The SIMPLE Way To Make Your Body CLEAN Itself

0:00 Is there a particular type of fasting method that you

0:03 would recommend for someone who's trying to, you know, improve their longevity?

0:08 Cuz there's so many that I hear.

0:09 16 hours, 5 days.

0:11 I'm a scientist, so I go with what's proven.

0:13 I'm not selling anything.

0:15 So, what the science says, first of all,

0:16 is that there isn't one size fits all for everybody.

0:20 Um it it often depends on what you can do personally.

0:24 It's challenging to do this, right?

0:26 You'll feel hungry for the first 2 weeks you try it.

0:29 So, I I would suggest the way I do it is I

0:33 start by skipping one and then maybe one and a half meals.

0:38 Uh like what you do, try to go without a meal until 3:00 or 4:00 if you can.

0:44 Maybe not the first day, right?

0:46 If you do that the first day, you'll say, "This is crazy.

0:48 I'm I'm going to grab a snack." And you won't do it.

0:51 So, go slowly, build up to it.

0:53 So, the first day, I would say,

0:54 "Just don't eat breakfast and maybe have a snack mid-morning." A week later,

0:59 try to go without breakfast completely until lunch.

1:03 And eventually work up to what you do and I do,

1:05 which is eat a very late lunch if not go to dinner.

1:08 What you get with that is obviously not eating in bed, hopefully.

1:12 So, you've got that the night fast starting What would it be?

1:15 7:00 p.m.

1:16 roughly?

1:16 When do you finish dinner?

1:18 God, no comment.

1:19 Okay.

1:20 It's usually pretty late.

1:21 Last night it was, you know,

1:22 it was This is probably why I don't eat very early the next day.

1:25 Last night would have been about, I'm going to say, 10:00 p.m.

1:28 Okay.

1:29 It was super [clears throat] late.

1:30 It was That's an extraordinary example.

1:31 Usually it would be 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.

1:36 Okay, but but you've got at least 13, 14 hours, which is good.

1:39 You want to aim for 14 hours.

1:41 Some people go 16 hours, but that's a good start for fasting.

1:45 And hopefully you can do that most days, 5 days a week.

1:48 That's great, cuz that means that you're

1:49 turning on your sirtuins, raising your NAD.

1:52 You're exercise You exercise as well, so that's also adding to it.

1:55 One thing that I've started doing is fasting for longer than just 14-16 hours.

2:03 I try maybe once a month to go for 3 days without eating.

2:06 Why?

2:07 Because there's a type of cellular recycling

2:10 that doesn't happen within the first 16 hours.

2:14 Um you will enter ketosis, so you'll see your body will start to change

2:17 its metabolism to produce what's called ketone bodies,

2:20 but the true real deep clean cleansing of old proteins

2:24 and damage damage proteins happens after 2 and 1/2 to 3 days.

2:30 And it's called chaperone-mediated autophagy.

2:33 Autophagy?

2:34 Autophagy is the word for auto self-eating,

2:39 and it really kicks in for with an extended fast.

2:42 What's the evolutionary reason for that?

2:44 What's going on there?

2:44 Why does it take me 2 and 1/2 days for this deep clean to happen?

2:47 Uh cuz your body doesn't want to uh do it.

2:50 It costs a lot of energy, and having to remake body parts is energy expensive,

2:55 and our body tries to conserve energy as much as possible.

2:59 Uh when you're fasting, what it'll it needs to do is to use your body as fuel.

3:04 So it'll start breaking down proteins for fuel that you need.

3:07 So first of all, what will happen is in the first few hours,

3:10 you use glycogen from your your liver.

3:11 Your liver makes glucose.

3:13 You'll feel a little bit hungry, but you'll eventually be fine.

3:16 Then once you run run out of glycogen,

3:18 then you're going to start breaking down fat and making ketones.

3:22 Uh that's when you start to get a bit of bad

3:24 breath from from that, and you but you feel great.

3:27 When you're in a between about 15 hours and 24 hours,

3:32 that's when you get a lot of ketones, and your brain uses those for fuel.

3:35 So you'll have sharp mind, can remember things,

3:38 you can focus on work, if you ever get there.

3:41 Beyond that, you need to break down fat,

3:43 and uh that is uh when your body is starting to do that.

3:49 But ultimately, what what what happens after 3 days is your body says "Hey,

3:53 I'm going to start breaking down protein as well." And uh I wouldn't

3:58 do that often because I don't want to break down a lot of protein,

4:00 but your body will start to turn over old proteins preferentially.

4:04 And a little bit of that, that's why I do it maybe once a month,

4:07 has been shown, at least in animals, to be not just healthy, but life extending.

4:13 On that point of ketosis, um I like being in a state of ketosis.

4:20 I kind of cycle in and out of it during

4:22 the year because I get so many of the like cognitive benefits.

4:25 I'm more articulate on the podcast.

4:27 I can think better.

4:28 I feel better.

4:29 I feel more focused and more attentive.

4:32 Is ketosis is the ketone diet the keto diet a healthy diet in your view?

4:39 Is it What are the benefits of it?

4:40 Is it something that you think is natural to be recommended?

4:43 Well, I don't mind being controversial, but I do speak the truth.

4:46 Um there's not a lot of evidence

4:48 that long-term the key ketogenic diet is healthy.

4:51 Mhm.

4:51 It certainly doesn't correlate or associate with uh longevity.

4:55 Short-term, okay.

4:56 It does help people lose weight, no question.

4:59 Uh but I am rather concerned for people that don't

5:01 have a balanced diet with an input of plant material,

5:06 which has molecules that are unique to plants

5:09 and you won't find in high-processed foods uh or meat.

5:14 The evidence, speaking as a scientist,

5:16 is that the long-term ketogenic diets are not going to be longevity inducing.

5:23 The evidence is more having a lean diet with a focus

5:27 on plants that are not overcooked and not all ultra-processed.

5:31 That one is undoubtedly the healthiest if you can do it.

5:35 Do you eat meat?

5:36 I do eat meat, but not like I used to.

5:40 I used to think that a meal was not a meal unless I had a piece of meat there,

5:44 and then the vegetables were the decoration.

5:46 And I'd begrudgingly eat the green stuff.

5:49 I've been flipped totally.

5:50 Um Serena, my partner, Serena Poon, is not just a nutritionist,

5:55 but a longevity expert for the last 26 years.

5:58 And so, she came to my apartment, uh which is now our apartment,

6:02 and she just cleared out all the food that I had.

6:04 Pretty much everything was either toxic or uh or just not healthy.

6:08 It was ultra-processed.

6:10 She said, "What are you eating that kind of peanut butter?

6:13 You're full of sugar." So, she she's taught me how to live healthy.

6:17 And so, now I rarely eat meat.

6:20 I rarely drink alcohol.

6:21 I focus on really fresh, high-quality uh preferably organic foods,

6:27 cuz I don't want pesticides and I I don't want other contaminants.

6:31 But, I do know organic can be more more expensive.

6:34 Why not meat?

6:36 So, animals, unfortunately, don't make what are called polyphenols,

6:39 which are a type of molecule that uh I believe

6:44 uh and have evidence turns on the sirtuins and other pathways,

6:50 biochemical reactions that delay aging.

6:53 So, sirtuins are just one of a few enzymes that control aging.

6:58 We know this.

6:58 There are sirtuins, there's mTOR,

7:01 which responds to aminos, and another one called AMPK.

7:05 So, those three pathways are altered in just

7:08 the right way by molecules found only in plants.

7:13 Well, and a small extent in fun- fungi, but not in meat.

7:17 So, if you're not eating a lot of vegetables or fruits,

7:19 you're not getting these molecules.

7:22 They're like medicine as food.

7:24 So, right here, I hope you don't mind me mentioning

7:27 that there are some some food in front of us.

7:30 And I'm looking at blueberries here.

7:31 Blueberries are packed with polyphenols.

7:34 It's one of the reason they have

7:34 purple color is that polyphenols have the color.

7:37 And as Serena would tell you, eat the rainbow.

7:41 I call it xenohormesis, which is not as attractive.

7:44 But xenohormesis is the same idea as eat the rainbow,

7:46 that by eating plants that have a lot

7:49 of these molecules that are often produced by stressed plants.

7:53 What do you mean stressed?

7:53 Stressed plants.

7:55 So, plants will be stressed just like we are.

7:57 If you don't give them enough water, food,

7:59 too much sunlight, not enough not enough sunlight.

8:02 They in their defense, they make polyphenols.

8:06 There's a whole bunch of them.

8:07 Resveratrol, fisetin, quercetin.

8:10 There's There's hundreds.

8:11 Uh this one has um anthocyanidins.

8:14 That's the color.

8:15 These activate these adversity responses in our cells.

8:20 The sirtuins will get activated by molecules in this blueberry.

8:25 So, if I eat this blueberry,

8:28 those conductors that conduct some of the aging process you talked about,

8:33 making sure my cells don't have an identity crisis,

8:36 fixing the the the negative stress that's going on in my um in my cells,

8:42 they will be benefited by me eating this blueberry?

8:47 Yeah.

8:47 It's It's like a a free hack, right?

8:49 You can eat something that's yummy,

8:50 but you're also getting the benefits by mimicking

8:55 fasting and exercise in your food as well.

8:58 The sirtuins don't just need NAD.

9:00 That's the gas pedal.

9:02 That's the petrol for those of you in the British world and Commonwealth.

9:06 The fuel for sirtuins is NAD.

9:10 The accelerator pedal are the polyphenols

9:13 in fruits and vegetables like resveratrol,

9:16 quercetin, which we know when you give them to sirtuins,

9:21 they get hyperactivated.

9:22 And when you say eat the rainbow, you mean eat colorful-looking food.

9:27 Because that's an an easy way to remember

9:30 how to eat foods that have the most polyphenols.

9:32 I'll give you a really good example, Steven.

9:35 Serena put me onto green tea matcha.

9:38 Right, so matcha tea, if you haven't tried it, I'm sure you've tried it,

9:41 but those of you who haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.

9:44 It It tastes great.

9:45 The reason for it switching from coffee mainly to matcha

9:50 in the morning for me is that it's full of polyphenols.

9:54 Why is it full of polyphenols?

9:56 It's not just because it's green tea, which is not naturally healthy,

9:59 but the growers of those plants in Japan typically,

10:03 they shade the plants before they harvest.

10:06 Shading the plants stresses them out.

10:08 Plants need light, so they don't just make more chlorophyll,

10:12 which produces the deep green color in the tea,

10:15 but the polyphenols are super high.

10:17 And through trial and error over thousands of years,

10:19 the Japanese figured out that by shading the plants,

10:22 giving them this mild hormetic stress,

10:26 it makes them not just extra tasty, but extra healthy.

10:29 Same with red wine, by the way, but the alcohol can be an issue.

10:33 But absent alcohol, red wine is very good for you.

10:39 Okay.

10:40 Without the alcohol.

10:41 It's unfortunate.

10:42 You know, I I One of my papers in 1996

10:44 caused red wine sales to go up 30% and stayed up.

10:48 I apologize for saying that red wine every day was healthy.

10:52 Doctors were recommending it, remember?

10:54 Yeah.

10:54 But I now changed my mind.

10:56 I have to say that I no longer believe

11:00 having one glass of red wine every day is healthy.

11:03 In my opinion, and I've stopped drinking red wine every day.

11:06 Instead, I take polyphenols from red wine and from vegetables,

11:11 either in a pill or in my food

11:13 as a substitute because the evidence for alcohol is rather damning.

11:17 There's a UK Biobank study, and the UK looked at thousands of people's MRI scan

11:21 of their brain who were drinking one glass of alcohol a day,

11:25 and there was a statistical difference

11:26 between people that were drinking one glass

11:28 a day and were not in in of brain size and gray matter.

11:31 Of course, the gray matter was tended

11:33 to be smaller in those that drank even slightly.

11:36 Yeah, I do um I actually I have a magic company.

11:39 It's It was this year voted the fastest growing company in the UK.

11:43 Um it's by some founders that I invested in um Levi, Teddy,

11:48 and Marissa from Dragon's Den and it's

11:51 been an absolute unbelievable in business, unbelievable.

11:55 So, tell us where do where do I get it?

11:57 Japan.

11:58 You get the magic from Japan, but the company is called Perfect Keto.

12:00 People know about it cuz I've talked about it before,

12:02 but I didn't realize when I made the investment

12:05 that magic was considered by many to also be very healthy,

12:09 especially a health alternative to certain energy products in the market

12:12 that you get in cans that give you um [clears throat] I shan't get sued.

12:19 [laughter] But the other thing that the company I

12:21 invested in is this one here called KetoIQ.

12:24 I'm a co-owner of this company as well and Yeah.

12:27 Yeah, I love that love that company and the CEO Michael, good guy.

12:32 What's your thoughts on exogenous ketones?

12:34 Like drinking ketones?

12:36 I do it.

12:37 In fact, that I drink KetoIQ before I do a podcast.

12:41 Why?

12:42 It improves my clarity, I find.

12:45 I also believe the science and there have been multiple studies now in people.

12:50 In some of the the science comes out of KetoIQ,

12:53 but also independent studies have shown

12:55 that it's extremely healthy for the heart.

12:58 And there's new studies that show for the brain as well it can be healthy.

13:02 The brain uses ketones like beta-hydroxybutyrate

13:04 or in that one it's 1,3-butanediol.

13:07 Um just a shot of that will give the brain food

13:09 that it needs rather than the body having to make it.

13:12 Um and you get, I believe and I feel it,

13:15 I get the clarity of fasting without being in a fasted state.

13:18 But I also drink it when I'm fasting to give

13:20 it the body the extra boost that it needs.

13:23 And on this point of diet,

13:24 one One things that I was told by my doctor when I did

13:27 a like one of those blood tests was he cautioned me about bad cholesterol.

13:32 He said to me something along the lines

13:34 that I need to be careful about the bad cholesterol.

13:37 And there's been lots of conversation about cholesterol, good, bad.

13:41 What's your perspective on this conversation on bad

13:44 cholesterol which has been thought to increase um certain

13:48 foods have been thought to increase bad cholesterol

13:50 um which is very very detrimental to our health.

13:53 I didn't realize there was a debate.

13:55 At least in my world there is no debate.

13:58 Um if you're referring to do you want

14:00 to get your LDL cholesterol as low as possible?

14:04 Yeah.

14:05 Definitely.

14:05 Oh really?

14:06 Okay, so it's Yeah, I mean the science is irrefutable.

14:08 There's thousands of people in studies.

14:11 Now, I think I know what you were you're talking about.

14:13 There are there are some stories that you need cholesterol in your brain

14:17 and if you inhibit it you might affect your brain function.

14:22 Um you also need it for repair of arteries.

14:25 But there's no evidence that that's a problem.

14:27 In fact, it's it's a little known fact

14:29 that the brain doesn't use the cholesterol from the bloodstream.

14:33 It makes its own.

14:34 So I've actually been on a statin to lower my LDL since I was 30.

14:38 Really?

14:39 Well, I had high cholesterol.

14:40 It's in my family.

14:42 But I went to my doctor and I said,

14:45 I want to go on these new drugs at the time, statins.

14:48 And he said, why?

14:48 You don't have heart disease yet.

14:51 And I said, why would I wait?

14:53 Get me on it.

14:54 I want to be on it.

14:55 And in those days it was very weird to give someone

14:58 a statin at age 30 with no evidence of heart disease.

15:02 But as you know, I'm of the opinion that we

15:06 shouldn't wait till we get diseases to treat them.

15:08 We should preempt that and start early in life.

15:12 And so yeah, I insisted with my doctor.

15:14 Initially with statins, but on all of these things I go in and I

15:17 say I need you to prescribe me this test.

15:19 I I this medicine.

15:21 And eventually after talking it over with him,

15:24 he typically prescribes me something or gets me a test.

15:28 But I've been fighting the system and my doctor's at Harvard,

15:31 so he's a good doctor but conservative.

15:33 The old way of doing medicine is if you're not sick,

15:36 we're not going to give you a medicine,

15:38 certainly not if you're young and healthy.

15:40 Uh but that has to change.

15:42 So you're saying that I should be on statins potentially?

15:43 Well, what's your LDL level?

15:45 No, I don't think it's great.

15:46 I think I eat too much bacon or something.

15:48 Well, we can talk about food and cholesterol

15:50 cuz it depends whether you absorb cholesterol or not.

15:53 We can test for that, but if you do absorb cholesterol more than most,

15:58 I would say that you may want to change your diet at a minimum.

16:01 On this plate here in front of us, I have the top five foods that I

16:08 believe you think are great for reversing aging.

16:10 Am I correct in that?

16:11 Does that These are great choices, yeah.

16:13 So what are these and why?

16:15 So we've already done the blueberries and we've you've explained

16:17 to me about polyphenols and they're rich in them, which I understand.

16:20 And they're low in sugar, right?

16:22 Well, they're not low in sugar, so don't eat a ton of them.

16:26 A handful is fine um as a snack.

16:30 It's also known that having too much sugar is bad for longevity.

16:32 So keep your blood sugar level steady and low as much as you can.

16:36 So don't eat too many of those.

16:38 A better choice than blueberries would be something like matcha,

16:42 which is not full of sugar.

16:43 In fact, if you go to some of these chains

16:45 that sell matcha and it tastes really sweet, you're going to reverse the effect

16:50 of any polyphenols by drinking that much sugar.

16:52 So I always have unsweetened matcha.

16:54 Okay.

16:54 So now we've got avocados here.

16:56 Yeah.

16:56 Yeah.

16:56 Avocados uh they're not so much known for their polyphenols,

17:00 though they do have them.

17:02 It's the type of fats, the polyunsaturated fats.

17:05 They help with satiety, so you're not going to be as hungry.

17:08 Uh so if you put that on your sandwich at lunch,

17:11 you're not going to feel peckish.

17:13 And they're highly anti-inflammatory as well.

17:15 The molecules are in there in the fats are very good for you.

17:19 Extra virgin olive oil?

17:20 Oh, yeah.

17:21 Excellent.

17:23 So, the type of uh oils that are in there are very healthy.

17:26 There's omega-9, which is also known to activate sirtuins.

17:30 And again, if you have the right uh grower, and this has been cold-pressed,

17:36 not too processed, and stressed before harvesting,

17:40 you'll have huge amounts of polyphenols as well.

17:42 I really hope that this is what the team said it was.

17:47 [laughter] This has happened before where I tried something,

17:49 and I thought it was something else, but it it was some Basically,

17:52 it was a white powder, and it was labeled with something could it be?

17:55 A yellow yellow liquid.

17:59 [laughter] Uh urine urine.

18:01 No, I'm joking.

18:01 It's not.

18:02 I can I don't think drinking urine uh is is longevity.

18:06 But yeah, on and off, I I do take a teaspoon of olive oil in the morning,

18:10 and mix it with uh resveratrol and uh polyphenol.

18:14 Oh, interesting.

18:16 Okay, so extra virgin olive oil good.

18:18 Good.

18:19 And there's a lot of evidence,

18:20 not just molecular like me, but epidemiologically,

18:23 people that that have a lot of olive oil

18:25 in their diet tend to have low inflammation and less disease.

18:29 And then we've got some nuts.

18:31 Yep, nuts are good for many reasons.

18:32 They're full of vitamins and minerals.

18:35 Uh if there's a Brazil nut,

18:36 you want to have one of those every day for the selenium,

18:39 which is a very rare element in our food supply.

18:42 And there's a recent study just last month showing

18:45 that a lack of selenium uh can be very del- deleterious.

18:50 So, nuts are great as a snack.

18:52 Be careful, they're full of calories, though.

18:54 So, if you're trying to lose weight,

18:56 and you're not exercising a lot, don't overeat on the nuts.

19:00 And what Oh, my least favorite food, but nevertheless, I will eat them.

19:06 This is a Brussels sprout.

19:09 Um when I was a kid,

19:09 Brussels sprouts tasted a lot more a lot worse, A lot bitter.

19:13 True.

19:13 Those are good um because they have polyphenols,

19:16 but there's also another molecule in them called sulforaphane.

19:20 It's actually the reason they taste terrible and smell terrible.

19:23 Sulforaphane is what it sounds.

19:26 It has a sulfur atom in it.

19:28 And that gives it that rotten egg smell.

19:31 But sulforaphane activates these hormesis pathways.

19:35 There's one called NRF.

19:37 And that is a stress response protein that sulforaphane activates.

19:42 So you actually by eating preferably relatively steamed,

19:46 not fried to death, Brussels sprouts, you'll get sulforaphane.

19:50 You can also take sulforaphane as a supplement

19:52 if you don't like Brussels sprouts.

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