Can Humans Live For 1000 Years? - Professor David Sinclair - #066

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Howdy, friends. I'm coming to you from America, as is this podcast, but not the same trip. Podcastland sometimes has a odd sense of serendipity when it comes to the scheduling. So today, I am sitting down with Professor David Sinclair from Harvard Medical School. Now, I first heard David on Joe Rogan's podcast and was blown away by his insight. He's an expert in anti-aging and longevity. He has more companies than I think even he can remember and has essentially the same as a knighthood in the UK, but the Australian version. Oh yeah, and he's one of Time Magazine's 50 most influential health professionals on the planet. So in short, he knows what he's on about. Today we're learning about what makes us age, how our cells and genes degenerate and get damaged over time, and what techniques are available to actually slow, stop and reverse this process. That's right, making animals younger than they are. Sounds like science fiction, but it's just another day in the life of David's laboratory. So yes, strap in and get a notepad and pen out for this one. Also, I'm going to predict a number of inquiries about who inside Tracker are, after me and David both extol their virtues on this particular episode. So, if you're interested, head to www.insidetracker.com to find out more about their service. David uses it and if it's good enough for him, pretty certain it's good enough for the rest of us. But for now, please welcome Professor David Sinclair. Oh yeah, PS, there's some special behind the scenes footage of David's laboratory and Harvard Medical School, along with me taking far too much caffeine on the YouTube channel. So go and watch the episode on there if you fancy it.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I am joined by Professor David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School. How are you today?

**David Sinclair** (2:12)
I'm doing really well, Chris.

**Chris Williamson** (2:13)
I'm very, very glad to be here. I'm off to see your friends at Inside Tracker later on. I'm going to go straight over there and have a sit down with them and go through my results, see what they've got to say.

**David Sinclair** (2:26)
Oh, really? You've had your blood drawn?

**Chris Williamson** (2:27)
I have, indeed.

**David Sinclair** (2:28)
That'll be exciting.

**Chris Williamson** (2:29)
I went to Quest Diagnostics a week and a bit ago in California, and I went through my results with Stacey, if she's not called Stacey, I'm going to be in so much bother, with one of the analysts at Inside Tracker, and they took me through all of my stuff earlier on, actually, which is super interesting.

**David Sinclair** (2:50)
So are you older or younger than your actual age?

**Chris Williamson** (2:53)
I am 31 in real years and the inside of my body is 36, unfortunately. That is because glucose being out of range, weights very heavily, and the only thing I've got is slightly out of range glucose, and my lipids are a tiny little bit out as well. So I need to eat soluble fiber.

**David Sinclair** (3:20)
Yeah, you'll enjoy that.

**Chris Williamson** (3:24)
Soluble fiber. When I was looking at the list of potential groups of foods, it was just 20 different types of beans. I was like, I have no types of beans in my diet. Like a baked beans? Like does that count as a bean?

**David Sinclair** (3:41)
I'm sure it does. It has the desired effect, I bet.

**Chris Williamson** (3:44)
It does indeed. So the first question I've got for you, what do you do here? I know we're in Harvard Medical School. I haven't got the first idea about what it is that you do.

**David Sinclair** (3:56)
Well, so I come in every day to my lab. There's about 30 to 35 people in my lab.
I instruct them to discover really cool stuff. That's basically my job. They'll come to me and they'll say, I've got an idea to discover something. I'll say, that sounds good, go do it. Or that sounds really boring, don't bother doing it. And by the way, how much is that going to cost? And they'll tell me it's going to cost about $2 million. So it's my job to bring in the money and let them figure it out. But the theme of my lab is focused on aging and has been since I started the lab about 20 years ago here at Harvard. And so I run a centre for aging research here. And we are really working not just on trying to understand why we age, but also how do we slow down and reverse that process as well.