Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity

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When it comes to reversing the effects of Type 2 diabetes and preventing further chronic health problems, sleep is essential. It turns out that our bodies perform a lot of glucose disposal when we sleep, so sleep is incredibly important for preventing glucose from building up in our bloodstream. Stay tuned for Wednesday’s episode — Part 2 of my interview with Dr. Peter Attia! And in the meantime, if you’re ready to learn how to live to be over 100 and prevent chronic diseases, join me on Episode 1,045 with Dr. Peter Attia!

Simply adding one or two VO2 max workouts a week when we push hard for several short (a few minutes at a time) bursts can help, though people starting out should consult their GP first. Angeline Jane Bernabe, Madison Marmen, Matthew Yahata (17 November 2022). "Chris Hemsworth discovers he may be at risk for Alzheimer's disease in new series, 'Limitless' ". Good Morning America. ABC News . Retrieved 28 March 2023. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)I’ll never forget the first patient whom I ever saw die. It was early in my second year of medical school, and I was spending a Saturday evening volunteering at the hospital, which is something the school encouraged us to do. But we were only supposed to observe, because by that point we knew just enough to be dangerous.

Most people, when they think of death, think of what we call cardiopulmonary death or what I’m calling ‘death-certificate death.’ … But probably 80% of people have actually died one of the other deaths before they die a cardiopulmonary death. So they’ve either died a cognitive death — which is to say their minds have become so dull that they’re really not able to be the people they wanted to be — [or] their body has broken down so much that the things that once gave them so much joy, … they’re deprived of … or emotionally … they’ve become depressed. … And to me, we want to minimize that gap, right? We would like it such that, when you die, it’s really your first encounter with death of any form.” – Dr. Peter Attia Attia writes: “In the late 1970s, the average American adult male weighed 173 pounds. Now the average American man tips the scale at nearly 200 pounds… According to the [CDC] more than 40 percent of the US population is obese… another third… is overweight (BMI of 25 to 30)… visceral fat is linked to increased risk of both cancer and cardiovascular disease… fat-storage capacity seems to be influenced by genetic factors… our metabolism, as it has evolved over millennia, is not equipped to cope with our ultramodern diet, which has appeared only within the last century or so… We needed to… endure periods of time without much food, and natural selection obliged, endowing us with genes that helped us conserve and store energy in the form of fat… to survive periods of famine, cold climates, and… illness and pregnancy.” In real-world terms, he says, that means someone who is breathing poorly while shovelling in their garden, for instance, is putting themselves at increased risk of injury. The symbolism did not take much decoding: here was all his unease and anxiety about trying to save people who were inexorably moving towards death, but never getting to the source of the problem – the way they lived. “Trying to catch the eggs before they hit the ground seemed far less effective than going up to the roof and taking the basket of eggs away from the guy who was throwing them,” he says. But in the dream, as in life, that part of the story never happened.Dr. Peter is the perfect person to talk to about health and longevity, and I’m excited to have him on The School of Greatness today! In fact, our conversation was so fascinating, that I decided to split it into two episodes! In Part One, we talked about how mental health affects longevity, daily practices you can do to live a longer and healthier life, and all the details on Type 2 diabetes. This episode is informative, and I know you’ll get a lot of value from it. Let’s dive in! Who Is Dr. Peter Attia? Dr. Peter Attia is an acclaimed physician, scientist, and health enthusiast who has become a highly respected figure in the healthcare industry. He is renowned for his deep knowledge of nutrition interventions that can promote health and longevity. His book recommendations have been sought by those eager to learn more about these topics. Attia also created the blog "The Eating Academy" (later "War on Insulin" and now peterattiamd.com) that mostly focuses on topics related to nutrition, physical activity, and longevity. Subsequently, he launched the podcast "The Peter Attia Drive", in which he interviews various experts each week, covering topics such as longevity, metabolic health, and medical research. You’ll have to wait until Wednesday for Dr. Peter’s definition of greatness, so for now, I’ll leave you with one final piece of wisdom: Peter Attia, MD, is the founder of Early Medical. He received his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine and trained at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in general surgery. He also trained at the NIH as a surgical oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where his research focused on immune-based therapies for melanoma. He serves on the editorial board for the journal Aging. He is the host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering the topics of health, medicine, and longevity.

When it comes to chronic and life-threatening diseases, Dr. Peter said it comes down to three major things: This is a thought-provoking exploration of the value of a liberal arts education. The book encourages readers to think deeply about everyday life and our place in the world through vivid examples and stories. Wallace challenges readers to open their minds and see the world in new ways. 10% Happier by Dan Harris So what are some things we can do to improve our sleep to keep this from happening? For one thing, we can avoid looking at our electronics before bed. Science has proven time and again that staring at screens right before bed can drastically reduce our sleep. So, if we can turn off the phones well before bedtime, we’ll find it a lot easier to fall asleep. He divides the historical evolution of illness and treatment into three. What he calls Medicine 1.0 was the shaky way of doing things that humanity relied on for thousands of years: a system based on “direct observation and abetted more or less by pure guesswork”. From the mid-19th century, that model began to give way to Medicine 2.0, which was centred on such innovations as the microscope, the discovery of antibiotics and thorough scientific experiments and research. This is the model we still use, but Attia wants us to move to Medicine 3.0, which “places a far greater emphasis on prevention than treatment”. Longer lifespan with no improvement in healthspan is a curse, not a blessing Peter AttiaAttia writes: “At some point, our primate ancestors underwent a random genetic mutation that effectively switched on their ability to turn fructose into fat… This newfound ability to store fat enabled them to survive in the colder climate… But in our modern world, this fat-storage mechanism has outlived its usefulness… It is very difficult to get fat from eating too many apples, for example, because the fructose in the apple enters our system relatively slowly, mixed with fiber and water, and [we] can handle it normally… I test my patients’ levels of uric acid, not only because high levels may promote fat storage but also because it is linked to high blood pressure… While heart disease is the most prevalent age-related condition, it is also more easily prevented than either cancer or Alzheimer’s disease… atherosclerotic disease… still kills more people than cancer in the [US] each year… Heart disease remains our deadliest killer, … [but] this should be the tenth leading cause of death, not the first.” And during all of this intentional exercise, Dr. Peter has one thing in mind: his “Centenarian Olympics.” You’ll be able to read more about this in Dr. Peter’s book when it comes out, but for now, I can tell you that the Centenarian Olympics is a series of activities that Dr. Peter wants to be able to do when he turns 100. One of the most important books you'll ever read.' - Steven D. Levitt, New York Times bestselling author of Freakonomics In 1900, life expectancy hovered somewhere south of age fifty, and most people were likely to die from “fast” causes of death: accidents, injuries, and infectious diseases of various kinds. Since then, slow death has supplanted fast death. The majority of people reading this book can expect to die somewhere in their seventies or eighties, give or take, and almost all from “slow” causes. Assuming that you’re not someone who engages in ultrarisky behaviors like base jumping, motorcycle racing, or texting and driving, the odds are overwhelming that you will die as a result of one of the chronic diseases of aging that I call the Four Horsemen: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, or type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunction. To achieve longevity—to live longer and live better for longer—we must understand and confront these causes of slow death.

The first thing you need to know about protein is the standard recommendations for consumption are a joke,” says Attia. “Right now the US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is 0.8/kg of body weight per day. This may reflect how much protein we need to stay alive, but it’s a far cry from what we need to thrive,” he adds. We try to encourage our patients not to go all in and be very extreme out of the gate because what we’re interested in is implementing sustainable changes,” he says. “I always tell them: ‘Look, I don’t want you to be 10 out of 10 for a month and then two out of 10. I’d rather we find out what seven out of 10 is, if you think that that’s what could be maintained indefinitely.’” The point, he says, is to “slowly alter habits one at a time in ways that are somewhat incremental, but that over time compound into significant changes.” But that’s not the only thing we can do. It turns out that food has a huge effect on our body’s ability to sleep, so we need to be careful about eating before bed. In fact, Dr. Peter recommended to stop eating about three hours before bedtime.Szokan, Nancy (25 August 2014). "Is it what we eat? Or that we overeat? A look at the effort to figure out why we're fat". washingtonpost.com . Retrieved 31 October 2018. Husten, Larry. "A Manhattan Project To End The Obesity Epidemic". forbes.com . Retrieved 31 October 2018. I learned so much from this conversation. It turns out that managing Type 2 diabetes and stress have massive effects on our overall health, and they can even help us increase our health spans. I know I’m inspired to increase my health span in addition to my lifespan, and I hope you are too! If I just took 20 guys like you and took them from eight hours a night to four hours a night for two weeks and then did these glucose tolerance tests, I could reduce [their] glucose disposal by 50%. I could basically, within two weeks, turn you into an almost-diabetic … by sleep depriving you.” – Dr. Peter Attia Attia writes: “The metabolic derangement that leads to type 2 diabetes also helps foster and promote heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease… all “diets” are similar… protein becomes critically important as we age… Exercise is by far the most potent longevity “drug.” No other intervention does nearly as much to prolong our lifespan and preserve our cognitive and physical function. But most… don’t do nearly enough—and exercising the wrong way can do as much harm as good…”