Experiences with offsetting aging effects

This theme came up from discussion in a Reddit aging related sub-group, here.  The title for that post was "experiences with reversing aging," which this title version probably corrects a bit.  You can really offset some of the effects, maybe even reversing what is regarded as an irreversible outcome in some cases, but in general it's about positively affecting general health, not turning back the clock.  

To me it's not about aesthetics, but it could be for others.  It also doesn't tie so closely to health markers, from doing bloodwork (general health assessment), but I did just check those results within the last couple of months, and they look ok.  I missed the last two company health checks or I could've assessed changes.  I've started fasting practices and have escalated running volume over the last 2 1/2 years; those recent markers should be better than earlier ones.

Let's start with that post; it also includes limited intro, so a lot of that would be overdoing it:

It's not really one of my things, as it is with Bryan Johnson and those other typically sketchy aging research guys, but I've had limited experience with seeing the effects of aging reverse. My hair was greying some years ago, and it has almost entirely returned to the original color. To be more specific my son counted 13 grey hairs about two years ago, and there are just a few at my lower temple now.

To back up a little I'm 56. In some other ways, partly related to appearance, I haven't aged as fast as I might, with my skin holding up decently, not using reading glasses, still exercising, etc. I can't know direct causes but I'll speculate about that here.

I took up periodic fasting just over 2 years ago, now fasting 5 days at a time, 4 times a year, but it was more that first year, nearly a month in total. I've been running a lot for 3 or 4 years, but I've levelled off at being able to run 10 km three times a week; I can't seem to recover from more than that. I don't know if it makes a difference but I've been eating a little goji berry most days for a number of years (said to help maintain eye health). I've improved my diet quite a bit based on resetting it related to fasting, and have been keeping up with sleep for years. A long cycle of meditation practice may have helped with memory issues.

I have kids, and had them late, so most of that didn't apply in my 40s. I was definitely out of shape over that decade, not exercising much, but I stayed active. I suspect that being a little underweight during my 20s and 30s, related to being a vegetarian then, may have been an earlier cause for slower aging.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that people try to suspend aging, but maintaining exceptional health seems reasonable.

Feb. 2025; looking a bit middle-aged, ok for 56

The "typically sketchy" part, about aging researchers, relates to them often seeming to package a product as much as search for answers for the benefit of society.  It's as well to not get side-tracked on that critique; parts of the research must hold up to further review, and will benefit many people.

Commentary

That group focus on a narrow range helped shaped what I tried to communicate there, on aging as affecting appearance and some narrow ranges of health.  Without that group-location framing I'd tend to focus more on discussion of just improving health, in general.  I'm also in a biohacking group on Reddit, which I might comment in but never post to, which would be more concerned with supplements, especially experimental versions.  Some people there see fasting as a functional form of biohacking.

Since I don't know the cause and effect sequences of making a few lifestyle input changes it's all vague enough.  I think fasting made a lot of difference, but any positive changes could have related mainly to better diet and getting more exercise.  I'll run through some potential positive changes in more detail here.

Life and location change as a possible input:  three years ago my family moved our kids to Honolulu, Hawaii to go to school here instead of Bangkok, intending to relocate my work, which never worked out.  I've been back and forth since, spending most of my time still in Bangkok, and working remotely part of the time.  

It may be that living a more active life in Hawaii changes things, even though I've only been spending 3 months a year here, while they spend 9.  I swam a lot this spring (in March through the end of May); an input like that couldn't hurt.  "A lot" is relative; I was swimming about 500 meters about 3 days a week, in the open ocean, out to a flag and back in a swim lane.  My son trains for competitive swimming and his daily practices cover a lot more distance, every day versus my weekly total.

out for an early run around Diamondhead

I swim out to that flag, and see turtles there (tourist for scale)

Diamondhead from my daughter's former school

Genetic factors:  one input I see as relating to appearing younger is kind of a random thing:  I have oily skin.  If I don't shower twice a day I end up looking a bit greasy, while living in a warm or hot climate.  That may be relatively equivalent to people using a lot of moisturizer in a cooler and dryer place (which I don't use).  My sister also looks quite young, also in her 50s, and good genetics for aging gradually probably go well beyond that.

these guys are holding up well

Food preferences probably have a lot of effect, along with eating what might be considered a good diet.  The luck of the draw might factor in, related to the former.  Thai food is typically based on natural, whole foods, not involving that much processing, even though use of frying and addition of some sugar does come up. 

I drink an awful lot of tea; it's odd that I didn't mention that in passing in that post.  I've considered before that beyond some polyphenols potentially supporting health, or offsetting aging effects, just ingesting extra minerals every day might make a difference.  Tea plants collect and store minerals, in addition to some contaminants, so I may be keeping topped up on a range of minerals.  Who knows about effects beyond that; maybe it is unusually healthy.

I started drinking coffee again within the last 6 months.  I can't imagine that's having a lot of effect either way, especially since I never drink more than one large cup a day (maybe 10 to 12 ounces), but it's an example of how other inputs keep shifting.  I last meditated regularly nearly two years ago; that's another example of ongoing changes.

Supplements, including anti-aging supplements:  I mostly take a multivitamin, magnesium, and D when I'm not getting that much sun.  I was also taking fish oil for awhile, and replace some salt intake with a potassium chloride based salt product; that's about it.

I also eat some goji berries most days, which is said to contain zeaxanthin, one of two compounds that promote eye health (along with lutein).  My wife said that it would help with eye health and hair loss, but who knows about traditional Thai medical claims.  It seemed like a bit of extra vitamin A couldn't hurt; those are supposedly a good source of that.

There are a broad range of other supplement or drug compounds being developed and tested now, but I don't really investigate those much, never mind taking any.  I'm more ok with aging normally than being a test subject, even though I am concerned enough about health to put effort into all of it.

Recommendations, and justification for them

Exercise:  there's no need to justify endorsing exercise, right?  I can add that running just a little early in my practice, starting nearly 7 years ago, seemed to make a lot of difference, but my cardio conditioning only improved once I ramped up volume.  I run 20 miles / 30 km a week when I'm more active, and maybe two thirds of that when I'm inconsistent, with some extra multiple week periods "off" in the past year or so.  I was more consistent and diligent before moving back and forth to Hawaii made that difficult.  It's not about making the time, or jet-lag disruption, but instead valuing the time with my kids in a different way after we re-unite.

If I run consistently for about 6 weeks my conditioning will change a good bit right around that time, but if I run consistently for only a month it won't.  I'm not implying that your health would change a lot, if you could lean into it all for 2 to 3 months.  Maybe that's true, and probably race conditioning works like that, but I don't know what supports general health well enough, versus what will "drop time" on training paces.

Fasting:  I suspect that fasting makes a lot of difference, but I'm not completely sold on hearsay related to autophagy, the process of your body recycling mis-folded proteins or whatever other damaged material.  Supposedly this always occurs in your body, and helps offset varying long term health issues, but vigorous exercise triggers more of it, or fasting for around 48 hours or longer does.  But if you try to look up research papers linking that this does occur, and that it relates to specific health-related outcomes, it's not easy making the connections.  

Again this isn't a claim either way.  I suspect that I am slightly mentally clearer related to periodic extended fasting, but who knows.  You could observe what you expect to, to some extent.  I also feel like I have more energy when running, that maybe greater "metabolic flexibility" helps with that, training my body to also use fat as an energy source.  I don't mind at all when meals run late, or skipping one is fine; I'm a lot less constrained by habitual eating now.

Diet changes:  my diet was never bad enough for me to see change effects in the same way someone moving off a truly bad diet could.  I took up being a vegetarian over 30 years ago, and tried to eat a healthy, balanced diet based on essentially no actual meat input for that next 17 years.  I was the "lacto-ovo" type; I still ate dairy and eggs, thinking that it would help me avoid deficiencies.  Then I think the deficiencies did enter in, around 13 years ago now, and my immune system stopped working normally.  I had been fine for that first decade, living in the US, watching my diet and eating supplements to help, but after I moved to Thailand I ate meat-based dishes without the meat, and it wasn't the same.  More idle speculation, probably, but that was my take.

So I'm describing improving an already pretty decent diet over the last few years, already based on input of plenty of fruits and vegetables, and whole grains, along with good quality meats input.  I've not eaten much for junk food, processed snacks, and fast food for a long time, with the exception of eating a good bit of ice cream.  Moving back to the US did add some challenges, since it's easy to appreciate different kinds of snack foods, that weren't options back in Thailand.  Those tubs of chocolate chip cookie dough are nice; I may have noticed the input of eating that on my body weight and cholesterol score.

Summary perspective:  the implied claim here, in all of this, is that I feel like I'm really 30 or 40, and not 56, and I guess that sort of holds up.  My exercise recovery is a lot slower; it's all that I can do to recover from around 30 km of running a week (20 miles), which to me doesn't seem like that much.  I switched to 12 km runs here in Honolulu, with hill sections (running around Diamondhead), and I could keep that up indefinitely on an 8-day, 3 run cycle, but not quite 3 times a week.  With more conditioning I could've got there; I was trying to ramp up and maintain that within a 2 month or so cycle.  But it's hard to make changes to training volume or intensity at this age, and I've experienced very minor injuries before that highlight that those can only occur gradually.

I guess that I feel fine.  I keep busy and active, walking a lot, doing many other things, and never feel like it's too much.  I don't notice much for aches and pains, or digestive system changes, or whatever else.  I really did feel less clear in my early 40s, when I was still adjusting to a busy office-life experience, but adding running seems to have resolved some of that.

I wouldn't consider TRT / HRT because all of that seems fine to me.  I don't see anything wrong with others making that choice, but I don't experience any of the other symptoms it's supposed to correct for (low energy, mood issues, problems with exercise, body composition, or sexual function, etc.).

Recommendations:  I should close this by recommending truly low-hanging fruit, what I think would make the most difference the fastest.  It's diet change.  For people accustomed to drinking soda just dropping that out would make a lot of difference.  Drinking water should be fine, or tea or coffee as a healthy input, or tisanes, herb teas.  Maybe drinking enough water alone would make a difference, versus falling short daily, or just getting enough sleep.

Changing diet could relate to making small, periodic changes, like swapping out fast food for cooking healthy natural food versions, or chips for nuts, or maybe replacing processed deserts with fruit.  Fasting makes this easy, because it's easy to see each break and renewed eating cycle as a reset.  But there must be other ways to push the same effect, like making a few small changes at the start of every month.  I "only" fast about 20 days a year, so not a high proportion, and I've gained weight over the past two years, so using fasting to lose weight would require a more specific focus on that.

Listening to your body is important.  The amount of sleep that's enough would vary by person.  Poor diet inputs or unusually helpful inputs also would vary by person in relation to positive or negative impact.  Related to exercise more would be better up to a point, but at middle age injury is an early warning sign that you're progressing too fast, and that's no good.

Being open to life changes may make a difference.  Of course it would help if those are positive.  I went through a period of meditating a lot, the second I've experienced in my life, and that seemed to help.  Getting a new pet can change things in a positive way (although losing one can also be really rough).  Life connections and activities seem to make a lot of difference.

Having kids late seemed to help.  I've been playing in kids' play areas for years (14 or 15), going to water parks, ice skating (a lot; the kids took lessons), biking and hiking with them, and so on.  That decade off exercise involved a lot of activity.  Some of it is just mental, not seeing yourself as sedentary and inactive, but it seems important for that to connect to physical activity.  I don't think it needs to be all that strenuous; hanging out laundry or doing gardening could be enough, to maintain flexibility through varied movement.

my other babies; I miss them terribly, while I'm away for this month

Beyond all of this I think accepting long-term transitions like aging is helpful.  You can focus on health, and change that, and some "symptoms" might diminish.  But in general life is about change, and walking a changing path, so feeling negatively about that context could be unhelpful.  Leaning into whatever activity works for you could tie in with feeling positive about your capacity, and enjoying different activities.  We--as a family, essentially--took up pickleball this year; it's nice when those can involve some limited exercise.

more on this here, especially relevant to people in Honolulu

good experience of meaning can't hurt

Potential fasting health benefits; normalizing fasting practice

 

The last post about fasting experience settled in on "why?," never fully resolving that, and I'll only repeat that theme a bit here, extending it to two different directions.

The main answer in the past has been "to experiment."  Of course most people fast to lose weight, but my own body weight seems strongly inclined to return to the previous level (about 74 kg or 165 pounds), and since that's reasonable I don't try to adjust that.  Maybe I should shift back to more like 71 kg / 160, and will at some point.

After 20 days of experience of not eating that initial experimentation phase is kind of done; so what's next?  Any answer would relate to potential or expected health benefits, so lets summarize that, after placing why I'm trying to communicate this.

I would like to share these ideas to make the option to practice fasting open to more people.  I don't need to validate what I'm doing, to get others to join in so it makes it seem like it really does make sense.  For the most part I don't care what other people do, or think.  Related to helping other people I make an exception, and then if I can I do.  So I guess all this is a claim that I buy into the health benefits?  I'm a bit skeptical, but otherwise I do.

On to potential benefits.

Fasting may enable metabolic flexibility.  This would allow someone to use body fat energy more effectively, which could apply well to exercise, not just to not eating, although I guess also to being able to skip lunch.  I do seem to experience improved energy level on longer runs.  

I last tested out running four miles on day 4 of a fast, so completely into ketosis, with glycogen reserves long since expended, and that went ok.  I was experiencing minor knee soreness (so probably shouldn't have even ran that), so I didn't try out a longer test.

Fasting reduces insulin resistance:  This actually seems to work; it seems more clearly documented as an actual positive effect.  For people at risk of developing adult onset diabetes--which is a significant risk for me; both of my grandmothers and one uncle developed that--they can reduce that risk through fasting, moderating body weight, and reducing high levels of intake of carbohydrates, especially refined sugars. 

There's nothing necessarily dangerous about all refined sugar intake, per my understanding (which is not necessarily well-informed), it's that it's easy to bump that to very high levels, and then actual risk does come up.  Drinking 32 ounces of soda relates to about 100 grams of sugar consumption, at around 336 calories, or one sixth of a normal day's dietary caloric intake.  That's like eating 6 1/2 apples; which would take longer to digest for all that fiber, even if you could eat that many.  Risk also relates to that being empty of any other nutrient content, to that potentially adding to a positive caloric balance (more taken in than used), and to problems with your body handling the related blood sugar.  Conversion to body fat can occur, and some other negative side effects, and to developed insulin resistance.  

It's probably better to moderate body weight and mind dietary inputs than to use fasting to offset impacts of being overweight and eating a bad diet.  Or doing both is an option.  Maintaining significant muscle mass also helps (not like bodybuilders, I mean average or more than average), for different reasons, especially since muscle tissue stores glycogen (reserve energy), but I don't want to write out too many tangents in this.

Fasting may reduce visceral body fat.  There are tests for this sort of thing, so I could be documenting this (my actual proportion of body fat by location), but I'm not.  The idea is that fat in or between organs is used first when fasting, and that first change is not at all just a cosmetic concern.  Liver function should improve as a direct result of regular fasting, if fat deposits in the liver were an issue to begin with.  How often is that relevant though?  Who knows.  Blood compound markers would show that, but I'm not minding those, and missed my last annual health check at work due to being out of the country then.  

I can add that I've put on about 3 kgs (6 1/2 pounds) over the last two years and my waist size was a little larger a year ago, and then bumping running volume and perhaps fasting dropped it back to where it had been.  Thinking it through storing visceral fat in the form of what is in between internal organs may or may not be a bad thing, but it seems clearer that storing fat within your liver is a problem.

More mental clarity, reduced aging effects:  hard to say about these kinds of changes.  I feel ok, probably a little clearer, but that's hard to track.  Maybe I do have slightly less grey hair than a year ago, which is odd.  I can even sometimes see eyebrow hair change from white to brown again, since those being two colors stands out more--hard to place that.  I've been running more since then too, really keeping up with sleep, exercising a lot more, and my diet has improved a bit.  

And I've ramped up intake of goji berries as a daily supplement; that might've helped.  I finished a kg I bought in mid-June recently, so I seem to be consuming 350 grams or so per month, just over 10 grams a day, a good bit.  Why?  My thinking was that I try to eat a lot of fruit but don't get to that every day, and I definitely can put 10 grams or so of dried berries in hot water and then consume the infusion and fruit, every day, regardless of what I happen to be eating that day.  Supposedly one compound in those offsets aging impact, but even if it's the nutrients in them that are healthy instead that also works.

Fasting may offset cancer

This is a big one, and this tangent runs longer than I intended, since I've been reviewing this subject a good bit lately, just not necessarily in a focused form.  

I have no idea if fasting does really offset cancer risk or assist with resolution, but many, many sources claim that both do occur.  I can't sort out which potential claims work or don't work, or when and how they apply.  From catching a bit of cancer experience related Youtube content--which I'll say more about here--cancer cells do consume a lot of blood sugar, so that a main way of tracking growth of such tissue is to just monitor where the most is being consumed in the body (after you ingest some radioactive sugar; kind of a strange process).  I'm not really caught up on what my cells are using for an energy source right now (it's day 2 of a fast, as I write the first draft, long before posting this), but of course my carbohydrate intake is over, for now.  I'll probably be "in ketosis" later today, whatever that means.  

Autophagy is said to occur during fasting (and it really does, but exactly what that means is harder to pin down).  At a minimum your body consumes internal body fat (of course; how else could you stay alive, since only using muscle tissue as an energy source would make less sense), and it may recycle all sorts of damaged cells.  It's a complicated subject though, one that's hard to sort out.

Someone could easily turn up a lot of content saying that fasting really does offset cancer risk (this is an interesting example), or support treatment / resolution, but how good any of those sources are would be hard to settle.  Cancer isn't just one thing, and experiences would vary, and a topic like that naturally relates to a lot of people repeating what they want to be true, filtering their own reference source input.  A lot of light medical advice looks more solid than it might really be, and a source citing other sources isn't clearly well-grounded until you also evaluate those.  That linked video reference cites a lot of research background, but even for those kinds of sources you need to be careful; you might read only about studies supporting some claim, when conclusions from other studies also reject that connection.

Those cancer related accounts come from running across a Youtube channel about someone experiencing cancer, Paul in Perth, and then the Youtube algorithm showing me plenty more of that since that's how it works.  If you watch one channel about puppies, even if you're not subscribed to it, you'll see lots more of that in your feed there.  It can be a little depressing, watching people talk about dying, but for the most part those stories are about being hopeful and positive when things are dark for them.  To me those people tend to be more inspiring than any other accounts of any subjects.

In a comment I asked Paul in Perth if he could use fasting for cancer resolution and he said that it could have potentially helped at an earlier stage, but for his disease being so far progressed negative effects related to recovery from chemo treatments made it relatively unsuitable (per his understanding, related to his own condition and type of cancer).  

I just saw a video of a guy literally at the end, Daryl, saying that he was signing off since he would die within a day or two, and he was much more positive and upbeat than almost any movie review content.  He showed a box / urn he picked out, shook it, and said "this is light; I guess I'm not in there yet."  A 16 year old girl, who goes by So Fia, ended a long series of posts about her struggle focused entirely on the positive, about her love of life, and appreciation for what she had.  She was so much stronger, braver, and more wise than any other "healthy" influencer type I've ever seen.  The main message is usually one of hope and optimism, about appreciation for life, not fear of death.

None of this related to fasting, to be clear.  None of them even tried it out as a form of partial resolution, although there surely are videos out there about people who did feel fasting helped them, which again would be hard to evaluate, or people trying it and not noticing any positive difference.  

Should those people have tried it out?  I have no idea.  According to health claims within "fasting circles" of course they should have, but personally I can't place that.  There is no clear cause and effect for why they developed cancer, or why others experienced miracle recoveries that they did not, some related to fasting and many more not (the first guy I mentioned a video channel for is still alive; the other two are not).  

In many cases people link cancer experience to high carbohydrate diets (back to hearsay input from cancer patients, to be clear).  Discussion of treatment experimentation comes up more related to keto-oriented diets (more than fasting, I suppose, at least per limited and random sampling).  That's not intended as a claim that generality or that resolution practice is effective, I'm referencing their understanding.  In looking up those video links this content creator thinks his cancer stemmed from a vitamin D deficiency, oxidative stress (from multiple inputs), from alcohol exposure, and a high carbohydrate diet.  Who knows; maybe those were the main causes, surely along with genetics.  

I've skipped including links to people claiming fasting helped them resolve cancer experiences here; even a post focused on that topic would be taking on a lot.  I'd also be careful of trusting what seem to be very well grounded but light information sources online linking fasting with cancer prevention or resolution, of which there are many.  It can seem that if one source might be valid or could be questionable that 10 taken together must be reliable, but many people make videos citing the same studies on mice that may or may not mean a lot related to actual human experience.  They might be generating that content with a slightly different spin mostly to draw viewership, without really turning up any new insights, or in some cases even without reviewing more grounded sources.

Why would I embrace fasting as a means to potentially offset a risk that's not necessarily high for me, when it's hard to clearly determine the linkage that it even works (beyond a lot of claims floating around)?  One partial answer is that I'm discussing potential reduced risk of dying, at a cost of not eating sometimes.  I've spent roughly 20 days fasting over the past year (25, after editing this; I just finished another 5 day fast), and the main cost or impact was increased hunger and reduced clarity and energy level over that time.  All of that was much more moderate in the last fast, and hunger is much more of a non-issue this time too.  People actually claim that fasting improves mental clarity, but what I mean here is that energy level fluctuations have an impact, especially in the first 3 or 4 trials.

Another partial answer is that reduced cancer risk isn't really the main benefit people associate with fasting, beyond weight loss, and it's not necessarily a main reason I'm doing it.  Supposedly--as mentioned--it offsets effects of aging, increases mental clarity (when it's not offsetting it), reduces visceral fat levels and impact, and offsets risks from insulin resistance, lowering risk of diabetes.  Autophagy is another subject I won't really get into here, closely linked to potentially reduced cancer risk, which I've covered more in the past.

Why wouldn't people fast then?  There seems to be a lot of potential benefit, and most people could use to lose a few pounds.  Let's address that separately.  

Why not fast?  Normalizing fasting practice.

In discussing that in a health related thread someone commented "that sounds like complete torture."  There's that; hunger experience is profound over the first few trials.  It's so negative that exposure to a consistent problematic condition like that works as a mindfulness tool, a way of experiencing the present moment differently.

In light of that it would be natural for people not to fast if they aren't sold on any of these benefits, if they have no clear reason to.  I'm only going to mention it to set it aside here but it's hard to be certain any of these claims completely work.  What someone considers good evidence would shift what any individual review would turn up.  If it's only to find documented research of multiple independent findings then maybe that would be possible, but you would still need to interpret what a number of narrow studies really mean in actual practice.

If finding a couple of dozen "health expert" claims and personal experience accounts is enough then that would be an easy bar to clear.  I'm a bit skeptical by nature, so I tend to arrive at probabilities related to what I think is accurate, not necessarily even trying to sort out the final facts of the matter.

Some people might actually regard fasting as posing health risks, although anyone unfamiliar with the subject also couldn't be clear on what those are.  Vitamin deficiency, stomach problems?  The second is mentioned more, when you tell people you practice fasting (per my experience, at least).  

Oddly people who eat continuously throughout the day would actually routinely experience stomach problems, and I never do, because I eat moderate amounts of foods almost entirely as three meals.  That was true before I tried out fasting too though.  I'm unfamiliar with what it's like to regularly experience an upset stomach, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or any problems with digesting food.  By "regularly" I mean that I might eat something that speeds up my digestion process once a year, or every other year, or that makes me even sicker every half dozen years.  That's not bad for eating a broad mix of local foods in Bangkok.  The rest I essentially never experience.  Some vegetables, legumes and beans, or high protein foods cause gas; that range of experience is familiar, especially as a former long-term vegetarian.

Fasting hasn't caused me any noticeable stomach problems, in those 25 days.  I get hungry, but not like during the first three trials.  That relates more to an empty feeling than other types of discomfort.  Really empty; it's hard to describe.  As of writing an initial draft of this, on day 2 of 5, I could go for most of an hour without being reminded that I am fasting, and the next day maybe even longer, but that's not to say that I felt no negative side effects.  I was hungry, with a low energy level, but I might not notice either for awhile if I'm busy, or even watching a video.

In bodybuilding circles rapid fat loss is very desirable, but muscle tissue loss is a serious concern, so fasting can be applied, but only in limited forms and contexts.  One of the main intros to this subject, that partly led me to explore fasting practices, was from one longevity related "biohacker" bringing it up, and one bodybuilder (Leo and Longevity and "Vigorous Steve," who isn't as far out there as his Youtuber brand name implies, but a little maybe).  

Steve used fasting to rapidly resolve fatty liver disease, even though applying a fasting mimicking diet for weeks cost him plenty of muscle mass loss.  Most of that muscle came back fast, and it seemed the very real health risk caused him to reconsider even trying to be as massive again (the 250 pound or up range, I think).  Leo explored fasting as he did many longevity related pursuits.  Steve feels absolutely certain that fasting does definitely reduce visceral body fat, from experiencing that, and perhaps Leo's direct experiential claims are harder to evaluate.

Most people in a Reddit fasting sub-forum I follow practice fasting mainly to lose weight, which makes sense.  It's a somewhat radical approach, but it should work.  Often people either struggle to make it through 24 hours there or else really swing for the fence and go straight to attempting 21 day fasts, which I see as unnecessarily difficult and risky.  With more exposure people seem to settle on alternating fasting and eating, on a 2 or 3 day cycle, which they might refer to as "rolling 72s," the hour duration.  Since the benefit of autophagy is said to "kick in" after 2 days I would think using a 3 day cycle might be better than 2.  Or 4 would work; for me the second day is hardest in terms of hunger and the third is most disruptive for experienced energy level.  

Few people would be familiar with how fasting isn't as unpleasant an experience after repeated exposure.  I can compare it to how running can definitely seem distinctly unpleasant prior to more exposure than most people would ever experience, and then it's kind of pleasant, even addictive.  I think fasting ends up being more neutral, not so difficult, and definitely not pleasant, but just normal over time.  

Maybe level of discomfort can be comparable to when you get 5 or 6 hours sleep instead of 8 (which I don't do; I need my sleep, and I put my time in with sleep deprivation working night shifts when younger and raising young kids after that).  For many people that's a normal trade-off, a way to go through life, so that eventually they wouldn't even notice feeling a bit hazy and off, after their body adjusts to it.  At this point I'd much rather not eat for a day or two than try to function on 5 hours sleep.

My take on fasting benefits

I've really not been clear on how many benefits I buy into here, or which I seem to directly experience.  That only works so well because the largest scale benefits you can't pin down, like reducing cancer or diabetes risk.  Maybe I'm mentally clearer, but that's really hard to track too.  So many things factor into that.  My experience of digestion can't improve because I've never had problems, but it hasn't worsened.  

Resetting my diet to a somewhat healthier form has definitely happened, but oddly I was eating a really healthy diet a year ago, before a first trial.  There were a few snacks to shift to a healthier form, and I could've dialed in generally healthy food intake to a level that may be a bit extreme, and did so.  I think all of that has supported taking my running habit a lot further over the past year, but again inputs and outcomes are complicated.  I know that I've ran between 15 and 20 miles a week for all this year, but I can't trace that directly back to diet improvement; maybe I could've did the same eating worse instead of better.  I feel like it helped my energy level when running, the metabolic flexibility theme, but who knows.  

It's too bad I skipped my annual health check-up last year, due to being out of the country when my company conducts those, and probably will again this year; that would be a good way to track some change, potentially, and undergoing that is a good idea in general.

Fasting has changed how I experience an urge to snack between meals, which was always somewhat limited.  I had switched from eating a bit of chocolate--or potato chips, if they were around--to some mixed nuts between meals around a year ago, and after fasting I tend to snack as a habit even less.  Fasting highlights how much of that practice relates to immediate triggers, like seeing something, or to boredom, and it can become more normal to drop out both cycles.

In conclusion...

Fasting is an option?  But then it always was.  

I've taken up and set aside a lot of atypical practices over the course of my life, and it's interesting considering why others don't do those things, or when maybe more will, or I guess in some cases to what extent I'm making any sense at all.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years, which I ended about a dozen years ago, due to not putting the right effort in to get it to balance, and experiencing immune system problems.  Since then it has become a lot more mainstream.  

I was into rock climbing in the early 90s, and thought this is so cool it will have to "take off," not noticing that it being gear intensive and difficult would probably prevent that (and has).  I explored Buddhism for many years, but then I always knew that was for my own reasons, that there was never going to be broad uptake.  This being a tea blog of course that pattern applies to that beverage choice too.

Fasting will probably never really have its day as a broad trend, at least not in the immediate future.  People only need to skip breakfast and lunch to see why it's not a standard option; you get hungry.  That gets worse on day two, even if it's much diminished on a third or fourth fasting experience.  "Biohacking" is much more approachable; taking a lot of supplements and drugs.  I get it.  I'm not on that page myself but I get it.

I reset to a healthier diet but it's still based on normal food

Re-trying a 2011 FT Xiaguan mini cake

 

It's been awhile!  I don't know if I've ever taken a full month off posting here, or even off reviewing, but that just happened.  I moved back from Honolulu to Bangkok again, a cycle that will seemingly keep repeating for awhile, so things have been busy.  It's odd being slightly overwhelmed by the heat and humidity, again.  Running has been rough; a lot of outings cut back slightly for distance while I acclimate.

Nothing is really new related to tea, except that I recently met one of those next level tea experts, Olivier Schneider, which I don't plan on covering in detail here.  He's nice.

This post is about retrying a sheng version I've not checked on for a couple of years, a Xiaguan mini cake, not so different than their tuocha shaped versions, but for whatever reasons not as earthy.  This earlier vendor description (it's from the Chawang Shop) covers what it is:

FT(For Taiwan)" means this small iron cake was a special order of "Fei Tai" Company. Fei Tai Company is the biggest Xiaguan TF and Menghai TF pu-erh tea distributor in Taiwan. It is claimed that the customized products of Fei Tai company reaches a higher quality in Xiaguan TF. The high-level "FT" tea chose better raw materials. Iron cake is tightly compressed, so its qualitative transformation is slow. Definitely tea for longer-term store. High quality early spring large-leafs material from 2009 and 2010, and was used Cang Shan mountain spring water for the steaming process. This cake is not too smokey, typical for Xiaguan teas. The taste is strong and powerful, floral and sweet huigan.

Odd that FT stands for "for Taiwan" when it's that vendor name's initials, right, Fei Tai?  I've seen that for Taiwan reference before; maybe it just worked out that it could mean two things.  It's interesting that this is a blend of material that is now 13 to 14 years old, even though the cake is 12, the pressed version of that older material.

Review:

First infusion (after a rinse):  brewed a little strong, so the effect is a bit intense; I guess I was still trying to get it to open up.  Flavor range seems positive, not atypical for Xiaguan, but on the fruity side as those go.  I just re-tried another larger size tuocha version recently that includes more of the smoky and mushroom range, which isn't a favorite.  For that tea I was wondering if even another decade would shift flavor profile, feel and the rest, into a place I really like it.  I do like this.

Earthiness is present, for sure, which people could interpret in all sorts of ways, as aged wood, tree fungus, leather, or however else they might see it.  Feel is resinous, full, and a little dry, so better brewed a little lighter than this round.  Beyond that there's a fruitiness that I'll try to unpack better next round.

Second infusion:  by fruit of course I mean warm, towards-earthy fruit, maybe most like dried Chinese date (jujube).  This isn't so complex that there are lots of layers to it, or a very refined character; intensity and complexity is good, but it's straightforward.  Bitterness hasn't dropped completely out but this might be another half dozen years away from a more fully transitioned, aged character, or maybe a decade.  Then that's a funny thing, because teas age really fast here in Bangkok, so that fresh, floral sheng versions seem much different a single year later when stored here.  I don't remember this being any different several years ago.  The earliest impression I have is from an early round of a review 4 years ago:

There's a faint hint of smoke, a decent level of bitterness (especially for being a light infusion), and an unusual oily feel to the tea, along with dark mineral content that is somewhere between petroleum and well-corroded metal.  Oddly that's all pleasant. 

I mentioned that I liked this enough that I might buy more to age, and I finished that 125 gram mini cake later, and bought two more to store, one of which I'm first trying now.  I think I remember this tea differently because it aired out a good bit as I drank it over the course of the year or two after that.

Smoke is not noticeable now, and the oily feel I would now describe as sapiness.  What I interpret as fruit I remember from trying this before, not that early time, but over the course of drinking the rest of that.  It seems a little odd that I liked this that much for the description, and for not really loving edgy, dry, smoky sheng versions back then, nearly as much as I could relate to them a few years later, after a lot more exposure.  I've been considering buying another cake of a standard full size version in a Chinatown shop here, one I've barely touched for it being not quite ready as a 2006 version, but one I see a lot of potential in (this one, an 8653).  It's odd that spending 17 years in Bangkok isn't enough aging transition time, but in a few more it should come together.

Fourth infusion: there's something really catchy about the way those flavors balance.  I might be missing an input people describe as camphor; it's hard for me to isolate anything as being like that, in most instances, but this is in that range.  It's not that one part of the flavor is so pleasant, it's the overall effect.  The sweetness and range I interpret as fruit helps it achieve that balance.  Probably as with the 17 year old full cake needing more transition time this 12 year old version will be considerably better in another half dozen, and I shouldn't be drinking much of this.

Fifth infusion:  a little stronger, brewed a little longer; the earthy rock and rusted metal range really picks up if you don't brew this light, which is the only way to drink it at its best, it seems to me.  Not using a maxed out proportion would help with that, but it's longstanding habit, so I go with really short infusion times to compensate.  I could imagine this including a touch of mushroom more than smoke, but it's not as heavy on both as the other Xiaguan tuo I mentioned.  That's this one, a 2010 Xiaguan Teji Tuo, identified as special grade.

To be clear where I stand on all these I really like a completely opposite style of younger sheng as much or more than this range, even if these were optimized, aged for 20+ years instead of less than 15, or 17 for that larger cake.  Some versions I love as brand new tea, and some really shine after a couple years of transition, or in some cases can be great after 4 or 5.  I only took one sheng version in this age range to Honolulu for that 2 1/2 month stay, a purple leaf version, and I kind of missed aged teas, but it was nice going through that different cycle of experience.  Experiencing variety is nice, and sometimes I crave older sheng experience, or teas like this in the middle, with some rough edges but also interesting character.

Sixth infusion:  a bit lighter again, brewed faster, and better.  It's not transitioning enough that I'll keep up with notes; it is where it is.  The mouthfeel and aftertaste inputs are more positive than I've described so far, a nice resinous structure, and a sweet and mineral intensive aftertaste.  It's nice.  I've been able to appreciate a one year younger Xiaguan tuo version that I keep buying from a local shop, reviewed here along with two Dayi versions, for appreciating the pleasant range mixed in with some relative harshness.  I might be as interested in how slightly aged sheng varies along with having the experience itself, not just learning about and experiencing the end-point potential, but the stages the teas go through leading up to that.

A tangent about goji berries

Kind of taking this tasting summary off the rails a bit I tried mixing the next round in with some goji berries I have soaking in hot water.  I drink that infusion and eat those berries about every other day, when I think to get to it, as a diet supplement of sorts.  They're a "super food," but who knows what that means.  I suspect that them being high in vitamin A content is a lot of it, but it could go beyond that.  The taste was interesting; that's one way to try sheng with a lot of fruit input, to mix it with a dried berry infusion.  I just looked for a good reference source on that "superfood" claim but mostly only turned up light references, like this one:

...this small red and shiny berry is a real source of essential nutrients for the well-being of your body. It is particularly rich in vitamin C and polysaccharides which are two powerful antioxidants. There are also vitamins A, B and E, but also 18 amino acids, 8 of which directly participate in the proper functioning of the body. Otherwise, organic goji berries also contain 21 minerals and trace elements, including iron, selenium or copper...  The composition of goji indeed includes zeaxanthin, an antioxidant that promotes better and lasting vision... 

That reference claims that it helps preserve organs, slow aging, and protect against cancer; who knows?  Looking further here's a peer-reviewed form of source; it does sound good, as they summarize it:

Goji Berries as a Potential Natural Antioxidant Medicine: An Insight into Their Molecular Mechanisms of Action

The health benefits of goji berries include enhancing hemopoiesis, antiradiation, antiaging, anticancer, improvement of immunity, and antioxidation. There is a better protection through synergistic and additive effects in fruits and herbal products from a complex mixture of phytochemicals when compared to one single phytochemical...

There are studies that reported the presence of riboflavin, thiamine, nicotinic acid, and minerals such as copper, manganese, magnesium, and selenium in goji berries [7]...  The high biological activity components in goji berries are polysaccharides, carotenoids, and phenolics [8]... 

One of the most common carotenoids found in goji berries is zeaxanthin in the form of dipalmitin zeaxanthin...  As for now, the best natural source of dipalmitin zeaxanthin is goji berries. The fractions of beta-carotene (35.9 μg/g), cryptoxanthin, and neoxanthin (72.1 μg/g) are also detected in goji berry extracts [8]...

Sounds good, I guess, but of course I can't connect their claims about health benefits with that information about compounds present.  It is odd that I'm not experiencing greying hair much, beyond my beard, even though I'm 54, and haven't needed to use reading glasses yet, but I have no well-grounded idea what main causes for that might be.  Exercise, eating a good diet, and sleeping enough are supposed to improve general health, and I attempt all that, and have other more exotic theories about inputs I'll skip passing on here.  

This aside is more about passing on a potentially helpful diet input suggestion than a claim or endorsement; it's easy to buy some goji berries and eat a little every other day, much easier than including foods like sweet potatoes and blueberries in a normal weekly diet.

I did recently write about Bryan Johnson's attempts to stop the aging process, here, and I don't think I mentioned goji berries in that.  Other than ginseng I can't think of another input described as offsetting aging, not that I follow such subjects.

I am losing my hair; it's not as if I'm not aging at all

Conclusion:

This version is pretty much how I remember it, since I probably drank the last of that small cake two years after first trying it, so two years ago now.  I don't necessarily think this needs more time to age, in the sense that it's not pleasant now, but I think it will be more pleasant in another 5 or 6 years, so I probably won't drink much of this over the next few years, just checking on it once in awhile.  For these kinds of teas it seems to make sense to buy even more than I did, if budget allows, since if I do drink this 125 gram cake over the next 5 years and it really is optimum then I'll be down to 125 grams left, when it's actually at its best.  I'm on a tight tea budget, so it is what it is.

I like this version a little more than maybe all the Xiaguan tuocha versions I've tried so far, which isn't so many, maybe only half a dozen, totaling to a dozen versions of related forms (Xiaguan full cakes, other similar style but different producer tuos).  It's not refined, or amazing in quality level, just pleasant and nicely balanced, with good intensity and transition potential, and essentially no aspect range I interpret as negative.

nice visiting the Bangkok Chinatown again

reunited with this family member!

an iconic part of my work commute

a baby monitor lizard in a tree joining my lunch in a park

Bryan Johnson and his project to stop aging

photo credit a British GQ article (not cited or summarized here)

Not so long ago I read an article on Bryan Johnson (probably the Bloomberg version), a internet company millionaire (said to be worth around $400 million in multiple sources, but who knows), who is trying to stop his own experience of the aging process.  Longevity isn't a new theme; it has been a popular topic for awhile.  David Sinclair, a related researcher, went on the Joe Rogan podcast three years ago discussing the topic; a guest appearing there is a normal enough milestone for public perception uptake.

Writing here relates to seeing more on Bryan Johnson and this theme based on a Chris Williamson YouTube interview.  A second Youtube interview with Tom Bilyeu covers slightly different scope, based on differing interview style and background interests of the two Youtubers.

This can't really serve as a summary of what Bryan Johnson is attempting, because it's too complicated to summarize in a standard 1500 words of writing, and those other references already get to that.  I'd like to "react" to it, to offer an impression of the theme, approach, and points Bryan made, which will double as a very incomplete summary.  If the subject is of interest looking up more information is easy enough; Bryan's Blueprint website covers what he's doing, drugs he's ingesting, measurement steps identifying outcome and helping refine approach, his diet, and so on.

Before going further, one might naturally wonder if any of this actionable, short of spending the $2 million per year he does on this venture, going through countless tests and treatments and taking dozens of compounds and supplements daily.  For example:

w/Dinner (most compounds he takes with breakfast; this is the short list)

Acarbose 200mg (Rx)
BroccoMax 250mg
C 500mg
Ca-AKG 1 gram
Cocoa Flavanols 500mg
EPA 500mg 
Garlic 2.4g equivalent 
Garlic 1.2g (kyolic)
Ginger Root 2.2g
Glucosamine Sulphate 2KCL 1,500mg
Hyaluronic Acid 300mg 
Lysine 1g
L-Tyrosine, 500mg
Metformin ER 500 mg (Rx)
N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) 1,800 mg
Nicotinamide Riboside 375mg (6x wk)
Turmeric 1g

A lot of that is just standard supplements, like vitamin C, or garlic.  I think Metformin is a standard longevity drug, the kind people into that "body hack" interest theme often take.  Nicotinamide is probably what it sounds like, the drug you ingest smoking cigarettes.  There are plenty of starting points for improving supplementation, and diet, in what he's doing, so of course some review is potentially helpful, even without sorting it all out, the approach and measurement themes.  

Anyone could be skeptical that the entire project makes sense, or how he portrays it, or about any one input, but surely most of it is well-grounded, whether or not it adds up to a way to stop aging.  Or to extend his final life-span; it's not clear that the two are exactly the same thing.

Again this will be my impression, partly informed by reviewing longevity related content and issues over a period of years.  I'm not a great reference for deciding any single point, but at least I've been exposed to a broad range of ideas.

Does it probably work?

Let's back up further; could this work, is he extending really slowing aging and extending life-span, or just becoming quite healthy?  What evidence can he show that it's working at all?  "Science" has developed a range of different markers and metrics for approximating biological age, and of course that's the kind of thing Johnson and his team are optimizing.  If you accept that these measurements work well then he is surely succeeding.

The one interviewer, Tom Bilyeu, thinks it's worth considering since Bryan looks like an elf.  Really?  He's the subject of a complex and multi-layered skin conditioning and regeneration program, using drugs, moisturizers, and treatment processes that includes laser therapy (zapping blemishes?).  I think he looks unusual related to holding a 5% body fat, so he lacks the normal level of fat under his skin, looking a bit gaunt, pale, and frankly odd.  

That brings up an aside worth considering:  he lives at a permanent calorie deficit, per his description offered in discussion.  I didn't catch how that's supposed to even be possible, or could make sense, since ordinarily that just means that someone is in the process of losing weight, and he's not.  By definition he can't be living long-term at a calorie deficit and remaining at the same weight, unless "deficit" here relates to a gap below a conventional norm, not taking in less than he is expending (the normal meaning).

Related to that broad array of age and health related markers, part of his story is that he's essentially a 18 year old, related to the story all those tell, even though he's in his 40s (45).  Or probably different markers tell different stories, so maybe secondary claims that he has delayed aging and experiences it at a slower rate (a rate which he cites) or has rolled back identified age by some time-frame, per varying age-marker measurements.  

It all must be real enough.  It's hard to really accept that his health must be optimum, or to extend all this to concluding that he's likely to live to be 100, or any other milestone.  I've seen 120 mentioned as a target upper limit age, but if that's not from him (or his team) it's not even tied to their ungrounded speculation.  He might end up killing himself taking up such an artificial and extreme diet and drug regimen; stranger things have happened.  But I can easily accept that a lot of his organ functions could be operating at a relative optimum.  He makes the point in one interview that if longevity treatments become more effective over the next few decades, which seems possible, then he doesn't need to live to over 100 based on adjusting this current protocol, he only needs to minimize aging impact until better treatments replace it.  Fair enough.

His philosophy

This isn't just about optimizing aging, restricting aging process to an absolute minimum.  That is the main driving goal, of course, the principle he's based his life on.  It's important to consider why he is doing that, and what it means to him.

His explanation might not be interpreted as adequate.  It's framed as a relatively natural goal, that if someone likes life they would naturally pursue living more of it.  Then it factors in that if longevity pursuit progresses over the next few decades someone would need to still be around then to benefit from it, so a 46 year old would naturally want to slow the aging clock as much as possible, to get in on that.  He broke up with his girlfriend when she developed breast cancer, per news stories (so allegedly; who knows really), which raises two points, with only one relevant to this main theme.  That experience, along with prior conditioning, could have triggered a concern over mortality in him.  And it paints a picture of him as a narcissistic and poorly socially conditioned individual, if he did drop a life partner in a time of need based on filtering centered on self-interest, which may or may not apply broadly.

From that basic start he portrays it all as about having a vision, doing this project as research, using himself as an n=1 research study to suspend the aging process.  It's for his own benefit, of course, and also for others who can parallel and further the same research goal.  I guess that works?  For sure he's already selling whatever it is related to this pursuit, not just developing it towards what he can profit from, but paralleling the profit-taking to compensate for or overtake the $2 million annual spend on this project.  Again all fair enough.

The parts about comparing his personal vision to other geniuses seems a bit much.  There are lots of longevity-interest practitioners out there; he is just better funded, takes a different approach, and he might be considerably more dedicated to the goal.  This doesn't seem much like Steve Jobs driving Apple's progress, the case of a guy trying to live longer, drawing on a broad and deep range of ongoing research, and tons of "expert" input.  His team probably is pretty good, but it would take a lot of doing to review that.  The spending and the claims are the interesting parts, and it's really not easy placing the latter.

The relation to vampirism, and range of other practices

Per Bryan's own communication he is using his son's blood as an input to offset aging.  Creepy AF!  Maybe this isn't as questionable as it sounds, since it's voluntary on his son's part, and normal enough for people to donate blood or plasma, but him having unusual degree of leverage in this situation changes the optics, him possibly passing on his fortune to his son, or maybe not, especially since he plans to not die on a normal time-frame.

It brings up a larger question:  just what range of treatments and inputs is he undergoing, beyond supplements, diet, exercise and drugs?  Some seem to clearly be cosmetic; he has had cosmetic surgery in the past, use of fillers if I remember right, and dies his hair, which is probably going grey.  Then he is also maintaining low body weight, undergoing lots of testing (which isn't a treatment, more monitoring and feedback related), laser treatment and extensive other treatments for skin, and that blood transfusion process.  And what else?  He's on a vegetarian diet, framed as an ethical decision, not necessarily an anti-aging input.

It's interesting what isn't included.  He doesn't use heat or cold treatments, the now popular sauna and ice bath combination.  There is no clear explanation for why not; in interview questioning he simply states that he goes by the recommendations of his team of experts, not attempting to try out everything out there, or whatever is popular, so he isn't concerned if he doesn't get to some range of practices.  It's odd range to omit though.  It doesn't sound like he's experimented with this range in the answers, and it seems feasible that cold treatment really could adjust hormone balance and inflammation.

He's not fasting.  Per interview discussion he claims that earlier diet input was based around a one meal a day approach (OMAD), but that the same calorie input (around 2000) caused him to drop to 3+% body fat, an unhealthy level, and that switching that to eating over a 5 or 6 hour window allowed him to move back to 5% instead.  Is that ok, living at 5% body fat level?  I don't know, but I've certainly experienced living out a calorie deficit myself related to wrestling in high school, and it's not pleasant.

A couple of related thoughts come to mind.  People into fasting claim that there are substantial benefits to pausing eating for 4 days or so at a time, autophagy and such (a switch-over of body functions to recycle damaged cells, which may or may not occur in ways that match popular conceptions).  Here one would either accept that Bryan's experts are probably as good a reference as anyone on whether or not that's worth pursuing, or could instead guess that he's arranged for a half dozen doctors (or however many) to promote whatever they are inclined towards, so all of this is probably a bit random.

Related to the low body weight input, and vegan diet, I've always guessed that this input may have slowed my own aging input.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years or so (not vegan; it was hard enough balancing diet with limited dairy and eggs input), and was fairly underweight through most of my 20s and 30s, only moving above 150 pounds or so at the end of my 30s (at 5' 8", if that helps place it).  I'm not visibly aging normally, without developing skin wrinkles, grey hair, and muscle tissue loss.  It's hard to say how that relates to other internal organs, or my brain.  Exercising a good bit across that time may have helped too, but I quit routine exercise in my 40s, picking it back up at 50 as a running habit, and I still haven't developed much grey hair.  Which I can't place as a general age marker, of course; the point is to connect unusual personal experience to these themes as best I can.

Comparison to other longevity research and practices

This extends beyond what I can cover reliably, but I have ran across some interesting input for this, so I'll share some thoughts.  I really liked catching some of the Leo and Longevity content creator perspective on these themes, even though he doesn't seem to be accepted by the "longevity community" as a spokesperson, or representative of normal perspective.  Leo's Youtube channel is here (no longer updated, he died in a likely murder, an odd twist given that theme of extended life-span), and a Reddit longevity sub (group) is here.  Reddit groups can be a little rough, a short step towards Twitter for negative exchanges coming up, but that one seems grounded and civil.  A Reddit group related to fasting isn't bad either, another subject I've brought up, but it talks about personal experience and guidance most, not discussion of research claims for benefits. 

It's my take (do I need to keep placing that?) that conventional longevity research and uptake relates to drug use first and supplementation second, to researchers identifying compounds that relate to links in normal life-experience and bodily response that relate to longevity, and using those as drug inputs to try to approximate or enhance conventional experience.  Fair enough; all that matches the modern medicine paradigm, and the standard interest form of "body hacks."  But fasting is something else, adjusting a life-experience input towards a similar end.

Here is where I add that I can't describe what I've heard about researched compounds enough to do any justice to presenting them, so I'll drop most of what would be informed, practical discussion.  Bryan Johnson and David Sinclair, the best known anti-aging researcher, both discuss use of drugs for this purpose, so further research into that wouldn't be difficult based on their claims or discussion, which others in different related groups or review articles and videos could help place.

That Youtube creator, Leo, experimented on himself, taking a lot of different compounds over time to try to determine effectiveness.  Maybe far too many, since he was not only interested in longevity, but also earlier on in body-building (use of steroids and growth hormone), in healing compounds (peptides and SARMs and such), in nootropics (mental function boosting drugs and supplements), and in sleep experience adjustments, trying to stay awake for extended periods of time, in addition to helping maintain sleep.  He was also into fasting, and experimented with exposure to cold, and surely many other inputs.  All that couldn't be healthy.  And he couldn't really isolate inputs, varying practices like that.  He did use routine blood testing to analyze outcomes, to the extent he was able to, but had to do so without the benefit of a panel of supporting doctors and a $2 million / year budget.

Where does this lead, or end?

Bryan will either live to be 120, as intended, or die in a reasonable late 80s / early 90s span, which is good, or else complications will come up and he'll probably scale all this back.  I doubt he'll kill himself by going to an extreme, but maybe.  I saw a post that leads to that consideration in a Youtube status, which I found again on Twitter:

Started NDGA today. 50mg daily to begin. It ranks 36th in wild type mouse lifespan studies, 13% medium lifespan, 7% maximum lifespan increase. Nordihydroguaiaretic Acid is a type of lignan, a class of organic compounds found in certain plants. A potential autophagy enhancer. 

It has been used in a randomized controlled trial for prostate cancer at 2 g a day dose, but doses as low as 100-500 mg may cause sub-clinical liver or kidney damage which we will be monitoring for to prove long term safety. Unclear safety stacking with rapamyicn, metformin, aspirin and other autophagy enhancers, which we are assessing for too.

It's probably fine, but there must be some risk in trying out a number of new drugs or extra supplements that are probably fine.

All this must sound negative, but I really admire and feel positively about his conviction, approach, resolution, that all-in attitude.  Even the "strange guy" theme is fine, whether or not it's contrived.  I tend to like unusual people better; to me that's a good reason to see what else is going on with someone, not a queue to avoid them, or feel negatively, or judge their ideas more harshly.

For almost everyone I think approaching health conventionally would make a lot more sense; cleaning up diet, to an ultra-clean level, exercising, drinking plenty of water, going on limited vitamin input, getting plenty of good sleep, doing some fasting, stretching, meditation, spending time outside, and so on.  Other experimentation seems reasonable, but really why go that far?  It's possible to push good health to higher and higher levels, to make a primary interest and life pursuit out of that.

Protein, muscle, aging, and longevity

Two references I've recently ran across seem to say two completely opposite things about aging, or rather managing and reducing the rate of aging.  Both relate to one particular input, to adjusting protein consumption and amount of bodily muscle tissue.  Offsetting aging is an aggressive goal, but whether that's practical or not it can be interesting to hear about potential approaches, or even uncertain background.

One set of statements and claims by Leo (Laith) of the Leo and Longevity YouTube channel claims that reduced calorie intake, and specifically reduced protein intake, increases lifespan. Another article connects lack of muscle with aging issues, and claims that substantial protein intake is necessary to maintain higher levels of muscle tissue, which increases both longevity and health in later life. I think we can unpack both and resolve this apparent contradiction, to some limited extent. 

A lot of this will be my own speculation, to be clear, and I'm not some sort of medical professional.  I will mention some unusual personal exposure along the way, but that's not intended as clearly defined evidence, just extra anecdotal input.

Let's start with the pro-muscle development article, Muscle Is the Cornerstone of Longevity:

Pumping iron, weight-lifting, strength training—call it what you want, but it is key to living longer, according to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon...

  

“The more muscle mass, the more survivability against diseases,” Dr. Lyon explained. But muscle mass must be maintained to have these effects. It’s a use-it-or-lose-it part of our biology due to sarcopenia. Sarcopenia, as defined by the National Institute on Aging, is “a decline in muscle mass, strength, and function...” ...Weight training is essential to mitigate these effects as we age. When you “stimulate skeletal muscle,” stated Dr. Lyon, “ [you] maintain mobility, mental clarity, hormonal balance, and improve mood.” 

The National Institute on Aging explains that “a big culprit for losing our physical abilities as we grow older is the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength…in addition to making everyday tasks difficult, mobility limitations are also linked to higher rates of falls, chronic disease, nursing home admission, and mortality.” Dr. Lyon emphasized that we should be “focusing on building muscles rather than losing fat. [Muscle] will help you build your body armor to protect you throughout life.” 

...Adiposity [being overweight] is the result of a health problem, not the starting point. It is the same with other chronic diseases “such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver.” According to Dr. Howard J. Luks, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon, in his article, Muscle Mass, Strength, and Longevity, he writes “losing active [muscle] tissue can have dramatic consequences. Muscles help us control our glucose levels, use glucose as fuel, and have a role in insulin resistance.” So, instead of thinking of fat as the root cause of health problems, we must understand that it’s no more than the middleman. The actual chain of command is unhealthy muscle tissue, adiposity, then disease. 

But to build healthy muscle tissue, you need protein. “Protein is necessary for nearly every function in the body and every structure,” explained Lyon. “There are 20 different amino acids. We need the nine essentials—histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine—to support many processes that happen within our body. Each amino acid has more than one role; they function as a metabolic signal and are necessary building blocks.” 

So there we have it; per this longer set of conclusions losing core strength and functional muscle tissue causes lots of other health problems, which can all be avoided by weight training and eating enough protein.  The part about core strength limiting risk from falls is familiar enough, but the rest not so much.  I don't want to include too many tangents but this reminds me of an interesting Instagram channel, that relates to how to control glucose spikes in the body, the Glucose Goddess channel:

You probably get the idea; you can adjust what you eat together to prevent blood sugar spikes.  Which are obviously a bad thing, right?  Sort of, or probably, but part of what I'm interpreting that last long cited passage to mean is that with substantial muscle tissue in your body you can store that glucose better, to use it throughout the day, while if you have very little muscle tissue it's going to potentially be more impactful having that sudden digestion input fall a bit out of balance.  

It could've been clearer that muscle tissue actually helps with storing glucose, since one read is that muscles burn more energy, in the statement "muscles help us control our glucose levels, use glucose as fuel, and have a role in insulin resistance."  I think I've drawn that from other background, like this statement by the Cleveland Clinic:

Glycogen is a form of glucose, a main source of energy that your body stores primarily in your liver and muscles...  Your body mainly stores glycogen in your liver and skeletal muscles (the muscles attached to your bones and tendons), with small amounts in your brain.

So with very little muscle tissue your body will either need to work through a blood sugar spike or else convert that energy to fat to do something with it, but muscle lets you store more for medium term use.  Moving on, Leo asserts something else, in the video Protein:  the Key to Longevity, and related to two other follow-up videos in a three part set.

Based on different starting points and evidence, Leo rejects the common "building blocks" model of analyzing dietary inputs, that your body uses proteins, carbohydrates, and fats as energy sources and tissue building inputs (which is certainly correct, but it's only one part of what's going on).  He claims that this model is one partly accurate and descriptive construct, but not the only valid frame of reference. 

At a finer level of internal body process review signaling models apply, that what you ingest triggers specific physiological processes that can be active or inactive, or partially active, not all relating to only energy use or storing fat energy.  Even his complete video, that I'm summarizing here, clearly states he isn't unpacking a large proportion of this background, and narrowing related body processes down to two examples, versus treating how a larger range of them interrelate and apply.

Leo is citing a lot of well known references to low calorie intake being associated with longer lifespan, with links in that video--that part is already familiar to many.  It's very problematic for people to restrict their calorie intake for extended periods of time, for years, so attempts at "dietary restriction" take other practical forms today, including intermittent fasting.  

Leo goes further, claiming that lower protein intake alone can have the same effect, lengthening lifespan, especially related to limiting high levels of specific amino acids (protein building blocks), most specifically two related to red meat consumption, present at far lower levels in vegetarian proteins.  This isn't a guess based on his own reasoning; he is citing the same kind of documented, peer-reviewed animal studies that initiated these earlier conclusions related to calorie restrictions, in studies conducted on fish and rodents.

If the two references are saying opposite things, and the first is based on direct input from a longevity research professional, and the second is based on many seemingly sound research sources, who can we trust? Can both be right? Maybe. I'll not fully unpack or resolve this, but it's possible that the contradiction is only apparent. I'll get to that part, but first I wanted to raise one more anecdotal input, about not personally experiencing aging as much as I expected.  It does connect, and some works as a good framework of ideas for how this might play out in actual application.

A personal account of atypical aging experience

I'm 54 and in pretty good shape. Good diet and some exercise can account for that, or good genetics and luck. But my hair isn't greying much more than in my 20s, my skin isn't wrinkling much, I'm retaining more muscle mass than I think I need, but then maybe that is useful after all, given some of this input. 

I suspect that staying active accounts for a lot of it (I run), but it also seems possible that spending 17 years as a vegetarian helped by keeping my body weight moderate, or even low.  For early adulthood, teens out to close to 40, I weighed about 145 pounds (65 kg) at 5' 8" (170 cm), and I've only recently increased that to 165 pounds / 74 kg.  I wasn't trying to be thin, or to not eat much, it just worked out that way.  

That diet may have led to moderate protein intake over a long time period, and the distribution of amino acids from vegetarian sources would be slightly different (something Leo addressed specifically, best reviewed by watching that video). Even now I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and a generally clean diet, and need to work on it to include enough protein to support exercise recovery, from the running.

Genetics is surely a main input; my mother aged somewhat slowly, and my sister also does.  It's probably not a coincidence that both maintained low body weights for their entire lives.  I suspect that eating a very good diet comes into play, along with getting some exercise, or other activity, moderating input of drugs and alcohol, getting enough sleep, and so on, general healthy living.

That first article seems to waive off body weight and fat level as most relevant (or more clearly seeing that as an outcome, not a cause). Maybe it's all relevant, activity level, muscle development, amount of body weight, and positive diet inputs, nutrient levels and on from there.  The modern reductionist tendency for people to look for one key cause is probably misguided, one independent "life-hack" to adjust complex inputs towards a different result by making one or two simple adjustments.

  

It's even more indirect and hearsay based, but it's a commonly expressed theme in bodybuilding circles that maintaining high body weight from either fat or muscle tissue adds stress to the body, and could impact longevity and long term health.  Of course that's not to be wrongly regarded as directly opposing the initial point that maintaining healthy muscle tissue levels contradicts this view, that carrying excess muscle tissue is a problem.  Higher level male bodybuilders can maintain moderate body fat levels while weighing between 250 and 300 pounds, with female bodybuilders typically not matching that atypical body size, which would be stressful for bodily systems.  Of course intake of drugs enabling that form of growth is a secondary risk factor; no one is "naturally" gaining that kind of muscle tissue weight, and steroids and growth hormone use pose other risks.

All this isn't to speculate that we should just be healthy; that would be an oversimplification.  Retaining a typical younger-life, high activity level of both fitness and muscle tissue probably are healthy.  Leo wasn't claiming that carrying any level of muscle tissue is a problem; he was pointing out that internal physiological processes are "turned on or turned off" when signaled by protein intake, and other factors.  He was seeing an indirect outcome from higher protein intake as a problem.  Let's consider further one such process, the main one he was discussing, from a Google search results reference, on MTOR:

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) regulates cell proliferation, autophagy, and apoptosis by participating in multiple signaling pathways in the body. Studies have shown that the mTOR signaling pathway is also associated with cancer, arthritis, insulin resistance, osteoporosis, and other diseases. The mTOR signaling pathway, which is often activated in tumors, not only regulates gene transcription and protein synthesis to regulate cell proliferation and immune cell differentiation but also plays an important role in tumor metabolism. Therefore, the mTOR signaling pathway is a hot target in anti-tumor therapy research. In recent years, a variety of newly discovered mTOR inhibitors have entered clinical studies, and a variety of drugs have been proven to have high activity in combination with mTOR inhibitors.

It sounds like this MTOR is a bad thing, and we should stop doing that, but it's not nearly that simple.  It's a key bodily function (internal process), that is required, so the concern here is how often or how long it is "turned on" or active, and the positive and negative effects of maintaining a greater frequency or duration of that internal process (or set of those; it's all not completely clear).  Let's simplify that down a little from a Wikipedia reference:

mTOR integrates the input from upstream pathways, including insulin, growth factors (such as IGF-1 and IGF-2), and amino acids.[11] mTOR also senses cellular nutrient, oxygen, and energy levels.[30] The mTOR pathway is a central regulator of mammalian metabolism and physiology, with important roles in the function of tissues including liver, muscle, white and brown adipose tissue,[31] and the brain, and is dysregulated in human diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, depression, and certain cancers.  

Sounds more positive there, but none of this lends itself to simple interpretation.  As Leo summarized it you can't prevent the mTOR signaling pathway (if I'm using that term correctly), but as he frames it you can help your body regulate how often and to what degree this is active.  He feels that it would be a good thing to do so, and consistently eating a lot of protein throughout the day could actually be very unhealthy.  It's my impression that he's linking general and broad studies that claim that, that higher protein intake levels in animals (fish and rodents, I think it was) correlate with reduced lifespans, and then he's trying to work back to why that would be, even though maybe this isn't a clear and singular cause.  Personally it's hard for me to completely accept any simple conclusions distilled from complex inputs; it's back to this being more interesting to consider than relating to obviously correct conclusions.

Potential resolution

Per my impression of that first long cited passage they are discussing problems with loss of normal levels of muscle tissue, not necessarily related to people being on a spectrum of having more or less.  Exercise inputs, genetics, and those dietary inputs (eating enough or a surplus of protein) would relate to gaining and retaining muscle mass, instead of there being one main input.

Per a common sense interpretation if someone spent a period of years weightlifting to build strength, and muscle mass, and coupled that with a higher than average and high protein diet, this wouldn't be as impactful as spending a much longer time on a primarily carnivorous diet, or even an all-meat diet (a recent health trend, an offshoot of the "keto" fad).  Of course maintaining normal but significant amounts of muscle tissue on a moderate protein intake diet is possible.

This reminded me of how an athlete like Alex Honnold might see this issue, a vegetarian rock climber famous for free soloing El Capitan.  His take:

Humans definitely need protein to maintain muscle mass and be healthy, and athletes certainly need more than sedentary people. But I think that protein is wildly over-emphasized. The average person, in the U.S. anyway, eats far more than they need.

There's evidence that humans have optimum health with a diet around 10-percent protein - that's easily met by just eating greens like spinach. So, it's not like a typical American needs to be seeking out more protein. That said, proteins and fats do help me feel fuller so I do think about the macronutrient breakdown of what I'm eating. 

The part about getting enough protein from spinach is a bit striking, isn't it?  In a GQ article his typical daily diet does sound like something no normal person could live on, never mind a high level athlete, with nothing in it including a substantial amount of protein:

Breakfast:  Muesli with flax meal, banana, hemp milk.

On-the-wall snacks:  Apples, nuts, avocado sandwich (fresh avocado on bread)

Dinner:  Macaroni and cheese with spinach, red peppers and yellow squash, topped with pumpkin seeds.

An average person living on fruit, nuts, vegetables, and granola wouldn't be that impressive, but his feat of athleticism, skill, and mental focus in that one free solo feat is all but unmatched across all of sports, pulled off on a diet most people think couldn't sustain them, whether they exercise or not.

One thing I didn't mention about my own experiences (with a very limited protein-input vegetarian diet) was that I was snowboarding and hiking a lot back then, living in a ski resort, and working long hours in demanding jobs as a restaurant server.  I even rock climbed a little.  I wasn't giving it much thought but in retrospect it's odd how it all worked out, even though none of that is impressive at all compared to high level rock climbing, or any competitive professional sports.

sometime in the 90s, out doing 15+ mile daily desert hikes for fun

last week; I am aging, just not so quickly for mid-50s

It makes you wonder how hormone replacement might factor in, but that's too complicated and involved to pair with these other completely separate concerns.  I suspect that maintaining a high activity level sustains adequate hormone balance, even into advanced age, but what do I know.  

I've known plenty of earlier generation family members who were very active and healthy, some into their 90s, but isolated cases like that aren't necessarily helpful for establishing generalities.  Those old-school, rural-life family members ate from gardens more than markets or grocery stores, and my family hunted as much meat as they bought, but again I'm not reducing that to claims here.  I think that eating a diverse and balanced diet is important, for me ideally including plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and then we can place input like these two sets of claims however we like within or beyond that.

Post script:  Leo Rex of Leo and Longevity died not so long ago (Laith really; Leo is an adopted name), and it seems appropriate to mention that here.  It's quite sad, to me, because in one sense it wasn't his time yet, as someone so young, bright, charismatic, and eager to help others.  

Related to his sharing of information online critiques sometimes came up, that he was too eager to experiment with risky "bio-hacking" themes, and offer information that others might base their own unsafe practices on.  This summarized topic example isn't that; eating a lot of protein, or very little of it, surely wouldn't pose or reduce health risks much in comparison with adjusting sleep cycles, using nootropics (mental enhancement drugs), steroids, or using other experimental exercise recovery support drugs.

I have greatly valued Leo's content and input, and wish to honor his contributions by remembering him positively here.  He was a fellow seeker, that many would recognize aspects of in themselves.  Sometimes even the parts that could be negative in some ways, the intensity and focus on shifting topics, and good intentions at times extended towards obsession, or pursuing a search for truth on to involving personal conflict.  Rest in peace, friend.