#497 The Complete Longevity Ranking: Lifestyle, Medicine, Biohacking

Siim Land (0:00)

Hey, welcome back to the channel. Today we have a special video. I'm going to be ranking things in Matt Caberlane's Longevity Bracket, where you have different interventions listed out. They compete with each other, and we see which one comes out on top. So here's what it looks like. We have a total of 64 different interventions, and yeah, they're gonna be competing with each other. You can also vote. You can also follow through this same bracket. I'm just recording it for the channel, giving my own thoughts and opinions about it, give some commentary about this. So yeah, I'll put the link in the description where you can fill it out yourself. So without further ado, let's get started with the lifestyle bracket. Essentially, things related to more lifestyle. And here we have not smoking versus the Italian grandpa lifestyle. Actually, I was one of the committee or one of the, yeah, committee to submit these interventions, and I submitted the Italian grandpa lifestyle, inspired by this meme online about the Italian grandpa who smokes and doesn't do anything for his health and lives a long time. I actually made a video about it as well, looking at the evidence to those claims. And the truth is that the Italian grandpa who doesn't take care of his health, who smokes, who doesn't exercise, eats a regular diet, they might live to the age of, let's say, low 80s, 82, 85, if they're healthy. But it's a myth that they actually live to the age of 100 without doing anything. The amount of people who live to the age of 100 while smoking is extremely small. There's only like 1% of Italian, the Sardinian centenarians who are actually active smokers. So there's a lot of misconception about this style of living. And if you compare it to not smoking at all, then for sure, not smoking is significantly more important to your overall health when it comes to longevity. Next, we have sleep optimization and a high fiber diet, 25 to 30 grams a day. Now, sleep optimization can mean a lot of things. It's beyond just the regular basics of sleep, beyond the regular sleeping 7 to 8 hours. Sleep optimization is more about tracking your sleep, using different supplements to improve your sleep, trying to get basically 100 sleep score with your sleep tracker. And I think that sleep is something that you don't need to have 100% optimized. There's no linear benefits to that. You need to have the 7 to 8 hours of sleep, consistency with your sleep wake-up cycles, sufficient amount of deep and REM sleep, not waking up several times throughout the night. So beyond the just healthy sleep, sleep optimization itself has little to no evidence that it would be actually more important. Whereas a high-fiber diet, I'm gonna put high-fiber here, because people will benefit a lot more from a higher-fiber intake compared to trying to get 100% sleep score, for example, based on the evidence. Next, social connections and abstinence from alcohol. I'll say social connections. So based on the evidence, you don't need to be 0% alcohol or 0% alcohol intake. Closer to 0% is better than moderate alcohol consumption based on the evidence. But let's say if you drink a few drinks per week, not more than 2 drinks per night, then that your liver can handle and your body can also recover from. So there's a certain amount of unhealthy things your body can do within a 24-hour period or within a week without harming your health. And alcohol is one of those things. Whereas with social connections, that is actually one of the more consistent findings about longevity, that people who live longer have healthy social connections and good relationships. Next, healthy body composition slash low visceral fat or plyometrics training. Now, plyometrics training is super underrated when it comes to health or living longer, because with age, you see a disproportionately bigger decline in vascular muscle fibers. So you become slower, although people are very rigid and slow. Not only with less muscle, but also in terms of speed. So it is super important to do some form of plyometrics training. I think it's very underrated. But if you compare it to healthy body composition, which is having lower body fat, especially lower visceral fat, then this obviously is a lot more important in terms of the hierarchy. So I'm going to build healthy body comp here. Next, via to max optimization or HIIT and a sense of purpose. Now, this is also kind of interesting match up, since, you know, trying to optimize your HIIT can be a sense of purpose in terms of having certain goals and trying to pursue those goals if you have certain via to max goals. But again, yeah, looking at the broader evidence than people with a sense of purpose, with a meaning behind their life, they tend to live longer. And it's very interesting that it appears to be some like top down that with a sense of purpose, your brain is more motivated to do healthy things and follow healthier habits as well. Of course, if you are trying to optimize your via to max, then you are also doing other things probably to improve your health, because to have the best via to max, you need to be lower body weight, eat a healthier diet, sleep enough, etc. But I'll put sense of purpose here for the sake of this bracket. Obviously, both can be important, but it appears the sense of purpose over the course of decades is a bit more important. Mediterranean-style diet versus keto diet, I think there is no argument about that. The Mediterranean-style diet tends to be with more evidence, and I think most people will see better blood work as well on the Mediterranean diet. High-quality nutrition versus zone 2 training. So, overall, nutrition is more important compared to regular zone 2 training. You can get away with not doing zone 2 training, but if you're not eating at least a decent diet, you don't need to be 100% perfect with your diet, but at least a decent diet, you'll harm your health. And lastly here, we have strength training versus moderate alcohol consumption. I think, again, strength training is by far more important to do rather than being zero alcohol, if that makes sense. You can be otherwise healthy, and if you don't drink more than two drinks per week, in my opinion, then you can maintain pretty good health and longevity. But if you don't do strength training, then you're going to pretty much wither away eventually. All right, so now moving up with the brackets, we're heading towards the semi-finals soon. So, smoking, not smoking versus a high-fiber diet. So that's kind of an interesting match up. I would say not smoking is a lot more important than a high-fiber diet. Although if you're smoking and you eat a high-fiber diet, you're probably going to have slightly better health outcomes than smoking and not eating a high-fiber diet. I just don't think that it's going to make up for smoking overall. Then we have social connections and healthy body composition. Now, this can be quite conflicting in a sense. Could you be a gym cell, completely obsessed, a bodybuilder with perfect physique and low visceral fat, or by the same time being with bad social connections, suffering from depression or loneliness, etc. So I think comparing healthy body composition and social connections, yeah, it's a very tricky. First of all, there are some older individuals who do develop unhealthier body compositions, and they can still live quite longer time. But at the same time, we all know, like jolly uncle, jolly grandfather, who's happy. They're like the life of the party, but they still get a heart attack right in their 60s or 70s. So no one is immune to a heart attack. If you have bad body composition, but at the same time, no one is also immune to the negative consequences of social isolation and loneliness, no matter how, I guess, introverted or independent, someone thinks they are. So I'll put social connections here, just because empirically we can, or at least I think subjectively people would see the opposite, that people with good, healthy connections tending to faring a little bit better. And with healthy body composition, at the older ages, there does appear that being slightly chunkier does protect against falls to a certain extent, but that's because people don't have muscle. So the extra body fat is acting like an extra cushion, which people with muscle wouldn't need, if that makes sense. If you have good muscle, then you don't need the extra body fat, even at the elderly age. But if you don't have the muscle, then the extra body fat does appear to protect something. Next, we have sense of purpose and Mediterranean diet. Well, I mean, you don't need an exclusive Mediterranean diet to live longer time, or that's not the only diet you can follow. It appears to have the most evidence, and it's a kind of safe bet to follow. But you can follow like an Okinawan diet, a Japanese diet. There's like a Nordic diet that's becoming popular with a lot of seafood and whole grains. So yeah, I mean, you can structure different diets. So I'll put the sense of purpose instead of the diet. And high-quality nutrition and strength training. I'll put strength training, because with strength training, you can also get a lot of leeway with your nutrition. If you're exercising, you have a muscle, you lift weights, then you don't need to be as strict with your diet, because you'll have better body composition just thanks to the training. You have better insulin sensitivity, better blood sugar regulation, so you can eat a little bit of a lower quality diet and not suffer in terms of your body composition and your metabolic health. So strength training definitely makes it easier to stay healthier with regards to your blood markers and body composition. And now, the winners of this bracket, the lifestyle bracket, what's the best lifestyle interventions? Not smoking versus social connections. Well, I'll say social connections is, or, I mean, yeah, I mean, if you smoke, but you're hanging out with friends and family, I mean, you'll still get cancer and get a heart attack, right? So I'll put not smoking. That's for sure a lot more important in my opinion. A sense of purpose and strength training. So I'll put a sense of purpose here. I think that's a bit more important than a strength training component, although doing strength training, it can be a subcategory of having a purpose, right? You're trying to get stronger and increase your lifts or something like that. All right, before I actually compare these two, I'm going to finish the other brackets first, so we'll get a final showdown of the half finals. I want to take a quick break to invite you to my online community, Youths Bend Society. Youths Bend Society is a longevity community on school, and it's the place to be if you want to keep learning from me and hang out with other people who are interested in extending their lifespan and anti-aging. We have over 10 courses in the library about things like via2max, strength, liver health, visceral fat, sleep, HRV, as well as skin anti-aging, nutrition, and fat loss. More courses and masterclasses will be added throughout the year. Each course breaks down the topic into actionable steps and outlines the optimal range for dozens of biomarkers. The community also has weekly live group calls, and you can just post things on the dashboard for me and everyone else to respond to. Don't know where to start? Start with the 7-day Longevity Kickstart Challenge, and then move on with the 30-day one. All of that for 60 cents per day for the standard membership, or $1.3 if you opt for the premium. You can also start off with a 7-day free trial to see if it's a good fit for you or not. Link in the description. Moving on with the medicine bracket. So things related to certain medications and pharmaceuticals. First, we have blood pressure optimization and B complex optimization. Out of blood pressure and B vitamin status, I think blood pressure is significant and more important. Hypertension accelerates brain aging, it increases risk of heart disease, one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease, kidney disease as well. So for sure, keeping your blood pressure in check is more important than supporting methylation, although it's important, but it's not as important as the blood pressure. PCSK9 inhibitors versus metformin. So PCSK9 inhibitors are lipid-lowering drug, and they target Lp little a, which is the only drug that reliably lowers Lp little a. So that can be pretty important for cardiovascular disease risk reduction. Metformin, diabetes drug, and also appears to lower risk of cancer and heart disease in diabetics. So I think metformin is the obvious winner here. It has a lot longer track record, it's more wider in terms of the effect. So I'll put metformin here. SGLD2 inhibitors versus male hormone optimization. SGLD2 inhibitors being diabetes drugs, and they are actually better than metformin, they have fewer side effects, and they don't appear to lower testosterone, unlike metformin, for example. So actually like an interesting match up with male hormone optimization, male hormone optimization being things like taking some testosterone boosters like Tonkat Ali, maybe taking TRT, hormone replacement therapy, and trying to make sure that your testosterone is on the upper higher end of the reference range, for example. I think, I mean, this question doesn't address women, obviously, but I would say male hormone is, you know, for general health purposes, it's more important. And if you optimize your hormones, which entails doing some sort of exercise and keeping your body fat slightly lower, then you don't inherently need SGL in two inhibitors. Next, we have maintaining oral health and bisphenates. Bisphenates are drugs that help to slow down bone loss. And with oral health, there is an interesting relationship between your Alzheimer's risk and other heart disease risk as well. So the mouth bacteria, as well as just your teeth, they are influencing you, the rest of the body, especially can cause systemic inflammation. So I'll put oral health, I think that's more important than drugs or bone loss, especially...