“Cannibalism is one thing, but increasing longevity by eating human flesh….” – The X-Files
I’m not going to tell an AARP® joke: they’re all pretty old.
David Sinclair isn’t a medical doctor, but he’s got a laboratory at Harvard© Medical School. That’s the real Harvard®, not the Haarvard™ School of Witchcraft and Legal Studies I started a few years ago. It was accredited by Madame Kim’s Korean Restaurant (located under the Vance’s Bowl-a-Rama in Scranton, Pennsylvania. One of my students turned me into a newt.
But I got better. (R.I.P. Terry Jones)
Anyway, Sinclair actually teaches at the real Harvard© and not my scam internet school beloved privately held institution of learning. Dr. Sinclair is not a medical doctor, but is instead a PhD, which is troubling to me now – there was no real reason he should have checked me for breast cancer. And do most of those checks really take an hour? But as I watched a video of him chatting about the future, it struck me: he looks just like Christian Slater.
He may look a lot like Christian Slater, but the good Doctor Sinclair looks sheltered. I mean, who doesn’t have a three day cocaine, heroin, and tequila binge resulting in assault on a police officer and three months in the slammer? Oh, only Christian?
Anyway, Dr. Sinclair is mainly interested in longevity. When I say mainly, he’s done research on longevity since the 1990’s. Currently, he feels he has the reason that we age: as we get older, our cells forget what it is that they should be doing.
What, a cell can forget? How does that work?
DNA is a long strand in a cell. How long? If you stretched out a DNA strand, it would be (by most calculations I’ve seen on the Internet) over six feet long. Obviously, just like Tom Cruise, your cells aren’t six feet long. Therefore, the DNA has to be wound up to fit inside a cell.
Remember, sharing DNA with those you share DNA with can have consequences. Just ask the governor of Virginia!
In a really neat trick, it’s not the just the DNA that determines what a cell does, it’s the way that the DNA is wound up in little knots to fit in the cell. Since every cell has the same DNA, it’s not the DNA that determines what a cell does: it’s how the DNA is coiled in a cell that defines what that cell does. That available information on the coiled up bits of DNA is what makes a cell a nerve cell. Or a skin cell. Or, for you lucky people, a hair follicle.
Wait, that’s not true. I have hair. It’s just in my ears. What gives?
The answer is simple. The skin cells had the DNA originally coiled up to be skin cells. But after a while, the winding became . . . not as good in a few of them, so skin cells decided that they wanted to start a hobby: making hair. So places that didn’t have hair in my 20’s, now have hair. Just not where I wanted it – sure I feel the wind blowing through my hair still, but now it’s my back hair.
Fun Fact: Lloyd’s of London® will not insure the Kardashian family against Velcro©.
Sinclair thinks that part of the key to having humans live to be 170 or longer is in resetting that mechanism so the DNA coils up correctly in the cell. He suggests the reset might be possible, but it involves viruses, PEZ®, and painters scaffolding. I kid. Except for the viruses. Dr. Sinclair has several theories on how this reset can be done, and, yes, one of them includes a virus. Some of them involve drugs or supplements. I’m not planning on selling supplements here (though I hear that can be lucrative if you’re in talk radio) but you can look up his advice on supplements. Remember, he’s not a doctor, at least not the medical kind.
But he does have some advice that’s certainly (mostly) free to pursue, and probably harmless:
- Be cold. Apparently The Mrs. is right that the air conditioning should be set at 54°F in the summer, since being cold appears to activate mechanisms that reduce inflammation. We also keep Stately Wilder Manor cold in winter. Sometimes when your author is writing in winter I actually rub two verbs together to keep warm.
- Be hot. Not like supermodel hot, but actually physically warm. If you’re both, you probably get bonus points. Saunas have been documented to lower blood pressure and much lower death rates. I don’t have a sauna, but I have a hot tub (I keep it warm by burning $100 bills) and I’m in it 4 or 5 times a week. I can’t keep it at 175°F like the Finnish people do, but I imagine that 104°F is close enough.
- Work out. This isn’t news, since this has been done to get people healthy since at least the time of the Roman Empire. But it appears that higher intensity workouts, stressing the body increases the body’s aging defenses. Sinclair suggests high intensity interval training.
- Fast. This actually saves you money, since you’re not spending money on food when you do it. I wrote a bit about fasting here (The Last Weight Loss Advice You’ll Ever Need, Plus a Girl in a Bikini Drinking Water) and think it’s something that I think would benefit most people. Fasting appears to lower blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and lower inflammation. The downside? You’re fasting.
- Don’t eat so much protein. This is the tough one. Sinclair noted that too much protein causes lower levels of NAD – heh hehe heh heh, he said “NAD” – and NAD is a nucleotide called “nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide” that decreases as you age. NAD is one of Sinclair’s main keys to aging. But I like steak. I’m not sure that I want to live to 170 without steak. Plus, if I’m not supposed to eat carbs, and now not supposed to eat protein, what’s left? Sticks of butter covered in grass clippings?
Not only do you have to set your cake on fire, you can’t eat it.
Again, those are (mostly) free to do, and in some cases put money back in your pocket.
Observationally, the things on the list are things that suck. We want to be at comfortable temperatures, sitting on the couch with chocolate and steak smeared faces. We want to live in malls, comfortable and cocooned against all discomfort. But longer life appears to be triggered by being uncomfortable. Since you’re not happy when you’re uncomfortable, that means time goes more slowly. So not only do you live longer, it also feels like you’re living longer. You might live to 170, but it feels like 1,700 years.
But what about the other things that kill you besides growing old?
In the past week, it looks like (fingers crossed) there’s a breakthrough against cancer. Despite cancer being utterly curable in mice for, oh, decades, this particular cure uses the body’s own immune system to eat the cancer cells. I’m betting this has about 1 chance in 10 of working, but that’s better news than any cancer news in recent memory. Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to not need this, though.
Remember, the Supreme Court is just regular court with sour cream and tomato.
If we cure cancer and aging, we’re home free, right?
Well, there are still things like dementia, liver failure, kidney failure, diabetes, and heart disease. Certainly following Dr. Sinclair’s suggestions will help with some of these, but it’s not likely it will help with all of them. I’m not trying to be pessimistic here, but solving all of the body’s problems isn’t as easy as jumping in the hot tub with a supermodel or avoiding steak.
For a long life to be worth it, it should be one where I don’t live from year 70 to year 140 as a rambling, dementia cursed old man. And Dr. Sinclair’s dad, who is now 80, has been following Sinclair’s advice and is still quite active.
Or was it Dr. Sinclair’s advice after all? It could have been Christian Slater. And always remember my motto:
Shoot now, ask Christian Slater.
Here’s a video of Dr. Sinclair, if you want to check either my facts or the Christian Slater resemblance.
Oh, yeah! Now I remember! Great date night movie to stream this weekend…
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/still_alice
Yeah, but apparently it is a heartfelt drama that honors its delicate themes with bravery and sensitivity. Sounds horrible. 🙂
Yeah, but such a ridiculously over-complicated storytelling approach is what makes it a date movie. You can always say the lump in your throat is stuck popcorn.
Will give it a look!
Live forever? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
If I remember correctly, a minor character in Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’, cursed with immortality, devoted his limitless existence to traveling throughout all time and space to individually insult everyone who ever lived (kindly excuse the split infinitive).
Best use of free time I can imagine.
2BC: You do. Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolongued.
John: I just clicked back and read your article on fasting (I just started reading this blog a couple months ago) and am going to give it a shot. I think my biggest problem weight-wise is that I tend to eat too much in the evening. I get home tired and have not much energy to do stuff around the house (single) so eat. Oddly I don’t eat too much in the evening when I am with people. Perhaps fasting, even if it is just two or three days a week will help because I will get used to the not eating part and cut back in the evenings.
You mentioned that you drink coffee and tea. Black or is cream OK? I usually have a rocket coffee in the morning to jumpstart my system but I’m not sure that is doing what I thought it would (although it did stop me using sweetener since sweetened coffee now tastes too sweet, so there’s that). I do love me my glass or two of wine but I think I can not for a couple/three days a week.
Also, noticed that you have a younger wife and children. How, at your age, did you meet someone who was interested in having a family early and also OK with an older man? If you don’t mind writing about something that personal or if you haven’t already? I am about your age, been single for the last ten years because my wife had serious substance abuse issues that led to divorce. No kids, etc. Would like a family but am not a super social person so I don’t go out and meet people much. I know there is no “system”, just wondering whether it just happened or whether you went out and made it happen.
I generally go for as close to zero calories as possible, so no cream. One warning – wine will be like a hand grenade and hit you very hard if you haven’t had some chow. A big hand grenade.
Here it is!
https://wilderwealthywise.com/steve-martin-bob-segar-and-interviewing-or-how-i-met-the-mrs/
Well, if you’re immortal, might as well be Don Rickles.
I have a friend that’s become a vegetablist, which is only slightly better than embracing scientology. I don’t think I’ve seen a post from him in years that wasn’t spreading the vegetablist gospel.Worse than former smokers. Every time I read one of his dispatches, I see a loony toons character saying “Clean livin’ mister, Clean livin”
I had been trying to lose weight and asked my doctor about such a plan (in this case – “juicing”). He said, sure it would work, but nearly all of these are simply mechanisms to monitor what you eat. A dude like me limited to 1500 calories a day would lose 5 lbs a month, no effort. As I see my veggie friends meals, I count calories – Workout, breakfast of berries and black coffee? That’s what? 200 calories. That lunch salad – 200 calories?
That’s a slow fast. Of course he dropped tons. Blew out his knee also. Why, veggies made him heal twice as fast! (I think it was that he wasn’t geriatric, and didn’t weigh a quarter ton that did that, IMHO). God bless him. Works for for him.
I think your body needs protein, vitamins, and minerals. I don’t think it matters how you get it. As animal proteins are complete, you need to eat less. Our meals are way too much food.
That said, the missus is away at the sister’s this weekend, and I’ll launch my peaceful weekend with some sort of dead cow on a plate, a tater, and Guinness.
According to blogger Ken Denninger (who mostly explains business and politics to the rest of us), the key to weight loss is to get enough slow-burning fat for energy, and minimal carbs (which burn off too quickly, and leave you hungry for more). When you’re not looking for more carbs, you can get involved with other useful stuff which helps substitute for the time-filling feature of feeding your face.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231343
Mmmmmm – I’m on board. I had some nice ribeye myself. On Friday AND Saturday.
There would seem to be a pretty serious issue with people living twice as long, especially since we already are looking at an extra billion people in Africa, and that is overpopulation. Unless the “cure” for aging and age-related diseases like dementia are super expensive so only the very wealthy can afford them and that opens a whole new set of issues. A semi-immortal, rich ruling class lording over a world of ten billion people at subsistence level? How can that end well?
Some things might be scientifically possible but to paraphrase Jurassic Park, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
That’s a big ten-four, as we used to say back in the 1970s.
For myself: I’m a Christian, and I think we’re here for some phase (details not knowable by us) of our redemption. At the (unknown) right time, we hear the end-of-game horn and head for the showers. And when I hear it, don’t get in my way, ‘cause I’m hitting the locker room.
We’re like people sitting at the table, having a meal. By all means, enjoy it. Linger a bit over your coffee. But there’s a time for pushing back, getting up, and letting the next person have a turn.
I don’t have to worry about living forever anyway. You see, I’m a 65-year-old avid cyclist (2500 miles in 2019), and I do all my riding out on the public roads, in traffic. I figure it won’t be too many more years until some nice lady texting-and-driving uses her SUV’s front fender to send me to the showers. I’m just hoping it’s quick and complete. And I don’t see it coming.
Africa . . . wins again?
Be cold. Apparently The Mrs. is right that the air conditioning should be set at 54°F in the summer, since being cold appears to activate mechanisms that reduce inflammation.
If I did that, my electric bill in August would be 93 Million Dollars, making the May-November (summer) total close to a billion.
I’ve read of some of these Super High Intensity Training guys filling a bathtub with ice water and getting into that until they almost pass out. Followed by the sauna to get their body temperature back. It’s supposed to help your mitochondria. Or something like that.
Yeah – too many gooey bits in biology. And not the good kind of gooey, like pudding.
We only spend the national debt of Belize each year on AC. Not nearly as bad as you have it.
Horrible horrible puns today!
Thanks.
You’re welcome!!!