#371 Longevity Scientist Shares Steps to Slow Down Aging - Michael Lustgarten PhD

Michael Lustgarten (0:00)

I don't know if you've seen the movie The Martian with Matt Damon, where he basically is stuck on Mars, and he says he's got to science the shit out of it to survive. I kind of feel like that in terms of longevity. I've got to science as much of this as I can. Exercise is clearly good for healthspan and increasing average survival, but there's almost something simultaneously bad about it, where you don't get to the maximal or beyond.

Siim Land (0:21)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land, and today our guest is Dr. Michael Lustgarten.

Michael is a PhD in Physiology who specializes in Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, and Longevity. Michael has an amazing YouTube channel called Conquer Aging or Die Trying. He's tracked his biomarkers regularly over the last 15 years and has gained a lot of insights into what actually matters when it comes to slowing down aging and promoting longevity. Dr. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Lustgarten (0:49)

Thanks, Siim. How are you doing?

Siim Land (0:51)

I'm doing great, yeah, and I'm really excited to talk with you because you have an amazing YouTube channel where you've documented all these different experiments you've done on yourself and all the studies as well, correlating with biological age and actual chronological age and mortality risk and all those things. So it's a really good database and resource for just people to check out, what is the things that actually matter in terms of mortality risk when we're talking about different biomarkers or dietary practices and all those things.

And there's very few people who have, like you say in a lot of your videos that you've tracked all your food for the last six years or so or more, and all the biomarkers as well for like 15 years. So yeah, like really glad to talk with you and share some insight to people.

Michael Lustgarten (1:43)

Yeah, thanks, Siim. So just real quick, when I was growing up, I started off with the Bodybuilder magazines and I'm still obviously into fitness. But that's another story, that's a tangent. But back then, Jack Lane was a big iconic fitness figure, and he would always say things like eat real food and exercise.

So for the longest time, that was the motto, right? But then I thought there's got to be a higher level. What is the higher level to this?

And that involves objective biomarkers, right? Like blood biomarkers, things like blood pressure, as many objectively measured biomarkers as possible. So if we track that over time, with the goal of slowing down age-related changes, and what does that recipe look like in terms of how much exercise, what's an optimal body weight, what macros and micros. So yeah, that's been the journey.

Siim Land (2:34)

Yeah, exactly. And I'm glad to see a lot more focus on that when we're talking about longevity and aging, because when I grew up, which is like 10 years ago or 15 years ago, when I was first exposed to content online about fitness or health and stuff, then there wasn't back then, there wasn't a lot of scientific or people didn't back up their claims a lot with science and data and stuff like that. And at the end of the day, that's what matters the most. Like you can have, let's say, for example, even like the most studies or something, you have some results in a mouse study, but in humans, it might be completely different.

Or like some people say that the Hades diet is the best, but actually their blood work is worse than what we know is optimal. Then, you know, that means a lot, the actual like data and the actual outcome.

Michael Lustgarten (3:29)

And I think, unfortunately, so many people are using animal studies and even RCTs done in other people, you know, and then saying, oh, it worked in those studies, I'm going to take it for myself.

But then that, you know, that's great. That's better than doing nothing. But then, like you said, objective biomarkers. Does it even work for you? Is it even improving your net sum of biomarkers? And I think, too, a limitation there is a lot of people are focused on metabolic health, so glucose and lipids, and then they forget about everything else. And I don't want to put any, you know, anybody on blast. But I see that a lot. And the fact is, they forget forget about kidney health, liver health and, you know, immune cells, maybe they focus on inflammation. But the fact is, maybe you won't die from adverse metabolic health. Granted, that's an important thing to focus on. But every organ system is going to decline during aging and neglecting one or many, I think, is a fallacious approach. So I try to cover them all.