In Search Of Excellence - Dr. Mike Roizen: 90 Is The New 40 (How To Hack Your Longevity) | E72

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Welcome to In Search of Excellence and the second part of our conversation with Dr. Mike Roizen.Dr. Mike is a world-renowned physician and author whose work has helped tens of millions of people improve their health and wellness through lifestyle changes, and whose purpose in life is to spread the message that we get to control our genes to a large degree. Dr. Mike formerly served as the Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, and Dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago, and in 1997, he left to co-founded a company called Real Age, a consumer health media company that inspires people to adopt healthier lifestyles. Shortly after selling the company, Dr. Roizen was named Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, the first such position at a major healthcare institution in the United States. Dr. Mike has published more than 185 peer-reviewed scientific papers, has written 18 books, including 4 New York Times bestsellers, and has received 13 and many foreign patents. 00:55 Stress management- Most stressful events are financial- The Christmas Eve story- Stress management technique- 10 breaths in the morning and evening 04:25 Vaccines in general and COVID-19 booster- The initial COVID vaccination and the first booster were beneficial- Long COVID and Spanish flu- Dr. Mike is scared of the inflammation- Flu vaccine 10 years in a row decreases the risk of dementia by 40% 11:15 Food recommendations- Eat things that are healthy, that you love and that will love you back- Eating bad food in moderation- Fruit is a sugar and fruit is bound to fiber and is not easily absorbed- 20g a day is fine 18:30 Obesity and fat reduction- Obesity, especially obesity around your waist, causes inflammation- White vs. brown fat- Side effects of drugs for reducing fat- We don’t know the long-term risk 22:40 Are hot sauna and cold plunge useful?- We have more data on the sauna- Sauna decreases heart disease and stroke risk- Increases longevity 24:05 Effectiveness of vitamins and supplements- The longevity playbook analyzed 53 supplements- 15 have enough data on humans- Creatine was a surprise  26:25 Can we live 120 years and do we really want to?- As a society, we need to- We are not producing enough kids- The working age will go from 40 to 60 years- The whole body will have a chance to get younger- Old people can be functional as young people 30:45 Is there just a simple checklist that we should be looking at every day?- Do what you love doing- There are many choices but do what you love and add things onSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

There's a huge benefit to the childhood vaccines in preventing brain dysfunction, preventing organ dysfunction, and it's like winning the lottery. It's about a 40,000 to one shot. When you hit 90, you may be able to get to be 40 again, or you may be able to slow your rate of aging. So it's not improving, it's not lasting longer in your 90s and 100s and 100s. It's saying your 30s and 40s are going to last a lot longer. Thanks for listening to part two of my amazing conversation with Dr. Mike Roizen, who has helped tens of millions of people improve their health and wellness through simple lifestyle changes we can all make. If you haven't yet listened to part one of my amazing

interview with Dr. Mike, please check that one out first. We've talked about stress and you talked about the importance of having amazing friends and reducing your stress. You haven't talked about the downside and you've mentioned the word assholes before, removing assholes from your life. Can you just talk a little bit about that a little more and stress the importance of that as we think about how to eliminate assholes from our lives? Yeah. I don't know of any study that really used that term. So, since I'm a data nerd or a science nerd, let me stick with the science, which is that the major stressful life events are someone dies in the family, you get sick, you're sued,

you have financial problems, you have to take a new job, you move. Out of the 15 of them, eight or nine of them are clearly financial. So we have stressful events. And you can say having someone who is an asshole, if you will, to you is a stressful life event if you perceive it that way. So stress isn't the event, it's your perception of it, which allows you to manage it and modify it. So my favorite story, and it's a way old study. This was in about 1995 or 6. I was in, this was Christmas Eve in Chicago at, I'm blanking on the store now, but it was on State Street and Monroe in Chicago. People who are in Chicago will know what store that is. But anyway, the store, I went in there

and I had a bunch of gifts still to get. And I was in there with my son who was probably young at the time, meaning a teenager. And there were just people throwing money at the clerk, literally trying to get her to take money because there was one clerk and probably three rows, store closed at five. This was 445.

And so I waited to the clerk until there was literally no one there. It was 515 or something. And I said, this has to be awful stressful for you. And she said, are you kidding? This is the best day of my life. I said, what do you mean? She said, look at all those men trying to get to me. So she had reframed the situation into something positive and something that to me would have been

very stressful. All those people waiting for me, she looked at as a very positive thing. So how you look at something really determines. And so you can modify that. And I've taken that to heart and practice. So I practice a stress management technique. It's just deep breathing, putting a finger on your belly button and doing a double breath in twice a day and getting your belly button to move out as you do it. And my belly button moves out. I know I'm breathing correctly, but I'm focusing on my breathing and nothing else. And I do that 10 breaths morning and night. And so that's my stress management. Someone cuts me out often in traffic. I put out my finger. Someone does something else. I go, my finger goes to the belly button and I just deep breathe through it. So you've talked about flu shots in a lot of your research and how regularly taking flu shots over the years increases your life expectancy.

I haven't heard a lot. You really paid a lot of attention to that talk. I'm impressed. Thank you. You're welcome. But you haven't talked a lot about COVID tests, and there's tremendous amount of controversy right now among the effectiveness of COVID tests, the safety of COVID tests. Can you talk to us about how... None of the tests. You're talking about the vaccine. over the COVID vaccine, a lot of people worry about its effectiveness and then health issues, risk issues, especially because they've only been around for a couple of years. And we've seen so

many vaccines throughout the years not work out well over the long term. People just don't know. There's not a lot of tests going back that far, not a lot of data. Talk to us about... Let me go and talk about vaccines in general, because I have very strong opinions about vaccines in general, and maybe different opinions about COVID-19 boosters. So I'm going to come to both. So I apologize, and I don't want to turn any of your listeners off. Mehmet Oz and I interviewed over 150 people on every side of the vaccine issue related to the childhood vaccine schedule

and believe it probably could be changed without harm. But there's a huge benefit to the childhood vaccines in preventing brain dysfunction, preventing organ dysfunction. And it's like winning the lottery. It's about a 40,000 to one shot. Well, when we publish this in a different vaccine schedule, that was Dr. Green's vaccine schedule that we thought was just as valid as the CDC one, you know, no one would talk to us again. The people on the right wouldn't, the people on the left wouldn't. But in fact, the vaccines, it's about a 40,000 to one,

and you'd put down a dollar to win 40,000 if the worst that could happen is you'd lose the dollar. That's what it is in getting the childhood vaccines. And maybe you want to pace them out a little more, but they still have a huge benefit. In COVID-19, the initial vaccination and probably the initial booster had that same value for people over the age of 50 or with comorbidities. But the more recent, if you've gotten two boosters, the third and fourth booster in the Cleveland Clinic-owned employee database inhibits your ability to prevent COVID-19. So it is as though you're getting an allergy shot if you get more than four boosters at this time, meaning that allergy shot is something to decrease your reaction to the

allergen. Well, that's the same thing that's happening. You're decreasing your reaction to your prior immunity. So it's actually turning on IL-4, a different immune response than would fight the COVID-19. So right now, until at least August or September, we're in limbo and saying probably not boosters right now unless you have long COVID. And I'll come back to that in a second. And probably in August and September, we, at least I would advocate, we go back to a traditional vaccine. If the data that we've seen so far holds, that traditional vaccine booster would be. It's something like Novavax's booster, which is a traditional rather than an mRNA vaccine. Now, please, that isn't the official position of the Cleveland Clinic. That's just mine, a few of the people on the data and analysis of it. Now, under 50 and without comorbidities,

the benefit to risk ratio is much closer. And in kids, the real benefit is preventing them transmitting it to the elderly, not a benefit to themselves, except for long COVID. Why do themselves, except for long COVID. Why do I say except for long COVID? I'm scared of long COVID because if you look at the Spanish flu from 1917 to 19, it traveled up the olfactory nerve to the basal ganglia just like this in the viral particle analysis and caused most of the Parkinson's disease in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It was a long-term effect of that Spanish flu. COVID-19 has the same pathway up the olfactory nerve, your smell nerve, into your brainstem and basal ganglia. And that's where the viral particles come. We know that if you haven't gotten vaccinated and have long COVID, getting vaccinated, about

a third of the people get rid of long COVID. The other two thirds, we don't know the answer for long COVID yet. But that's my fear. And so what do I have? I gotten I've gotten the actual two shot vaccine and three boosters. And sometime in August or September, I may get the next booster if the Novavax vaccine data holds as it looks like it is now. So I'm scared of some of the side effects of the vaccine. But as you know, I'm an old guy. I don't have comorbidities that I know of, but I'm an old guy. And so I'm scared of the

inflammation. And when we go back to the flu vaccine, you get the flu vaccine 10 years in a row, you decrease risk of dementia by 40% as opposed to people who get it irregularly during that period or, and not consistently every year. That's due to the inflammation that the flu itself causes that you dampen down if you get the flu vaccines. So let's hit another big one. And I think this is common sense to most people, but you have made some recommendations with respect to food and how food, eating the right types of food can increase our longevity as well. And you talk about poisoning your body. So let's talk about some of your recommendations there. I've never heard

anyone to take a tablespoon of virgin olive oil before. That one struck me as a kind of strange one. I'm going to whip that out. I'm going to put a tablespoon of virgin olive oil no it's it's whether you cook it with it or use it in salads or put it on bread it's not taking it direct although some people do take it direct if you're in Italy um and in Sardinia they they do take it direct but in fact um for most people it is on something or in something else, and that's the data. You get the same benefit. Large Spanish study looking at breast cancer risk, looking at cardiovascular disease risk, decreased both of those by over 30% by that half tablespoon a day. There is so much more on the food side that I want to go into. You have this amazing

quote which says that you wouldn't want to marry someone who is trying to kill you every day. So let's go into some of the more detailed recommendations that you have. Just tell us about what you're talking about there. We all love French fries, by the way. We all love french fries. Food is a relationship. And you wouldn't marry someone who is going to try and kill you every day. You shouldn't eat food that's trying to kill you every day. And the food that's trying to poison you every day, simple sugars, added syrup, simple carbohydrates, red meat and processed red meat. Those data are very clear, whether you look at the interventional animal studies or the epidemiologic human studies. We know that simple sugars feed cancer. Simple sugars increase your risk of fat in your muscle, which increases your risk of

insulin resistance and all the other problems that causes. And we know that processed red meat and red meat actually change when given with saturated fat, actually changes the genes of your bacteria inside you to produce inflammatory proteins. So you'll see I've said a lot about inflammation and about proteins and inflammatory proteins, stress management being the most effective thing that we know that turns those off. But we know that what turns them on is, in fact, red meat, processed red meat, simple sugars, added syrups, and simple carbs. So we say there's no reason to not find food you love.

There are tons of food. I love salmon. I love avocados. I even love extra virgin olive oil on some whole grain bread and those things and on salads. And those things are healthy. So eat things that you, I love tomato sauce made with olive oil. Those things are healthy. You can have them in virtually unlimited quantities as long as you're not getting overweight, etc. But those are things you can love and that love you back. Is it okay to eat some of these things in moderation? I just had some fried chicken a week ago. And when I started dating my wife nine or 10 years ago, I love fried chicken. It was so good. I've always loved and said, hey, that's just cholesterol, putting that in your body.

When I have chicken parm and I want it, I love steak. I've talked to my doctor. I have an executive concierge doctor as well, and we talk a lot about these things. Can you eat these things in moderation and not have it affect how long you live? Or are you saying let's go cold turkey? It depends on what you call moderation. So four ounces of bread meat a week, assuming nothing else in that category, doesn't change genome functioning of the bacteria so much as to cause inflammation in you. But eight ounces twice a week or one big steak will do that, even if all you have it is once every week. So that's the risk.

You can measure what it's doing to you by measuring your TMAO level. And if your TMAO level is above 1.6, then you know you shouldn't be having that red meat. So you can find out because there are some people whose bacteria don't react that way. We don't know why. As far as fried chicken, get an air fryer. It apparently tastes the same. And you don't have the problem with deep frying is the fat in the chicken gets replaced by the fat in the deep fryer. So you're getting trans fat and you're getting fats that age you in your chicken. But if you do it in a air fryer, it doesn't get those fats. It does oxidize some of the fat in the chicken because of the heat that's generated. But in fact, it probably is fine as opposed to the deep fried fat and deep fried. And you know, fish that is deep fried is not fish. Can you clarify what you mean by simple sugars? Because

I think there's a lot of confusion on good sugar and bad sugar. I have a smoothie each morning and I load it with fruit. I put fruit in there, milk, a little coconut water and some protein powder. And I love it. Is that bad for you? Or what kind of sugar is good for you? We don't think so. You're not putting sugar in directly.

The sugar in fruit is generally bound to fiber and is not as easily absorbed. And there may be two sugars. There's emerging data on both triolose and allulose that they may impede your absorption or the speed of absorption of the other sugars. So it's anything that ends on an os is a simple sugar. Maltose, lactose, glucose, sucrose, et cetera, dextrose. Whereas in syrups, you know what a syrup is. It's all syrups. If it tastes sweet, it's a syrup. So those things feed cancers. And so, but at four grams a day, four grams per hour, 20 grams a day, you're probably fine.

Your body handles it fine. As long as you don't go more than four grams of added sugar in any hour. So moderation is fine there. Obesity is one of the biggest health risks in the United States, actually in the world. Heart disease, I think, is the number one killer of people in the world. Can you talk to us about brown fat versus white fat, Ozempic, these new diet pill, diet shot drugs that reduce weight and fat reduction surgery, liposuction and the effectiveness of all of this. And where do you stand on all of this? What we've learned is that obesity, especially middle obesity, that is around your waist. That's why we say your waist should be half your height when measured at the belly button with you sucking in.

That fat causes inflammation again in you. That's white fat. But the white fat came from mother fat, as did brown fat. Brown fat uses calories when you're young, under the age of six months. It's what keeps you warm and your organs warm when your mom isn't swaddling you full time. Wouldn't it be great to change that white fat into mother fat and regress it to brown fat and then you'd be able to stay thinner. And one of the things that the GLP-1s do is stop cravings. But another that they do apparently is convert some of the white fat to bronze fat and increase metabolic rate.

In addition to causing the stomach to not empty as fast so you don't feel as hungry. So three different effects of the Moncurno, Sodexa, and Ozempic, Wagova. And I think they're very useful for some people. I have a number of patients who literally would think food 24 hours a day. That is, even when they're sleeping, they're dreaming about food that they're going to have the next day. And they can't think of anything else, you know. And so for those people, these drugs are tremendously beneficial. They don't cost any place near what they're being sold for, even wholesale for, to make.

So I think we will get to the point where if this really stops drug abuse, if it really stops alcohol craving, if it really stops food craving, we're going to have that in a lot more people and save the country a ton of money in medical costs and save each of us a ton of shortening of disability-free lifespan. So we're going to get to live longer, younger, healthier if these really are as good as they seem to be. And we've only had them for a couple of years now. I have a bunch of friends who are taking it right now, and they tell me it's very painful. And they also said there's a lot of side effects. What do you think about the side effects? Is the risk reward worth it for people who are not tremendously obese, but maybe they need to shed 10 or 15 pounds to just look trimmer and feel better about themselves?

We don't know the answer to that. I can tell you that if they have an infinite craving, that they're really suffering from that craving, it may well be worth the risk. But we don't know the long-term risks. These have only been around in clinical trials for two years. So we really have no data on do they change brain functioning long-term? Are they okay for teenagers? We don't really know any of that data. So I'd just be speculating. And the speculation is for people who

can't do it any other way and have an infinite craving, whether for alcohol or opiates or food, these seem to be very effective. Every year, there seems to be something new with respect to our health and how we can take care of our bodies better. Can you talk to us about the effectiveness of a hot sauna and a cold bath and all the rage right now, the effectiveness of a cold plunge? We have much better data on the hot sauna in populations due to their presence in Finland and even British Columbia and some of the Canadian areas where it was worried that a sauna would increase heart disease, increase stroke risk in people who were at risk, and they decreased it. And it appears that both hot and cold work through the same mechanism, turning on heat shock protein. That is an abnormality going up or down in temperature seems to do the same thing. And by the way, red light seems to have a similar benefit, but through a different mechanism

increasing ATP production. Nevertheless, what I'm saying is cold and hot work through heat shock protein, at least in animals and in the human studies so far. And that preserves proteins from getting into an abnormal shape. And that apparently keeps you younger longer. I think all of us have been taught that taking vitamins every day will improve our health and prevent illness. And a lot of us have also been taught you should take some vitamin C and sometimes vitamin D and fish oils. Can you talk to us about their actual effectiveness and prolonging our life? And also where creatine

factors into that? Yes. So there are, if you look at the 53 or so that we've been asked to analyze on in the longevity playbook, and we have a library that goes through each of them with a summary and then that's in lay language and then all the data for physicians to look at or practitioners to look at or you to look at, or practitioners to look at, or you to look at if you want. But 15 of the 53 have enough data in humans on benefits that we think most people should talk to their practitioner about whether they're beneficial for them. Of those, one of them that we were surprised with was creatine. Creatine is a protein that's used in the younger set, meaning 15 to 35, to try and look like Arnold does.

But in fact, when you look at the data, they have been used in old people and do prevent frailty, muscle wasting. And at the same time, because they looked at the side effects, what does it do to mental functioning? It improved mental functioning. So that's one where you might take, uh, 4,000 milligrams, four grams a day. Um, it's a, uh, I get it in a powder. On the internet, it's $36 for I think four bucks, four months worth of stuff. So it's really quite cheap, nine bucks a month, and seems to have

benefits for decreasing brain dysfunction. But anyway, there are about 15 of those that do it. I unfortunately, Randy, have a time limit. I've got to run someplace. So can you forgive me for not discussing all of these in detail and just telling you they're all at the longevity playbook.com. Can we really live to 120 years old and do we really want to? For society, we need to. And with 14 research areas on the mechanism of aging that have reversed age in at least two animal species each. It looks like that with 14 shots on goal with an 80% probability, we'll be able to live a lot longer, younger. And this is really emotionally difficult. It's saying when you hit 90, you may be able to get to be 40 again or you may be able to slowly rate of aging so it's not improving it's not lasting longer in your 90s and 100s and 100s

it's saying your 30s and 40s are going to last a lot longer um from a society standpoint we aren't producing enough kids. Thank you for five. But most people, the fertility rate in the United States is now at a very low level. I think it's under 1.7. You need 2.3 for every woman in the childbearing age to repopulate society. 2.2 to 2.3, we're at 1.7. Believe it or not, Korea has just gone below 1. China will be half the size it is in 2100 population-wise if nothing changes from their

rate of fertility. So that means we won't have enough young people to support those who are retired. I'll give you the example. In France, in 1960, they had four workers to support every retired person. They're now at about 1.4. That's why they're having the fights over 62 to 64. This is happening throughout the world. It isn't just in the United States or just in Japan or just in France or just in Italy. It's throughout the world. So we need longevity and people to extend their most productive times from 25 to 65 or 20 to 65 from 40 years of work age to 60 years gives us 50% more productivity, 50% more tax revenue, 50% more Medicare and Social Security revenue. So those funds won't run out the way they're scheduled to run out if we do get longevity. We think there's at least an 80%

probability with 14 shots on goal that you're going to be able to live a lot longer and a lot younger with a lot less disability if you choose to do so. I think most people today are thinking there's no way I want to live to 100 years old. I'm going to be at home and my quality of life is not going to be good. But it's different. It's getting back to 40 again. So think of yourself as a, I don't know, how old are you, Randy? I'm 54. So think of yourself as a 35-year-old again.

I do mentally every day, by the way. With the experience you've got now and the fun you have now. In the animal models, the mice get younger. Their muscles function as though they're free, if you will, the equivalent of 35 to 45-year-old humans. Their pancreas gets rejuvenated. Their brain starts functioning, if you will, as if they're able to do the speed of processing they had when they were younger. So the whole body has a chance of getting younger. I think there's at least an 80% probability of it. And that's why I really wrote the book. And that's really why the Longevity Playbook site is there. It's to help people curate and understand what will happen,

plan for it, and get there in great health so they actually have a disability-free longevity. So they really can be functionally the way they were when they were 35 or 45 again. So the last question today, this has just been absolutely fascinating, and I just love talking to you. I love your talk at the conference. The website, by the way, is incredible, and so is the book, which I've read. The issue, I think, for most people, Dr. Mike, is there's so many things on the checklist and people are not going to go to the website every day. They probably won't go to the app every day. Is there just a simple eight by 11 checklist that we should be looking at every day

to make this easy on us? And is this really doable or practical to do all of these things? The answer is you should only do what you like doing and what you love doing. And that's the point. You can find a whole bunch. There are many choices. Do some things you like. And if you like it, then add on. So that's how I did it.

In other words, I never knew the dangers of red meat and processed red meat and that they were changing the bacteria functioning inside my gut the way they are. I never knew that, if you will, there was a benefit to starting a statin early and getting control of my cholesterol. tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil a day or that smelling four different smells was that important or that cooked tomatoes were that important. But those are easy, right? It doesn't take much extra time. And so I've added on, but no one's perfect. And so there's no there's no you know this is not to say you should be perfect um but the deal by the way the deal the subscription once you get through the free trial if you want to subscribe it's 200 for the for you for a year but you get a friend and the friend is the biggest boost whether it's your spouse or another person, that's the way you stay younger and why you encourage each other to do things and try other things that may be fun for you. Dr. Mike, again, thank you for being here. I hope everyone's going to go out and buy your book.

We're going to put out the links in the podcast and in the video that we're going to put on YouTube. You've truly influenced the lives of tens of millions of people and the world is better for it. So I appreciate you being here. Thanks for being on my show. Thank you, Randy.