Its an undeniable truth that aging is inevitable. Or is it? What if almost everything we have been taught about aging is wrong? What if we could change how long we live? In other words, could we choose our lifespan? David Sinclair, a Harvard professor, medical researcher and author of Lifespan, was recently a guest on the Aspen Brain Lab expert series. He explained to host Dr. Marc Hodosh why he believes we can really influence our longevity.
Sinclair explained that aging is a disease. Aging should be redefined as a medical condition and approached as a disease both causing fragility and often death.
The reality is aging is the root cause of most of the planets suffering and kills 100,000 people every day. Sinclair believes that when we come to this realization, then we will be able to address aging more productively.
The statistics show that the age of our community is rising, especially in the developed world. In 2017, one in eight people worldwide was aged 60 or over. In 2050, older people are projected to account for one in five people globally. So by 2050, this group will be around two billion.
An individuals lifespan is linked to lifestyle factors, more than genetics. In fact, science reveals that your lifespan will be determined by your lifestyle accounting for up to 70% Genetics will determine only 30%.
Sinclair told Hadosh that individual diseases occur in the minority, and aging to the majority. So why arent we taking aging far more seriously than we are currently? he questions.
He believes there is a need for more international attention to social, economic and political risks as well as the benefits of a world in which billions of people can live much longer and much healthier lives.
Sinclair explained that ones chronological age (the number of times weve travelled around the sun) is not the same as our biological age (how our cells have changed over that same period of time). He defines the nine different hallmarks of aging :
Like many other scientists involved in the study of aging, Sinclair believes we need to approach aging from a preventative health perspective over ones lifespan. This is a more cost-effective approach than addressing acute symptoms of the disease later on in life, he told Hadosh.
And hes pretty optimistic that science may soon have the tools to put this disease into remission.
During the discussion Sinclair spoke about the importance of hormesis and its role in lifespan and the aging process. The application of hormesis in aging research and interventions is becoming increasingly attractive and successful. The reason for this is that the research conducted over many years, is showing that mild stress-induced activation of one or more stress response (SR) pathways, and its consequent stimulation of repair mechanisms, is effective in reducing the age-related accumulation of molecular damage.
Hormesis is the what doesnt kill you makes you stronger type of stress. Stress is the disruption of homeostasis, or your bodys state of equilibrium. In fact, your body thrives on occasional stress or toxin exposure, and responds by ramping up growth and repair to bring you back to balance. Thats hormesis your bodys positive response to minor stressors. Over time, you can use hormesis to build an adaptive stress response, where you learn to benefit from sources of stress.
With exercise, for example, you need to exert your muscles, otherwise your body wont build them back stronger. Also your brain needs to be challenged. You can do this by learning a new language, or doing something creative. Its important to continually build new connections between brain cells. You can even stimulate new collagen growth in your skin with lasers and microneedling both of which cause micro-injuries. Sitting in a sauna, followed by a cold shower is also another simple way to practice hormesis.
Sinclair believes youthfulness can also be reset in the body using epigenetic reprogramming. Soon we will be able to tweak cells in a particular way that the central nervous system behaves as if it were young again.
The central nervous system is one of the first body tissues to lose regenerative capacity. His research group was able to show that the expression of 3 specific genes in mice was able to reset youthful gene expression patterns. Promoting regeneration following optic nerve crash injury also restored vision in a mouse model of glaucoma.
The group also concluded that old tissues retain a faithful record of youthful information that can be accessed for functional age reversal.
This is an exciting moment in time for the science of longevity. Researchers are on the verge of understanding the process of aging and how to create drugs that promote extended healthy longevity.
Some may argue that humans and mice are not the same, so we shouldnt get overly optimistic about these studies. However, without a doubt the work being done in their laboratory at Harvard Medical School is forward thinking and may well be lifechanging. As Sinclair attests, This is the golden era of genetics. Anything is possible. We are only limited by our imagination.
We took a look at how Sinclair is approaching his own lifespan? While hes written a lot on the subject, these 4 lifestyle interventions to improve the way we age offer a good summary from the scientist.
Sinclair says if there is one lesson weve learned this past decade it is this: aging is malleable. He has made certain changes in his own life to give himself a decent shot at having a long, healthy life.
We all need to be pushing ourselves, physically, especially as we get older and yet, Sinclair says, only 10 percent of people over the age of 65 do. The good news is that we dont have to exercise for hours on end. People who run four to five miles a week (for most people, thats an amount of exercise that can be done in less than 30 minutes every other day) reduce their chance of death from a heart attack by 40 percent and all-cause mortality by 45 percent. Thats a massive effect.
Youll know you are doing vigorous activity when it feels challenging. Your breathing should be deep and rapid, you should sweat and be unable to say more than a few words without pausing for breath. This is the hypoxic response, and its great for inducing just enough stress to activate your bodys defenses against aging without doing permanent harm.
David Sinclair believes theres nothing revolutionary about fasting. As far back as Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, doctors have been espousing the benefits of limiting what we eat. This is not the same thing as malnutrition. This is when the systems of our bodies begin to prey upon one another. But allowing our bodies to exist in a state of want is unquestionably good for our health and longevity.
Increasingly, research is showing through studies that reducing food availability over a lifetime has remarkable effects on aging and lifespan of animals, so most likely will on humans too.
Sinclair is a firm believer in the benefits of intermittent fasting, citing numerous studies pointing to the health benefits of intermittent fasting. In one such study, participants ate a normal diet most of the time, but five days a month ate a restricted diet. In three months, those who maintained the fasting mimicking diet lost weight, reduced their body fat and lowered their blood pressure, too. Participants also had lower levels of a hormone primarily made in the liver called insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1. Mutations in the IGF-1 and IGF-1 receptor genes are associated with lower rates of death and disease.
So how does Sinclair do it? My blood sugar rises in the morning and I am not hungry. So I skip breakfast, except for two tablespoons of homemade yogurt. I try to skip lunch or eat a late lunch of a small soup or salad. At dinner I eat a normal dinner, with a focus on plant-based foods. I do not overeat. My downfall is alcohol. I often have a glass of wine for dinner a few times a week.
According to this aging specialist, the bottom line is that there is no best diet. What works for someone may not work for another. We are all different. With different ages, circadian rhythms, jobs, body compositions, microbiomes, stresses, and wants. No matter what you do, a little fasting goes a long way.
Even eating certain plants will make a difference, suggests Sinclair. Health-promoting molecules are produced in abundance by stressed plants. Sinclair explains that we get resveratrol from grapes, aspirin from willow bark, metformin from lilacs. We obtain epigallocatechin gallate from green tea, quercetin from fruits, and allicin from garlic.
This may be evidence of xenohormesisthe idea that plants respond to stress by producing chemicals that tell their cells to hunker down and survive.
In 2008, together with Konrad Howitz they penned the term xenohormesis Their theory is that animals evolved to sense certain chemicals in stressed plants as an early-warning system, of sorts. . Over the long-term, this provides humans with health and longevity. In the same way intermittent fasting and exercise are thought to. In fact, he says, they activate the same hormetic pathways.
Sinclair says we should be eating plants and foods raised under less-than-ideal conditions, organic, small farm-raised, or from our own backyard. When plants are stressed, they often add extra color to their stems or leaves.
For example, when a plant or a fruit is exposed to too much light, you may have noticed it produces extra red, blue or purple pigments. These are anthocyanins and they are produced not only by radiation damage, but drought, adverse temperatures, nutrient restriction, pathogens, and wounding. Xenohormetic molecules are typically produced alongside anthocyanidins. I look for leafy vegetables that are bright in color, not light green. I dont mind if they have holes eaten in them or are limp.
And if youre wondering which wine grapes have the highest resveratrol content? Sinclair says its pinot noir, because they are so stress-sensitive.
Sinclair suggests cold therapy is another way to better your lifespan chances. Cold therapy helps activate the mitochondria in your brown fat. He writes that his interest in the potential health benefits of cold therapy began in 2008 with a chance meeting at TEDMED with Ray Cronis former NASA scientist turned expert in nutrition and bioenergetics. The two began working together and they published a paper together with Andrew Bremmer at the NIH, titled The Metabolic Winter Hypothesis: A Cause of the Current Epidemics of Obesity and Cardiometabolic Disease.
Writes Sinclair: We propose that our 7-million-year evolutionary history, which was dominated by two seasonal challenges, lead to calorie scarcity and mild cold stress. But in the last 0.9 inches of our evolutionary mile, we solved them both. Put another way, we may be in evolutionary discordance between our biology that evolved to counter seasonal calorie scarcity and mild cold stress and our modern world of ubiquitous calories and excess warmth. Very few of us experience the outdoor cold of winter, and even fewer of us sleep at cool temperatures.
Yes, you guessed it. Sinclair takes a colder view of life. He leaves a window slightly open at night and avoids heavy blankets while he sleeps. He says he also turns the thermostat down to 67 at night. At the gym, he plunges into a cold pool up to his neck for at least 20 seconds. The scientist says doing this leaves him feeling refreshed and energized for the rest of the day. He expects his healthy brown fat to be turning even browner.
This is a controversial area for anyone in the scientific world to venture into. Perhaps more so for an academic specializing in aging. Realistically though, who wouldnt want to know what he is personally taking to age better? David Sinclair definitely looks a lot younger than his 51 years. According to multiple reports and broadcast material on the subject, he regularly tracks his biomarkers and takes vitamin D, vitamin K2, and aspirin.
Sinclair also uses three other longevity-specific substances each morning. These include resveratrol, NMN, and metformin, a diabetes drug currently being studied for its potential anti-aging effects. The researcher is always quick to point out to the media that hes not a medical doctor and that hes not recommending anyone do what he does. This is purely what he does personally, based on what he is learning.
While the natural human inclination is to seek the fountain of youth, theres never a shortage of naysayers. The stakes are particularly high in this area of health. David Sinclair may well be conducting his own real-time personal longevity experiment alongside his lab. However, whatever your viewpoint, I think we can all agree, the best advice is not to wait until the science is proven. You can already adopt many of these strategies without any risk. Be proactive about improving your lifespan now.
David A. Sinclair, Ph.D. A.O. is a professor in the Department of Genetics and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1995. Dr. Sinclair is co-founder of several biotechnology companies (Sirtris, Ovascience, Genocea, Cohbar, MetroBiotech, ArcBio, Liberty Biosecurity) and is on the boards of several others. He is also co-founder and co-chief editor of the journal Aging.
His work is featured in five books, two documentary movies, 60 Minutes, Morgan Freemans Through the Wormhole and other media. He is the inventor of 35 patents.
Sinclair and has received more than 25 awards and honors. These include the CSL Prize, The Australian Commonwealth Prize, Thompson Prize, Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Award. As well as the Charles Hood Fellowship, Leukemia Society Fellowship, Ludwig Scholarship, Harvard-Armenise Fellowship, American Association for Aging Research Fellowship. Included are the Nathan Rodriguez Award from the National Institutes of Health, Ellison Medical Foundation Junior and Senior Scholar Awards. Merck Prize and the Genzyme Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Science Award.
Sinclair was also awarded the Bio-Innovator Award, David Murdock-Dole Lectureship, Fisher Honorary Lectureship, Les Lazarus Lectureship and the Australian Medical Research Medal. His work has been recognized with The Frontiers in Aging and Regeneration Award, Top 100 Australian Innovators, and TIME magazines list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
David Sinclair is the author of the book Lifespan. A must-read for anyone interested in aging.
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Has Everything We've Been Taught About Aging Wrong? - Longevity LIVE