#285 Can Alpha-Ketoglutarate Reverse Aging by 8 Years - Dr Kris Verburgh

Kris Verburgh (0:00)

If you want to address aging, you need to fix all these things at the same time, and not just focusing on one aspect. So even if I have developed a drug that can improve mitochondrial dysfunction, then I still need to address epigenetic changes. I still need to do something about the protein accumulation. I still need to do something about telomere shortening, about DNA damage. So that's why the pharmaceutical is so interesting, you can use multiple substances that can address all these aging hallmarks in a synergistic way.

Siim Land (0:32)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast, I'm your host Siim Land, and today our guest is Dr. Kris Verburgh. Kris is a medical doctor, researcher and author. He's created a new scientific field called Nutri Gerontology, and has coined the term Second Biotech Age, which describes personalized precision medicine of the future. Kris is also the author of the Longevity Code and founder of Novos Labs that provides Longevity Supplements.

Novos Core is a daily longevity drink mix with zero calories and packed with many compounds that benefit healthspan, such as glycine, magnesium, glucosamine sulfate, phycetin, hyaluronic acid, thionine, ginger, pterosteel bean and calcium alpha-ketoglutarate. Calcium alpha-ketoglutarate is a molecule used in your body for energy production. Supplementing calcium alpha-ketoglutarate has been seen to reverse the biological age of humans by 7 to 8 years. I've been using the Novos Core for about a month and it's really good. You can get a 10% discount of Novos Core at novoslabs.com and by using the code SIIM10.

Kris, welcome to the show.

Kris Verburgh (1:34)

My pleasure.

Siim Land (1:35)

Yeah, I'm kind of excited to talk with you because, you know, there's like a few scientists who have been, let's say, very prolific or who have done a lot of, let's say, starting from an early age, they've become like fully immersed with the science and written several books and done other research about it. So you're one of those kind of people that I stumbled upon who happens to be that. And you're also mainly focused on like aging and longevity, which is also very, let's say, very interesting and very popular topic in the future that you cover in your blog and other posts as well.

But maybe let's start with like, you know, what made you want to become a scientist and what made you like interested in longevity specifically?

Kris Verburgh (2:21)

Yeah, so since I've been fascinated by aging and in fact the big questions in life.

So this ranges from where did the universe come from? Is there an edge of the universe to why do we have to die? And what's life? Why are we different from a rock? So what makes us alive? So all these big questions have had a big interest in since a very young age.

But I think aging and dying, it's one of the biggest philosophical questions. So why do we have to age? Why does aging exist? Why do we have to die?

And in fact, it's usually interesting why aging exists in that regard because biologists have been thinking about it for more than 150 years. Why actually we have to age? We don't age because we just wear out or wear down. It's more complicated than that. Because nature can postpone the rate of aging or the wearing down substantially. So why we have to age? Why human lifespan is only around 80 years? Fascinated me from a very young age. And also why I'm so interested in aging and longevity is because I have a huge interest in how the human body works. So that's why I studied medicine. Since I was young age, I also knew I wanted to become a medical doctor to learn more how the body works, how the brain works.

And as a medical doctor, I quickly realized that the best way to keep people healthy is by acting on the root cause of the process that causes most diseases, which is aging. Aging causes heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, osteoporosis, macrodegeneration. So if you better understand why we age, you can much better see how to keep people healthy for the longest time possible.

So I think I've been interested in aging both from a biological perspective, because it's super interesting biologically what happens in the body. Why we age is also very complex and I love complex stuff. Secondly, it's very interesting philosophically speaking. So why do we have to die? Why are our lifespan is quite limited compared to some other species that can live for 200 years, like some turtles or some sharks can live up to four or five hundred years. So why only 80 years for us?