Dr. Michael Greger, NY Times best selling author of How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier.

                             ---------- Originally Aired on the Good Foods Podcast ----------

Internationally renowned physician and nutritionist, founder of NutritionFacts.org, and New York Times bestselling author of the How Not to Die series Dr. Michael Greger joins me to discuss the evidence-based science to slowing the effects of aging in his newest book, HOW NOT TO AGE: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older, featuring accessible research and actionable steps to help preserve the body functions that keep you feeling and looking youthful.

You’ll hear Dr. Gregor mention at the beginning that he’s “glad to be back” but this was in reference to me having the amazing blessing of having interviewed him previously for my other podcast, The Wizard’s Corner. This is his first appearance on the Good Foods podcast.

When Dr. Michael Greger dove into the top peer-reviewed anti-aging medical research, he realized that diet could regulate every one of the most promising strategies for combating the effects of aging. We don’t need Big Pharma to keep us feeling young—we already have the tools. In How Not to Age, Dr. Greger breaks down the science of aging and chronic illness and explains how to help avoid the diseases most commonly encountered in our journeys through life. A founding member and fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine,

Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, is a physician, bestselling author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition. He is a graduate of Cornell University and Tufts University School of Medicine. Three of his recent books—How Not to Die, The How Not to Die Cookbook, and How Not to Diet—all became instant New York Times bestsellers.

Connect with Dr. Gregor below.

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The Good Foods podcast was created and hosted by Shardan Sandoval in March of 2023 and was active until September of 2024. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello. I'm doctor Michael Gregor, founder of nutrition facts dot org,
author of the New York Times best selling series How
Not to Die. In my latest book, How Not To Aid,
the scientific approach of getting healthier as we get older,
and this is the Good Foods Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
All of us are on a journey towards better health
and we're grateful that you've allowed us to join you
on your quest in this episode.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Doesn't matter what you eat in your birthday's, holiday, special occasions.
It is the day to day stuff that really adds
up on the in day basis. Really should try to
eat healthy natural foods from fields, not factories. Food's as
grown foods, you know, out of the ground. These are
our healthiest choices on processed plant foods.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
This is the Good Foods Podcast And now here's your host,
shot Dane.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Doctor Gregor, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
So how happy to be back. In nineteen eleven, the
imperial system ended and the Republic of China was established,
which was the same year that your great aunt Pearl
was born. Why did you dedicate this book to her?

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh? Well, you know we have a history in our
family of longevity, partially because of our Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.
There's a genetic basically a mutation that downregulates one of
the aging pathways, a proaging hormone called IGF one, which
doesn't work as well in the bodies of certain Ashkenazis,

(01:37):
and that enables them to live longer. It's the same
reason why smaller dogs live longer lives than bigger dogs
IGF one. But we don't need to be a dog
or have any genetic mutation to suppress that proaging pathway.
We can just decrease our intake of animal protein, which
decreases our livers production of IGF one.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
So how did this one start? Was it just a
natural progression to get here in the series? Or did
something pique your interest and then you went down this
thirteen thousand citation rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
You know it was really to try to cut through
the noise and nonsense. You know, it reminded me of
my last book on weight loss. You know, both dieting
and the anti aging industries are you know, multi billion
dollar behemoths, and with so much money in the mix. Now,
anyone seeking you know, basic practical advice in either arenas,

(02:32):
you know, living lighter or longer his faced with just
an inscrutable barrage of bills and potions. I mean, even
I as a physician, with the luxury of you know,
waiting neck deep through the medical journals, you know, it
was a challenge to tease out kind of facts from force.
And you know, look, if it took me three years

(02:52):
to sift through all the signs, I'm afraid the casual
observer would just have no chance. But that just made
the endeavor all the more. And the good news is
there's how we have tremendous power over our health, destiny, longevity,
and that the vast majority premature death and disability is
preventable with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Well. Per your research, the global anti agent industry is
estimated two hundred and ninety two billion dollars. Like you said,
these products, these potions, is there much science behind all this,
all these things that they're pitching us, that they're trying
to sell us.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know, what I found was that most of the time,
the most effective things I could find were actually some
of the cheapest things. So I talk about in the book,
like this is a penny per day, this is a
penny per week, and it's like, no, wonder, we've never
heard of any of these things because they can't be patented,

(03:49):
you can't make any profit off of it, and so
there's no corporate budget driving its promotion. So what we
do hear about are the most profitable things, much of
which is really just the snake oil.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
At this point, we're not getting the nutrients that we
used to get in our food for a while now.
So what did the research show about supplementation?

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh, well, you know this concept that there's been a
decline in soil health, a decline in you know, minerals
in our produce. That is a common ploy used by
supplement manufacturers to try to say, look, you know, yeah,

(04:30):
of course we'd like to get it from food, but
now you have to take submits because we have such
inferior food these days. But you know, there's actually science,
I mean actually you know, like the USDA, you know,
has crop data going back seventy years and so you
can actually see how many minerals broccoli add back then
versus brocoli now, And there's similar studies all around the world.

(04:50):
And while there's a kernel of truth, so for example,
broccoli today is about based on certain nutrients, maybe fifteen
percent less nutrition than it did in the nineteen fifties.
But fine, so you eat six florettes of broccoli instead
of five florettes of broccoli, and you're all set. You
don't need to take pills to get nutrition. You should

(05:13):
get your nutrition in general from the protocole. Is aging
a disease? Doctor, Oh, that's a really interesting question. This
is very it's a hotly debated topic. There's kind of
two kind of rival medical fields. There's these upstarts, the
anti aging docs versus kind of the gerontology the science

(05:36):
of aging, which it views aging as this just kind
of inevitable process for which there's not much we can
do about it, whereas the anti aging you know, upstarts
really view aging really as this, you know, as not
a natural but more of like a pathological condition that
can be prevented, arrested and ideally reverse and you know,

(06:00):
all sorts of utopian ideas about you know, reaching this
kind of you know, longevity escape velocity, where you know,
at some point we're going to be adding more time
to our lives than is passing and essentially enable us
to live as long as we'd like. But whether you're
trying to live long enough, to live forever, or just

(06:20):
try to live as long as healthfully as possible. I
hope the book Come Not to Age will help you
do that.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Well, you know, as in your book, Let's hope we
don't age like Tithonish exactly right.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
There are these there's these great myths right that really
illustrate the difference between health span and lifespan. In fact,
there's even a survey, really fascinating survey. They ask people
how long do you want to live? We give them
four choices, you live to eighty five, one, twenty one, fifty,
or indefinitely. Then most people, to my surprise, said they

(06:55):
about two thirds said they only prefer to live to
eighty five. It seems crazy to be hot. But then
when the question was reframed as how long do you
wish to live in guaranteed mental and physical health? Aha,
then the most popular answer switched to an unlimited life spin. Right.
So that raises this concept of health spin, which is

(07:15):
the period of life spent in good health, free of
chronic disease and disability. I mean, you know, what's the
point of living longer if we can't enjoy it vibrantly?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
When you were writing your first book, did you already
know that it was going to be the start of
this series or did that just come about naturally? Other than,
of course, how to Survive a Pandemic unless you're a psychic,
it was not meant to be.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Part of a serious so how Not to Die, but
the next book was about weight loss, and so how
not the diet just seemed like the phrase is almost
too easy, right, I mean, in fact, the book after
that was going to be how Not to Die in
a Pandemic. But this was, of course during the pandemic,
and the publisher thought that was way too more rows
of a title. No one's kind of wanta, right, and

(08:02):
so they flipped it down to Survive a Pandemic. But
it doesn't have that same kind of cachet. We are
back with How Not to Age. I mean, you can
imagine all sorts of you know, how not to diabetes somewhat,
I mean, which makes absolutely no sense if you don't
understand the whole series. Although you know, at the book
launch of this it was at Gracie Mansion, at the

(08:25):
Mayor's Mansion in New York City, a pain medicine doctor
came up to me and said, you know, there's all
sorts of lifestyle interventions you can use for chronic pain,
and so you should write a book How Not to Hurt?
And I thought, oh, that is such a good title.
In fact, such a good title. I was like, now
I got to write the butt. So I have not

(08:48):
yet looked to see how much research out there. I
don't know if we have a whole book worth of research,
but definitely enough maybe to make some videos about it.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
For nutrition facts, those aren't I think each book had
a cookbook attached to the original guess, except that there
wasn't one for the pandemic. There's no pandemic cookbook, right.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Oh yeah, right, right, a little civid cat, little bat
stew you know, yeah, yeah yeah, little mad cow disease
brain soup. No, but there is going to be a
How Not to Age? Cookbooks will to be out December
of this year, twenty twenty four. The cookbook for the
pandemic could be like one page, grab whatever the closest

(09:24):
convenience store hasn't stocked, and rush home to binge in Netflix.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Right a grab alliboiled pepper you can quick. How is
the Not to Age different from How Not to Diet? Book.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, you know, that's a good question. You know, there's
no such thing as dying from old age. Based on
on a large study forty two thousand consecutive autypes, he's
centenarians in one hundred percent of cases died from disease.
When you actually cut them open, right now, one died

(09:57):
from old age. Most commonly died of hard disease. These
and the one killer of men and women in general.
So wait a second, if people die from disease, then
why was in my book How Not to Die? All
the longevity book anyone needs? I mean, I don't have
to die. The first average is fifteen chapters on each
of the fifteen leading causes of death, talking about their old, diet,

(10:17):
may play and preventing arresting versing each of our top
fifteen killers. But then I realized that because age is
such a primary risk factor for many of our killer
diseases such as cancer and heart disease and dementia stroke,
that there's really an exponential increase. So yes, something like

(10:39):
having a high cholesterol can increase at the same age,
can increase your risk of heart disease up to twentyfold.
In eighty year old has five hundred times the risk
of having a heart attack compared to a twenty year old. Now,
of course, the reason we focus on things like cholesterol
is because it's a modifiable risk factor. But the question
for this book was, wait a second, what if the

(11:01):
rate of aging was modifiable too, And indeed, even if
all cancer was cured tomorrow, the average life expectancy in
the United States would only go up about three years.
To say, what, how is that possible? Because if you
don't die one age related disease, he just dropped out
of something else. So fighting he didn't get cancer, you

(11:22):
were going to die next year of a heart attack anyway,
That cancer just gott in first. So clearing out the cancer, right,
And so instead of playing whack a mole with all
these age related diseases one at a time, if we
can slow the rate of aging, we can reduce the
risk of all these diseases across the board. So that's
really what got me excited about writing How Not to Age.

(11:43):
What are the specific foods or certain things that we
should be incorporating every day so that we build and
maintain a stronger base for our health. Oh yeah, Well,
in terms of anti aging foods, according to the data
from the Global Burden of Disease Study, which is the
largest systemic analysis of risk factors in history funded by

(12:04):
the Bill and Lindagates Foundation, the largest life expectancy gains
would be expected from eating more lego, so bean, split peach,
chick bees, and lentils. This is the primary protein source
of all of the Blue zones, these areas around the
world with exceptional longevity. The most centenarians, the most people live,
the most per capita of people live over one hundred.

(12:25):
So if there's one thing we can boost in our diet,
it's beans or lental syllabor hums. This is presumed to
be because the most concentrated sources of reebiotics like fiber
resistance stars that feed the probiotic good bacteria in our
gut like lack of bacillis and biffito bacteria to make
beneficial host biotics like butate andn acetate, which can reduce inflammation,

(12:49):
boost immunity, and improve muscle strength and frail individuals. So
Legos rule the roost in terms of on a first
serving basis, but on a ounce per ounce basis. Nuts
actually air associated with the lowest risk of premature death
compared to any of a food group, So I recommend

(13:10):
a palm ful of the walnuts a day. That's part
of my anti aging eight recommendation. Dark green, leafy vegetables
earn their place in the anti age as the vegetable
most associated with the longer life span. The nitrates in
greens can improve h related declines in muscle on artery function,
slower metabolic rate, and the sulphurrofan and truciverous vegetables like

(13:33):
broccoli can improve immune function and boost the detox enzymes
and are liver and lungs. Berries earn their place as
the fruit most associated with the longer life span. I
talk about the benefits of amla, which is dried Indian
gooseberry powder, and the anthiicine in pigments. These bright pigments
found in berries thought to account for the benefits for

(13:55):
cognitive function, eyesight, inflammation, blood sugars, artery health, cholesterol, but
they get cleared from our bloodstream within six hours, so
I recommend dosing every meal with berries. Make some perfect dessert,
or you can drink hibiscus tea which has those same
bright red Zinger tea the same bright berry pigments, or

(14:16):
there are also savory sources like red cabbage or purple
cabbage or purple sweet potatoes. So these are some of
the foods that I highlight that really offer kind of
the best opportunities to kind of slow the sands of
time and improve our longevity.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
I've heard you talk about fasting and that it can
take up to forty eight hours of fasting to start
to see the benefits of autophagy, and you recommend that
you're fasting should be supervised. So what's the safest way
to stimulate autophogy?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, so autopogy, for those who aren't familiar, is considered
the primary system for cleaning the body from the inside out.
It's kind of a housekeeping process, clearing away accumulated so
debreathe that may play a role in the aging process.
And so, as you mentioned, the kind of the prototypical

(15:08):
way to boost autopogy is through water only fasting. But
it doesn't really mactually ramp up until you know, a
day or two and adds really too long to do
without medical supervision, and that's just not legalistic mumbo jumbo.
When we fast our bodies, our kidneys dive into sodium

(15:29):
conservation mode. But should that response break down for any reason,
we could rapidly develop an electrolide abnormality. They may only
manifest with vague symptoms like dizziness or fatigue, which can
be easily dismissed before it's too late. Thankfully, there are
other natural ways to boost autopogy this anti aging pathway.
We can fast or we can go fast. Exercise induces

(15:53):
autoplogy as well. Aerobic exercise, though you have to do enough.
Sixty minutes of modern see activity like brisk walking activates
autology and human beings, but only twenty minutes unfortunately fails
to move the needle. Though any exercise is better than
none for non autoplogy reasons. There are some food components

(16:15):
that can both boost autology and suppress autology. The one
that suppresses autoplogy simply called the krylamide, which is formed
during the frying process concentrated in fringe fries and potato chips,
whereas others like spermidine and the antioxidants in coffee can
help your body kind of take out the trash. So

(16:37):
to boost autology, I recommend sixty minutes of aerobic activity
every day, ideally minimizing your intake of French fries and
potato chips, trying to consume at least twenty milligrams of spermating.
This is a compound found concentrated in beans, tempe, mushrooms, wheat, germ,
green peas, and as well as drinking three cups of

(16:57):
regular or decaffed coffee every day. The primary antihoxidant in
coffee called chlorogenic acid also booshatophagy in human cells.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Does intermittent fasting help slow down the aging process at all? Yeah,
it depends how you to define and man fasting. There
was one study, this is going back over a half
century now, which you're done in Spain and nursing home,
where they randomize people to kind of a modified alternate
day fasting every other day. They had people eat just
a few hundred calories, and in that study, those randomized

(17:30):
to the alternate day modified fasting group did live longer,
though not statistically significantly so, but did significantly have decrease
amount of hospital admissions, so they may have lived healthier lives. Unfortily,
it's not clear in the study. The study appeared to

(17:52):
be have been done by kind of the medical director
of the nursing home who would also be the one
two admit them to the hospital. So, as an advocate
for alternative fasting, unconsciously or consciously, he may have, you know,
been more likely to send the non fasters to the hospital.

(18:15):
And now look back then that was a very robust study.
The fact that it was a randomized control trial fantastic.
But these days we want even more robust controls against
the bias, and we would want the person running the
study to be independent from the people that are actually
you know, from the medical examiners who were telling who died,

(18:38):
who didn't die, or who's sending who to the hospital,
who's diagnosed whom, just so we can make sure there
isn't any kind of you know, unconscious bias going on.
You also hear about people doing calorie restriction. Is there
any benefit to that in terms of how we age?

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Oh? Yes, so I have a whole chapter on color restriction.
There's in another number of different species, gloric restriction can
reliably improve lifespan. In fact, one of the most powerful
non pharmacological interventions for improving both lifespan and health span

(19:12):
across a multitude of species. Doubling or tripling the lifespans
of some simpler organisms like the yeast fruit flies, worms,
prolonging the average and maximum lifespan of rats and mice
by up to fifty percent. However, the lines of most
animals are actually not prolonged by cloval re restriction, nor
even most of the strings of mice tested. So you know,

(19:36):
are we closer to the strains of mice that whose
life are prolonged or closer to the strains of mice
whose life are cut shur. That's why we need interventional
trials and humans N and D. We finally got the
calorie trial, multi year trial randomizing people to chloric restrition,
found that even a twelve percent drop in chloric intake,
and so that's like, you know, skipping a piece of

(19:58):
pie every day, that's not a lot. Even that could
result in a variety of physiological, psychological, and aging benefits.
The only kind of question with that study is that
these participants were normal weight Americans, and by normal weight
Americans we meant overweight Americans. So the BMI was twenty six,

(20:21):
which is an average BMI, but that is technically overweight
because most Americans are overweight. So did they experience all
these benefits just because they lost that excess body fat.
Like if you're overweight and you lose weight, well, of
course you're going to see all those benefits. So we cannot, unfortunately,
use that study to extrapolate to someone who's already ideal weight.

(20:44):
Would they experience the same kind of benefits by restricting
their calories further? Unfortunately, we don't have an answer to
that question. When you mentioned coffee, can we add anything
to the coffee or should we just drink it black? Well,
ideally maybe be black, but though the worst thing in
terms of that autopity preserving that autopsity, the worst thing

(21:04):
to be adding would be dairy milk because caseine, which
is one of the proteins in dairy milk, binds to
the chlorogenic acid, binds of the polyphenol that's responsible for
the autophagy effect, and then you just basically just wash
it out through your body and you don't actually absorb it.
Same thing with adding milk to tea. It obliterates the

(21:24):
artery protective effects of tea. Same thing with milk chocolate
versus dark chocolate, you actually you undermine the artery protective
effects of the cocoa and dark chocolate. Same thing with berries,
and when you add like berries and cream, you can
get a pro axident infector to an antioxid infect to
eating a bowl of blueberries. And so none of the
other milks, like soy milk, have that same kind of

(21:46):
binding capacity. So you can add creamer, but it just
wouldn't you wouldn't want it to be a caseine based
or dairy based creamer. In terms of sweetener, the only
really hell thing sweetener, the health promoting sweetener is well
other than blackstart molasses, which is actually as a lot

(22:06):
of minerals. It's good stuff, but it's super strong flavored,
and so you could use it for some kind of
things in baking or something I can't imagine adding into
coffee or something. But the one that you can add
to coffee and what I use in my coffee is
date powder. Date powder is just is actually a whole food.
It's just dried dates pulverized into like confectioner sugar powder.

(22:29):
You can get kind of granulated dates for baking, but
that will make your coffee chunky. You actually get powdered
dates and it actually dissolves, I mean the last sip
at the bottom of the cup is a little thick, right,
not granular, but it's like a little thick. So look,
if you want to skip that last sip, that's fine.
But it's like eating dates, you're eating a whole food. It's

(22:51):
a whole food. Sweeteners, You're actually getting some nutrition along
with that sweetness. So that's what I prefer as a sweetener.
You know, I don't know if I heard this right
the first time. I was watching another interview here doing that.
I had to rewind it to look at it again.
The original manuscript, was it twelve hundred pages over twelve
hundred people? Okay, yeah, no, the publisher refused to publish it.

(23:12):
I wanted them to do it as like a two
volume series, but you know, they pointed out that I
violated my contract, which is true. I mean, but you know,
going into the book, how can you agree to a
word count when you have no idea how much research
you can find? And so I I newly thought there
just wasn't that much in the anti aging literature. I'm
meaning there was a lot of garbage, but that I

(23:34):
didn't realize there was enough good stuff that I just
absolutely want to include, you know, things proven and randomized
controlled trials to actually have some sort of benefit, and
you know, I didn't want to leave a single thing out,
and so yeah, it ended up being way too long,
but we were able to get a workaround, and that
is we took hundreds of thousands of words and made

(23:55):
them into videos. So I literally made hundreds of videos
just for the book, put them up online, and then
put the URLs inside the book. So basically all the
bottom line recommendations are in the text. You don't have
to watch any videos. But so much of the book
was me showing my work, like how I arrive. So

(24:16):
if I say, you know, it's not a good idea
to take this supplement, if you want to take my
word for it, you don't have to go butt. If
you're like, wait a second, I heard that that was
a good supplement. I heard there was a study showing
some benefit. Then you can click on the video and
I go through every single study that's ever been done,
and then you can see how I arrive. And I
encourage people to do that because you may watch that

(24:37):
video and arrive at a different conclusion to me. Basically,
I'm saying here's the available science. I look at this science,
and I say, it's probably not worth the price of admission, right,
But someone else might look at that same science and
be like, well, yeah, it may or may not work.
But you know, I've got a lot of disposable income.
I don't mind spending you know, fifty cents a day.
I'm going to try it. You know, it doesn't seem

(24:59):
to be armed. And so that's why I always want
to include all the research, because I don't want, you know,
just because I determined something to be useful or not useful.
And you know, this came up a lot with some
of the kind of cosmetic things. You know, I have
the whole Preserving your Skin chapter talking about all the
boat ducks and all the fillers, and you know, I
look at that stuff, and I look at the risks

(25:21):
and benefits, and though most of these procedures are remarkably safe,
you know, there are some rare side effects and complications.
I look at them and be like, you're not thinking
out of that stuff into my face. But you know,
I'm not a woman, and we live in this kind
of patriarchal society which demands eternal youth from women, and

(25:41):
there are some real pressures from on the job and
social situations kind of across the board, and the pressures
that I don't feel. And so I could totally imagine
some woman being like, look, I look at that saying
pros and cons, and I think what pros far away
the cons? Whereas I look at it and be like,
book even on one a thousand chance, not worth that

(26:03):
to me to have, like shinier skin or whatever. So
take my recommendations with a grain of salt. But you
look at how I arrive at those recommendations and make
up your own mind.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Really did the publishers say, look, our contract says you're
to deliver a book, not oh my god, what is this?

Speaker 2 (26:20):
You know?

Speaker 1 (26:21):
I mean you think by now they'd be kind of
used to me. Look, this is the the large print
version just came out, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
There's a monster. But you can use that for curls.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
You do a long resistance exercise. That's the benefit, right,
it's exactually a little added benefit. But no, I totally understand.
I mean, there's printing costs, there's you know, there's a
shipping costs. I mean, there's a lot of things involved.
I mean I totally understand where they're coming from. And
at a certain point, it's a little intimidated, right, I mean,
but you know, and I don't want people to get

(26:52):
lost in the weeds, and so that's why, you know,
like in the conclusion of the book, I really try
to bring people back to kind of back to the
basics and being like, yes, I talked about all these
things for you know, these specific foods for hair, for wrinkles,
for prostates for on flashes, blah blah blah, but you
know it's not all enoughing one needn't make drastic changes,

(27:16):
even just basic common sense lifestyle factors can mean living
a decade longer or shorter. You know, so not smoking,
not being obese, regular exercise, more fruits and vegetables. It
really comes down to really the basics. And look, it's
never too late. It's never too late to start moving,
to stop smoking, to start eating healthier. We really do

(27:39):
have the power. And you have the videos on nutrition
facts dot org, right, yes, yes, and we have all
the URLs in the book to send them there.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
So it's kind of a multimedia experience, but no wonder,
I mean, it's not a light fool side beach read.
It really is more kind of a reference book, but
you know, it's written in a way that you can
skip around. You know, I have the you know, preserving
your bones chapter, preserving your vision chapter, your teeth, your
sex life or whatever. And so if you're just like, look,

(28:07):
I just want to know about, you know, my joints
or preserving my immunity, I'll just look at that little
mini chapter and you know, get a bit any need
from that and skip around, if you know, if I
have interests otherwise.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Well, it is a reference book. Because you mentioned spermidine.
I'd never heard of that, and you have a list
of thirty foods in the book of where it's found.
I hadn't heard of it either.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
People don't understand that I learn as much writing the
book as people get from reading the book. I mean, wait,
you think you were taught about that in medical school.
In fact, their entire fields of science and medicine that
did not exist when I graduated from medical school, Like
these micro RNAs which challenged the very central dogma of biology.

(28:48):
I mean, that's just absolutely mind blowing. It wasn't even
discovered until after I got out of med school. Cellar
sinessa chapter those zombie cells. Never heard of spermitting never
heard of it, you know, and I had heard of
some things like the NAD supplements kind of offhand, but
you know, it's such a complicated you really got to
do a deep dive. And so I was so excited

(29:10):
just for my own personal curiosity. And the more I learned,
the more excited I became at I can't wait for
this to get out there. This is so fascinating, and
there's so many kind of practical, day to day grocery
store type decisions people can make to make a real
difference when things they care about that, you know, the
year after your hero is like, I got wait for
this to come out. And then even when you're done

(29:32):
with the book, I mean, it takes months for the
publisher to get format it and everything. So finally, December fifth,
twenty twenty three, the book is finally out number two
on New York Times Bestseller List. Instantly the first week,
very excited that it's out in the world. I'm on
one hundred city book tour over the next five months,
and so I'm just tickled that people really seem to

(29:55):
be appreciating it. And then summer I'm gonna sit down
and start the book, which will be on cancer and
that's going to take me a couple more years. Hopefully
it'll be out December twenty twenty eight. So what surprised you, Well,
what was one of the things that surprised you the
most when doing the research? So much so the exercise

(30:16):
section totally surprised me. Sleep section, red wine, resveratrol, the
NAD sublements by them, d fish protein restriction, micro RNA's.
The list goes on and on. The things that you
know coming in like subplements I thought I'd be recommending
that turn out no or you know, a waste of
money or worse, and things that I never heard of
all of a sudden are in my daily rotation in

(30:38):
my kitchen. Yeah, shocking, and some like common sense stuff
that is almost uncontroversial. Actually it's quite controversial, you know,
things that you just got to take for granted. Yeah,
like the exercise and sleep stuff. I was just like, wow,
this is fascinating stuff.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
If someone comes to you, is that like your go
to there if they want to know like key points
in the book and they look at the book and go,
my god, this is this is just too much. What
are like the key points that you tell people? All Right? Well,
if you do nothing else, do these top three or
do these two? What does that list look like? You know,
people come back.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
You know, someone who comes up smokes a pack of
day him is like, wait a second, what's the best
apple to eat? And I'm like, oh, and the stake
is that back, right, Like, we gotta stop smoking, we
gotta not be inactive. Let's get the baseline, and then
that's really eighty percent, eighty percent of the way there
is really the basic common sense everybody's heard about it.

(31:30):
And then for people that are interested, who really want
to maximize their health and lunchevity. Okay, for the twenty percent,
I got all the you know, all the specific foods
to go out of your way to kind of including
your daily routine. But yeah, you certainly don't want people
to be overwhelmed. As I mentioned before, in terms of
things we can do about our diet, So diet is

(31:52):
the number one killer in these United States, the American diet.
Tobacco only kills about a half million people every year
here in the States. And where's our diet kills many
more physical inactivities down I believe killing number six And
so I mean, the most important thing we do is
what is the at the end of our fork every day?
And it's you know, not eat enough legoms, whole grains, nuts,

(32:14):
too much meat, too much soda, you know. But look,
it doesn't matter what you eat in your birthday's holiday,
special locations. It is the day to day stuff that
really adds up on the day to day basis. Really
should try to eat healthy natural foods from fields, not factories,
foods as grown foods, you know, out of the ground.
These are our healthiest choices, unprocessed plant foods.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
So what do you do? What's your protocol? What does
doctor Gregor do in a data slow down the aging process?

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, I mean, so the foundation of my diet is
the daily does and from How Not to Die available
to a free app on iPhone and Android, it's just a checklist
of you know, all the healthiest of healtic foods and
cursed people to fit into their daily life. So you know,
tablespoon on ground, flag seeds, you know, curtees sput turmarreck
berries every day. There's fruits, greens every day, the healthiest vegetables.

(33:02):
And then my routine changed when I found out all
this stuff about you know, the anti aging and so
you know, all of a sudden, you know, I've started
using papali, which is this long peppers, and the black
pepper family has this pepper loongumin, which maybe a syntalytic compound. Strawberries.
I started eating more strawberries because of fa setting, which

(33:23):
is something that I think I'd run across but didn't realize. Again,
another senalytic compound. Wheat germ. I remember my mom used
to give me wheat germ or like back in the seventies, right,
and you know, and she was telling the well, Mom's
always right. We used to just recognize Mom's always right.
So now wheat terms back in my diet. Adding cardamom
in my diet. I'm needing more tempe because it has

(33:46):
the not only spermidine, but the longevity vitamin called ergo
finding I was found in kind of the fung Gui kingdom.
So if uniting mushrooms or tempe, you really got to
miss out by started. In fact, I started growing oyster mushrooms.
You can grow oyster mushrooms in your house, like on
the window cell, like growing some basil or something that's
been a blast. So there's definitely changes every book. There's

(34:07):
always there, I'm adding news egsas I remember, and how
not to diet? I started doing black human and vinegars
and yeah, so I'm always trying to find ways to
tweet things better.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Is there going to be a cookbook in addition to this?

Speaker 1 (34:20):
And yes, yes, How Not to Age Cookbook will be
out this December twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
So correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe because
of the pandemic, our projected lifespan is now shorter. Am
I getting that right? You know?

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Actually, our lifespan in the United States AFT he peaked
in twenty fourteen and was declining before COVID thanks to
the obesity epidemic, raising the first generation of Americans projected
to live shorter lives than their parents, and then COVID

(34:52):
comes along knocks a few years off our lifespan. So
we are now way behind, not only compared to how
we used to be, but compared to the rest of
the seceralized world, and so we have a lot of
catching up to do. And in fact, even at our
peak in twenty fourteen, when we were up to an
average age of seventy nine, that was not seventy nine

(35:12):
years of health. We were living kind of longer in
sickness than in health. It was kind of like one
step forward, three steps back in terms of yes, we
were technically living longer, but we were actually living fewer
healthy lives. We were just able to kind of prolong
the end kind of the disability stage. And so, yeah,

(35:33):
we got a lot of work to do, but they
that's what they. You know, if there wasn't chronic disease
and disability, I would have no reason to write books.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
So you mentioned the Daily doesn't in the first book,
but in this one you've got Doctor Gregor's Anti Aging eight.
Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, so that is kind of a compliment to the
Daily Dozen in terms of kind of highlighting specific foods
like the greens, nuts, and barriers, then the potential to
offer some of the best opportunities to slow aging and
improve longevity. I've talked about some of those anti kind
of anti aging foods, and then the rest of the

(36:11):
anti aga includes, you know, boosting levels of the enzine
cofactor called NEAD plus, something called zeno hormesis, microarnaise, chloric constriction,
protein astrition, methine restriction, something probably the most powerful thing
we can do. So a yeah, it's there were a
lot of things that seem to affect multiple things. So
you know, in like one chapter, I'll talk about one thing,

(36:32):
but like some things came up over and over again,
like the greens. So in terms of both preventing and
treating or leading cause of blindness, age related macular degeneration,
dark green leafy vegetables. Then all of a sudden, in
the muscle Preserving your Muscle chapter, you feed people's spinach,
and all of a sudden, they have improved muscle mass,
muscle strength, muscle quatting, proved muscle performance like Popeye was right,

(36:53):
you know, And then you would go back to the
cognition chapter. Improves blood flow and the brain acutely improves
ogntive function, and so that kind of became one of
my anti aging eight. Oh wow, these greens seem to
affect so many different dimensions in the anti aging space,
and indeed actually slow our metabalk grate and so actually
slow the rate of aging. Like you know, a candle

(37:13):
that burns half is bright burns twice as long. Normally
you only get that from severe chlora constriction. But instead
of walking around sturbing all the time, you can just
eat a big salad, these dark green ap vestables. So
that's how something kind of became elevated to the anti
Aging eight. Although you know, all the other things in
the book are you know, do amazing things. They just

(37:33):
maybe only do amazing things in a very narrow spectrum,
whereas the anti Aging eight these are the kind of
things that seem to hit multiple different dimensions at the
same time.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
You are one of the many featured in the latest
documentary you are what you eat? A twin experiment? How
many of those? How many of those appearances if you're made?
Do you know you got that number?

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Oh? Oh, it's so wonderful. No, no, I think is
it's funny. You know, people don't realize it takes a
long time for movies to come out, and so you know,
I'll be watching a trailer to some movie and then
I'll pop up in the screen. I don't remembered, I
don't remember interview it no, and it's like, oh my god,
Like you know, it's like, wait a second, I had
no beard?

Speaker 3 (38:11):
When was that?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Like?

Speaker 3 (38:12):
What was the hereos?

Speaker 1 (38:14):
You know you have facial errors usually the only way
I'm like, oh, when did I have those glasses? I
don't remember that, but I do very much remember this taping.
It was amazing film crew. These are the folks that
did Game Change, which is my favorite kind of dietary documentary.
So well done, so kind of professional Hollywood quality, and

(38:36):
so I knew anything that they were doing he is
going to be really top notch. I mean, there's so
many good documentaries out there, but the content is good,
is not necessarily the production value. And I think people
these days, you know, are just so used to really
gorgeous the stuff, right that if the production quality isn't
up to snuff, you can have the best kind of

(38:56):
information in the world and people aren't going to watch it.
So that's why it's important to really have, you know,
good filmmakers, not just someone who's like, I'm going to
make it for you know, their first little film and
they just have no background in it and so but
this is done by professionals. So actually, I'm only on
episode two, so I think there's four episodes, so don't
spoiler alert me here. So far, so good. But yeah,

(39:19):
it's just gorgeous, right, I mean, it's just it's just
done so well. I can't even imagine how much it
must have cost to make it. But I mean, you know,
you know when you go to a film shoot and
you know they got like the five game, you feel
like you're in one of those matrix things where they
got the cameras all around so that you can do
these like you know, karate chops in midair or something. Yeah,
it's like a whole you know, it's like a dozen people.

(39:39):
It's like all right, you know some It's like you
can go and show up to some filmmaker. It's like
a dude with an iPhone, right, and you know he's saying,
you know, there's a big difference when the whole camera
crew comes out.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
So I've been looking really much forward to it. The
original title was going to be Food two point zero,
but they switched to So I've been waiting for food too.
But this is it, This is God you are You
eat a twin experiment. I love that kind of fascinating premise.
I think we should really draw people in based on
identical twins randomized to different diets, and then it just
gives us a good excuse to talk about diet, the

(40:17):
role in house, the role on other impacts. But the
reveal hasn't happened yet. I haven't seen the results yet,
so I'm looking forward to seeing the rest.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
I think game changers. I think James Cameron had a
handle that.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yes, James Cameron was a producer, so of course, right,
so he liked the Titanic, dude, right, So, no wonder
it's gorgeous, right, no wonder they had so much money
that they could make such a beautiful film and this
material really deserves it. Right, So we're talking about the
number one leading cause of death and disability is what

(40:51):
we put at the end of our four and so, yes,
there's lots of important things to do documentaries about all
over the world. But in terms of like what's going
to kill us, you know, I mean, it's really what
we eat, and so yeah, it's about time that's seem
kind of intensity of focus and talent is placed on,

(41:12):
you know, kind of the day to day killer. You know,
you see headlines about a plane crash, you know, but
it's like the screaming headline every day is you know,
another one hundred thousand Americans died from heart disease, right,
But it just happens every year, hundreds of thousands from
a preventable arrestable in many cases reversible condition. Something we
can do about it. Yet that's not news, but it

(41:36):
should be news because there's something we new about it.
And so it's great to see this, these great films
come out.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Well, I'm seeing you on you know, everywhere with the
media tour, and you've got one hundred city book signing tour.
Do you ever take a vacation.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Oh, I got no vacation, but I mean, in a
since the speaking tour is kind of a vacation, just
because I've given up all hope that I can get
any work done on the road. Like you think I've
got to be on the airplane for hours, I'm gonna
get thumbs that work done. It never works that way.
The Wi buy doesn't work or whatever. And so you
just got to settle into the fact that if I

(42:10):
get anything done, if I like we're apply to one email,
like that should just be the bonus.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
It's just to be right.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
And so once I get into that mindset, says she,
kind of in many ways kind of a low stress
time for me, because it's really just I just have
to get to the next hotel, the next plane, the
next whatever. Whereas when I'm writing a book or something
like I've got a deadline. I've got a stack of
papers through the roof, and there's you know, complicated topics

(42:37):
with you know, glaringly different results, and I have to
figure out, wait a second, who's right, who's wrong, And
so that I find is much more intense, even though
I'm at home and I'm comfortable, I'm in my pjs.
You know, it seemed to be like I'd be much
more relaxing than jet setting around the world, But that
is actually really high stress for me because, you know,
I go to bed thinking it's hard to sleep because

(42:59):
I'm like thinking, still thinking about trying to, you know,
figure out some crazy topic that I don't understand, and
if I don't even understand, how do I translate it
for everybody else to understand. It's kind of a grass
is Always Greener scenario, like when I'm on the read
and I'm like, oh.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
I just want to be home in my own bed.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
But then when I'm home and like's totally stressed, I'm like,
you know, it'd be nice clouds around for a little while.
So you're pressed for time, You're gonna go like directly
to episode two of the documentary. So two, hopefully I'll
be able to see it.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
And finally, let's say that you are an average consumer
and not the author. You just finished this barhemoth of
a book. What would you say was one of the
biggest takeaways from doctor Gregor's latest book.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Probably the biggest shocker would be the whole protein restriction thing.
I think there's this in the ether, there's just this
when you get older, you just need to be more protein.
And think in general, there's just this like obsession about
protein in our society. I say, you sell stuff as
you're like now with that in protein, and then look,
we lose muscle masses. We g oh my god, we
have to eat more protein. And so you know, there's

(44:04):
a big section of the book to talking about one
of the uh, you know, one of the anti aging
EID is protein restriction down to recommended levels. We eat
excess protein. When it comes to kind of protein aging,
less may actually be more And I talk about all
the ways that that's the case. And so that's really
kind of surprising. I think for most people, it's not
surprising for those in the anti aging world. I mean

(44:26):
the longevity space. I mean, that's what I mean there's
this clear consensus within the medical literature, but there's a
big disconnect to what the science shows and what's kind
of out in the popular awareness, you know, and large
part of that is people trying to sell us products,
you know. But I think that would be kind of
the biggest shocker and the thing I'd be telling all
my friends. Did you know that actually, you know, adding

(44:47):
extra protein to the diets of ulder men and women
does not actually improve muscle mass, muscle strength, muscle performance,
even if you have you know, syclopedia, it doesn't help
with you know, adding muscle mass with resistance exercise, et
cent on down the list and has all these negative
effects in terms of you know, activating you know, pro
aging enzymes like you know m tour and pro aging

(45:08):
homes like I do have one, et cetera, et cetera,
on down the list. So that would probably be that
kind of the biggest like whoa. I mean, I knew
first and vestals were good. That's not a big thing,
and I knew Russian smoke, but like, so that's.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
A big kind of one eighty I think for many people,
Doctor Gregor is always great to see you. Thank you
so much. For coming to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
So happy to looking forward to write another book so
I can come back on the Good Foods Podcast.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
The Good Foods Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. The claims, comments, opinions,
or information heard should never be used in place of
your medical provider's advice or your doctor's direction. Thank you
for listening, Follow us on social media and wherever you
get your podcasts. Good Health through good Food, Good Foods
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