Up One

Dr. Bill - 00:00:04:

Welcome to Up One, the podcast where we take a deep dive into the science behind supplements, therapies, and diagnostics. I'm Sawyer Stone, your guide through the maze of health claims, here to ask the big questions.

Sawyer - 00:00:18:

I'm Dr. Bill Andrews with decades of experience in medical research. I dedicated my career to uncovering the real science behind disease, aging, and human health. On this podcast, we don't just skim the surface of scientific studies. We conduct a critical meta-analysis separating credible research from misleading conclusions.

Dr. Bill - 00:00:46:

There's a lot of noise out there, conflicting studies, bold claims, and endless marketing. Up One is here to cut through it all and bring you science-backed insights that you can actually trust.

Sawyer - 00:00:58:

We're talking prevention, diagnostics, treatments. And the big questions shaping the future of health.

Dr. Bill - 00:01:05:

If you are serious about understanding the science of health and longevity without the fluff, let's take it Up One. Today we're tackling one of the biggest scientific mysteries of all time, aging. Why do we age? Can we slow it down? Is reversing aging even possible?

Sawyer - 00:01:28:

We'll break down the biology of aging from telomeres to mitochondrial dysfunction and discuss the latest research on extending healthspan. Of course, we'll separate real science from hype.

Dr. Bill - 00:01:42:

If you're wondering whether aging is just an inevitable decline or something we can actually change, this episode is for you. Dr. Bill, what are telomeres and what is their role in the aging process?

Sawyer - 00:01:56:

Telomeres are things found at the tips of our chromosomes. I like to think of them like... Ride tickets at an amusement park. Every time a cell divides, one of those tickets get ripped off. And as a result, a cell always knows how many tickets it has left and how many tickets it has already used. When you're first conceived, you essentially have enough ride tickets to do 100 cell divisions. And there's so much cell division between the time that you're a single-cell embryo to a newborn baby that by the time you're born, you only have enough for 50 more cell divisions. And then because of the fact that you still have a lot of growing to do, a lot of, wounds to heal, a lot of, immune functions to respond to, which all require cell division. You keep this telomeres just keep getting shorter and shorter. And by the time your telomeres get down to about 5,000 bases, which is equivalent to about 10 more cell divisions. Cells lose the ability to function. They enter a phase called senescence, and you die of old age. And so fumers are bad. Two of them are short and he was bad.

Dr. Bill - 00:03:18:

So you're saying that we are born with half the amount that we have upon conception? And that basically we're fighting against only having half our entire life.

Sawyer - 00:03:29:

Yes, which is normal, which is normal. So it's not so much fighting, but yeah, I do try to encourage people to fight to keep the telomeres from shortening any faster than they need to be.

Dr. Bill - 00:03:43:

Okay. And how does the telomerase activity influence cellular aging? What potential does it hold for extending human lifespan?

Sawyer - 00:03:53:

None whatsoever, because the problem with humans is that, we don't have any telomerase. Telomerase is an enzyme that re-lengthens telomeres. And we don't have any telomerase in any of our cells, unlike most other animals. And I can tell you that right now, the only animals that we have ever discovered that don't have telomerase to re-lengthen telomeres are humans. Non-human primates, at least some of them, dogs, cats, horses, sheep, pig, deer. And that's it. All the other animals, including all rodents, they do have telomerase inside of all their cells and their aging process is completely, entirely different mechanism than humans. And that's one of the... Critical meta-analysis things that I think is important to mention is a lot of people get that wrong. People keep doing studies on mice and keep thinking that that's going to be telling us a lot about humans. But mice age very different than humans. And even worse is fruit flies and round worms and yeast, which a lot of people do aging in. But I'm getting off subject there. So telomerase is only produced in our reproductive cells. And that's because if telomeres wasn't there, Our children would be born with shorter telomeres than we have because our reproductive cells, when I say reproductive cells, I mean the primordial germ cells, they're called, the cells that end up producing the sperm and the eggs. And to make those sperm and eggs, you have to have cell division. And if you had cell division and telomeres got shorter with each cell division, then babies would be born with shorter telomeres than we have, essentially be older than we are. And their children would be older than them. And we would have been extinct as a species millions of years ago. So, yeah, so the only cells in our body that actually produce telomerase are our reproductive cells.

Dr. Bill - 00:06:00:

That is fascinating and doesn't seem like we've got much of a shot based on that information.

Sawyer - 00:06:07:

For good reason, which I can go into if you ever want to hear about that.

Dr. Bill - 00:06:12:

Well, give me a little snippet.

Sawyer - 00:06:14:

Well, the biggest confusion that everybody has is like, Why have we never evolved away not to age? Okay. And You know, part of my PhD, I've got two PhDs. Well, they're fused into one, but molecular genetics and population genetics. And population genetics is really the study of the how and why of evolution. Why did we evolve the things we did? How did we evolve these things? Where evolution, we usually hear about evolution, it's what and when. You know, but the how and why. So in an evolutionary perspective, People always say survival of the fittest, but it's not survival of the fittest of the individuals. It's survival of the species. Okay, so not the individuals and the species, it's survival of the species, which is most important. So the fittest species is important. And the way for a species to be fit, is to have a lot of diversity within it during big environmental changes that we've had in the history of the world. Uh, it was important that if a species was going to survive, least some members of the species had to have a genetic profile. It would allow them to survive. And so the way to make it so that there's different genetic profiles within the species. It's important to be able to shuffle the genes, okay, which is what sexual reproduction is. And so that evolved about 2 billion years ago, and that was probably one of the best things ever that happened to most life forms that have sexual reproduction is that they increased diversity within our species so that some members would survive. So there is actually no evolutionary advantage. Living longer than it takes to raise your young. And, uh, So after you've raised your young, It's best for the species to eliminate. I call the longer lived. I don't like using the word old. To eliminate the longer lived. Because it increases the opportunity for the offspring to interbreed. More than the parents, the rebreed. Which that decreases diversity. So almost every successful species has found a way to eliminate. Longer lived. There's multiple different ways of doing it, and Humans, dogs, cats, and the other animals I mentioned just did so by shutting off the telomerase gene so that telomeres get shorter. And that way we start getting feeble and inactive and die of old age after we've raised our young. Now, a lot of people will say that the reason why we have telomere shortening is... Anti-cancer mechanism is to prevent cancer. But that doesn't make any sense because... Cancer is good for the species. Okay, to eliminate... To illuminate Humans from uh, after they've raised their young, cancer is a great way to do it. So letting telomeres get short is actually a good thing for the species.

Dr. Bill - 00:09:41:

Okay, so that's interesting that it's the whole idea, you know, societally is to cure aging or to like anti-age your skin and all this stuff. But what's actually best for humankind as a species is to let... The telomeres do their thing and let people die of old age.

Sawyer - 00:10:02:

Yeah, that was before we got smart enough to control our own evolution. I see. Now, our priority isn't the success of the species. Our priorities are the success of the individuals within the species. So we are working on trying to find ways to overcome this, and that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure out how to produce telomerase in all of our cells, not just our reproductive cells. So that we don't have this dumb thing called aging. And I want to do that for our pets, too, because... Like Great Danes only lived nine years, and that's... Great Danes are one of the greatest dogs in the world, and I hate the fact that they're so short-lived. Yeah.

Dr. Bill - 00:10:49:

Yeah, as a pet owner, I agree. Well, can you tell me, there are some recent studies that have identified waves of aging with significant biomarker changes that occur around the ages of 44 and 60. Could you elaborate on these findings and their implications?

Sawyer - 00:11:08:

Okay, so this is a really good opportunity to discuss a little bit about the critical meta-analysis. Aging has never, ever been known as a linear function. We've known for over 50 years that there's different steps that occur in the aging process. Things suddenly, people suddenly notice certain changes at a certain age and things like that. One of the things I work on is delaying those specific changes. But Mike Snyder did publish a paper. I want to say a year ago, two years ago, about waves of aging. I know Mike Snyder. I think he's a great scientist. But I think the only reason that he published that was because of the Publish or Perish phenomena that exist in the academic world, where scientists have to publish papers at a fast rate so that it increases their chances of getting grants. And as a result. They would just look for things that are obvious and well-known that nobody's done any studies on lately. But waves of aging is not a new thing. That's an old thing. And yes, they occur. There's definitely different steps that occur, and they're pretty much correlated with the same ages and things like that. I don't want to go into specific steps because people start looking at me and start seeing that some of those steps have already occurred. But there's obvious signs of aging that correlate with certain ages. And that's why it's so easy for us to tell when we look at somebody how old somebody is within plus or minus five years. It's true, yeah. Aging is not and never has been a linear thing. Unless you study an organism like yeast, then yeah, then it's a linear kind of function, but not in humans.

Dr. Bill - 00:13:15:

Okay. I've got a couple of questions and that maybe you can, if once I give you one question, you can sort of... Cover the whole idea but basically There are so many factors that go into affecting aging, whether or not that's literally or whether that's in our gut that impacts our skin, that impacts our brain or whatever it is. And so it's like how do factors like oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, what about lifestyle? How does that influence the rate of aging, caloric restriction, specific nutrient supplementation? There's so many things in this big, huge idea. I mean, everybody says if you drink 64 ounces of water a day, your skin will be 16 the rest of your life. But what is some of this stuff that is or some of these findings that are actually contributing to aging and what are not actually contributing to aging?

Sawyer - 00:14:10:

Well, I do a lot of YouTube videos on a lot of different subjects. And one of that, what you just mentioned, is pretty much one of those subjects. And if I... Forget to mention one of those things because you mentioned a lot of things. Remind me to address those too. Aging is a pretty much a two process thing. One is all of aging begins with wear and tear. And all the things that you mentioned, like oxidative stress, caloric restriction does the opposite. Caloric restriction actually reduces oxidative stress. That's one of the main reasons for caloric restriction. Inflammation, different terms of exercise. And that's a subject I'd like to come back to because that's kind of got a Goldilocks effect. There's such a thing as too much exercise and too little exercise. And I sometimes speak for hours on just how to do exercise appropriately. So it all begins with wear and tear. All of our organs, all of our tissues. They're kind of made up of several different types of cells. Hundreds of different types of cells, but I'm going to put them into like. Three categories. Okay. One is frontline sales. Those frontline sales are where all the action is. You know let's imagine your kidney or your liver or something like that there's cells on the surface of sometimes these surface cells are internal because things things filter through the organs but there's things on the surface where They're doing all the work to like purify or purify the blood or purify lymphatic fluid or things like that. And these suffer. Wear and tear as a result. Oxidative stress, inflammation, and everything like that increases the wear and tear. In fact, I'm going to just mention almost all of the hallmarks of aging. All involve increasing wear and tear. Okay, so wear and tear is how aging all starts. And I spend tremendous amounts of time on my YouTube videos and stuff like that talking about how to reduce wear and tear, because that's a great way to delay aging as much as possible. But there is this basal level of wear and tear. For normal functions of a lot of the organs and tissues, they have to perform at a certain rate, which means that you lose a frontline cell on the average of once a year. So every cell, a frontline cell has an average lifespan of only one year. Okay, well then when that cell gets lost, Then you have other cells called reserve cells. Okay. And I'm kind of making this sound like a military kind of battle situation where you've got the frontline soldiers and the reserve sitting back in their tents waiting for their chance to go up and be part of the fight. But so the reserve cells, they come move in As a result, for a reserve cell to move in, you have to have... Cell division. To produce more. And the third type of cell is the stem cell. The stem cell is what then makes the reserve cells, which are also called progenitor cells. And so entire time while all your organs and tissues are working. You're losing your frontline cells, reserve cells, and stem cells are dividing to replace those. Frontline sales. And that's where all the problems begin, at least in humans, because, human cells can only divide a limited number of times. As I mentioned about telomeres, you have these ride tickets that allow only 100 cell divisions. So every time you lose a frontline cell, reserve cell or stem cell has to divide to replace that. You lose a ride ticket. After you get past the age of being, raising your young. You've got so many few ride tickets left that... You start not being able to replace those damaged or lost frontline cells. And so that's when organ failure starts occurring. And that's why I always, when I define what aging is, I always say this. Decline and failure of multiple tissues and organs is what the definition of aging is. And the wear and tear starts it. And then the telomere shortening is what actually... Causes the organs to start failing and then you die.

Dr. Bill - 00:18:57:

Is the sell frontline idea. Similar to losing the telomeres in your ride tickets. And so is it like, because you said that you lose a frontline cell once a year, maybe you were just saying that for this example, not literally.

Sawyer - 00:19:13:

No, that is true. That's the average of almost all tissues and organs. And the major tissues and organs that fail, when we die of old age. Yeah, it's average of once a year.

Dr. Bill - 00:19:25:

So then when you're born, then you sort of are guesstimately living to 100 since you have 100 ride tickets and 100 frontline sales. And so these people, these centenarians or these people that are in these blue zones that outlive, I mean, I think we heard last week that a woman was 117 when she died. What did she do to lengthen her telomeres or keep her frontline cells? That's so wild to think about.

Sawyer - 00:19:52:

Well, there's two things. One is a healthy lifestyle. And more importantly, is good genetics. Okay.

Dr. Bill - 00:19:59:

Yeah.

Sawyer - 00:20:00:

Those are the two things. Now. Right now, so when we do the math, and I've done this many times, it's one of my backgrounds is... Is strong in math, mathematical modeling, statistical theory, things like that. And I've done a lot of studies looking at If you had the perfect... Lifestyle and you had the perfect genetics. What is your maximum possible lifespan you can live? And that turns out to be 125 years. And I can calculate that with different ways, which was really good because that supported at least three publications that I know of that came out even before we discovered telomeres. There were people who had done calculations, statistical, more demographic calculations and stuff like that, social discussions, studies, showing that they even predicted that the maximum lifespan of a human was 125 years, theoretical maximum. We can't live longer than that. And let me just say on a side note. Lot of people always when i say that people say well Methuselah lived to be 900 some years uh so did uh oh Noah you know things like that but There's now a lot of data saying that. Their definition of a year was different. They used to go by every year. Was every full moon. Not every season. So they didn't really live that long. They probably lived to be 80 or something like that. But yeah, we have a theoretical maximum lifespan of 125 years. That's because our frontline sales, die on average. Once a year, and we can't reduce that without... Causing health problems. So they die once a year and the cell division to replace those cells. Uses up ride tickets at a rate that limits us. 125 years and we can't exceed that. But yeah, so some of these people that live to be 117 and stuff like that have really good genetics. I've got a really good friend who just is turning 101 in a few days. And I mean, he is, healthiest guy I know. I mean, he is like, unbelievable talking to him. And Boy, Dick Van Dyke. I mean, he's amazing. He just turned 100. But it's not just because of good genetics. It's because of better health and stuff like that. I'm still upset about the fact that George Burns... Just dreamed of giving a performance when he was 100 years old and then when he did turn 100 years old he was too sick and unable to do it and died shortly there afterwards but now because of modern medicine is keeps getting more and more modern.

Dr. Bill - 00:22:46:

Yeah.

Sawyer - 00:22:47:

We're getting a lot more. People living to be 100 and being healthy. And Dick Van Dyke is the model example of that. I wish we could all afford. To be able to do all the things I'm sure that Dick Van Dyke did, but I'm sure he's got perfect genetics too.

Dr. Bill - 00:23:03:

Well, okay, so then with that idea and using Dick Van Dyke as an example, we know that that man danced his whole career and moved his body his whole career. I don't know if you've seen the video of him with... Um, yeah. What's that guy's name that's in Coldplay? Chris something. He does this video and he wrote a song for Dick Van Dyke. And Dick dances in the video. It's filmed at Dick's home with Dick's family. It's a song about love because Dick Van Dyke says that that's what's kept him alive for a long time. Now, we're also going to say there's a bunch of other things like genetics and dancing. But to go back-

Sawyer - 00:23:40:

That's important.

Dr. Bill - 00:23:42:

Yeah.

Sawyer - 00:23:42:

Personality, it's psychology, being loved and stuff like that is a major quality towards extended lifespan. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.

Dr. Bill - 00:23:52:

No, I think that's good because I was just going to say on that same thought process of like movement is really important. Lifestyle is really important. Exercise is really important. Like what are these factors that we can affect by making personal change with diet, with exercise, with persons, with friendships, with love?

Sawyer - 00:24:13:

Reduction of inflammation is the number one most important thing that anybody can do now. That would change later as we come up with more and more telomerase inducers, better and better telomerase inducers to lengthen telomeres. But reducing inflammation is the number one best thing. And inflammation is not something that people are aware of. It's not allergy responses, which involves the IgG. Immune system. It's more IgA, IgG. So you don't really feel inflammation causing all the problems. But reducing inflammation is really important, and people don't really know that they're having inflammation. They don't know what's causing it. And so reducing inflammation is the number one most important thing that anybody could be doing now. I actually highly recommend The ALCAT test, okay, it's A-L-C-A-T. I think there's a few companies that provide that and any doctor can, can go and if you ask for an ALCAT test they can get it for you and what it is They take a blood draw and they send it to a company that does the ALCAT test. There's also another test now called the MRT test, which is apparently the same thing. And it was invented by the same person. Sure why why he did that but um the uh in both cases what they do is they measure like hundreds and hundreds of different foods drugs pesticides, all these kind of things, to find out What causes inflammation in you? Everybody's different. There's no two people alike unless you're identical twins, which I am, which also is still not 100% accurate because the environment plays such an effect. So take the ALCAT test or the MRT test. I take the ALCAT test every year. I've never tried the MRT. It might be just as good.

Dr. Bill - 00:26:21:

I did MRT tests at the beginning of last year.

Sawyer - 00:26:24:

You did? Okay. Well, I, I'm, I'm, I want to do both. I want to do them side by side to see what the difference is. But, uh, They are kind of expensive. And so it's like the best thing. So it might take a while before I do it. But so what I do, so every year, and it changes every year too, because your immune system isn't constant. I will get tested, find out what foods cause inflammation in me. And then I will stop eating those foods. Until next year, when I get tested again, if it suddenly says I'm not sensitive to that food anymore, then I'll start eating that food. And it turns out the foods you eat the most often turn out to be the ones that... End up becoming inflammatory for you. It's not the same as an allergy test. Okay. So you can get an allergy test and allergies. As I mentioned, allergies are more related to the IgE system. Of immune functions. And allergy tests are the ones that cause rashes, runny noses, watery eyes, things like that. We're not talking about that. We're just talking about food sensitivity. And what you can do, it's real simple. ALCAT will take your blood. And when something causes your immune cells to induce, an immune response. They essentially shoot things out like... Like a machine gun shooting chemicals out, pro-inflammatory chemicals are called. And as a result, the immune cell gets smaller. It shrinks, okay, because it's loaded with all these things, and it shoots them all out, and they become smaller. So, ALCAT and MRT both measure. Shrinkage of of these cells. In the presence of certain types of food. And it's a very, very good test. Highly recommend it. But that's not the only thing. Okay. So, but, but I would, I would begin with everybody should get an ALCAT test at least once a year.

Dr. Bill - 00:28:31:

If the test says, like for me, the MRT, said that something like mushrooms and strawberries were really reactive for me, but that most animal byproducts, mainly meat in this scenario, is not. Reactive to me. But I know that when I eat meat, I literally get physically bloated, which to me is a form of inflammation. Maybe I'm misunderstanding that. And then if I eat mushrooms and strawberries, I don't get that same bodily effect. And so that was like so hard for me to commit to getting rid of those mushrooms and strawberries that I love so much and to add back those meats that the test was saying you can eat. And my body was saying no.

Sawyer - 00:29:16:

Well, the bloating, kind of like water retention and stuff like that. Is not 100% the same thing. But I do know a lot of people that say that taking the ALCAT test did. Get rid of their bloating. I wasn't going to get into this, but one of the reasons why I'm vegan is because meats and fowl and fish and dairy contain a very inflammatory molecule called arachidonic acid. I think the best book ever written on that was by, um, Floyd Chilton. Called inflammation Nation. And Dr. Amy Doneen has two books on, heart health and brain health, both of which have to do with inflammation a lot. And then Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn from the Cleveland Clinic. Amy Doneen is in Spokane. She's got a very successful clinic up there. Caldwell Esselstyn is in Cleveland Clinic. And I forget where Floyd, who goes by the nickname of Ski, where he is. But those three books are really, really good. One of the most critical things about inflammation is that they're the major cause of plaque buildup in blood. Okay. And so arachidonic acid, which is found in those things, is something that you want to stay with. I turned out to be particularly sensitive to arachidonic acid, which is all the more reason why I'm vegan. Inflammation is just... Things everywhere. Cells called macrophages are, you know, when they find they're crawling up and down your blood. They find some bacteria in your blood. They shoot machine guns at it, okay, which are free radicals, and their size changes and things like that. So these tests measure all that. Okay. But, yeah, so. I think that bloating is not necessarily just an inflammatory reaction, even though your intestines do suffer one of the most from inflammatory responses when you get something in your stomach and your intestines that are inflammatory. I wanted to, definitely don't want to miss out on talking about exercise. Because, actually I'm an ultramarathon runner. I, I've I've been running my entire life. And I do believe that... There's a proper way to exercise without causing inflammation because over-inflammation or over-exercise will cause inflammation. So does under exercise. If you're a person that runs once every two weeks. And then enters the marathon. You're probably going to do well. Okay. But you're going to end up crossing that finish line on your hands and knees throwing up. And that's really bad for you. And your inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein, CRP and others, If you did a blood test, they're going to show that you really induced a lot of stress in your body. The same with over-exercise. If you are really killing yourself every time and it's like. Winning the races, more important to you than anything else in the world. Sometimes you overdo it, and that also causes inflammation. And inflammation is also going to be the cause of... Knee problems and hip problems and ankle problems because It's not the running that causes the injuries. It's the inflammatory cells all coming to those joints to- And actually, the swelling is also from all these inflammatory cells aggregating there trying to fight whatever your immune system thinks is there invading it. And the inflammation actually causes the injuries, not the actual running. So you want to reduce inflammation, and the way to do it, is to exercise consistently, exercise every day. Keep it fun. When exercise quits being fun, quips. And save it for another day because you'll find after a short period of time. That it keeps being fun longer and you keep doing better. And, literally, I've had phlebotomists take blood from me before, during, and after 100-mile races running. And I have found my inflammatory markers didn't increase at all. Okay, just because I keep it fun. And I'm, you know finishing 100 Mile Race is, well, actually, I've... I've got a lot of accomplishments, including some world records in ultramarathon, but so I'm not as... Inspired as much as some ultramarathon runners are to really do well. I don't mind quitting. Okay. So if I suddenly feel like, okay, this is not good for me. It's being unhealthy for me. I will stop and quit a race and be happy about it and not apologize to anybody or anybody. But yeah, keep it fun. And the other thing is that exercising every day, keeps your joints lubricated. And the lubrication is one of the best ways to... Prevent knee damage and ankle problems and hip problems. People are always saying, most successful longer lived, athletes. Are people that didn't start becoming athletic until they were longer lived. Okay. But I've been running my entire life. I, I competed in my first one mile race when I was 10 years old. Lapped second place twice, you know, uh, and, my, and, you know, I have an identical twin brother, as I mentioned too. So I gotta say. I lapped, we both lapped third place twice. Because we were, neck and neck. The reason we were so fast is because we were competing with each other. And I was on high school track and cross country. I was in track and cross country in college. College, when I went to graduate school, I was competing in marathons. But I've never had any knee problems. I've never had hip problems. I've never had ankle problems. There's no way I'm... Ever going to have to have a knee replacement or hip replacement or Angle replacement, knock on wood here.

Dr. Bill - 00:36:08:

I was going to say.

Sawyer - 00:36:09:

Yeah, it would here. But, uh, my identical twin brother. He actually quit exercising a lot, I want to say 25 years ago. And now he is suffering from all kinds of joint problems and stuff like that. And so, you know, people who say, well... It's all genetics. This is a good example. It's N of 1, so I can't really, I'm not a scientist. I'm not going to say it's proof, but... This N of one, we're just talking about him and my brother. My brother's name is Herrick. I call him Rick. But, uh, the fact that he's suddenly having all these problems and I'm not. I run every single day. I haven't, there's a... There's a website that keeps logs of how many consecutive days people run, and I'm on there. I haven't missed a day of running in five years.

Dr. Bill - 00:37:09:

Oh, gosh.

Sawyer - 00:37:10:

I don't have any knee problems, hip problems, anything, any kind of problems like that. Whereas my brother is now, and I think he regrets. Becoming a non-athlete. And one of the hardest things in the world to do If you quit being an athlete, is becoming an athlete again because it's a real, real struggle. And- But yeah, but so exercise is very important. But there's also things that are important. And I'm going to recommend another book, and that's a book by Dr. Sandra Kaufmann. Called the Kaufmann Protocol. And she's got two books now. They're the best books ever written. And believe me, I've read Them in great detail and I think I wrote the very first review on Amazon.com. She actually, I didn't know her, but I was walking, I was a keynote speaker at a conference one time, and I was walking through the expo, and she comes running out of her booth. And throws her book into my bag and says, read it. And I just kept walking. I thought, oh, God. People bug me like that all the time. But then when I was on the airplane on my trip home, I saw the book in my bag and I started reading it and I was blown away with how good it was because she essentially says all the same things I do when I talk about supplements and things like that. And so now instead of talking about supplements when I'm on stage, I say read her book instead. So it's important to be taking anti-inflammatories, antioxidants as supplements. Lot of people like to get theirs from food. I personally never understood why supplements are bad. I mean, it's like I take supplements and I take healthy foods. But, I think the most important things to take are vitamin D, keep your vitamin D levels up, and keep your omega-3 fatty acids up. Now, I'm a vegan. Omega-3s come from fish, I do take a synthetic form of Omega-3s called Vascepa, only because I'm worried that the Omega-3s from fish might be contaminated with arachidonic acid. I'm also very into organic things. And the Vascepa is not organic since it's synthesized. You know, you can't be perfect. You got to draw the line somewhere. And so I'm very... Very interested in animal health. I love animals. I hate the idea that cows are slaughtered for beef and things like that. But the main reason that I'm vegan is because it's healthy. Okay.

Dr. Bill - 00:40:02:

Yeah.

Sawyer - 00:40:02:

And so if I have to... If a fish has to be killed so that I can get omega-3 fatty acids, I will do it. Though I'm glad that Vascepa has come along. Which is, still not perfect for me, since it's organic. So psychological stress is also a very thing that causes inflammation, bad health, and the biochemical pathways for doing that are a little complex, but they're real. So Dr. Elissa Epel. Is written a book, called the Oh my God. The title in the book, the word telomere is there. Because she talks about the importance of telomeres in psychological issues. But I would read her book on psychological stress. But then you know, there's also oxidative stress and psychological stress is, I always say, the kind of stress your boss gives you. Okay, as opposed to oxidative stress. But boys, smoking, smoking, there's nothing worse than smoking. Okay. Smoking generates all kinds of free radicals. Oxidative stress, and inflammation. Really good example of of how different things can kill you is drinking alcohol. And this is one of my favorite examples. I can say the same about muscular dystrophy and other things. But drinking alcohol is, kills liver cells. And that's okay when you're young because you have other cells that can divide to replace them. But if you're a big drinker and drinking a lot, you're now causing accelerated telomere shortening. I say your frontline cells divide on the average of once a year. Well, if you're drinking, your frontline cells in your liver are dividing a lot more frequently than once a year. The telomeres are therefore getting shorter and shorter because of the cells that have to divide to replace them. And, you know, shortly after you've raised your young... You start suffering from liver cirrhosis and things like that because Your liver cells can no longer replace those damaged cells. Now, I always joke about that. One of the things that I want to do is I want to make it so that... We were always adding ride tickets back. We're always keeping the telomeres long. So that so that one day you can drink as much as you want and never have to worry about getting liver cirrhosis. But I don't drink either, so I'm not speaking for myself. Yeah, so.

Dr. Bill - 00:42:40:

Can I ask you, while we're sort of on this recovery thought process. Not that alcohol is recovery, but some people do say that, they feel more recovered from their psychological stress that they have a glass of wine? Is there other recovery methods? Not alcohol, I'm not saying that. But like a red light therapy or cold plunge, you said something maybe not about a rest day. You said exercising every day. I mean, is there merit to a rest day? These red light therapies, these cold plunge that keep popping up, they're so popular now that most gyms, my gym, has an option for a red light and a cold plunge. Are those things fads? Are they actually working? Are they affecting inflammation, which then affects aging?

Sawyer - 00:43:25:

In my critical analysis, meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies, I really have not found a really convincing argument in favor of red light therapy. Okay. At least in terms of aging and stuff like that and recovering from injuries. I just believe that a healthy diet, especially things that decrease inflammation and things like that, in oxidative stress in taking anti-inflammatories and antioxidants. Are really more important than doing like red light therapy and stuff. But being consistent. If you go to the gym every day, and do light exercises instead of like trying to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Um, you won't have this recovery issues after a while. I'm a big believer. This is, this is a very controversial subject. I'm a big believer in ibuprofen. Okay. A lot of people criticize ibuprofen. But I think it's an extremely great anti-inflammatory. And it's... The big problem with ibuprofen is that it does, clog your kidneys, okay? But not if you drink a lot of water. So, you know, I will take, if I'm out for a run, Let's say I'm in the middle of an ultra-marathon. And 20 miles into the run, I twist my ankle or knee. And suddenly it's sore. Okay, well. It's a little bit sore, but it's going to get a lot sore as soon as all the inflammatory cells start to migrate to my knee and something- And next thing you know. An hour later, I can't run anymore because my knee is locked up. So I would take. Ibuprofen. Just to prevent that from happening. And that's really good. But I'll tell you. I drink tons of water and, uh, it's important when you drink tons of water to match it with your electrolytes. I've invented my own electrolytes. But then a company called SaltStick. Came out with the exact same formula. So now, I buy SaltStick electrolytes, uh, and, uh, I, I tend to take one capsule for every 25 ounces of water I drink. And that keeps my electrolyte concentration inside my blood constant. Humans are like a bioreactor. When you sweat, you're losing electrolytes. So you make certain your water as you drink is equivalent to the same concentration of electrolytes as you sweat. And that way you stay constant inside. And SaltStick is the only one. That I have ever seen that actually does that. So if you're going to do ibuprofen, you've got to keep track of your water and you've got to keep track of your electrolytes. That's my train of thought there. So I will take ibuprofen and then I will continue to take ibuprofen. For a while until I start feeling that, well, never did get any pain, so back to normal. Okay, you got to drink lots of water to keep it from clogging your kidneys.

Dr. Bill - 00:46:43:

Well, as we sort of get to the end of our discussion here today, I do have a question about all the therapies, all the anti-aging therapies that are going on. You know, there are challenges to those and ethical considerations. There are promising areas that are showing signs of producing something that might actually help us. You know, what are your thoughts on some of the therapies that exist? Do you have one that you really like? What are the challenges that you see? What are the positives that you see?

Sawyer - 00:47:12:

Well, the first thing comes to mind off the top of my head is OsteoStrong, okay? OsteoStrong is probably one of the best things that anybody at any age should be doing to increase bone density.

Dr. Bill - 00:47:28:

Can you explain what that is? Because I'm not sure I know about it.

Sawyer - 00:47:31:

Okay, OsteoStrong is a company, actually. Okay, so it's been known for a long time that running. Pounding your feet. Decreases things like osteoporosis. In fact, there's a lot of studies showing that people who had osteoporosis their osteoporosis reversed, by running, okay? And it's the pounding on the ground, reduces cellular changes in your bone structures. To make bones stronger. And even though it's pounding on your feet, the response is throughout your body. Okay, so even pining on your feet is helping your spinal cord and things like that. But now, OsteoStrong, I'm forgetting the name of the guy Zagrodzky, or something like that. Who actually did most of the research to develop that. He started a company called OsteoStrong, where you go in and you sit on machines and stuff like that, that actually put a lot more pressure on the bottom of your feet and other things than running does. And the data, for my meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies has shown that this is way better than just running. Let's see. I mean, therapies are exercise every day. Don't be trying to become Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do light exercise. Just focus on keeping it fun, healthy. Other therapies. Because I really believe that 99% of the therapy is out there. Now, there are some modern therapies like, uh, stem cells and exosomes. Again, Dr. Sandra Kaufmann, who I talked about the books on the supplements. She's an authority on the use of exosomes for helping. And I send a lot of patients her way. She's a doctor in Miami. The bad thing about exosomes and stem cells is that something like only 10% of the doctors at most are legitimate. Most of them, it's too easy for... Anybody to just enter the exosome or stem cell field. And not know a thing that you're talking about. Just... Buying stem cells from somebody, injecting them into people, and acting like an expert and making a lot of money. And so you got to be really, really careful. That's one of the reasons why people... Should listen to me about my critical meta-analysis because I know how to weed out the fakes from the real McCoys. So stem cells, exosomes, gene therapies. Okay. And for gene therapies, I'm going to highly recommend BioViva. Run by a company, Elizabeth Parrish is the founder of that company. She's doing a lot of really excellent gene therapies. They're expensive, but... They are therapies that work really well. Seems like almost everybody is trying to find, cheap therapies and then try to find a way to market them and usually to market them they have to make false claims, but not necessarily because they believe their faults. They just don't understand it, and they believe it's real. So I don't want to- There's nobody I'm going to point a finger at saying they're intentionally lying, okay? But there's a lot of misunderstanding, I think, by a lot of people. So a lot of the therapies, I'm trying to think of any particular therapy. I mean, definitely. Get a really good heart doctor, even if you're not suffering from heart disease or something like that. I highly recommend Dr. Amy Doneen in Spokane, Washington. She does online appointments. Plus, she gives free webinars. You can always tell when somebody's really passionate about what they're doing and they're not in it for the money. They're just interested in making people happier and healthier. Dr. Doneen would do... Webinars like once a week. Free. People don't have to pay to attend them just because she's interested in educating people. To controlling your glucose levels, your insulin resistance and things like that are really important things to be considered. There's a lot of sugar, not just glucose, but fructose and sucrose and things like that that are in your diet that really aren't doing you much good. I try to say try to keep your glucose levels to no more than 20 grams a day or your sugar levels to 20 grams a day, especially if you have cancer and stuff like that, because cancers survive on sugars. That only enhances their growth. I would say toxins, boy, removing toxins. Find find a, good company that has a really good toxin. I'll say one of the best ways I know of to reduce toxins is uh, Zeolite. Zeolite is a chemical that's kind of like a cage, okay, that traps toxins and stuff like that and removes them from your body. Zeolite is something that's naturally found, okay, and that you can take. One of the supplements that I didn't mention before that I really like is Shilajit. But Shilajit has a lot of side effects. And it turns out that the most active component in Shilajit is fulvic acid. And so I highly recommend fulvic acid. And I think you'll find that reading Sandra Kaufmann's books, she says the same things.

Dr. Bill - 00:53:28:

Dr. Bill, can you discuss the role of senescent cells in aging and the potential of senolytic therapies to improve healthspan?

Sawyer - 00:53:36:

Senescence is... Gotten in the news a lot lately. A lot of people marketing things. There's something new called SASP, which It's been, SASP has been around forever. Senescent cells do cause... Damage to other neighboring cells and stuff like that. That's not new. It's just for some reason gotten a new buzzword. But, uh, senescent cells are important. I mean, that, okay, so the thing that causes senescence in human cells in 90 plus percent of the cases. Is the short telomeres. Okay, so cells become senescent because of the short telomeres. What my research is all about is trying to induce telomerase to... Overcome senescence or to prevent senescence. And actually, there's studies now saying that you can actually take senescent cells. And induce telomerase expression in those senescent cells by gene therapy type of techniques. And it actually turns the senescent cell back into a normal cell. Okay, so, Senolytics, is It's a new thing. A lot of people are trying to market that, but I'm really afraid of Senolytics. Okay. I am not in favor of it. I mean. Probably the best combination for Senolytics is a combination of isatin and quercetin. It specifically kills off senescent cells, but It worries me. Is that... It's well published that, elderly people, like people over 65. About 50% of their cells are senescent.

Dr. Bill - 00:55:28:

Oh my gosh.

Sawyer - 00:55:29:

If you kill off those 50% of the senescent cells, That could be the same as like getting 50% of your body to be burned, your skin. And I mean, your skin is an extremely important organ.

Dr. Bill - 00:55:44:

Yeah.

Sawyer - 00:55:45:

If you don't have active skin, you're going to die. Okay. And I'm worried that senolytic therapies are going to actually remove too many senescent cells. And, uh, cause major health problems. And the other problem is when you remove these senescent cells, which are usually frontline cells, other cells that are near senescence. Have to divide to replace those cells. And as a result of the additional telomere shortening that occurs from that division, they then become senescent. So getting rid of senescent cells with senolytic drugs is actually going to... Make more senescent cells. And then killing those, it's going to be, you're eventually going to not have any skin, especially if you're elderly. And that scares me. So I'm a little bit concerned about it. I believe Senolytics, would be a really good thing. After we have something, after we discover something more potent than we have. Now, we have, there's nutraceuticals out there. We have the... We've discovered the most potent nutraceuticals on the planet for inducing the expression of telomerase. And, uh, We have shown that by the fact that it actually does. Induced the telomerase gene to turn on to produce the mRNA, which is the most sensitive assay for telomerase, is to measure the mRNA. And so… That product will be coming out fairly soon. We've had a few others in the past that were weaker, but this will be the most potent. But there's also something called gene therapy, which is actually working really well. The problem with gene therapy is it's extremely expensive. Uh, and uh, uh, but, I, I, and and it's still in clinical studies and stuff like that. And I have a feeling that, uh, Continuing our research in finding nutraceuticals and stuff like that, will make us so that we have better nutraceuticals. Than the gene therapies, are by the time gene therapies get through all their clinical studies. But in the meantime, I highly recommend gene therapy if you can afford it. I would be okay with people taking Senolytics. If they were also combining it with a telomerase inducer. To make it so that... Those near senescent cells. Can divide to replace the loss in the cells. And this is something, really hard to explain. Telomere shortening and lengthening. So you only lengthen in the presence of telomerase. And shortening is caused by. Cell division, and it's not wear and tear. I mean, the telomeres don't degrade or anything like that. It's just that when a cell divides, it has to make a new copy of the chromosome, and that new copy is always shorter. In my videos, we use Brick Lane as a model, and somebody's got to just watch that video to see what I'm talking about. But there's no, it's not degradation or... Refrain or all the kind of different words that people use. And I compare it to a tug-of-war. Okay, so you got shorteners and lengtheners working at the same time if you're producing telomerase in your cells. If you're not producing telomerase, you only have the shorteners just pulling to shorten. The telomeres, but it turns out that when the telomeres get shorter. Shorteners get really weaker. Okay. And so it turns out that when you have near senescent cells, which are going to have critically short telomeres, even the weakest. I hate using the word weak because there's no such thing as weak when any telomerase is better than no telomerase. But when you have low levels of telomerase, even the low levels will increase the telomeres a little bit to make them a little bit longer. Which will increase the chances that the near senescent cells will not become senescent when they divide to replace the senescent cells. I believe that I would find one that has my seal of approval. Take that nutraceutical. Combine it with us analytic then you're you're in the best of all worlds. And then maybe you don't even need that Senolytic. Because the fact that keeping that telomere from getting even shorter than what's called critically short. Is going to make it. So that, another cell can divide to replace that cell, and another cell can divide that cell, and you never have to worry about getting rid of senescent, cells because you never make senescent cells. So, so yeah. So, I have a feeling that, that, some of these nutraceuticals, especially the most potent ones we have found. Will make it so that people don't make senescent cells. We'll see. Studies are still undergoing and things like that, but because they're nutraceuticals... They don't require FDA approval because they're already generally regarded as safe. And so I'm looking forward to... Studies being done when actually... People start taking these nutraceuticals.

Dr. Bill - 01:01:20:

Good to know. Thank you. I appreciate you hanging out with me today and talking and answering my questions and giving us your critical meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies information back. And I really enjoyed our podcast today.

Sawyer - 01:01:35:

I enjoyed it too. Thank you very much. I look forward to our next talk.

Dr. Bill - 01:01:44:

Thanks for joining us on Up One. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who's curious about the real science behind health.

Sawyer - 01:01:55:

Have a topic you want us to break down? Send us your questions. We're here to help you separate fact from fiction.

Dr. Bill - 01:02:04:

Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and let's keep taking it Up One.