#1349 - David Sinclair

Joe Rogan (0:03)

David Sinclair, Lifespan, Why We Age And Why We Don't Have To.

I'm so happy there are people like you out there, because I don't want to age. I'm aging, clearly, but I'm not interested in it. I don't like it.

David Sinclair (0:17)

Yeah, well, I don't know anybody who does. Joe Rogan, thanks for having me back on.

Joe Rogan (0:20)

Thanks for coming back. The first one was a smash hit, man. People loved it.

All my friends were very excited. But I had a question for you right off the bat, regarding metformin. There was actually an article, I'm sure you saw it recently, like within the last couple of days that was going around through all the mainstream papers. It was talking about how the use of metformin, DHEA, and was there something else as well that was taking two years?

Human growth hormone, taking two years, two biological years off of people's lives in terms of their age, which would make me 50

David Sinclair (0:59)

Right, even 49.5 according to the study.

Joe Rogan (1:02)

That's what I'm looking for.

David Sinclair (1:03)

Yeah, that was a good study. It's only nine people, so we have to repeat this.

Joe Rogan (1:10)

Were they studs? Did you get like nine super athletes or did you get like schmoes that don't exercise?

David Sinclair (1:16)

As far as I know, these were just regular schmoes. Schmoes, yeah, which is good news for schmoes like me.

Joe Rogan (1:21)

Yes, good news. Good news, yeah, I mean, that's what you want. You don't want like, some people just respond better. They have super bodies, you know?

David Sinclair (1:28)

Well, the great thing about that study is, first of all, I was with the first, the main author on that paper while it came out. I was over in Israel as part of my journey up the great rift of Africa, ended up in Israel. Anyway, the guy there, Steve Horvath is his name.

He and I and a couple of other guys are trying to figure out not just why we age, why we don't have to, but is aging truly reversible? And that's what this study suggests, is that it's not just about slowing down aging, but one day we could be 80, but biologically 30

Joe Rogan (2:04)

Now, when we're talking about the biological age, how is that measured? Is this measured by the length of the telomeres? Is this measured by physical performance? Is it measured by a combination of these factors?

David Sinclair (2:16)

It's none of that.

It's something brand new. Most people don't know about it. So, it's called the Horvath Clock. And what Horvath and others have discovered is that if you read the DNA, and you don't just look at the letters, A, C, T, G, if you look at what's on the letter C, cytosine is called, there are chemical modifications. And those chemicals change as we get older in very linear and predictable ways. And if you use a computer, AI, you can say, if I took your blood sample right now, I could read your DNA, look at those chemical groups on the Cs, and I could say, you are, okay, you're 52 You might be 46, according to that clock.

And also I could predict when you're gonna die.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

Whoa.

David Sinclair (2:59)

Scary thought, right?

Joe Rogan (3:00)

Yeah, like a fortune teller.

David Sinclair (3:01)

Yeah, but the good news is, now that we know what's not just measuring aging, we actually think that clock is part of the aging process. We're learning how to reverse it too.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

Hmm.

Now, is this just one modality, this combination of growth hormone? Is this one way of going about it? Are there other ways of going about it? Growth hormone, DHEA, Metformin, is there anything else?

David Sinclair (3:27)

Well, that's the first that's ever been chosen to really reverse.

Joe Rogan (3:29)

It's just those three things?

David Sinclair (3:30)

But I'm sure there's gonna be many more discovered. We've only had this Horvath Clock over the last few years in humans being used widely.

But I think as we use this clock, we're gonna figure out that a whole bunch of stuff that we do and things that we can do and combine will not just slow aging, but reverse it. And not just by two and a half years. Eventually, and some of the technology that I talk about in my book, we think could turn the clock back by a decade or more.

Joe Rogan (3:57)

Whoa. Now, what things are you talking about that could possibly turn it back a decade or more?