Episode 3: Exercise, Heat, Cold & Other Stressors for Longevity

Introductory Thoughts

• Iron (Fe)

  • Having too much iron can accelerate aging.

  • We need iron for hemoglobin, but the levels don’t need to be as high as we thought.

  • People will longer lives tend to have lower iron.

  • High iron can create zombie cells.

• Free Radicals

  • Three types

    • Superoxide

      • Can lead to damaged proteins, which can be ridden due to fasting

    • Superoxide anion

      • Creates most of the oxidative stress within the body

    • Hydrogen peroxide

      • Bad for your body

  • Too much iron will create some of these radicals and prevent the “removal” of others.

  • Measure your iron to understand if you need more or less iron (and the type of iron).

• Diet

  • Eat less often

  • Eat more plants

  • Take a rest from food to turn on your body’s protective methods.

Mimic Biological Adversity

• Survival Circuit

  • 1980 - We didn’t know genes could control aging

  • In the 1990s, Cynthia found that worms could live longer based on a gene mutation.

    • The gene was associated with gene mutation.

  • Sirtuins and D2 genes

    • These genes speak to the rest of the cells to live longer.

    • The worms can live longer because these worms were programmed to survive longer.

    • These worms were able to mimic starvation have the benefits of starvation without starving.

• How do genes know that they need to turn on survival mechanisms

  • Sensors

    • mTOR - Sensing levels of amino acids in a cell

      • Lower levels of branch amino acids down-regulate mTOR

    • AMPK - Senses energy

    • Sirtuin - Senses NDA, which goes up with exercise and hunger

  • Cells communicate with each other through insulin

    • Insulin is a signaling protein

  • We’ve always had to fight off adversity

    • But now our society is based on comfort

    • The body doesn’t expend energy to protect itself

    • We need to trick the body to get out of its comfort zone and protect us.

      • Intermittent fasting with adequate nutrition

  • Benefits of adversity

    • Burn fat

    • Increase metabolism

    • More alert

    • Defend your body from infections and internal diseases

• Get off your butt

  • Sitting down is bad for us.

    • Lower testosterone

    • Lower muscle mass, particularly in the hips

  • Stand up, walk, run, cycle

    • Force your body to suck in more oxygen

Benefits of Exercise

• Exercise isn’t just beneficial for fitness and vitality. It can stop diseases

  • It can slow down and prevent 23% of cancers

  • 30% reduction of heart disease

  • At least 50 minutes a week

• Most diseases are an accumulation of symptoms of aging.

• Horvath clock - The biological clock

• Slowing down the biological clock can be done by exercise.

• Try to get 4000 steps, get off your ass.

• Walk after eating

  • It gets your glucose levels to level out.

  • Get your muscles moving, and stimulate the creation of blood vessels.

• Creates a high level of AMPK activity

  • AMPK registers energy in the cell

  • High levels of AMPK → More mitochondria → Long term health benefits

• Low levels of exercise are good, but you need vigorous exercise.

  • Vigorous exercise is needed for hypoxia.

    • Low levels of oxygen are good for you

    • Even 10 minutes a few times a week

  • Hypoxia turns on helpful genes for blood vessel growth and mitochondria.

  • Running damages the cells, but this is good.

• More mitochondria allow you to create more chemical energy

• More blood vessels get more oxygen to tissues.

Glucose sensitivity

• As we get older, our muscles and brain get less sensitive to the insulin our body puts out.

  • Mainly due to the aging biological clock (x-differentiation)

  • Our body gets worse at taking in glucose, so we don’t create enough mitochondria.

  • There is also too much glucose flowing around our body, damaging blood vessels’ lining.

• Veg-f

  • Made by muscles after exercise

  • Goes into the lining of blood vessels.

  • Promotes the creation of blood vessels.

  • During aging, the signaling mechanism doesn’t work as well.

• Turning on the production of NAD can increase veg-f and help blood flow and the creation of blood vessels.

Epigenome - Regulator of DNA

• It tells genes whether to be on or off.

• Believe epigenome is responsible for aging.

  • People who have a younger biological clock tend to have lower biological clocks.

• You can measure proteins in the blood to measure aging.

• People who exercise have a younger epigenetic clock.

• These clocks can also predict your death.

  • But you can change that number.

• Taking measurements is essential so you can take the necessary actions for “getting younger.”

• Patrick Griffin - Describes a way to pool samples for DNA testing.

  • Hopefully, we will be able to take the Horvath test for less than a dollar.

Exercise Recommendations

• There isn’t the best kind of exercise, do what you love.

• Just get moving.

• At least 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week. Try to spread it out

  • Low heart rate is a good metric for health.

• Wearables

  • As time moves on, we will get better at measuring our health.

  • Inside tracker is greater for measuring your age.

• Importance of weight training

  • Maintain hormone levels

    • You can be prescribed testosterone

    • Or you can naturally boost it

      • Exercise large muscles, glutes, back, legs

  • Ability to walk well

  • Harder to build muscle as you get older; that’s why you need to maintain it.

  • Breaking a hip is close to a death sentence.

  • If you have muscles around your waist, you’re less likely to break muscles as you fall.

• Senescent Cells (Zombie Cells)

  • When the epigenome becomes too out of wack, the body shuts the cells down and creates senescent cells.

  • You want fewer senescent cells.

  • You can kill off or reverse the senescent cells by exercise.

Takeaways on Exercise

• A low level of exercise is needed. Get off your butt.

  • 4000 steps a day at least

• High intensity

  • A few times a week, run out of breath

  • 75 minutes a week.

• Muscle building

  • Hit the weights, maintain the muscle mass

• All of this will make you live longer causes adversity memetics.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)

• Wounds repair faster when you give them more oxygen.

• Hyperbaric chambers - Room with increased pressure, making the oxygen “thicker,” making you breathe more oxygen per breath.

• HBOT can reverse aging

  • Grows back the aglets of chromosomes

  • Improved dementia and Alzheimers in humans

• Improve memory, telomeres, cognitive performance (still early)

• Not sure why it’s working, but we know it’s working.

  • Similar to hypoxia, maybe

• It impacted senescent cells.

• Great way to mimic exercise

Cold Therapy

• Being cold creates brown fat

  • Found in babies, which helps them fight the cold.

  • Adults have brown fat, and it mostly exists on your back.

  • Brown fat is very healthy

    • Revs metabolism

    • Burns white fat

  • Brown fat has lots of mitochondria.

• Significant effects of longevity are due to the cold.

• Make brown fat in middle age cause its harder to create brown fat when you’re older.

• Treatment

  • Take cold showers

  • Sleep with very few covers

Applying Heat

• Saunas are great

  • 20% reduction in cardiovascular disease

  • A few times a week

• Helps stimulate new pathways.

• No negative evidence of sauna

• Hot shower

Adversity Mimetics

• Turning on the defense mechanism produces endorphins

• Basic protocols

  • Cycling heat and cold

  • More is better

  • Cold showers and hot showers both have their benefits.