How Effective Are Longevity Drugs? - Andrew Huberman

We've spoken about this before, but I remember when NMN, rapamycin, NAD, sublingual, mix it in the yogurt, do all of this stuff. I remember when that was going to make us all live to 150. What is the state of the world of longevity drug supplements now? What's happening with that? Yeah, I just did an episode with Peter Ortega. So here's the deal, as I understand it. Peter is pretty bullish on rapamycin. Remember that mTOR, which is expressed at very high levels in essentially all cells of the brain and body during development, declines across the lifespan. mTOR, mammalian target of rapamycin, that's named after the drug that receptor. Rapamycin targets the mTOR and in some sense mimics fasting. Okay, this is broadly speaking. Keep in mind that the studies showing extension of life in different species, including mice, show that being fairly dramatically sub-maintenance caloric extends lifespan, but you're also potentially sub-happiness when you're that sub-caloric. Potentially pretty weak immunologically too, potentially. Potentially physically weak. Okay, so yes, starving yourself within reason can extend your lifespan, but you also starve yourself of joy and vigor, right? I mean, at some point you are sub-caloric enough that testosterone levels plummet in men and women, libido plummets, fertility plummets in men and women. So it's a trade-off. I don't take rapamycin. I don't take metformin. I don't even take berberine, which is poor man's metformin. It makes me very hypoglycemic for reasons that make total sense based on the mechanisms of metformin and berberine. I do take sublingual NMN, but, this is very important, but I don't take it to extend my lifespan. I take sublingual NMN, and by the way, I have no affiliation to any supplement company that sells NMN. I take it because it has for me in my experience, again, this is not a randomized control trial. This would not meet Nortean criteria, Lane-Nortean criteria. It causes my hair to grow very, very fast, which is odd, but other people I know who've taken it report the same effect. Nails very thick and gives me a lot of morning energy. Yeah, me too. Yeah. So that's the reason I take it, but I don't expect it to make me live longer. Now, the history around NMN is worth paying attention to. It was David Sinclair that popularized NMN. Remember, NMN is a precursor to NAD. NR is the precursor to NMN. So there's a phosphate group that gets removed. People that are not David Sinclair are fairly bullish about NR being preferable to NMN, but the people who are proponents of NR, true Niagen-associated folks, et cetera, tend to focus more on the anti-inflammation effects of NR and point to the fact that NR has been shown to convert to NAD in cells more readily than NMN. Now, all I know is that when I take sublingual NMN, my hair grows faster, my nails grow thicker and faster, two effects that I wasn't seeking, but that I'm okay with, and I have more morning energy. I've also taken NR and I didn't notice any tangible effect. I don't take it because it's very expensive relative to NMN. And even though I probably could afford it, I didn't subjectively feel much, which is not to say it isn't worthwhile. People might be interested in taking it. The NMN was popularized because David Sinclair started talking about it on various podcasts. And then he started a company that is evaluating it as a drug in a clinical trial. Therefore, the FDA said the NMN could not be sold as a supplement. That's the way the laws work. But then supplement manufacturers continue to do so. And it does not seem like the FDA is clamping down on it, at least not hard because you can go on Amazon or you can go to any one of these different companies and buy NMN if you wish. So that's the story there. And why don't I take rapamycin? Not enough human data. And honestly, my goal is to live to be 100 or 110 with vigor. And I'm not so interested in living to be 150. Metformin? No, not interested in plummeting my blood sugar. Berberine, not interested in plummeting my blood sugar. It gives me headaches unless I'm eating a lot of carbohydrates with it. The only time I've taken berberine, and I might take it again, is I used to do cheat days. I don't any longer, where I could eat a dozen donuts. If I take 500 milligrams of berberine first, I feel fine. Otherwise, I feel like my eyes get blurry and I want to pass out. That's kind of fun to do every once in a while. But if I don't eat a lot of carbohydrates or sugar with berberine, then I get a massive hypoglycemic headache. And I feel like it almost feels like my head is made of stone. It's very strange feeling. I don't like it. Other things for longevity, taking good care, don't get hit in the head, avoid excessive stress, all the basic things that we all know. So the longevity field is a peculiar one. It could be that Brian is onto something with the exosomes and with the, again, I don't want to throw out things that I'm not aware that he's doing. I think it's some PRP, exosomes. I do red light. I think there's enough data for red light therapy, whole body red light. Yep, naked in front of the panel, 10 minutes, five minutes facing, five minutes from behind or facing away as it were. For sake of eye health, the data from Glenn Jeffrey's lab showing that red light therapy, especially in the early part of the day may offset some age-related vision decline. This is my colleague, Glenn Jeffrey at University College, London, beautiful studies. He might be a fun person for you to talk to. He's been in the game a long, long time. Red light therapy for mitochondrial health, these sorts of things. And then, you know, dosing with stress appropriately, but not overdoing stress, making sure to get enough sleep, having a joyful life. I love this. Joy is efficiency and longevity perhaps as well. You know, I'm bolstered by observing my dad who, you know, might have a glass of wine every once in a while, but never drank very much, who exercises, but never overdid it, who always worked nine to five and then would put down the pen. And he's a theoretical physicist after all, and would focus on walks and getting sunlight and thinking. He would often take walks and think about science, he would tell me, but didn't overwork himself, but was very, very consistent. I think he just filed like more, he's in excess of 70 patents and he's going strong. You know, he was also somebody that in the, moved to the United States in the era of the 1960s and told stories about people, you know, passing joints. And he was like, no, like I worked my butt off to get out of a, you know, a country where they didn't support science. He had this opportunity from the Navy to come here and study on scholarship and decided, you know, he's sort of like all drugs, bad kind of guy. Whereas I think nowadays I and others have a kind of a more adapted nuanced view of things like cannabis, probably okay for some, probably good for others and probably terrible for others. So I think that moderation goes a long way, including in exercise. I mean, if you look at people who marathon and ultra, they don't age as well as in my opinion, as people certainly better than people that are sedentary. But when you look at, for instance, people who are very heavily muscled, they don't age very well. You look at people who do a ton of ultra endurance, they don't age terribly well. You look at some of the older sprinters out there, older gymnasts. I'll pass you a clip of this guy. He's 98 years old. I sent this to Rick Rubin the other day and we were just blown away. The guy doing a two, two fingers of each hand, doing a pull up. I think the guy's Chinese and then doing a skin, the cat. So rolling his feet in, you know, shoulder extension, skin, the cat, then back out and then a chin up and then walking away from it. Now he looks 98 at the level of his skin sag and his space in his, in his gate, but holy moly, does he have grip strength and flexibility? And I want to be that guy at 98. I don't know what he's doing in the other domains of his life, but I'm pretty sure it's impressive. What is the reason for the concern on ultra athletes? Is that free radicals? I've heard that. I don't even know what they are. It's just stress. Right. I mean, and I think at some end, you know, I went up to the Olympic track and field trials in Oregon and it was amazing. And I met some of the best marathoners in the world. And I know Cam Haines and he, you know, and Cam pushes himself hard. I think that again, better that that than to be sedentary, I think for Cam, I can't speak for him, but I don't think he has a choice, but to push himself that way. Um, but, and, and he's pretty, I don't think he's pushing. He's being pulled. He's being pulled. Yeah. Well, and he's got it up. I don't, I think he's, it's all coming through him. I know, I know probably some people are like, oh God, here we go again with that whole thing. But there's something about when you access these sources of, of, of guidance and energy that are outside you that, um, feel bigger than you and are bigger than you. Um, if nothing else, we, we, we can agree on that. Um, Cam carries a fair amount of muscle as well, which I think is protective against some of the muscle wasting that occurs when people are running really far, really long, you know, over and over and over. It's stress. Do you see that guy that ran the entire length of Africa? No, but that's super impressive. World's first, world's first guy. Uh, yeah, from the Cape, Cape town, you know, the absolute bottom to Turkey and it can't be a, a straight. Oh no, no, no, no. It was a huge run for a year. This is some forest dump kind of stuff. Correct. Um, and Ross Edgley, do you remember Ross? He swam around the UK. He was the first man to ever swim around the UK. So he's just completed. He would be great. I'm going to try and twiddle the dials Rob to see if you guys want to speak. He's just completed the world's longest single distance, nonstop swim. How far? 300 miles without touching land, without stopping, without sleeping. It was 50 over 50 hours eating in the water, pooping in the water. The first time he had to go to the fish, the first time he had to go to the bathroom, he's got like a butt flap on his thing. Uh, he missed the butt flap. So then just churned his poop for the next 50 hours. As he did this swim, uh, apparently they, they cut him out of it. And he was, it was like this sort of gray dust inside of him, which is what, if you churn your own feces for long enough, apparently that happens. Um, but Ross was the first man to swim around the UK. Amazing. So he did six hours on six hours off for six months, six hours on six hours off for six months. The human, you know, the, the human spirit is like one of these things that I just marvel in. You might've heard me say that I took my testosterone level from 495 to 1006 last year. And that was done without TRT and under the guidance of Marik Health. Marik Health have the best, most sophisticated and comprehensive service of anyone. In fact, I've loved this process so much that I reached out to the owner so that I could partner with them on the show. Dr. Andrew Huebman is always talking about how important it is to keep on top of your blood work. And if you've always thought, Oh yeah, I really should work out what's going on inside of my body. Marik Health is the place to go. 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