#1234 - David Sinclair

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Here we go, five, four, three, two, one. David.

How are you, sir?

David Sinclair (0:10)

Great, thanks.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

Thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it.

David Sinclair (0:12)

Thanks for having me on.

Joe Rogan (0:13)

Really looking forward to talking to you. Very much so. This is a fascinating subject for me, anti-aging. The idea that you'll be able to stop aging or even possibly pull it back, or at very least slow it down.

What do you think?

David Sinclair (0:28)

I think that's all on the table. We've been doing this for years in the lab. Now we've just got to figure out how to do it in people.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

When I talk to someone like you as an actual research scientist of this stuff, I always want to know, what are you doing to yourself?

David Sinclair (0:39)

Ah, how long have you got?

Joe Rogan (0:42)

Like what do you do on a daily basis?

David Sinclair (0:43)

What do I do?

Joe Rogan (0:44)

First of all, are you 100 years old?

David Sinclair (0:46)

Getting there.

Joe Rogan (0:47)

How old are you?

David Sinclair (0:48)

20, 50

Joe Rogan (0:49)

You're turning 50? I wouldn't have thought you were 50

I would have figured you were for about 41, 42

David Sinclair (0:55)

Well, that's kind of you. Well, my brother's the negative control, and he's...

Joe Rogan (0:59)

Does he look like shit?

David Sinclair (1:01)

Well, I can't say that, but people say that he doesn't look as young as me, and he's about three and a half years younger.

Joe Rogan (1:07)

Oh, so what are you doing personally?

David Sinclair (1:10)

Well, most of the time I'm in the lab and trying to run a bunch of companies to make these drugs a reality.

But daily, I try to keep a healthy weight. I do intermittent fasting, which is pretty easy, because I'm so busy I forget to eat.

Joe Rogan (1:24)

How many hours do you give yourself every night?

David Sinclair (1:26)

Well, I suffer from late night snacking, but I try to skip breakfast and even skip lunch if I'm busy. So I'm a night eater.

But that seemed to be good, because a study came out about a couple of weeks ago, at least in mice, that it's not what you eat, it's when you eat that's most important for longevity.

Joe Rogan (1:43)

Really?

And when being when? Like what's the best?

David Sinclair (1:48)

It doesn't actually matter if you eat a lot in the morning or a lot at night. I like nighttime eating. But you need a period during the day, at least if you're a mouse, probably if you're a human, where you're hungry.

And that puts your body in a defensive mode. These are the things that we've been studying in my lab for the last 20 years. What are the processes that diet and exercise do for us that keep us healthy? And why does calorie restriction and intermittent fasting make animals live so much longer?

And we think we've figured out a large part of how that works and now we're mimicking that with molecules.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

Is the idea that you can mimic it with molecules and it will be as effective as intermittent fasting?

David Sinclair (2:28)

I think the molecules will be better.

And not only that, when we add them on to a healthy diet and exercise in the animals, they do even better. It's like a supercharged mouse.

Joe Rogan (2:37)

Now, when you add them on to the mice, do you also add them on with intermittent fasting? And is there an additional benefit?

David Sinclair (2:44)

We do. We do. One of the first molecules that, one of the first molecules that we are known for is resveratrol from red wine. That molecule discovered it in my 30s, so at least linked it to aging.

What we showed was that if you give it to a fat mouse, they're as healthy as a thin mouse. They live just as long, they didn't get heart disease and all of the other bad stuff.

Then what we did was interesting. We gave it to the mice either every day in their food or let them skip a meal every day so that they were fed every other day. And that combination of resveratrol plus every other day feeding, we had the longest lifespan we'd ever seen and it was so it was additive. Same with exercise. If we give our latest molecule called NMN to a mouse and we exercise it, it'll run even further than it could with either of those alone. So it's not an excuse to sit around and just eat chips and watch TV. It augments healthy lifestyle, gets you further than what you could get naturally.