Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk
Speaker 1: sed be.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This is the
Speaker 2: health up we want your cause I know one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty ten and eighty text nine nine two. By
Speaker 2: the way, if you've missed any of our previous hours,
Speaker 2: don't forget to go and look where you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio and look for the Weekend Collective. But yes, as
Speaker 2: I say, right now taking your calls, and we've got
Speaker 2: a new guest in the studio. His name is Greg McPherson.
Speaker 2: He's a pharmacist and a biotechnologist and author as well,
Speaker 2: and we're having a chat about healthy aging and what
Speaker 2: science can do as opposed to just maybe eating a
Speaker 2: good diet and not drinking too much booze. There's a
Speaker 2: very crude way for me to summarize the issue on
Speaker 2: that one. But how would you want to live longer?
Speaker 2: And how do you want to live longer? Do you
Speaker 2: just want to live longer because of the number is?
Speaker 2: The goal for you is just to make sure that
Speaker 2: you live the highest quality life you can until your
Speaker 2: time's up. Anyway, Greg, good afternoon. How are young not
Speaker 2: tell let me just hit that button there, right, Tim?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great to be here, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So look this is tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: So you're a pharmacist, and so you would have started
Speaker 2: your career with a pharmacy degree in working at local
Speaker 2: high street, et cetera. And you've made I guess a
Speaker 2: bit of a change from that.
Speaker 3: Haven't Jim, Yeah, definitely. I think it was about fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago sort of moved from dispensing pills to biotech,
Speaker 3: which is really just starting to understand the cellular causes
Speaker 3: of aging and dial into that.
Speaker 2: So what was the impetus for that though? Did you
Speaker 2: just sort of mather you read something, or curiosity and
Speaker 2: dabbling here and there and finding out what the science
Speaker 2: was and going hey this is interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of the above.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm a bit of a nerd, so I love technology,
Speaker 3: and certainly I was introduced to a company that focused
Speaker 3: on mitochondrial health, which are the tiny batteries in our
Speaker 3: cells that run down as we age, and then expanded
Speaker 3: beyond that into like how do we slow aging? What
Speaker 3: do our cells do that as we age? And is
Speaker 3: there a way that we can pull a lever or
Speaker 3: push a button which actually slows it down.
Speaker 2: Do you think this is I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: ridiculous question, really, But we're not talking about immortality, are
Speaker 2: we We're just talking about inevitably, whatever those battery cells are,
Speaker 2: they're still going to age, aren't they. We're just talking
Speaker 2: about we're talking about basically living better for.
Speaker 3: Longer, exactly that with the technology we've got now, really
Speaker 3: it's around how do we age better and live healthier
Speaker 3: for longer. Maybe sometime in the future that'll change and
Speaker 3: we will be able to live considerably longer. But right now,
Speaker 3: scientists are literally unpacking how we age, why we age,
Speaker 3: and in the labs they are getting incredible results.
Speaker 2: There's a part of that. I think science is amazing.
Speaker 2: I think science is the way to solve a lot
Speaker 2: of our problems. But there's also something about it that
Speaker 2: kind of freaks me out. Frankensteiny sort of we're messing
Speaker 2: around with your internal cells to make you live longer,
Speaker 2: And yeah, do you have that sort of thing yourself
Speaker 2: where you're like, oh, this is scary stuff or is
Speaker 2: it exciting? What do you sit on this?
Speaker 3: I think it's exciting, and the best way to describe it,
Speaker 3: I think is if you spoke to someone one hundred
Speaker 3: years ago and you said to them, they would like
Speaker 3: to give you an extra twenty years of healthy life,
Speaker 3: those people would have embraced it, and they would and
Speaker 3: we just take it as normal now that we can
Speaker 3: live to seventy eighty.
Speaker 2: Well, we haven't got that technology. Now we are living longer.
Speaker 2: Why are we living longer? Because it's the joke. It's like,
Speaker 2: oh forties, the forties, the new thirty, fifties and new forty.
Speaker 2: I use that line all the time because it suits me,
Speaker 2: but it feels true. I look at people from two
Speaker 2: or three generations ago who might have been in their fifties,
Speaker 2: and they looked like old people, whereas now fifties sort
Speaker 2: of genuinely sort of middle age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, a couple of generations ago, you'd be packed
Speaker 3: off to the rest time at fifty five or sixty.
Speaker 3: And the whole reason we've got that pension at sixty
Speaker 3: five is that most people fell off the planet well
Speaker 3: before then. So you know, we just I think we're
Speaker 3: thinking differently. We're aging better in terms of just being
Speaker 3: more youthful on how we think and look. We get
Speaker 3: better at some of the food we eat, we're getting
Speaker 3: better at understanding what it takes to be healthier for longer, but.
Speaker 2: Just I can't quite marry that up with the massive
Speaker 2: difference we have got though, because are we really eating
Speaker 2: that much healthier than fifty years ago?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well probably not. Actually, when you think about what
Speaker 3: a lot of people are reading today, life expectancy is
Speaker 3: the average, right, So really, when we say that we're
Speaker 3: all living a lot longer, a lot of it is
Speaker 3: to do with childhood mortality. So reck in the early days,
Speaker 3: the average was dragged down because I think it was
Speaker 3: something like one of three children didn't make it past
Speaker 3: the age of five. So this is we've got better
Speaker 3: at childhood mortality. But you know, back in the you know,
Speaker 3: fifty hundred, two hundred years ago, there were still people
Speaker 3: living until sixties and seventies and eighties. They were just
Speaker 3: very lucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In fact, I think that was one of the
Speaker 2: reasons people had larger families, because back in the Victorian times,
Speaker 2: you know, not everyone necessarily made to their teens, did they.
Speaker 3: Well, In fact, I think some children weren't actually named
Speaker 3: until they got to the age of five because it
Speaker 3: was much not much chance they were going to get
Speaker 3: beyond that limy, that's pretty grid is quite grim.
Speaker 2: That is really grim. Do you want to live? What's
Speaker 2: your goal?
Speaker 5: Look?
Speaker 3: I just want to be healthy for as long as possible,
Speaker 3: and if we can add twenty years to like have
Speaker 3: the adulthood, then I'd be incredibly happy.
Speaker 2: So what about the quality? I mean, is it the quality?
Speaker 2: How does that balance? Because obviously, because of actually this
Speaker 2: is the problem. You see, because of science, we can
Speaker 2: also prolong our lives even though it's pretty bloom and miserable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is the problem.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: We've solved a lot of the things that stop us
Speaker 3: getting old, but we've now, I guess, hit a level
Speaker 3: where we've got these chronic diseases. So no one wants
Speaker 3: to sort of slip into a rest home and enjoy
Speaker 3: the we've experienced the joys of incontinence for twenty years longer. Right,
Speaker 3: That's not what we want. It's about how do we
Speaker 3: want to square the curve? So it means incredibly healthy
Speaker 3: until we're about to shuffle off, if you will, And
Speaker 3: it's expend the amount of time that you are healthy.
Speaker 3: So the average health span is actually only sixty three,
Speaker 3: So that's the average time that you can expect to
Speaker 3: be healthy health span. Yeah, that sounds pretty young, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: For it's super young. It's quite confronting when you.
Speaker 2: How much is it's just genetics? It looks bad luck.
Speaker 3: You know, look the older you get, you more, you see,
Speaker 3: it's it's luck that gets you to old age.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what are you doing yourself? Obviously we haven't
Speaker 2: perfected the science on this stuff yet, but what do
Speaker 2: you do to make sure you're living as long as
Speaker 2: you can as healthy as possible?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. So there's like a foundational five, right, which
Speaker 3: is about diet. We know that the Mediterranean diet is
Speaker 3: incredibly well associated with longevity. Exercise, so you know, getting
Speaker 3: thirty minutes a day of exercise is fantastic for our longevity. Sleep.
Speaker 3: When I was a student, it was like, I'll sleep
Speaker 3: and I'm dead. And it turns out if you don't
Speaker 3: you don't sleep, you will get dead. It's it's a
Speaker 3: really important aspect of your general health. Managing stress. And
Speaker 3: it's not the stress that's the issue, it's how you
Speaker 3: manage it. So you can have an incredibly stressful job,
Speaker 3: but if you have ways to do it meditate or whatever,
Speaker 3: or unwind you're in good shape, and then forging deep
Speaker 3: social relationships with your partner, with your family, with your pets,
Speaker 3: with clubs, whatever it is. And those those five things
Speaker 3: are actually correlated with adding up five to ten years
Speaker 3: of healthy life.
Speaker 2: So okay, let's look at something as simple as sleep.
Speaker 2: So if you're not getting enough sleep, what is the
Speaker 2: physical manifestation of that that shortens your life?
Speaker 3: You know, it's a weird thing and it took me
Speaker 3: a long time to get my head around it. But
Speaker 3: when you lose sleep, you're actually putting yourselves under a
Speaker 3: lot of stress. And it's and so you know, there
Speaker 3: are basically that's what it is. There are little chemical
Speaker 3: messages that move around your body that are unhelpful when
Speaker 3: you have less sleep.
Speaker 2: And does that sort of have an effect on as
Speaker 2: it I am? Is it hard sort of stuff or
Speaker 2: is it cancer sort of stuff? Or is it the
Speaker 2: whole span? Because I mean there's a lot of reasons
Speaker 2: why people, yeah, shuffle off this mortal coil.
Speaker 3: Absolutely no. Look, it's just really about if you're not
Speaker 3: sleeping well, proactively finding ways to do it, because yes,
Speaker 3: it does put your risk of heart issues of dementia,
Speaker 3: has many many impacts, and it's quite remarkable that your brain,
Speaker 3: how much it actually affects if we sell on your body,
Speaker 3: So lack of sleep, poor management of stress actually does
Speaker 3: imprint itself.
Speaker 2: And do you I mean you mentioned that the diet, exercise,
Speaker 2: sleep stress, I mean everything seems to tie back to
Speaker 2: the magic WED stress just about because having healthy relationships
Speaker 2: would help you deal with stress, Having good nded sleep
Speaker 2: would help you deal with stress. It's like stress is
Speaker 2: sort of at the apex of it. Is that the
Speaker 2: would that be the chief villain?
Speaker 3: It's a really good question, and I guess you're right. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: it's all down to putting yourselves under stress. And if
Speaker 3: you're not eating properly exercising, then yes, that's exactly what
Speaker 3: you're doing.
Speaker 2: We'd love to have your cause on this actually, are you?
Speaker 2: I guess the question is do you think about how
Speaker 2: long you're going to live? Or do you simply if
Speaker 2: you want to be healthy? Do you just think about
Speaker 2: how do you keep yourself healthy? So whatever your time is.
Speaker 2: Because I've never really thought about living longer, I don't
Speaker 2: think I have. It's an interesting question, have you, greg,
Speaker 2: have you thought about extending that number personally or have
Speaker 2: you just simply thought about it from the point of
Speaker 2: view of whatever time I have, I want to be
Speaker 2: healthy and be able to do as much as I
Speaker 2: can do for as long as possible. It's not about
Speaker 2: if say, let's say ninety is your number, does that
Speaker 2: bother you or is it just making sure that seventy
Speaker 2: to ninety is really pretty good rather than dreadful.
Speaker 3: It's seventy ninety years good. But it's also being around
Speaker 3: to see your kids grow up, maybe settle down, you know,
Speaker 3: and so that all those milestones that some people miss
Speaker 3: out on because they don't make it. That's that's a
Speaker 3: driver for me. I lost my father passed away in
Speaker 3: his early fifties, and that's that's had an impact as well.
Speaker 3: I don't you know, I think that was a huge
Speaker 3: gap in my life and I don't and I'd like
Speaker 3: to not have my children experience that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we might tell you right now and just
Speaker 2: we'll come back and explore a bit more further about
Speaker 2: what the science is doing. But if you'd like to
Speaker 2: have a chat with Greg about, you know, if you've
Speaker 2: got some questions about what it means for you or
Speaker 2: whether you need to make some changes in your own
Speaker 2: life or the philosophical question is it's like the Queen song,
Speaker 2: do you want who wants to live forever? Well? How
Speaker 2: long do you want to live? But what is it
Speaker 2: for you? Is it about extending the number or simply
Speaker 2: just making sure that whatever that number is as healthy
Speaker 2: as it can possibly be, which I think for me
Speaker 2: is probably the question. Although if somebody said all your
Speaker 2: numbers eighty two term, I'd be like, oh, wouldn't mind her.
Speaker 2: But more than that, so I don't even thought about it. Oh,
Speaker 2: eight hundred eighty ten eighty text nine two, So it's
Speaker 2: eighteen past four news talks'd b and did you know
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Speaker 2: five forty five forty two. That's eight hundred forty five
Speaker 2: forty five forty two, Yes, and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: My guest is Greg McPherson, a new guest on the show.
Speaker 2: He's a pharma assistant by a technologist and looking at
Speaker 2: the science around making basically living longer. Eight hundred and
Speaker 2: eight ten eight. If you've got any questions for Greg,
Speaker 2: we're going to have a chat about the science in
Speaker 2: just a moment, but let's take a few calls.
Speaker 4: Sue, Hello, Hello, Tim, good afternoon, and to you Greg,
Speaker 4: I just I don't want to hijack your program, but
Speaker 4: I was fascinated to hear you list the five factors
Speaker 4: that lead to healthy longevity. A better agent than that
Speaker 4: sort of thing longer life anyway, I worked in currentary
Speaker 4: care for almost twenty years, I.
Speaker 2: Suppose was that was that primary coronary care.
Speaker 4: Did you say? It was currently intensive care, but mostly
Speaker 4: currentary care and I worked for oh god, it must
Speaker 4: have been twenty years. Anyway. When I started there in
Speaker 4: the sort of mid to late eighties. Anybody that came
Speaker 4: and that was lucky enough to survive a heart attack
Speaker 4: on the street or out on the farm or whatever,
Speaker 4: like a lot of them just dropped years. But those
Speaker 4: that came in with a you know size for heart
Speaker 4: attack and had a rhythmias and things like that, I mean,
Speaker 4: we could not treat that heart attack. They died. They
Speaker 4: died or we gave them drugs or defibrilated them if
Speaker 4: they went into curdiair careers and we sort of could
Speaker 4: treat the complications, we could not treat that heart damage.
Speaker 4: So a lot of people went, you know, went home
Speaker 4: with damaged hearts, and of course that reduced their life expectancy.
Speaker 4: Now a lot of farmers just sort of a dropped
Speaker 4: at sixty or had you know, big heart attacks at
Speaker 4: sixty because of their diet and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: But in my twenty years there, I saw the most
Speaker 4: astonishing changes to people's survival with heart conditions and particularly
Speaker 4: you know, heart attacks and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 4: how quickly we treat them and how we prevent that
Speaker 4: heart damage and metical technology. It's just amazing what.
Speaker 3: You're so right, Sue. And what I'm seeing now with
Speaker 3: some of where we're heading is that they're not too
Speaker 3: distant future, we'll actually be able to take a couple
Speaker 3: of cells out of our body and actually convert that
Speaker 3: into like grow a heart with it. So the technology
Speaker 3: is getting so advanced now. So yeah, it's remarkable.
Speaker 2: Are you just so basically are you just sort of
Speaker 2: saying that with the technology we have these days, we're
Speaker 2: giving people much better outcomes because how quickly we can
Speaker 2: intervene and make.
Speaker 4: Lots of factors. I think the tribe intervention decently. I
Speaker 4: mean we can. But we saw a lot of drug
Speaker 4: trials that you've throng polytics. That was the real beginning
Speaker 4: of being able to treat the heart attack and prevent
Speaker 4: the damage from happening if we had to get them
Speaker 4: to them quite quickly and they use the clock dissolving drugs.
Speaker 3: That's right, So, like I just you're going to say that,
Speaker 3: you know, probably what five fifty years ago, it was
Speaker 3: the undertaking called if someone had a heart attack and
Speaker 3: now and then it became you know, we got CPR,
Speaker 3: and there's just been so many advances now so you know,
Speaker 3: they're not too distant future. It could be, you know,
Speaker 3: a heart attack and you you're okay for ten to
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes and they'll be able to bring you back.
Speaker 2: So can I just ask a quick question, after all
Speaker 2: that time spent in currentary care and seeing the people
Speaker 2: go through what they've been through, did you make have you?
Speaker 2: Did you make any choices about your own health having
Speaker 2: seen the cautionary tails of people who needed emergency medical attention.
Speaker 4: I wish I could say yes, but it's taken me
Speaker 4: until I sort of retired to think about it, to
Speaker 4: think about it. And I was a nurse. With my generation,
Speaker 4: I probably partied too much. A lot of us smoke,
Speaker 4: and a lot of a lot of us gave up.
Speaker 4: I didn't give up till later in life, and it
Speaker 4: really has been an awakening for me to retire and
Speaker 4: start to think about these things. And I think that
Speaker 4: that's probably a lot of health professionals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I see every generation perhaps doing things differently
Speaker 3: and better all the time. And this is what's so exciting,
Speaker 3: really is that the youngsters are going to that around now,
Speaker 3: are already starting to think about healthy aging.
Speaker 2: I think that actually Sue's answer to that, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, nice and honest and sort of frank. As
Speaker 2: part of the problem is we don't think about trying
Speaker 2: to look at live healthily till we've maybe that horse
Speaker 2: has bolted and we look back and we go, oh,
Speaker 2: what can I do now? It's like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it would have been great if you hadn't done all
Speaker 2: those party drugs and alcohol and saturated fats for the
Speaker 2: first forty or fifty years of your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. And I remember talking to a young
Speaker 3: lady coming out of a conference about last year and
Speaker 3: she was going, my goodness, everybody told me to party
Speaker 3: up in my twenties and thirties because that was your
Speaker 3: last chance to do it. But really, actually you really
Speaker 3: need to be thinking and having an algevity mindset right
Speaker 3: from your twenties.
Speaker 2: I actually, I think there's a bit of luck. There's
Speaker 2: actually there's a lot of luck and novels and that
Speaker 2: there's genetics, and to be honest, my lucky side of
Speaker 2: things is I've never been good with alcohol, so it
Speaker 2: a took me one or two bs and I was
Speaker 2: on my you know, that was it. I was a
Speaker 2: weeping mess. So I never got really and I sort
Speaker 2: of consider myself lucky because, yeah, because of a low
Speaker 2: tolerance and I never really dug it. Whereas unfortunately for
Speaker 2: some people, they have a sip of alcohol and it's like,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, what's this magic Elexa, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get stuck into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I enjoy a glass of red wine, but
Speaker 3: unfortunately there is no safe limits with alcohol. They've discovered.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so eant. Does that mean you've stopped drinking
Speaker 2: red wine?
Speaker 3: No, because I enjoy it and you've got to you know,
Speaker 3: extend your life, but enjoy the time you have as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's funny enough. That's a bit of a theme
Speaker 2: I raise in our money are it's all about you know,
Speaker 2: saving for a time and things like that. It's like,
Speaker 2: you don't want to save to so well that you're
Speaker 2: looking back with a lot of money on a life
Speaker 2: that you haven't lived. So it's it's a philosophical things
Speaker 2: exactly that Look, well, let's take another call Bevan.
Speaker 6: I had a couple of questions. The first one I
Speaker 6: was just wondering around stress does it Does it permanently
Speaker 6: damage yourselves and your body in any way? Like for example,
Speaker 6: you know, I work in quite a high stress environment,
Speaker 6: and you know, and and you get pretty stressed out
Speaker 6: and then you sort of go to the part and stuff.
Speaker 6: But I was just wondering, here, does the stress actually permanently,
Speaker 6: you know, scar yourselves? And the second thing was that
Speaker 6: is resilience probably more an issue. People think they're stressed,
Speaker 6: but they're just not resilient.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, good Questian Van. So the answer
Speaker 3: is does stress affect yourselves? And the answer is absolutely yes.
Speaker 3: I'll give you two examples. We have these little things
Speaker 3: called telomeres and the caps on the end of your DNA.
Speaker 3: And if you if you had a twin brother and
Speaker 3: he managed to stress, but you both had the same job,
Speaker 3: You're telem would be shorter than his, and that essentially
Speaker 3: means that you have it, like I guess a worse
Speaker 3: prognosis if you both have a heart attack on the
Speaker 3: same day, but the one of you which had the
Speaker 3: shorter tellmes is actually going to fear worse, and in
Speaker 3: terms of resilience, it's actually not the stress and it's
Speaker 3: how you manage it. So really it's important if you're
Speaker 3: in a high stree's job, focus on what you can do.
Speaker 3: Is it mindfulness, is at gardening? Is it? Whatever it is?
Speaker 3: But just do something to de stress.
Speaker 2: And I think the question is can you recover from
Speaker 2: having had a stressful his job? So that's what's behind.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, definitely, So the answer is yes you can.
Speaker 3: So any time to start editing stress. You know, the
Speaker 3: best time is today, that will probably the second best
Speaker 3: time is today, that the first best time was perhaps
Speaker 3: ten years ago. Sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So some people thrive on stress. I mean you hear
Speaker 2: the often quite a sort of thing like some stress
Speaker 2: is good, yes, but when we all need a level
Speaker 2: of stress, and there will be people who just who
Speaker 2: are resilient, who thrive on a stressful environment. While that
Speaker 2: it might for instance, I was thinking, here's a simple one.
Speaker 2: Being a chef in some sort of really high pressure
Speaker 2: environment would probably be an incredibly stressful job. There must
Speaker 2: be people who, you know, while it is stressful, they
Speaker 2: thrive on it because that's what keeps them, gets them
Speaker 2: out of bed every morning? Is that sort of stress? Okay?
Speaker 2: So lot if you're if you're thriving on it, does
Speaker 2: that make sense?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Possibly not, Possibly it's slowly damaging you and it's perhaps
Speaker 3: in a dream like a drug, like a drug that
Speaker 3: you've got. So no, I mean a little bit of
Speaker 3: stress is really good. Actually you can actually see pretty
Speaker 3: positive gains. A good example of that is going to
Speaker 3: the gym and putting stress on your muscles and your
Speaker 3: head back and your muscles kind of breaks down and
Speaker 3: rebuilds a bit stronger. And that those examples can happen
Speaker 3: across the board with whatever you're doing. But chronic stress
Speaker 3: not so good.
Speaker 2: Okay, there was a question I had coming out of
Speaker 2: that which was brilliant and I completely forgot it. So
Speaker 2: let's get to get into the science of things now.
Speaker 2: So what where are we at with some its and
Speaker 2: genuine making a genuine difference by I don't know it
Speaker 2: would it be taking a pill? What would it be?
Speaker 3: Yes, experts think we're about three to five years away
Speaker 3: from a prescription pill that'll actually slow aging. And every
Speaker 3: week just about there's a different lab that's reporting some
Speaker 3: sort of slowing aging effect on animals. So recently there's
Speaker 3: there's a drag called wrapper micin, which is a drug
Speaker 3: that normally is given for transparant recipients and it helps
Speaker 3: your body not reject that organ, but if you take
Speaker 3: it once a week instead of every day, it actually
Speaker 3: triggers your body to think that it's actually fasting, and
Speaker 3: fasting is one way to extend your lifespan and health span.
Speaker 3: And they mixed rap of micin where a chemotherapy like
Speaker 3: a cancer drug essentially, and they got thirty five percent
Speaker 3: life extension and those those animals, so slowly but surely
Speaker 3: they are unpacking the drivers of aging in our cells
Speaker 3: and learning how to apply the handbrakes. So this is
Speaker 3: happening just about every week, if not every day, and
Speaker 3: slowly but surely we will get to a point where
Speaker 3: we can find a therapeutic that we can take that's
Speaker 3: actually going to slow things down. And there are six
Speaker 3: drugs right now that are the leading contenders. And what's
Speaker 3: really interesting is a third of them help us manage
Speaker 3: blood glucose better, so actually getting glucose or minimizing glucose
Speaker 3: in our blood. So it's a really big clue that
Speaker 3: we're actually consuming a little bit too much sugar or
Speaker 3: maybe a lot of sugar, and that just puts our
Speaker 3: cells under pressure. Because we've got to think about how
Speaker 3: we were two hundred years ago, ten thousand years ago.
Speaker 3: We used to move a lot to chase food, we
Speaker 3: didn't have much sugar, and our body and our cells
Speaker 3: actually evolved to operate efficiently under that scenario. So we
Speaker 3: stroll into this beautiful time that we're alive right now,
Speaker 3: and we're not moving as much and we're eating too much,
Speaker 3: and these are actually really significant negative factors on our health.
Speaker 2: Actually, we had this conversation last week with a health coach,
Speaker 2: Kent John's was and it was about you know, when
Speaker 2: you think you've let everything go and it's too late
Speaker 2: because you're massively overweight, and just the idea of getting
Speaker 2: exercises just almost too much. And he made the point
Speaker 2: that if people stop eating, you know, reduce your processed
Speaker 2: food and cut out sugar and don't even he said,
Speaker 2: without even exercising, just check out the changes it would make.
Speaker 2: What are you like with the sugar?
Speaker 3: I sugar minimize, right, and I like to have a
Speaker 3: fast couple of times a year where I just really yeah,
Speaker 3: So there's a really interesting gentleman called Vaulter Longo, but
Speaker 3: he's based in between Italy and in the States, and
Speaker 3: he's worked out a protocol where you can just essentially
Speaker 3: have a very low calorie diet for about a week
Speaker 3: and do that maybe two three times a year, and
Speaker 3: the health benefits are a phenomenal in terms of reducing
Speaker 3: inflammation and helping How.
Speaker 2: Do you keep functioning if you're fasting? That's I like food,
Speaker 2: and I must say, the idea of fasting just oh god,
Speaker 2: I can't you know. But what was your experience with that?
Speaker 5: Well, I.
Speaker 3: Like, I find it easy. I just just basically I
Speaker 3: have a cup of coffee when I feel hungry, or
Speaker 3: a cup of tea, have a glass of water. So
Speaker 3: and that's pretty much what I do over how long?
Speaker 3: I do it for five days?
Speaker 2: Bloody hell?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Now, so what if do you exercise?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exercise, and but you take it easy towards the
Speaker 3: end of the week. Right, So the purpose is not
Speaker 3: to really stress your body too much more than the
Speaker 3: lack of food. But you have this incredible ability when
Speaker 3: your body is in kind of hungry mode, if you will,
Speaker 3: then what it's doing is it's actually doing housekeeping because
Speaker 3: it's getting energy from some of the fat that's in
Speaker 3: your body. But it's also identifying cells that are a
Speaker 3: little slow, I guess, not working quite as well as
Speaker 3: they could, and it takes them out of circulation, if
Speaker 3: you will, and recorcycles the contents of those cells.
Speaker 2: When you save coffee, do you mean it like a latte? Yeah,
Speaker 2: black coffee, Oh, black coffee, not even the milk. No,
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that sounds sounds dangerous.
Speaker 3: Well that's yeah. Look it's I mean, obviously you've got
Speaker 3: to have a chat with your doctor about it and
Speaker 3: all those sorts of things, and you've got to go
Speaker 3: into it reading about it so that it's not you know,
Speaker 3: because fasting for some people, like a diabetic, it's not
Speaker 3: a great idea. So you know you're thinking about these things.
Speaker 2: Don't do it just because you've listened to the radio.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not to have a chat with your doctor to
Speaker 3: have a talk about it. One of the interesting things
Speaker 3: is this thing called metabolic flexibility. This is where your
Speaker 3: body runs on sugar and it runs on fat, and
Speaker 3: it's a little bit more's a little harder to run
Speaker 3: on fat, So you get this kind of you feel
Speaker 3: super hungry, initially because your body's go and give me sugar.
Speaker 3: That's what I want. That's the easiest way to get
Speaker 3: energy after a wee while, like you might skip breakfast
Speaker 3: or you might push breakfast out a few hours and
Speaker 3: you just have a slow program to get yourself used
Speaker 3: to it. And then it's like running, right. It never
Speaker 3: used to be a runner and then and I used
Speaker 3: to just be able to run lamp post a lamp post,
Speaker 3: and that was that was like hard, right, But eventually
Speaker 3: your body clicks into it. I can do this and
Speaker 3: keep going. And so this is not unlike just perhaps
Speaker 3: having a little of it late breakfast, maybe missing breakfast
Speaker 3: and going to lunch. This is teaching your body that
Speaker 3: it can be flexible and start to actually go for
Speaker 3: the fact if you will.
Speaker 2: Because one of the on the fasting side, it's I
Speaker 2: think it's the one thing I've I'm trying to work
Speaker 2: it distilled from some of the health advice, is that
Speaker 2: that twelve hour period where aim to have your evening
Speaker 2: meal twelve hours you know, wait that it's twelve hours
Speaker 2: before we have breakfast sort of thing. And even that
Speaker 2: is that called is that what intimidate fasting.
Speaker 3: Is it's exactly, and it's just the same sort of
Speaker 3: thing as talking about what we were doing ten thousand
Speaker 3: years ago when food at times wasn't abundant, and so
Speaker 3: we have these pathways which keep us alive until we
Speaker 3: get to the next meal, if you will. And so
Speaker 3: that's really what it's doing. And you know, if you
Speaker 3: do the research, there are significant minutes for intermittent fasting
Speaker 3: and then occasionally doing a week long fast is really helpful.
Speaker 3: But again under doctor supervision, have a chat so that
Speaker 3: you can really talk about what your goals you're trying
Speaker 3: to achieve, and also making sure you've got proper nutrition
Speaker 3: when you're doing it.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. I mean, just on my own for my
Speaker 2: own thing, I do a couple of overnight radio shows
Speaker 2: and I always make myself have breakfast before I finish it,
Speaker 2: like four am, five am, and just while the Olympics
Speaker 2: have been on, I haven't. There have been a couple
Speaker 2: of times I thought, actually I don't think I'll do it,
Speaker 2: and I actually haven't missed it, which means I've gone
Speaker 2: for like fourteen fifteen hours without eating. And because I like,
Speaker 2: you know, when I eat, like enjoy food. Actually it's
Speaker 2: not the worst thing in the world. Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: is a form of fasting. I guess if it's fifteen
Speaker 2: sixteen hours, yeah, good on me. Then there we go.
Speaker 2: Just asking for a friend, I em twenty one minutes
Speaker 2: to five news talks. He'd be back with some more
Speaker 2: calls and text in just a moment. Yes, welcome back.
Speaker 2: We have to go with the odd cliche song choice
Speaker 2: when you're talking about living forever, forever young of course.
Speaker 2: And my guest is Greg McPherson, a pharma system biotechnology biotechnologist,
Speaker 2: that's the one. And he's written a book, Greg, what's
Speaker 2: it called Ageless?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Well, that's easy to remember. Ageless by Greg McPherson. And
Speaker 2: where do people get hold of it?
Speaker 3: Through Upstart Press? I think they google? That should be
Speaker 3: on Amazon as well.
Speaker 2: Is it one of those books that just talks about
Speaker 2: the science and how exciting it is it's an interesting
Speaker 2: read from that point of view. Or does it give
Speaker 2: you sort of specific prescriptions or ideas for living longer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's really born of a conversations I've had
Speaker 3: with people where they go, you know, there's no way
Speaker 3: that we can live longer. So I've actually done a
Speaker 3: short history of longevity, and then I go into what
Speaker 3: we've gotten now available to us that we can use
Speaker 3: to slow aging, and that's foundational five. But there's also
Speaker 3: so interesting supplements that you can take, and then talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about the future because I think that's
Speaker 3: where the exciting stuff has happened.
Speaker 2: I guess the question is at what point do you
Speaker 2: trust the future? And like somebody can come out with, okay,
Speaker 2: here's an example. When we were denied pseudoep for dream,
Speaker 2: the pharmacists were all selling finallet prene and it's crap,
Speaker 2: it's the plasce ebo is better. You better to take
Speaker 2: a sugar pill and pretend it's really powerful than finallet prene.
Speaker 2: So when does the science around aging? When do you
Speaker 2: think you would trust that this particular treatment or pill
Speaker 2: or whatever it is is actually genuinely going to make
Speaker 2: a difference rather than the placebo effective Like I feel great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, there's there's all sorts of first movers, I
Speaker 3: guess out there who are taking supplements which you know
Speaker 3: in mice models and animal models are extending their life.
Speaker 3: So and we're not we're different, but we're also mammals
Speaker 3: and so we share some of the same biology, and
Speaker 3: so it's logical that these may help us, but really
Speaker 3: we've got to wait for the clinical trials to come
Speaker 3: and that's really where we'll be able to say, take
Speaker 3: this and it'll give you five years, ten years, whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's all about being able to have a
Speaker 2: clinical trial, double blind test and having cogent is that
Speaker 2: the right provable results where you can say, well, this
Speaker 2: works because we've compared it against this group and hear
Speaker 2: the results.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right now. I think one of the up
Speaker 3: and coming molecules is I think called any men and
Speaker 3: this is a we have this molecule in our body
Speaker 3: called NAD and it's the most abundant molecular in our
Speaker 3: body after water. So it's quite important in terms of
Speaker 3: what it does in our cells. And it declines from
Speaker 3: our forties sorry, quite precipitously. And so when researchers discovered that,
Speaker 3: they went into the lab and said, what happens if
Speaker 3: we top it up? And what they found was that
Speaker 3: these generally mouse models, but a lot of humans are
Speaker 3: taking this molecule right now, is that these mice became healthier.
Speaker 3: They exhibited heart disease a little later, brain disease, little
Speaker 3: bit later. So these are this is the threads that
Speaker 3: they're picking it too, And.
Speaker 2: I guess they're trying to find out what the side
Speaker 2: effects may be as well, because unintended consequences is a
Speaker 2: big thing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, so there is you know, there are theoretical
Speaker 3: risks of some of these things, but what we're finding
Speaker 3: is that that manifests fairly quickly in the lab. So yeah,
Speaker 3: we know it's relatively safe.
Speaker 2: Yea. By the way, did you cut out dairy just
Speaker 2: because you don't like dairy when you were fasting or
Speaker 2: because you were just genuinely fasting and just genuinely fasting, Okay,
Speaker 2: you didn't resort to energy drinks or red ball or.
Speaker 3: Anything nothing like that. No, just running on coffee and
Speaker 3: cups of tea.
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you make of those energy drinks? And
Speaker 2: when they take the sugar out of them.
Speaker 3: Look, even if you take sugar out of these things,
Speaker 3: the body still thinks it's sweet and it fires up
Speaker 3: all the things that associated with sugar, and it's just
Speaker 3: bad for you.
Speaker 2: Okay, good stuff. Thanks Richard.
Speaker 7: Hello, how you doing. I'm sorry, just listening on the radio. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm listening to your conversation very good.
Speaker 3: Thanks Richard.
Speaker 7: Where I was going to comment on this generation we're
Speaker 7: in now, in this last fifty years, we've all developed
Speaker 7: these We've got obesity worldwide. And you know what was
Speaker 7: happening going back one hundred to hundred years, every great religion, Christianity, Buddhism,
Speaker 7: they all had fasting as part of their foundation and
Speaker 7: on a behigh and we fast once a year for
Speaker 7: nineteen days only sunrise the sunset. But the health benefits,
Speaker 7: apart from the spiritual side, it's just phenomenal. And look
Speaker 7: at the Muslims. Is about one point nine billion Muslims
Speaker 7: in the world. They all fast for thirty days. And
Speaker 7: I mean it's just that it's a spiritual fast, but
Speaker 7: the physical benefits can be phenomenal. I think you're letting
Speaker 7: go of a lot of heavy metals and things that
Speaker 7: are a lot that build up in your body that
Speaker 7: might take on.
Speaker 2: Good on you, Richard, one place where religion maybe got
Speaker 2: it right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some ancient wisdom amongst all of that. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: and a little fast does not hurt anybody.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, and thanks for you cool mate. Can't get a.
Speaker 7: Hi.
Speaker 4: I was watching this.
Speaker 5: Episode on the TV. They had Chris Hems with the
Speaker 5: shock episode, and in that one he went to the
Speaker 5: Norwegian Arctic and was swimming in the ice cold.
Speaker 7: Weather.
Speaker 5: I suppose a lot of women got to see him
Speaker 5: take his shirt off. Yeah, but besides that, I mean,
Speaker 5: does it actually work?
Speaker 2: Does swimming on the swimming on the Arctic sort of thing,
Speaker 2: ice bards and that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, these guys, and then he also did saunas, so
Speaker 5: the woman where they had thinking of time to see
Speaker 5: him with his ship off and we got that cold.
Speaker 2: Water saunas and ice bards. I think we can take
Speaker 2: Chris Hems without Yeah, he's probably genetically is one of
Speaker 2: the more advantaged ones.
Speaker 3: Possibly quite quite possibly. So sauna bathing is absolutely unequivocally
Speaker 3: shown to reduce your rates of mortality, so very very
Speaker 3: good for you. The jury is still out on ice
Speaker 3: ice bars. Yeah, except for athletes who do it for
Speaker 3: a different reason, don't they. Yeah, that's right, but it
Speaker 3: certainly there are some risks associated with it in terms
Speaker 3: of heart attack because of the stress of actually getting
Speaker 3: into the cold border. So I'd sawn a bay ahead
Speaker 3: of ice. But there's still so many benefits in terms
Speaker 3: of reducing information with ice bats, so it's I think
Speaker 3: it's worthwhile.
Speaker 2: Okay, We're going to come back with some more calls
Speaker 2: and I've put if you quite a few texts in here.
Speaker 2: We'll see what we can squeeze them, because time is
Speaker 2: not on our side right now. It's eleven minutes to
Speaker 2: five News talks 'd b. That's welcome back to the Wealth,
Speaker 2: to the Wealth Club, the Health Hub. What am I saying,
Speaker 2: Tim Beverage. My guest is Greg McPherson, who is the author.
Speaker 2: He's a by the way, the author of a book
Speaker 2: called Ageless, but he is also a pharmacist and buy
Speaker 2: technologists and an interest and where science is taking us
Speaker 2: when it comes to keeping ourselves younger and healthier for longer.
Speaker 2: Let's take another call Lindsey.
Speaker 8: Hello, and then guys, I just had to ring up
Speaker 8: and let you know what I do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 8: I walk a lot. I don't have breakfast, and I
Speaker 8: even exercise at nighttime when I'm watching TV. I have
Speaker 8: a mini bike which is set up so it's an
Speaker 8: arm movement. I don't like tagging tablets. I've got box
Speaker 8: for tablets here now that are make me feel bad.
Speaker 8: I think cool, I've got to go for a walk,
Speaker 8: but I might do half an hour and I know
Speaker 8: I've got to go back home because it's really affecting.
Speaker 7: Yea, So I am.
Speaker 8: Four months off eighty six.
Speaker 2: And are you pretty good about things?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 8: I feel very good. I like to listening to some
Speaker 8: of your progress wishally the health one, and it makes
Speaker 8: me feel as well, I'm better than a lot of people.
Speaker 9: Oh okay, Well, nothing like a little bit of sharden
Speaker 9: freuder like you're it's fantastic and you sound young so
Speaker 9: and a lot of actually aging well is about attacking
Speaker 9: it positively.
Speaker 3: And it sounds like your way across that so, and
Speaker 3: you're exercising, congratulations.
Speaker 2: How much of mindset? Just the fact if you think
Speaker 2: you're younger, you feel like you're young compared to your
Speaker 2: contemporaries and stuff, and you've just got this idea that
Speaker 2: you're the young guy in the room or the young girl.
Speaker 2: Does mindset make a difference to you?
Speaker 3: Huge? Absolutely No, it's quite bizarre it still. I mean,
Speaker 3: there is a mind body connection and if you age positively,
Speaker 3: you your body will respond to that.
Speaker 2: Actually, you know, really it's a tragedy really, but you
Speaker 2: look at politicians and if you want to see the
Speaker 2: effect of stress on people when they get into government.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's opposition so much, but when you
Speaker 2: see politicians getting into government, it's usually people who are
Speaker 2: carrying the brunt of responsibilities, and it is I think
Speaker 2: most people notice how people age in the context of
Speaker 2: a job like that, because it's stress, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, sleep, probably Obama and you looked at him.
Speaker 3: He was a young man when he entered, and he
Speaker 3: was a gray haired man when he left. So it
Speaker 3: certainly does put immense pressure.
Speaker 2: On what's a good night's sleep. Somebody has asked, is
Speaker 2: it about the length or is it about the quality?
Speaker 3: That's a great question. I think it's seven or eight hours.
Speaker 3: If you can actually be asleep for that long, then
Speaker 3: you're getting good quality and duration.
Speaker 2: Because it's funny, I probably don't sleep quite and near
Speaker 2: it quite long enough and regular enough obviously with my hours.
Speaker 2: But there have been sleeps when I've gone to bed
Speaker 2: and literally had six hours, but I've woken up after
Speaker 2: a really fantastic sleep, and I'm like, hell, I think
Speaker 2: I can get up now. As opposed to poor quality,
Speaker 2: we're sort of lingering for a bit longer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, No, think the body seems to be able
Speaker 3: to deliver that quality to you when you need it.
Speaker 3: So sometimes, yeah, sure it's a four hour sleep can
Speaker 3: sometimes be okay, but on average seven to eight hours
Speaker 3: is perfect.
Speaker 2: How do you get your kids to actually take their
Speaker 2: health seriously? Somebody's messaged, We've got our kids with a
Speaker 2: twenty and a thirteen year old to think about living better.
Speaker 2: I can't get my youngest to think about eating better
Speaker 2: and exercising more. My twenty year old doesn't exercise. It
Speaker 2: all started vaping. How do you influence your kids in
Speaker 2: that respect?
Speaker 3: Yeahs so difficult. It's possibly you've got to start when
Speaker 3: they're super young and you're starting to explain to them,
Speaker 3: like better food choices, getting involved in exercise with them
Speaker 3: so that it's just normal and that's what they do.
Speaker 3: So starting early with kids is super important. And if
Speaker 3: you missed that window, then some gentle healthy messages as
Speaker 3: they get older.
Speaker 2: Gentle ones. You can never nag someone who eat well.
Speaker 2: That's the worst thing in the world. Hey, thanks so
Speaker 2: much for your time, as time flies. Agreed. So your
Speaker 2: book is called Ageless, it's sort of all good booksellers.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming absolutely, it's great but first and age less,
Speaker 2: go and check it out. And also if people want
Speaker 2: to check out your online presence, it's SRW dot co.
Speaker 2: Simple is that SROSRW dot co. I'm sure if you
Speaker 2: just google Greg as well and we'll probably lead you
Speaker 2: in that direction. Thanks so much mate, Thank you Tim. Right,
Speaker 2: we'll be back. Smart Money is next. This is news
Speaker 2: Talk ZEDB. It's three and a half months to five.
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