This week on BioTech Nation, Dr. Eric Topol, professor and Executive Vice President at Scripps Research and author of "Super Agers … An Evidenced-Based Approach to Longevity", breaks down what science really says about aging well and what is just marketing. From immune-boosting cell therapy to the myth of magic longevity pills, Dr. Topol explains how evidence-based prevention, personalized health data, and AI are changing the future of aging.
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Dr. Moira Gunn (00:11):
Doctor Eric Topol joins me to talk about
what we know and what we don'tknow about longevity. Science
has something to say about someareas and is curiously silent in
disagreement about others. Hisbook is superagers, an evidence
based approach to longevity.You're listening to part one of
(00:32):
a two part interview. DoctorTopol, welcome back to Tech
Nation.
Dr. Eric Topol (00:37):
Hey. It's great to be with you, Moira. It's been
too long.
Dr. Moira Gunn (00:40):
Been too long. Yet, I love what we're talking
about, superaging. So thesubtitle to your book says it
all, an evidence based approachto longevity. You've collected a
lot of evidence, you've seen alot of evidence, how much
evidence? What kind of evidence?
Dr. Eric Topol (00:59):
Yeah, well, as you say, it's a huge body of
evidence, and that's why I'mespecially optimistic that for
the first time we have theability to prevent the major age
related diseases that is cancer,cardiovascular, and
neurodegenerative, which wenever really done ever before in
(01:21):
a, in a meaningful way. Butthat's what's the big change.
That's what's exciting. And it'ssomething, an opportunity that
we have to seize at. We have togo for it because it's unique in
time in life science andmedicine.
What most people have beenthinking, the science of aging
(01:42):
is going to bring about a newmagic potion or pill that's
going to reverse our aging. Moreof that may someday be possible,
but what is possible right nowis to use the science of aging.
And we'll talk more about whatare those advances, these
metrics in particular that helpus guide the age related disease
(02:04):
prevention. That's where youdon't have to have big risk, but
you have big gains, much biggergains than trying to cure or
treat a disease is just toprevent it from ever happening
in the first place.
Dr. Moira Gunn (02:17):
Now I was thrilled to see that you quote
president John F. Kennedy rightin the front of the book. He
says, it's not enough for agreat nation merely to have
added New Years to life. Ourobjective must also be to add
new life to those years. Seemsto me you're talking just
(02:38):
exactly about that.
Dr. Eric Topol (02:39):
That's exactly the story, Maura, that this
fixation on longevity is not thegoal, even though that's in the
subtitle of the book, becausethe publisher demanded it to
happen. You know, I wanted tocall the book The Welderly, but
they said, Well, no one knowswhat that is. That's a word, you
know, that's been coined. Butbasically we, the goal here is
(03:02):
health span, not lifespan,health span. And we have to get
the most years we can that weare free of the big three age
related diseases.
If we can do that, we'veaccomplished the mission. And I
would submit to you and yourlisteners, we can do that now.
That's what's so extraordinary.We we've moved on to a time when
(03:24):
primary prevention of thesediseases is becoming possible.
Whereas for millennia, wedreamed about it.
It was a fantasy that can befulfilled in the future.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:35):
Now you see these driven by five dimensions.
Let's talk about those fivedimensions.
Dr. Eric Topol (03:42):
Yeah. So the one that pulls it all together is
the AI. And so a lot of peopleare saying, AI? No. We need AI
because us humans can't dealwith billions of data points for
each human being.
And that's what is now becomepossible with these large
language models and largereasoning models. We could never
(04:03):
done that before. Now that isbringing in these other four
dimensions, lifestyle plusfactors, which is not just diet,
exercise, and sleep. It'sbringing in the omics, which are
our biological data. That's ourgenes and our proteins and our
gut microbiome, our epigenome,our immuno, which we desperately
(04:27):
need.
And then we have cells, cells asa drug, as a therapy, it's
emerging to be much bigger thanwe ever expected. And then
finally is the drugs vaccinegroup, which really are going to
be coalesced more because we'regonna use vaccines, for example,
to rev up an immune system, likea drug, which we can use to tone
(04:51):
down like a rheostat, the immunesystem. So all these things
together is enabling this newextraordinary time in medicine.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:01):
Now I kept coming back to, as I was reading
that, you know, eat, drink, andbe merry as in what are you
eating? What are you drinking ornot drinking? Are you upbeat?
All of that. Let's talk aboutthe welderly study.
Dr. Eric Topol (05:17):
Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:18):
Who are welderlies?
Dr. Eric Topol (05:20):
Yes. So we spent seven years here at Scripps
Research to bring together, findthese 1,400 people that were
willing to participate, whichmeant having their genome, whole
genome sequence and telling useverything about them.
Fortunately, they didn't haveany medical records of much
(05:41):
because they were so healthy.The entry criteria was over age
85 and it got up to age 102, andthey couldn't have had any
chronic diseases. Okay.
So they, they were certainlyfree of these major age related
diseases, but they were free of,you know, other age and chronic
diseases. They had to be healthywithout medications. I mean,
(06:04):
they were, you know, kind ofTeflon coated, bulletproof,
whatever you wanna say. Theywere amazing people. That's why
it took seven years to findthem.
They were such stringent entrycriteria that we're talking
about, you know, zero point onepercent of people in their late
eighties and nineties. Now weexpected, you know, how you go
in with a bias, we're gonna findall these genes because there's
(06:26):
never been a study like this.And we're gonna find what is the
secret in their genomes. And webasically found nothing,
nothing. That they were- we hadcontrol groups that were the
elderly, are, you know, theusual suspects who have a
chronic disease, one of these,or more than one chronic
disease, we compared it tovarious control groups and we
(06:48):
didn't see much difference.
So the conclusion of that isreally that, okay, genes are
playing some role, but it's notthe dominant factor. And of
course, I introduced the bookwith a new elderly, a patient of
mine who I saw recently, LeeRussell, who at the age of 98,
(07:09):
all her relatives, parents, herbrothers, they died in their
fifties and sixties. So why isshe 98 and is a welderly, right?
So that's really what the bookis all about, how we can all
become welderly in the future.And we will see many more people
like Lee Russell and my otherpatient who I presented, Mr.
(07:30):
RP. We're gonna see a lot moreof these folks going forward. In
this kind of dark times for lifescience and medicine, with all
the challenges that we'refacing, resources, funding,
getting gutted and whatnot. Thisis really brimming with
optimism. We've got a brightfuture ahead of us.
Dr. Moira Gunn (07:47):
Well, let's start with the eat of eat,
drink, and be merry.
Dr. Eric Topol (07:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (07:52):
You talk about restricted diets or individually
optimal or optimized diets oryou know, there's a set of
they're not distinct. I mean,this is sort of verbiage around
this. What are we talking aboutfor the What did you discover
about these people with regardsto eating?
Dr. Eric Topol (08:13):
Yeah. So the diet that is the one you have to
say is the winning diet forhealthy aging is Mediterranean
diet, mainly plant based diet,you know, reduction of red meat,
this diet with lots of fruitsand vegetables and legumes and
(08:35):
whole grains, it's a winner. Anda recent study reinforced that,
Moira, because one hundred andfive thousand people were
followed thirty years and onlynine percent of them got to this
elderly state. And what'sinteresting is what did they eat
just the same as what therandomized studies and all the
other data point to. So we nowknow what is the healthiest diet
(08:59):
to promote healthy aging.
And people who wanna eat somered meat, that's okay, but just
not on a frequent basis. Andmainly it's of course to keep up
with avoidance of ultraprocessed foods and not to
overdose on protein. There's aprotein craze right now. And
(09:19):
there's at least one major mainauthor who's advocated for one
gram per pound per day. That's ahuge amount of protein load, and
that can promote inflammationand atherosclerosis as we've
seen.
So, you know, not to go for datathat's not backed up by evidence
when it can actually be harmful.So the diet, I think that's the
(09:42):
main outline, stick to, youknow, predominant plant based,
with as low and ultra processedfoods that are very pro
inflammatory and be carefulabout overdosing on protein.
It's good to increase it some aswe get older, but don't go wild.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:59):
Well, here's a question that I was gonna ask
later, but just the way you'vebeen talking about this, brings
it to mind. How do we know whenwe're listening to pseudoscience
or quackery, shall we say, howdo we know when we're listening
to that? What do you say?
Dr. Eric Topol (10:19):
Yeah. So there's several ways that you can kind
of ferret out the facts, thetruth, the evidence versus the
lack thereof of any of those.One thing of course is, you
know, the person who's writing,you know, are they credible?
Like for example, if they'reHawking supplements, they're
(10:40):
automatically not credible,right? What is their academic,
accomplishments and trackrecord?
You know, have they beendiscredited? Have they, you
know, do they publish and dothey do, you know, top tier peer
reviewed journals? Are they wellregarded by peers and that sort
of thing? But the next thing isshow me the data, show me the
(11:01):
references because here's thecitation and you can look
yourself, you know, you can seeyourself what you think,
because, you know, for me, I'minterpreting in this book over
1,800 citations, and maybe Ididn't interpret it right. You
can do it yourself.
Right? I mean, everybody canlook at the data themselves, but
the point is here it is. Anddon't write things where there's
(11:24):
no data, or at least say, youknow, we don't know has to be
tested and proven. You know, theproblem we have is in this
longevity space, we got antiaging supplements that have no
data. We have longevity clinicsthat you could join for $250,000
or some ridiculous fee promotinglongevity.
(11:45):
We have all these companies thatsay they're longevity companies
that are doing every test andscan known to mankind. I mean,
is just full of bunk, full of,you know, complete, things that
are not backed up by data. And,you know, it's predatory. That's
the problem. It they got lots ofprey out there and the richest
(12:09):
people are the interesting onesbecause when they were young,
they wanted to be rich.
And now they're rich. They wannabe young. So they've made mega
investments, mega investments inthese companies that are, some
of them are valued in thebillions of dollars. So, some of
them are doing really goodscience. Okay?
(12:30):
They got all this capital andthey're doing good work. They're
not part of the illusion or partof the scam, if you will. But
there are others that arepromoting stuff. And then we
have these extremists, like thisguy, Brian Johnson, he has a
Netflix special, and this guy,know, who's don't die. He has a
religion now.
(12:50):
Don't die. And, you know, weshould be immortal. And he's had
plasmapheresis from his son. Heuses a penile sensor each night
and compares it with his son'serections. I mean, just crazy
stuff, 100 plus supplements.
You know, we have these thesepeople have a following, and
(13:11):
it's scary, Moira. It's scarythat we have this kinda stuff
without any evidence, thatpeople wanna wanna be part of
this, like, a cult.
Dr. Moira Gunn (13:21):
You're listening to Tech Nation. I'm Moira Gunn,
and my guest today is doctorEric Topol, a professor and
executive vice president ofScripps Research. He's also the
founder and director of theScripps Research Translational
Institute. You might know himfrom his earlier books,
including Deep Medicine or hissubstack, Ground Truths. Today,
(13:43):
we're talking about superagers,an evidence based approach to
longevity.
Well, I'm gonna ask you about inmy eat, drink, and be merry. You
sent out something recently, andyou do talk about this in the
book, but you're really doing adeep dive now.
Dr. Eric Topol (14:00):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (14:01):
Alcohol, As people age, you know, their
relationship to alcohol changes,and some people just want more
of it. You know, it's a selfit's a self medication prospect
here. You know? Tell us aboutthat. What have you figured out
about alcohol?
Dr. Eric Topol (14:18):
I gave you the three word answer, which is the
ground truth. We don't know. Andthe reason I say that is I
reviewed in the ground truthsubstack, the three new reports
that are essentially based onthe same data, right? And one of
them, the National Academy, theydid it all over again. They went
(14:39):
scoured the, these reports andthey took out people who, you
know, they drank once and thenthey became, abstainers and they
basically reanalyzed everything.
One report from the surgeongeneral just quoted a couple of
reports that coincided with hisbelief that alcohol is not good
for you. And then another reportby the HHS, said, Any alcohol is
(15:02):
not good. Well, the interestingthing is, we talk about looking
at things on a two sided way.The only one of these three
reports was the NationalAcademy. They look for benefits.
Okay? The other two only lookfor risks. And the national
academy actually found benefitup to seven drinks per week and
a little bit less perhaps forwomen than men. Basically that
(15:25):
was the cutoff. And the othersof course said, no, no, there's
just risk.
Now, which one do you like?Well, if you like to have a
glass of wine or a beer orcocktail, a couple of few a
week, no, you might wanna takethe national academy's report.
If you, if you are really,worried about the alcohol
(15:45):
impact, then you would pick theother report. Basically, we
don't know because the data arelacking randomized trials. Each
of the studies has its usualwarts of observational studies.
And you could say the peoplethat issued the reports have
their own bias, right? But theNational Academies, I have to
(16:06):
say, in reviewing them allin-depth, was the one that
really was the most rigorous.And that reinforced that, Hey,
you know, we wanna be sociallyactive and interactive. And, you
know, usually that may involvehaving some alcohol, right? But
there is a movement againstalcohol right now in certain
countries.
You know, they have it labeledon the alcohol that this could
(16:27):
cause cancer. And there is arisk in women for breast cancer,
all the, that's the only thingthe three reports agree on is
that if you go beyond sevendrinks per week in women, there
is a risk increase of breastcancer. That we can say for
sure. Everything else, theNational Academy's discounted,
but the other two reports, allthese cancers like oral cancer,
(16:51):
colon cancer, liver cancer, theyall saw an increase. So, you
know, it's murky, it shouldn'tbe, but that's the way it is,
unfortunately.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:01):
Jury is out. The jury is out.
Dr. Eric Topol (17:03):
The jury's still out. Yep. Yep.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:04):
Jury's still out. When I was reading your
material, I was a little inshock because I remembered years
ago when I was pregnant with myboys, I had, just a normal OB
GYN who told me, oh, he said,you can have two drinks a day.
And he goes, and I'm talkingabout a glass of wine, a really
big glass of wine. You couldhave two of those, which would
(17:26):
be like three, I think now oreven four. I mean, it was like,
sure.
That's, you know I was like,Really? And my mother smokes
cigarettes all the way throughher pregnancies. Life will out,
I guess. Yeah.
Dr. Eric Topol (17:43):
Well, I don't think alcohol would be safe
during pregnancy. And your pointabout the what's in a glass of
wine, five ounces is not much.You know, it's not much. So you
pour a big glass of wine, you'vealready, you're getting
probably, like you said, a fewdrinks right there, at least two
to three. So, you know, we haveto be careful because there is a
threshold where the riskincrease.
(18:04):
And one of the things I wannaemphasize, which is a theme in
the book, each of us are unique.And so these prescriptions for
the whole human species, theycan't be right. Some people have
a cancer susceptibility. Okay.And some are resilient because
they have a great immune system.
So to say, this is theprescription for all human
(18:26):
beings is wrong from the get go.Right? So that's something to
keep in mind because the realtheme of this book is once we
have all the layers of data foreach person, that's how we
identify high risk. And that'show we prevent the disease. But,
you know, to just to say, youknow, all people do this, all
(18:47):
people do that.
No. No. It's it's just doesn'twork that way.
Dr. Moira Gunn (18:53):
Now we've been through AI and we've been
through lifestyle. Let's go tocells. 37,000,000,000,000 in our
bodies. That's another driver ofgood aging, if you will, super
aging.
Dr. Eric Topol (19:06):
Yeah, here the immune system, I have a whole
chapter about that, is the bigdriver of our health. Because as
you know, Moira, these cells inthe immune system, like B and T
cells and others, they cansecrete these proteins,
cytokines, chemokines, andincite inflammation throughout
(19:29):
our body and in our brain. Andthat inflammation is usually
untoward, unwanted, bad, right?And so we now can control the
immune system like we'd neverbeen able to do before. So one
of the most extraordinarybiomedical advances that I've
(19:50):
seen in recent years was peoplewith autoimmune diseases like
lupus, systemic sclerosis,multiple sclerosis.
They had cell therapy to knockout their B cells. And the B
cells, when they came back,which they do, of course, they
forgot that they were in aperson with an autoimmune
(20:12):
disease. They had like a controlalt delete reset.
Dr. Moira Gunn (20:16):
Yeah.
Dr. Eric Topol (20:17):
And so all of a sudden they're cured. These
people were cured. Okay. Whowould ever guess that if we just
get rid of the B cells and whenthey come back, they forgot to
attack the person, right? Sothis is exciting because you
know, these drugs that we use totreat these diseases, these are
terrible drugs.
They cause immunosuppression andvulnerability to infection, some
(20:40):
serious infection. So we have awhole new way potentially to use
cells to control our immunesystem. And we're talking about
off the shelf cells, notnecessarily taking your cells
out and engineering them andputting them back in. And when
we have off the shelf cells astherapy for cancer, immune
(21:03):
diseases, and many other, youknow, just treating inflammation
in the body for these variousindications, that's when it
becomes inexpensive andpractical.
Dr. Moira Gunn (21:13):
I'm speaking with Doctor. Eric Topol, the
author of Super Agers, anEvidence Based Approach to
Longevity. Listen to part two ofthis interview in our next
podcast.
Doctor Eric Topol joins me to talk about
what we know and what we don'tknow about longevity. Science
has something to say about someareas and is curiously silent in
disagreement about others. Hisbook is superagers, an evidence
based approach to longevity.You're listening to part one of
(00:32):
a two part interview. DoctorTopol, welcome back to Tech
Nation.
Dr. Eric Topol (00:37):
Hey. It's great to be with you, Moira. It's been
too long.
Dr. Moira Gunn (00:40):
Been too long. Yet, I love what we're talking
about, superaging. So thesubtitle to your book says it
all, an evidence based approachto longevity. You've collected a
lot of evidence, you've seen alot of evidence, how much
evidence? What kind of evidence?
Dr. Eric Topol (00:59):
Yeah, well, as you say, it's a huge body of
evidence, and that's why I'mespecially optimistic that for
the first time we have theability to prevent the major age
related diseases that is cancer,cardiovascular, and
neurodegenerative, which wenever really done ever before in
(01:21):
a, in a meaningful way. Butthat's what's the big change.
That's what's exciting. And it'ssomething, an opportunity that
we have to seize at. We have togo for it because it's unique in
time in life science andmedicine.
What most people have beenthinking, the science of aging
(01:42):
is going to bring about a newmagic potion or pill that's
going to reverse our aging. Moreof that may someday be possible,
but what is possible right nowis to use the science of aging.
And we'll talk more about whatare those advances, these
metrics in particular that helpus guide the age related disease
(02:04):
prevention. That's where youdon't have to have big risk, but
you have big gains, much biggergains than trying to cure or
treat a disease is just toprevent it from ever happening
in the first place.
Dr. Moira Gunn (02:17):
Now I was thrilled to see that you quote
president John F. Kennedy rightin the front of the book. He
says, it's not enough for agreat nation merely to have
added New Years to life. Ourobjective must also be to add
new life to those years. Seemsto me you're talking just
(02:38):
exactly about that.
Dr. Eric Topol (02:39):
That's exactly the story, Maura, that this
fixation on longevity is not thegoal, even though that's in the
subtitle of the book, becausethe publisher demanded it to
happen. You know, I wanted tocall the book The Welderly, but
they said, Well, no one knowswhat that is. That's a word, you
know, that's been coined. Butbasically we, the goal here is
(03:02):
health span, not lifespan,health span. And we have to get
the most years we can that weare free of the big three age
related diseases.
If we can do that, we'veaccomplished the mission. And I
would submit to you and yourlisteners, we can do that now.
That's what's so extraordinary.We we've moved on to a time when
(03:24):
primary prevention of thesediseases is becoming possible.
Whereas for millennia, wedreamed about it.
It was a fantasy that can befulfilled in the future.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:35):
Now you see these driven by five dimensions.
Let's talk about those fivedimensions.
Dr. Eric Topol (03:42):
Yeah. So the one that pulls it all together is
the AI. And so a lot of peopleare saying, AI? No. We need AI
because us humans can't dealwith billions of data points for
each human being.
And that's what is now becomepossible with these large
language models and largereasoning models. We could never
(04:03):
done that before. Now that isbringing in these other four
dimensions, lifestyle plusfactors, which is not just diet,
exercise, and sleep. It'sbringing in the omics, which are
our biological data. That's ourgenes and our proteins and our
gut microbiome, our epigenome,our immuno, which we desperately
(04:27):
need.
And then we have cells, cells asa drug, as a therapy, it's
emerging to be much bigger thanwe ever expected. And then
finally is the drugs vaccinegroup, which really are going to
be coalesced more because we'regonna use vaccines, for example,
to rev up an immune system, likea drug, which we can use to tone
(04:51):
down like a rheostat, the immunesystem. So all these things
together is enabling this newextraordinary time in medicine.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:01):
Now I kept coming back to, as I was reading
that, you know, eat, drink, andbe merry as in what are you
eating? What are you drinking ornot drinking? Are you upbeat?
All of that. Let's talk aboutthe welderly study.
Dr. Eric Topol (05:17):
Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:18):
Who are welderlies?
Dr. Eric Topol (05:20):
Yes. So we spent seven years here at Scripps
Research to bring together, findthese 1,400 people that were
willing to participate, whichmeant having their genome, whole
genome sequence and telling useverything about them.
Fortunately, they didn't haveany medical records of much
(05:41):
because they were so healthy.The entry criteria was over age
85 and it got up to age 102, andthey couldn't have had any
chronic diseases. Okay.
So they, they were certainlyfree of these major age related
diseases, but they were free of,you know, other age and chronic
diseases. They had to be healthywithout medications. I mean,
(06:04):
they were, you know, kind ofTeflon coated, bulletproof,
whatever you wanna say. Theywere amazing people. That's why
it took seven years to findthem.
They were such stringent entrycriteria that we're talking
about, you know, zero point onepercent of people in their late
eighties and nineties. Now weexpected, you know, how you go
in with a bias, we're gonna findall these genes because there's
(06:26):
never been a study like this.And we're gonna find what is the
secret in their genomes. And webasically found nothing,
nothing. That they were- we hadcontrol groups that were the
elderly, are, you know, theusual suspects who have a
chronic disease, one of these,or more than one chronic
disease, we compared it tovarious control groups and we
(06:48):
didn't see much difference.
So the conclusion of that isreally that, okay, genes are
playing some role, but it's notthe dominant factor. And of
course, I introduced the bookwith a new elderly, a patient of
mine who I saw recently, LeeRussell, who at the age of 98,
(07:09):
all her relatives, parents, herbrothers, they died in their
fifties and sixties. So why isshe 98 and is a welderly, right?
So that's really what the bookis all about, how we can all
become welderly in the future.And we will see many more people
like Lee Russell and my otherpatient who I presented, Mr.
(07:30):
RP. We're gonna see a lot moreof these folks going forward. In
this kind of dark times for lifescience and medicine, with all
the challenges that we'refacing, resources, funding,
getting gutted and whatnot. Thisis really brimming with
optimism. We've got a brightfuture ahead of us.
Dr. Moira Gunn (07:47):
Well, let's start with the eat of eat,
drink, and be merry.
Dr. Eric Topol (07:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (07:52):
You talk about restricted diets or individually
optimal or optimized diets oryou know, there's a set of
they're not distinct. I mean,this is sort of verbiage around
this. What are we talking aboutfor the What did you discover
about these people with regardsto eating?
Dr. Eric Topol (08:13):
Yeah. So the diet that is the one you have to
say is the winning diet forhealthy aging is Mediterranean
diet, mainly plant based diet,you know, reduction of red meat,
this diet with lots of fruitsand vegetables and legumes and
(08:35):
whole grains, it's a winner. Anda recent study reinforced that,
Moira, because one hundred andfive thousand people were
followed thirty years and onlynine percent of them got to this
elderly state. And what'sinteresting is what did they eat
just the same as what therandomized studies and all the
other data point to. So we nowknow what is the healthiest diet
(08:59):
to promote healthy aging.
And people who wanna eat somered meat, that's okay, but just
not on a frequent basis. Andmainly it's of course to keep up
with avoidance of ultraprocessed foods and not to
overdose on protein. There's aprotein craze right now. And
(09:19):
there's at least one major mainauthor who's advocated for one
gram per pound per day. That's ahuge amount of protein load, and
that can promote inflammationand atherosclerosis as we've
seen.
So, you know, not to go for datathat's not backed up by evidence
when it can actually be harmful.So the diet, I think that's the
(09:42):
main outline, stick to, youknow, predominant plant based,
with as low and ultra processedfoods that are very pro
inflammatory and be carefulabout overdosing on protein.
It's good to increase it some aswe get older, but don't go wild.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:59):
Well, here's a question that I was gonna ask
later, but just the way you'vebeen talking about this, brings
it to mind. How do we know whenwe're listening to pseudoscience
or quackery, shall we say, howdo we know when we're listening
to that? What do you say?
Dr. Eric Topol (10:19):
Yeah. So there's several ways that you can kind
of ferret out the facts, thetruth, the evidence versus the
lack thereof of any of those.One thing of course is, you
know, the person who's writing,you know, are they credible?
Like for example, if they'reHawking supplements, they're
(10:40):
automatically not credible,right? What is their academic,
accomplishments and trackrecord?
You know, have they beendiscredited? Have they, you
know, do they publish and dothey do, you know, top tier peer
reviewed journals? Are they wellregarded by peers and that sort
of thing? But the next thing isshow me the data, show me the
(11:01):
references because here's thecitation and you can look
yourself, you know, you can seeyourself what you think,
because, you know, for me, I'minterpreting in this book over
1,800 citations, and maybe Ididn't interpret it right. You
can do it yourself.
Right? I mean, everybody canlook at the data themselves, but
the point is here it is. Anddon't write things where there's
(11:24):
no data, or at least say, youknow, we don't know has to be
tested and proven. You know, theproblem we have is in this
longevity space, we got antiaging supplements that have no
data. We have longevity clinicsthat you could join for $250,000
or some ridiculous fee promotinglongevity.
(11:45):
We have all these companies thatsay they're longevity companies
that are doing every test andscan known to mankind. I mean,
is just full of bunk, full of,you know, complete, things that
are not backed up by data. And,you know, it's predatory. That's
the problem. It they got lots ofprey out there and the richest
(12:09):
people are the interesting onesbecause when they were young,
they wanted to be rich.
And now they're rich. They wannabe young. So they've made mega
investments, mega investments inthese companies that are, some
of them are valued in thebillions of dollars. So, some of
them are doing really goodscience. Okay?
(12:30):
They got all this capital andthey're doing good work. They're
not part of the illusion or partof the scam, if you will. But
there are others that arepromoting stuff. And then we
have these extremists, like thisguy, Brian Johnson, he has a
Netflix special, and this guy,know, who's don't die. He has a
religion now.
(12:50):
Don't die. And, you know, weshould be immortal. And he's had
plasmapheresis from his son. Heuses a penile sensor each night
and compares it with his son'serections. I mean, just crazy
stuff, 100 plus supplements.
You know, we have these thesepeople have a following, and
(13:11):
it's scary, Moira. It's scarythat we have this kinda stuff
without any evidence, thatpeople wanna wanna be part of
this, like, a cult.
Dr. Moira Gunn (13:21):
You're listening to Tech Nation. I'm Moira Gunn,
and my guest today is doctorEric Topol, a professor and
executive vice president ofScripps Research. He's also the
founder and director of theScripps Research Translational
Institute. You might know himfrom his earlier books,
including Deep Medicine or hissubstack, Ground Truths. Today,
(13:43):
we're talking about superagers,an evidence based approach to
longevity.
Well, I'm gonna ask you about inmy eat, drink, and be merry. You
sent out something recently, andyou do talk about this in the
book, but you're really doing adeep dive now.
Dr. Eric Topol (14:00):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Moira Gunn (14:01):
Alcohol, As people age, you know, their
relationship to alcohol changes,and some people just want more
of it. You know, it's a selfit's a self medication prospect
here. You know? Tell us aboutthat. What have you figured out
about alcohol?
Dr. Eric Topol (14:18):
I gave you the three word answer, which is the
ground truth. We don't know. Andthe reason I say that is I
reviewed in the ground truthsubstack, the three new reports
that are essentially based onthe same data, right? And one of
them, the National Academy, theydid it all over again. They went
(14:39):
scoured the, these reports andthey took out people who, you
know, they drank once and thenthey became, abstainers and they
basically reanalyzed everything.
One report from the surgeongeneral just quoted a couple of
reports that coincided with hisbelief that alcohol is not good
for you. And then another reportby the HHS, said, Any alcohol is
(15:02):
not good. Well, the interestingthing is, we talk about looking
at things on a two sided way.The only one of these three
reports was the NationalAcademy. They look for benefits.
Okay? The other two only lookfor risks. And the national
academy actually found benefitup to seven drinks per week and
a little bit less perhaps forwomen than men. Basically that
(15:25):
was the cutoff. And the othersof course said, no, no, there's
just risk.
Now, which one do you like?Well, if you like to have a
glass of wine or a beer orcocktail, a couple of few a
week, no, you might wanna takethe national academy's report.
If you, if you are really,worried about the alcohol
(15:45):
impact, then you would pick theother report. Basically, we
don't know because the data arelacking randomized trials. Each
of the studies has its usualwarts of observational studies.
And you could say the peoplethat issued the reports have
their own bias, right? But theNational Academies, I have to
(16:06):
say, in reviewing them allin-depth, was the one that
really was the most rigorous.And that reinforced that, Hey,
you know, we wanna be sociallyactive and interactive. And, you
know, usually that may involvehaving some alcohol, right? But
there is a movement againstalcohol right now in certain
countries.
You know, they have it labeledon the alcohol that this could
(16:27):
cause cancer. And there is arisk in women for breast cancer,
all the, that's the only thingthe three reports agree on is
that if you go beyond sevendrinks per week in women, there
is a risk increase of breastcancer. That we can say for
sure. Everything else, theNational Academy's discounted,
but the other two reports, allthese cancers like oral cancer,
(16:51):
colon cancer, liver cancer, theyall saw an increase. So, you
know, it's murky, it shouldn'tbe, but that's the way it is,
unfortunately.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:01):
Jury is out. The jury is out.
Dr. Eric Topol (17:03):
The jury's still out. Yep. Yep.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:04):
Jury's still out. When I was reading your
material, I was a little inshock because I remembered years
ago when I was pregnant with myboys, I had, just a normal OB
GYN who told me, oh, he said,you can have two drinks a day.
And he goes, and I'm talkingabout a glass of wine, a really
big glass of wine. You couldhave two of those, which would
(17:26):
be like three, I think now oreven four. I mean, it was like,
sure.
That's, you know I was like,Really? And my mother smokes
cigarettes all the way throughher pregnancies. Life will out,
I guess. Yeah.
Dr. Eric Topol (17:43):
Well, I don't think alcohol would be safe
during pregnancy. And your pointabout the what's in a glass of
wine, five ounces is not much.You know, it's not much. So you
pour a big glass of wine, you'vealready, you're getting
probably, like you said, a fewdrinks right there, at least two
to three. So, you know, we haveto be careful because there is a
threshold where the riskincrease.
(18:04):
And one of the things I wannaemphasize, which is a theme in
the book, each of us are unique.And so these prescriptions for
the whole human species, theycan't be right. Some people have
a cancer susceptibility. Okay.And some are resilient because
they have a great immune system.
So to say, this is theprescription for all human
(18:26):
beings is wrong from the get go.Right? So that's something to
keep in mind because the realtheme of this book is once we
have all the layers of data foreach person, that's how we
identify high risk. And that'show we prevent the disease. But,
you know, to just to say, youknow, all people do this, all
(18:47):
people do that.
No. No. It's it's just doesn'twork that way.
Dr. Moira Gunn (18:53):
Now we've been through AI and we've been
through lifestyle. Let's go tocells. 37,000,000,000,000 in our
bodies. That's another driver ofgood aging, if you will, super
aging.
Dr. Eric Topol (19:06):
Yeah, here the immune system, I have a whole
chapter about that, is the bigdriver of our health. Because as
you know, Moira, these cells inthe immune system, like B and T
cells and others, they cansecrete these proteins,
cytokines, chemokines, andincite inflammation throughout
(19:29):
our body and in our brain. Andthat inflammation is usually
untoward, unwanted, bad, right?And so we now can control the
immune system like we'd neverbeen able to do before. So one
of the most extraordinarybiomedical advances that I've
(19:50):
seen in recent years was peoplewith autoimmune diseases like
lupus, systemic sclerosis,multiple sclerosis.
They had cell therapy to knockout their B cells. And the B
cells, when they came back,which they do, of course, they
forgot that they were in aperson with an autoimmune
(20:12):
disease. They had like a controlalt delete reset.
Dr. Moira Gunn (20:16):
Yeah.
Dr. Eric Topol (20:17):
And so all of a sudden they're cured. These
people were cured. Okay. Whowould ever guess that if we just
get rid of the B cells and whenthey come back, they forgot to
attack the person, right? Sothis is exciting because you
know, these drugs that we use totreat these diseases, these are
terrible drugs.
They cause immunosuppression andvulnerability to infection, some
(20:40):
serious infection. So we have awhole new way potentially to use
cells to control our immunesystem. And we're talking about
off the shelf cells, notnecessarily taking your cells
out and engineering them andputting them back in. And when
we have off the shelf cells astherapy for cancer, immune
(21:03):
diseases, and many other, youknow, just treating inflammation
in the body for these variousindications, that's when it
becomes inexpensive andpractical.
Dr. Moira Gunn (21:13):
I'm speaking with Doctor. Eric Topol, the
author of Super Agers, anEvidence Based Approach to
Longevity. Listen to part two ofthis interview in our next
podcast.
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