You’re Aging Faster Than You Think — The Scientist Who Plans to Live Forever | Dr. Bill Andrews, 74

Ageless Athlete Recording - Dr Bill Andrews
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Dr Andrews: [00:00:00] Well, I'm in Reno, Nevada right now, USA. I'm at my facility. So I own a company called Sierra Sciences, which is a medical research company. I'm sitting in my office right now, but it's practically the only room in the whole building that's not scientific lab equipment.

So there's like 10,500 square feet of lab space here. And I didn't have breakfast this morning. I, I, I mean, I believe in breakfast, but I, I've been up since the fire marshals gave a surprise inspection this morning at 8:00 in the morning and when... And I had just gotten to work. I was actually out for a run, because I, I run every day.

but I was out for a run and,they called me because they said they can't get in the front door. And I said I'll be... I'm 20 minutes away." And so I ran back and let them in, and that was one of the most unenjoyable experiences I had in the last months. But,they inspected me, found all kinds of compliant issues, and they always do.

And that's been my morning so far. So no breakfast today. Not yet. I'm gonna... [00:01:00] I just had a quick, energy bar for lunch just now 

Kush: That sounds like a rather jarring morning indeed. I'm still glad that des- d- despite that annoying start of the day, you were still able to make this time. I was especially excited to talk to you because, you have spent your life studying aging, but Dr.

Andrews, you're also an athlete. So actually I would love for you share, how do you describe yourself these days to people who may not know you? 

Dr Andrews: Well, okay. I'm just obsessed with aging. I got that obsession from my father when I was 10 years old actually. When teachers sent me home with notes pinned to my shirt telling him I was interested in science and medicine, he said, "You should nurture this."

And he said... He came to me and said, "Bill, when you grow up, you should become a doctor and find a cure for aging." And he and I teamed up ever since then, going to anti-aging conferences. I mean, not when I was 10, but [00:02:00] by the time I was like 20 I was already starting anti-aging clubs in college and things like that.

my father and I would go together to anti-aging conferences. He was a television producer who was gonna make a documentary on, research in aging. But I had, I had decided back then that every theory on aging made no sense. All the twos and twos don't add up. Um, but and I could come back to that because I later.

But I, I decided that I needed to really start building an arsenal of tools to start figuring out how to build, cure aging. And so all through college and graduate school, that's all I did is I started building all these tools and stuff like that to solve that one problem. Because, I thought diseases...

This is gonna sound silly, but diseases are easy to cure, okay? All you gotta do is really understand the biochemical pathways that are involved in the disease, and as soon as you completely understand it, it's really easy to find a way to intervene. And then, then [00:03:00] you start doing like drug screening and things like that to find things that will intervene with that.

and so aging just be- was turned out to be a particularly challenging type of thing because none of the theories made sense. and I had to figure out, okay, what makes sense? I had to come up with a biochemical pathway. my father said- grow up and cure aging. He used that word cure, and so I used that word cure.

And it wasn't until, like, 30 years ago when I was speaking at medical conferences that people started saying, "You can't say cure aging because aging's not a disease." And I started thinking about it and I said, "Yes, it is. Aging is a disease." And, but, these are things that we can come back to later.

I, I, uh, I just, decided that there had to be some kind of mechanism that was causing us to age. Everybody knows there's some synchrony that occurs in our aging, and no other disease has that, okay? But there's a synchrony. You, you can, [00:04:00] pass out in a coma, okay? And wake up 20 years and look at your friends and family and know how, how m- how long you've been in a coma, just from...

Because aging's like a clock. You can, every... And it's so synchronous. We all know. We know. If, if aging wasn't, wasn't a clock and it was just environmental impacts causing us to fall apart from wear and tear, we'd be seeing a tremendously broader curve of aging. This is one of the arsenals that I built was, was, was learning statistical theory and also construct validity and data analysis and, experimental design and all these kind of things, but from all...

And mathematical modeling. I knew that the tightness of the curve, like, when we look at a curve, it's... You can watch my finger. Kind of goes like this and then goes up and then down. So we all seem to die within a very narrow range, okay? And that wouldn't happen if we were all dying [00:05:00] because of too much exposure to the environment, like ev- all the theories think.

And it also wouldn't expl- like for instance, why do people in the North and South Poles age at the same rate as people who live on the equator when they're in different environments? And why do dogs and cats age at different rates than humans when they're in the same environment? So there had to be something going on.

Kush: This is fascinating, Dr. Andrews. I do wanna come back to this. Okay. Your excitement for the subject all these decades later since your father passed on this baton to- Right

study aging, which, which I'm sure we can go on a whole separate thread on, like, how that is, you know, not the most typical adolescent- 

Dr Andrews: Nothing's 

Kush: typical ... you know- 

Dr Andrews: Yeah ... 

Kush: ambition or dream to study aging. but, you know, before we do that, this is, such an, such a rare opportunity because, here I am,I host this podcast that goes out to, let's say the average middle-aged amateur athlete who's looking [00:06:00] to continue- Yeah

past their physical prime. And you have spent your life studying aging, but you are an athlete yourself. You are an ultra runner, and for this audience, that So, so let me with that first. 

Dr Andrews: Okay. 

Kush: What has running given you? 

Dr Andrews: You know, I didn't know when I started, but I, I've been a runner my entire life.

I had parents that never told me to quit running around the pool, you know? They're... I would run everywhere, and when I was in high school, everybody was, like, always upset because I was at a all-boys private boarding school, and, like, in between classes and, and going to lunch and things like that, I would always run.

And everybody just thought I was a little crazy. But I... And I competed in track and cross country, but I had no idea that how important it was health-wise, okay? I just, I just, I liked track and cross country and things like that. And, but, it's turned into where I do it mostly because I [00:07:00] like the adventure.

But I started... When I started getting into really understanding biochemistry and health and stuff like that, I started realizing that, boy, one of the best things that anybody can do to slow down their aging is endurance exercise, okay? But it's gotta be under certain constraints, okay? So it is true that endurance exercise, and I don't wanna just say running.

You can kayak, you can bicycle. They're all the same. Endurance exercise does have what's called, like, a Goldilocks effect, okay? There's such a thing as too much causes harm. There's s- such a thing as too little causes harm. But then there's just right, okay? But it turns out it's not how much you exercise that's the Goldilocks effect.

It's the intensity, okay? And I've actually done experiments where I've taken blood work from runners before, during, and after races. I interviewed them, learned all their lifestyle habits and things like that, and was able to come up with some pretty good [00:08:00] analyses which I've, I've been way too busy to publish, but I talk about it at conferences and things like that.

the secret is the number one cause of aging is, and in, in, accelerated health problems, is inflammation, okay? O- oxidative stress is a close second, but those two things are the number one and two things that causes accelerated aging. And, so it makes us accelerate faster than the clock does.

The clock causes aging. And so, I, I did a lot of studies on the blood work and stuff like that and found out that- If you, I'll jump to the conclusion, was run consistently. Exercise, do endurance sports consistently all the time, but always keep it fun. Okay? When it quits being fun, quit.

Okay? Even if you're in the middle of an ultramarathon, if it quits being fun, drop at the next aid station, save it for the next ultramarathon. [00:09:00] Because it, it's like, you get better. But if you, if you push it, that causes tremendous inflammation, tremendous oxidative stress, tremendous...

And all those cause damage to your body. you're stiff as a board for weeks afterwards, things like that. and there's the oc- the occasional runner who runs every two weeks, okay? And then enters the marathon and does well, okay? But they're s- they're on their hands and knees throwing up, and they're stiff as a board for two weeks 'cause of all the inflammation.

And this shows up in blood work as, like, C-reactive protein especially. But there's other blood markers that I looked at too when I did these studies. And, it turns out that when you are somebody who is, just goes out for fun and quits when it be- quits being fun, but you go out and run every single day...

there is no scientific peer-reviewed literature that says you should take a day off. Okay? The only, the only reason you should do that is if you're very competitive into like, 100-yard dashes or something like that. [00:10:00] You actually do better by taking some time off, okay? But it, it's not, doesn't help your health.

It actually, by, by being consistent and keeping it fun- Running every day is actually the best thing you can do for you. And, blood work would show no inflammatory markers. You can run 100 miles and not be stiff. You can run the next day without any problem. And as a result of living this kind of lifestyle, I ended up breaking the world record for the most 100 miles run in one year by any individual ever, and I never, ever had any problems.

It was fun the whole time. I was recorded saying, "Boy, I wish these would never end." Okay? I... Because the adventure of running 100 miles all day and all night with a headlamp at night, and, you know, you get to about 90 miles and you think you only got 10 miles to go, I would actually start thinking to myself, " I don't wanna stop.

I'm having a great time." And this is because I was keeping it fun. And I would, I would finish in last place overall sometimes because I was [00:11:00] never pushing it. I was n- I would never kill myself. There was a few times, like, there was a r- a few races where it was really important that I did push myself at the end and, and ended up regretting it, but, at least I , got the good place and I would win my age group or something like that.

But you know... But I also, but I w- I wasn't an athlete until the... You know, I, I didn't become an athlete then. I was a athlete my entire life. I, I actually used to hold the world speed record for barefoot water-skiing, okay? I, so I used to compete in a lot of stuff. I was also very competitive in endurance horseback racing, and, boy, that's a tough sport.

Kush: Dr. Andrews, I am fascinated by what you said about, the term keeping it fun. I have to agree that, the activities that we do we enjoy are the ones we keep returning back to.

still, running 100 mile races, running these ultras, I am not a big runner. I rock climb and I surf, [00:12:00] and you come to a point on, like, big expedition days when you kind of hit a wall, and it stops being normal fun. It stops... It gets into the type two, maybe worse territory. So what is that point, Dr. Andrews?

Like, are you saying that one can do these mega things and- Not risk inflammation. So how does one find that line? 

Dr Andrews: Okay, so you mentioned hitting the wall. I mean, I think you, you, I, you, you know I'm sure that back... Like, when I was competing in marathons in, like, the I would say, I would often hit the wall at 20 miles, okay? But that was because people didn't know enough about healthy and stuff like that, and it turned out to be it's all you just gotta keep your carbs up, okay? And so I learned all about goo, okay? The goo was practically the first carb thing that you could carry in your pocket while you're running ult- running marathons.

I learned you burn 100 calories per mile, [00:13:00] okay? Walking or running, doesn't matter how fast you're going. and, each packet of goo contains 100 calories, and so literally I started eating one packet every mile, okay? So I would carry... Like, I had these, these pants that had a whole bunch of pockets.

I forget what they call them. Race-ready pants, had all these pockets, and I would have all these goos in them. And every mile I would just rip open a goo and eat it, and I would never hit the wall. And it was, like, an amazing thing that turned out that all the problems I had before then was all because I ran out of energy.

I ran out of fuel. And, you don't run out of fuel as long as you keep your fuel, at a break even. And same with electrolytes. Um, I actually invented electrolytes. I- some electrolytes. I did some studies, 

So I started realizing that, you know, how... What kind of electrolytes should you be taking? How much sodium? How much potassium? How much magnesium, et cetera? And I, I, I started saying, "Well- Everybody's doing it wrong, okay? [00:14:00] We should really be doing our electrolytes based on how much water we drink, okay?

And because that's the only reason why electrolytes drop when you're running, is because of the water you're drinking, okay? And it actually turns out that, the electrolyte concentration of your sweat and your urine is the same as the electrolyte concentration of your blood, okay?

And so sweating and urinating and things like that, that's not gonna cause your electrolyte concentrations in your blood to change. It's just gonna produce less blood. But you then drink a bunch of water, and that ends up diluting the electrolytes. So I started this thing, that's something else I did with blood work, from runners during races, is I would talk to them about their electrolytes and stuff like that and- I came up with this rule that, that you have to determine how much electrolytes to take based on how much water you drink.

So I, I invented electrolytes that, contain the same concentration of sodium and [00:15:00] potassium, magnesium as, is found in your blood and urine, and I just made those into pills. And I made it so that every 25 ounces of water I drink, I take a pill. Okay? And so during some of these races where I was doing blood work, I would have some runners take my pills, some runners take Succeed, some others take, some of the En- Endurolytes, things like that.

And the only one that worked were the ones that I did. So, so the blood work showed absolutely no change in their electrolytes as long as they took one capsule for every 25 ounces of water. And, and so several of them, like they would carry 50 ounce water, CamelBaks. Okay? And so every time the CamelBak would get empty, they'd refill it and then right away take two, two capsules.

Kush: that, that breaks my brain a bit because most of us, let's say the amateur athletes kind, we are told that we should just drink a ton of water. But I think what you are getting across to us is that just drinking water is not enough.

It might actually dilute [00:16:00] your, um- 

Dr Andrews: It does. 

Kush: I mean- Your nutrients further down. 

Dr Andrews: Yeah. 

Kush: So one needs to be ingesting those essential compounds, those minerals along with the water. So whether we do it by tablet form or we mix in some kind of electrolyte powder, maybe, the kind of composition that you came up with.

And the second thing I follow is that one just needs to carry lots and lots of goo or other products like goo, because if we replace the calories lost by calories consumed, we may not be able to completely avoid that, that might happen on like a big event, but it will at least, delay it to our advantage Dr.

Andrew, I wanna shift back to aging for now because yes, there's so much we can learn from you. So- 

Dr Andrews: Let, let me just, let me just make one comment. Yeah, please. The company- Yes ... the company that,that, that [00:17:00] actually now sells my electrolyte co- formula is Salt Stick. Okay? And so whenever I go running, even training runs, I always carry Gu and Salt Sticks, and, just, ca- a Gu every mile and a Salt Stick every, I, I've done 100 miles and had 100 packets of Gu during that 100 miles. 

Kush: Wow. 

Dr Andrews: Okay? Wow. And so but whatever. Now, I, I- 

Kush: And, and if people listening, they can't access Gu, it's not, let's say, available in their markets, anything else that can substitute? Is it anything that you can make at home or- I- ... you can find?

Dr Andrews: Yeah. A- anything, as long as it, it should be 100 calories, 25 grams of sugar, essentially. you don't get insulin spikes while you're running, so you don't have to worry about taking too much sugar. The sugar gets consumed to build energy instead of going elsewhere that causes other problems. The only reason, and the, I'm not g- the only reason I do Gu is because it's the perfect size packets- 

Kush: Yeah, 

Dr Andrews: really 

Kush: small ... 

Dr Andrews: for the race, [00:18:00] Race Ready shorts that I run with. 

Kush: And I'm guessing that, your sport is running, but if somebody listening, their sport is kayaking or rock climbing or, or cycling or mountain biking, the same idea.

replace, calories lost by c- calories consumed and, and ensure that there's the optimal amount of sugar and one can stay sustained. So Dr. Andrew, talking about aging, you have spent most of your life, you spent 50 years studying it.

Please give us the simplest version of what is aging? 

Dr Andrews: Aging is a change in our epigenetics. Okay? And that means we all have, like, 22,500 genes on our chromosomes, and the genes are what make us who we are. Okay? Our eye color, our hair color, our height, everything like that, or the way we think, our intelligence, all of it is m- [00:19:00] controlled by our genes.

And all genes have control s- units next to them, like compared to dimmer switches. Gene produces the protein, okay, or it produces the RNA, or it produces something else. But how much it produces is controlled by a dimmer switch that's right next to the gene. That dimmer switch is called a promoter, okay?

But I like to call it dimmer switches because they, more people understand dimmer switches than th- do the word promoter. Okay, so the dimmer switches all change as we age. Okay? And so I can, I can measure the dimmer switches that how on and off the dim- dimmer switches are of all the genes, okay, by at any age.

And I can, I can tell a person how old they are biologically by just looking at their what's called epigenetic profile. Okay? And so a lot of things are known to affect the epigenetics, and one of them is DNA [00:20:00] methylation. And so that's why a lot of people now do, what's called a DNA methylation test to measure aging, okay?

Kush: but my research has shown that everything that affects those switches, they're all c- so they're all controlled by telomere length.

Dr Andrews: Okay? Telomeres are found at the very tips of our chromosomes, and they get shorter as we age, and they're... I like to use them, I like to think of them as, like, ride tickets at an amusement park. Every time our cells divide, they lose a ticket, a single-cell embryo can only s- divide 100 times.

By the time we're born, we've already used up 50 of our tickets, and when we use up the remaining 50 tickets, we die. We have no way of living past that. And, that's the true, one and only true clock of aging. All the other clocks are actually controlled by the telomere length. Telomeres,some...

This is gonna get more scientific. Some, some of your audience might know what enhancer sequences are. 

Kush: [00:21:00] So, Dr. Andrew- Yeah ... actually, yeah, if you might spend just a moment on telomeres. I just watched your movie, Immortality. I loved it. And 

Dr Andrews: the immor- Okay, you mean Immort- The Immortalists? 

Kush: Sorry, The Immortals, yes.

Yes. The Immortals. No, there, there- Sorry, I got 

Dr Andrews: this ... there's two. There's two. There's two. There's... One's called Immortal. That won an Emmy. Then there's another one called The Immortalists that almost won an Oscar, and The Immortalist is far better. I highly recommend everybody talk about that. What I do, I do talk about telomeres, but at a very basic level.

Kush: Okay, so I was, The bit of, bit of, research I did to understand telomeres, I understood them as the ends of shoelaces that- 

Dr Andrews: Yeah ... 

Kush: keep fraying down. So again, like, in simple words, because I think this is so important for the audience to understand, could you... Would you mind behooving us and help us understand, in plain speak, what are telomeres, and [00:22:00] why are they so important?

Dr Andrews: Well, they are like the caps on your shoelaces, okay? But the analogy really stops there, because the caps on your shoelaces get shorter from wear and tear, okay? But our telomeres r- really don't shorten due to wear and tear unless you a heavy smoker or doing, working in a radioactive lab or something like that, and you have a lot of oxidative stress.

Okay? So it's oxidative stress of d- formation of free radicals is really the only thing that accelerates, like uh, shortening like the caps of your shoelaces. Our telomeres actually shorten by not wear and tear, okay? And so I use an analogy. People can w- go watch my videos. If you are making a brick wall, okay?

And think of the top row of bricks as your chromosome And now the cell wants to divide. Bricklayer goes along and [00:23:00] lays a new row of bricks. It's a... They don't go to the previous row of bricks. But bricklayer is, like, standing on top of the wall, stepping backward every time he or she lays a new brick.

Okay, when the bricklayer reaches the end of the wall and steps back, falls, he or she falls off, and there's no brick placed in that last position. And so what happens is the new row of brick is shorter, the cell divides, the new row of bricks goes to one cell, the old goes to the other cell, One of those cells has shorter telomeres than the other. Okay, well, this happens over and over and over again, but it's not wear and tear. It's actually the lack of the ability of our cell to replicate or duplicate the DNA all the way to the very end. It's ca- it misses, and I call that one ride ticket, okay?

So we lose a ride ticket, and that's why it's a clock because no matter how healthy you live, no matter how great your lifestyle and diet, and no [00:24:00] matter how great your genetics are, you cannot possibly live longer than 125 years, and this is mathematically calculated, with... because of this cell division of telomere shortening occurring every time you lose a ride ticket, when your cells divide.

And, that's, that was... You know, nobody knew exactly what caused that theoretical limit. Several publications looking at demographic studies and population studies and things like that had concluded that for some reason we have this theoretical maximum lifespan limit of 125 years, but it wasn't until we discovered telomeres that we actually knew why, okay?

And so nobody lives to be 125 years 'cause everybody does something to accelerate that from either accelerated cell division or accelerated free radicals like smoking. We accelerate that rate of telomere shortening, so we, we, nobody... We live to be 80, 90 years old, you know, instead. Um, the, but, inflammation, so [00:25:00] when you get inflammation, that is a way...

That c- that means that cells start dividing that shouldn't have been dividing, okay? And when a cell divides, you lose ride tickets. You get, your telomeres get shorter, and so that accelerates the aging. You are older, and that's, that's why, you know, like smokers when, when you go to, like, your high school reunion and your 50-year high school reunion let's say, and you s- you suddenly see a lot of your classmates look a lot older than you- Well, they almost all were smokers, okay?

Okay, because smoking accelerated their aging. But there's other things, like, like movie stars. A lot of movie stars who are always trying to make you- they would do things like microdermabrasion or laser treatments to their skin, and that would, that would kill cells in their skin But other cells would divide and temporarily make you look young, but looks are deceiving because actually you've gotten older.

Okay? So, so these kind of things like microdermabrasion and things like that accelerate the aging, and that's [00:26:00] why you see a lot of these old movie stars looking like they have prune faces or they're called skeleton faces a lot. Because they, their cells have lost all the ride tickets and can no longer divide to replace that skin on the surface.

Kush: Your explanation actually really makes sense, that we can do all the lifestyle interventions, and they will help us with other things, but unless we significantly impact the telomere shortening, we will not increase our lifespan.

the couple of things you pointed out, so actually the main thing you point out is inflammation, and inflammation will accelerate shortening of telomeres. And what causes inflammation, like, one of the most endemic, reasons nee- seems to be cigarette smoking, tobacco.

The other one you talked about, is, cosmetic treatments, micro, dermatology, those kind of things. Any other... So this is, this is like really- Yeah ... impactful. Human, human growth hormone. Any [00:27:00] other... Human growth hormone? Human growth hormone. Oh, wow, okay. And I- e- okay. 

Dr Andrews: I don't know if you know- What about-

I'm one of the inventors of human growth hormone, but it's- 

Kush: Okay. What about more commonly, more common reasons, Dr. Andrews, where we can mitig- we can't avoid inflammation completely, but we can mitigate inflammation. So you mentioned cigarette smoking. What else can the average person do who is, you know, not taking growth hormones, who's not getting cosmetic treatment, can do today to slow down telomere shortening?

Dr Andrews: Well, okay. There's slowing down... Okay, so let's, let's think about telomere shortening and lengthening is like a tug of war, okay? So in our reproduct- we don't have telomere shortening in our reproductive cells, because our children have to be born with longer telomeres than we have, okay? So the research that I did back in the 1990s was based on why is it our children are born with long telomeres when they come from our dividing cells? So our, our reproductive cells had to have some [00:28:00] mechanism to keep the telomeres from shortening, and so not losing ride tickets. So my team discovered this enzyme called human telomerase that is found only in our reproductive cells, and what happens is, in our reproductive cells, think of this tug of war.

The cells divide, the telomeres get shorter, then telomerase comes in and re-lengthens it. Divide again, telomeres get shorter, telomerase comes in and relengthens it. So now in all the other cells of our body, we only have the shorteners. It's a tie in our reproductive cells, but it's a complete loss This shortening rate limits our maximum lifespan to 125 years, but we can accelerate this shortening by doing a lot of poor lifestyle choices and things like that, which will make our lifestyle sh- shorter. So there's two ways to deal with the problem. One is to Get rid of accelerated telomere shortening.

You can't get rid of the basal level telomere short- We have to, we have wear and tear in our blood vessels, okay? From blood flowing through. We can't stop the blood from flowing through it, so we're gonna [00:29:00] have wear and tear, , and that wear and tear has to be replaced by cell division, and that causes telomere shortening.

So we can't get below a basal level of telomere shortening, oth- or we'll die from not enough telomere shortening. Okay, so but you can get accelerated telomere shortening, and you can do things to undo that. Okay, so let's talk about that first. Okay? And that's like antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, getting rid of heavy metals, that are very...

Things, reduce sugar levels, except when you're running. You know, when you're, when you're sitting around and eating sugar, that, well, that causes insulin spikes and all kinds of in- inflammation, oxidative stress. I'm just trying to think of what else. Um, like, sugar levels, toxins, heavy metals, reducing all those from your diets.

Um, there's very inflammatory foods, the ingredients in diets. I'm gonna say one thing. If every person on the planet should take a test called the ALCAT test, A-L-C-A-T. Okay? And so, you know, I don't [00:30:00] get any compensation from saying anything like these, but I do think it's the best test that everybody should take.

It tells you what foods induce inflammation in you, and everybody's different. Okay? It's not an allergy test, so you can't get by with an allergy test. It's gotta be the ALCAT test. Okay? Because the ALCAT test does a very unique way of measuring inflammation. Okay, so when you find out what foods cause inflammation, quit eating those foods.

Okay, so that's one thing you can do. But, 

Kush: you know- Where, where can, where can we find this test? Is it commonly available at hospitals or clinics, or can one order one online? 

Dr Andrews: Any doctor can prescribe it, but you can also just go to the company, one of the k- Like, so every time somebody asks me that question, I say, "Just search for ALCAT test," but make certain you say test, because if you just search for ALCAT, you'll get Alcatraz showing up as all the hits.

So do ALCAT test, and there's a company... God, I can never remember. It's Cell Service Sciences or Cell Sciences Services or [00:31:00] something like that, that really is the main, provider of that, and then they have a phlebotomist just come to your home or office, take blood, or you can go to the phlebotomist yourself, take a blood, send it in, and they send you back a report of all the foods that cause inflammation.

Wonderful. And it changes. It changes. Wonderful. So I, I get it done every year. Yeah. 

Kush: Okay great. So yeah, just like maybe one is recommended to get a blood panel done at that kind of frequency, get this test done. On that note, so we can find out these things that cause us inflammation. Let's say somebody is, around the age of 45 or 50, might have a s- a nicotine or a cigarette habit, might have some other habit that cause inflammation. Is too late? 

Dr Andrews: No. 

Kush: Too- 

Dr Andrews: Never. 

Kush: Yes. 

Dr Andrews: Never. Okay. And in fact, we haven't even gotten to the- Yes, yes ... we haven't even gotten to the other side of the tug-of-war yet, okay? Because there's things we can do there. But the, but let's first talk about the shortening side of the [00:32:00] tug-of-war, how to decrease that to the max, okay?

Kush: And yeah the lifestyle choices first. Yes. 

Dr Andrews: The lifestyle choices would be meditation, yoga, recruit- reduce stress,lose obesity. You know, get... Lose weight, okay? 'Cause obesity causes a tremendous amount of stress on the body and in- inflammation. Um, the... And, and it, it actually makes you look younger 'cause it stretches out your face and so the wrinkles don't show up as much.

But, um, it's... But so people get it backward a lot. let's see. Um, meditate. And I say, as I said, exercise, but keep it fun and consistent. the, but the big ones are vitamin D. Take your vitamin D and take your omega-3 fatty acids. and, especially DHA and EPA. Those things have been the most well-published, things on the planet for decreasing the rate of accelerated telomere shortening.

Um, and, th- then I'm gonna recommend something else. Read the Kaufmann protocols, okay? There's two books [00:33:00] written by Dr. Sandra Kaufmann that I think are the best books ever written on supplements, and it's designed to tell everybody what they should take, 'cause everybody, again, is different. So the Kaufmann protocols, and just Google it.

I don't have their website here. Just Google it. Dr. Sandra Kaufmann is the smartest person on the planet as far as I'm concerned when it comes to what choices of supplements. When I used to speak at medical conferences, I would go through the whole list. Dr. Sandra Kaufmann published her book- I was so blown away with it, I wrote the best review of it ever.

And now I... When I'm at medical conferences, somebody asks me that question, I just say, "Read her books." 'Cause I d- I, I don't wanna spend time talking about supplements when I wanna talk about telomeres. But it's, it's like, um, that, that's something that's really important. But there's also other books that people should read.

I'm gonna just... Like, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, E-S-S-E-L-S-T-Y-N, has written great books on how to have an anti-inflammatory diet. And also, I've [00:34:00] got his book. Oh, yeah. Floyd Chilton. I, I have his book right here, using it to prop up my microphone. Floyd Chilton has written a book called Inflammation Nation, which is a really great book.

Okay, and I... Believe me, these... I've done due diligence. N- I do what's called critical meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies on both these people, and these people have it nailed. Okay? So, so read those books. Also, there's a Dr. Amy Doneen, who's the n- number one person in the world when it comes to card- cardiovascular disease, which is all caused by inflammation and oxidative stress.

Kush: Wow. 

Dr Andrews: Okay? So, so Dr. Amy Doneen is a doctor up in Spokane, Washington and she's... I... And she speaks at conferences. She has webinars where she teaches other doctors about cardiovascular health. But she, she's got her things. I, I re- I've read every one of her books. I've read every one of D- Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's books, all of Floyd Chilton's books.

But I don't like to read, okay? I, I... So [00:35:00] but these books were... I just couldn't put them down because they were so accurate, so- 

Kush: Amazing ... 

Dr Andrews: logical. 

Kush: Yeah. You've given us a- all these resources, super valuable. We'll put links to them on the show notes. Okay. I know I will be reading some of these books very soon. Um, okay.

So let's go back to the other side, I know you have so much to share with us, which 

Dr Andrews: is the- This is it. This is it. Okay, okay. This is... Telovital is... And I keep it here on my desk because I, I think it's the only product in the world, nut- the only nutraceutical product in the world, that will actually induce all of your cells to start producing some telomerase, to start adding people to the other side of the tug of war.

This is sold by a company called Touchstone Essentials. I do not market ever, okay? I, I am a really complete research scientist, but I just, I believe in telling the world what is best to make people happier and healthier. This is the best product. See, and I test [00:36:00] every product. I test every product for their ability to induce telomerase expression, and this is the only one that actually does.

There's a lot of products that claim to lengthen telomeres- But they don't induce telomerase. And so what actually is happening is they aren't lengthening telomeres, they're causing a redistribution of their s- cells in the body that's, that's making telomeres in blood longer. Just as if, if you had a company and you fired your dumbest employees, the average IQ of your company increases without anybody getting any smarter.

Okay? That's what these other products do. They... your cells in your blood get longer. They g- the average length gets longer, but not because they got lengthened, but it's because you, you killed off all the cells with short telomeres, and something has to divide, other cells have to divide to replace those cells, and so you've actually accelerated your aging.

This is the only product that we've ever discovered here in our s- screening processes here, we have million-dollar robots that do the testing. This is the only product that actually does induce [00:37:00] telomerase to lengthen telomeres. And it's... Now, that said, I gotta qualify, it doesn't win the tug-of-war. Okay?

And we are still doing research to try to find other ingredients that will win the tug-of-war, but that's the most potent thing we've ever tested so far that, that comes close to slowing down the tug-of-war. So it adds somebody to the other side, slows it down. But then it gets even more exciting. We have discovered, and so have other scientists that have published it in peer review journals, that when telomeres get really short, they become easier to lengthen.

So what I'm s- excited... 'Cause I've been talking to lots of people that are taking this product called Telovital. I, I've been finding that a lot of people, like, in their 80s and 90s are showing tremendous amount of age reversal. I'm talking about people in walkers when they're 94 can't get around without a walker, are dancing at their 95th birthday.

Okay? And people that are on, sometimes on Zoom calls with me and stuff like that, [00:38:00] that you can't get them to shut up 'cause they're so excited about their youthfulness suddenly, you know? And,, there's at least one woman that's really showing this, another man who's, like, in his 80s that is showing tremendous age reversal.

But is... I don't have peer reviewed stu- I don't have clinical data on this. So it's all, what do you call it? Anecdotal. But I mean, there's some points that where anecdotal is just impossible not to believe. Okay? Sure. 

Kush: Sure. 

Dr Andrews: And that, those things. But that's... But I'm, I'm looking forward to doing studies on that, but I, I spend more of my time trying to find even more potent stuff so that, that we see age reversal in even the 50-year-olds, 40-year-olds So, 

Kush: yeah.

Are there, are there any... Yeah, are there any studies done at the medical level that have shown this longitudinal enhancement of aging? 

Dr Andrews: In mice, not in, not, not in humans yet. I mean, there, there's been some clinical studies done with what's called gene therapy. Okay? 

it's... We do it in our research here, but it's most- [00:39:00] mostly as a proof of concept type of stuff. So gene therapies involve putting the gene inside of a virus, and then infecting human cells with that virus, which inserts this new gene into the cells.

And we've engineered the dimmer switch to be fully on So when, when that gene gets into the cells, it produces a lot of telomerase, and we see age reversal in every way imaginable, okay? Because it wins the tug-of-war 30-fold over, okay? And so we've done experiments where we have put it into human cells in a Petri dish and saw age reversal by every method of measurement, every biomarker there is.

We have, treated human skin that was grown on the backs of mice, okay? And we have shown that skin got younger by, again, every method of measurement. And then, Dr. Ron De Pinho, who's at Harvard, I think, Yeah, I think it was Harvard. He then became later the head of MD [00:40:00] Anderson, so he's actually a pretty respectable doctor.

he did a study where he engineered mice to age like humans. Okay, now, mice do not age like humans. I think it's silly that so many people do anti-aging studies on mice when their aging process is completely different. Um, but he created a mouse cell line that does age by telomere shortening, like m- humans do, and then he took our gene therapies and treated these mice, and he observed age reversal in these mice by every method of measurement you can imagine, again.

And Diane Sawyer actually did a r- news report on him. People can go to do a Google search, and I'll provide you the link of that, too. Google search Dr. Ron De Pinho, D-E-P-I-N-H-O, and Diane Sawyer, and you'll find this video where he actually shows the mice. He calls it a remarkable reversal of the aging process.

but what was really exciting, sorry if I'm getting excited here, was that there were mice in these [00:41:00] studies that were suffering from dementia. Okay? They couldn't remember how to go through a maze, okay? That they used to know how to go through. They... When they lengthened the telomeres in these mice, they remembered how to go through a maze, and that has changed the entire paradigm on what everybody believes dementia is.

Dementia is not the loss of memory. It's just l- loss of access to the memory, and if somebody's suffering from Alzheimer's, that memory's still there, they just don't have the connections anymore. The neurons that connect the two to the brain to the memories s- is not there anymore. But lengthening telomeres restores that, okay?

now, so gene therapy has been done in some humans. There are some clinical studies, most notably by a company called BioViva, B-I-O-V-I-V-A. Their website's bioviva-science.com. But they've done clinical studies, but- they're still preliminary, okay? And th- th- because they're, they're doing what I think might be [00:42:00] doses too low, but I still think there's tremendous amounts of effect.

I have seen, I have seen some people that were in their studies that were suffering from Alzheimer's. They were in wheelchairs, drooling from the mouth, couldn't do anything. Next thing you know, they're walking through the house, walking outside, diving in the pool, going for a swim. There, there's do- documentaries in Korea, for instance, that have some of this data showing this.

And, but it's, it's... Since gene therapy's so expensive, it's not done very often, and, so even these people that were showing some recovery eventually fell back into it and,there wasn't enough money to actually re-treat them again. but g- but the gene therapy, especially by a company called BioViva...

And, and so, you know, I'm a, a unpaid scientific advisor for that company because I'm so excited about what they're doing. I, I'm, I'm helping them, trying to come up with m- better ways to make gene therapy safe and things like that. But, but nevertheless, that has [00:43:00] provided us with a lot of data to show that everything we're doing to try to make products similar to this that are gonna be even stronger than this, but this is right now the strongest thing on the planet, makes it, makes all my w- research worthwhile.

'Cause I don't want people having... I don't wanna cure aging and only the super wealthy. I want, I wanna develop a pill that, that ma- makes all of our telomeres longer, and it only costs 10 cents a person, and I wanna drop it from airplanes, okay? You know, it, all over the world. You know? It's like, it, it's...

But that's my mission, and that's... Investors don't like me because I'm not interested in making them a lot of money. I'm interested in curing diseases. 

Kush: Okay. So you shared so much there. I'm gonna try to distill this down. So a couple of interventions beyond just managing inflammation and its root causes.

One is this particular supplement that you shared The second is gene therapy. Now, you mentioned [00:44:00] anecdotally that some people who were in the '80s and '90s who started taking this supplement started showing positive signs of- 

Dr Andrews: Age reversal ... 

Kush: slowing down the decline. 

Dr Andrews: No, age reversal. 

Kush: A- age reversal. 

Dr Andrews: Yeah. 

Kush: How many people were studied, Do we have any information on whether or how long did they honestly continue to live beyond just slowing down, reversing the- 

Dr Andrews: No, it's, it's way too- 

Kush: Do we have any data on that? 

Dr Andrews: It- it's way too new. This product only came out- Way too new, okay ... a year ago. Okay, and, and- Oh, 

Kush: wow, okay ... 

Dr Andrews: so, so, but here's the problem is that it costs so much money to do studies that companies like this, they can't afford to do these studies.

They- they're gonna do a study, I've heard. Um, but it's, it's, it's only gonna be looking at certain biomarkers because it's gonna take 20 years to start seeing if anybody starts exceeding the 125-year limit. 

Kush: Um- Dr. Andrews, [00:45:00] Excuse the naivete, it seems like, the world has been looking for a fountain of youth for as long as we have been alive.

Dr Andrews: Yeah. 

Kush: And if somebody- For a long, long, yeah ... long, long. If somebody has actually found this kind of breakthrough, I would think that, and they have at least some data to show, you know, there's proof of concept, I would think that you would have investors falling, you know, falling over their faces trying to get to them because- I 

Dr Andrews: do.

Kush: I do ... this could be So why, why is it challenging to get funded 

Dr Andrews: Because 

Kush: all the 

Dr Andrews: investments- ... do these studies? I, I call it gauges of success. There's YouTube videos where I explain why, with all these people interested in investing into this field, why it's not getting done. And it's also why isn't cancer cured yet?

Why isn't heart disease cured yet? Why isn't dementia cured yet? It's because these investors, their gauges of success are not curing diseases. Their gauges of success is how much quick return on in- their investments can they [00:46:00] get. And this is a really big problem. So I'm, I'm really... I, I, I turn down investors all the time because they ask me, "How long until I get a return on my investment?"

And I say, "Well, sorry, I just don't wanna be another scientist trying to work, trying to make you funding or fi- investments." I... So I... And plus, I, I have had every billionaire you can imagine come here and try to talk me into letting them invest, but, you know, I, I'll say to them, "Well, will you sign a letter saying that you won't sell the company after we start making you some, after we add value to the company?"

And they won't do it. Okay? They, they, they wanna invest in me and my company, 'cause they look at me as a great way to make a lot of money, but they make most of their money by selling the company at a, for a big profit. And they, when you sell a company, you don't, I don't go with the company. You know, that's the problem.

And it's like somebody else takes over the research, all my IP and things like that. Um, so I, I've become very stubborn. I'm well known [00:47:00] for turning down more investors than anybody on the planet, because I'm just looking for that super, very discreet ultra-high net worth individual that really doesn't care about return on investment.

They just want a cure for aging, cancer, heart disease, things like that. And I'm the guy, but they don't know that, okay? So it's really hard. So that's why I do podcasts like this, is word of mouth might get to some of these people. And, you know- 

Kush: Absolutely ... 

Dr Andrews: even then- Absolutely ... I've gotten to some of these 

Kush: people that- Absolutely, Dr.

Andrews. 

Dr Andrews: Yeah. 

Kush: Absolutely. that makes sense. And yes, hopefully that right person is listening to this podcast and makes that connection. going back to the science and going back to what people are most excited to hear about, what may give people hope, we talked about this particular supplement. We talked about gene therapy.

Anything else out there that- Yeah ... could be promising- 

Dr Andrews: I, okay, so- ... 

Kush: that people should look into? 

Dr Andrews: I, I wanna say something, but I, again, I wanna [00:48:00] emphasize I do not get any compensation for saying what I'm about to say. Okay? This company that sells this product, Touchstone Essentials, has all the best products for reducing the rate of accelerated telomere shortening.

So they, they deal with both sides of the tug-of-war. Okay? I've never seen a company with a better array of products to s- to reduce the number of people pulling to shorten telomeres, and to add people to the other side to lengthen telomeres. I mean, it's, it's, it's a great company. I, I'm a big fan of them.

Um, the only other plug I wanna make is that there's a lot of companies that measure telomere lengths and, and a lot of times they measure only the average telomere length, and that's why there's a lot of misunderstanding, 'cause the average len- telomere length can get longer without being lengthened.

They're actually getting shorter in the whole body. But there is one company called Life Length, L-I-F-E L-E-N-G-T-H, that actually does look at the entire array of [00:49:00] telomeres and, and they tell you what your, not just what your average is, but they tell you what your, what percentage of your telomeres are critically short, and those are the ones really important, and those are also the easiest ones to re-lengthen.

So I'm trying to tell everybody who I- tells me that they take Telavital, I say, "Well, I wish you'd gotten your telomere lengths measured before you started taking Telavital." But, and I'm now telling people, every time, if I say Telavital, I say, "But please, for my sake, get your telomeres measured beforehand by Life Length so that we can see your critically short telomeres get longer," because this company, and no company can afford the intr- tremendous amount of cost to do clinical studies, but we don't need clinical studies.

We can- Sure ... we do anecdotal personal studies- Sure ... we can get the data. Sure. Yeah. I, I have- 

Kush: Doctor, Dr. Andrus, beyond, beyond, Beyond these telomere interventions, anything else in the radar that gives you hope for- 

Dr Andrews: Yeah, no. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of things. Until we [00:50:00] actually have something that lengthens telomeres as well as gene therapy does, I think everybody should be doing whatever they can to protect their mitochondria.

Okay? Mitochondria are the powerhouses inside of our cells. it... When we get telomeres long, I don't think we're gonna have to worry about it, 'cause people don't know this, but 90% of the genes, 90% of the proteins that make up a mitochondria are encoded by the nuclear chromosomes. Okay? And the nuclear chromosomes are where these on and off switches are all, with the dimmer switches that are being tr- treated.

And I, I don't know if I've mentioned, they're all regulated by the telomere length. 

Kush: When... 

Dr Andrews: And so when the telomeres get shorter and shorter, their ability to reach these dimmer switches gets tougher and tougher and tougher, and that's why we see all the changes that occur in all of us as we age.

So, When we get telomeres long again, we'll see that the mitochondria will remain healthy. We'll see that our sirtuins stay at the right concentrations. Well, the whole bunch, all the biomarkers of aging are [00:51:00] gonna reverse, okay? Because, just because of telomeres, 'cause telomeres controls everything else.

Okay, but until we have a way of controlling telomeres, people need to work independently. So mitochondria, again, I don't get compensation for what I'm about to say Take Urolithin A, okay? Urolithin A is something that helps get rid of dysfunctional mitochondria. Okay, now it's gonna be important that you also keep your critically short telomeres longer with something like Telavita because you can't...

When you get rid of your dysfunctional mitochondria, you have to bring in new mitochondria, and the only way to do that is from having healthy, nuclear genes, and that, that requires telomeres being, long. Okay, but so Urolithin A, um, forget the name of the company, Lifeline or something like that. Oh, shoot, I can't remember.

But people can Google Urolithin A Um, the, But also take nicotinamide riboside, okay? There's a whole bunch of different ways of raising [00:52:00] NAD, but nothing works as well as nicotinamide riboside, okay?

And the reason why all the other products are being marketed is because the inventor of nicotinamide riboside is like me. He, he doesn't want false claims. He doesn't want people saying things, and so he's very particular as to what companies he will allow to sell nicotinamide riboside. So there's only two companies that sell it right now.

one, three companies, including their own, which is Tru Niagen. That's the company that the inventor has, who... of nicotinamide riboside. And then there's,Elysium Basis, and then there's, Life Extension Foundation. Life Extension Foundation, that's a really great company. That has, has great products, and I, I think you'll find that...

I mentioned Sandy Kraffman before. She'll she'll probably mention- Mm-hmm ... all the products that Life- Yeah ... Extension has. But, but that, those are the only three places. Then there's other things, like nicotinamide mononucleotide, abbreviated NMN. that's not [00:53:00] nearly as good as, nicotinamide riboside.

There, there's a conference where the videos for the speaker before me showed data as to why NMN doesn't work n- anywhere near as well as NR. And then I got up on stage next, and I complimented that. Reproduces all the results we got here, too. and then, let's see. What else? Um, CoQ10. Um, take your right CoQ10.

And the best source of CoQ10 that I know of is Dr. Amy Doneen, who I mentioned before. Um, she, she has supplements that she sells. She, I don't think she makes any profit on them, but she wants everybody to be happier and healthier. She's, very into preventative stuff. But she, she markets a very, very effective CoQ10.

CoQ10 is a, is a protein that's, or it's a molecule that's involved in, mitochondria function. Um, and, what else? Um- people should, be measuring their aging. DNA methylation is one way to do it, but there's no really good way to control your DNA methylation except for [00:54:00] lengthening telomeres.

the, IgG glycosylation is another way to measure your telomeres, which I really like. it's probably the best one for measuring aging, but again, I think that's controlled by telomere length. and, and I think I've nailed them all. Okay? 

Kush: Sure. No, this is great. Dr. Andrews, zooming out a bit, may I ask how old are you?

And I feel a little emboldened because of this podcast. So would you mind sharing your age? 

Dr Andrews: Well, I'm 74. 

Kush: Okay. 

Dr Andrews: Okay? 

Kush: I, I'm- You're 74 years young. do you plan to live- Long 

Dr Andrews: road. I'm, I, I- 

Kush: Do you plan to live forever? 

Dr Andrews: I plan to, yeah, but it's like, you know, I think of aging as multiple sticks of dynamite that are burning inside of our cells, so we have a lot of different causes of aging.

but the stick with the shortest fuse is our telomeres, the stick of dynamite with the shortest fuse. So we gotta put that one out first, and then I think then I'm gonna have maybe 50 more years to put out the other fuses. But, Like mice don't age by telomere [00:55:00] shortening. That's, I don't...

That's again, why do people spend so much time studying mice? I don't know. But they do age by oxidative stress and mitochondria dysfunction. Now, we actually have ox- oxidative stress and mitochondria dysfunction too, but nothing like we... Nothing like mice. We have 100 times more antioxidants, natural antioxidants than mice do.

But if we put out that fuse on the telomere shortening, that next stick of dynamite is gonna probably make our maximum lifespan 180. Okay? And that's why I said I get 50 more years to figure out how to put that one out. 



Kush: the supplements that you spoke of, what is the right age at which one should start taking them?

The, the anecdotal evidence you mentioned talked about these people in their 80s and 90s. So should people a lot younger should be taking that? I'm trying to- 

Dr Andrews: Yeah. 

Kush: ... give, give listeners a base, "Hey, are we signing up to take these supplements for the next 50 years, for the next 10 [00:56:00] years?" Like, what is the...

And actually also, what, what are the costs of taking this, the main one that you, you talked of? 

Dr Andrews: I, I, I just know that it's not very expensive. I, but I, let me come back. But here's the thing. Everybody, every time any cells in their body divide, their telomeres get shorter, so they are aging. I don't care how...

Even when you're a single cell embryo, when you're a single cell embryo, you have 100 ride tickets, okay? When your cell divides and you become two cells, they only have 99 tickets, okay? Then they divide and they have only 98 tickets, okay? So I believe, and, you know, you can't do this with products like... FDA won't allow you, but I believe that pregnant mothers should be taking products like this.

I can't say that because of the FDA doesn't allow you to say if you're pregnant you shouldn't be taking things. But I think they should be taking it just so their embryos don't have telomere shortening, because [00:57:00] telomere shortening, it does not fe- affect development whatsoever. Okay? You can You will still develop normally no matter what your telomere lengths are, okay?

And then you stop your development, like when you're 25, then all you do is age after that. So like if we were to come up with a drug that reverses telomere shortening, we would never go back to being babies. We would go be back to being 25-year-olds, okay? The,Because we're only reversing aging, we're not reversing development by affecting telomeres.

But I would take... So even young people, they are aging. They just don't see the real big symptoms of it yet, but they're not gonna stop developing. They're still gonna become 30-year-olds and things like that, but they're gonna find that they're not gonna ever become like wrinkled skin and, you know, all that kind of stuff that aging.

They don't... They're gonna slow down, have muscle loss, things like that, if they keep their telomeres long, and you gotta do that. Just start from the [00:58:00] very beginning. But it's never too late to start, okay? Because you can, by taking something like Telavital, you're still decreasing the rate of your shortening or you are at least lengthening the critically short telomeres.

And the critically short telomeres are the most important telomeres to be lengthening. but, yeah, so there's no age. Everybody, every person on the planet should be taking it. But you're gonna find products, this product and other products are gonna have rules on it say, "Well, if you're under 16, you can't take it."

I don't know where that says it on this bottle. "Or if you're pregnant, you can't take it." But that's all FDA rules. Got 

Kush: it. 

Dr Andrews: Got it. General rules for everything. 

Kush: Got it. Doc, and these products, they can influence our telomeres, but most of humanity is still, seems condemned to other kinds of illnesses that have been causing, let's say, premature mortality, and I'm talking about the common ones, you know, your, 

Dr Andrews: Cancer, heart disease

Kush: heart disease and cancers. A- any [00:59:00] Any things happening out there that give you optimism? 

Dr Andrews: Yeah. Well, again, well let me just talk about telomeres first, because almost every disease now on the planet has been associated with the telomere lengths. And, and let me just give you an example. Okay, so like, let's say, let's talk about drinking alcohol, okay?

When you drink alcohol, everybody knows you kill liver cells, okay? And that's okay when you're young because you killed your liver cells, but then other cells divide to replace those killed liver cells, okay? And so you don't even, you're not aware of the fact that you are coming, you're gonna have liver cirrhosis anytime soon.

Because when you, when you, when you're about 40, 50 years old and you no longer have telomeres in your liver cells to divide to replace the damaged cells, you get liver cirrhosis, and that kills you, okay? If you could keep your telomeres long, you could drink all you want and never have, never get liver cirrhosis.

Of course, that's not my mission. But the same thing... [01:00:00] So that's the easy example that everybody seems to understand. But let's talk about the AIDS virus, okay? Or AIDS, that's the HIV is the, name of the virus. HIV specifically kills immune cells, okay? That's okay when you first get infected. You have no idea because you have other cells dividing to replace those killed immune cells.

But the problem is that this accelerated cell division is causing accelerated telomere shortening, and eventually you can't replace the killed immune cells anymore, and you get acquired immune deficiency. Okay? If we could keep telomeres long in people that were suffering from AIDS, they could live normal lives and never be aware that they were even infected, okay?

Even though they are infected. Okay, let's say, let's... One ag- one more example. Muscular dystrophy. Okay? Muscular dystrophy is not a lifestyle choice. That's a genetic disorder. Okay? They, they produce a protein called dystrophin. Okay? Dystrophin [01:01:00] actually accelerates the death of muscle cells. Okay? When you're young, people don't even know they have muscular dystrophy because they have other cells dividing to replace those killed muscle cells.

When the telomere gets short, they can't replace those anymore and they, they die of muscular dystrophy. Okay, so telomere shortening is a number one best thing for everybody to be doing to prevent all kinds of diseases. And let me just go with the big C one, cancer. Okay? And there, there's a good You- There's plenty of YouTube videos of me talking.

I, I'll send you links to those, but one key one was a keynote talk I gave in Tokyo in 2017, where I explained that the number one cause of cancer is telomere shortening, because short telomeres cause skyrocketing mutation rates, which cause cancer. They cause cancers to survive whatever you treat them with.

They cause cancers to metastasize. And if we could keep telomeres long, we would decrease the risk of cancers and things like that, and also increase the life of our [01:02:00] immune system, which is our best fight against cancer. Okay, so, so there's all kinds of things. But let's see. So other things that are coming along that I think are really exciting, um, I, I would say one of the most exciting things I know of is a company called Synap, S-Y-N-A-P.

It's called SynapBio, is their website .com. They are... so, like, when you have a stroke and you have brain damage- You can't repair your brain, okay? Well, one of the main reasons you can't repair your brain is because you actually have inhibitors to brain repair, okay? And the main one is called Nogo-A, N-O-G-O-A.

Okay, so Synap is making an inhibitor of Nogo-A, and when... And again, they are having trouble getting funding too because all the investors wanna turn them into something else to get them quick return on investment. So they're looking for the right investor to, to let them complete their project. [01:03:00] And,but, stroke, stroke patients should come back completely, okay?

Alzheimer's patients should come back completely. This is... So just having the ability to, repair your brain damage is gonna be very dra- dramatic with this inhibitor of Nogo-A. Okay, I'm very excited about that. I'm trying to think of what else. Um, there's a, a Hemostemix up in Canada that's working on, ways of preventing cardiovascular disease and, and cardiomyopathies, that are...

They have a stem cell technology that is really, really good. Again, they're looking for funding. And again, everybody wants to turn them into celebrities that are gonna advertise products and make them a lot of money. That's what they wanna do with me. I just refuse to do it, okay? And, you notice I don't get compensation for anything because if anybody c- offers me compensation, I say, "No.

That'll destroy my credibility." Okay. I, they're, I'm not the only one like that in [01:04:00] the world. There's lots of them. But they're... You know, all the funding goes to the celebrities. That's the big problem with this whole business. Um, 

Kush: and, Dr. Andrews, yeah, no a lot of, lot of, brain fodder.

so many different, products and services for us to look into and research. It does seem that we are at the cusp of something very exciting I know that we only have a few minutes left, but I- 

Dr Andrews: Yeah, 10 minutes ... 

Kush: yeah, I, I did want to spend just a minute and ask you something a little bit different. I know that your pursuit of running has taken you to far corners of the world.

And I happened to learn that you have spent time in the Indian Himalayas, and I happen to come from India, so that caught my And Indian society tends to look at aging a little bit differently than the West. So what did you find there? And I'm curious if it affected your own [01:05:00] attitude to aging.

Dr Andrews: Well, you know, I've spoken a lot in India. I've, I've been spo- I've spoken at some very high-profile conferences, and I have never seen more resistance to curing aging than I have in India, but I understand it. I, I don't complain about it, but I have... During Q&A, I've asked audiences, I said, "Do you really wanna give up your lives so the next generation can have better lives without having to compete with the adults?"

And they all said yes. And I said, "Okay, if that's your belief, I'm, I respect it." But I, I just think that we can actually figure out a way to have everything work. I, I, I talk about how there's gonna be lots of problems with curing aging. Um, and,one is how are the young ever gonna get jobs if the longer lived never retire?

Okay? And, but we'll figure out a way. We... And I, I think humans can adapt very quickly, and the best example of... [01:06:00] ev- ever occur, that I know of how humans have adapted to big changes, is the launch of the World Wide Web back in the, like, '70s, '80s, things like that. Everybody, including myself, we were just freaked out.

We can't deal with this. This is way too complicated. Okay? Everybody fought against it. It's like, "Don't impose this upon us. We can't do it. It's too complicated." Now we can't live without it. Okay? It's like, it's like we adapted, okay? And I think we're gonna figure out ways. I'm, I'm very positive about humans' intelligence, but we...

I'm also very disappointed in the lot of things we do wrong. That's why a lot of animals have gotta, gone extinct because of humans just doing stupid things. But we can be smart. We can figure out how to solve all the problems that curing aging will occur. And again, in my books that I've written, I, called Curing Aging, and the other one's called Telomere Lengthening, I discuss the solutions to all these problems as best I can.

But, you know, I'm relying on other [01:07:00] people to come up with the solutions, and I have faith in the fact they can. I believe that when we do have a cure for aging- When we start seeing all the benefits, we are gonna start finding that even people in India are gonna be thinking, th- thinking this over, and thinking, "Okay, this is actually not as bad as we thought, and it's gonna be a good thing."

it turns out the Indian community was the only community, 'cause most of the other religious... they're focused on a very religious kinda, focus than Christians are, let's say. Um, all the other ones seem to be very in favor of it. Okay? Like, like God kicked us out of the Garden... If you're Christian.

God kicked us out of... Christian or what- whatever. I for- I forget which religion is which. But God kicked us out of the Garden of Eden telling us to find our way back. Okay? We were immortal in the Garden of Eden. Then when we had the Great Flood... I'm not a religious person, but I respect all religions.

Okay? When we had the Great Flood, our average lifespan went from like 900 to like [01:08:00] 80, okay? Because of something else that God apparently did. Okay? I'm not gonna tell you why we age. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say theories on it. One of the hardest ones to explain is how evolution caused us to age.

Why would we ever evolve an aging process, or why did we never evolve a way not to age when aging's bad for us, if we all understand evolution correctly? I mean, God reducing aging is a lot easier to explain, but my goal isn't to explain it. My goal is to undo it. Okay? And I, I think I mentioned in my first book, a representative from the Catholic Church wrote a chapter on how finding a cure for aging is doing God's will.

Because in those religious sects,they are all in favor of... That God wants us to find our way back, okay? And,I'm doing God's will, is what I've been told. Okay. So but yeah. it... I, I was, stunned when I... 'Cause I'd been to India many times, 'cause I run this race. I mean, the it's called the La Ultra The High.[01:09:00] 

It's the, like world's toughest race. Okay? It's 138 miles, 222 kilometers non-stop through the Himalayas of the Northern India at 18,000 feet elevation, and I forget what that is in meters. I think that's 5,000, 6,000 meters in altitude. I'm the longest-lived person... I don't use old, by the way. I- life's about living, not getting old, so I s- I call myself longer-lived, okay?

N- I'm the longest-lived person to ever finish that race, okay? And n- it's nonstop, okay? For 138 mi- it took me 51 hours. I finished in fifth place overall. that's running all day, all night, all day, all night, and three more hours, okay? the, And, and presently I'm change- I'm training right now to break the world record for my age group at running 100 miles, okay?

right now I think it's easy. I think the people my age have been [01:10:00] pretty, bad at ultramarathon running. and except for one guy n- named Gene Dykes, who's actually holds the record right now. But I... he's all in favor of me breaking his record, 'cause he knows I can do it. But I, I'm... The big problem is I wanna do it on a flat course, 'cause I, if I'm gonna break it, I wanna break it as fast as possible, and every year I've signed up for it, they ended up having a blizzard during the race, so I can't, I had to back out.

but, i- if this year in October, the, there's no blizzard, I'm gonna go and break the world record for my age group. 

Kush: Where is this, where is this race that, 

Dr Andrews: In Venice, Illinois ... is gonna give you this- In Venice, Illinois. Um, and so it's in the southern part of... I think it's called Venice, but it's in...

It's called the Tunnel Hill Race, and it's... What's nice is it's flat. Very little elevation change, and it's, it's also, you're not running a, a loop, which is... You, I can't run 100 miles running around a, a loop. It's... You run 25 miles one way, turn around and come back, run 25 miles the other way, [01:11:00] turn around and come back.

Okay, that, there's adventure. I can... Adventure is the main thing that helps make, makes me so I can run 100 miles and hope it never ends. Um, but,that's the race. Amazing. Dr. Andrews, we will be cheering you on this fall as you go and run this race, along with cheering you on for all the work that you're doing to help you, me, and the rest of society experience a longer life.