May 23, 2025 • 39 mins
Botox, supplements, cold plunges, IV drips… The internet is screaming a million ways to stay young, but what actually works? We sat down with Dr. Steven Austad—America’s leading aging expert—to separate fact from fantasy. His answer? Unbelievably simple… and honestly refreshing. If you’ve ever chased the fountain of youth, don’t miss this episode. And buckle up to learn the truth from the guy who has a billion-dollar bet that someone is living to 150 by 2050.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to.
Before you Cut Bangs, I'm LauraQuick and I'm Claire.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Fehrman.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I am a professional storyteller and I'm currently
working on my first book.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I have worked in mental health for many years in
lots of capacities and this is areally important time to tell
you our big disclaimer this isnot therapy.
We are not your therapists orcoaches or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, I mean you shouldn't really trust us very
much at all, unless you want toand it turns out well, then you
can trust us, that's great.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Boy, this is a very special episode.
Before you cut bangs, we justhave a little rainbow thing.
It is, though, we're doing thisseries right and you're having
different guests on.
It's kind of our summer series.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I just named it.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And it's called Porch Talk or something, but Summer
Vacation.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's called Summer Vacation Because normally we
don't have guests on thispodcast, but now we have like a
series of them coming on and I'mreally really excited about
this one today.
So I heard on the radio a whileback this was years ago that
there was a bet between twoscientists that the first person
to be 150 years old was alreadyalive, and it was a billion
(01:16):
dollar bet.
And then turns out one of theguys that made that bet came on
my radio show because he was aTEDx speaker and he was talking
about longevity and we've beenfriends ever since and so now
he's on the radio show everycouple of weeks.
Jason Bateman mentioned him onSmartList the other day.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I saw that.
I saw that, which is prettydang incredible.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, but also like anytime, if you're watching CBS
Sunday mornings, they're talkingabout longevity like this is
the guy.
Dr Stephen Allstad is joiningus today.
I'm really looking forward toit and we're just like good
personal friends.
We just went to Alaska together.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Are you a billionaire yet?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I am not a billionaire yet.
Unfortunately, I have to waituntil the year 2150 to win my
bet, unless somebody lives to be150 before then, which is
entirely possible.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Wow, okay, well, I've got a lot of questions.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I didn't even think about that.
I thought it had to pay off onthat date in 2150 or whatever.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
No, that's the latest it could be.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Right.
But if someone was born in 2001, or was born in, let's say,
1990 and reaches 150 by 2140,then that'll also win the bet.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So you're saying there's a chance for me to help
you win this bet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Well it'sgoing to be a woman, for sure,
oh duh, obviously, and what typeof cut you think I could get if
I'm the one?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
If you're the one, then I would go 50-50.
So half a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
That's pretty good.
I don't know what I could dowith that at 150 years old.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Is there any kind of stipulation, like they still
have to be cognizant, or do theyjust?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, no, no, no.
They have to be cognitively,they have to be able to carry on
a conversation and know whatthey're saying.
So that's an important caveat,because they can't be demented
and just be, you know, in bedstaring at the ceiling.
That doesn't do it.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That won't work.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I have faith in you.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Do you have faith in me?
I don't know.
Miss Runner, Claire's gottenathletic.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
She could tell me it's going to be my number one
cause of death.
I don't know, we always startthis with a warm-up question,
related or unrelated.
This one I going to be mynumber one cause of death.
I don't know, we always startthis with a warm-up question,
related or unrelated.
This one I made to be a littlebit related to the topic and
this goes for everyone to answer.
If you could age backward forone year, starting today, what
would you do differently withthat time?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Ooh, hmm, we're only talking about the last year, or
we're talking about agingbackward to any age that we want
it to be?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I like that great question, so let's do that.
If you could age backwards anddo some things differently,
where would you go and whatwould you do?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
boy, this is going to be really boring, but I don't
think I would do anythingdifferently.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Because I don't believe in looking backwards and
I made a number of decisionswhen I left the animal training
business to go to graduateschool.
I could think maybe you shouldhave stuck in the animal
training business, but on theother hand it all worked out.
So I think looking backwardsit's bad for your health.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
That is beautiful.
That's so mentally strong.
I was like I thought I wasgoing to stick with the one year
thing and I will say, becauseI've been working out with
weights for the last like sixmonths, I feel so much better
with like light weight training,where I used to just run my
heart out.
I would go back and do thatlonger.
(04:50):
I feel like because I just havefelt a big difference on like
how well I rest.
Based on that and it's not likeI'm not nobody's going to be
recruiting me to the Olympics.
Okay, I'm not setting anyrecords.
I'm lifting five to eight poundweights, but I feel a lot
better, so I would do that.
But I'm with you.
I'm lifting five to eight poundweights, but I feel a lot
better, so I would do that.
But I'm with you.
I don't like looking back.
I'm like there's no sense inthat.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Wilbur yeah, I mean I hate to just follow along with
that trend, but it is kind ofthe truth, like even the
mistakes that I've made, andthere have been plenty.
I wouldn't change most of thoseor any of those mistakes
because they've made me kind ofwho I am, I guess.
So I don't know If I, maybe Iwouldn't, I wouldn't eat as many
chicken wings, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I don't know, but even then I like chicken wings,
I love them, I know.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So I don't think I if I really honestly, physically,
the only thing I would change iswhen we used to run a ton and
we did like an ultra and trainfor a very long time.
I didn't wait train during that, so that's the only physical
thing.
If I could go back I would say,hey, I'm not going to run as
much, I'm going to mix in weighttraining as well.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah Well, from the therapist, y'all are giving
excellent clinical answers likeno regrets, so I can live with
that.
Um, I wish I would havebelieved I was mentally stronger
than I am.
I think that toughness now is agood thing, and I used to think
vulnerability was the answer toall of life's questions.
(06:13):
Not always, and plug your ears.
I wish I never smoked.
I bet you wish you never smoked.
I loved smoking.
I still love it.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, I liked it a lot.
I still miss it.
I haven't had a drag in youknow what?
16 and a half years.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I only smoked for that one week when all my
friends hazed me because Ithought I could lose 10 pounds
by smoking and that didn't work,and I feel like our bodies are
pretty good at like.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
If you quit smoking and then don't smoke for decades
and decades, your lungs prettymuch clean themselves out.
Is what I've been told.
Do you know?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
about this.
I know you're not a medicaldoctor.
Yes, by and large, after about15 or 20 years, that's true 15
or 20?
.
But you know, the funny thingabout smoking is that it was
known to be really bad for yourhealth in the 1930s.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Except for it was also really cool, though, right.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, I guess In the 1930s.
I'm not sure how cool it was,but there was a paper published
in the most famous sciencejournal in the world in 1938
that showed that people thatsmoked lived 10 years less on
average than people who didn't,and that's pretty much the same
thing we know today.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, it turns out they were just lying.
All the tobacco companies.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, I know, imagine that to make money.
Who knew?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So, like my husband always says, everybody just
wants to be cool.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I don't know if I agree with that, Dr Austin.
How do you become an agingspecialist?
What degrees along the way madeyou this expert on longevity?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Well, I have a very unusual route to being
interested in this.
I got interested in it actuallythrough animals, not because I
was particularly interested inhuman health, but I discovered
by accident that opossums age asfast as mice.
They only live a couple ofyears, they get cataracts, they
get parasites, they lose muscleover the course of a few months.
(08:12):
And that accidental observationgot me interested in well, why
do we age at all?
Why do some things age fast andsome things age slow?
And for the first 10 or 15years that I studied aging I did
not think about the humanimplications.
Never occurred to me.
And then suddenly one day Ithought wait a second, all this
(08:34):
stuff I've been studying, peoplewill be really interested in it
.
And the reason I think I becamean expert, a sort of broad
expert in it, is that, comingfrom the outside, I've always
felt if you could have come intoa new field from the outside,
you need to know it better thanthe people who are in it.
So I just did a tremendousamount of reading everything I
could get my hands on.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The lion, taming the fighting with the.
So that was your first career.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Well, I don't know.
I have several.
First, careers that was.
That was, let's say, my lastcareer before I went into
academics.
I was a taxi driver, I was apool hustler, I was a truck
driver.
I had a bunch of differentcareers because I was writing
the great american novel and Ineeded to put food on the table
(09:24):
while I did that.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I'm telling you.
When I told you that he's themost interesting man in the
world, that was not hyperbole,it's the truth.
And the stories are endless andwe unfortunately don't have
enough time for all of them, butI do want to hit on um, you
have been attacked by a lion andyou have been attacked by a
bear.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Did you guys?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
have any questions about that.
I know the answers.
I would just like kind of ageneral synopsis of those events
, one or the other or both.
Well, I didn't get hurt thatbadly by the bear.
I basically got bowled over andbatted around by a bear who got
mad at me because I was forcinghim.
This is a trained bear, verygood bear normally.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Wait, wait.
Why were you forcing the bearto do weird things?
Speaker 4 (10:35):
We were doing training for a particular movie.
So the way that movie animalsare trained is that you just
train them to generally obey,you teach them to sit a bunch of
things, but then they may haveto do something specific for the
movie.
So then you train them for thatparticular thing, just for the
movie.
And that's what we were workingon.
And it was a hot day and I'dmade him do it a whole bunch of
(10:56):
times in a row and he just saidthat's it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is this your first time training a bear?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it was and that's the
only bear I really worked with,but it was a very good bear most
of the time.
I mean, I did like bankopenings with the bear where I
would take the bear out with abunch of People, not on a leash
or anything.
He loved Tootsie Rolls, thelittle Tootsie Rolls.
I give Tootsie Rolls toeverybody and come up and feed
(11:25):
the bear.
But this one time he just lostit.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
What year was this?
This feels like something thatcould have happened.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I don't know 1975, something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
The bear was Gentle Ben, like the actual famous bear
, Gentle Ben.
That's the bear that isactually.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Gentle, ben tried to kick your ass.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Yeah, no, he didn't try, he kicked my ass.
I mean, the only injury I gotfrom that is he hurt my back
when he knocked me over.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Is that like Jeremiah Johnson Bear?
Or like Robert Redford moviesBear?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean.
So here's the thing.
I don't know what movies GentleBen was in, but I know of
Gentle Ben the bear.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
The most famous movie that he was in was called the
life and times of judge roy bean, uh, in which, uh, paul newman
had to punch him in the face andhe wasn't very thrilled about
doing this, and we said, no, no,no, it's going to be okay, but
this is a one take, only shot.
You're never going to be ableto get near this bear again.
(12:20):
Um, so it it worked fine.
He punched him in the face, thebears yelled and went after him
and I jumped in between themand, uh, it worked well, but
again, it was one take only, andlet it be known that, uh, dr
ross, that in his entire familyare like massive animal lovers
and conservationists, and uhyeah so mean you can't hurt a
(12:42):
bear by punching it in the face.
It's going to hurt you All right.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So we need to roll right into like, talking about
aging and like how do you livelonger?
Who lives the longest right?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, and I think one of the things that we want to
tell you because we realize thatyou're probably not someone who
listens to a podcast calledBefore you Cut Bangs probably
not someone who listens to apodcast called before you cut
bangs Um, although I promise youwould laugh if you did Um, I
would love to tell you that oneof the reasons we started this
podcast is because, um, claireis a therapist and I am a person
(13:13):
who's needed a lot of therapyand and it was, and uh will is a
good sport, and so we reallywant to give people fun, down to
earth ways where they can staymentally healthy, and we
obviously know that living afull, whole life is part of that
.
So what maybe are some of thethings like what's the biggest
(13:34):
misconception about aging?
What do you see people?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I think the biggest misconception is that people
think it's largely genetic andthen if your parents didn't live
a long, healthy life, you'renot going to either, and that's
absolutely wrong.
We know a lot about this.
We know that about 25% of thelength of your life is
determined by your inheritance.
(13:57):
The rest is up to you.
The rest is lifestyleinheritance.
The rest is up to you.
The rest is lifestyle, and soyou can have a huge.
You know, if you had the lastthree generations all diet at 50
means nothing whatsoever foryour own longevity.
What really matters is yourlifestyle choices yeah, lean in,
tell us.
Well, I mean, they're verythey're.
(14:17):
It's not a secret, right, um?
Eating right, keeping a healthybody weight, getting a lot of
physical activity, a lot ofmental activity, sleep, all the
things that probably your mothertold you you should be doing.
That's still the best advice wehave.
In fact, we now know thatthings like exercise are not
(14:41):
just good for your body, they'regood for your brain.
It's a good way to stave offthings like Alzheimer's disease,
something that we never guessed.
So those are all the things.
It's not a big secret.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So is that 25%, though that's hereditary?
Is that like heart disease orthings that, because you know,
we talked about this recentlyyou and I did where some people
that can seemingly be in greathealth and eat correctly and
work out and whatever, canautomatically just have a heart
attack and die at a relativelyyoung age?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, I mean people can have some genetic mutation
that maybe the parents had,maybe they didn't have, but
let's say they had a mutationthat made them particularly
susceptible to heart disease.
When I say that 25%, that'sabout people generally, for
people who die very young theyprobably had some family
inheritance and also for peoplethat live a very long time.
(15:35):
If you have a parent or arelative that lived over 100
hundred, that increases yourchances of living over a hundred
by about 20 fold.
Wow, so it has a huge impact,but for most of us it's really
lifestyle that matters exercise.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
You brought that up.
Isn't there kind of like a line, though, of like too much
cannot be good, like you talkedabout, when you study people
that have lived to be over ahundred or even over?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
like blue zones, for instance, when they say like
it's not, like they're out thereworking out every day, they're
just walking everywhere marathonrunners generally don't make
that list right right.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yeah, the list of player olds that are marathon
runners is vanishingly small.
Um, getting a sensible amountof exercise.
You can't overdo it.
I mean, if you overdo itdo itit can weaken your immune system
.
You know you can injureyourself, but most of us don't
have to worry about overdoing it, that's, you know we live such
(16:32):
sedentary lives relative to whatour ancestors lived, that we
don't really have to worry.
You know, if you run 50marathons a year, maybe you're
overdoing it, but I don't know alot of people that do that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think this is interesting the person that you
think is going to live to be 150, the first person you think
they're already alive and youhave it kind of narrowed down to
who this is.
It's not like a specific name,but you kind of know where this
person lives.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Sure, it's not like a specific name, but you kind of
know where this person lives.
Sure, my best guess is it'sgoing to be a Japanese woman,
because Japanese are thelongest-lived people that we
know about now, and womeneverywhere live longer than men.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Which is why I'm going to be starting a commune
after our husbands die, so thatall of my favorite women can
live alongside me with lots ofpool boys.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
And that's very true.
I mean, one of the importantthings is keeping your social
connections.
As you get older because womenlive longer than men, they often
lose a lot of their socialconnections if they had them
with men and they end up lonely.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, what is it about the Japanese women?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It's probably their diet.
There might be some geneticcomponents of that, because all
of the Asian countries, oncethey got wealthy enough to
afford enough food andeverything, they walk a lot.
All of the Asian countries arelong-lived.
Korea is long-lived, china, nowthat they're getting richer,
they're also.
(17:59):
So there could be somethinggenetic that we haven't
identified yet, but still rightnow, I think the Japanese woman
the most common age for women todie is about 94 years of age.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So they're doing quite well.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Wow.
Where does happiness andpositivity land in aging and
longevity?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
That's a really, really complex question.
I'll just give you myobservations of the most
successful aging people that Iknow.
They tend to be people who livein the moment and don't worry
about things.
Bad things can happen to them.
That happened, it's bad, it'sgone.
(18:46):
And you say if you live longenough, all your children die,
your spouse dies, all yourfriends, and these people just
seem to be quite accepting.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
My son and I.
My son always jokes.
He's like you know, one daywe're going to be like old
together because we're only 20years apart.
He's like you know one daywe're going to be like old
together because we're only 20years apart.
He's like how cool is it thatwe're going to be like old
together?
And I was like don't be weird.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Well, I think this bodes well for me, because I
don't stress about stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I know you're incredibly flexible.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
We call Will our favorite Labrador retriever of a
human.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, well, yeah, I favorite labrador retriever of a
human, yeah well, yeah, I mean,you know a certain amount of
stress can actually bebeneficial, but too much stress
is clearly, clearly notbeneficial.
We know it destroys the immunesystem, it has all kinds of
really bad effects.
So but, on the other hand,something that people don't have
that much control over Somepeople are just, they have that
(19:41):
personality.
It's like sleep.
Sleep is one of the other bigthings, but you don't have that
much control over your.
You can control the amount oftime you spend in bed, but
that's not the same as theamount of time you spend getting
high quality sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Why is that?
Will you explain that a littlemore?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Why is sleep so important?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, no, no.
The people that don't havegreat sleep, and you're saying
that it's just who they are.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, I mean, we don't have good ways to
encourage.
There's only certain things youcan do.
You can cool the room, you cantry not to overstimulate
yourself, but still there arepeople that are good sleepers
and people that are not.
I'm not a good sleeper.
Most academics that I know arenot good sleepers.
(20:27):
You can take drugs, but therewas actually a recent study that
found that they've discoveredthis whole system new
circulatory system in your brainthat gets rid of wastes when
you're sleeping, and they havefound that the way that it is is
these vessels kind of pulse,and they move waste out of your
brain while you're sleeping.
And they have found that, andthe way that it has, is these
vessels kind of pulse, and theymove waste out of your brain
while you're sleeping.
So that's why it's good for you.
(20:48):
What they found, though, isthat if people take Ambien to
sleep, those pulses don't happen, so that kind of sleep is
apparently not as helpful asnormal sleep, which is very
disappointing for me to learn,since that's one of the ways I
can get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's a real plus sign for me, though, Doc if we're
being honest, because I'll besleeping hardcore.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I'm going for it.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Me too.
I love it.
Okay, you know, when we thinkabout the people who listen to
this podcast, we know that theyare people who either are
curious about the mental healthor and they maybe have lived
their own shit show of a lifeand just want to tune in for
whatever kind of crazy ass shitwe're going to talk about on
here, right?
But I think that we alsorealize that, by the surveys
(21:33):
we've done to the people who aretuning in, anxiety is something
that is high on their list.
It is something they're tryingto navigate, and I think that
one of the questions that I hadis they're also being inundated
because most of them are onsocial media.
They're getting ads foranti-aging.
Is there this is two partquestion is there a way to age
(21:53):
backwards?
Speaker 4 (21:55):
It's a very easy answer no.
Almost all of the anti-agingadvertisements that you see on
social media are absolutelybogus.
Sometimes they're just thingsthat there's no evidence to
support them, and sometimesthere's things that we know have
no effect.
There's lots of evidence toshow they have no effect, but
(22:16):
that doesn't stop people frommaking these ridiculous claims
on social media, and it's gottenworse recently.
I don't know why that is, butit drives me crazy, I have to
tell you.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And we've talked about overconsumption and really
kind of medicating yourscrolling and the algorithms are
so smart, right, they're goingto appeal to whatever you've
been Googling.
And maybe you've been trying tofigure out like, oh, I've got
these wrinkles and I hate them,or I feel tired all the time, or
whatever.
So when you think about NADsupplements, that's a big one
Like go get injections, spendall this money.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
So you're saying None of that is proven.
Now there are treatments forskin.
That's actually one of thethings that there are very good
treatments for.
There are things that'sactually one of the things that
there are very good treatmentsfor.
There are things.
Anything that contains Retin-A,for instance, is good for your
skin and can moisturize yourskin and make it look better.
(23:11):
It's not really turning backthe clock.
It's fixing some of the damagethat's happened over the years
to your skin.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Awesome Noted to call the dermatologist.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Retin-A got that, putting it on the list.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, isn't that retinol?
Is that the?
It's happened over the years toyour skin.
Awesome Noted to call thedermatologist Retin-A got that,
putting it on the list.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well, isn't that retinol?
Is that the same thing?
Yeah, yeah, I hate it.
It makes me break out.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I feel like in the past I've heard you say that
overall, when we look at peoplethat have lived to be over 100,
there are like a few things thatthey have in common, right?
The one was the exerciseroutinely.
What are some of the others?
I?
Speaker 4 (23:44):
wouldn't say they exercise routinely.
That's overstated.
I'd say they're physicallyactive.
But there are some people thataren't.
I mean there are people wholived over 100 who never did
anything.
There are obese people.
If you have the right genes youcan compensate for a lot.
A friend of mine has a woman inthe study who smoked for 95
(24:08):
years.
But that's very, veryexceptional For most of us.
It's really your lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I have the meanest grandma Like she.
Literally she's so freakingmean and she is in her late 80s.
She looks so good, hercheekbones are really hot and
she's she's mean as shit and shesmoked her whole life and I'm
just like damn, I just thinkit's just like she's so mean.
That's what kept her alive toomean to die too mean to die.
Do you think that's a thing?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
uh, I think it probably isn't okay well, that
bitch I mean.
there is this complication,though.
When I say people that live tobe that old are placid,
accepting, you know the peoplethat weren't.
You know they got to be tooanxious, they got to be too
(24:57):
stressed and they died.
I think that there's a kind ofa survivor bias.
The people that reach 80 arereally different than the people
that reach 100.
If you live your life in thebest styles, you're going to be
(25:17):
pretty likely a healthy80-year-old, but you're not
going to be a 100-year-oldunless we find some breakthrough
in aging biology, which there'sa lot of promise in but nothing
demonstrated yet.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What's the biggest breakthrough you've seen through
the research and we know thatyou are the guy.
What's the one that reallystands out to you?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well, I guess the thing that stands out the most
is that we now know of about adozen different drugs that, in
laboratory animals, can makethem stay healthy much longer 25
, 30% longer.
So you know, instead of havinga human equivalent, instead of
living to 80, we average wouldbe more like 110.
And finding that one drug doessomething like that, that
(26:04):
actually was shocking to me, butfinding a dozen that do it.
But here's the big caveat onthat First of all, we don't know
if any of these drugs do thesame thing in people, but most
of these only work in males.
What?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
And we don't know.
Shut up, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
We have no clue as to why that is that's because
women are living longer.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Than you assholes anyway, y'all actually need the
20 years to catch up.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I actually had that thought.
Like every time I hear womenlive longer, I'm like, oh, thank
god.
And then I forget that menmight be like, well, shit, so
I'm good for them, going to gofor them.
They got to win, but thesedrugs are not to.
I'm just making sure Iunderstand.
The drugs aren't a remedy forsome illness.
It is truly something toenhance life.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Right, they're preventatives.
That's the key thing is theyprevent the illnesses.
They don't treat the illnesses.
It turns out that they mighttreat the illnesses, but their
main effect is in preventingthem.
And that's why the biology ofaging is so important to the
future of human longevity,because it's almost the apex of
(27:13):
preventative medicine, becauseit doesn't just prevent cancer
or Alzheimer's disease, itprevents everything together.
Because all of these things,aging's the number one
underlying factor.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And lot of times people you know respond to like,
oh, these live to be 125, 150in the way of like I don't want
to be that old, that's, I'mgoing to feel terrible and
whatever.
But the idea is that 125 is thenew 85 or something like that.
Right, like your, your actualhappiness and well-being would
also extend along with theactual years.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Sure, yeah, I mean nobody's for extending, you know
, the last debilitating years ofyour life.
No, that's not what it's about.
It's about staying healthy.
And here's a concern.
In the last 30 years in theUnited States and in most other
developed countries, lifeexpectancy has continued to
(28:05):
increase, although at a slowerrate, but healthy life
expectancy has hardly budgedover that time.
So what we're doing now peoplethat used to die of a heart
attack they don't die now.
We know how to save them, butthey may live a compromised
health after that.
Same thing with people who hadcancer.
They died before.
Well, now we can save them, butthe treatments of cancer are
(28:27):
very hard on your body oh my God, so hard.
So one thing that focusing onthe aging processes does is,
like I said, it prevents thesethings rather than getting
better at treating the problemsonce they occur.
You know what my friends in thefield say is we don't have a
healthcare system.
We have a sick care system.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Right, ain't that the truth?
What about diet?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
A diet is important, but it's also highly
individualized.
We know at a population levelthat people that are vegetarians
live longer than people who arenot vegetarians, but on the
other hand, people that arevegetarians have a lot of
lifestyle factors that areprobably different.
It's certainly in the animalworld.
(29:15):
We know that eating a lowprotein diet increases longevity
increases longevity.
That's not entirely clear inpeople, because low protein
diets tend to lead to lessmuscle and as you get older,
having muscle is more and moreand more important.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
You know, if you have weak legs muscles, you're
likely to fall.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Not us.
The person we're talking to inthe corner is Laura's sister, so
when I said not us, she also iswith me on long distances.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yes, very long distances.
I'll be like, what did you dothis weekend?
And she's like, oh, I did like150 mile bike ride.
And I'm like, oh my God, we'rejust prepping our legs to not
fall.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I trip a lot, but I don't fall.
Okay, diet, when you say highlyindividualized meaning, is
there like certain, are youtalking about?
Like blood types, or what doyou mean?
Well, that's it we don't, wedon't know yet how to
personalize diets.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
But we're learning because now you know everybody
can get their genome sequenceand pretty soon people are going
to figure out if you have thisgenetic signature, you're
healthier if you eat a low-carb,high-protein diet.
But if you have that, then youshould eat a low-protein,
high-carb diet.
One of the things we know isthat most people get plenty of
(30:37):
minerals, of vitamins andminerals.
There's lots of studies nowthat show that taking
multivitamins is a great placebobut it doesn't really have any
impact on health.
But that doesn't mean peopleshouldn't do it.
If it makes you feel better, mythought is, do it.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Mm-hmm.
Are there any supplements thatyou think are helpful?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Again, it depends on the person and it depends on
what you're doing.
There's a study that's going tocome out on Friday that's going
to make a big deal out ofvitamin D and I think it's
completely unwarranted.
But be prepared to hear abouthow great vitamin D is for
preventing aging.
Unwarranted because bad researchor not individualized the
(31:21):
research is okay, but themeasure that it's using of
success, which is the length ofyour telomeres in your blood
cells, is a not a good metric.
So you can get all these testsof your biological age.
You know there's a whole bunchof commercial.
None of them are worth anything, and I'll tell you.
(31:42):
I'll tell you why.
A friend of mine took up someof his own blood.
He split it up into 10 partsand he sent it off without any
information on his age to allthese places to get his
biological age measured and Ithink his real age is 62 and the
the results came back.
They ranged from 22 to 72 forhis biological age, and
(32:08):
sometimes the same lab wouldsend him back things that
differed by 20 years.
So it's a waste of money rightnow to get any of these tests
that tell you anything aboutyour biological age.
Just getting a good physicalwill tell you more about your
biological age than those.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
What about all these shots, these weight loss shots?
What do we think about?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
them.
Yeah, the GLP-1, those arereally intriguing and those may
turn out to be the first widelyused anti-aging drugs.
We don't know that yet, but wealready know because so many
people are taking these right.
Millions of people are takingthese, and they appear to be
protective against dementia,heart disease, kidney disease.
(32:56):
These are some of the biggesthealth problems that people have
as they get older, so thoselook like they have many
benefits besides weight loss.
Now what we don't know yet is ifyou don't need them for weight
loss, if you're at a healthybody weight and you start using
these, how beneficial they are.
Most of what we know about themare people that are high risk
(33:18):
for all these things becausethey're obese or they're
diabetic or both.
So but what we know isextremely provocative and
interesting.
There's a lot of research goingon in this area now and for the
most part, it's positive,correct.
Yes, absolutely Absolutely,from what we know.
But again, we know this frompeople who were not so healthy
(33:39):
to begin with.
What we don't know about any ofthis stuff is if you're really
healthy, if you, you know, ifyou get plenty of exercise and
you eat right, you have ahealthy body weight.
All these things.
We don't know if anything isbetter than that at this point.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Asking for a friend named Laura.
What is a glass of wine atnight?
Where do we fall on that?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yeah well, there's a lot of information on this.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It makes me happy.
I just want to throw that out.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, no, I think there is no harm in that.
There's recently been a coupleof highly publicized studies
that said any amount of alcoholis bad for you, but there are
many, many studies that say theopposite.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
In Italy back in the day.
Pregnant women drank all theway through there and I'm like
what kind of damn wine was that?
I don't think I'm notadvocating for that, just so
everybody understands, but I dothink it's an interesting like
abusing it versus having a glassof wine, right, I mean, at one
point people were thinking, youknow, a glass of wine or having
a couple of glasses of wine,right?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
I mean, at one point people were thinking, you know,
a glass of red wine a day ishealthy.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
I know, and that's because it contains trace
amounts of this chemical calledresveratrol, which at one point
was thought to be a potentanti-aging drug, but that turned
out to be nonsense.
But it wasn't nonsense for theperson who, uh, who discovered
it, because he built a companyand sold it for $720 million, uh
(35:10):
, to a big drug company who nowhas abandoned research in that
area because, turned out, didn'tdo anything Damn.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Good for him though.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That was a great question and let me say this
what I'm hearing from you isthis is there's some
generalizations of healthy bodyweight.
Move your body, find out whatfeels good as far as food that
you consume.
So there's some likegeneralizations around that, and
it sounds like the same foralcohol.
As I have aged, if I drink onebeer or one glass of wine, I
(35:44):
feel terrible, like it justdoesn't work for me, and I do it
anyway Sometimes.
I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I've never seen.
You only have one of anything.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Go on, you can take that right out of here.
The point was, one is enough,okay to make me feel bad.
So lots of generalizations andI'm hearing, but there's like
more to come.
You're hoping in the future wemight be able to be more
specific of Claire, becauseyou're this blood type which I
don't know, and should, youshould be eating plant-based
(36:17):
whatever.
Is that right, yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, and there's a ton of research going on in this
.
It's it's going to becomplicated because you have
20,000 genes, but but we'refiguring it out and pretty soon
you will be able to.
It's called personalizedmedicine.
I think it's what we shouldthink of it, as personalized
prevention, but that's going tobe available to anyone.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
How far away from that are we?
We're highly interested.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
A handful of years interested A handful of years.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Wow, a handful of years.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's open next week.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I know same.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So until then, should we all move to Japan, or what
do you think?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Well, no, it turns out, as Japanese people move to
the US, their life expectancydrops.
It doesn't drop as far as oursis and, by the way, the us has
the lowest life expectancy ofany industrialized country, any
technologically advancedcountries.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
because we don't know how to take care of ourselves
as a group and alabama's at thevery bottom, not the very bottom
like bottom three or four yeah,alabama has life expectancy.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
That's about the same as Mexico.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Wow, well, I hope that my clients that are
listening get to relax a littlebit, because a lot of my clients
are coming to me becausethey've bought this supplement
and this green juice and that,and we talk so much about
consumption and consumerism.
We can relax a little bit, iswhat you're saying?
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Yeah, around all this buying and taking.
Yeah, relax is right and go out, go for a walk, enjoy the
sunshine, get a good night'ssleep, eat food that you like.
If you have a glass of winethat doesn't make you feel good,
don't have a glass of wine.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
But if you have a glass of wine and you love that
shit.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Then have it.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, that's what I like to hear, doc.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Don't draw sad things .
That was great, oh, my pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Anything, we didn't ask that you would want to say.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I guess we said it, but let me emphasize it Beware
of anything you read on socialmedia that claims to have
anti-aging properties.
It's either unproven at best orcompletely bogus at worst.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Damn, I've got a lot of freedom.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Thank you.
Thank you Before you Cut Bangsis hosted by Laura Quick and
Claire Fehrman and produced byWill Lockamey.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Follow along with us everywhere.
Please subscribe to the podcast.
Find us on Instagram.
We're constantly doing polls.
We want to know what you think,and I know that you probably
know this, but reviewing us andgiving us five stars matters
more than anything, and we areso grateful to have you here.
Welcome to.
Before you Cut Bangs, I'm LauraQuick and I'm Claire.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Fehrman.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I am a professional storyteller and I'm currently
working on my first book.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I have worked in mental health for many years in
lots of capacities and this is areally important time to tell
you our big disclaimer this isnot therapy.
We are not your therapists orcoaches or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, I mean you shouldn't really trust us very
much at all, unless you want toand it turns out well, then you
can trust us, that's great.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Boy, this is a very special episode.
Before you cut bangs, we justhave a little rainbow thing.
It is, though, we're doing thisseries right and you're having
different guests on.
It's kind of our summer series.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I just named it.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And it's called Porch Talk or something, but Summer
Vacation.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's called Summer Vacation Because normally we
don't have guests on thispodcast, but now we have like a
series of them coming on and I'mreally really excited about
this one today.
So I heard on the radio a whileback this was years ago that
there was a bet between twoscientists that the first person
to be 150 years old was alreadyalive, and it was a billion
(01:16):
dollar bet.
And then turns out one of theguys that made that bet came on
my radio show because he was aTEDx speaker and he was talking
about longevity and we've beenfriends ever since and so now
he's on the radio show everycouple of weeks.
Jason Bateman mentioned him onSmartList the other day.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I saw that.
I saw that, which is prettydang incredible.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, but also like anytime, if you're watching CBS
Sunday mornings, they're talkingabout longevity like this is
the guy.
Dr Stephen Allstad is joiningus today.
I'm really looking forward toit and we're just like good
personal friends.
We just went to Alaska together.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Are you a billionaire yet?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I am not a billionaire yet.
Unfortunately, I have to waituntil the year 2150 to win my
bet, unless somebody lives to be150 before then, which is
entirely possible.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Wow, okay, well, I've got a lot of questions.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I didn't even think about that.
I thought it had to pay off onthat date in 2150 or whatever.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
No, that's the latest it could be.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Right.
But if someone was born in 2001, or was born in, let's say,
1990 and reaches 150 by 2140,then that'll also win the bet.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So you're saying there's a chance for me to help
you win this bet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Well it'sgoing to be a woman, for sure,
oh duh, obviously, and what typeof cut you think I could get if
I'm the one?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
If you're the one, then I would go 50-50.
So half a billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
That's pretty good.
I don't know what I could dowith that at 150 years old.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Is there any kind of stipulation, like they still
have to be cognizant, or do theyjust?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, no, no, no.
They have to be cognitively,they have to be able to carry on
a conversation and know whatthey're saying.
So that's an important caveat,because they can't be demented
and just be, you know, in bedstaring at the ceiling.
That doesn't do it.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That won't work.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I have faith in you.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Do you have faith in me?
I don't know.
Miss Runner, Claire's gottenathletic.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
She could tell me it's going to be my number one
cause of death.
I don't know, we always startthis with a warm-up question,
related or unrelated.
This one I going to be mynumber one cause of death.
I don't know, we always startthis with a warm-up question,
related or unrelated.
This one I made to be a littlebit related to the topic and
this goes for everyone to answer.
If you could age backward forone year, starting today, what
would you do differently withthat time?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Ooh, hmm, we're only talking about the last year, or
we're talking about agingbackward to any age that we want
it to be?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I like that great question, so let's do that.
If you could age backwards anddo some things differently,
where would you go and whatwould you do?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
boy, this is going to be really boring, but I don't
think I would do anythingdifferently.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Because I don't believe in looking backwards and
I made a number of decisionswhen I left the animal training
business to go to graduateschool.
I could think maybe you shouldhave stuck in the animal
training business, but on theother hand it all worked out.
So I think looking backwardsit's bad for your health.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
That is beautiful.
That's so mentally strong.
I was like I thought I wasgoing to stick with the one year
thing and I will say, becauseI've been working out with
weights for the last like sixmonths, I feel so much better
with like light weight training,where I used to just run my
heart out.
I would go back and do thatlonger.
(04:50):
I feel like because I just havefelt a big difference on like
how well I rest.
Based on that and it's not likeI'm not nobody's going to be
recruiting me to the Olympics.
Okay, I'm not setting anyrecords.
I'm lifting five to eight poundweights, but I feel a lot
better, so I would do that.
But I'm with you.
I'm lifting five to eight poundweights, but I feel a lot
better, so I would do that.
But I'm with you.
I don't like looking back.
I'm like there's no sense inthat.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Wilbur yeah, I mean I hate to just follow along with
that trend, but it is kind ofthe truth, like even the
mistakes that I've made, andthere have been plenty.
I wouldn't change most of thoseor any of those mistakes
because they've made me kind ofwho I am, I guess.
So I don't know If I, maybe Iwouldn't, I wouldn't eat as many
chicken wings, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I don't know, but even then I like chicken wings,
I love them, I know.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So I don't think I if I really honestly, physically,
the only thing I would change iswhen we used to run a ton and
we did like an ultra and trainfor a very long time.
I didn't wait train during that, so that's the only physical
thing.
If I could go back I would say,hey, I'm not going to run as
much, I'm going to mix in weighttraining as well.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah Well, from the therapist, y'all are giving
excellent clinical answers likeno regrets, so I can live with
that.
Um, I wish I would havebelieved I was mentally stronger
than I am.
I think that toughness now is agood thing, and I used to think
vulnerability was the answer toall of life's questions.
(06:13):
Not always, and plug your ears.
I wish I never smoked.
I bet you wish you never smoked.
I loved smoking.
I still love it.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, I liked it a lot.
I still miss it.
I haven't had a drag in youknow what?
16 and a half years.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I only smoked for that one week when all my
friends hazed me because Ithought I could lose 10 pounds
by smoking and that didn't work,and I feel like our bodies are
pretty good at like.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
If you quit smoking and then don't smoke for decades
and decades, your lungs prettymuch clean themselves out.
Is what I've been told.
Do you know?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
about this.
I know you're not a medicaldoctor.
Yes, by and large, after about15 or 20 years, that's true 15
or 20?
.
But you know, the funny thingabout smoking is that it was
known to be really bad for yourhealth in the 1930s.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Except for it was also really cool, though, right.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, I guess In the 1930s.
I'm not sure how cool it was,but there was a paper published
in the most famous sciencejournal in the world in 1938
that showed that people thatsmoked lived 10 years less on
average than people who didn't,and that's pretty much the same
thing we know today.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, it turns out they were just lying.
All the tobacco companies.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Yeah, I know, imagine that to make money.
Who knew?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So, like my husband always says, everybody just
wants to be cool.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I don't know if I agree with that, Dr Austin.
How do you become an agingspecialist?
What degrees along the way madeyou this expert on longevity?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Well, I have a very unusual route to being
interested in this.
I got interested in it actuallythrough animals, not because I
was particularly interested inhuman health, but I discovered
by accident that opossums age asfast as mice.
They only live a couple ofyears, they get cataracts, they
get parasites, they lose muscleover the course of a few months.
(08:12):
And that accidental observationgot me interested in well, why
do we age at all?
Why do some things age fast andsome things age slow?
And for the first 10 or 15years that I studied aging I did
not think about the humanimplications.
Never occurred to me.
And then suddenly one day Ithought wait a second, all this
(08:34):
stuff I've been studying, peoplewill be really interested in it
.
And the reason I think I becamean expert, a sort of broad
expert in it, is that, comingfrom the outside, I've always
felt if you could have come intoa new field from the outside,
you need to know it better thanthe people who are in it.
So I just did a tremendousamount of reading everything I
could get my hands on.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The lion, taming the fighting with the.
So that was your first career.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Well, I don't know.
I have several.
First, careers that was.
That was, let's say, my lastcareer before I went into
academics.
I was a taxi driver, I was apool hustler, I was a truck
driver.
I had a bunch of differentcareers because I was writing
the great american novel and Ineeded to put food on the table
(09:24):
while I did that.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I'm telling you.
When I told you that he's themost interesting man in the
world, that was not hyperbole,it's the truth.
And the stories are endless andwe unfortunately don't have
enough time for all of them, butI do want to hit on um, you
have been attacked by a lion andyou have been attacked by a
bear.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Did you guys?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
have any questions about that.
I know the answers.
I would just like kind of ageneral synopsis of those events
, one or the other or both.
Well, I didn't get hurt thatbadly by the bear.
I basically got bowled over andbatted around by a bear who got
mad at me because I was forcinghim.
This is a trained bear, verygood bear normally.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Wait, wait.
Why were you forcing the bearto do weird things?
Speaker 4 (10:35):
We were doing training for a particular movie.
So the way that movie animalsare trained is that you just
train them to generally obey,you teach them to sit a bunch of
things, but then they may haveto do something specific for the
movie.
So then you train them for thatparticular thing, just for the
movie.
And that's what we were workingon.
And it was a hot day and I'dmade him do it a whole bunch of
(10:56):
times in a row and he just saidthat's it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is this your first time training a bear?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it was and that's the
only bear I really worked with,but it was a very good bear most
of the time.
I mean, I did like bankopenings with the bear where I
would take the bear out with abunch of People, not on a leash
or anything.
He loved Tootsie Rolls, thelittle Tootsie Rolls.
I give Tootsie Rolls toeverybody and come up and feed
(11:25):
the bear.
But this one time he just lostit.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
What year was this?
This feels like something thatcould have happened.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I don't know 1975, something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
The bear was Gentle Ben, like the actual famous bear
, Gentle Ben.
That's the bear that isactually.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Gentle, ben tried to kick your ass.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Yeah, no, he didn't try, he kicked my ass.
I mean, the only injury I gotfrom that is he hurt my back
when he knocked me over.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Is that like Jeremiah Johnson Bear?
Or like Robert Redford moviesBear?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, I mean.
So here's the thing.
I don't know what movies GentleBen was in, but I know of
Gentle Ben the bear.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
The most famous movie that he was in was called the
life and times of judge roy bean, uh, in which, uh, paul newman
had to punch him in the face andhe wasn't very thrilled about
doing this, and we said, no, no,no, it's going to be okay, but
this is a one take, only shot.
You're never going to be ableto get near this bear again.
(12:20):
Um, so it it worked fine.
He punched him in the face, thebears yelled and went after him
and I jumped in between themand, uh, it worked well, but
again, it was one take only, andlet it be known that, uh, dr
ross, that in his entire familyare like massive animal lovers
and conservationists, and uhyeah so mean you can't hurt a
(12:42):
bear by punching it in the face.
It's going to hurt you All right.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So we need to roll right into like, talking about
aging and like how do you livelonger?
Who lives the longest right?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, and I think one of the things that we want to
tell you because we realize thatyou're probably not someone who
listens to a podcast calledBefore you Cut Bangs probably
not someone who listens to apodcast called before you cut
bangs Um, although I promise youwould laugh if you did Um, I
would love to tell you that oneof the reasons we started this
podcast is because, um, claireis a therapist and I am a person
(13:13):
who's needed a lot of therapyand and it was, and uh will is a
good sport, and so we reallywant to give people fun, down to
earth ways where they can staymentally healthy, and we
obviously know that living afull, whole life is part of that
.
So what maybe are some of thethings like what's the biggest
(13:34):
misconception about aging?
What do you see people?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I think the biggest misconception is that people
think it's largely genetic andthen if your parents didn't live
a long, healthy life, you'renot going to either, and that's
absolutely wrong.
We know a lot about this.
We know that about 25% of thelength of your life is
determined by your inheritance.
(13:57):
The rest is up to you.
The rest is lifestyleinheritance.
The rest is up to you.
The rest is lifestyle, and soyou can have a huge.
You know, if you had the lastthree generations all diet at 50
means nothing whatsoever foryour own longevity.
What really matters is yourlifestyle choices yeah, lean in,
tell us.
Well, I mean, they're verythey're.
(14:17):
It's not a secret, right, um?
Eating right, keeping a healthybody weight, getting a lot of
physical activity, a lot ofmental activity, sleep, all the
things that probably your mothertold you you should be doing.
That's still the best advice wehave.
In fact, we now know thatthings like exercise are not
(14:41):
just good for your body, they'regood for your brain.
It's a good way to stave offthings like Alzheimer's disease,
something that we never guessed.
So those are all the things.
It's not a big secret.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
So is that 25%, though that's hereditary?
Is that like heart disease orthings that, because you know,
we talked about this recentlyyou and I did where some people
that can seemingly be in greathealth and eat correctly and
work out and whatever, canautomatically just have a heart
attack and die at a relativelyyoung age?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, I mean people can have some genetic mutation
that maybe the parents had,maybe they didn't have, but
let's say they had a mutationthat made them particularly
susceptible to heart disease.
When I say that 25%, that'sabout people generally, for
people who die very young theyprobably had some family
inheritance and also for peoplethat live a very long time.
(15:35):
If you have a parent or arelative that lived over 100
hundred, that increases yourchances of living over a hundred
by about 20 fold.
Wow, so it has a huge impact,but for most of us it's really
lifestyle that matters exercise.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
You brought that up.
Isn't there kind of like a line, though, of like too much
cannot be good, like you talkedabout, when you study people
that have lived to be over ahundred or even over?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
like blue zones, for instance, when they say like
it's not, like they're out thereworking out every day, they're
just walking everywhere marathonrunners generally don't make
that list right right.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yeah, the list of player olds that are marathon
runners is vanishingly small.
Um, getting a sensible amountof exercise.
You can't overdo it.
I mean, if you overdo itdo itit can weaken your immune system
.
You know you can injureyourself, but most of us don't
have to worry about overdoing it, that's, you know we live such
(16:32):
sedentary lives relative to whatour ancestors lived, that we
don't really have to worry.
You know, if you run 50marathons a year, maybe you're
overdoing it, but I don't know alot of people that do that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think this is interesting the person that you
think is going to live to be 150, the first person you think
they're already alive and youhave it kind of narrowed down to
who this is.
It's not like a specific name,but you kind of know where this
person lives.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Sure, it's not like a specific name, but you kind of
know where this person lives.
Sure, my best guess is it'sgoing to be a Japanese woman,
because Japanese are thelongest-lived people that we
know about now, and womeneverywhere live longer than men.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Which is why I'm going to be starting a commune
after our husbands die, so thatall of my favorite women can
live alongside me with lots ofpool boys.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
And that's very true.
I mean, one of the importantthings is keeping your social
connections.
As you get older because womenlive longer than men, they often
lose a lot of their socialconnections if they had them
with men and they end up lonely.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, what is it about the Japanese women?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It's probably their diet.
There might be some geneticcomponents of that, because all
of the Asian countries, oncethey got wealthy enough to
afford enough food andeverything, they walk a lot.
All of the Asian countries arelong-lived.
Korea is long-lived, china, nowthat they're getting richer,
they're also.
(17:59):
So there could be somethinggenetic that we haven't
identified yet, but still rightnow, I think the Japanese woman
the most common age for women todie is about 94 years of age.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
So they're doing quite well.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Wow.
Where does happiness andpositivity land in aging and
longevity?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
That's a really, really complex question.
I'll just give you myobservations of the most
successful aging people that Iknow.
They tend to be people who livein the moment and don't worry
about things.
Bad things can happen to them.
That happened, it's bad, it'sgone.
(18:46):
And you say if you live longenough, all your children die,
your spouse dies, all yourfriends, and these people just
seem to be quite accepting.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
My son and I.
My son always jokes.
He's like you know, one daywe're going to be like old
together because we're only 20years apart.
He's like you know one daywe're going to be like old
together because we're only 20years apart.
He's like how cool is it thatwe're going to be like old
together?
And I was like don't be weird.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Well, I think this bodes well for me, because I
don't stress about stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I know you're incredibly flexible.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
We call Will our favorite Labrador retriever of a
human.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, well, yeah, I favorite labrador retriever of a
human, yeah well, yeah, I mean,you know a certain amount of
stress can actually bebeneficial, but too much stress
is clearly, clearly notbeneficial.
We know it destroys the immunesystem, it has all kinds of
really bad effects.
So but, on the other hand,something that people don't have
that much control over Somepeople are just, they have that
(19:41):
personality.
It's like sleep.
Sleep is one of the other bigthings, but you don't have that
much control over your.
You can control the amount oftime you spend in bed, but
that's not the same as theamount of time you spend getting
high quality sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Why is that?
Will you explain that a littlemore?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Why is sleep so important?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, no, no.
The people that don't havegreat sleep, and you're saying
that it's just who they are.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, I mean, we don't have good ways to
encourage.
There's only certain things youcan do.
You can cool the room, you cantry not to overstimulate
yourself, but still there arepeople that are good sleepers
and people that are not.
I'm not a good sleeper.
Most academics that I know arenot good sleepers.
(20:27):
You can take drugs, but therewas actually a recent study that
found that they've discoveredthis whole system new
circulatory system in your brainthat gets rid of wastes when
you're sleeping, and they havefound that the way that it is is
these vessels kind of pulse,and they move waste out of your
brain while you're sleeping.
And they have found that, andthe way that it has, is these
vessels kind of pulse, and theymove waste out of your brain
while you're sleeping.
So that's why it's good for you.
(20:48):
What they found, though, isthat if people take Ambien to
sleep, those pulses don't happen, so that kind of sleep is
apparently not as helpful asnormal sleep, which is very
disappointing for me to learn,since that's one of the ways I
can get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's a real plus sign for me, though, Doc if we're
being honest, because I'll besleeping hardcore.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I'm going for it.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Me too.
I love it.
Okay, you know, when we thinkabout the people who listen to
this podcast, we know that theyare people who either are
curious about the mental healthor and they maybe have lived
their own shit show of a lifeand just want to tune in for
whatever kind of crazy ass shitwe're going to talk about on
here, right?
But I think that we alsorealize that, by the surveys
(21:33):
we've done to the people who aretuning in, anxiety is something
that is high on their list.
It is something they're tryingto navigate, and I think that
one of the questions that I hadis they're also being inundated
because most of them are onsocial media.
They're getting ads foranti-aging.
Is there this is two partquestion is there a way to age
(21:53):
backwards?
Speaker 4 (21:55):
It's a very easy answer no.
Almost all of the anti-agingadvertisements that you see on
social media are absolutelybogus.
Sometimes they're just thingsthat there's no evidence to
support them, and sometimesthere's things that we know have
no effect.
There's lots of evidence toshow they have no effect, but
(22:16):
that doesn't stop people frommaking these ridiculous claims
on social media, and it's gottenworse recently.
I don't know why that is, butit drives me crazy, I have to
tell you.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And we've talked about overconsumption and really
kind of medicating yourscrolling and the algorithms are
so smart, right, they're goingto appeal to whatever you've
been Googling.
And maybe you've been trying tofigure out like, oh, I've got
these wrinkles and I hate them,or I feel tired all the time, or
whatever.
So when you think about NADsupplements, that's a big one
Like go get injections, spendall this money.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
So you're saying None of that is proven.
Now there are treatments forskin.
That's actually one of thethings that there are very good
treatments for.
There are things that'sactually one of the things that
there are very good treatmentsfor.
There are things.
Anything that contains Retin-A,for instance, is good for your
skin and can moisturize yourskin and make it look better.
(23:11):
It's not really turning backthe clock.
It's fixing some of the damagethat's happened over the years
to your skin.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Awesome Noted to call the dermatologist.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Retin-A got that, putting it on the list.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, isn't that retinol?
Is that the?
It's happened over the years toyour skin.
Awesome Noted to call thedermatologist Retin-A got that,
putting it on the list.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well, isn't that retinol?
Is that the same thing?
Yeah, yeah, I hate it.
It makes me break out.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I feel like in the past I've heard you say that
overall, when we look at peoplethat have lived to be over 100,
there are like a few things thatthey have in common, right?
The one was the exerciseroutinely.
What are some of the others?
I?
Speaker 4 (23:44):
wouldn't say they exercise routinely.
That's overstated.
I'd say they're physicallyactive.
But there are some people thataren't.
I mean there are people wholived over 100 who never did
anything.
There are obese people.
If you have the right genes youcan compensate for a lot.
A friend of mine has a woman inthe study who smoked for 95
(24:08):
years.
But that's very, veryexceptional For most of us.
It's really your lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I have the meanest grandma Like she.
Literally she's so freakingmean and she is in her late 80s.
She looks so good, hercheekbones are really hot and
she's she's mean as shit and shesmoked her whole life and I'm
just like damn, I just thinkit's just like she's so mean.
That's what kept her alive toomean to die too mean to die.
Do you think that's a thing?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
uh, I think it probably isn't okay well, that
bitch I mean.
there is this complication,though.
When I say people that live tobe that old are placid,
accepting, you know the peoplethat weren't.
You know they got to be tooanxious, they got to be too
(24:57):
stressed and they died.
I think that there's a kind ofa survivor bias.
The people that reach 80 arereally different than the people
that reach 100.
If you live your life in thebest styles, you're going to be
(25:17):
pretty likely a healthy80-year-old, but you're not
going to be a 100-year-oldunless we find some breakthrough
in aging biology, which there'sa lot of promise in but nothing
demonstrated yet.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What's the biggest breakthrough you've seen through
the research and we know thatyou are the guy.
What's the one that reallystands out to you?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well, I guess the thing that stands out the most
is that we now know of about adozen different drugs that, in
laboratory animals, can makethem stay healthy much longer 25
, 30% longer.
So you know, instead of havinga human equivalent, instead of
living to 80, we average wouldbe more like 110.
And finding that one drug doessomething like that, that
(26:04):
actually was shocking to me, butfinding a dozen that do it.
But here's the big caveat onthat First of all, we don't know
if any of these drugs do thesame thing in people, but most
of these only work in males.
What?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
And we don't know.
Shut up, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
We have no clue as to why that is that's because
women are living longer.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Than you assholes anyway, y'all actually need the
20 years to catch up.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I actually had that thought.
Like every time I hear womenlive longer, I'm like, oh, thank
god.
And then I forget that menmight be like, well, shit, so
I'm good for them, going to gofor them.
They got to win, but thesedrugs are not to.
I'm just making sure Iunderstand.
The drugs aren't a remedy forsome illness.
It is truly something toenhance life.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Right, they're preventatives.
That's the key thing is theyprevent the illnesses.
They don't treat the illnesses.
It turns out that they mighttreat the illnesses, but their
main effect is in preventingthem.
And that's why the biology ofaging is so important to the
future of human longevity,because it's almost the apex of
(27:13):
preventative medicine, becauseit doesn't just prevent cancer
or Alzheimer's disease, itprevents everything together.
Because all of these things,aging's the number one
underlying factor.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And lot of times people you know respond to like,
oh, these live to be 125, 150in the way of like I don't want
to be that old, that's, I'mgoing to feel terrible and
whatever.
But the idea is that 125 is thenew 85 or something like that.
Right, like your, your actualhappiness and well-being would
also extend along with theactual years.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Sure, yeah, I mean nobody's for extending, you know
, the last debilitating years ofyour life.
No, that's not what it's about.
It's about staying healthy.
And here's a concern.
In the last 30 years in theUnited States and in most other
developed countries, lifeexpectancy has continued to
(28:05):
increase, although at a slowerrate, but healthy life
expectancy has hardly budgedover that time.
So what we're doing now peoplethat used to die of a heart
attack they don't die now.
We know how to save them, butthey may live a compromised
health after that.
Same thing with people who hadcancer.
They died before.
Well, now we can save them, butthe treatments of cancer are
(28:27):
very hard on your body oh my God, so hard.
So one thing that focusing onthe aging processes does is,
like I said, it prevents thesethings rather than getting
better at treating the problemsonce they occur.
You know what my friends in thefield say is we don't have a
healthcare system.
We have a sick care system.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Right, ain't that the truth?
What about diet?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
A diet is important, but it's also highly
individualized.
We know at a population levelthat people that are vegetarians
live longer than people who arenot vegetarians, but on the
other hand, people that arevegetarians have a lot of
lifestyle factors that areprobably different.
It's certainly in the animalworld.
(29:15):
We know that eating a lowprotein diet increases longevity
increases longevity.
That's not entirely clear inpeople, because low protein
diets tend to lead to lessmuscle and as you get older,
having muscle is more and moreand more important.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
You know, if you have weak legs muscles, you're
likely to fall.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Not us.
The person we're talking to inthe corner is Laura's sister, so
when I said not us, she also iswith me on long distances.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yes, very long distances.
I'll be like, what did you dothis weekend?
And she's like, oh, I did like150 mile bike ride.
And I'm like, oh my God, we'rejust prepping our legs to not
fall.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I trip a lot, but I don't fall.
Okay, diet, when you say highlyindividualized meaning, is
there like certain, are youtalking about?
Like blood types, or what doyou mean?
Well, that's it we don't, wedon't know yet how to
personalize diets.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
But we're learning because now you know everybody
can get their genome sequenceand pretty soon people are going
to figure out if you have thisgenetic signature, you're
healthier if you eat a low-carb,high-protein diet.
But if you have that, then youshould eat a low-protein,
high-carb diet.
One of the things we know isthat most people get plenty of
(30:37):
minerals, of vitamins andminerals.
There's lots of studies nowthat show that taking
multivitamins is a great placebobut it doesn't really have any
impact on health.
But that doesn't mean peopleshouldn't do it.
If it makes you feel better, mythought is, do it.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Mm-hmm.
Are there any supplements thatyou think are helpful?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Again, it depends on the person and it depends on
what you're doing.
There's a study that's going tocome out on Friday that's going
to make a big deal out ofvitamin D and I think it's
completely unwarranted.
But be prepared to hear abouthow great vitamin D is for
preventing aging.
Unwarranted because bad researchor not individualized the
(31:21):
research is okay, but themeasure that it's using of
success, which is the length ofyour telomeres in your blood
cells, is a not a good metric.
So you can get all these testsof your biological age.
You know there's a whole bunchof commercial.
None of them are worth anything, and I'll tell you.
(31:42):
I'll tell you why.
A friend of mine took up someof his own blood.
He split it up into 10 partsand he sent it off without any
information on his age to allthese places to get his
biological age measured and Ithink his real age is 62 and the
the results came back.
They ranged from 22 to 72 forhis biological age, and
(32:08):
sometimes the same lab wouldsend him back things that
differed by 20 years.
So it's a waste of money rightnow to get any of these tests
that tell you anything aboutyour biological age.
Just getting a good physicalwill tell you more about your
biological age than those.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
What about all these shots, these weight loss shots?
What do we think about?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
them.
Yeah, the GLP-1, those arereally intriguing and those may
turn out to be the first widelyused anti-aging drugs.
We don't know that yet, but wealready know because so many
people are taking these right.
Millions of people are takingthese, and they appear to be
protective against dementia,heart disease, kidney disease.
(32:56):
These are some of the biggesthealth problems that people have
as they get older, so thoselook like they have many
benefits besides weight loss.
Now what we don't know yet is ifyou don't need them for weight
loss, if you're at a healthybody weight and you start using
these, how beneficial they are.
Most of what we know about themare people that are high risk
(33:18):
for all these things becausethey're obese or they're
diabetic or both.
So but what we know isextremely provocative and
interesting.
There's a lot of research goingon in this area now and for the
most part, it's positive,correct.
Yes, absolutely Absolutely,from what we know.
But again, we know this frompeople who were not so healthy
(33:39):
to begin with.
What we don't know about any ofthis stuff is if you're really
healthy, if you, you know, ifyou get plenty of exercise and
you eat right, you have ahealthy body weight.
All these things.
We don't know if anything isbetter than that at this point.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Asking for a friend named Laura.
What is a glass of wine atnight?
Where do we fall on that?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yeah well, there's a lot of information on this.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It makes me happy.
I just want to throw that out.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, no, I think there is no harm in that.
There's recently been a coupleof highly publicized studies
that said any amount of alcoholis bad for you, but there are
many, many studies that say theopposite.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
In Italy back in the day.
Pregnant women drank all theway through there and I'm like
what kind of damn wine was that?
I don't think I'm notadvocating for that, just so
everybody understands, but I dothink it's an interesting like
abusing it versus having a glassof wine, right, I mean, at one
point people were thinking, youknow, a glass of wine or having
a couple of glasses of wine,right?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
I mean, at one point people were thinking, you know,
a glass of red wine a day ishealthy.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
I know, and that's because it contains trace
amounts of this chemical calledresveratrol, which at one point
was thought to be a potentanti-aging drug, but that turned
out to be nonsense.
But it wasn't nonsense for theperson who, uh, who discovered
it, because he built a companyand sold it for $720 million, uh
(35:10):
, to a big drug company who nowhas abandoned research in that
area because, turned out, didn'tdo anything Damn.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Good for him though.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That was a great question and let me say this
what I'm hearing from you isthis is there's some
generalizations of healthy bodyweight.
Move your body, find out whatfeels good as far as food that
you consume.
So there's some likegeneralizations around that, and
it sounds like the same foralcohol.
As I have aged, if I drink onebeer or one glass of wine, I
(35:44):
feel terrible, like it justdoesn't work for me, and I do it
anyway Sometimes.
I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I've never seen.
You only have one of anything.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Go on, you can take that right out of here.
The point was, one is enough,okay to make me feel bad.
So lots of generalizations andI'm hearing, but there's like
more to come.
You're hoping in the future wemight be able to be more
specific of Claire, becauseyou're this blood type which I
don't know, and should, youshould be eating plant-based
(36:17):
whatever.
Is that right, yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yeah, and there's a ton of research going on in this
.
It's it's going to becomplicated because you have
20,000 genes, but but we'refiguring it out and pretty soon
you will be able to.
It's called personalizedmedicine.
I think it's what we shouldthink of it, as personalized
prevention, but that's going tobe available to anyone.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
How far away from that are we?
We're highly interested.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
A handful of years interested A handful of years.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Wow, a handful of years.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's open next week.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I know same.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So until then, should we all move to Japan, or what
do you think?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Well, no, it turns out, as Japanese people move to
the US, their life expectancydrops.
It doesn't drop as far as oursis and, by the way, the us has
the lowest life expectancy ofany industrialized country, any
technologically advancedcountries.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
because we don't know how to take care of ourselves
as a group and alabama's at thevery bottom, not the very bottom
like bottom three or four yeah,alabama has life expectancy.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
That's about the same as Mexico.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Wow, well, I hope that my clients that are
listening get to relax a littlebit, because a lot of my clients
are coming to me becausethey've bought this supplement
and this green juice and that,and we talk so much about
consumption and consumerism.
We can relax a little bit, iswhat you're saying?
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Yeah, around all this buying and taking.
Yeah, relax is right and go out, go for a walk, enjoy the
sunshine, get a good night'ssleep, eat food that you like.
If you have a glass of winethat doesn't make you feel good,
don't have a glass of wine.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
But if you have a glass of wine and you love that
shit.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Then have it.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, that's what I like to hear, doc.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Don't draw sad things .
That was great, oh, my pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Anything, we didn't ask that you would want to say.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I guess we said it, but let me emphasize it Beware
of anything you read on socialmedia that claims to have
anti-aging properties.
It's either unproven at best orcompletely bogus at worst.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Damn, I've got a lot of freedom.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Thank you.
Thank you Before you Cut Bangsis hosted by Laura Quick and
Claire Fehrman and produced byWill Lockamey.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Follow along with us everywhere.
Please subscribe to the podcast.
Find us on Instagram.
We're constantly doing polls.
We want to know what you think,and I know that you probably
know this, but reviewing us andgiving us five stars matters
more than anything, and we areso grateful to have you here.
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