#224 Siim Land About Autophagy, Hormesis and Immunity

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Today on the May to Thrive Show, we've probably got one individual who I think is probably gonna live to the age of 150

And the reason I say that, he's the youngest professional biohacker. But I'm gonna let him introduce himself, and it's a question I often ask my guests on the May to Thrive Show, is who is Siim Land?

Siim Land (0:25)

Yeah, well, I'm primarily an author. I do speaking, I create content online, and I cover mostly things related to optimizing health, performance, longevity, and just overall mindset and wellness.

SPEAKER_1 (0:45)

And how old are you, Siim?

Siim Land (0:48)

I'm 26

SPEAKER_1 (0:49)

Great, so give us the backstory, why health optimization, and when did you start?

Siim Land (0:56)

Yeah, well, I guess I like started of maybe like five or six years ago, and the reason I got into it was to just improve my overall performance and like primarily fitness. Fitness was my main goal initially, and then I learned a lot more about the longevity side of things.

And yeah, now I'm just trying to find like a balance between both of them. So how do I, yeah, definitely increase my longevity, but at the same time, stay fit and kind of enjoy life at the same time.

SPEAKER_1 (1:34)

Great, but I mean, do you have a passion for health? I mean, what's the reason underlying it other than yourself? It seems like you are sort of, got a prestigious amount of excellent work out there, two books. I mean, what has been the internal driver for you to actually teach so many people worldwide?

Siim Land (1:53)

Well, I think the might be something to do with not wanting to get sick and not wanting to kind of die before, because I don't want to put more efforts or not put more stress on my family members because if I were to get sick or something. So it's just a preventative pursuit of just wanting to prevent getting sick in the first place.

SPEAKER_1 (2:22)

Great. Let's just jump into your book, Metabolic Autophagy. What is autophagy?

Siim Land (2:29)

Yeah, well, it's this physiological process inside the body that helps to eliminate these various cell parts and the different organelles that are deemed to be dysfunctional or damaged in some ways. So autophagy can eliminate like broken mitochondria, these, you know, debris, cellular debris, senescent cells, the different pathogens and yeah, just this junk material can be eliminated with it.

And autophagy also has a pretty important role in the immune system. It can be important for like the brain and yeah, it's a kind of central component to just a healthy cellular functioning.

SPEAKER_1 (3:13)

So with regards to the pandemic this year and having a strong immune system, autophagy must be extremely important in this process of cell repair, cell regeneration and dealing with old, you know, stagnant cells or senescent cells. Tell us, how do we sort of activate autophagy?

Siim Land (3:33)

Yeah, well, yeah, autophagy can be positive and beneficial, but it can also be harmful.

Like it depends on the situation. And usually autophagy gets activated in response to some kind of a physiological stressor, such as like fasting, calorie restriction, carbohydrate restriction, exercise, heat stress, cold, hypoxia, and there are also like, you know, different compounds and foods that also turn on, like coffee or green tea, you know, vegetables, dark, dark pigment vegetables and curcumin. So it's like a response to this stress that the body wants to or has to deal with.

SPEAKER_1 (4:18)

Great, and you mentioned fasting. I've just done a fasting webinar for my tribe and my community, had incredible feedback on it.

Tell us why you're such a big proponent of intermittent fasting. You've written a number of books that I've found absolutely fascinating that you can find at, and we'll give the social media handles for some, because I think it's just a wealth of information at such a young age, incredible mind.

I've learned so much from you, Moretti, but tell me about intermittent fasting and why it's so beneficial.

Siim Land (4:48)

Well, I think it's, well, the reason I do it has to do mostly with like the convenience and easy way to do it.

So I find it very effective for just time management and maintaining like better health more easily. But there are also some health benefits that you get from it, like primarily improved, like glucose metabolism, lower blood pressure and activation of like these longevity genes that kind of one of them being autophagy and the other ones as well. But it's not like, if you compare to like head to head with just regular calorie restriction or let's say regular dieting, then it's not inherently superior, but it does, let's say can increase adherence to a particular way of eating. And definitely it is, let's say pretty suitable for people who just maybe don't prefer to eat several times throughout the entire day all the time.