Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Bite: Can Protein Make You Age Faster? Leo & Longevity

Starting point is 00:00:00 But on the other hand, protein, what it does is upregulate growth pathways in our body. So the two things that seem to age people the most from their diet is sugar and the other side is protein. Sugar, maybe through insulin signaling, affects cancers. It causes metabolic syndrome, which affects everything else. But on the other hand, protein, what it does is upregulate growth pathways in our body. We often think about foods as nutrients or building blocks, but they're also hormones signaling molecules. So in protein, you have methionine, which signals for the methylation cycle and a few other things. And then you have leucine, which potently activates what's called the mechanistic target of rapamycin, which then activates growth hormone, IGF-1,

Starting point is 00:00:41 and all these other growth pathways. When you fast, you're trying to turn on something called the AMP kinase pathway, which is a nutrient sensing pathway that senses when you're in low in nutrition. So you're not in a stage to grow, you're in a stage of repair. Once you add protein into your diet, you screw that up. So I remember I saw my friend Steve when he came on the show, he was talking about the fasting mimicking diet of Walter Longo. What you'll note in that diet is there's 500 calories from fat, 500 calories from plants, which could include glucose. Low calorie total, zero protein. There is very low protein. It's just protein from the nuts that you eat there.

Starting point is 00:01:15 The protein is the thing that most clearly seems to age people. But the problem with that is if you have low protein for extended periods in your life, you're going to have atrophy of your brain and of your heart because of low IGF-1 levels. So there's a sort of a balance between protecting yourself from cancer and protecting yourself from dementia and heart disease. About how much protein do you eat in a day and what do you sometimes recommend to other people? So now I've been eating like 150 grams or so, but I was eating like 60 to 80 grams. And I think that the evidence, all of the evidence shows that people should basically, if they want to live as long as possible, should minimize their protein, except from like plants and vegetables,

Starting point is 00:01:57 until they reach the age of about 60 to 65, at which case they should raise their protein consumption to over 100 grams or so. It seems to extend life at that age. But unfortunately, it's very opposing to our desires as athletic people. Yeah, have you lost any muscle doing that? Well, I lost all my muscle originally. I didn't lift weights for like three years. And I just started working out, lifting weights, because the climbing gyms are closed, and the flu has basically thwarted my life. So,

Starting point is 00:02:26 I went back to working out in gyms recently. And as we all were all addicted to lifting in some way, I knew. That's why I wasn't lifting weights because I knew once I go there, I'm going to want higher protein. I'm going to think about anadrol again. Things are going to happen. So, that's what happened. I ended up going. I raised the protein. But anyway,

Starting point is 00:02:41 I'll fast soon once what I've gained solidifies. I'm kind of curious. This might sound kind of dumb. But when individuals lower their protein intake, actually in a caloric deficit, those individuals end up living longer. But it makes me wonder when there's a presence of a lot of exercise. Now, I'm talking about not just lifters, but a lot of exercise, running, etc. Right. And that individual has a decent amount of protein, so maybe 0.8 grams per pound,

Starting point is 00:03:09 but they're highly active individuals. Do you think that because of that high level of activity and that high level of protein utilization, that they could still get the effects of good longevity because of the presence of high levels of exercise or no? So this is a great question. And I actually talk about this on my channel every so often. I've been wondering why certain elite bodybuilding coaches like Chad Nichols, for example, I talked to Chad about this. Chad, when he had his top off-season bodybuilders in their off-season, he would have them doing cardio for two hours a day, some of them.

Starting point is 00:03:40 So I'm like, why would you have somebody do two hours of cardio and keep his calories higher and his protein higher instead of just reducing the calories a little bit in the protein? Well, I think the reason is – he didn't say this word for word to me, but it's because, remember, they're signaling molecules. They don't care about your total – I mean, they do care. It does matter if you're in a calorie deficit or not in total, but the protein still signals for growth no matter what. So if you're exercising a lot and you're not somebody that's gaining weight or anything like that, you might think you're in a nutrient sensing pathway, but there are so many different studies using leucine as a supplement showing that leucine can completely inhibit that once it's added. So enough leucine from protein

Starting point is 00:04:20 and you find higher rates of leucine in meat so once you add that meat and you're not in that nutrient sensing pathway now you do have other effects like i've reviewed the effects of exercise on longevity on my channel and clearly cardiovascular exercise extends life and elite cardiovascular athletes tend to live longer not true for power athletes by the way they barely live longer if you look at olympic power, they barely live longer. If you look at Olympic power athletes, they barely live longer. They usually die of heart disease, even though that's tested. So it's not exercise is great for you, but doesn't solve this nutrient sensing growth pathway issue. In fact, what could happen in the long term?

Starting point is 00:04:57 If you have mTOR elevated constantly, your cells are constantly going to try to divide. They eventually reach something called a hayflick limit. At that limit, it's like a dead end. They either die in what's called apoptosis, or they become these zombie cells called senescent cells. Senescent cells, a lot of evidence shows, are the main reason that older people feel joint pain.

Starting point is 00:05:18 So what you may notice instead is you may be a great athlete eating all your protein and exercising, and you might start to degrade really quickly, like we see a lot of these athletes do. Hey guys, you like cereal. I like cereal. Let's not eat the bad stuff though. That's why we've partnered with Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon has number one, amazing macros, zero grams of sugar, four grams of carbs, 14 grams of protein, and 140 calories per serving. You're not getting all the icky sugar that you get from normal cereal. Magic Spoon is the way to go. That's why we love it and it fits our diet. Andrew,

Starting point is 00:05:47 how can people get it? Absolutely. You guys got to head over to magicspoon.com slash power project. You guys will see the variety pack. That's four different flavors and it's really an awesome way to kind of dip your toe into the cereal bowl. So that way you guys can figure out which flavor you like the most. And when you go there, you're actually going to receive $5 off that variety pack. Again, magicspoon.com slash power project links to them down in the description. Let's get back to the video. So with replacements, with that being said, let's now I want to talk about training. I don't mean just people that are bodybuilding, not talking about bodybuilding. I mean, people that are eating moderate protein diets, 0.8 grams per pound, um, in the presence of weight training

Starting point is 00:06:23 and a good amount of cardiovascular exercise. I think a great example of these types of athletes would be a mid-level crossfitter, right? Who does quite a bit of cardiovascular exercise and that strength trains. Would that be kind of the, not crossfitting being the ideal type of exercise, but would that be the ideal type of work to have good longevity? Where you have a great cardiovascular health and you're strong. I think that the key, that sounds like the perfect plan, if you incorporate one other thing. I think the key is a cyclical approach to the reduction in calories and protein. If you do it all the time,

Starting point is 00:06:58 you're going to get the diseases of having low growth factors. You're going to have brain atrophy and heart atrophy, like the caloric restriction guys. You're going to be very skinny, always cold, and so on. But what we've seen in blood tests from people who periodically fast, if they're not using androgens and growth hormone, because we've tried with those guys, it doesn't show. But if it's a natural guy and he fasts for five days, he gets lower IGF-1 signaling for about two weeks after. So there's a period of time where there's a repair process going on and there's less of that signal for after. So there's a period of time where there's a repair process going on and there's less of that signal for growth. So somebody, for example, fasted five days every month, but throughout the month was eating a lot of protein and that kind of stuff,

Starting point is 00:07:34 which is what I did for a year, by the way. I fasted five days for a whole year every, well, originally seven days and I was doing five days every month. So when you do that though, you end up losing so much body fat, you have to eat more the rest of the month. So when you do that though, you end up losing so much body fat, you have to eat more the rest of the month. I think that's fine. I think you get that two-week reduction and that two-week growth stimulus. I think that some kind of cyclicality is the key. And do you think that the fast doesn't need to be a consecutive five days or can you do like 24-hour fast? Could you do that five days throughout the month? So there's a couple of common factors that happen in blood tests after about the third day.

Starting point is 00:08:09 They don't happen in the second day. The first two days, you tend to have high ghrelin signaling, which is that hunger hormone, which also the reason why you have high growth hormone signaling, why it's difficult to sleep and so on. The third day, you tend to adapt to it. And of course, by the way, the more times you do fast, the easier it becomes. at the end of my year i was doing five day fast i was barely feeling hungry until the fourth or fifth day but the so so the third day something happens if you go do your blood test on the third day you'll find your uric acid is high your testosterone is low your triglycerides are low there's a there's a repetitive pattern my goal would be to get that in the blood test and then keep it for two days

Starting point is 00:08:46 as a minimal effect you know I used to fast for a week but I found out this seemed inefficient most of what happened happened in the first three days or so one day fast can be useful in the sense that they could increase insulin sensitivity

Starting point is 00:08:59 throughout the but I don't think you're going to get in that phase of regeneration that that Volta Longo has so many studies on in two days

Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Bite: Can Protein Make You Age Faster? Leo & Longevity

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