#393 My Bloodwork Results - Going for Slowest Speed of Aging - w/ Joe Cohen

Joe Cohen (0:00)

I could see based on somebody's blood test, like what their pace of aging is basically, how healthy they are. Even if you're very healthy, you still want to optimize and see what you can do. Like I said, I look at a lot of people's labs. It's very clear to me that you're...

Siim Land (0:12)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land, and today we're talking with Joe Cohen. Joe is the founder and CEO of Self Decode, which is a genetics analysis company. In this episode, we're going to look at my own recent blood work I did at my retreat in India. Based on the Self Decode analysis, my blood work is 97 out of 100 Self Decode has hundreds of reports for various issues like low mood, heart disease, fat loss, sleep, et cetera. Based on your blood work and genetics, Self Decode will then list science-based recommendations for supplements, foods, and lifestyle. If you want to get your DNA tested or let Self Decode automatically analyze your blood work, then head over to selfdecode.com and use the code Siim for a 10% discount.

Joe, welcome back to the show.

Joe Cohen (0:58)

Hey, thanks for having me.

Siim Land (0:59)

Yeah, I'm glad to have you back. And we just came back maybe like a few weeks ago already from our retreat in India.

We did a blood test there, a pretty comprehensive one, over 180 biomarkers plus like 35 amino acids from the urine. So, yeah, we both got a pretty good like a overview of our biomarkers while at the retreat. And in this episode, we're just going to share my results, talk about my results, and also like look at it from how do you like get a very good scientific and evidence-based overview of whatever biomarkers you have with the self-decode website where you can upload your genetics plus your blood work and get, yeah, like AI-based and evidence-based recommendations for those results. So yeah, I'm glad to speak with you.

Joe Cohen (1:52)

Awesome, yeah, likewise, great speaking to you. And I just like to start with you have great blood results. So you know how there's tests for aging, epigenetic tests. I could see based on somebody's lab tests if they're gonna get a good result on these because basically what they're doing is they're taking these kinds of markers, maybe some other ones, but a lot of them are just based on regular blood tests. And I could see based on somebody's blood tests if they're going, like what their pace of aging is, basically how healthy they are.

And in your case in particular, something that is very interesting is that during the test, I could see based on a bunch of blood markers that you were fighting an infection. However, you mentioned that you didn't have any symptoms of an infection, and that's because you're very resilient. So I remember you did some kind of test like the VO2 max test, and you said you were traveling, and you weren't 100% on your game normally. You thought it was because of the travel. Actually, you were fighting an infection.

The fact that you didn't experience any symptoms just speaks about your resilience, meaning people usually get an infection, they start having a whole bunch of symptoms. You were able to fight it off and not have inflammation. Your HSCRP was still very low.

So normally, there's a lot of ways the body fights an infection. And you can't really prevent infection so much, right? Because if you're breathing air in an environment that's not outside, like if you're traveling on an airplane, there's like 300 people or whatnot. People are breathing on you, they're coughing. And in this season, where I am at least, everybody's getting sick all the time.

And I check my blood markers all the time, and I say, yeah, I'm also getting sick, but I'm not having any significant symptoms. Like I might feel a little weaker or whatever, but nothing, I get over pretty quickly.

And so it's not about whether you get the infection or not. I mean, if you don't want to get an infection, you have to stay isolated, right? But if you're, you gotta be in a bubble room. But if it's in the winter, you're traveling, especially internationally, internationally, you will likely get infections. And then the question is, how do you cope with the infection? You know, you might not have felt it just because you're so robust, but I can see it very clearly on the blood test. Now, a lot of the blood tests that are just measuring like inflammation, those were pretty low because those aren't the first line response. Your body has a lot more robust responses before that. If you have like a lot of inflammation after infection, that already means that you're starting to feel symptoms and things like that. But the first line is actually the amino acids. So your body knows it has an infection and starts sucking up all the amino acids from the blood.