The Rich Roll Podcast - Fasting For Longevity With Valter Longo, Ph.D.

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

When it comes to longevity, the goal isn’t just to live as long as possible. The true objective is to live as vibrantly and energetically as possible for as long as possible. So how exactly do we do this? Valter Longo, Ph.D. has devoted his life to answering this question. Along the way, his groundbreaking discoveries hold the potential to change your life in truly dramatic fashion. One of the world's leading scientific authorities on the subject of longevity, Dr. Longo is an expert in gerontology and biological science as well as the Director of the USC Longevity Institute and the Program on Longevity and Cancer at IFOM in Milan, both of which focus on developing a better scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of aging, disease and, of course, longevity. In addition, Dr. Longo is the author of an extraordinary new book entitled, The Longevity Diet*. The culmination of 25 years of research on aging, nutrition and disease across the globe, it provides an easy-to-understand, accessible and implementable road map to living to living well longer through improved nutrition. What differentiates Dr. Longo from many of his peers is that his focus is not purely academic, but practical. From his exhaustive research on aging in both mice and humans, he has created specific diet and lifestyle protocols scientifically proven to active stem cells; promote organ regeneration and rejuvenation; reduce the risk for diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease; and ultimately extend that which we all seek: lifespan. As discussed at length over the course of our almost 2-hour exchange, Dr. Longo's specific longevity prescription entails a daily diet regimen based on a studied group of centenarians (think Blue Zones). He then combines this with a periodic 5-day fasting protocol called the Fasting Mimicking Diet (undertaken 3-4 times per year), designed to reap the benefits of a true calorie free fast while still nourishing the body daily. This is a powerful conversation the explores all of the foregoing. It's about what promotes longevity and what undermines it. Separating truth from misconception, it's exploration of the benefits of fasting and the science that supports it. And it's a primer on the optimal lifestyle protocols you can employ in your every day life to live well and long. Break out pen and paper because you're going to want to take notes on this one. It's an honor and a privilege to share Dr. Longo's experience with you — one of my most important podcasts to date. I sincerely hope you not only enjoy the exchange, but employ his wisdom for your long-term well-being. Because we all deserve to live our best life. For the visually inclined, you can watch our conversation on YouTube at: http://bit.ly/richandvalter If you are enjoying the video versions of the show, do me a favor and subscribe! I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

I think that for sure these five meals a day is a bad idea. It's accompanied this obesity epidemic in the United States and around the world. You know, when you have 70% of people in the U.S. that are either obese or overweight, and you still recommend eating five times a day, it's entertaining to me that they don't understand. But if you tell somebody to eat five times a day, then what happens is they start eating more, and they eat for 15, 16 hours a day. That's Dr. Walter Longo, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast.

When it comes to the subject of longevity, I think we can agree that the goal isn't just to live as long as possible. The goal is actually to live as vibrantly, as actively, as energetically as possible for as long as possible. So how exactly do we do this? Well, this is the question that today's guest has devoted his entire life to answering. And I think it's fair to say that what he has discovered is truly life-changing stuff. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host on this podcast adventure. And let me say this, there's been a lot of hype. There's been a lot of excitement and anticipation about today's conversation with one of, if not the leading scientific authorities

on the subject of longevity, Dr. Walter Longo. An expert in gerontology and biological science, Dr. Longo is the director of something called the USC Longevity Institute, which focuses on developing a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of aging. He's also the author of a new book entitled The Longevity Diet, which you may recall was a popular topic of conversation in my recent podcast with Dr. Joel Kahn, and which is really the culmination of 25 years of research on aging, on nutrition, and disease across the globe.

It's a fascinating read, and I think it's fair to say a groundbreaking book. And I'm just thrilled to share Dr. Longo's important wisdom on these subjects with you guys today. Before we launch in, though, another thing I think we can all agree on is that staying fit and active is important if we want to live long and live well. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and

the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen,

or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Dr. Volter Longo. You know, what's really interesting about Dr. Longo and his work is that it's not just academic or theoretical. It's actually practical. What he and his team have done is that they have taken all of this research,

all these research findings, for example, discoveries found in both mice and humans that demonstrate that certain types of microfasts lead to reduced disease risk and greater longevity by activating stem cells and promoting organ rejuvenation. And then they've translated all of these findings into scientific fasting diet and lifestyle protocols specifically designed to improve longevity. The diet aspect of this, the diet component derives from that of a studied group of centenarians, people who live longer than a hundred years. Think about the blue zones. And he combines this with a periodic and scientifically determined five-day fasting protocol called the Fasting Mimicking Diet, FMD, which he advises that people undertake a couple times, maybe three or four times a year, and which you can learn more about on ProlonFMD.com. That's the website, the company that he founded that provides products and support for this FMD.

site, the company that he founded that provides products and support for this FMD. And I might add that the profits of which, or I should say the profits, Dr. Longo's profits of which are funneled right back into longevity research, which I really love. So this is a conversation that explores these very topics, longevity, what promotes it as well as what undermines it. It's an exploration of the world of fasting, both the truths and the misconceptions behind it, and the optimal lifestyle protocols that support longevity. I think you're going to want to take notes on this one, people. It's a fascinating exchange, and I really appreciate Dr. Longo taking the time to share his wisdom with us today.

So let's do it. to share his wisdom with us today. So let's do it. Dr. Longo, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for making the trip out here. I'm excited to talk to you. Well, great to talk to you, Rich. I had our mutual friend, Joel Kahn, on the show a couple months ago.

He was out here and he was singing your praises. I was familiar with your work, but he just went on and on and on, and that created quite an impact with the audience. So there's been a lot of anticipation and excitement about you sharing your wisdom with us. Yeah, and he's an excellent doctor. Yeah, he's very cool.

So, so many things to talk about. I think probably the best way to approach this is sort of to bifurcate it between a discussion about longevity, and then we can get into the fasting mimicking diet protocol that you talk about. But to kind of contextualize this, it would probably be good to hear a little bit about your background and what got you interested in aging and longevity to begin with. Yeah, so I started actually very early. I was a music major back in college.

So my second year, I think I always wanted to do aging, do research on aging because as soon as I had an opportunity to change, I was immediately sure I wanted to study aging. And so I switched to the biochemistry department and that's all I've ever done since then. And that was 30 years ago. Yeah, had something to do with having to lead the band or like the marching band or something that just crushed the rockstar dream.

Yeah, so they asked me to direct a marching band and I said, there's no way I'm gonna do that. And they say, well, you know, this is the program. If you don't do that, you gotta find something else. And so within a couple of days I was in biochemistry and I think it was a good switch and yeah, so. But what was the impet, like where did that interest in longevity come from?

Is that from growing up where you grew up in Italy? Yeah, I'm not sure. I speculate that maybe I was five years old when my grandfather died, but I was in the room when he died. Usually you keep five-year-olds away from the actual moment where somebody dies. And maybe I acted very grown up at the time,

but maybe that's stuck in my head that people die. And so that was very early in my life that I had to face that. And yeah, maybe I always wanted to look for the opportunity to start studying aging. Right. And why do people die? How could I prevent this from happening? Yes, yes. And of course, then I started probably thinking about me and my parents and all of that. And so, yeah, I suspect, maybe it had nothing to do with that, but the fact that

I was so sure that I had to study aging, I suspect it had more to do than just a topic in college. Yeah, it's interesting because most people might find themselves attracted to science or biochemistry or becoming a doctor, but you were very specific in what it is that you wanted to explore. Yes, specific and also I picked biochemistry because at the time, 19 years old, I just thought biology and chemistry,

that's probably gonna be good to know both, to address the problem of aging. But also I think that, I mean, it's hard to remember what I thought at that time, but certainly the potential for medicine to me was also pretty obvious. I just had spent a few years in Chicago with my relatives there. I came from Italy. But then in Chicago, I started seeing all this cardiovascular disease and diabetes in my relatives,

which are 100% genetically from Southern Italy. And I never saw that in Southern Italy. I mean, I saw it, but not like that. It was very obvious, very early in the 50s and 60s. And so that I think also was a factor in my head. And so in Texas, the diet was also very poor, this Tex-Mex. So I guess it went from bad to worse at Chicago and Dallas.

And then eventually LA with Roy Walford was one of the guru of nutrition and longevity. I had the opportunity to go back to this ideal, or at least understanding of what diet, which diet is good and which is bad. And he certainly was, his lab was certainly the place to do that. Was your intention in going from,

it was North Texas University, that's where you did your undergrad, coming out to UCLA, were you intentional about seeking out Walford as a mentor? Like, did you know about him and that's what attracted you to come to UCLA? Oh, absolutely. So there were two people in Los Angeles

that were essentially, I think, at least in my view at the time and the view of many, the two leading people in the world for aging research. And LA always had this for some reason. I'm not sure if it's Hollywood or what it is. Everyone wants to be parentally young. Yes. And so interestingly, the scientists that were attracted to LA were also attracted to be leaders in this field. And so Roy Walford was one, and the other one was Caleb Finch at USC.

So I visited both. I applied to both programs, and eventually I chose to go to UCLA. But at USC, that's where I still am, already for decades had a comprehensive aging center, which is unbelievable if you think about that. This building called the Andrews Gerontology Center was built in the 70s, and the center was actually established in the 60s. Yeah, that's quite traumatic because what people probably don't know, I mean, there's so much interest around what you do now, but there were many years where you struggled to get your work published and just people were not keen on hearing what you had to say.

So, you know, what was the status of, you know, academia with respect to aging research, longevity research then? Like, what was Walford doing versus like what's happening now? Yeah, so when I talked about Walford now, everybody, all the journalists and everybody says, oh, he's a hero. And back then people made fun of Walford. He was like a whack job. He was viewed by his own colleagues at UCLA,

is out there. I remember when I was in the biochemistry department, the comment when I said, I'm going to go to pathology and work with Walford. And they said, we don't even know what they do out there. Out there. Also, he's doing the experiments on himself too. That's always a red flag.

Yeah, Walford was doing the experiment on himself. And in fact, that experiment on himself might have cost him his life because he went for two years in this place in Arizona called Biosphere 2, him and other seven people. That's when I joined his lab, that's where he was. He was locked up in this sealed environment in the middle of the desert and many of us suspect that, you know,

and in that place, he started the first human color restriction experiment and himself and the other seven people. And we suspect that that might have cost him his life. He developed Lou Gehrig's disease, and which is a motor neuron disease. And I mean, nobody knows for sure, he may have developed it for some other reason,

but there was some harsh conditions in that biosphere too, between diet and oxygen being low. It is very possible those conditions led to his motor neuron disease. Like all pioneers, they have to test the outer limits, right? They gotta push that envelope to see what's possible. Absolutely.

And Walford, I think when he came out, he was in bad shape and he was having doubts because at the time, even that operation was not really viewed as, is this a good idea? Was it a stupid idea? Now I think most people view it as a pione you know, pioneering operation or event. And so I think by the time he died,

he was proud of what he had done. I'm not sure that he was that sure when he came out in 1992. So before we kind of get into what you've discovered through all of your research into this field, perhaps we should define our terms a little bit. Like what is aging? What causes it? What exacerbates it?

And what have you discovered can perhaps slow it down? Yes, so aging is actually, I started the book by talking about that. Aging is actually not a bad thing, right? I mean, violins age and they get better, right? And marathon runners, they get better, at least for a while as they age. And then, you know, maybe the peak performance

for a marathon runner peaks around 32 to 35, which is very different from other athletes. Senescence is really the word that deals with changes that are detrimental. So accumulation of damage and other dysregulation that leads to dysfunction, right? So that's the word. Senescence, usually we use aging because people,

everybody understands that word better. So it's fine to use aging, but yeah. So as time goes by, systems become, accumulate damage and they start becoming dysfunctional. Why does the body suddenly become less adept at repairing that damage? Well, I mean, there are a lot of theories of aging and a lot of people, most people have focused

on the aging part itself. I come up with a term which I call juventology or uventology. And the difference is that I focus on what is the program that keeps you young versus what is the process that makes you old, right? So it's very different. Right, gerontology versus juventology is sort of like

the study and science of health versus the study and science of disease, which is really the model of Western medicine. Yes, yes, in a sense, I think so. Because if you're studying things going wrong, aging, right? Then you focus on the deterioration. So for example, if you think of a car, and that's one of the pillars that I talk about in the book,

you can study the tires and you can say, okay, I'm gonna learn everything about the rubber, how the rubber gets older and older, and how to make it not get older and older. But I can come around with uventology and say, why are you worried about that? Just change the tires. Do 50,000 miles and put a new set of tires on. Now all of a sudden, all the research, you can see how it's pointless, right? You just have to find out how to replace that. Right, so you gotta figure out how the body can produce new tires, right?

Which gets into this stem cell regeneration work that you do. Super interesting. Before we even get into the next thing I wanna talk about, it just occurred to me, like what do you think of this trend amongst the new kind of billionaire elite to like try to live forever. And you know, the things that Peter Thiel is looking into

and funding, you know, whether it's cryotherapy type science or other. Yes, I mean, I don't know for sure, but I've been told that Walford was on the list to be cryopreserved. Oh, wow. And I was also told that eventually he removed himself from the list, right?

So I think it's very meaningful, this decision. And I mean, I think all of us went through a period of thinking about immortality. I think, you know, when I was 20, I was probably thinking the same way. And then eventually you start realizing that that's probably not why we're here. And there is something fundamentally, you know, just impossible about it, right? You just, it's not consistent with life on earth.

Right. And so, and I'm not sure that, and I think that's probably what Walford thought, that would he wanna wake up in 20,000 years or 2,000 years and find himself in the middle of God knows what. Do you think about the implications of your work as it sort of exponentially develops, that that could be a possibility for human life?

Yes, but I think, you know, first of all, we really been focusing, even though, you know, we did extend the lifespan of a yeast by tenfold. So certainly we could move in that direction much more and continue and say, well, if we were able with a microorganism to extend the lifespan by tenfold, couldn't we do it with humans?

But I decided a long time ago that I didn't want to do that anymore, that I was much more interested in getting everybody to be 110 healthy, you know, like this Salvatore Caruso, who's from the same town as my grandfather was, this little town in Southern Italy that has record longevity. They usually have between two and four centenarians out of 2,000 people. So it's one of the highest in the world. And Salvatore Caruso made it to 110 healthy.

And then I also followed Emma Morano in Northern Italy up to a few months ago, Emma was the oldest person in the world and the oldest in the history of Italy. And she was 117 and still eating on her own. And, you know, she wasn't completely independent, but mostly independent or mostly, you know, able to operate and do almost everything in the house. So I think that that's really what we're studying now. That's, I think, that would be a much greater achievement than try to make people live 10 times longer.

So your research begins with yeast cells. It moves on to mice and then ultimately to humans. What is your approach and what do you begin to learn? Yeah, so with Walford, we were doing a lot of comparative biology. So you take a mouse that you starve, and I mean, you calorie restrict them, one that you don't, one old, one young.

And then after a while I thought, I'm never gonna get anywhere with this. We're just gonna have a lot of differences, but we don't know what they mean. We don't know what to do with it. So that's when I went back to the genetics and me and maybe a group of 10 scientists in the United, mostly in the United States,

a few in Europe decided let's go to fruit flies, yeast, worms. And they're so simple that we're bound to figure out the age fairly quickly, identify genes that regulate their aging quickly. And then if we're lucky, we move back to mice and humans. And people thought it was a joke, right? People thought it was a stupid, I mean, some famous scientists in the field thought it was the stupidest idea they've ever heard, you know, that you could work in a yeast, a unicellular organism, and that will somehow tell you our human age, right? In fact, a lot of people still think it's a joke, but most people don't.

It's funny that people think that though, because it's a fundamental question that we all would like the answer to. Yeah, it's a fundamental question, but also you think about yeast as some kind of ancient organism, but these organisms have evolved for as many billions of years as we have, right? I mean, you know, we are the results of the same evolution process and their ancestors are our ancestors. So they're quite sophisticated and they obey the same rules as human beings. I mean, like the force of natural selection. So this process that keeps an organism young for a certain period of time is very, it's the same. It acts in a different way in a, with a different period and a yeast. So in a yeast, you just need six days.

In six days you basically can reproduce enough time to get out of the way. And for us, it's more like 50 years. But the rules are the same. And in fact, it turned out that the genes that we and others identified in these simple organisms, we're the ones, the same ones that control aging in mice, are very, very similar.

And we now have, you know, from our own work, evidence from genetic mutations in humans, suggesting that the humans have certain similar genes to the ones that we identified in yeast deleted. They're protected from aging. Right, so what is the structure that you set up to try to determine what keeps a cell young or what can sort of increase its longevity?

Yeah, so at the beginning, it was use this simple organism and use genetic tools. At the time, we're only available for yeast, for baker's yeast, right? So for example, one of our first studies that we published in science, in the science journal, was let's delete every single gene in the genome, which is about 6,000 genes, and see which one becomes most protected against toxins, right? Multiple toxins. And then the hypothesis was, if something is super protected against damage,

it's gonna be protected against aging. And that worked out very well. And that led to the identification of what's probably now recognized as the most important pro-aging pathways, the TOR-S6 kinase pathway. And so there was one strategy, use the tools, genetic tools that we had.

And the other one was because I was in the Walford lab and we had some people, lots of people working on the molecular biology of aging, and the molecular biology of yeast, not aging, nobody cared about aging at that time. But for example, upstairs, I had somebody called Fuyu Tamanoi, and he was working on RAS.

And the field that described our RAS reacted or was activated by sugar, right? So then I came out of the welfare lab. I say, if sugar activates RAS and calorie restriction extends the lifespan of all these organisms, then it must be that if I delete RAS, the yeast is gonna live longer.

So this is a biased approach versus what I said earlier, which is completely unbiased. And sure enough, now they live a lot longer. They live two or three times longer just by deleting this sugar gene. So now the tauracis canase is the protein pathway and the RAS Pase is the protein pathway and the RASP-PKA is the sugar pathway. Right.

You delete both of them, you get tenfold lifespan extension. Wow. And then you then step it up and apply this to a rat population? Yeah. Then you apply it to, in our case, a mouse population, also knowing that the data from Cynthia Canyon, Gary Ravkin, and others, in worms and flies, right, which was matching. So everything was starting to make sense.

That was all aligned. So TOR was causing aging in all these organisms. If you activate it, and if you did protein restriction, the organism lived longer, right? So just protein restriction. So yeah, so then you do the working in mice. And then of course you do the work with nutrition and say, well, if having, if deleting the protein gene

and the sugar gene makes the organism live longer, what if I just remove sugar and proteins? And then you go in proteins, you say, well, do I need to remove all proteins? Maybe not. Maybe just certain amino acids that are contained in proteins. So we remove serine, trionine, and valine, three amino acids, and show that those were the ones,

the major ones that control the TOR gene, right? So, yeah, so then we started really having a much more sophisticated understanding of all the network that controls aging in yeast and mice, but also understanding of the nutrients within food that control the genes that control aging. Right, and then, so then with this population of mice, these studies that you were conducting,

how much longer were they living? So the mouse work was originally done by Andre Barkey and John Kapczyk, and these mice remarkably lived up to twice as long. So it's very remarkable for a two and a half year mouse to live five years now. Right. And-

That would be the equivalent in a human of how much longer? Well, this would be equivalent to humans living an average of 165 years of age. Wow. And so this was obtained by a combination of mutation and nutrition. So restriction of protein, restriction of sugars, and the mutation in the growth hormone in this master gene that controls both TOR and PKA. Right, right, right. in this master gene that control both TOR and PKA. Right, right, right.

And so then eventually we knew about the yeast, tenfold longer, the mouse twice as long, live twice as long, and then we eventually started studying this population in Ecuador that was lacking the same gene, the growth hormone receptor, that the mice, made the mice having this record longevity. And sure enough, they had a terrible diet by the way.

When we were- How did you figure out that they had that same genealogy? Well, there was an endocrinologist, Jaime Guevara, down in Ecuador that had been following them because they have a small stature phenotype. They're small, they're about three and a half feet tall. And so he was studying them because of that, right? The growth, he was trying to get them to be taller.

And so he was following a hundred of them. And to me, it was just an incredible opportunity. So I remember when Hasey Cohen at UCLA told me, it was just an incredible opportunity. So I remember when Hasey Cohen at UCLA told me, you got to call this Jaime Guevara because he's following a hundred of these subjects and he knows each one of them by name. So I immediately invited him at USC to give a talk. And then I went down there

and then eventually it took us five years. He always complains that it took us too long, but it took us five years to publish the complains that it took us too long, but it took us five years to publish the first paper in science, translational medicine, showing protection from diabetes and cancer in this population. But they were eating a terrible diet, and then you went down and like,

what was the protocol that you applied to that population? Yeah, we didn't apply any protocol. The task was to, in a way, without affecting anything that they do, randomize them in a sense, right? So having relatives against them, right? They live in the same houses, eat the same food. What are the relatives dying of and at what age? And what are this group that are, it's called GHRD, growth hormone receptor deficient.

What do they die of and at what age? And so it looked like, at least in 2011, there wasn't a single cancer death that we could find, either in these hundred subjects in the Ecuador, nor in the 250 subjects that as Vila Ron had been following Europe and the Middle East out of 350 people in 50 years of observation, not a single cancer that.

Now that happened later, probably due to this terrible diet, at a certain point these genes are not able to create immunity against cancer. But, and thus far there's been three cases of diabetes, again, out of the 350 or so subjects, which is another extremely low prevalence of diabetes, considering that they have a terrible diet, a lot of them are obese and overweight. So yeah, so then this mutation in humans seems to be very much behaving like the mouse mutation,

which makes them protected from diabetes, protected from cancer, the mice, and also a very long live. Now, the longevity, we don't see a big effect on longevity. There's probably a small effect on longevity, but we suspect, as we know for mice, that by having a terrible diet, this may be not removing the protection against diseases,

but removing this record longevity. Right, right, right. So you deduce from that what, and how does that inform the next chapter? Well, from that, we deduced that it works, right? It's not a mouse or a yeast finding. This is going after cellular protection, multi-system cellular protection across the board.

So then these mice that could get to 50% longer life, but have health of the cancers and protection from diabetes, protection from inflammation, protection from cognitive decline. Their brain work better longer. And we also show that for the humans. So now all of this is possible.

You're starting to say, well, we don't have to be this Western world of living long, very now you know we used to live a little bit shorter healthier now we live longer sicker and we can live longer healthier so the opposite of what we are obtaining now so now we're keeping people alive with lots of drugs lots of intervention yeah the idea that extending longevity will only extend the period of time in which you're sick is the paradigm you're trying to upend. Yeah, we wanna turn it completely around.

So not only we don't go to a higher, because of course, as soon as you start saying, we wanna make people live 20 years longer, to 110, let's say 30 years longer than now, right? People are gonna say, no, absolutely not, because they think of all the people that they know, they're all sick. Old folks home the whole time, you know, unable to walk.

Yeah. So, but if you look at Emma Morano, who at 112 could still live in her house alone, right? I mean, she didn't live alone, but she could have if she wanted to. I mean, she had people that came. But I think until 105, 106, she was alone, living alone. And yeah, and also if you saw Salvatore Caruso at 110,

you'd think that's pretty good. Right. I don't, I want that. I mean, Salvatore, you know, in the latest years, you know, television used to come, National Geographic came and they did a cover story on him, and not just him, but a centenarians. And he loved it.

He was so happy that- He's getting so much attention. He's getting attention, but he was healthy. He could come out and walk and walk with the television crews. And so, yeah, he was healthy enough to really enjoy all this attention. So, Dan Buettner is a friend of mine. He's been in here a couple of times. So, we've talked

extensively on the podcast about the work that he's done on the Blue Zones. And your work really intersects with his work, you know, in a very beautiful way. You're looking at the same or similar populations of people evaluating what is contributing to their health and their longevity. And, you know, when you talk to Dan, it's confounding factors. It's diet, it's lifestyle, it's community,

it's making the healthy choice, the convenient, the easy choice, it's, you know, continual sort of movement throughout the day, but nothing too crazy. Nobody's on treadmills or going to the gym. They're just active throughout their day. They're engaged with their relatives and, you know, their sort of neighbors in a way that we're not the way that we live here. A lot of these communities, you know, have a strong faith component to them. So you kind of surveying all of this and thinking about what you're doing in the lab, where do you start to look at, all right, well,

I can sort of deconstruct all of these factors, but it's really the nutrition piece that you zero in on and you can kind of extrapolate from the essentially Mediterranean diet that most of these people are eating, very low protein, not very much meat, lots of legumes and nuts and seeds and vegetables and the like.

Does that, like, where does that, where does Dan's work intersect with yours and like, where do you then kind of take it further yeah so then as a friend of mine also i think he's done a great work and uh and we uh see the blue zones and other areas of the world that are um they have record longevity as one of the major pillars so in the book i talk about five pillars and that's one of them right right? So the centenaries are one. But there are four pillars. And why is this important? For example, one of the other pillars is epidemiology.

Why is it important? Well, epidemiology is really looking at large population and saying, okay, what if you had low protein versus high protein, low fat versus high fat? Who does better, right? So a few years ago, we published a paper. They got a lot of attention where we said, we went against the idea of high-protein diet,

but we went against it and we went for it at the same time, right? And this is where the sophistication of the multi-pillar strategy comes in, meaning that up to age 65, the low-protein plant-based diet seemed to be ideal. After age 65, that was not the case anymore. And so people- Your protein needs become more important. Yeah. And we also show why, because we had mouse and human data in the same paper. And if you took

a mouse, a young mouse, and you give it extremely low protein intake, 4% of the calories coming from protein, the young mice did perfectly well. Then you took old mice and you get 4% protein and they started dropping weight very rapidly, right? That's where the science, and this is just one of the four extra pillars of science that we use. This is why it's so important. Now, if you look at, you know, for example, Colin Campbell has always talked about low protein diets, right?

But he's always talked about two problems, you know? And I really think he's been a pioneer in the low-protein, but you cannot have... And this also happened with the calorie restriction field, good and bad. You give something that is good and it's bad at the same time. In the end, it neutralizes, it has a neutral effect. So what's the problem with saying, eat low-protein, go with the only population studies? The problem is that you don't see, for example, that you can make somebody so weak that their immune system shuts off when they're 82, because they thought the protein is always bad.

Another thing that is not bad, for example, and there is different phases of life is weight. If you are overweight when you're 50, it's clearly bad, right? Or obese. If you are overweight when you're 50, it's clearly bad, right? Or obese. If you're overweight when you're 82, it's actually protective, right? So now obese, but certainly in the 25, 26 BMI,

that's actually a good thing, right? So low protein, moderate protein, low protein up to age 65, moderate protein. Vegan, let's say up to age 65, or pescatarian, fish plus vegan, plus vegetable up to age 65. And they maybe expand a little bit. These are all tricks that come from really putting all these pillars together. You may not see by just going to Italy. For example, Italy, very few people in Italy, I'm assuming Greece, are very frail populations when they're old, right?

Very few people know this. So these Italians that live so long in Sardinia and Calabria and other areas are actually very frail, frailer than the people in Northern Europe, right? And that comes probably from this continuing this low protein diet and continuing this narrower diet. That is so helpful when you're younger and now it becomes detrimental.

It makes you weak when you're older. Right? So it gets more- Yeah, I got you. I got you. Yeah, I mean, basically like everything, it's more nuanced and complicated than we wanna believe. You know, we wanna reduce it down to one core principle

that's applicable to everybody, no matter what age or where they find themselves in life. Is there a difference between, so on this idea that when you hit 65 and as you start to move in that direction where your protein needs become more important, has there been any work done on the differences between animal protein and plant protein?

I mean, you certainly don't wanna be taking in a lot of IGF-1 when you're older, right? You're gonna be more susceptible to cancer and the like. Not necessarily because now, and that's what we're showing in the paper, the IGF-1 is so low because of age that eating high protein or low protein made no difference in IGF-1. So the people that had over 20% of the calories from protein and the people that had

less than 10% at the same levels of IGF-1. So yeah, so I think that it gets much trickier than we want to appreciate. Another issue, for example, that I under-discussed in my book, but I think it should be much more discussed, is autoimmunities and immunities and allergies, right? So you can have a vegetable-based diet, but then whether it's gluten or it's lactans or it is pro-inflammatory vegetables, to a percentage, which could be a significant percentage, if you think about autoimmunities are increasing at a rate of 17% in the world every year, right? It's a huge increase. So this exposure to a lot of this potentially or apparently healthy foods to some people, and it could be quite a big number, can be detrimental, right? So this is why in the book,

I start talking about gluten and talking about lactose, but I say really got to pay attention because you may think something is super healthy for you and that something may be killing you. So you need to find out, are you autoimmune, allergic, intolerant to something? And that something may be 20 different foods, which are all vegetable by the way, right? So if you don't remove it,

you're gonna have a problem and you're gonna suffer. And a clear case, I always talk about Italy in the lactose years. I used to go to Italy and I said, this is really incredible. And because 90% of the Sicilians are lactose intolerant. And yet for until five years ago, I never seen a coffee shop in Sicily

that serves soy milk or almond milk. They had the regular milk. So I said, you know, everybody that is drinking this must be suffering. And so you had a whole country that was getting the macchiato, the lattes, and they were all cow milk. And this must have contributed to an epidemic of gastrointestinal disorders.

They were very obvious because on paper, we knew that they were lactose intolerant and yet nothing was done for decades. Nobody was doing anything about it. Yeah, that's pretty funny. All right, so on this idea of the five pillars, let's talk about what we can extract from the research that you've done and what you've learned

into some principles that can kind of guide us in the direction of promoting longevity in our own lives. Like what's most important? I'm asking you to be reductionist after my speech about how we shouldn't be reductionist. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, so you're asking about the most important- Well, yeah, I just wanna kind of move into this area

of what people should be aware of and some habits and some practices that they can adopt and also things to avoid so that people can be more mindful of how to practice these principles that you speak about for their own wellbeing. Yeah, so then number one, I think is a pescatarian diet. Why is that?

Well, if you are vegan, lots of times you hear people saying, I ate 30 grams of garbanzo beans or chickpeas, there should be enough proteins. It's not, right? You need about 10 times as much as that. I've been vegan for 11 years. No, no, no, sure.

You can be vegan and do very well, but most people out there are not you. That's my point, right? Everybody always tells me I'm an outlier. I'm not convinced about that, Walter. No, no, no. I'm saying vegan is perfectly fine. I'm just saying that being vegan and healthy is much harder than people think, right?

Because for example, it takes about 400 grams of chickpeas to have enough proteins, right? And a lot of times, forget you, let's say we pick 10 vegans out there, right? At random, we pick the first 10 we can find and we start asking questions. I do this all the time.

And you'd be surprised how many times you say, well, you haven't had b12 in a while and and you haven't had enough proteins in three or four days and a you know problem at the prime so i'm just saying if you're gonna be vegan great but you gotta pay attention yeah i don't know i i mean i i think look i take a b12 supplement like i don't know once a week at most. I have my blood work done, it's fine. I go out and I do these crazy ultra endurance races. I'm able to compete, I'm 51, I feel good. I've never had any problems building lean muscle mass or recovering in between workouts.

So I think there's a lot of misconception out there about protein. And I think one thing we can agree on is that most people are eating too much protein. There's plenty of plant foods that meet my amino acid needs. I'm not eating buckets full of garbanzo beans, but I'm mindful about it. I think I would concede to you that it's easier and easier to eat a very nutrient-poor vegan diet, especially with all the analog products that are coming out and people moving further and further away from sort of nutrient dense whole plant foods.

I mean, we're in the same choir, right? So absolutely, I published on that and I got attacked for talking about low protein diet, mostly vegan. But then again, when you allow people to have also fish in the diet to the big population, it makes it much, much less likely that they're going to lose a lot of lean body mass, that they're going to struggle, and also makes it less likely that they're going to switch back, right? So if you say, I'm going to allow you to have fish plus a vegan diet, lots of people are fine with that.

If you remove everything, then it's just harder for people. Now, if somebody can be vegan for ethical reason or whatever, great. I mean, I think it's absolutely doable. There are no reason not to be vegan. It's just that you have to pay attention. I think that we would also agree that this protein obsession that we find ourselves

in the midst of is really a red herring. I mean, most people, people are walking around worried about their protein intake, where when in truth, they're probably taking in two to five times more protein than they need. And yet every product at the grocery store, you know, is emblazoned with a message about how much protein it is, you know,

with the implication like, oh, we must be not getting enough or we need more. And what I like about your work is you stand in, you know, contraposition to that idea. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm the first one that will say, we're gonna have an epidemic of over-protein or eating too much protein, and we're going to find out the consequences very soon.

I mean, in our paper, we show three to four-fold increase in cancer incidence, right? And 75% increase in overall mortality in the following 20 years for people that were 65 and below. And even for the 65 and above, it was the moderate protein intake. It was not that high. It didn't need to have high protein intake. Moderate was sufficient. I mean, in fact, in my book, I talk about maybe increase the protein intake by 20% when you get to age 65, 70, below the minimum recommended, right? So yeah, absolutely. 570 below the minimum recommended, right? So yeah, absolutely. But then again, if you look at fish,

and I have to go with the science, and if you look at most studies, fish is always on the positive side, besides the mercury fish, you know, the swordfish and the tuna, et cetera. That's a big problem that we're facing. But most studies are showing beneficial effects, right? That's why I have to say,

even though some people could argue, well, ethically, you know, may or may not be the best idea. But if you look at the science, the fish plus vegan seems to be the way to go. And what is it, I think when you, you haven't sort of said it explicitly, but this relationship between meat intake and the incidence of cancer, like what is going on there?

Because I think when you say that to somebody, like basically saying meat causes cancer, is that what you're saying? And if it's not, if it is, if it isn't, like I want to kind of clarify that. Yeah, I mean, I don't say that. Now the World Health Organization says that, so does every other major association.

I think the National Cancer Institute, and now this is USDA, I think, is also now reduced recommendation on protein because of that. So red meat particularly is now recognized by almost every major association specialized in cancer to be a risk factor or certainly something that you wanna avoid

in high quantities. In our case, we had multiple papers. We and Harvard School of Public Health, they published a series of papers, all of them in agreement with this idea, particularly for red meat, but just also for high protein. So after our paper, we published one

with Al Giovannucci at Harvard, and also confirming that the plant-based diet was protective compared to a variety of diets that included high protein from animal sources. And what is the active component in meat or red meat that's causing these problems? Is it the high density of protein?

Is it the hormonal breakdown in it? Like what can that be drilled down to? Nobody knows for sure. I mean, there's a lot of speculations that some of it having to do with the heme content and I've heard different stories and different hypotheses. It could be, are they fed steroid hormones? Are they fed antibiotics?

Who knows, right? What is in that meat? And so probably the combination of high proteins, but also other molecules that make it into the meat out there are probably contributing to make it very clear that particularly the red meat seems to be detrimental. But in our paper, we showed that all the animal, high protein diet from all animal sources were detrimental.

And high plant-based diet was no longer detrimental. High protein from plant-based sources was no longer detrimental for overall mortality. So there's no effect. But it still was detrimental for cancer. So it still showed up. Somebody had lots of proteins from vegetable sources that still was associated with an increased risk for cancer, but that was, in most cases, a combination of animal and plant-based protein.

Right, I got you. What about saturated fat? Yeah, so I think one of the points that I make in the book is that this demonization of ingredients or macromolecules has been very, macronutrients has been very bad. So we should start making distinctions between types of micronutrients. So fats are actually very good for you.

A number of studies now looking at the nuts and looking at the olive oil and looking at salmon, et cetera. They're all positive. But when you look at the high saturated fats diet, then you see problems. Now, what will happen if you have a low sugar, low protein, high saturated fat diet? Nobody knows.

Is it possible that that will be okay? Possible. I wouldn't go in that direction because we don't have those studies yet. And it's potentially, I mean, if you want to kill a mouse earlier, you give them a high saturated fat diet, right? Right. Yeah, I think there's a lot of confusion out there right now. I mean, on the one hand, you have people like Colin Campbell, even, you know, Joel Kahn and the others who are, you know, cautioning people against their saturated fat intake and, you know, indicating that the studies seem to point to

a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease with the intake of these things. And then on the other side of the fence, you have a whole group of people and some emerging excitement about this notion that everything you ever heard about saturated fat is wrong, that you should be putting butter in your coffee, and you should be in ketosis and pricking your finger and taking exogenous ketones. So where do you come down on the ketogenic diet? Where do you come down on this kind of dissension amongst health professionals about this subject? Yeah, I call it the 0.5 pillar strategies, right?

So you come up with a couple of studies showing acute effects. Let's say you eat lots of butter and after three months, you can look at about 20 people and they show like lower cholesterol. And this 0.5 pillar approach is very dangerous, right? Why is it very dangerous? For example, if you take mice and you give it a high protein diet, right? And relatively high fat, they actually lose weight.

And if you stop the study right there, you say, oh, this is a good diet. If you continue, eventually they develop metabolic diseases and they die early. If you give them a low protein diet, high carbohydrate diet, they actually gain a little bit of weight. If you stop there, you will say, oh, bad idea. If you continue, they have less metabolic diseases and they live a lot longer. So why is it problematic then to have 0.5 health pillar? Well, because you're going to get surprised. if you look at many, many, many studies, many of which I list in my book,

you see that the low fat, avoiding the saturated fats over and over and over is a good idea. Avoiding the unsaturated, the olive oil, nuts, et cetera, it's a bad idea. So for example, the Estruc study in Spain, thousands of people, et cetera, it's a bad idea. So for example, the ASTRUG study in Spain, thousands of people, randomized trial, you put health for them on lots of olive oil or lots of nuts every day.

They had to stop the study because it was unethical for the control group not to have the same, right? But if you look at ASTRUG work and you look at the Ornish, and not just them, but lots and lots of data, you see that having a high saturated fat diet is associated with a lot of cardiovascular problems.

Now, if you go around the world, you look at the centenarian pillar, none of them have high saturated fat. Not the Okinawans, not the Loma Linda, not the Sardinians, not the Calabrians, not the Costa Ricans, and not the people in Greece, in Ikaria. So, yeah. So then you have to say the animal data doesn't support it. The epidemiological data doesn't support it. The centenarian data doesn't support it. You know, the basic research doesn't support it. There is really, and the clinical, randomized clinical study doesn't support it. There is really, in the clinical, randomized clinical study,

it doesn't support it. So you have to say, well, in 30 years, when you have 200 more studies all supporting this, which would be almost impossible because there's already so much negative data on it. So not worth it. Not worth to go in that direction. You can do as well by being on a low

sugar low starch high carbohydrate diet and this is another thing people they like to say bad carb good carb right it's not about again same as fat it's about sugars and and starches pasta bread it's not about carbs carbs contained in legumes and the carbs contained in vegetables are excellent carbs. And even the ones from starches, if you maintain it relatively low, it's fine. It makes your diet more enjoyable. And so if you have 50 grams of pasta or rice, that's perfectly fine. If you have 120 grams of that, then you're starting to get into the problem zone, right? So I think that we really must start applying this five pillar or not five pillar, people can have seven pillars, you know,

whatever they want, but certainly multidisciplinary approaches to determine whether a high-butter diet is good or not versus somebody's opinion based on 20 people studying. Right, I understand where you're coming from. I mean, the starch thing makes a lot of sense. I mean, that echoes the work of John McDougall. If you talk to Esselstyn though,

he's gonna take a very hard line on fats and oils altogether. Like he's advocating for an extremely low fat diet, no oils. Granted, he's dealing with cardiovascular patients that for the most part are in dire need of having to reverse some pretty progressed dealing with cardiovascular patients that for the most part are in dire need of having to reverse some pretty progressed arterial damage.

So it's a little bit different, but he takes a very hard line on that. Like, what is your perspective? No, no, I know, I discussed that in the book, you know? And so I say, well, that line is one pillar line, right? So the line to go with low saturated fat is a five-pillar line. The line to go with no fats of any kind is a one-pillar line. Nothing else supports that. So if you look at the Sardinians, they always had lots of olive oil. So there are the Greeks, and I think also the people in Costa

Rica and the Loma Linda people. So none of them. And then if you look at the clinical data, the other pillar, the ASTRUK study showing that they had to stop the study against the low-fat diet. So the randomization was olive oil and nuts versus low-fat diet. So 3,000 people or so went on the low-fat diet. And what was the low-fat diet? It was just suggested to eat less fat, right?

So now the high fat from olive oil and nut diet was so superior to the low fat diet that they had to stop the study. So yeah, then that's when you have to say, and if you give a high fat diet, and now that I'm not sure if they also had saturated fats in there, but certainly, you know, the mouse studies are, I think they haven't really been done.

Let's say good fats, bad fats, low carb, low protein. Essentially what you're advocating is a plant-based whole food diet with some fish in terms of like the best protocol for long-term lifestyle management and longevity. Is that fair? Yes. Avoiding the paying attention to autoimmunities intolerances. And so, you know. Making sure you're not allergic to certain things. intolerances. And so, you know. Yeah. Making sure you're not allergic to certain things. Yeah. And yeah, essentially. And then, you know, once you get to 65,

then I think that things change and they'll say, goat yogurt, maybe some goat cheese, and some of these ingredients that may be high nourishment, eggs, for example, may be a good idea to start introducing them back. Just because, you know, of what we've seen, we've seen this frailty in later life that, you know, if your diet is too restrictive, you're probably gonna suffer from this malnourishment.

So as I mentioned, I've been, I've been plant-based for 11 years. And when I began this journey, I promised to myself that I would be objective and transparent about my experience with it. That if I started to not feel good or if my blood work was reflective of something gone awry, that I would be honest about that and make adjustments. That hasn't happened yet.

Yeah, but you're not 65. No, I'm 51. I, you know, I'm not there yet, but I feel great. So perhaps because there's a lot of plant-based vegan people that listen to this who are thinking, wait, now I gotta start eating that. Like, what should I be mindful about if I want to remain on this plant-based path?

Yeah. Well, mindful of, for example, that 30 grams of chickpeas and a salad gives you about three to five grams of proteins, right? And even if you take the lowest level of protein that you can consider, you know, The World Health Organization in their studies to maintain normal nitrogen balance, they talk about 0.66 per kilogram, right? So about 0.32 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, right? This is official based on studies, right?

So if you go much lower than that, you're gonna start losing muscle mass. It's just a matter of time. So now, of course, if you say, how much garbanzo beans did I have today? Let's say you're 120 pound women that is vegan, you know, you're going to need about 40 grams of protein, 35, 40 grams of protein, minimum, right? Now in the book, I say, I talk about the fact that, you know, if you have 35, 40 grams of plant-based protein and you do some weight training, there should be plenty.

There should be plenty to keep a good muscle mass, but you have to do it every day. This is something that you have to continue doing. Otherwise you might not see it, but year after year after year, you're gonna start losing uh lean body mass and then um you know and but the problem is also are you gonna start losing let's say immune function uh again it's an age-dependent effect so you might not see until

you're 62 63 64 you might see it in 55 you know you may be there it may be that you get cancer when you're 55 and that was due to the fact that your immune system is not working as well as it could have because you're protein deficient or you're B12 deficient or you're vitamin D deficient or you're folic acid deficient. So it's very important to say, let me avoid the malnourishment without interfering with beneficial effects. So yeah, without needing to go into an area that, where the protein becomes detrimental. Yeah, my protein needs on that equation of, you know, 0.32, it comes out to about between 60 and 70 grams a day.

It's just, it's not that hard. Like I, some almond butter, I, you know, rice and beans, I eat lentils and quinoa and things like that. As long as I'm just eating those foods, like I've done the math and it seems, it almost takes care of itself. Like if I'm just eating clean plant-based foods close to the natural state.

So it's not about going out of my way to make sure I'm eating tons of garbanzo beans or anything. No, no, no. I mean, I do that five days a week, right? So my diet is plant-based five days a week. There's no problem, but I do pay attention. I know that a certain amount of certain vegetable contains so much protein.

Yeah, of course, of course. And so once you get used to that, you don't have to check anything. So it's very straightforward. I'm just saying that I suspect when they compare, let's say the vegans against the non-vegans, and they show that the vegans are not doing better in those studies, I suspect that's because so many people in the vegan group are malnourished.

And that's why you see this. Otherwise, I think the vegans should be doing much, much better than the non-vegans if it wasn't for malnourishment. So if you could turn the vegans into well-nourished vegan, then I think we'll see the superiority that we already see in the blue zones and in Loma Linda, et cetera. Yeah, I think that's astute.

I mean, I think my fear, and I think it's a very real fear, is that as we continue to produce all of these processed versions of meat and dairy products that are tasting better and better and better, that people that are entering into becoming vegan can easily just be eating all sorts of refined grains all the time and cookies and snacks and things like that.

And they're like, hey, I'm vegan, it's healthy. When in fact, it perhaps might even be worse than whatever they were doing before. Yes, absolutely. So I think that this is why I talk about, you know, once you figure out what the science and all the pillars are saying, go back to your grandparents' table and among the healthy things, pick the ones that were common at their table. their table, you know? And so if you do that, then I think you're guaranteed, especially if you go with the grandparents or great grandparents, that you're gonna eliminate

a lot of these new processed foods that you're talking about. So, I mean, I don't think there are too many grandparents that ate, you know, processed foods, you know, in the past. Right. There's been much ado lately about the relationship between chronic inflammation and the onset of so many of these lifestyle illnesses that we're seeing.

I'm interested in your perspective on that and what the relationship is between inflammation and aging. Yes, that's a little tricky. I think it's clearly there. There is no doubt there in the brain and lots of people in the Western countries have high inflammation, inflammatory markers. To me, it's more of a consequence of dysfunction than the cause of dysfunction. So I think that the body, the liver is not working well. And so you start making C-reactive protein

as a way to respond to a dysfunctional state. And this is why we developed the fasting mimicking diet. And the idea was to, you know, we can change everybody's habits, but can we, for example't change everybody's habits, but can we, for example, go after the inflammation, not just during the diet, but in the couple of months, two or three months after the diet.

So is it possible to hit somebody with a five-day diet, they will have long-term consequences and the inflammatory state, but not just the inflammatory state, but certainly that is one way to, I think, assess functionality of the entire system. Right. Okay. So let's get into this world of fasting. I mean, when does it first become evident to you that this relationship between caloric restriction and the impact, you know, biochemically, positive impacts biochemically starts to

percolate into your awareness and where do you go with that? Yes. So first of all, a caloric restriction, which is what Walford was doing, which refers to eating, let's say 25% to 30% less all the time, it doesn't work, right? And it doesn't work for some reason we know, some reason we don't know. But even in mice, you know, the original observation were made a hundred years ago. And then it turns out that about a third of the genetic backgrounds benefited from calorie restriction. A third had neutral effects and a third had negative effects, right? So I think the periodic fasting mimicking diet builds on this success and failure.

Why you say success and failure? Success because if you look at color restricted people or monkeys, it's obvious that the positive effects are remarkable. For example, in the monkeys that were color restricted, the control monkey, 60% of them developed diabetes. In the color restricted monkey, zero. In the calorie-sensitive monkey, zero. In the cardiovascular disease and cancer,

reduction by 50%, five, zero, which is incredible. And what kind of caloric restriction produced that? This was 25% in monkeys, right? Wow. Now, if you look at their lifespan, not changed very much, right? So then what does it tell you? It tells you that, obviously, you could probably cure many, many diseases

by doing the right intervention, but color restriction is not the way to do it because it gives you as many problems as it gives you solutions. And this is in humans and in monkeys. Humans, we don't know for sure yet, but if you look at people that are color restricted, men that are color restricted have BMI of 19, 18.5, 19. They look like they're really borderline anorexic.

And, you know, and you have to wonder, is this sustainable to, is it compatible with a lifespan of 110? Probably not, as it was for the monkeys. not as it wasn't for the monkeys. So that's where then, you know, back in the days, I made the observation, if I completely starve bacteria or I completely starve yeast, they live longer and they live stronger, right? So longer, stronger, meaning that you hit them with toxins, nothing. They're very strong. And both of them, and you know know if you look at bacteria and yeast yeast is a eukaryote so they're being separated by hundreds of millions of years so i started thinking is it possible that you could do this for every organism and it's going to make it stronger and protected for a long period and that's where a lot of this comes from and so jumping ahead 20 years then

is the mouse studies that we first did which were were, you know, what if you take a mouse and you give it this fasting-mimicking diet? Why is it a fasting-mimicking diet? Is, you know, what I was talking earlier about the nutrients determine what genes are activated or not, right? So if you have a certain composition, low protein, low levels of certain amino acids, and then low sugar, high carbohydrate, but low sugar and high fat, but good fats, right? All that, you put it together, then the response of the system is just like

if you're giving it water only fasting, you just would give water. And you heal for four days and then you put them back on a bad diet, a relatively bad diet. This is a vegan, so four vegan days for the mice and then 10 days of animal-based diet. And then you keep doing this twice a month.

Now we show that the mice live longer, about 11% longer, but the remarkable part is the cancers were reduced by almost 50%. Wow. And the inflammatory diseases were reduced by 50%. And these mice, their cognitive abilities was much improved, right? So they just look younger, healthier. So they live longer, younger, and healthier. Then we did the human clinical trial with this prolon fasting mimicking diet.

And we did three cycles once a month, five days, again, vegan, a fasting mimicking diet. And we did three cycles once a month, five days, again, vegan, five vegan days of this low protein, low sugar, high good fat diet. And then we give them 25 days of no recommendation. Go back and do whatever it is that you always done. No exercise recommendation, no food,

no nutrition recommendation. And then we measure the effects after a week and three months after the last cycle. And I think the results were remarkable. So lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower triglyceride, lower fasting glucose, lower inflammation, systemic inflammation as measured by CRP and lower IGF-1, which we believe is one of the key markers, risk factors for both aging and cancer. systemic inflammation as measured by CRP and lower IGF-1,

which we believe is one of the key markers, risk factors for both aging and cancer. But the interesting thing, this happened much more power, it was much more powerful in people that had the problem to begin with. So if somebody started from an ideal situation, there were a lot less changes than somebody that started with high levels of this. Yeah, of course, of course. That's absolutely fascinating. Was there any, were you able to sort of quantify when you said, okay, go back and eat whatever you were eating? Were you aware of, you know, the differences in how people were returning to their lifestyles?

And was there any differentiation amongst that population based upon their just sort of preset lifestyle? I mean, we knew that, again, the people that, for example, had IGF-1 levels of 300, they probably had a very high animal protein diet, right? And they responded very, very, very well. We did not follow their diet after, but what we heard from lots of people, and now, you know, the Prolon FMD has been done by over 30,000 people. So we're starting to collect a lot of data from people. And a lot of people are basically saying it's a slow process, but every time I do a cycle, I come back and I don't feel like I have to go back

to as much meat. I don't have to go back to as much sugar or as many coffees. Well, they've done something for themselves. And so then they're more enthusiastic about taking care of themselves, I would imagine. I think so. It may also be something about, you know,

the brain realizing that you can handle. I always think about, let's say, running a 10K run. The first time you do it, it's very difficult. Yeah. And after that, you could probably do it multiple times a year and it doesn't seem that hard. I think it's, you know, realizing that it's okay. It's not that hard. You know, you don't have to have sugar all the time.

I mean, most people have never gone, you know, 24 hours in their entire life without eating solid food. And just the idea of that seems so daunting. We, you know, we have this notion that we'll just perish if we do that. And to kind of undertake a protocol like that and go to the other side of it and realize like, oh, that was, I did that, that was fine, makes you rethink the human body's capabilities.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about, for example, the brain, around day five or so of the FMD, about 50% of the fuel comes from ketone bodies, right? From fat. And in most people, that pathway in the brain has probably never been activated, right? So somebody could be 55 years of age and never once has activated this use of ketone bodies in the brain. So then what's wrong with exploring the ketogenic diet all the time? The pillars. So, you know, if you look around the world, a population that are long-lived using a ketogenic

diet all the time, which in most cases to be doable, you have to be a high-protein diet, you know? I mean, you could come up with it, but it'd be almost impossible to do like a high fat only, low carb, it'd be almost impossible. So this will end up being a high protein, high fat diet, and there is really no data out there. And so then you're taking a big risk, right? I got you.

All right, so the genesis of this is this idea that when you fast a cell, something gets triggered in that cell to make it protective and stronger against disease and decline. Is that correct? So what is going on cellularly? Yeah, so that was the initial observation, protection. Then we started realizing it wasn't just about protection, as I was talking about the tires earlier,

it's about also repair and replacement, right? Both inside of a cell, if the cell doesn't die, and inside of an organ, where the cells are actually killed and replaced, right? So now the body, and I use the analogy with a wood-burning train, and I say, imagine you have a wood-burning train that's running out of fuel. It cannot make it to the next train station. So it starts burning its own components to get there, right? But of course, the engineer that is burning the wood will first go to the ruined chairs that are made of wood

and the ruined world, you know, the damaged ones, right? So they take the damaged components and burn those, right? That would make sense first. Then you go to everything else. But the end result is you get to the next station and then you rebuild it, right? Now you put new chairs, new walls in. So now you have a newer train and you made it there.

And that's exactly what the body does. You get rid of a lot of junk inside of the cell and also inside of an organ. And it seemed like we published a paper, for example, a few years ago on multiple sclerosis in mouse and humans. And it seemed like the fasting mimicking diet was able to first get rid of autoimmune cells. And it makes sense, right? Like the machinist or the engineer in the train, you go pick the damaged ones. I mean, it would be surprising that after billions of years of evolution, the body was dumb enough to go pick first the good cells and kill them when it knows that some cells are precancerous, some cells are autoimmune, some cells are not metabolically. Some cells are autoimmune.

Some cells are not metabolically, they may be insulin resistant. And that's why we think, we see in the human trial, this rejuvenation effect. The body seems to be working like when people were much younger. So essentially, on first glimpse, it's sort of like,

oh, the body is cannibalizing itself. That can't be good. But in truth, what's happening is it's purging itself of the cells that are in decline. And in so doing, stimulating stem cell regeneration for these organs and these systems to rebuild themselves with brand new healthy cells. Yeah, not just stem cells. Now we are now, our new work is looking at inside of the cell, right?

So like a neuron or a cardiomyocyte may not be killed, but it's now gonna regenerate intracellular, right? So it's gonna make- Is this- So autophagy, mitophagy. Autophagy, apoptosis, is that- No, apoptosis is the killing of the cell. That we've already shown.

What we're now looking at is what happens inside of the cell without killing the cell. Can you regenerate the intracellular components? I see, I see. And so, in other words, like take the liver, for example. I think, you know, I've read and seen where you've spoken about how you undergo this protocol and your organs, your liver will literally shrink, right?

Because it's regenerating itself and getting rid of the old and in the early processes of building the new. And then you go back to your life where you're eating and it regenerates itself. And it's actually, for all intents and purposes, it's a younger organ. Is that correct?

Yes. So, I mean, obviously, for example, we're showing that the white blood cell number declines and then returns to normal, right? So it's not like declines to 20%, right? So you're not reducing something by 80%. You might be reducing it by 15%. But now 15% of the white blood cells are-

Yeah, exactly. But let's say even 10%. So 10% and then you rebuild it. Now, if you do this 10 times a year, and especially speculating that what we've seen in mice is also true for humans, meaning that the body can detect, this is a damaged cell, that's not. Now you get rid of 10%, which might represent 70% of the bad cells, right?

I mean, I don't know. We've never demonstrated that. But certainly we demonstrated that we could take autoimmune mice. And within so many cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet, we can eliminate completely the autoimmunity in 20% of these mice. And we can reduce it dramatically in 50% of the mice, right? So, I mean, it's working in a mammal very well, and we've shown it with the pancreas. We can destroy the pancreas, make it not generating insulin anymore. And then we start with the cycle of the fasting-mimicking diet.

These embryonic genes are turned on. And the only time you see this gene turn on in this manner is only when the mouse is first born. And so they're turned on and they start rebuilding the pancreas, and the insulin producing cells. It's really remarkable process. Now, in humans, we're starting the trials now.

There's a lot of work to be done and people have to be careful not to think about, oh, okay, now I have diabetes type 1. I'm going to go do it. It's still dangerous to do it, but it looks very promising, and now we're going to start clinical trials on Crohn's and colitis, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer. Of course, we've been doing trials for years now. We're done with a few of them and we're doing more,

you know, multiple sclerosis, et cetera. What do you think is the number one study? Like what would be the first study that needs to be conducted to answer some of the lingering questions that you have that you would like answers to? Well, the first one we're going to do where I think it's going to work because it already worked with 100 patients in a clinical trial that we did, is metabolic syndrome and prediabetes and precardiovascular state, right?

So all the people, which is half of the United States. That's most people. Half of Americans. Yeah, yeah. But a third of Americans are either prediabetic or diabetic, about 100 million people. So, yeah, so we think, because we already done it and we saw very clear results, now we're going to do that. We're going to start very soon, about 400 patients that randomized at USC. And yeah, so that we have high hopes that that's the way to go. You know, maybe three times a year

do this, you know, in the trial, we're going to do three cycles monthly, but we envision, In the trial, we're going to do three cycles monthly, but we envision, because in the past trial, we saw that three months after the last, the third cycle, we still saw about 60% of the changes remaining. Wow. So then, of course, 60% and they were lower, but still significant. And so we suspect that, you know, it takes about three or four months to get rid of the effects of three cycles. So I think we envision that this be an option for doctors eventually to say, yeah, I could give you drugs or maybe I could let the body fix itself

and see how far you can go with this. And then if nothing works, then maybe we can go to the drugs versus, you know, going to the drugs first. Yeah, get to the root cause of what's generating this in the first place, as opposed to putting a bandaid on it. So this fasting mnemonic mimicking diet protocol that you've developed, it entails, you know,

a protocol in which you have these foods and you're on a very strict schedule. And the idea is that it allows you to eat rather than just doing a water only fast, but yet you still garner the same benefits that you would experience if you were just doing water. So it generated out of looking at water fasts originally. Is that correct?

Yes and no. And now we suspect and we have data that we are about to publish that is not just about the lack. It's also about what we have in the fasting-making diet, right? So unfortunately, I cannot talk about that, but it looks like there are multiple components that we have selected that have actually positive effects. I'll give you one, for example.

We have glycerol in the fasting-mimicking diet. And glycerol turns out to be a by-product of fat, but also is what you use in gluconeogenesis to make sugar to feed the brain. Now, if you don't have glycerol, the body breaks down muscle, right? And so one of the observations in the clinical trial, there was no or minimal loss of lean body mass after three cycles of the FMD. And we suspect that, for example, glycerol is playing that part. I mean, this is just one of the 66 components that we have in there. And this is just, I can talk about that because we already published that, but,

but I think it's going to be a lot more than, than that. And always though, never trying to hack anything, right? Always sort of thinking in, like in this case, what does the body make during fasting? Glycerol. Okay. Then glycerol it is, right? So we're not trying to come up with something, our version of, so we now have somebody in a fasted state that has got glycerol it is, right? So we're not trying to come up with something, our version of, so we now have somebody in a faster state that has got glycerol, but people in a faster state already have glycerol. We just make that higher, right? Right.

So that is our thinking. So it is what we call nutrient technology, but it's a nutrient technology in tune with evolution. A nutrient technology that really respects where this is coming from, understands it and respects it. Because for example, if you try to give, and this is come out of Silicon Valley,

if you try to give ketone bodies to somebody that has a normal diet, now you could have a problem. I say this is- They're not attempting to get into a ketogenic state other than taking exogenous ketones. Yeah, so now lots of people are doing that now. So now you think about like a hybrid car

that is now you tweak it to work both on electricity and on gasoline at the same time, right? Well- It's confusing. It's gonna break down. Unless you have an engineer reprogram it, it could do that, but the body is not made to do that. It's either fasting or it's not, right?

So now you have the sugar, you put the ketone bodies in there. What's going to happen after five, six, seven years of that? I would strongly discourage people from doing ketone bodies during a standard nutrition, I mean, nourishment state. Right. And why five days? How did you come up with five days as the window? Well, you need to break down, right?

You need to deplete glycogen. And then you have about three days where you benefit from now consuming only, and as we shown in the clinical trial, visceral fat, right? So the body now goes exclusively, it doesn't touch the subcutaneous fat. It goes after the abdominal fat as its only or major source of energy. So now you suffer less for the last three days. You break down, the stem cells are now starting to get activated and you have enough of a window that you can start rebuilding. If you go much shorter, there's never any destruction. There is never any cleaning up.

And therefore, there's going to be minimal rebuilding. And so... And if you go longer? Well, if you go longer, you got now getting the danger zone, right? You get in the compliance, low compliance zone and danger zone, right? So now you need to go to a clinic. So five days after over 30,000 people have done the prolonged diet, we've seen very little side effects that should be reported. And so people can do it.

I mean, some people, of course, struggle with it, but most people don't. And yeah, so I think compliance is very important. If people hate it and if people feel it was too difficult, they're never going to do it again. And then, you know, then it's drugs. Right. So yeah, and that's also, in addition to the specific nutrients that you spoke to, just by actually providing people with a little bit of food enhances the compliance dramatically, I would imagine. Not just food, but also the selection of

food. So we pick foods that, for example, we have these nut bars and they were designed to really fill you up. So it's a kind of fat that after a while you're thinking, okay, that's it. I'm not hungry anymore. It's not very much, but it's made in a way that it really makes people, again, it's not a ton of food, but it is doable and it's designed to try to make you as full as possible. What about people that do do these extended water fasts? Like my friend, Ray Cronise, who's been in here. I think he does these crazy, like I think he's gone like 45 days. And I think there's something powerful about that in that he can sit here and share his experience of that,

that helps people like we were speaking about earlier, snap out of this idea that we have to eat three meals a day because somebody decided that at some point. But I don't know how healthy or unhealthy that is. It sounds like you would be somebody who would say, well, he's well into this danger zone, or has he acclimated to it because he's done it a number of times and built up to that? Or what's your perspective on that? Well, my perspective is that, I mean, he's getting into the wall for zone, right? So he's basically pushing the limits. And there are reasons for not doing that, that we know of now. For example, Friday, there was a paper published on 15% calorie restriction long-term. And what happens? It happens that your metabolism now in people

slowed past their loss of weight. So now their metabolism, even adjusted per weight, was lower than it was before. So now after 45 days- And it doesn't come back up? It may not come back up for years. So now if he does 45

days of fasting, all right, now the body may have no choice but to reduce the metabolism to be as thrifty as possible. Now, you know, and this is why lots of people that go to these clinics and do very long fast, usually the year after they come back with the same weight that they had before, right? So now you get into this yo-yo, and the question is, and the evidence seems to suggest that when you go back now, your metabolism is slower, so now you have a problem. You're going to have to eat less than you used to eat before you started this. All the time.

Otherwise, you're going to gain weight. So that's another reason. And, of course, the uncertainty. What's going to happen after you do this 20 times? We don't know. Right. More studies. More studies, but- The control group of 45 days. How many people are going to do that? Yeah, 45 days you're not going to, yeah. But now I know the Buckinger Wilhelmi Clinic in Germany, they're starting to follow people. They do like three weeks, you know, so they're trying to get as much information as possible.

How many times have they done it? Do they have any problems? So that would be interesting. And I know that the TrueNorth Clinic up in Northern California, I remember talking to them and they were saying they were trying to collect data on, you know, people that have done it many times and-

They've had great results up there. And I know a bunch of those doctors, they've turned people's health around in dramatic ways. I don't know exactly what their protocol is, but- Water only. Oh, it is water only. Yeah, TrueNord is water only. It's a tough one.

But you know, in a clinic, that was fine. You know, in a clinic you can do water only. Supervised setting. Yeah, it's medically supervised. You have nurses, yeah, and the same in Germany. Then it's different, especially if you're trying to address some problem that they know how to solve. I think it's important to point out that what you're advocating and suggesting is very different from something else that's very popular right now, which is intermittent fasting. This idea of going, I don't know, 12 or 15 hours, either every day or once a week,

or I don't know how it breaks down for people. But I would imagine that your perspective on that would be that, yeah, it's fine, but, and maybe there's some benefits to that, but you're not doing it long enough to really create this effect that you're looking to produce cellularly. Yeah. Well, first of all, I just emailed Sachin Panda the other day, because he's one of the leaders. Yeah, he's one of the guys. And I say, Sachin, 12 hours is really

intermittent eating. It's not intermittent fasting. This is what we've always done, right? So why are we calling that intermittent fasting? That's crazy. So, but yeah, people are doing that. And the problem with that is that we're starting to use these words like carbohydrate, you know, it's the same thing, you know, they don't mean anything because if you eat 12 hours and that's what I point out in the book, if you eat for 12 hours, that's very good. You know, it's supported by the five pillars. Stick to 12 hours. Don't eat for 13, 14, 15 hours a day. And if you're overweight or obese,

eat twice a day plus a snack and keep it 12 hours. That's the normal eating pattern. It's not intermittent fasting. Now, 16 hours, well, no doubt that as it's been shown, you're going to have benefits on weight loss, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody talks about the problems, though. Problem number one, gallstone formation. Studies are showing that if you're fast every day for more than 12 hours, you now have an increased chance that you're going to need your gallbladder removed.

Not the worst thing that can happen to you, but also not a nice thing to happen to you. And it gets to about twofold increase in the risk of gallbladder operation. Number two, several studies showing if you skip breakfast, which most people will do if you go 16 hours, because most people have dinner. Now you have increased chance of cardiovascular disease,

cancer, and overall mortality. Is that, wow, I skip breakfast all the time. Yeah. I shouldn't admit that. Not all the time, but once in a while. And the argument is maybe is the people that skip breakfast have a terrible this and terrible, yeah, we don't know. I mean, it's not necessarily bad to skip breakfast,

but it's certainly associated with bad outcomes, right? People die earlier, not later, earlier. So then you have to say, yeah, do you want to recommend something that multiple pillars are now are indicating to be problematic, right? And yeah, so that's why, I mean, first do no harm is a very good advice, right? And this is what people learn in the first year of medical school. So I think that we should always start with that. So first do no harm. It's a very good advice, right? And this is what people learn in the first year of medical school. So I think that we should always start with that. First, do no harm. Is this associated with any problems? And if it is, try to come up with something else.

So 12 hours is great. Time-reduced feeding, sachin, is worked on that. It's shown to be very beneficial. So if you take people that used to eat for 14 hours a day, 15 hours, you reduce it to 12, great, because that's what the centenarians do. That's what every piece of data is suggesting to be very good. 16 hours, not supported, potentially entering the problem zone. Right. That's good to know. I think that's important information. There's a lot of people just launching into this world of intermittent fasting

without really knowing what they're doing. And I've dipped my toe in it. So, you know, it's instructive to hear you say that. One of the things that I thought was fascinating in reading your book and your work was this idea that the fasting mimicking diet will have a, well, it will make healthy cells more resistant to,

like if you have cancer, right? It will make those cancer cells more susceptible to the cancer treatments, to the chemotherapy and the healthier cells strong so that they will be able to withstand those treatments. I didn't say that very eloquently. No, that's exactly right, yeah. So yeah, then like we had observed for bacteria and yeast,

you take a normal cell, at least in a mouse, and the early data from clinical studies is suggesting the same. We've shown already for white blood cells, for example, from humans. So if you give them chemo, the good cells know what to do during starvation they become protected they stop dividing or they reduce growth rate and they enter a protective mode the cancer cells by definition by the way rebel against this they cannot they otherwise they wouldn't be defined as a cancer cell so one of the

hallmarks of cancer cells is the ability to grow independently of growth factor and to refuse anti-growth signals, so to rebel against anti-growth signals. So fasting is an anti-growth signal, and the fasting and the cancer cell rebel. Now, you got a problem with that, and I use the analogy of imagining somebody running in the desert without shade, right?

And without water. Now, if you were running in the desert like cancer cells do, you know, you have shade and water, you may make it, right? And so if you have, in the case of cancer cell, lots of growth factors, lots of proteins, amino acids, and sugar, fine. That's what they've evolved in. That's what they understand. As soon as you start removing glucose and removing growth factors like IGF-1, et cetera, and adding anti-growth factors,

now the cancer cells are going to have a problem. And that's what we see. That's why we see the fasting-mimicking diet being as effective as chemo. But particularly, we see this working together, and that's where the sun comes in, right? being as effective as chemo, but particularly we see this working together and that's where the sun comes in, right? The sun is the chemo. And so, you know, you have no water

and you have the sun hitting you, you're gonna be dead. It's just a matter of time. Right, it's amazing how that's worked out, that it has the desired effect on the cancer cells, which is to hopefully make them go away. And at the same time, strengthening the cancer cells, which is to hopefully make them go away, and at the same time, strengthening the healthy cells.

It might have not worked out. It might be evolved, right? So we're starting to suspect that. Think about sleep, right? So you sleep, and sleep is not there by mistake, right? It's forcing you to rest for however many hours. So we're starting to think, is it possible that because all these organisms mostly stay yeast, bacteria, mostly they stay in a starvation mode. Once in a while, they start eating, right?

Humans were not in that situation, but fasting was probably so common that you didn't have to force anybody to do it because they were forced by the condition, right? So then what if fasting was the moment where the pre-cancerous cells were getting killed and now you use it to protect your cells in that moment of starvation from the sun, from whatever other problems and toxins you might be exposed to. So it may very well be an adapted process where you're starving, protect your good cells, protect your genes, and then get rid of cells that are, you know, not functional anymore. Also to eat them, you know. Yeah. In the same way that exercise is good for you right it's just something

that we evolved that we that we sort of experienced in our evolution that um allowed us to you know weather hard times and get stronger but we've moved away from these things we're in a culture in which we're just eating all day long and we're sitting in chairs so we've we've moved away from these evolutionary um sort of mandates that keep us healthy. Yeah, but exercise could be a little bit different. Exercise is not really removing anything. It's more damaging. So exercise may have similar effects for different reasons, meaning that when you, let's say, you had to run excessively 20,000 years ago, that caused muscle damage and the response to that

may be build new muscle because now that tells you that you didn't have enough, right? So it's a different concept probably also leading to- There's sort of a catabolic, anabolic analogy in that there's a breakdown and then there's a rebuilding that makes you stronger. Yeah, yeah. So it's a similar idea, but yeah,

the mechanisms are quite different because in exercise you do damage and then you repair it rather than you get rid of and eat yourself, essentially, and then rebuild. But yeah, the exercise I think think, also uses some of the... Probably, in some cases, the rebuilding might use, as we are seeing, similar mechanisms, right? The rebuilding for exercise probably doesn't quite go

as extreme as the rebuilding after prolonged fasting, but it might be used in similar techniques. For example, we know stem cells are activated, satellite stem cells, muscle stem cells are activated in response to exercise. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What is the impact on cognition of FMD? Yeah, so in the mouse, there are very clear impact,

meaning that they are cognitively sharper, they remember better, they learn better, particularly when they're old. But also when they're young, but you see this particularly when they're old. Now we're doing, we've done some special FMDs with mice on and off on Alzheimer's, on Alzheimer's, but now we're doing the human FMD. We're testing it now in mice, multiple Alzheimer models. And the idea is can we protect the brain against Alzheimer, even when we impose the human mutation that cause Alzheimer's in 100% of the mice, right? So we have some, a mouse is called triple transgenic, and it's all these human mutations that cause problems,

you know, this beta amyloid accumulation and tau, phosphorylated tau. So yeah, so then hopefully within a year, we'll have the data on that. And we're starting a clinical trial, we just got funded by the Italian Ministry of Health for a randomized clinical trial on Alzheimer's patients. Oh, wow.

And the fasting-making diet. So that would be very interesting, particularly because there's really nothing for dementia right now. And so this would be something that could be rapidly moved into clinical use. Are you familiar with Dean and Aisha Shirze at Loma Linda? With their, I forget, I think it's called the Brain Health Unit. They created a department there

and they're having some pretty tremendous success working with early onset Alzheimer's patients. I had them on the podcast. They're doing really cool work. You know, I'm collaborating with Charles Wang and a few others at Loma Linda, but not with the brain people. You should meet these guys.

I'll connect you. Is there anybody for whom the fasting, mimicking diet would not be appropriate? Yes. So, you know so pregnant woman, weight below, I think BMI 18.5 or something like that. People with diseases, they're gonna need the doctor. People are taking drugs, especially metabolic drugs,

insulin particularly, very dangerous combination. You can actually die if you combine insulin and fasting or fasting-making diets. Yeah, so I think in general, if somebody is healthy, they can talk to the nutritionist, and there is an expert in FMDs, and they will take them through. But if somebody has a disease, they need to run in by the doctor, they will take them through. But if somebody has a disease, they need to run in by the doctor

and then the nutritionist and the doctor can work with them to see if it's doable. Right, and the preferred protocol is to do this five-day program three times a year, like once a quarter, four times a year. Well, it depends, right? So if you're somebody who's a 32-year-old athlete that is on a pescatarian or a vegan diet,

and it's, you know, everything is perfect. Let's say you probably wanna do it twice a year. And somebody who's obese, who's got high cholesterol, high blood pressure, maybe once a month until they move to the lower category. And then it goes, you know, maybe once every four months and then, and then every, you know, yeah. So I say an average people should probably do it

once every four months. And then depending on where they stand between the 32 year old athlete and the obese person. I got you. Yeah, I got you. All right, well, we have to wind this down, but I have two questions that I can't let you go without asking.

The first is, if somebody is listening to this or they're watching this and they're health conscious, they're interested in taking care of themselves, but this is brand new information, they'd never heard anything like this before. What's the thing that you want people to bear in mind that might not be self-evident to the average consumer about how they approach their day,

their diet, their lifestyle habits? Well, I mean, you know, I have a list at the end of the chapter four, I think, in the book. And there's 10 things that I think people all should do that are not very hard. And of course, you know, different people will get to different levels of it. You know, so for example, what we talked about earlier, the 12 hour limit. You know, if you do 15 hours and I say 12 and you can get to 13, well, you know,

at least you're close, you know, and that's the idea. Try to get as close as possible to all these recommendations because they're really based on five pillars. I mean, my opinion is in there, but not very much. I mean, it's more like a systematic way of looking at this, including our history.

Where do we come from? Not just systematic in Silicon Valley way of trying to hack everything, but more like, let's combine that hacking with our history and where we come from to make sure that we stay in tune with evolution. Great. That's a great answer. And if you were to wake up and find yourself to be the surgeon general for the United States, what would be your primary first policy initiative? Like what needs to change in our healthcare system? Yeah, so I get fired within a week.

Somebody tell me that the- Everybody, I ask every doctor that comes on the show the same question. I mean, every one of them will get fired within a week. Somebody tell me that the- Everybody, I ask every doctor that comes on the show the same question. I mean, every one of them will get fired for what they would wanna make happen. But it's funny because I believe that the surgeon general, when 50 years ago say smoking is bad for you and he was fired for saying that.

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think that for sure these five meals a day is a bad idea. It's accompanied this obesity epidemic in the United States and around the world. When you have 70% of people in the U.S. that are either obese or overweight and you still recommend eating five times a day. It's entertaining to me that they don't understand that what could work in a clinic.

You know, if you brought somebody into a clinic, as we do, and you keep them there, then it could actually work. But if you tell somebody eat five times a day, then what happens is they start eating more, and they eat for 15, 16 hours a day. Yeah, they're not eating a banana and some almonds. They're going to Cheesecake Factory. Yeah. So they're eating their bad food and they're eating for more meals, longer time. So

the combination of these two, I think, is the bad food, more meals, longer time. The three things are really detrimental. So I would say if you can go to either a vegan or a vegan pescatarian diet and keep it within 12 hours and keep it to, if you're overweight, if you're one of the seven out of 10 Americans that are overweight, keep it at two meals a day plus a snack.

So let's say you have breakfast, lunch, and a snack for dinner, or breakfast, a snack for lunch, and dinner. I mean, a snack could be a 100 calorie low sugar, like a salad or something like it. It's a pleasure talking to you, Dr. Longo. Pleasure being here. I think your work is groundbreaking.

The work you're doing is inspirational. I think we're gonna be seeing and hearing from you quite a bit more. Your book, The Longevity Diet is groundbreaking and I wish you only the best as you continue to do more research. And it's an honor and a privilege to help you get your message out into the world.

So thank you for your time today. If you're interested in Valter and his work, pick up his book, The Longevity Diet. If you're interested in Valter and his work, pick up his book, The Longevity Diet. If you're interested in learning more about the fasting mimicking diet, you can go to ProlonFMD.com and they have all the information there. You have these kits that you can order.

I think it's important to say that Valter himself does not profit individually off of this whatsoever. All of the money that he earns from this goes directly into funding research with what's the organization called? CreateCures.org. CreateCures. And what is Create Cures doing? Well, Create Cures is a foundation

that I started with the idea, you know, I had like every day I have 10 cancer patient or people with autoimmunities and whatever, or disease and they're like desperate. And, you know, I realized like every day I have 10 cancer patients or people with autoimmunities and whatever or disease and they're like desperate. And, you know, I realized that it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're poor or rich, there is really very little out there that helps you in a serious way and say, okay, you have cancer. I mean, there's a lot of quackery out there, but it's not too many people other than the oncology that tells you here are the drugs we're going to give you. Then people were faced with internet. Right. Good luck to you.

You know, and so CreateCurious is really about, what can somebody do today, not 20 years from now, but today that is gonna make their therapy more effective, is gonna make the side effects lower, so it's gonna help them. And, you know, in some cases, we'll have done the clinical studies, in some cases we haven't, but the patient cannot wait.

And so we sort of have to act now. And that we felt is important. We're doing it all over the world now with many, many different hospitals. And we're starting to see the doctors slowly being converted into understanding this difficult situation where you cannot wait. You cannot tell somebody who's stage four breast cancer for whom immunotherapy is not working, oh, you know, these guys in 10 years are gonna have something for you, you know?

Right, exactly. Fantastic, thank you. All right, thank you. And you're not on Twitter, right? Well, Prolon's on Twitter, Prolon FMD. No, I have a Facebook, Prof. Walter Longo Facebook page where we put just articles about, you know, anybody that we feel, we sort of have a Facebook, Prof. Walter Longo Facebook page where we put just articles about, you know, anybody that we feel. We sort of have a couple of nutritionists and dieticians screening papers.

And if we feel something is good, you know, then we'll put it out there. And we usually associate it with like an article from a newspaper that describes what it is. Cool. So I'll link that up in the show notes. And do you ever like get up in front of public audiences to talk? Yes, yes. I do that from time to time. And yeah, so... Is there anywhere where there's a schedule?

We do a Facebook Live maybe once every couple months. Oh, cool. Just so people can ask questions and log in and ask questions. All right. Thanks, Walter. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, Rich. Great to be here.

Yeah, man, that's some good stuff right there. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I very much enjoyed it and really appreciate Dr. Erlongo coming and sharing with all of us today. Do yourself a favor, pick up his new book, The Longevity Diet.

It really is a game changer. And let Walter know what you thought of today's conversation. He's not on Twitter, but you can reach him on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash prof Walter Longo. And you can learn more about the fasting mimicking diet at prolonfmd.com as well as at prolonfmd on Twitter. I think I'm going to give this a try when I get back from our retreat in Italy and I'll be reporting my experience, my findings back to you guys. As always, check out the show notes

for links and resources related to today's conversation to expand your horizons of this conversation beyond the earbuds. You can find all that on the episode page at richroll.com. Quick reminder, Plant Power Away Italia, our brand new cookbook, is now out. If you haven't done so already, pick up your copy today from Amazon or your favorite independent

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Back here soon with another great episode. Until then, treat yourself right. You deserve to live well and long. Peace. That's what I'm saying. Thank you.