January 16, 2023 • 42 mins
Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is an English author and biomedical gerontologist. He is the author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is known for his view that medical technology may enable human beings alive today not to die from age-related causes. As an amateur mathematician, he has contributed to the study of the Hadwiger–Nelson problem in geometric graph theory, making the first progress on the problem in over 60 years. De Grey is an international adjunct professor of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Aging Association, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He has been interviewed in recent years in a number of news sources, including CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC, The Guardian, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, TED, Popular Science, Playboy, The Colbert Report, Time, the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and The Joe Rogan Experience. He was the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation. In late 2022, de Grey formed LEV Foundation as President and Chief Science Officer.
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(00:08):
When I look in the mirror,I don't see wrinkles. When I look
in the mirror, I see hairon my head, not my shoulder.
Hello. Hello, Hello, Thisis Adrian Bergen. This is Generation Bold,
the fountain of truth, the fountainof truth about what well, the
(00:30):
fountain of truth about aging. Andtoday we have somebody with us who's been
telling the truth about aging for avery long time. Who is listening to
him? Well, now people arelistening to him. And he has a
wonderful name. I always call himAubrey de Gray, but this better than
that, is Aubrey David Nicholas JasperDegray. And he is an English author
(00:50):
of biomedical gerontologist. People in thefield of gerontology and aging know him.
He is the author way back innineteen ninety nine of the minor country of
free radical Theory of aging. We'vehad gero scientists. He had talked about
free radicals mitochondria, but he wasone of the first to express it.
And in two thousand and seven EndingAging was his book. And that's where
(01:15):
he has been scrabbling for a longtime now, getting the right funding,
the right thought process is the mindsetchange for people to really look at aging
in a very different way. AndI will tell you, Aubrey, the
first time I saw you, youwere doing a debate. You're in a
debate on the stage in New YorkCity, debating whether or not we can
(01:38):
become immortal, And for a conceptthat everybody would easily pooh pooh, you
were doing pretty well. So let'sjust take it a little bit of a
deeper dive here. You're always sayingthat the funding is way behind the science,
that the science of aging is aheadof the funding and the mindset.
(02:00):
Where is it today and what arewe missing? Yeah, So, first
of all, Adrian, thank youso much for having me on the show
again. It's been really it's reallygreat to be here. You know.
I will tell you that the situationaround funding has changed a huge amount over
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the past few years, the pastsix or eight years, especially over the
past couple of years. It's stillnot perfect. That what has happened is
that mainly what happens that people whoare investment minded, in other words,
who actually want to make money outof this rather than just to help the
(02:43):
mission. Those people have begun tobelieve that this is actually an area that
is amenable to that that it isthe next big thing, and as a
result, we have a very largeinflux of money into this field. Literally,
you know, like two orders ofmagnitude more than we had even a
(03:04):
couple of years ago, which isyou know, astounding and wonderful. But
the key point to recognize is thatthat money is very unevenly distributed. In
other words, there are certain areasthat are absolutely vital to the achievement of
longevity, escape filos to bringing agingunder comprehensive medical control, certain areas that
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are still not at the level thatpeople think are investable. Yes, and
therefore those things still need to befunded philanthropically, and we are still somewhat
short of the amount of money thatwould be necessary, so that money was
not the rate limitter, so thatthe rate limit was simply you know,
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the difficulty of the problem. Well, you know people who are the multimillionaires,
and you hear all the time thesame folks that are investing in going
into space and going into space themselves, the same people who are buying cryptocurrencies
are also investing in longevity and agingbetter and even immortality. But they have
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to make a profit when it goesinto the profit center. They have to
make a profit, and so they'relooking for something that is viable that can
go to market. We as layman, are interested in that. We want
to know what's out there. Soin what you've been looking at, what
do you think is the next bigthing? You know, we've heard of
everything from the neutraceuticals ands, veratroland that. Foreman, we know about
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some of those things and certain devices, But where do you think, if
you're an investor, the next thingthat you think is going to be real
and available when it comes to reversingaging or delaying aging, or having fewer
chronic diseases, which is what's reallythe big focus of our government. So
(05:00):
well as you say, I meanI want to actually answer your question in
reverse, so speak in other way. They want to start with what you
say at the end, it isall about preventing and postponding the chronic diseases
of late life. That's that's whatwe're about. We're about keeping people healthier
longer. People often focus too muchon lifespan, you know, and they
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use the word immortality far too much. I never use the word immortality right.
It's to me, it's all aboutactually just keeping people healthy and lifespan.
It's a side effect of that,right, because healthy people don't tend
to die tomorrow, whereas thick peoplehave a higher probability of dying tomorrow.
I said all about health span,but yeah, so, um, you
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know, it's a question of firstof all, what works already, and
second of all, what is closeenough to working already that people can make
money out of it. The answerthe first question what works already is basically
nothing works. You don't have technologythat can substantially postpone the health problems of
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late life. We have a fewthings that so some problems are very mildly
postponing the health problems of late life. And that's a hell of a lot
better than nothing. So I'm notin any way dissing that, not in
any way saying that that should beignored, but the fact that it's not
the hardly ground. We need tobe looking beyond that and figuring out what
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we can develop that does not yetexist. That the potential to postpone the
health problems of late life a greatdeal more. And I don't believe that
it's just a matter of potential.I believe that it's highly likely that we'll
be able to do this, andthat's what that's the focus of my own
work. So yeah, when Ispeak to your intelligence, they say exactly
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what you do, which is,we don't have anything yet but eat right,
exercise, have life purpose. Well, your I a the prize.
You know definitely what I say,I say it right, do what your
mother told you to. I dosay that, but I additionally say that
we are within striking distance of doingfar, far more. And pretty much
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all of my colleagues are very reluctantto say that. They will say,
well, you know, in thefullness of time, we would like to
do more, but they will absolutelynot put any time friends on it,
even probabilistic time friends. And Ithink that's frankly irresponsible. I believe that
those of us who are experts inthe field have a duty of public duty
to actually stick our next out andput a number on how likely we think
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it is that we will make thisall that amount of progress in this or
that amount of time. And ofcourse different people will have different numbers there,
but everybody, I believe had aduty to come up with their own
numbers. And so what is yournumber? What is your number? Right?
So my number? So first ofall, let me define what my
number is about. And so ofcourse you have to define that, right,
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you have to say, what isthe milestone that you are talking about.
The milestone that I talk about issomething I've called longevity escape velocity.
This is, broadly speaking, thisis the point where we have postponed aging
enough that we have a good chanceof continuing to postpone aging with subsequent developments
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faster than time is passing. Inother words, we can take the same
people who've benefited from the first generationtherapies and they'll still be around and able
to benefit from the second generation therapies, which will be more sophisticated, and
so on is on. And Ibelieve that we are with fifty percent probability,
we are only about fifteen years awayfrom that. We could get there
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even sooner, though I don't thinkwe have any chance really going there all
that much sooner. And I certainlybelieve that we at least a ten percent
charms of not getting that for onehundred years if we hit all matter of
you know, for saying, butI think thirty percent probability is quite enough
to be worth fighting for. AndI'm putting fifteen years on that. So
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this is what I want to bringhome to everybody listening, those people who
are thoughtful with regard to reversing thediseases of aging, But I'll say something
a little bit different. Reversing thepossibility that you will get those diseases of
agings so that you can continue tolive long and with great health. And
that is what's called health span.What they're really saying is hang in there
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on a vernacular way. I liketo say, let's pretend you it could
live to one hundred and thirty.What would you do? How would you
live your life? You probably wouldeat better, exercise more, have life
purpose, think about going back toschool, doing all the things that you
think you're too old to do.And if you're a young person or you're
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creating school curriculum, you would thinkvery differently about how you would have your
everything from school lunches to create youreducation system. So thinking as though we're
going to be able to live atleast that long is itself a sea change.
And if you listen to folks likeAubrey De Gray other geoscientists, they're
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saying that their research and breakthroughs areincremental the longer you live healthy, the
more likely you are to be livingat a time when these breakthroughs will become
real. That's really all that longevitistsare saying, So that when you express
it that way, we're not talkingabout are you going to live forever?
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If you take this pill? Thatis wrong, But that doesn't bother me,
and I'm inappropriate for my aid.You will live longer, healthier and
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happier even in this moment, ifyou'll live as though you're gonna live many,
many decades ahead. Now, whenwe come back, I want to
talk to you, Aubrey, aboutsomething that disturbs me greatly. You are
on the Institute of Ethics UM andEmerging Technologies, and a lot of the
breakthroughs are in the field of technologyand AI and so on, and my
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question is always who's going to haveaccess to these breakthroughs? To me,
that's an ethical question, and let'sdiscuss that as soon as we return.
You think that I don't bother me, not even because I am happy,
I'm inappropriate. Hello. Hello,Hello, This is Adrian Bergen. This
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is Generation Bell, the Fountain ofTruth, the fact of truth about aging.
We have a conversations here that arevery down to Earth. I had
a conversation with a listener just theother day because she had lost all of
her friends who wanted to travel,and those who are still around said,
no, they're too old, theycan't go now. In her case,
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she was eighty one years old.She had been too about thirty five or
thirty six countries, and she wantedto go more. And she said,
Adrian, I got to make newfriends. I have to make younger friends.
Great except that, why leave yourselfout of the world. Why not
participate in this world? Why notthink that you can still because you're healthy,
(12:39):
be happy. And that's what wedo here. And we're here today
with someone who you may not thinkof him as the poster boy for happiness,
but in many ways he is,because what he is saying is have
faith in the science of the future. Live so that you will see that
science in the future. His nameis Aubrey de Gray. Anybody in the
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field of geroscience or aging knows him. He has two books, both of
them you can find an Amazon.The Mitochondria or Free Radical Theory of Aging,
which really started this consideration that agingmay be a disease that's curable or
at least approachable as a disease sothat it can be prevented and cured.
And then more recently, ending aging. He's just started a new institute.
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He originally started Sense Institute, whichis still going strong here in California.
And I would say that I'm privilegedbecause the BBC, the Guardian, Fortune
Magazine, Washington posted popular Science.Everybody in the whole word, even Playboy
has interviewed Aubrey degree. So thankyou so much for being with us.
Aubrey, I don't want to goback that where can people find you?
(13:45):
Because you have your books on Amazon, They're going to want to follow up
on some of your thinking, Sowhere is the best website to go to?
So yes, I mean, ofcourse think I'm moving very fast.
My book Ending Aging, which wasrather the general audience book, it's very
much a good place to start.It's it's quite technical, but not like
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prohibitively technical. It's something that nonspecialists ought to be able to get through
if you adjust, if you haveenough persistence, and you know, you
just read it slowly because it isyou know, it doesn't cut any corners.
I've read it, and I've readit. It's not a slog don't
let him for you. It's prettygood, but he teaches you things,
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so you have to put in yourjargon head once in a while. Yeah,
sou So. The thing is thateven though that book is fifteen years
old, it's still a good placeto start. And that's a good thing
because, of course there's been ahuge amount of progress over those years.
But that program has been pretty muchwhat we had predicted it would be.
It's the right kind of things thatthe same kind of things have happened.
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In other words, the paradigm,the thought that the way of thinking that
was expressed in that book fifteen yearsago is still the prevailing way of thinking
about all of this. The damagerepair is the way to go that there
are these various categories of damage thatwe need to address, and there are
the various ways in which we canforeseeably address them. And of course progress
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has been made in all of thoseareas in terms of actually achieving that progression
that they implementing those damage repair therapies. So yeah, I mean, that's
where to go. My new foundationLife Extension, sorry, Longevity Escape Velocity
Foundation LV foundation. It is theembodiment, I guess of the things that
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I do right now, being kindof the tip of the spear being trying
to take things forward another couple ofsteps beyond what other people are doing.
So Sense Research Foundation, my oldfoundation is still very vibrant, very active
doing it. Excellent people doing excellentwork, which I of course put in
place before I laugh, and sothey definitely should be viewed as an important
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component of this mission. But avfoundational Velocity Foundation is there to take the
next step, to be a progressionfrom there and to really finish the job.
Now, when you say finished thejob, what we have, let's
say, for the consumer, forthe people listening now, we've got three
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or four tranches I call them thatpeople go through if they care about their
own long chevity one we've mentioned fivehundred times, their own lifestill, their
own behavior, what they can doin the exercise and so on. The
second thing is medicine drugs that they'realready being prescribed because they have a condition,
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a thyroid condition, a cholesterol condition, high blood pressure, whatever it
is. They should be very diligentabout that. The third one that's in
the face of the consumer every dayis the nutraceuticals or whether it's vitamins,
whether it's synalytics, all the fancynames for the way you can spend sixty
dollars a month on a pill thatyou're not quite sure is working on brain
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health and so on. And thelast one is what you're talking about looking
at and understanding their own bio clocks, their own biomedical conditions that are not
that are not diseases, but wherethey are using the devices and waiting for
the breakthroughs Now, what you seemto be saying is that's the trant you're
(17:36):
in. Now, you're looking forwhat isn't there yet? Can you divulge
to us one or two of thosethings that are the prize in your eyes?
Sure? Yeah, So you're absolutelyright area, And I'm an other
PhD and I'm m D. Inother words, I focus on stuff that
does not yet exist. I focuson developing things that will do better than
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as yet exists. So there's othercategories you mentioned, whether it's lifestyle of
supplements or whatever. You know,those are all very well, but we
all have to recognize that they're notthe holy grail. They are only going
to achieve a very limited amount ofpostponement of the health problems of late life.
Therefore, we need things that aremuch better, and so yes,
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my focus is on developing high checkthings. Some of them will be stum
cell therapies, some of them willbe gene therapies, some of them will
be immune therapies. And furthermore,for sure and certain, we're going to
have to be applying multiple therapists tothe same people at the same time.
We're going to have to be doingthings in combination. So the flagship project
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of my new foundation and Life Escape, the Looscity Foundation, is precisely that
to take large numbers of mice anddo a whole bunch of things to them,
but only starting when they are alreadyin middle age, but doing a
whole bunch of things and trying toextend the remaining healthy longevity and thus the
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total longevity by a much larger factorthan what has been achieved in the past.
So you understand, everybody listening whyI care so much about the thinking
of Aubrey, because he does tendto be a leader. He's one of
those folks that everybody will pooh poohuntil they do it themselves years later.
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So I've always look I'm at anage and most of my listeners are at
an age when they can't go backto when they were thirty and do better.
They're in their fifties, sixties,seventies and older, and very few
are looking at protocols for better agingsstarting with the older adult. But you
are, and so this is extremelygood news. But let's go to that
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ethical question. What you have justlisted off, Aubrey is is what I
hoped you're going to say. Thestem cells, the gene therapies. We've
talked about this, We've had thisParish on the show and so on many
others. Is expensive, and wedon't have a government that really puts money
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into prevention, which means we're onour own. We don't even have insurance
companies that cover those therapies. Wehave people going to other countries to get
some of those therapies that already exist. Now, from the ethical point of
view, where do you see this? Is this ever bother you that you
may be creating things that are onlyfor a certain strata of our community.
(20:34):
So this is a painful question,not for the reason that you think it
is. The reason it's painful isbecause the answer is so easy, but
people are so resistant to the answer. The answer is simply that from a
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completely mercenary economic perspective, it isgoing to be completely clear that any government,
whether it's a US government with healthcarebeing done through insurance or whether it's
a more European system where the singlepayer, you know, it doesn't matter.
Point is, any government is goingto see that it is economically preferable
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to make these therapies available to everybodywho is old enough to need them.
As soon as they exist. It'svery available to anybody. The reason that's
true is simply because keeping people alivein the state that they're in today in
old age, namely a state inwhich we cannot do anything about their health,
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is unbelievably expensive. The vast majorityof the medical expenditure of the Western
world, whether it's a US orany other country, is spent on the
health problems of late life and simplyavoided because we're keeping people youthful, however
long ago they were born. Thenthat goes away, and so it makes
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economic sense to spend money to makeit go away, even if those therapies
are initially quite expensive. This isthis is trivial logic, and it's been
expressed to governments for decades and decades. It's often it often goes under the
moniker of the longevity dividend. Yes, but it's had almost no effect on
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public policy. And the fundamental reasonit's had no effect it is because policy
makers elected to representatives simply think thatthe premise isn't true. In other words,
they say, yes, we understandthat if we were to invest a
few billion dollars here and there toto accelerate biomedical research into aging, then
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um, you know there's some chancethat well, that that research will bear
fruits and that it will actually postponethe health problems of late life in the
population at by a few years.But the problem is, all they are
told by the scientific community is thatthere is some probabity that that will happen.
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No number has been put on that. The biomedical research community in aging
has shot itself spectacularly in the footby refusing to say how likely it is
their acts amount of money will achievewhy amount of postponout of the health problems
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of late life. And because ofthat, the people who actually make the
decisions and write the checks are assigningthe number zero to that pooverity, which
means that the entire argument collapses.Well, you know, Aubrey, I
think you're too kind. I reallydo. When I interrupted you, I
apologized a couple of minutes ago.It was to talk about the longevity dividend
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and to say exactly what you justsaid, which is that we could save
a fortune. The NIA is nowthe National Institute of Alzheimer's because it's putting
all the money into chronic diseases,mostly dementia, and very little into prevention,
and therefore very little into education everythingwe could be spending. But I
don't think it's only because the sciencecommunity that you represent are being pussy footing
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around. I think it's because Alzheimer'sis a business, and chronic here is
a business, and we fail thatbusiness if we cure or prevent. So
I'm a little bit deeper into thenegative side about I think you're actually genuinely
wrong about that. I think alot of people share that view that you've
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just expressed. That Ultimately, youknow, the medical industry big Farmer wants
you know, they make their moneyout of sick people, and therefore they
don't really want preventative medicine. ButI think that's a little bit too short
sighted. Well, I'm not cynical, necessarily, but short sighted. I
think that the um, the farmer, the big farmer companies, they will
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follow the money. There's one reasonand one only reason why they want to
create sick people and those because that'swhat the public understand. The public of
the ultimate payer right, you know, whether it's through chaucation or anything else.
They are the people who matter.They probably make decisions. If the
public shifts their emphasis even a littlebit in favor of understanding the value of
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preventative medicine, then that's where themoney comes from, and the big farmer
industry will follow the money. Thetechnology is the same, they're totally equipped
to produce to shift their own faithmore in a preventative direction. They just
have no incentive to do so,because I thought, now the public doesn't
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trust preventative medicine. That's what needsto change. If we know the public
attitude, we know the rest isit's like falling off a lock. Well,
you know what, we go andtake a little bit of a break.
We're going to come back and we'regoing to talk about the essential question.
How can the genoscience community, theresearch community, the communication community that
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I'm in the media community make changesin your opinion. I'm here with or
we degree. And while he hasincredible amounts of credentials, the most outstanding
to me is he's a very interestingguy. Don't you guys go anywhere.
But that doesn't bother me, noteven a happy and I'm inappropriate for my
(27:03):
aged You may think that I'm allof it bother me, not even enough,
because I am happy. I'm inappropriate. Oh my, hello, hello,
(27:25):
Hello, This is Adrian Bergend.This is Generation Bowl, the fountain
of truth, the fountain of truthabout aging, and the fountain of truth
about aging to some people is thatwe do not have to age the way
we are doing so now we're doingso pretty well up to a certain point,
and then you have that inevitable decline, and that decline could be not
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just devastating to you personally, whichis bad enough, devastating to your family,
even your grandkids. If you livelong enough, you're going to have
grandchildren become caregivers, but also tothe world because it becomes expensive. And
the turnaround and the pushback is thataging itself is bad, that you're older,
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and therefore maybe you should be eliminatedfrom the planet a little sooner.
Yes, I am concerned about thatbecause if we become too burdensome at a
certain point, and there are toomany of us who are burdensome, who
knows how we will think about itas a societal matter. Now, we
do have people who are fighting inthe field, like my guest or bread
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Degree, to turn this around tomake aging something much more delicious what he
calls health span, with many peoplecall health span meaning being healthy as you
age chronologically but not decline biologically.He has a new institute. He's also
the original founder of Sense, whichis a very well known institute fighting in
this field. And his ideas arecertainly very significant. So please do read
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his book Mitochondria Free Radical Theory ofAging. It's an old book, it's
nineteen ninety nine, but it wasone of those that began all of this
learning that we've talked about for yearshere about mitochondria. You know these words,
you know all about the hallmarks ofaging. You'll see them all in
his book and his more recent bookEnding Aging, which goes a little bit
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further and is also a mindset changingbook. So Aubrey tell us just once
again the website for your new foundation, and then I want to talk about
this issue of getting the public onboard. So we'll type the foundation of
LVF dot org Longevity Escape Velocity FoundationLVF. I do want to recommend in
terms of my books that people shouldlook at ending aging. My earlier book
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Theory of Batting is very technical U, so you know I wouldn't start there
if I were you, But endingaging is described to make it a little
bit less technical. Well, actually, I think that's one of the issues
that because we're in the world ofa sign that people don't even know exists,
which is geroscience, and it's filledwith jargon, it's filled with numbers,
and it's filled with people who can'ttranslate it. It is difficult to
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get some of these concepts to thepublic. Even when it comes to behavioral
health, it's hard to explain it. That's one of the issues here.
Climate change is different. People feelthe rain and they feel the heat,
and they feel the temperature changing aroundthem. But this is very subtle and
difficult. Yeah, it is oneof the things that I want to bring
(30:30):
out to everybody. As we justhad an election and there were issues of
environmentalism and issues of abortion and issuesof the economy, but in all of
the discussions, there wasn't one discussionby any candidate about longevity and healthcare.
Not one. It's just not onour radar, just as you say,
you Aubrey, So how do weget it on our radar? Yeah,
(30:53):
So essentially, I think it's allabout moving the middle in public opinion spent.
The reason I've spent so much ofmy time doing media over the past
fifteen twenty years, it's basically becauseI've understood since the beginning that until the
public really understand the dating is amedical problem that we are within striking distance
(31:17):
of bringing, of solving. Untilthat happens, the you know, there's
never going to be any changing policy. At the end of the day.
You know, elected representatives have onegoing life, which is to get reelected,
and therefore that our public policy followspublic opinion, it does not lead
public opinion. So I've been workingon public opinion and of course been changing
(31:41):
over time. We've made quite abit of progress a life. By that
progress has been because of progress that'sactually happens at the bench, you know,
in laboratories around the world, whichhave shown that this or that thing
that people thought was impossible it's actuallypossible, but we need to do plenty
more of that. The wilcome atipping point when we've made enough progress in
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the laboratory, even in model organisms, like in laboratory animals, not just
in human beings and clinical trials.We've made the welcome a point where we've
made enough progress that the public justsay, yeah, you know what,
this is really true. We aregetting there, but we need to go
a bit further than we have sofar before that happens. At the end
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of the day, this is allabout what you can really call preventative medicine.
You know, aging is the processthat goes on throughout life that results
in the health problems that we're alsofamiliar with, and we just need to
get the public happy with the ideathat the right way, the only really
effective way to stop people from gettingthose pathologies of late life is to intervene
(32:53):
preventatively and to address the things thatare happening throughout life that eventually call of
those health problems. You know,when the first since I believe you had
the Methuselah Institute and you actually hada Methuselah Mouse Prize, So again I'm
going to give you a little challengeon that. One of the things I
think that's difficult to the public isthat a lot of these breakthroughs occur in
(33:16):
small animals. And now I knowthere are dog projects, but even so,
as human beings we separate ourselves somuch from animals, but biologically in
the lab what you call on atthe bench, these breakthroughs often begin with
animals, and even the FDA expectsthat and funds that sort of thing.
(33:37):
Do you think that we can makea different kind of faster type of lab
testing where we have more human testsor is that too dangerous? Well,
so I have a couple of answersto that. The first one actually comes
back to what you said about dogsduring your question. That's important. So
(34:00):
there's a bunch of groups now,both private saction and academic doing work on
dogs and on companion animals, andthis is insanely valuable, partly because they
have, in various ways a greaterlevel of similarity to humans than what like
laboratory ms do, but also becauseyou know, there's an awful lot of
(34:23):
people out there who actually care abouttheir dogs. So you know, the
ability is to do this work becomesyou know, we have a whole new
dimension in terms of like the fundingfrom people who actually want their own dogs
to do better and on. Soyou know, I'm all over that.
I think that's a really important componentof where the long givity field has moved
(34:46):
over the past few years. I'mreally in favor of it. But beyond
that, of course, we doneed to get to the clinical trial aspect.
Absolutely we need to be looking athumans, because you know, you
can't replace humans. However, ahuge amount of what we need to do
in terms of moving the needle interms of public opinion revolves not just about
(35:08):
the on the actual results that comeout of experiments such as clinical trials,
but it revolves around what people saywhere people, I mean the influences the
acknowledged experts. So for the longesttime I've been the only acknowledged expert out
there saying yeah, you know,we're in striking distance of doing something about
(35:30):
aging. Now we've got a fewother people, people like George Church and
David Sinclair out there, and ratherlike saying yeah, you know what,
this is going well now, Idon't think that what those people are saying
today is confident enough, optimistic enoughto make the cut to actually really push
(35:57):
public opinion forward. But I believethat if we're going on a little bit
further in terms of talking about timeframes for likely progress, then yes,
you know, you'd get a pralWinfrey out there saying, um, you
know right, you know this islikely to happen. Therefore that we should
really be as a society trying tomake it happen a bit sooner. And
you know that would be the tippingpoint thereafter. You know, my job,
(36:20):
it's done advocacy wise. So thequestion is how much is it how
much more progress is it going totake before my colleagues in the community such
as you know, everything cloud yourchurch or whatever, We'll go out there
and say more or less the samethings that I've been saying for a while,
and I believe it doesn't actually needvery much more progress. So a
(36:42):
flagship um research program of my newfoundation, the LV Foundation, it's going
to be exactly that. It's goingto be pushing the amount of progress we
have in the laboratory with with withwith my forward enough that my colleagues,
(37:04):
my prominent colleagues, will feel ableto say, yeah, you know what,
this is game over. We areon our way we are going to
get there in the foreseeable future.You know, I have always felt that
the missing element in the United States, and I work a lot with the
United Nations, so I could tellyou it's very different in other countries and
messaging is different. But in theUS we miss the AD Council. Believe
(37:28):
it or not, the AD Councilhas been a very important part of us
not smoking, of us being moreinclusive and accepting relationships with younger people and
older people. What they get ona bandwagon and use through the media,
which is very influential. What youcall the influencers, the celebrity influencers is
(37:49):
important. I managed to get onan Oprah's show four times and it actually
did make a huge difference in theway people invested. It was about money,
not about health at that time,So you're absolutely right. And Matt
Camberlin, who's doing the One ofthe Dog projects and nearby Zilli, myself
and kendyke Well did a program togetherabout immortality and we use the word immortality,
(38:13):
and you're right. They were veryvery circumspect about what they allowed themselves
to say because immortality is really ataboo. We should not be talking about
that they should be talking about exactlywhat you're saying, and you think that
they're just an incher way these influentialsin the field of geroscience. But what
I can tell you is that theinfluentials in the field of celebrity status and
(38:39):
media are very far away. Andyet when it comes to beauty, when
it comes to having your face lookyounger, they're right there and they're very
influential. And I just have wonderedin my last question to you on this
part of it, do you seea connection there the fact that we have
taken so much, spend so muchpersonally on our looks, that we can
(39:04):
use that as some leverage to explainhow much we will feel better inside if
we care about prevention. I don'tknow if we can make a marriage there.
Yeah, it's it's hard to know. I mean, this is a
very profound question, Adria. Thisis a really great question because you know,
we've, as you say, we'veput so much money into the cosmetic
(39:25):
side. But um, you know, one way to look at why that
has happened, why there is sucha market there is that it's all about
denial. It's all about trying to, you know, find new ways everywhere.
We can't one kind to put agingout of one's mind and get on
with one's miserably short life and makethe best of it, you know,
(39:46):
rather than worrying about the things thatare going on inside one's body. And
so in that sense we can saythat, actually this is not really helpful.
You know. It's like more progresswe're making metics the more problems we
are making for ourselves in terms ofgetting people to what's going on inside that
(40:07):
body. Seriously, you know,I mean, of course, I don't
want to oversimplify or over generalize here. The fact is everybody's different. You
know, some people will be receptive, you know, susceptible, vulnerable as
you we say, to that kindof logic, and some people weren't.
(40:27):
But yeah, well it's double edged, double Well. I have to say
that we thank you so much.I mean, this is not the first
time that we've spoken. It won'tbe the last time. I send everybody
to your book ending Aging. It'snot the latest book. We've had some
of the more recent books, butI'll tell you it's the one that started
everything. And you've weared a lotof controversy. You're coming to that point
(40:50):
now, where I think you're inanother iteration that everybody has sort of taken
your lead, and they are alsosaying that we can live way past,
way past years that they talked abouteven five years ago, four years ago.
Today nearby, Zili says he's beenon our show. We're putting at
(41:13):
least thirty five years on the table. We're wasting at least thirty five years
in our thinking. That would meanthat most people could easily live over the
age of one hundred, and wethink it's a big deal to reach one
hundred. And of course Aubrid deGray says, that's chump change. We
can do a lot better than that. So Aubrey, we thank you so
much. And by the way,where are you talking to us from Cambridge?
(41:37):
Where's the new institute located? Isit in England? No? No,
no, we're in California. Stillin California. Okay, you're traveling
right now. Wonderful. So thankyou so much and keep in touch because
we will always want to have youon. I know that you will have
the breakthroughs that you'll be able totell us about and the thinking and thought
leadership that you've had in the past. Thanks Aubrey, Well, thank you
(41:59):
so much for having me, andeverybody else you know what I'm gonna say,
Get out their kids and make ithappen. I'm inappropriate
When I look in the mirror,I don't see wrinkles. When I look
in the mirror, I see hairon my head, not my shoulder.
Hello. Hello, Hello, Thisis Adrian Bergen. This is Generation Bold,
the fountain of truth, the fountainof truth about what well, the
(00:30):
fountain of truth about aging. Andtoday we have somebody with us who's been
telling the truth about aging for avery long time. Who is listening to
him? Well, now people arelistening to him. And he has a
wonderful name. I always call himAubrey de Gray, but this better than
that, is Aubrey David Nicholas JasperDegray. And he is an English author
(00:50):
of biomedical gerontologist. People in thefield of gerontology and aging know him.
He is the author way back innineteen ninety nine of the minor country of
free radical Theory of aging. We'vehad gero scientists. He had talked about
free radicals mitochondria, but he wasone of the first to express it.
And in two thousand and seven EndingAging was his book. And that's where
(01:15):
he has been scrabbling for a longtime now, getting the right funding,
the right thought process is the mindsetchange for people to really look at aging
in a very different way. AndI will tell you, Aubrey, the
first time I saw you, youwere doing a debate. You're in a
debate on the stage in New YorkCity, debating whether or not we can
(01:38):
become immortal, And for a conceptthat everybody would easily pooh pooh, you
were doing pretty well. So let'sjust take it a little bit of a
deeper dive here. You're always sayingthat the funding is way behind the science,
that the science of aging is aheadof the funding and the mindset.
(02:00):
Where is it today and what arewe missing? Yeah, So, first
of all, Adrian, thank youso much for having me on the show
again. It's been really it's reallygreat to be here. You know.
I will tell you that the situationaround funding has changed a huge amount over
(02:21):
the past few years, the pastsix or eight years, especially over the
past couple of years. It's stillnot perfect. That what has happened is
that mainly what happens that people whoare investment minded, in other words,
who actually want to make money outof this rather than just to help the
(02:43):
mission. Those people have begun tobelieve that this is actually an area that
is amenable to that that it isthe next big thing, and as a
result, we have a very largeinflux of money into this field. Literally,
you know, like two orders ofmagnitude more than we had even a
(03:04):
couple of years ago, which isyou know, astounding and wonderful. But
the key point to recognize is thatthat money is very unevenly distributed. In
other words, there are certain areasthat are absolutely vital to the achievement of
longevity, escape filos to bringing agingunder comprehensive medical control, certain areas that
(03:30):
are still not at the level thatpeople think are investable. Yes, and
therefore those things still need to befunded philanthropically, and we are still somewhat
short of the amount of money thatwould be necessary, so that money was
not the rate limitter, so thatthe rate limit was simply you know,
(03:53):
the difficulty of the problem. Well, you know people who are the multimillionaires,
and you hear all the time thesame folks that are investing in going
into space and going into space themselves, the same people who are buying cryptocurrencies
are also investing in longevity and agingbetter and even immortality. But they have
(04:15):
to make a profit when it goesinto the profit center. They have to
make a profit, and so they'relooking for something that is viable that can
go to market. We as layman, are interested in that. We want
to know what's out there. Soin what you've been looking at, what
do you think is the next bigthing? You know, we've heard of
everything from the neutraceuticals ands, veratroland that. Foreman, we know about
(04:39):
some of those things and certain devices, But where do you think, if
you're an investor, the next thingthat you think is going to be real
and available when it comes to reversingaging or delaying aging, or having fewer
chronic diseases, which is what's reallythe big focus of our government. So
(05:00):
well as you say, I meanI want to actually answer your question in
reverse, so speak in other way. They want to start with what you
say at the end, it isall about preventing and postponding the chronic diseases
of late life. That's that's whatwe're about. We're about keeping people healthier
longer. People often focus too muchon lifespan, you know, and they
(05:21):
use the word immortality far too much. I never use the word immortality right.
It's to me, it's all aboutactually just keeping people healthy and lifespan.
It's a side effect of that,right, because healthy people don't tend
to die tomorrow, whereas thick peoplehave a higher probability of dying tomorrow.
I said all about health span,but yeah, so, um, you
(05:44):
know, it's a question of firstof all, what works already, and
second of all, what is closeenough to working already that people can make
money out of it. The answerthe first question what works already is basically
nothing works. You don't have technologythat can substantially postpone the health problems of
(06:08):
late life. We have a fewthings that so some problems are very mildly
postponing the health problems of late life. And that's a hell of a lot
better than nothing. So I'm notin any way dissing that, not in
any way saying that that should beignored, but the fact that it's not
the hardly ground. We need tobe looking beyond that and figuring out what
(06:28):
we can develop that does not yetexist. That the potential to postpone the
health problems of late life a greatdeal more. And I don't believe that
it's just a matter of potential.I believe that it's highly likely that we'll
be able to do this, andthat's what that's the focus of my own
work. So yeah, when Ispeak to your intelligence, they say exactly
(06:53):
what you do, which is,we don't have anything yet but eat right,
exercise, have life purpose. Well, your I a the prize.
You know definitely what I say,I say it right, do what your
mother told you to. I dosay that, but I additionally say that
we are within striking distance of doingfar, far more. And pretty much
(07:15):
all of my colleagues are very reluctantto say that. They will say,
well, you know, in thefullness of time, we would like to
do more, but they will absolutelynot put any time friends on it,
even probabilistic time friends. And Ithink that's frankly irresponsible. I believe that
those of us who are experts inthe field have a duty of public duty
to actually stick our next out andput a number on how likely we think
(07:41):
it is that we will make thisall that amount of progress in this or
that amount of time. And ofcourse different people will have different numbers there,
but everybody, I believe had aduty to come up with their own
numbers. And so what is yournumber? What is your number? Right?
So my number? So first ofall, let me define what my
number is about. And so ofcourse you have to define that, right,
(08:05):
you have to say, what isthe milestone that you are talking about.
The milestone that I talk about issomething I've called longevity escape velocity.
This is, broadly speaking, thisis the point where we have postponed aging
enough that we have a good chanceof continuing to postpone aging with subsequent developments
(08:30):
faster than time is passing. Inother words, we can take the same
people who've benefited from the first generationtherapies and they'll still be around and able
to benefit from the second generation therapies, which will be more sophisticated, and
so on is on. And Ibelieve that we are with fifty percent probability,
we are only about fifteen years awayfrom that. We could get there
(08:52):
even sooner, though I don't thinkwe have any chance really going there all
that much sooner. And I certainlybelieve that we at least a ten percent
charms of not getting that for onehundred years if we hit all matter of
you know, for saying, butI think thirty percent probability is quite enough
to be worth fighting for. AndI'm putting fifteen years on that. So
(09:16):
this is what I want to bringhome to everybody listening, those people who
are thoughtful with regard to reversing thediseases of aging, But I'll say something
a little bit different. Reversing thepossibility that you will get those diseases of
agings so that you can continue tolive long and with great health. And
that is what's called health span.What they're really saying is hang in there
(09:39):
on a vernacular way. I liketo say, let's pretend you it could
live to one hundred and thirty.What would you do? How would you
live your life? You probably wouldeat better, exercise more, have life
purpose, think about going back toschool, doing all the things that you
think you're too old to do.And if you're a young person or you're
(10:00):
creating school curriculum, you would thinkvery differently about how you would have your
everything from school lunches to create youreducation system. So thinking as though we're
going to be able to live atleast that long is itself a sea change.
And if you listen to folks likeAubrey De Gray other geoscientists, they're
(10:24):
saying that their research and breakthroughs areincremental the longer you live healthy, the
more likely you are to be livingat a time when these breakthroughs will become
real. That's really all that longevitistsare saying, So that when you express
it that way, we're not talkingabout are you going to live forever?
(10:45):
If you take this pill? Thatis wrong, But that doesn't bother me,
and I'm inappropriate for my aid.You will live longer, healthier and
(11:05):
happier even in this moment, ifyou'll live as though you're gonna live many,
many decades ahead. Now, whenwe come back, I want to
talk to you, Aubrey, aboutsomething that disturbs me greatly. You are
on the Institute of Ethics UM andEmerging Technologies, and a lot of the
breakthroughs are in the field of technologyand AI and so on, and my
(11:28):
question is always who's going to haveaccess to these breakthroughs? To me,
that's an ethical question, and let'sdiscuss that as soon as we return.
You think that I don't bother me, not even because I am happy,
I'm inappropriate. Hello. Hello,Hello, This is Adrian Bergen. This
(11:56):
is Generation Bell, the Fountain ofTruth, the fact of truth about aging.
We have a conversations here that arevery down to Earth. I had
a conversation with a listener just theother day because she had lost all of
her friends who wanted to travel,and those who are still around said,
no, they're too old, theycan't go now. In her case,
(12:16):
she was eighty one years old.She had been too about thirty five or
thirty six countries, and she wantedto go more. And she said,
Adrian, I got to make newfriends. I have to make younger friends.
Great except that, why leave yourselfout of the world. Why not
participate in this world? Why notthink that you can still because you're healthy,
(12:39):
be happy. And that's what wedo here. And we're here today
with someone who you may not thinkof him as the poster boy for happiness,
but in many ways he is,because what he is saying is have
faith in the science of the future. Live so that you will see that
science in the future. His nameis Aubrey de Gray. Anybody in the
(13:00):
field of geroscience or aging knows him. He has two books, both of
them you can find an Amazon.The Mitochondria or Free Radical Theory of Aging,
which really started this consideration that agingmay be a disease that's curable or
at least approachable as a disease sothat it can be prevented and cured.
And then more recently, ending aging. He's just started a new institute.
(13:24):
He originally started Sense Institute, whichis still going strong here in California.
And I would say that I'm privilegedbecause the BBC, the Guardian, Fortune
Magazine, Washington posted popular Science.Everybody in the whole word, even Playboy
has interviewed Aubrey degree. So thankyou so much for being with us.
Aubrey, I don't want to goback that where can people find you?
(13:45):
Because you have your books on Amazon, They're going to want to follow up
on some of your thinking, Sowhere is the best website to go to?
So yes, I mean, ofcourse think I'm moving very fast.
My book Ending Aging, which wasrather the general audience book, it's very
much a good place to start.It's it's quite technical, but not like
(14:07):
prohibitively technical. It's something that nonspecialists ought to be able to get through
if you adjust, if you haveenough persistence, and you know, you
just read it slowly because it isyou know, it doesn't cut any corners.
I've read it, and I've readit. It's not a slog don't
let him for you. It's prettygood, but he teaches you things,
(14:30):
so you have to put in yourjargon head once in a while. Yeah,
sou So. The thing is thateven though that book is fifteen years
old, it's still a good placeto start. And that's a good thing
because, of course there's been ahuge amount of progress over those years.
But that program has been pretty muchwhat we had predicted it would be.
It's the right kind of things thatthe same kind of things have happened.
(14:52):
In other words, the paradigm,the thought that the way of thinking that
was expressed in that book fifteen yearsago is still the prevailing way of thinking
about all of this. The damagerepair is the way to go that there
are these various categories of damage thatwe need to address, and there are
the various ways in which we canforeseeably address them. And of course progress
(15:13):
has been made in all of thoseareas in terms of actually achieving that progression
that they implementing those damage repair therapies. So yeah, I mean, that's
where to go. My new foundationLife Extension, sorry, Longevity Escape Velocity
Foundation LV foundation. It is theembodiment, I guess of the things that
(15:41):
I do right now, being kindof the tip of the spear being trying
to take things forward another couple ofsteps beyond what other people are doing.
So Sense Research Foundation, my oldfoundation is still very vibrant, very active
doing it. Excellent people doing excellentwork, which I of course put in
place before I laugh, and sothey definitely should be viewed as an important
(16:07):
component of this mission. But avfoundational Velocity Foundation is there to take the
next step, to be a progressionfrom there and to really finish the job.
Now, when you say finished thejob, what we have, let's
say, for the consumer, forthe people listening now, we've got three
(16:30):
or four tranches I call them thatpeople go through if they care about their
own long chevity one we've mentioned fivehundred times, their own lifestill, their
own behavior, what they can doin the exercise and so on. The
second thing is medicine drugs that they'realready being prescribed because they have a condition,
(16:51):
a thyroid condition, a cholesterol condition, high blood pressure, whatever it
is. They should be very diligentabout that. The third one that's in
the face of the consumer every dayis the nutraceuticals or whether it's vitamins,
whether it's synalytics, all the fancynames for the way you can spend sixty
dollars a month on a pill thatyou're not quite sure is working on brain
(17:15):
health and so on. And thelast one is what you're talking about looking
at and understanding their own bio clocks, their own biomedical conditions that are not
that are not diseases, but wherethey are using the devices and waiting for
the breakthroughs Now, what you seemto be saying is that's the trant you're
(17:36):
in. Now, you're looking forwhat isn't there yet? Can you divulge
to us one or two of thosethings that are the prize in your eyes?
Sure? Yeah, So you're absolutelyright area, And I'm an other
PhD and I'm m D. Inother words, I focus on stuff that
does not yet exist. I focuson developing things that will do better than
(18:00):
as yet exists. So there's othercategories you mentioned, whether it's lifestyle of
supplements or whatever. You know,those are all very well, but we
all have to recognize that they're notthe holy grail. They are only going
to achieve a very limited amount ofpostponement of the health problems of late life.
Therefore, we need things that aremuch better, and so yes,
(18:21):
my focus is on developing high checkthings. Some of them will be stum
cell therapies, some of them willbe gene therapies, some of them will
be immune therapies. And furthermore,for sure and certain, we're going to
have to be applying multiple therapists tothe same people at the same time.
We're going to have to be doingthings in combination. So the flagship project
(18:42):
of my new foundation and Life Escape, the Looscity Foundation, is precisely that
to take large numbers of mice anddo a whole bunch of things to them,
but only starting when they are alreadyin middle age, but doing a
whole bunch of things and trying toextend the remaining healthy longevity and thus the
(19:06):
total longevity by a much larger factorthan what has been achieved in the past.
So you understand, everybody listening whyI care so much about the thinking
of Aubrey, because he does tendto be a leader. He's one of
those folks that everybody will pooh poohuntil they do it themselves years later.
(19:26):
So I've always look I'm at anage and most of my listeners are at
an age when they can't go backto when they were thirty and do better.
They're in their fifties, sixties,seventies and older, and very few
are looking at protocols for better agingsstarting with the older adult. But you
are, and so this is extremelygood news. But let's go to that
(19:48):
ethical question. What you have justlisted off, Aubrey is is what I
hoped you're going to say. Thestem cells, the gene therapies. We've
talked about this, We've had thisParish on the show and so on many
others. Is expensive, and wedon't have a government that really puts money
(20:10):
into prevention, which means we're onour own. We don't even have insurance
companies that cover those therapies. Wehave people going to other countries to get
some of those therapies that already exist. Now, from the ethical point of
view, where do you see this? Is this ever bother you that you
may be creating things that are onlyfor a certain strata of our community.
(20:34):
So this is a painful question,not for the reason that you think it
is. The reason it's painful isbecause the answer is so easy, but
people are so resistant to the answer. The answer is simply that from a
(20:56):
completely mercenary economic perspective, it isgoing to be completely clear that any government,
whether it's a US government with healthcarebeing done through insurance or whether it's
a more European system where the singlepayer, you know, it doesn't matter.
Point is, any government is goingto see that it is economically preferable
(21:23):
to make these therapies available to everybodywho is old enough to need them.
As soon as they exist. It'svery available to anybody. The reason that's
true is simply because keeping people alivein the state that they're in today in
old age, namely a state inwhich we cannot do anything about their health,
(21:45):
is unbelievably expensive. The vast majorityof the medical expenditure of the Western
world, whether it's a US orany other country, is spent on the
health problems of late life and simplyavoided because we're keeping people youthful, however
long ago they were born. Thenthat goes away, and so it makes
(22:10):
economic sense to spend money to makeit go away, even if those therapies
are initially quite expensive. This isthis is trivial logic, and it's been
expressed to governments for decades and decades. It's often it often goes under the
moniker of the longevity dividend. Yes, but it's had almost no effect on
(22:34):
public policy. And the fundamental reasonit's had no effect it is because policy
makers elected to representatives simply think thatthe premise isn't true. In other words,
they say, yes, we understandthat if we were to invest a
few billion dollars here and there toto accelerate biomedical research into aging, then
(22:57):
um, you know there's some chancethat well, that that research will bear
fruits and that it will actually postponethe health problems of late life in the
population at by a few years.But the problem is, all they are
told by the scientific community is thatthere is some probabity that that will happen.
(23:21):
No number has been put on that. The biomedical research community in aging
has shot itself spectacularly in the footby refusing to say how likely it is
their acts amount of money will achievewhy amount of postponout of the health problems
(23:44):
of late life. And because ofthat, the people who actually make the
decisions and write the checks are assigningthe number zero to that pooverity, which
means that the entire argument collapses.Well, you know, Aubrey, I
think you're too kind. I reallydo. When I interrupted you, I
apologized a couple of minutes ago.It was to talk about the longevity dividend
(24:06):
and to say exactly what you justsaid, which is that we could save
a fortune. The NIA is nowthe National Institute of Alzheimer's because it's putting
all the money into chronic diseases,mostly dementia, and very little into prevention,
and therefore very little into education everythingwe could be spending. But I
don't think it's only because the sciencecommunity that you represent are being pussy footing
(24:33):
around. I think it's because Alzheimer'sis a business, and chronic here is
a business, and we fail thatbusiness if we cure or prevent. So
I'm a little bit deeper into thenegative side about I think you're actually genuinely
wrong about that. I think alot of people share that view that you've
(24:57):
just expressed. That Ultimately, youknow, the medical industry big Farmer wants
you know, they make their moneyout of sick people, and therefore they
don't really want preventative medicine. ButI think that's a little bit too short
sighted. Well, I'm not cynical, necessarily, but short sighted. I
think that the um, the farmer, the big farmer companies, they will
(25:22):
follow the money. There's one reasonand one only reason why they want to
create sick people and those because that'swhat the public understand. The public of
the ultimate payer right, you know, whether it's through chaucation or anything else.
They are the people who matter.They probably make decisions. If the
public shifts their emphasis even a littlebit in favor of understanding the value of
(25:51):
preventative medicine, then that's where themoney comes from, and the big farmer
industry will follow the money. Thetechnology is the same, they're totally equipped
to produce to shift their own faithmore in a preventative direction. They just
have no incentive to do so,because I thought, now the public doesn't
(26:14):
trust preventative medicine. That's what needsto change. If we know the public
attitude, we know the rest isit's like falling off a lock. Well,
you know what, we go andtake a little bit of a break.
We're going to come back and we'regoing to talk about the essential question.
How can the genoscience community, theresearch community, the communication community that
(26:34):
I'm in the media community make changesin your opinion. I'm here with or
we degree. And while he hasincredible amounts of credentials, the most outstanding
to me is he's a very interestingguy. Don't you guys go anywhere.
But that doesn't bother me, noteven a happy and I'm inappropriate for my
(27:03):
aged You may think that I'm allof it bother me, not even enough,
because I am happy. I'm inappropriate. Oh my, hello, hello,
(27:25):
Hello, This is Adrian Bergend.This is Generation Bowl, the fountain
of truth, the fountain of truthabout aging, and the fountain of truth
about aging to some people is thatwe do not have to age the way
we are doing so now we're doingso pretty well up to a certain point,
and then you have that inevitable decline, and that decline could be not
(27:47):
just devastating to you personally, whichis bad enough, devastating to your family,
even your grandkids. If you livelong enough, you're going to have
grandchildren become caregivers, but also tothe world because it becomes expensive. And
the turnaround and the pushback is thataging itself is bad, that you're older,
(28:07):
and therefore maybe you should be eliminatedfrom the planet a little sooner.
Yes, I am concerned about thatbecause if we become too burdensome at a
certain point, and there are toomany of us who are burdensome, who
knows how we will think about itas a societal matter. Now, we
do have people who are fighting inthe field, like my guest or bread
(28:29):
Degree, to turn this around tomake aging something much more delicious what he
calls health span, with many peoplecall health span meaning being healthy as you
age chronologically but not decline biologically.He has a new institute. He's also
the original founder of Sense, whichis a very well known institute fighting in
this field. And his ideas arecertainly very significant. So please do read
(28:56):
his book Mitochondria Free Radical Theory ofAging. It's an old book, it's
nineteen ninety nine, but it wasone of those that began all of this
learning that we've talked about for yearshere about mitochondria. You know these words,
you know all about the hallmarks ofaging. You'll see them all in
his book and his more recent bookEnding Aging, which goes a little bit
(29:17):
further and is also a mindset changingbook. So Aubrey tell us just once
again the website for your new foundation, and then I want to talk about
this issue of getting the public onboard. So we'll type the foundation of
LVF dot org Longevity Escape Velocity FoundationLVF. I do want to recommend in
terms of my books that people shouldlook at ending aging. My earlier book
(29:44):
Theory of Batting is very technical U, so you know I wouldn't start there
if I were you, But endingaging is described to make it a little
bit less technical. Well, actually, I think that's one of the issues
that because we're in the world ofa sign that people don't even know exists,
which is geroscience, and it's filledwith jargon, it's filled with numbers,
and it's filled with people who can'ttranslate it. It is difficult to
(30:08):
get some of these concepts to thepublic. Even when it comes to behavioral
health, it's hard to explain it. That's one of the issues here.
Climate change is different. People feelthe rain and they feel the heat,
and they feel the temperature changing aroundthem. But this is very subtle and
difficult. Yeah, it is oneof the things that I want to bring
(30:30):
out to everybody. As we justhad an election and there were issues of
environmentalism and issues of abortion and issuesof the economy, but in all of
the discussions, there wasn't one discussionby any candidate about longevity and healthcare.
Not one. It's just not onour radar, just as you say,
you Aubrey, So how do weget it on our radar? Yeah,
(30:53):
So essentially, I think it's allabout moving the middle in public opinion spent.
The reason I've spent so much ofmy time doing media over the past
fifteen twenty years, it's basically becauseI've understood since the beginning that until the
public really understand the dating is amedical problem that we are within striking distance
(31:17):
of bringing, of solving. Untilthat happens, the you know, there's
never going to be any changing policy. At the end of the day.
You know, elected representatives have onegoing life, which is to get reelected,
and therefore that our public policy followspublic opinion, it does not lead
public opinion. So I've been workingon public opinion and of course been changing
(31:41):
over time. We've made quite abit of progress a life. By that
progress has been because of progress that'sactually happens at the bench, you know,
in laboratories around the world, whichhave shown that this or that thing
that people thought was impossible it's actuallypossible, but we need to do plenty
more of that. The wilcome atipping point when we've made enough progress in
(32:04):
the laboratory, even in model organisms, like in laboratory animals, not just
in human beings and clinical trials.We've made the welcome a point where we've
made enough progress that the public justsay, yeah, you know what,
this is really true. We aregetting there, but we need to go
a bit further than we have sofar before that happens. At the end
(32:28):
of the day, this is allabout what you can really call preventative medicine.
You know, aging is the processthat goes on throughout life that results
in the health problems that we're alsofamiliar with, and we just need to
get the public happy with the ideathat the right way, the only really
effective way to stop people from gettingthose pathologies of late life is to intervene
(32:53):
preventatively and to address the things thatare happening throughout life that eventually call of
those health problems. You know,when the first since I believe you had
the Methuselah Institute and you actually hada Methuselah Mouse Prize, So again I'm
going to give you a little challengeon that. One of the things I
think that's difficult to the public isthat a lot of these breakthroughs occur in
(33:16):
small animals. And now I knowthere are dog projects, but even so,
as human beings we separate ourselves somuch from animals, but biologically in
the lab what you call on atthe bench, these breakthroughs often begin with
animals, and even the FDA expectsthat and funds that sort of thing.
(33:37):
Do you think that we can makea different kind of faster type of lab
testing where we have more human testsor is that too dangerous? Well,
so I have a couple of answersto that. The first one actually comes
back to what you said about dogsduring your question. That's important. So
(34:00):
there's a bunch of groups now,both private saction and academic doing work on
dogs and on companion animals, andthis is insanely valuable, partly because they
have, in various ways a greaterlevel of similarity to humans than what like
laboratory ms do, but also becauseyou know, there's an awful lot of
(34:23):
people out there who actually care abouttheir dogs. So you know, the
ability is to do this work becomesyou know, we have a whole new
dimension in terms of like the fundingfrom people who actually want their own dogs
to do better and on. Soyou know, I'm all over that.
I think that's a really important componentof where the long givity field has moved
(34:46):
over the past few years. I'mreally in favor of it. But beyond
that, of course, we doneed to get to the clinical trial aspect.
Absolutely we need to be looking athumans, because you know, you
can't replace humans. However, ahuge amount of what we need to do
in terms of moving the needle interms of public opinion revolves not just about
(35:08):
the on the actual results that comeout of experiments such as clinical trials,
but it revolves around what people saywhere people, I mean the influences the
acknowledged experts. So for the longesttime I've been the only acknowledged expert out
there saying yeah, you know,we're in striking distance of doing something about
(35:30):
aging. Now we've got a fewother people, people like George Church and
David Sinclair out there, and ratherlike saying yeah, you know what,
this is going well now, Idon't think that what those people are saying
today is confident enough, optimistic enoughto make the cut to actually really push
(35:57):
public opinion forward. But I believethat if we're going on a little bit
further in terms of talking about timeframes for likely progress, then yes,
you know, you'd get a pralWinfrey out there saying, um, you
know right, you know this islikely to happen. Therefore that we should
really be as a society trying tomake it happen a bit sooner. And
you know that would be the tippingpoint thereafter. You know, my job,
(36:20):
it's done advocacy wise. So thequestion is how much is it how
much more progress is it going totake before my colleagues in the community such
as you know, everything cloud yourchurch or whatever, We'll go out there
and say more or less the samethings that I've been saying for a while,
and I believe it doesn't actually needvery much more progress. So a
(36:42):
flagship um research program of my newfoundation, the LV Foundation, it's going
to be exactly that. It's goingto be pushing the amount of progress we
have in the laboratory with with withwith my forward enough that my colleagues,
(37:04):
my prominent colleagues, will feel ableto say, yeah, you know what,
this is game over. We areon our way we are going to
get there in the foreseeable future.You know, I have always felt that
the missing element in the United States, and I work a lot with the
United Nations, so I could tellyou it's very different in other countries and
messaging is different. But in theUS we miss the AD Council. Believe
(37:28):
it or not, the AD Councilhas been a very important part of us
not smoking, of us being moreinclusive and accepting relationships with younger people and
older people. What they get ona bandwagon and use through the media,
which is very influential. What youcall the influencers, the celebrity influencers is
(37:49):
important. I managed to get onan Oprah's show four times and it actually
did make a huge difference in theway people invested. It was about money,
not about health at that time,So you're absolutely right. And Matt
Camberlin, who's doing the One ofthe Dog projects and nearby Zilli, myself
and kendyke Well did a program togetherabout immortality and we use the word immortality,
(38:13):
and you're right. They were veryvery circumspect about what they allowed themselves
to say because immortality is really ataboo. We should not be talking about
that they should be talking about exactlywhat you're saying, and you think that
they're just an incher way these influentialsin the field of geroscience. But what
I can tell you is that theinfluentials in the field of celebrity status and
(38:39):
media are very far away. Andyet when it comes to beauty, when
it comes to having your face lookyounger, they're right there and they're very
influential. And I just have wonderedin my last question to you on this
part of it, do you seea connection there the fact that we have
taken so much, spend so muchpersonally on our looks, that we can
(39:04):
use that as some leverage to explainhow much we will feel better inside if
we care about prevention. I don'tknow if we can make a marriage there.
Yeah, it's it's hard to know. I mean, this is a
very profound question, Adria. Thisis a really great question because you know,
we've, as you say, we'veput so much money into the cosmetic
(39:25):
side. But um, you know, one way to look at why that
has happened, why there is sucha market there is that it's all about
denial. It's all about trying to, you know, find new ways everywhere.
We can't one kind to put agingout of one's mind and get on
with one's miserably short life and makethe best of it, you know,
(39:46):
rather than worrying about the things thatare going on inside one's body. And
so in that sense we can saythat, actually this is not really helpful.
You know. It's like more progresswe're making metics the more problems we
are making for ourselves in terms ofgetting people to what's going on inside that
(40:07):
body. Seriously, you know,I mean, of course, I don't
want to oversimplify or over generalize here. The fact is everybody's different. You
know, some people will be receptive, you know, susceptible, vulnerable as
you we say, to that kindof logic, and some people weren't.
(40:27):
But yeah, well it's double edged, double Well. I have to say
that we thank you so much.I mean, this is not the first
time that we've spoken. It won'tbe the last time. I send everybody
to your book ending Aging. It'snot the latest book. We've had some
of the more recent books, butI'll tell you it's the one that started
everything. And you've weared a lotof controversy. You're coming to that point
(40:50):
now, where I think you're inanother iteration that everybody has sort of taken
your lead, and they are alsosaying that we can live way past,
way past years that they talked abouteven five years ago, four years ago.
Today nearby, Zili says he's beenon our show. We're putting at
(41:13):
least thirty five years on the table. We're wasting at least thirty five years
in our thinking. That would meanthat most people could easily live over the
age of one hundred, and wethink it's a big deal to reach one
hundred. And of course Aubrid deGray says, that's chump change. We
can do a lot better than that. So Aubrey, we thank you so
much. And by the way,where are you talking to us from Cambridge?
(41:37):
Where's the new institute located? Isit in England? No? No,
no, we're in California. Stillin California. Okay, you're traveling
right now. Wonderful. So thankyou so much and keep in touch because
we will always want to have youon. I know that you will have
the breakthroughs that you'll be able totell us about and the thinking and thought
leadership that you've had in the past. Thanks Aubrey, Well, thank you
(41:59):
so much for having me, andeverybody else you know what I'm gonna say,
Get out their kids and make ithappen. I'm inappropriate
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