortable.
- Comfortable. - That's what we strive for. You know, I was coming here, flying out, and I'm looking at all the roller bags and thinking, I'm
carrying my two bags here, and I'm thinking should I put it down? No! I'm gonna walk with my bags. That's what people used to do. But you know, these days everything is all about comfort.
- Is easy. - Constant food, don't
exercise, don't be cold ever. (Lewis chuckling) It's crazy. We're killing ourselves. We're accelerating our aging process. So you gotta get out of that comfort zone. - We're killing ourselves
by being comfortable. - [David] Right. - So is there too much,
like if I'm cold therapy and hot and fasting and
doing a HIIT workout, is there such thing as too much discomfort in your life that will start to age you? - I don't think so. - So I could fast, be in
the cold and the heat, two minutes of sun,
like do all these things in a day, do it consistently, carry my bags everywhere, and you think it'll make me younger. - I think your rate of aging will be slowed down dramatically. - [Lewis] Wow. - Skip a meal or two a
day as much as you can. Yeah, I mean there's
no question in my mind that this would work, give you an extra at
least 15 years, maybe 25. - [Lewis] Wow. - It's not rocket science. If you do that to a
rat, if you give it cold or you actually give it less food-- - It starts to... - If you come to my lab, you'll see mice. We've got mice that are on a regular diet. They can eat whenever they want. - Food just laying around, just eat as much as you want.
- Yeah. And those are not fat mice 'cause they're on a lean diet. The ones we give the high-fat diet, they die 30% faster anyway. They age rapidly. But let's say even if
you're lean like you are and eating well, but you're eating a lot, right, constantly.
- Yeah, yeah. - If we do that to a mouse, they will age at what
we call the normal rate. So they'll be two years
old, they're getting frail, they get gray hair, they're looking old. - [Lewis] Wow. - And then they'll die about
six months later on average. The mice that are on this
calorie restricted diet that either get less food in total or only eat for a few hours a day, they are running around
the cage, no gray hair, they're super active. They stay young. - So don't eat. - Well, you gotta eat. - It's fasting. What do you like, intermittent fasting or do you like the 24-hour fast, or you like a three-day fast? What do you think is
ideal for most people? - Scientifically I think
going for three days is great. - [Lewis] Scientifically. - Peter Attia, hats off to
him, that's his profession. He can do that.
- Is this the, what's the prolong, or what's the diet? What's this guy? - [David] Peter Attia? - Yeah.
- I don't know what his diet is.
- Does he have a diet or does he have like a
program for this or no? Or this is just his finding.
- I don't think so. - Okay. - He's a doctor who's
experimenting on his body in severe ways. - And three days is like what he does.
- Oh he goes for a week without food. He just drinks water.
- Wow. He's probably like skin
and bones though, right? - [David] Yeah. - It probably not the best
for high performance of like-- - No, no, no, if you're
an athlete, forget it. - So if you're an athlete,
if you wanna work out and do HIIT training, what do you think is scientifically right? Like a one-day fast and
then intermittent fasting and skipping meals? - Well, so I get asked this every day. And the simple answer
is do as much as you can and the more the better, in general, without losing your energy. But the other fact is that nobody knows the true answer. Anyone who says this is the way to do it-- - [Lewis] Yeah, they don't know. - is BSing you. - Yeah, 'cause everyone's
different and we all have different needs.
- Exactly. Different bacteria in the gut, different energy levels, different genes, different lifestyles,
different professions. And so for someone like me I'll tell you what works for me is I'm often sitting probably for half the day. I got a standing desk. That's a start. - (laughing) Right. You're not working out. - No, no, I work out once
a week for a few hours, that's about it.
- Right, that's it. - As much as I can do. So for me what I do is I
very rarely eat breakfast. I'm not hungry in the morning anyway. I try to skip lunch with my cups of tea. I would say I'm about 70% successful. I might have a little nibble of something in the afternoon 'cause
I can't focus well. But then I have a normal dinner. I go out to dinner and I'm living normally.
- Right, right, have whatever you want, yeah. - That works for me. And I think for an athlete,
at least skipping one meal would be good. - Would be good. And then maybe one day a month not eating or something, right? - Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Going for a whole week, though-- - Yeah, a 24-hour fast
could be good once a month. - One thing, though,
about that three-day fast. I've never done it myself. But what happens we
know is that it kicks in what's called the super
cleansing autophagy pathway. - Yeah, which kills the bad cells and-- - And gets rid of the bad proteins that have accumulated. - Three days? - You need to go for three days to really get
(Lewis sighs heavily) the deep cleanse unfortunately.
- Gosh, man. You've never done it though, huh? But you don't need it. You look like you're 30. So you're fine. - Maybe I could be 20 who knows. (Lewis laughing) Yeah, I'm just a schmo. I don't have the willpower that you guys. I couldn't go hiking in the snow. - Right it's, yeah, I think you could. It's a mindset. You could do it. - Really? - I think you could do it.
- Well, tell us about that. How did that feel? - Um, life-changing. Like to know that I could
hike practically naked. The only thing is at the top when I took my gloves off to take a video, then I started to really freeze. So I think the extremities
need to be covered and I think you should have supervision if you're gonna try this. I wouldn't try this by yourself. But since I had warm gloves on, I think I was able to do it. But I remember hiking the last 20 minutes, it was like a cliff coming off the side. The wind was whistling, you
know, 50, 60 miles an hour and you can't see much,
and it's really cold. Like it was cold going
up most of the mountain for the first 3 1/2 hours. The last 30 minutes, it's just like, there was no trees to
protect you from the wind. It was a lot colder.
- Are you shivering? - I was sweating still. I was sweating. So had sweat coming down from the hat, cold, like you're generating heat. And it wasn't fun at the top. It started to hurt. - Did you lose feeling in
certain parts of your body? - Yeah, my chest is like stinging and cold but I think I got enough
brown fat underneath me that I was generating heat. I had a good layer of fat in my stomach so I think that helped. But I went with a group of guys so it was like this bonding experience. We were all in this together. I think if I did it alone,
I probably woulda stopped at one point where there
was like a lodge at the top and then there was another 30 minutes. I think I woulda stopped
and been like I did enough. I proved it. I did 3 1/2 hours. I got close to the top. But we were on a mission
to reach the summit. And doing it together, I
think a positive mindset in general, maybe this isn't scientific, but I think having a positive attitude can get you through a lot of adversity. And what you speak out of your mouth can dictate the direction
that you go in your life. And again, this probably
isn't scientific or research, but if I say to myself as
I'm getting to the top, I'm cold, I'm tired, I
don't know if I can make it, this is stupid, what was I thinking, I'm probably going to convince my body to start getting colder and shutting down and looking backwards. But because we were like
man, it's sunny out. Like we were just saying,
"We're warm, it's hot, "it's sunny, this is a great nice hike." We just kept speaking these positive words and we convinced ourself, we believed it, our bodies started to believe it. Whatever we did, we were doing it together and we got to the top. And I think what we say dictates a lot of our energy and our actions. I don't know if that's proven science or if that's just... - Well, yeah, you'd probably
have to do that a few times to live longer. But psychologically,
it's changed your life? - Absolutely.
- Yeah. - I was trying to think, it was a five-day trip. And I was like are there
other weeks in my life that were better than this week? Going to the National Championships to become an All-American
was a big dream of mine and every day leading up to it, but I was still in class. I was in school. It wasn't all fun. Playoffs in college football were like great weeks leading
up to these games, right? But this was like every day we were taking on new challenges with a group of people. I don't know, something
about it was really special. And Wim Hof is like this crazy character who's also helping a lotta people. - Yeah, he's great. - And he's getting people
to get uncomfortable which is gonna help them fight disease, live longer, all these
things that you talk about. Whether he knows the science 100% or not, he's doing things to get
people to be uncomfortable on a consistent basis. And I think that helps people in general. - Right, physically and mentally. - Physically and mentally. We're doing breathing exercises every day. As you know, most people
are very shallow breathers and that probably affects, I don't know, if you're shallow
breathing your whole life, I don't think that can
help you live longer, I'm assuming, I don't know the science. But just taking deep
full breaths all the time and allowing the body to relax, it was so peaceful. I didn't look at my email once in a week. I didn't think about social media. I was just present, breathing, going through hard challenges and it felt so peaceful and relaxing. I mean, it was discomfort and then peace, and discomfort and then like ah. - Right. Well, you need to experience adversity to be able to have the calm. Like we have in our lives. We know what suffering is. So that's why even on a bad day, it's still a pretty good day. - [Lewis] Yeah, that's true. - I get home and my wife who's wonderful, she'll say, "How was today?" And after my mother died I now say, even though it's a bit morbid, "Nobody died today. "It was a great day." And that's what my cutoff. - If someone dies it's not the best day. - Right. And if you've been through that, then all the other stuff is just minor. - Average, average pain, yeah. - So the lesson here is push yourself. Do things that you don't
think you're capable of doing. Experience adversity. It'll help you physically, but even more so mentally. - Yeah. How old do you think you
can get to live personally with all the research you've done now and with potentially in
the next 20, 30 years of science that you're going to discover, if nothing happens physically
with like a bus or something, how long do you think
you personally can live if you optimized everything? Well, what's possible,
not what's gonna happen but what's possible what do you think?
- Right, right, right. Well, before I tell you that, I'm not doing this to live longer. - [Lewis] Right, you
don't wanna live forever. - I wouldn't mind. (Lewis laughing) I'm not looking forward
to a horrible death. But that's not my goal here. It's not that I'm worried about myself. I do wanna leave this planet having done something meaningful. That's what drives me mainly. But I'm also a scientist,
I'm experimenting. I wanna know stuff. Remember, you know I told my friends we're the last generation. So I'm trying to accelerate knowledge, at Harvard and at home. So I do these things to myself. I measure myself, glucose
levels, whole bunch of parameters to see what's going on, not
as proof but as indicators of what other people may test. So I know from own body
that I'm still pretty young. I still need to do the
definitive age test. We can now look at exactly how old we are.
- Really? Like a ring of a tree. - It is. It's called the Horvath clock. It's the pianist, you can
measure how old the pianist is within a few percent so
you can actually predict when you're gonna die now. - Oh shut up.
- Really. - Have you predicted? - I gotta do it, I gotta do it. (Lewis laughing) I've done a primitive form of that which is, in full
disclosure, it's a company that I own a little bit of. So this company takes blood tests. Can I say the name? - [Lewis] Sure. - It's called InsideTracker. I mention it because people are
gonna write to you about it. - [Lewis] Sure, sure. - So InsideTracker does blood tests and they measure a bunch of things and I've been doing
that for about 12 years. So I know, I'm tracking
myself and everything's staying young.
- Wow, okay. - And they can estimate your age. It's a rough estimate. - [Lewis] It can estimate your
age by taking a blood sample. - Right and measuring things
in there that go up and down with time.
- And it's probably like a three-year swing
either side or something or it's pretty close. - Yeah, it's an indicator of how well you're doing
- Right, right. - with your body. - [Lewis] Wow. - I actually took a test a few years ago, many years ago, that came out as 58. I freaked out. - [Lewis] (chuckles)
'Cause it made you older than what you are. - I was older than I was. I was 48 at the time. - Oh. So what do you change? - Well, I upped some doses of molecules, took a couple more. And stopped eating badly. And the next test came out at 31. - What? Shut up. What do you mean stop eating badly? Like sugars and candies and cakes or is it's just like-- - Well, I wasn't strictly
intermittent fasting. I'd eat lunches, had
more fat than I do now. I'd eat pizza and things like that. - I love pizza. Gosh. - But I've turned it around. I've never been unhealthy. But this was a real-- - That was a wake-up call. - I have terrible genes. My father's side, we all died in our 70s usually at most.
(Lewis laughing) - So what does it say
that you could live to? You don't know yet. - Well, so I haven't
answered your question. So that says that I've probably got another 20 years extra, right? - Extra? Than the average lifespan. - Well, based on that blood test. We'll see.
- Got it, got it. - But what could we live to? So here's the good news is
that if we just continue on the trend that we've
been on for 200 years and it's been perfectly linear. So you can keep stretching it out. A child born today in the US can expect, not hope,
but expect, 50% of them, to live to 104. And in Japan, 107. - [Lewis] Oh my gosh. - If we keep going up. Now, that's not gonna happen by accident. That's gonna take researchers
like me to figure it out and a lot of other research.
- And them doing the work. People not eating horrible and smoking. Doing the things that help. - Hopefully that'll help, too. That's why I wrote the book
- Wow. - is to help people live longer. - But just a hundred years
is their lifespan now. - Well yeah, that's the
predicted trajectory. That's without any radical breakthrough. - [Lewis] Wow. - Without fixing the pianist. Now, if we can fix the pianist
and truly reverse aging, like a reset switch, then who knows. We could live to 120, maybe longer. It's hard to say.
- Me and you or - Well, yeah.
- people born today? - Well, I'm going as fast as I can. And we've had a big
breakthrough in the last year that we found the reset switch we think in the cells
- Wow. - to reset the age. - So what's the next step? It's like you guys are researching this for the next five, 10 years, figuring out how to do that, reset it? - Well, we know how to do
it in a mouse pretty easily. That worked first time. That was easy. - Okay. - And one of my students,
another brilliant student, he decided to reverse the eye, the age of the eye. So he took old mice that
were basically blind and made their eyes young again so they could see. - What?
- Just like they were young again, yeah. - So you could do with people, too? - Well, that's the next step. That's a few years away.
- Oh my gosh. - But we're working. I'm an entrepreneur as you know. - Yeah, of course.
- So I'm trying to push this out of the lab as fast as possible.
- Wow. - But if it works on the eye, what else could it work on? Probably everything I think. Now, is it safe? We think it is, we've
given it to mice for a year and no problem, no cancer
showing up or anything. - [Lewis] Wow! - But you don't wanna push it too far. You don't wanna go back
to being an embryo, you'll be the world's biggest tumor. - Right, right, wow. Wow. So what do you think you
could live to personally? - Yeah, I'm trying to avoid the question. (Lewis laughing) Because my peers, my colleagues hate it 'cause it's unproven, it's unscientific.
- Got you, got you. But just like obviously it's not proven, but just if all goes well, don't get sick and all
these things don't happen. - All right, so-- - No traumatic events. - People are gonna rewind this video when I die, aren't they? So I'm on a trajectory
to live well beyond 80 because I'm healthy. My father's an example. - [Lewis] He's 80. - He's 80 and long-- - [Lewis] So he should live
at least 10 years beyond that. - Right. So at least that.
- Minimum. - I should be healthy into my 90s. Be nice to break a hundred. With the technologies
and some of the medicines that I'm working on and one of them that I'm actually taking,
maybe beyond a hundred? That would be nice. - [Lewis] Wow. - In a healthy way, playing tennis. - Wow. In a healthy way, beyond a hundred. - A lot of people do that. It's not for everybody,
but you do see people in their hundreds that are
still working and happy. - How much does inflammation play into the longevity of your life? - Oh, it's huge, it's huge. It's one of these hallmarks that if inflammation's going up too fast, that's basically your clock is accelerated.
- You're aging. - [David] Yeah. - So how do we get rid of inflammation? - Well, there are a number of ways. One is do these things and
turn on your longevity genes which are anti-inflammatory. Other ways. I'm still taking a
little aspirin every day. The data still looks pretty good for that. - Taking an aspirin? - [David] Yeah, 81 milligrams a day. - That just takes away inflammation? - Yeah, mostly in your blood vessels. - [Lewis] Wow. - But you need to take it
for a long time, of course, I think, to stop that. Resveratrol is anti-inflammatory. And remember how I said those
mice have beautiful arteries, no fat on them.
- Really? - So that's good. Yeah, but basically it's that. But overeating and being obese is gonna massively turn up inflammation.
- Inflame. Wow. - Yeah, within a few weeks you'll do it just eating bad food for a few weeks will turn it up. - And fasting will kill inflammation. - [David] Exactly. - Wow. - But you might say well,
if your immune system isn't overactive, what about getting sick? Turns out your immune
system gets heightened but inflammation, chronic
inflammation, gets dampened. So when you talk to a centenarian and say, did you used to get sick? - They say, "Can't remember
last time I got sick in my--" - [Lewis] Centenarian? - Centenarian, people
who live over a hundred. - [Lewis] Okay. - So that's a hallmark of longevity.
- They don't remember when they got sick. - [David] They don't get sick. They rarely get even a sniffle or a cold. - How is that possible? - Well, they have massive immune systems. So even if someone sneezes on them, that virus is attacked and killed. But here's the thing. Since I've been eating
and living the right way over the last few years since
that terrible scary test, I haven't gotten sick.
- You haven't got, no sickness. - Not once.
- No cold, the flu? - No, and I'm on planes,
people are sneezing on me. I've got, we've got three
kids, they're always sick. - What if you ate something
that had food poisoning, that would fight against that, too, or is that kinda hard to defend against?
- Good question. I don't know. I don't know but I haven't--
- Some uncooked chicken or something, you know, it's like-- - I haven't had food poisoning recently but it might just be that I
can afford better food now. - (laughing) That's good. I like that, wow. This is all fascinating stuff and I know you've got more in your book, "Lifespan: Why We Age and
Why We Don't Have To". Make sure you guys get this book. Really powerful research and science. I got a couple questions left for you. This is called the three truths I ask everyone at the
end of my interviews. So I want you to imagine
it's your last day on Earth and you're 150, 200, or
however old you wanna be. And you've done tons of research. You've written every book you wanna write. You've answered every
question that you can think of while you're alive. You publish all this information, but for whatever reason you've gotta take your work with you. So no one has access to your
work anymore, your research. All your contents is gone.
- I'll cry (laughing). - It's going with you to another world, wherever you go next.
- It sounds like hell. Okay. - Just imagine. - [David] Yeah. - But you get to leave
behind three lessons or three things you know to be true from everything that you've
learned in your life. You can write it down on a piece of paper. Everyone would have access
to these three truths and this is the only three
things that you can share that they would have access to. What would you say are your three truths? - All right. Right, the first one that I live by is all about maximizing human potential. I believe that we're way underutilized. But for the individual, what
you have to think every day is do something that's
worth writing about. Or write something that's worth reading. So have an impact. That's my lesson is don't
settle for mediocrity. Do something spectacular and
don't listen to the naysayers. - Okay. Is that one? - That's one.
- Yep. - The next one would be do something that scares you every day. Send off an email that you wouldn't, that you'd be afraid to do. And along with that, when
you're young, take risks like we did. You can fail. That's okay, you will fail. But it'll make you, it'll open you up to more opportunities. But also you'll be a stronger adult, stronger 40, 50-year-old. Yeah.
- Okay, that's two. - Ah gee, the third one. I haven't pre-prepared this. But this one's from the heart. I've described for you what it was like to see my mother pass away. And I spent my life arguing
with my mother, right? I regret that. So as a parent now myself, let me tell the younger people, tell your parents how much you appreciate
what they've done for you. Tell them that you love
them, assuming that you do, if they're good people. Because there will be a day most likely when they'll be gone and
you won't have a chance to hug them anymore or see them anymore 'cause they're gone. And when they're gone you think, how is that possible that
somebody can be there and not there within a
matter of two minutes? That happens. And yeah, I just wished
that I'd told my mum more about how much I appreciated her. So I've dedicated the book to her 'cause she cared more about
herself than her kids. - Wow, special. Those are good three truths. I love those. Well, I'm gonna acknowledge you, David, for a moment for being obsessed about helping people. And I think your commitment and dedication to doing, I mean, I
don't know what I've done for 10 years consistently, but doing research for
10 years on one thing and trying to get the most out of it, and writing these books, and taking the time to come on my show, and just being obsessed
about helping people to leave this world a better place. I think it's really admirable
and I appreciate you. I acknowledge you for just showing up every single day and doing the work even when your peers criticize you and even when the media does this. I know how not easy that is when you're shamed publicly. It's not easy to keep going. But I acknowledge you for
pushing through any insecurities or emotional traumas that you've faced to try to help people like
me and everyone watching to live better. So thank you for all that you do. And I wanna make sure people
get the book, "Lifespan". Where can we connect with you online? - Well, I have a website
called Lifespanbook.com. - [Lewis] Okay. - I have a newsletter. So that's keeping things up to date, new stuff, I write
- Great. - about every few weeks. And I'm on social media, on Instagram and Twitter, Facebook. - [Lewis] Where do you hang
out the most personally on social media? - Instagram and Twitter. - [Lewis] Okay, cool. What's your Instagram? - It's davidsinclairphd. - Okay, cool. So we'll connect with you there. Make sure you guys send him some messages over on Instagram. This is my final question. It's what's your definition of greatness? - Uh, again, off the cuff. So I would say, I
would've, if you asked me a few years ago, I probably
would've said something a little bit self-centered which is greatness is somebody who is recognized internationally for something important. But I don't think that anymore. I'm married to a woman
who has a PhD from MIT in genetics, who could've
been a superstar scientist but instead chose to do nonprofit work - [Lewis] Wow. - and raise a family and put up with me. - [Lewis] (chuckles) Right. - That's greatness. - Yeah.
- So it doesn't, you don't have to be internationally recognized.
(upbeat music) You just need to make a
difference in people's lives. - Wow, I love it. David, thanks man, appreciate this. - Thanks, Lewis.
- Powerful. - [David] Thanks for what you do, too.
