Episode 549: Dr. Valter Longo: What 30 Years of Longevity & Fasting Study Reveals About The GLP-1 Trend

27:02And that eventually, if you don't unlock it every month, then that makes you age faster. So, okay, so you said a few things. So one question I have is, how have you revamped the diet from 20 years ago to now? Like, what are some of the findings that you have kind of revised that you know now that you didn't know back then? Well, I mean, 20 years ago, it was the mouse version, right? So, and we use it for cancer. You know, now there is a lot of fast mimicking. There is one for Alzheimer's that is very different from the one for everyday people. It's very different from the one in cancer. Cancer is much lower calories.

27:44So let's talk about that. So you basically took the diet and kind of tailored it to disease-specific. So there's a specific fast mimicking diet for an Alzheimer's patient versus a cancer patient versus… Versus autoimmunities, yeah, versus diabetes, versus pre-diabetes. Wow, talk about that. I'd like to know the difference. How much different can they all be? Well, I mean, for example, the cancer one is much lower, 600 kilocalories, because with the cancer, we need to get quickly in and out, meaning that the cancer patient gets chemo and the chemo is gone within a few days. Let's say it gets chemo.

28:22It could be getting chemo, it could be getting immunotherapy, kinase inhibitor, and lots of different therapies. So we need to try to achieve these changes in IGF-1, et cetera, that I talked about before quickly, right? And so because we don't have the time to get there more slowly. But for Alzheimer's, for example, is the opposite. We have high calorie. We add an extra 300 or 400 kilocalories per day because now we're dealing, we just finished a trial in Italy. We're dealing with people that may be as old as 85, 90, and we cannot give them a 600 kilocalorie, which is what we, so for normal people, it's 800 to 1100 kilocalories per day.

29:03For cancer, it's 600. And for Alzheimer's, it's 1 ,400, right? So, yeah, because we don't want to push somebody who's 85 to a very restricted diet. And, you know, that was probably a good idea because so far we've had very little, you know, high grade toxicity, meaning like the type of toxicity that makes the doctor worry, right? So it's minor things like a little bit of a headache and things like that. But you really don't see that. We haven't seen very much of the grade three, grade four toxicity, which makes clinicians worry. So what do you do in the Alzheimer's fast mimicking diet? Like besides adding more calories, are you just adding bigger portions?

29:47Are you adding any specific ingredients? We're adding lots of, So in the Alzheimer's, it's not just calories, it's also other things. So we had caffeine and it's a ketogenic supplement that we actually give patients between the cycles, right? So they did the cycle and then all the 25 days in between cycles, they got this 300, 400 kilocalorie ketogenic supplement. So high fat, very healthy, most of it from nuts and olive oil. But there was also caffeine and some other things in there that have been associated with protection from cognitive decline. So, you know, Alzheimer's is a little bit special because there's really nothing out there that works, right?

30:31And so we felt, let's just go all the way, which we usually don't do, because then if you put all these things in there, you don't know what worked. But we thought, especially because we were talking to neurologists, I remember six or seven years ago, and they were telling us, you know, good luck, right? Because by the time somebody's got early Alzheimer's, I mean, their brain is so damaged that it's going to take a miracle for anything to bring them back, right? That's when we started thinking, okay, let's just go with everything we can. And yeah, we'll see. But in mice works very well. But I think it's a lot rougher.

31:08Because in mice, we start early, right? Right. But if you're starting an 82-year-old patient that has already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It's not helping. You're probably past the point. We don't have high hopes. Yeah, you're right past the point. I'm also asking because my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's recently, a year ago. Thank you. And I'm looking for anything. And the truth of the matter is, once you've kind of hit a place, there's nothing that you can really reverse. Yeah. I mean, everything is possible, but it's extremely complicated compared to other diseases, right? Once the nervous system is badly damaged and your brain undergoes atrophy and a lot of the brain cells are lost.

31:53So yeah, it would take some remarkable regenerative process to bring it back and bring it back without doing damage to the very delicate nervous system. So it's not just you got to bring it back, but you also have to save what's left that is still working. Exactly. Alzheimer's patient can still function relatively normal physically, right? Not all of them, but many of them can. And so you have to preserve all of that. You cannot add to it. And then you have to restore learning and memory. But it's a rough enterprise. It is. What's interesting, though, people who have been diagnosed with cancer have been prescribed fast-mimicking diets.

32:42It's been kind of known and researched to have had pretty remarkable results on cancer patients. Yeah, so there are many trials now on fast-mimicking diets and cancer. And the one that is most studied is triple-negative breast cancer for good reason, right? The triple-negative is much more aggressive. Mortality is very high at five years, right? And that's one of the most common cancers in the planet. So the multiple trials now are showing patients that did chemotherapy alone versus, I mean, patients did fasting-mimicking diet plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone, they do much better, right, survival-wise.

33:25How much? What's the percentage? In four years, about three and a half, four years, it was about nearly twice as high, the survival, in the FMD plus chemo versus chemo alone. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then the new study, which is published by the Vernieri Group, is showing progression-free survival, which is not overall survival, but it's like how long you live without the cancer progressing, right? Okay. So they show an improvement in that and also improvement in what's called complete pathological response, which basically is what they call a surrogate for overall survival, right? And so this is much higher in the patients that do a fasting-micking diet compared to what they normally expect from the database, right?

34:13So, so, um, yeah, so then multiple trials are now showing with some of the most metastatic in the metastatic cancer, the most aggressive, the, uh, the initial, uh, trials are, are very promising now for the earlier type of cancer. If somebody is going to receive, let's say surgery, that's a different story, right? So we're, we're trying to be maybe more careful and we're saying, you know, if you have a 98 % chance of being cured, maybe leave it alone, right? you know just take your 98 and don't so the foundation that i started so they follow lots of cancer patients uh every year and usually uh they put them on a longevity diet uh 12 hour time recited eating and lots of other things but you know muscle training and and uh um aerobic exercise but they don't we usually in the early stage cancer patients we don't uh not that we have any evidence that it's not good for you, but certainly it makes a big difference for mice and cancer.

35:13But we're just saying until there's a trial that is showing superiority versus the therapy alone, we just don't feel like we should recommend it. What about protein? Because you said like the longevity diet, A, you said it has five pillars. We talked about the centurion pillar. We didn't talk about the other four, but that has fish in And you said he has fish in that diet. Fast mimicking, it's vegan, like you said. What is your take on protein? Because do you believe that too much protein can actually age you quicker? Yeah, I'm writing a review now on proteins. And it's interesting, right? Because if you look at overall all the science that has ever been done, And if you, you know, proteins, what's called caloristic, what I was talking about earlier, which is normal calories, you reduce it by, let's say, 20%, 25%, right?

36:15That's the most successful anti-aging method ever done, right? If you look at, you know, thousands of studies, right? By reducing your calories by 20%. Yeah, reducing it, not below excess. I mean, reducing it is normal calorie intake, let's say, whatever, 3 ,000 kilocalories, and you reduce it by 25%, right? And that's the best aging, that's the best way to slow down aging. That would beat any other intervention because there are literally thousands of studies, including human studies, showing remarkable effects, right? And so if you think about the second one, it's probably protein restriction.

36:55Or if you think about the only one that doesn't require you to eat less, it's protein restriction. Mice, rats, you know, and the monkeys that live longer, they were caloristic, but also protein restricted. Yeah, so I think if you look at all the studies, the indication would be that a sufficient but low-protein diet that is mostly plant-based is going to make you live longer or a lot longer. Now, if you look at the epidemiological data only, which is what most of my, you know, most of the podcasters, let's say, out there talk about, then, you know, it's a little, you could get lots of different answers, right?

37:37You could get high protein is good for you, mid protein is good for you. That's why I'm asking, yeah. Especially in the fitness and wellness world, right? We're all told that we need to be eating like a lot of protein, especially in midlife, right? Like to keep, you know, lean muscle on. Like all you hear now is protein, protein, protein, creatine, creatine, creatine, like anything to kind of increase your protein. Yeah. So you're saying the opposite. You're going to say, if you want to live longer and age better, stop eating so much protein. Yes, for sure stop eating so much protein, but have enough protein and have proteins that include proteins, let's say two-thirds of very good quality amino acid profile, right?

38:19So, for example, if all your protein is coming from legumes and you're low, you're going to have a problem, right? Right. Yeah. So, and I think the vegans, you can be vegan and very healthy, but you need to pay attention to what you're eating because otherwise you're going to end up being malnourished, right? Yeah. So it's a lot easier. And this is probably why the doctor has always recommended, yeah, eat a little bit of everything. Yeah. Because it's much less likely that somebody eats meat once a week and fish two or three times a week and chicken. Those are going to do pretty well, you know.

38:50Now, they're not going to do as well, maybe, as those that are vegetarian and they have a more restricted diet, but they're generally going to do pretty well. So then you have to look at what you're trying to achieve. So if you're trying to achieve a long lifespan, but you also want the strength, I think it's probably good to, I go back to the pescetarian diet, pesco-vegetarian. Right, like fish. Fish, but also some eggs, maybe up to three eggs a week. Only three eggs a week? What if you eat three eggs a day? Well, I mean, the data indicates that after three eggs a week, in general, I mean, let's put it this way.

39:35They're not, lots of, we're going back to epidemiological studies. Lots of studies say it's fine, right? Right. If you don't have too many eggs there. But some of the biggest ones are showing that past three eggs a week, you're starting to see a mortality increase, right? Now, you know, it's an association. It doesn't mean the eggs were causing it, but that's not a good start, right? If you start seeing, you know, this particular food is not, the eggs are normally not associated with living long. Meaning it's like, you know, legumes are and whole grain wheat is and, you know, nuts are and olive oil is.

40:10and the eggs, you don't see it. So it's either neutral or negative. That's usually where you see them. Now, red meat is always very negative. And then white meat, it's negative to neutral. And eggs and dairy is usually neutral to bad. Yeah, so I think that probably okay for most people. Like if somebody has to have lots of eggs, it's probably okay. But maybe not. Maybe not. If you're saying like it's neutral at best. It's neutral at best. At best. Yeah. So, but okay, so dairy, like Greek yogurt, would that be neutral? Generally, lots of the data would put them in the center, neither good for you.

40:57So for example, this is very nice work done at Harvard, looking at what are the ingredients that are going to get you to 70 or 75 healthy? and, you know, and you have the, in this case, fruits. I'm not, you know, I think it should be more limited because if people hear, you know, fruit is at the top, then they can, you know, eat too much fruit. Yes, that's right. But I say, you know, vegetable and fruit and nuts and legumes and whole grain were at the top. And then, you know, the bread meat and the processed meat was at the bottom. Right. And then, you know, and the lots of the eggs and the dairies and the yogurt in the center.

41:38So probably if you're not looking for a record, most people are not looking to get the record longevity and they're basically, it's not a bad compromise to eat yogurt. And of course it's very high nourishment. So then certainly as you get to 65 or older or 60 older, those are probably the type of ingredients that might help you not become frail. So then there is also the idea of different stages of life. For different foods. For different food and food quantities, right? So once you get to a certain age, then most people start losing weight and that weight loss is usually associated with living shorter, right?

42:24Right. So that's why when you get to 65, and for somebody it could be 60, for somebody else it could be 70, right? Right. Chronologically, chronological age. So when you get to that point, you want to stay there and stay strong, right? Right. And so, yeah. So to stay there, stay strong, some people might have to have yogurt and eggs or more eggs and more yogurt. Some people may not, yeah. I guess you're right. You've got to think about all the different, like there's so many different benchmarks that you're like, or like different variables that you're looking at, right? To like what will make someone healthy.

42:58But you're saying that, which fish, do you think fish is neutral? No, no. Fish is positive. Fish are neutral to positive. Neutral to positive. Yeah. Okay. The pescatarian, the pesco-vegetarian, they tend to do better than everybody else. What about salmon that's farm-raised, though? Like fish that's farm-raised, is that still neutral to positive? We don't know that, right? So we know there are toxins associated with it. And so usually the recommendation is maybe eat it once a week, right? So if you have a farm-raised salmon, yeah, once a week. So you limit whatever toxins that are associated with the fats in the salmon.

43:37And because if you think about so many food, so much food, it's got toxins in it, right? So much. Yeah, and so if you went around and analyzed, so for example, I tell people, most people don't know that brown rice has got arsenic. Yeah, arsenic for sure. Yeah, so I mean, and the mercury and the acrylamide, and a lot of it is in vegetables, right? And so, yeah, so I think that you also have to say, I gotta eat something. So maybe rotate a lot, right? Then don't eat the same foods all the time and don't eat the same farm-raised salmon three times a week or the same tuna twice a week because the mercury poisoning is a reality.

44:20And so, yeah, so then instead of scaring people with don't eat anything, because then people go into the modality and say, well, I cannot have anything. But yeah, you can, but try to, if it's salmon, farm rice, make it once a week. So what about, because you said that brown rice does have arsenic, which some of us know. Do you recommend to people to have white rice then and stay away from brown rice because of that poison? I mean, it's a poison, right? But if you had, let's say once a month, it's got maybe twice as high as some of the white rice, right? Or two or three times. It's not like 20 times higher, right?

45:02Oh, okay. Yeah, so I think that the bigger problem comes in when somebody, and I meet these people all the time, they say, I eat it three times a week. Right. That's when you're going to get in trouble, right? That's when you're going to get in trouble. And that's when you may end up with arsenic poisoning, like mercury, right? So if you start having swordfish and tuna three or four times a week, that's going to be a problem. If you have tuna once a month, you're probably going to be okay. You'll be okay. What do you eat? What does your diet look like? Yeah, my diet is really everything that I preach, right?

45:34So I have a lot of whole grains in the morning, for example. Then I have like an almond spread. Both of those I get from southern Italy. And I store them. And then, you know, I have some fruit. And then I skip lunch. and it's not necessarily a good thing, but that's an example of a compromise. So for me, whenever I don't skip, I've been doing it for 20 years and that's the only way, together with the fasting-making diet, that I can keep the weight that I want. That you want. Yeah. So going back to your question earlier, my weight is probably set like 20, 25 pounds higher than I am. But you've changed it.

46:18To keep it there, I have to do a lunch and I have to do the FMD and I have to do the longevity diet, right? So then at night I have this big, you know, minestrones with the legumes and lots of vegetables and olive oil and pasta. And, but, you know, I have maybe 75 grams, 80 grams of pasta and, you know, yeah. So the mistake people make is to have a lot of these starches and little nourishment, right? And you got to turn it around. You have to have a lot of vegetables and legumes and little pasta or rice, right? White rice or brown rice. And yeah, those are the ideal combination, right? And that's how people used to do it because they were poor and that's all they had.

47:06You know, the minestrone is all over the Italy, right? Because you have the Genovese, in Liguria, you have the Genovese minestrone. And in the South, what it was is people were poor and at a certain point they're running out of food and they were just grabbing anything they had and put it in, right? So that you get an extra meal. So that's gone now, right? Even in Italy, nobody does that anymore. And now you have these big rice dishes and pasta dishes and whatever else, right? The starches that, of course, you're going to make you gain weight and they're going to make you insulin resistant and they're going to make you die earlier.

47:47So how often would you suggest people even doing fast-mimicking diets? Like, what's the most optimal, to get optimal results, to live the longest and healthiest? How often? Yeah, I think that it depends, right? So, for example, in the diabetes trials, it's every month for either six cycles or 12 cycles, right? These are patients that have diabetes. But the case that I told you earlier, this doctor only did three times, right? Right. In six months. And it still worked, right? so so i think that yeah you can start with the doctor in this case of in the case of a diabetes patient could start with every month and then move to once every two months and then every three months and and take it from there you know for everybody else i think maybe like three times a year three times yeah maybe even two i maybe i do once or twice right but i skip lunch you know and i do the longevity diet and i do everything else so so yeah to me it's not as uh i i don't need as many, but, you know, most people are overweight and obese and they have lots of other issues.

48:56And so as those issues come around, so for example, Stanford just published on Crohn's disease, the University of Miami published on the FMD and ulcerative colitis, and the University of Rome published on FMD and hyposmia, the loss of olfactory function, smell and taste, right? And the ability of the FMD to restore taste and smell loss. So yeah, meaning different people have or don't have different problems, and then they have to decide how to use the FMD based on where they start, based on baseline, right? Where their starting point. What about fasting in women? Because there's a lot of chatter about fasting not being great for women hormones, especially as women are in middle age?

49:49Yeah. I mean, fasting, again, is good, bad, and neutral. It doesn't mean anything. We just mentioned, right, 16 hours, 18 hours, probably not good, 12 hours, probably very good. And yeah, so I think that probably is very good for women and, you know, at least 50 % of the patients in the many 40 clinical trials that are being completed now with the fasting-making diet, I would say the majority are women and they did very well. in the great majority of the trials. So yes, working very well for women. I think what we still need to define, so for example, we just finished a trial on polycystic ovarian syndrome and one on endometriosis.

50:29And we're going to be publishing those soon. And yeah, I think the timing is still, you know, somebody's period, for example, when is the best time to do it? You know, so we were talking to endocrinologists and some of the female specialized endocrinologists saying, you know, maybe there is a period where it's not going to work very well, right? So I think soon enough, we're going to start publishing, you know, don't do it in this moment, you know. But yeah, besides maybe that one week a month where it might be ideal to do it, I would say that the effects have been remarkably positive. Can fasting help prevent cancer or can it help only when you've already been diagnosed and help potentially with the diagnosis?

51:19Yes, so there is no doubt that diet prevents cancer, meaning like if you have the perfect diet versus the bad diet. And now in mice, we were able to show about a 45 % in female mice, 45 % reduction in tumors lifelong. So big, big effect. but also it looked like not only there was a 45 % reduction but many of the tumors were benign versus malignant so it's a dual effect they happened later they were benign and they were much lower overall but yeah whereas with some of the diets like Mediterranean diet there's about a 7 % lower cancer mortality risk lifelong which is not a lot but you know it's better than nothing and yeah so for these newer diets and more you know at least scientifically diets that have expectation to be much stronger like fasting-making diet, longevity diet we need to do a lot more work so now we're starting to do the first trials with you know for example the Calabria trial that we just finished also had an arm that was doing both the longevity diet and the fasting-making diet so now we're about to publish several studies in mice that we do the longevity diet, you know, for the entire life.

52:41So we'll see now what they show on cancer prevention. But yeah, the expectation is cancer will be lower or much lower, or certainly it'll happen later and it'll be, you know, some of the malignant cancers will show up as benign tumors. So let's talk about the GLP ones we touched upon at the beginning of the conversation. Do you think there's any potential side effects to GLP-1s? Like, do you think a GLP-1 could possibly show it's a cancer-causing medication, peptide, later down the road? Because people don't know, right? They've been using it for diabetes for so long or for many years. And now everyone and their dog is using it for weight loss.

53:25Right. People don't know. And everything is possible. It's also possible that it's going to reduce cancer, right? So that would be the expectation based on... Because it does help with inflammation. It may help a little bit with inflammation, but it just lowers your risk factor for cancer, which is obesity and diabetes, right? Right. So those are risk factors for cancer. And so if you reduce that, you know, then... It could potentially... For example, cardiovascular disease, now we know that GLP-1, at least the initial data, it reduces above 10%, right? So people on GLP-1 have about 10 % cardiovascular disease, reduce risk.

54:10Now, you know, in my new book, which is not in English yet, it's called The Weight of Longevity, you know, I'm comparing it to just a Mediterranean diet. And I'm saying the Mediterranean diet seems to have a 30 % decrease in cardiovascular disease, right? So now don't show off. please don't show off the GLP-1 10 % effect when the Mediterranean diet is showing 30%, right? And it doesn't have any side effects. And now we're saying that we could probably do much better than the Mediterranean diet. But even if you just use the Mediterranean diet, it's so much better, right? You get the weight loss and you get lots of benefits.

54:49So I think that there is a long list of side effects of GLP-1. And now the new studies are showing something very scary, which is you do it, you're going to need to continue doing it. If you stop, you're going to regain the weight. And when you regain the weight after you stop, you regain the weight much quicker or quicker than people that have lost the weight with diet, right? So, and at least the potential mechanism that I saw was that you're not making your own GLP-1 because, you know, you're getting the drug. It's like when you take testosterone, your body stops taking testosterone. So it could be the same thing.

55:29It could be the same thing, right? So this is what the scientists that published the paper, I think speculated, or they have some evidence for it. But either way, it was clear that they regain weight more quickly. And probably because they were no longer functional, right? So it's really condemning you to be stuck. It's a little bit like addiction, addictive drugs, or, you know, addictive foods, right? So all of a sudden now I give you something that you can never get away from. A hundred percent. Also though, if you're burning a third muscle, right? So you're burning some muscle off your body.

56:10Your metabolism will obviously slow down. So when you get off of them, your body doesn't have the same accelerated metabolism or whatever metabolism you have because you don't have as much muscle to burn. Not only that, but now what you regain is fat, right? Right. So we're not even counting that you're regaining the fat more quickly, but you're not regaining the muscle or you're getting a lot less muscle, right? Yeah, so that really may condemn you to be stuck on this drug that has got so many side effects for the rest of your life. I know. Or certainly for decades. It's scary. Yeah, scary. And, you know, I think what's problematic, very problematic, is that the physicians are not saying this, right?

56:54The physicians are now saying, well, you know, and I can see that when somebody has tried. I mean, so if you look at our foundation, you know, sometimes we have doctors, we have PhDs, we have nutritionists. Sometimes they cannot do it, right? So they could take somebody, and for most people, great. They do very well and they become better and they become healthy. But some people cannot. And so I think it's fair to say, hey, I tried everything. We've been trying for three or four years. And it takes two to three years, as that happened for the doctor that I was talking about earlier. It took him two years to get back to normal, right?

57:35From diabetes, hypertension, obesity to a normal person, right? Right. And so if the team, let's say in his case, worked on him for three years. Right. And after three years, he's just still stuck on all these problems. Then I think it's okay to be on GLP-1, right? Right. And I think it's okay to say - If you tried everything. I tried everything, but not the way it is now. You go to the doctor and the doctor, you know, says, you know, I don't know if you want to spend the money and go to a dietician. Right, right, right, right. The system is not really there to provide what we provide as a foundation, or the clinicians provide the foundation, which is, I'm going to follow you.

58:19I'm going to be your friend for the next two or three years. Right. We find a way to get you back to full health. That's not reimbursed. That doesn't exist, right? And so either you have the money to pay for it or you don't get it. And what you get reimbursed is the drug. And so the doctor says, come on, I don't know anything about nutrition and I cannot follow you every couple of weeks and to see how you're doing. I cannot be your friend. So I'm just gonna give you a drug to begin with. That's a big problem, right? Then I'm just really surprised that the media are not talking about more. And the doctors are not talking about it more.

58:58Say, hey, you know, please reimburse the rest, right? Because once the rest is reimbursed, then it's a fair game to say, hey, you need GLP-1, right? Because at least get that 10 % lower cardiovascular risk. Because you're not going to be able to do the Mediterranean diet. You're not going to be able to do the longevity diet. You're not going to be able to do the FMD or whatever. And yeah, so then we do the second best and the drug is certainly valuable in that sense. Well, no, I've seen myself with friends of mine who are on it and they lost a lot of weight and they looked great. And then when they got off, they thought, oh great, now I'm at my lower than my goal weight.

59:38And they gained the weight plus more within a month. Within a month. People were gaining like 40 or 50 pounds in a month. That's scary. But even more scary is what is the chance that somebody can stay on it for five or 10 years? I know. Exactly. Is that because I think it's over 70 % abandoned within two years, right? But what about five years or 10 years? Because if the answer is 95 % are going to abandon, then you're making a big mistake, right? Right. Because everyone's going to be overweight again. Everybody's going to be overweight. But with all the side effects, they come with those five years of the drugs, right?

1:00:21What are the side effects that you've seen? Well, for example, neon. So this is ischemia, optic nerve ischemia. And then there is, you know, certainly studies showing both things, but certainly multiple studies showing depression, anxiety. Some studies are showing positive effects, but some studies are showing very bad negative, like doubling of suicide rates. So now who's right? I don't know, but certainly it's not good when you see all those studies in major journals indicating twice as high anxiety and depression and suicide rates. So yeah, so then I'm not saying they're conclusive, meaning they're all we know.

1:01:09that there, but that's not a good association to see those types of studies. And so, yeah, then we just say the muscle loss, potentially bone density, although that doesn't, you know, again, the muscle is very clear. The bone density is not very clear. Some studies are showing no loss of bone density, but then again, it's pretty short term, right? So what if you did it for 10 years, you know, then are we going to see then the bone density loss? Exactly. We're going to see osteoporosis increase. For sure. Somebody that has been on it for 20, 30 years. Yeah, so it's just a minefield. And I think, you know, people are just walking through it.

1:01:51Walking through it. What about the fact that, like you said, people get off of it or abandon it, as you put it, within two years? Why is two years the point where people are just getting off of it? Yeah, this is the papers that I saw, multiple papers, they don't show why. So it could be that you're satisfied with what you do. You think you got it. You think you got it under control. Yeah, yeah. Or it could be that you're depressed, or it could be that you have big side effects, right? So, you know, the doctor, for example, that we followed had major side effects, right? So, yeah. So there is a lot of gastrointestinal side effects and lots of issues.

1:02:23So, yeah. But for all the reasons combined, over 70%, we're no longer doing it. What about the fat? What did you think or have you heard that after a time period, people's bodies tend to acclimate on the drug? Because people can eat through their appetite. I have a lot of people I know who worked great for a year, year and a half, even two years. And now they're just eating back to where they were because their body became so acclimated to the drug. So unless you keep on increasing it and increasing the dose, you're kind of screwed. Yeah. I mean, that's certainly, you know, in need of more studies, but also if you think about drugs, GLP-1 is one case, but also statins, right?

1:03:13They're really, we think of drugs as very sophisticated, right? So there's a lot of studies behind it. And, you know, now you have a molecular target and this is going after this receptor of GLP-1. But the drugs are really dumb, right? because now you have the human body and this is like this perfect orchestra with every moving part, you know, there is three and a half billion years in the making, right? Three and a half billion years of evolution. And so now you have that and what we were saying earlier, right? The fasting response and the fat is broken down and it's preserving, it's making glycerol.

1:03:47So the glycerol now is preserving the muscle. So this is very sophisticated. And now you're replacing it with, keep pushing the same button, right? Okay, so somebody's sitting there and pushing GLP-1 button all the time, right? If you think about it, it just doesn't look good, right? Compared to this sophistication of the human body that now you have somebody pushing the button. So in the great majority of the cases, it's just a matter of time before you're going to get bad results from somebody pushing the same button 10 times a day for the rest of your life, right? Right. So, yeah, so - Well, they keep on coming out with a new, like it was first the GLP-1, And now there's like, it works on two receptors with frisepatide.

1:04:27Now it works on three receptors. Yeah, but the more you do that, the more you do that, probably you have now a potentially synergistic trouble zone, right? Because if one drug can cause problems, now two drugs may cause five times more problems, right? Or at least have the potential, we don't know. Because now you're interfering with two pathways, right? And then if you have three, now you probably, you know, there's probably, I don't know, I'm speculating, But now as you imagine, let's take a car. Yeah. Right? And let's take, I mean, a good example is that you take a laser that is very powerful, right?

1:05:09And you start using the laser running through your engine and every part of your car until the car goes a little bit faster, right? Okay. And then you say, okay, wow, now I found a point where the laser makes the car go faster. So let me keep doing that, right? And now you're going to do another laser, another hole through your car, so that goes a little bit faster, right? Well, I guess what's probably going to happen if you ask any mechanic? Well, by the time you have poked three or four holes in my car, it might go faster, but it's going to break down, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can think of this as the same way, right?

1:05:46You know, it's really put in a hole. I mean, yeah, it can achieve an effect like weight loss, but it's really not coordinated with the rest of the trillion cells in the human body. Totally, yeah. It's just on its own. And it's just, you know, I put a hole in there and that's not the way you want to make a car go like longer. Yeah, so you're setting your car up for breaking down, right? Right. And so, yeah, so I think at the theoretical level now, And A, I'm saying at the theoretical level, but yet we know that every drug out there eventually, so the new data, for example, and statins shows that people that have less than 170 or so in LDL don't live longer, don't have a decrease in mortality if they take statins.

1:06:33So I think that, and these are like JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, you know, meta-analysis, right? This is not like one study. These are studies that are looking at all the studies. And they put it together and say, hmm, that's really interesting. People that have, you know, LDL 160, LDL, not total cholesterol, they seem to do better than people that have very low cholesterol. So how do you explain that, right? And so, yeah, so I think at the beginning, you get the story, oh, you know, this should be in the water, like statins should be in the water. They're so good for you. And then 20, 30 years later, you get the story.

1:07:11It's like, no, the meta-analysis, so maybe you shouldn't have taken it. So, yeah, so I think that, again, I'll go to the GLP-1 thing. If you need it, you need it, right? So some people, for example, the studies, I think it was New England, it was showing that for people that already had cardiovascular event, there is no doubt that statins were good. It reduced your mortality by 10%, no doubt. So that was very clear even after 20 years. But there was the only group that seemed to be benefiting from the statins. and yeah so I think that we need to have a system that is they can help you do it the right way and then with all the tools like including the FMD the 12 hours and lots of other things you know that can help you because you know if it's not feasible if you're asking people to do something like Italians in the Mediterranean diet you know probably less than 10 percent of Italians are doing and the Mediterranean diet.

1:08:14Why? It's just, people don't like to be told what to eat, right? And that includes me telling them what to eat. But this is why we're saying, okay, yeah, you can have the longevity diet, and this is what we do in the clinic, or you can have the FMD, right? And look at the mouse and look at the people, right? You know, they have a crazy diet and at least they do the FMD, right? Let's talk about a mouse for a second, right? Like, has there been any like data, anything talking about that, Does a mouse correlate to a human? Because I've seen studies that say that doing tests on mice doesn't necessarily correlate to how a human will behave or perform.

1:08:53You know, it correlates. It doesn't necessarily mean that humans are going to behave the same way and respond the same way. So, yeah, so most of the drugs that you see out there have been tested in mice first. So immunotherapy, chemotherapy, just name it. Cancer drug, diabetes drug, GLP-1. Everything goes to the mouse. And usually that's how it starts. So it starts with, oh, it works for the mouse. And then let's come up with a drug that they'll do the same in people. Yeah, so the mouse is a very good model. What else can you test on? Well, you can test that in rabbits. You can test it in rats.

1:09:28You can test that in some cases, they require monkey studies, because it is so dangerous for a person. And so they may require a primate model. Yeah. But those are, you know, expensive and ethically, you know, the medical field is trying to move away from using monkeys. But is a mouse and a rat the same thing, I would imagine? No, no, no. The rat for certain things is a better model, right? And the mouse is a better model for other things. It's easier to work with mice. But I think that, for example, we have shown the FMD cycles being able to cause reprogramming and stem cell-dependent regeneration in mice, right?

1:10:15In multiple. So the pancreas, the gut, and different systems. And so a year ago, we published for kidney, we published in the rat. And so we now show that we can damage the red kidney and then start the fasting-making diet cycles and the red kidney goes back to being functional after six FMD cycles. So that was particularly important for us because it's just unlikely that you're now testing two different rodent models and you're getting very similar effects. So that makes your case much stronger moving to people. Of course, we've already done 40 human clinical trials. And in fact, in that trial, we had a small human trial for chronic kidney disease patients.

1:11:01And it worked, right? It worked very well for them too, right? So it's preliminary, but it worked. So yeah, I think that having studies in mice and rats and then in humans is the best way to go. Wow. Okay. You have these labs both in USC and in Italy right now? Both labs? The lab in it is still open, probably close by the end of this year, but it's too much. But yeah, the Italian lab was focused on oncology, molecular oncology, so cancer. And the U.S. lab here at USC is instead focused on aging and regeneration and fasting and longevity diet, etc. What other findings have you found in all of your work beyond fasting that help with aging backwards or slowing down the aging process?

1:11:57Yeah, so yeah, the longevity diet. So now we're going to publish several papers on that. And then, you know, protein restriction has always been one of the things that we worked on. For example, some years ago, we use mice that have this genetic mutation that give people Alzheimer early. And so it's called triple transgenic mouse. It's got three bad mutations that make this mouse develop this bad learning and memory. And then we use the, in the first paper, we use, we alternated one week of very severe protein restriction and one week of normal proteins, right? We just kept going back and forth.

1:12:39And it made a lot of it. It wasn't as good as the fasting mimicking diet, but it was very good, you know, very good effects, right? So just alternating very low protein diet with normal protein diet, week, one week on, one week off, that made a big difference. Yeah, so - How much of a difference? Like 20 %? Oh, you know, we looked at lots of different things, but in some of the cognitive testing, it made a big difference. Really? But how much? Can you give me an example? Give me a data point. Well, usually we look at restoration of normal function. So in some cases, it was bringing it back to normal.

1:13:22So now you see a big effect of the genetic mutations. And then what you want to see, you have a controlled mouse and you have a genetically modified mouse that's got this cognitive impairment. and then you do the alternate protein restriction. And then many of the, really several of these changes went back to normal or close to normal or, you know, no longer is bad, right? So a range of effects. What's your take on all these supplements? Like, or peptides even, you know, everyone's taking all these peptides for longevity, right? You have so many. Do you have any, like, do you have an opinion on all these things?

1:14:05Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said earlier, which is the sophistication of the system versus the something comes in. Yes, so it's like a GLP-1. Yeah, so it's the same argument, right? The exception would be like in the case of rapamycin, right? So rapamycin is a drug that blocks a particular pathway, which we and others have described as being pro-aging or aging accelerating. So if the peptide or whatever, or the drug goes after a master regulator, then I think it could be triggering this sophistication, right? But those are very rare. So most things you do are going to, you know, act downstream somewhere, meaning like they're blocking something that is down there, right?

1:14:52It's not the master regulator up here. Right, right. So if a peptide change, for example, growth hormone or IGF-1, these very high-level master regulators, then it's got a chance, right? Because, you know, it could be telling the body, don't go in mode A, which would be, for example, high reproductive mode, high growth, right? So at a certain age, we're not reproducing and we're not growing, right? Right. So why is it that we're putting all this energy into reproduction and growth pathways, right? It makes no sense, right? Right. So then a lot of organisms, we know that, for example, 30 years ago, we made unicellular eukaryotes, unicellular organisms live 10 times longer, right?

1:15:3510 times. Yeah. And so you do that by, we did it by fasting them and by imposing two genetic mutations, which push them to be in this what we call maintenance mode. So don't worry about growth, stop growing and, you know, and stop reproducing, right? Right. Just focus on yourself, right? So interesting, right? Yeah, so if there are mass irregular, and there seems like in all organisms that have been tested there are, if you turn on the switch to stop focusing on the next generation and then focus on yourself, that can make a big difference, right? So, yeah, there could be peptides that eventually hit that switch, right?

1:16:14And if they hit that switch, I mean, the science fiction switch will be one that doesn't affect metabolism. It doesn't affect performance. It just affects your, you're not growing and you don't need to grow and you're not reproducing. And, you know, and you can stop it when you want to reproduce, right? So you can say, okay, you know, whatever. I use it until I'm 34 and then at 34, I stop for a year, I reproduce and then go back on the peptide or, you know, it could be a dietary intervention or both. Yeah. Or about even the fact that a lot of people are taking, you know, NAD is really popular.

1:16:53NAD, metformin is very popular. You're saying the only one that can maybe move the needle is repromycin. Well, metformin is also a little bit of a master regulator, right? Yeah, okay. Yeah, but the data, if you look at metformin effects in mice, it doesn't make even a mouse live longer as far as I remember. Rampamycin does and does in a very consistent way, right? Yeah, so I would say - Should we be taking that then? If you made the mouse live longer by whatever peptide, you made the rat live longer, let's say 20 % longer or something like that, at least, right? If you made the mouse live 20 % longer, you made the rat live 20 % longer, okay, then it starts, and then it's very safe, like let's say metformin, then I think it would be a good candidate, right?

1:17:38But, you know, we don't have anything like that right now. And rapamycin is probably the only one. Should we take that? Should everybody be taking it? No, no, no. Because rapamycin also causes hyperglycemia. And yeah, it's not good. And so, you know, and that's where maybe it might be good for a mouse and not necessarily for a person, right? So, yeah. But that tells you that the potential is there for some drugs to go after master switches. And then eventually, you know, we're going to say, hey, this is really safe. But of course, you know, the FMD is already there, right? The FMD may be done three times a year.

1:18:19It's already doing all of this with no safety issues. Well, FMD also takes out all the senescent cells, right? Isn't that like a benefit that people get? Yeah, well, four things, right? One, autophagy, right? So you need three, four, five days, probably the whole five days for autophagy so the cells start eating themselves, right? And that's one. Then clearly is doing stem cell activation. And now we're seeing it in multiple human clinical trials. We're seeing major increase in either stem or progenitor cells. And then reprogramming of cellular level. So now the hardest thing in aging research is how can you take an old cell and make it young again, right?

1:19:01And it's called cellular reprogramming and epigenetic cellular reprogramming. But now we're shown over and over and over the FMD refeeding cycles do that in a very amazing and coordinated way. And then metabolic reprogramming, right? What I said earlier, the fasting, mimicking diet, refeeding are now metabolically rewiring your system. And it's not a cellular process necessarily, but it's more, it could be cellular somewhere, maybe in adipocytes, but it's basically telling your body, stop accumulating fat, start using fat. And the beauty, if you look at our work in mice, rats, and humans, is that it keeps on going, right?

1:19:46So it's not that you do the fasting-micking diet, and then a week later, it's all gone. You do the fasting-micking diet, and then for months, actually in the first trial, we we did the USC, three months later, 60 % of the effects were still there, right? So after three FMD cycles once a month, we stopped and then we look at three months later and then you see about 60 % of the changes that are still there, right? So yeah, so I think drugs are okay, but I would say that we probably haven't been as loud as others, you know, in advertising, You know, I think the people that do some of these peptides and pills have been louder than us in claiming and over claiming.

1:20:34We've been, and also the companies involved, I think there have been more, stick to the data, stick to what you know, don't over claim. And maybe that's why some of these other things are more popular than the FMD. I think they're both, I mean, I think that people who know, know. I know, like, the community of doctors I know who prescribe the fast-mimicking diet to patients just for their overall health, never mind for, like, you know, longevity or for cancer, it's pretty extraordinary. Like, I think people who know the research, I mean, I think it kind of speaks for itself. It's just more about people who know, know, and if you don't know, you don't know, right?

1:21:15Right, right. Yeah, but I think, you know, now there is soon enough an opportunity to make it mainstream, right? Yeah. And it should be mainstream, right? Because of all the things we say, you know, it's going after Crohn's and colitis and cognition and inflammation. And it's going after cancer cells. And it's doing it in a safe way. I don't think too many people are arguing if you do this three times a year. Right, right, right. If you do this vegan diet three times a year, that, you know, you're not going to find too many doctors say, oh, no, this is going to cause problems in the long run. I mean, everything is possible.

1:21:48You're not saying every day. You're not, like, restricting. So you're not into calorie restricting every day. You're not into yo-yo dieting. You're actually not even necessarily into vegan every day. No, I'm not. You're not. So you're like saying the longevity diet, it's eating fish, more like a Mediterranean diet. I say Mediterranean is for Mediterranean people, right? So if your genes are from Norway or from Sweden or from Japan, you shouldn't have a Mediterranean diet. You should have a longevity diet that is personalized for you, right? Which is about fish, typically. Which is still going to be about low-mercury fish and low-toxin fish.

1:22:28And it's going to be about legumes of different kinds, right? It's going to be about whole grains. It's going to be about oils. And maybe there's a few different ones. The olive oil is definitely good, but it doesn't mean it's the only one. And so if you have, if you come from, there are other vegetable oils that are good. And the nuts - Like what? Well, there are some, you know, I haven't investigated as much as I've done for olive oil, but no, there's some, like maybe some flour or some of these vegetable oils that have good data behind it. But, you know, I don't want to, I've never spent the time because I'm so happy with the results of the olive oil and it just covers so much of the world population that can deal with that.

1:23:18And then I think the nuts and the dark chocolate. So there is a lot of sources of healthy fats that are fairly confirmed to be healthy or very healthy for you that we never investigated. But it doesn't mean there are not other oils, for example, or fats sources that eventually could be as good as olive oil. Okay. But you're basically just saying, though, that for 15 days of the year, five days, maybe even every quarter, is a good chance. It can give you a fighting chance, so to speak, to really live longer and healthier. Yeah, I wouldn't call it a fighting chance. I mean, the data is just spectacular right there.

1:24:02I know, no, no. I mean, you know, it's like if you look at it. Oh, you're saying it's a good, oh, yeah. I'm saying, yeah, yeah. So basically, let me re-say that then. And basically you're saying that if someone does fast mimicking at least every quarter, let's say for five days, the chances of them living longer and healthier are spectacular based on your research. No, no, no. That's going too far on the other side. I mean, I think the results have been spectacular, especially in mice and especially in rats. I mean, really unbelievable, right? You know, they're taking a kidney or pancreas that is completely, you know, damaged and irreversibly and then restoring its thermal function, right?

1:24:37I mean, it's hard to believe. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, right. That is spectacular though, doctor. Yeah, that's what I was saying. That part is spectacular, but it's in mice and rats. Now the 40 clinical trials are showing really remarkable results with insulin resistance, glycemia, and inflammatory markers, and cholesterol, and blood pressure, and over and over and over in a very consistent way clinically, right? So those are very good. Yeah, so I think that it's not a fighting chance because, A, if it's making your cholesterol lower, if it's making your blood pressure lower, if it's making your glycemia lower, it's making your biological age younger by two and a half years, at least based on a number of factors and the measurement of the number of factors.

1:25:22I mean, it's hard to imagine how you would die in the same time. Everything is much, much better, but you're still going to die on the same day. Yeah, so much, much less likely. There's no guarantee, but - You're stacking the deck. Yeah, so you're sacking the deck for you. You're doing all the right things. You know, if you combine the longevity diet and you combine the sleep and the 12 hour time received the eating, and you combine it and put the two, three cycles a year of fasting-mimicking diet, I think, you know, you're getting into this 15, 20 years of life expectancy increase range, right?

1:25:57Based on lots of data. And also if you look at the Harvard studies, you know, the chance of getting to 75 without needing drugs, with cognitive, you know, being cognitively functional and healthy, you know, only less than 10 % of the U.S. population is in that group, right? Yeah, that's amazing. So you have one chance in 10 right now with the way, you know, if you look at the general behavior of the population. Now, if you do all the right things, that study showed that you're doubling your chance of making it to seven. So now all of a sudden it could be, you know, 20, 30 million people. That's amazing.

1:26:36That all of a sudden are getting to 70 or 75 healthy just by making those changes. Yeah. But, and this is not even counting the fasting making diet. This is just changing your everyday diet and, you know, and following a few things that everybody can follow. Yeah. So I think that, you know, that that's the way to go. There's four or five things you can do. And hey, you know, if you can do them all, do them all. Right. It's amazing. What is the documentary really going to be focusing on? This? All of this. All of it? All of this, yeah. That's amazing. Cancer, diabetes. The doctor that I talked about is in there.

1:27:13He talks. Oh, yeah? He'll tell the story. There's cancer patients that basically say, you know, I was in trouble and then I came out of it. But I think that what we also done, which was very important in compared to lots of our documentaries, the, I pushed the director and the producer to put in the clinical trials. Right. I said, you know, don't make it about our case. Case is irrelevant. Right. But make it a, tell the story with the case, but then let's show the three or four clinical trials that have been completed on that. Right. Yeah. So I think that that's what's special about this documentary is that, you know, do it right, you know, science-wise, but also have the emotional part, but don't be too focused.

1:28:03And maybe it doesn't make it as entertaining, but it certainly makes it, you know, very convincing. I think that you have, you know, multiple clinical trials backing up the story. And when you talk about your lab in Italy that's focusing on cancer, what are a couple of findings that maybe we haven't heard of that you kind of brought to the surface? Yeah, the exciting new findings are what we call starvation escape path with targeting. So meaning that we take the fasting-mimicking diet. And now we're starting to do this in patients, right? In the old days, it was like, okay, let's combine chemotherapy plus FMD, immunotherapy plus FMD.

1:28:45Fine. And it works so much better together than, as I would say there. Now we're saying, okay, what if we instead look at how the cancer changes after we give them the fast-immunicating diet, right? And you see rewiring, meaning the metabolic pathways. So not just metabolic. The cell changes completely its modality to adjust to the fast-immunicating diet. Then we can learn, we do something called RNA-seq. We can learn how they change and why they change. And then we can use drugs that are already available to target those. And this works extremely well. And it can go pretty fast. So we're very excited about, this can be used for any cancer because it doesn't matter.

1:29:24You expose them to the fasting-making diet. You look at how it changes and you do this computational analysis. And eventually we're going to do it with artificial intelligence. And then it tells you, okay, these are the drugs you need to kill them all, right? And yeah, so I think that we're very excited about this and hoping to get a lot more funds to keep it going because it's got a lot of potential. Do you take any other supplements just for your health? I take multivitamin and then I alternate between like vitamin D and vitamin B12. You alternate? And omega-3, yeah. Yeah, I alternate because, you know, probably don't need each all the time.

1:30:07I don't think it's good to get overloaded with supplements. But I alternate. Yeah, so every four days or so, I'll get... You'll take a break? One or the other, yeah. Oh, wait. So you take vitamin D once every four days or four days on one day off? No, no. I will take it every four days. I'm going to say three days. Three days, and then I'll switch to B12 because a lot of my diet is vegan, vegetarian. And then I'll have, let's say, omega-3. Usually I mix algal oil and fish oil. What about exercise? Have you done any type of research on the effects of exercise for longevity, aging well, health span, in addition to the fasting?

1:31:02Yeah, I'll say something that is not going to give me a lot of friends first and then I'll rewrite. Your exercise, whether it's in animal studies or in human studies, does not compete with nutrition and fasting, right? It's very far. And so I was just in Italy and this Rosetti group was showing the data in sick days or the number of sick days in your life. And it was a sevenfold between the effects of lack of exercise versus a bad diet, right? Sevenfold difference in how impactful is a bad diet and how sick you're going to be in your life versus how is no exercise you're going to be. Now, that said, I think exercise is very important, right?

1:31:53You know, so it's that extra thing that - Right, because nutrition is 80 % of it, at least. You're saying it's 100%. No, no, I'm saying, you know, this data suggests there may be 85%, right? Yeah, 85 % of the lifespan extension and the health span extension that you get is going to come from nutrition and fasting or nutrition intervention. And then the extra 15%. But I think that, you know, exercise is very important. mentally. And so, I mean, I'm all 100 % behind exercise, say, you know, 150 to 300 minutes a week, muscle training and all of that. I think it's very important. So - But why is it important if you've seen the data that says it's not as important, not important for health?

1:32:44That's not important for how sick you are, right? But it doesn't mean, yeah, it doesn't mean that you're not going to be happier. Mood. Yeah. Serotonin and lots of other things that happen when you exercise. And so, yeah. So I think that, and that 15 % is not, you know, it's not insignificant, right? So having a 15 % extra benefit is very important, right? So, and you never know, right? So, you know, as part of my classes, I also show the effects of exercise and some of the really remarkable effects around cancer patients. And you'll see these results where they're showing people that are exercising regularly and they have cancer and they do so much better if they're exercising versus not exercising, right?

1:33:31And you're thinking, is it possible that, so I don't know if it's a motivation thing or if it's actual physiological effect, but the ones that exercise, they tend to do so much better in progression and survival and lots of other things. Yeah, so. It's the mood and the mental elements of it, right? It could be mental. It could be that helps them fight, you know, they're fighters and they're going to do it with all different things. But some of these trials are randomized, right? So it's not like you pick the ones that are more motivated. You take a hundred people and you divide them by two and you say you exercise and you don't.

1:34:11And then maybe you cross it over, right? So some of this data is real. It's not about selection of motivated patients, but some of it might be affected by bias. Wow. Gosh, you're right. You didn't make a lot of friends with that one. No, I'm just kidding. No, but I think, I mean, people know more or less that it's also with like weight loss, right? Like you can exercise until the cows come home, but if you're not eating properly or eating the right foods, you're going to gain weight. It's just, it is what it is. Yeah, and there is a bigger problem that, you know, exercise, and there was a paper, actually, they came out, you know, there's the biggest loser, right?

1:34:50Of course, yes. But that ended up being a real paper, right? Yeah. And the real paper went and followed, and I'm forgetting what journal it was, and it went and followed, and most of them, I think they were doing like hours a day of exercise, right? Six, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think when the camera is on and the show is on, right, whatever your show may be, you could do that. Eventually, you're going to be upset, you know, and you got problems and you don't have time. What are you going to do then, right? Right. And you're still going to eat, and you can still eat the right food, but are you going to take the, forget the six hours, but are you going to take the one hour a day and go exercise every day?

1:35:28Most people don't, right? In the long run, as you get older and as you get more things to worry about, you may say, you know what? I don't feel like, oh, it's raining outside or it's too hot or it's too cold. So the compliance and the feasibility that I was talking about before with the Mediterranean diet, eventually you're going to have an answer for the heavy exercise. And then you're going to have, like my brother and my sister, for example. My brother was a soccer player and I told, and I was a soccer player, and I told my brother, you gotta stop, right? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. And now he's limping, right?

1:36:04Because he's hip, right? Yeah. And my sister was a triathlon runner and now she has a hip replacement, right? Right. So, you know - Too much of anything is not good. Well, it wasn't even too much. They weren't professional. They were not professional. Yeah, but it was like, they enjoyed it and they did it all the time. Right. until they had to get surgery, right? And so - Oh, I see your point. So now they have to stop exercising, but they have to be eating right to keep, they have to learn the discipline of eating properly. Yeah, they're both eating the longevity diet, right? Yeah, of course they are, because if you go to magic.

1:36:41But they're not doing soccer anymore, they can't, and they're not doing triathlons anymore. And I mean, it's just, we're three, and I'm the only one that, you know, I played until I was 45, right? Yeah, how old are you now? 58 yeah yeah so so i played whoa whoa you're 58 yeah yeah and this is okay and like this and this is you haven't done anything to you could you look really young no no i haven't done anything god forbid yeah yeah and so this is all just doing the fast mimicking diet living a certain longevity diet fast mimicking diet and uh yeah and i was gonna say longevity diet too just your your diet i should say yeah yeah and and habits daily habits but you're saying because You didn't really, you exercised, you played soccer, sorry, you played soccer, but then you didn't play after a while, after 45.

1:37:27Yeah, after 45, I stopped, right? Then I started doing biking and things that, and my hip is still my hip and I still don't have any problems, right? So yeah, to me, it was very important. I mean, somebody else could say, and there was a case with my brother and my sister, I don't care, I'm just going to keep doing it. Okay, fine, but keep in mind, I mean, it's okay, but then keep in mind what the consequences could be. So in my case, I said, you know, I don't want to be 60 and needing a hip replacement. And so far, I'm good. So I can still do my bike every other day and lots of other things. And they don't put me at risk for inflammatory conditions.

1:38:10Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything we haven't covered, Dr. Longo, that's important for people to know about? No, I think we've pretty much covered it, yeah. Are you sure? Because you're here right now. I want to make sure that I got everything done with you. Yeah, I think with the diseases, we talked about cancer, Alzheimer's. Yeah, I think we covered a lot of ground. I like factoids. Is there any facts that you can share that maybe we haven't? Any kind of data points that we haven't covered, no? I think, you know, one thing that I was going to say that I didn't say was we're now going through, you know, I mean, I'm doing this review on proteins, but it's more like longevity diseases, right?

1:38:57And so, you know, that's consistent with what we've been saying. The other thing I'm having my team at the foundation do is the muscle part, right? So then we're looking at hundreds of papers on plant supplements, plant protein supplements and animal products. And so I think that what we're going to conclude is that probably what we already concluded before, 0.8 grams plus training, plus muscle training, 0.8 grams per kilogram or 0.37 grams per pound of body weight is enough for the majority of people, even if you want to build muscle, right? But in fact, if you look at all these hundreds of papers, you know, those that are 1 to 1.2, they tend to have an easier time building muscle, right?

1:39:51So I would say don't do it. But if you care so much about muscle, then I think the 1.1 to 1.2 are good quality amino acids, like some animal proteins and some... Oh, I know I was going to ask you. Okay, so wait. So you're just saying that, like, Like if you can have 0.8 grams of protein, you don't need to have one, because the whole thing is one gram. Well, now people are advertising two grams, 1.6 grams. Right, right, right. For muscle. Yeah, for muscle. And so now for sure what we're concluding is two grams, 1.6 grams is not needed. You know, it's very little difference. You know, very few papers are showing if you have 1.6 versus 1.2, you do better with 1.6.

1:40:38Very few. Most of them show no effects at all. And also, most of the papers show if it's animal-based, it's not superior to plant-based. As long as it's a good mix of plant-based supplements, right? A lot of them are actually showing total protein intake that can also come from supplements. Okay, you said it a few times about amino acids. What if you just take nine essential aminos? Yeah, you could do that, but the data, we don't know what the consequences are. I think, you know. But that way you're not eating as much protein, but you're having the building blocks to protein. Yeah, no, no. I mean, theoretically, I think it can work, but it wouldn't be, you know, those essential amino acids are going to be the one driving the aging process, right?

1:41:27So if you look at the studies in mice and rats, always essential amino acids, right? The one that accelerated the aging essential, right? So brain chain amino acids, methionine, so almost exclusively. In fact, if you look at the non-essential, they're the only one like glycine that seem to be doing good if supplemented, right? Really? So restriction, if you look at the restrictions, they're all on essential amino acids. They work, making rodents longer lived and healthier, much healthier, right? If you look at the few cases of supplementation with amino acids and living longer is glycine, which is a non-essential amino acid.

1:42:13Non-essential. Non-essential, right. So yeah, so then if you do what you said, yeah, it's just like then you might as well eat proteins, right? And that's okay, right? In fact, it may be better to eat proteins because now you have the non-essential, including glycine, that may be beneficial. Really? Because it turns out the glycine is an inhibitor of methionine. It facilitates methionine decomposition, right? Yeah. So the higher the glycine, the less methionine you're going to have in the system. And so it's going back to, probably it's going back to the essential amino acids, lowering essential amino acids.

1:42:52Lowering essential amino acids. Okay. Wow. Dr. Longo, thank you so much for being on my podcast. Oh, you're very welcome. It's been a long time awaiting for me. So I appreciate this. And where do people find, I mean, they can buy your book, Fasting Cancer or the Longevity Diet book from 2018, but they want to know more about you or where can they find you? Yeah, so Facebook, Professor Walter Longo. Facebook? And Instagram. Okay. Yeah, most USC faculty now have Facebook and Instagram. So most professors anywhere. Yeah. So Instagram is the same professor Walter Longo. And then the foundation, Create Cures Foundation is here in Los Angeles and we help lots of people and, uh, you know, including those that cannot afford it.

1:43:42That's great. Well, thank you again for being on the show. Thanks a lot. Yeah.