Aging Powerfully: 3 Key Actions for Optimal Health with Dr. Anurag Singh

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Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome and thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. Here I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top people in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, detox, and lots more. So if you want to get healthy and get off the dieting for life merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better at mast. I'm really obsessed now with body composition. Not now. I've been obsessed with this for 35, 40 years, but I think I'm obsessed now with really getting this information out, with this idea that like you can be living your best Life in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s if you pay attention to what you're doing in your 40s, 50s, 60s. And boy, what we're going to be talking about today is so key for that because when you really look at what you need to do in terms of what you're eating, how you're moving and what you're supplementing with in order to play full out at 100, I have, I have like if that's a three legged stool, I got one leg of the stool today that we're going to be digging deep into. And today we're going to be talking about mitophagy. You've heard about autophagy, We've talked about it before. You've heard about so much in the world of intermittent fasting because it's one of the key benefits of longer intermittent fasting in that we can take out the cellular trash. Well, mitophagy is where you take out the cellular mitochondrial trash and how that's important. We're also going to be talking about mitochondrial boosting within the muscle and why that's important. So if you are looking to have more energy, be able to recover from your workouts more, be able to hold on and build muscle more, be able to have a better body composition. Yes, yes, yes. Check, check, check. You are going to love my guest today, Dr. Anurag Singh, and he is the chief medical officer at Timeline Nutrition and Amazentis, which is a research company that's behind Timeline, doing some amazing, amazing work. It's a company based in Switzerland that discovers and develops novel nutritional compounds targeting improvements in mitochondrial health. And you know, if your mitochondria are not working well, you basically can't do anything. Like, you will be exhausted. These are, you've heard of them, the powerhouse and the cell. Think of them like your little energy battery. So anything that we can do to boost these, optimize these, is super duper important. And what this company does is find is do really amazing research. And especially with Dr. Singh, they're doing research looking at the natural mitophagy activator Urolithin A. And I first heard about this, Dr. David Perlmutter connected me with this company and you hear about this, a little test that they had me do. So Dr. Singh developed this test, by the way. Just found out he received his medical training in internal medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College in India, and then he got a PhD in immunology from the University of Connecticut and USA. Before this, he was the global medical director at Nestle and Nestle Health Sciences, where he had clinical studies across a wide range of consumer health products. And he just now has really doubled down into mitochondrial health, mitophagy, and again, all of this real and really researching protein, too. So I was like, oh, my gosh, this is like everything I'm looking at now. So we're going to be talking about protein. How much should you have, which types of exercise, and then how you can make your mitochondria the best ever. Because this is key, critical to be able to play full out as we age. So hang out with me. Oh, one more thing. Before we get into this, make sure you write this one down. You're going to hear why? Because we are giving you something amazing from this company and we actually got on beforehand. I'm like, you can do this. So wait till you hear what you're getting from them. I'll give you a little an idea. It might be a free trial.

All right.

Jjvirgin.com forward/timeline is where you're going to go to get that. You'll hear more about it when I come right back with Dr. Singh. Stay with me.

Hey, JJ, virgin here.

Okay, real talk.

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So I've been really looking at how do we get to play full out at 100 and when you really look at like what, what you want to be able to do in your 80s, 90s and 100, you want to be able to like, you know, carry the groceries up the stairs, play with your grandkids, run around with your puppies. You know, what are all those things? All of them require muscle. And especially when you start to look at all those frailty statistics. 65 and over. I have been like hitting it hard in the gym. So I'm super excited to have you here, Dr. Singh, because I know we're going to talk a lot about muscle health and aging and unpacking, all of that. So thank you so much for joining me.

Sure, thanks. Pleasure is mine. Thanks for having us.

Well, let's dive into. I know we're going to talk mitochondria and mitophagy and muscle health. What got you excited and interested in all of this?

Yeah, so initially I Was trained as an immunologist, and I was studying aging, sort of what happens to the immune system. And one of the hallmark features that most of the older adults were coming with, as you touched upon, is sort of this frailty syndrome that comes along with this sort of body being inflamed. But the muscle was the central organ, you know, that was behind it. And so that got me into studying muscle organ as a key organ for longevity about 20 years back. So I started studying the muscle and the immune system in older adults and then looking for solutions. And I did a lot of studies in high protein as a way, you know, with supplemented with exercise regimens in older adults back in the days. And then, yeah, there's always, you know, what in addition could you do? So that's how I came into muscle research and mitochondrial research.

I'm so excited to pick your brain on all this stuff. So someone like, who is just a typical American now, what would they expect? Because I've been looking at all the statistics on cardiovascular fitness and grip strength and balance and frailty. First of all, I'd love to hear just the definition of frailty. And then what the typical person, if they didn't intervene, would expect to start to see their life like, at 65, 75, 85.

Yeah, sure. That's a great lead into our discussion. Typically, what all these longitudinal studies of aging have shown is that muscle mass and muscle strength starts declining after the third decade of life. And so you're losing about 10% every decade, and it really starts to double up after the 60, 65 years of age. What we are seeing now, and you touched what is frailty? So frailty is sort of a syndrome, what we call now in the geriatric setup. And this was a definition given by a bunch of clinicians out of Mayo Clinic, Linda Fried, Dr. Linda Fried was one of them. And she basically defined it as a loss of muscle mass and a loss of muscle strength. And so what is muscle strength is basically grip strength is moving around, being able to climb a flight of stairs and fatigue. And so these are sort of the hallmarks of frailty. And what we are seeing now is the rates of frailty and sarcopenia are just skyrocketing. So you have about 20% of older adults in the US and in Western countries who have either frailty or sarcopenia, which is basically, sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass. And so we are seeing a big. You know, we are always talking about this pandemic that exists today, but there's really A pandemic of poor muscle health coming our way.

And I, you know, what's amazing is we're not looking at it like you look at weight and you cannot look at weight and not look what that weight is made up of. It just drives me nuts that we still are using this outdated mode and looking at a scale and going, oh, well, I didn't gain any weight. I'm 65. I'm the same weight as I was at 30. However, as you just described, if you're losing 1% of your muscle every year, starting at the age of 40 and doubling it up at the age of 60, if you stayed the same weight without intervening with resistance training, you just became a fluffier version of yourself. And there's a whole host of problems that happen with that. What I'm, I'd love to know is like, why are these rates of frailty skyrocketing, do you think?

I don't think there's one answer to that. I think it's, it's a blend of a lot of factors, and the two key factors are physical activity. So there has been a lot, a lot of studies done and a lot of research done and declining rates and sort of, you know, we are sitting more, you're sitting longer in our work. So there's this shift towards being sedentary. And the second is the nutrition. You know, our, the food we eat, and a lot of it goes back to a lack of proper protein intake. There's a lot more shift to, you know, more fast food diet versus, you know, eating vegetables and fruits. And I think these are two of the key elements that are accelerating this whole frailty syndrome.

What do you think of the current, the current RDA for protein at 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight?

It's in my personal, professional, and it's ridiculous because I don't want.

It's ridiculous. Yes, that's it.

All the authorities and the organizations. But in essence, you know, I got trained in medical school long back, and we always, My, my professor of medicine would always tell me, you, you actually need to have 1 to 1.2 grams per, per kilogram of body weight. So if you think about an older adult with Even, what, by 70 kilos, you need to be taking at least 70 grams of protein. So. Yeah, those are. And actually with, with aging, your requirements should be going up. So. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, and I'd love to talk about that because, you know, you look at. And with aging, the requirements should be going up is not a message that's getting out there at all. And so first of all, why are the requirements higher with aging?

Yeah, because you're losing much more. This, you know, we can get into the semantics. So your body, you know, is basically the. What we call as muscle protein synthesis rates are slowing down. Right. So your body needs to be able to synthesize nutrients and amino acids from. From the food you're eating to. To be able to. To process them and synthesize them. And that's kind of adding on to the muscle mass. And it's, in fact, it's one of the reasons why a lot of people are. Muscle mass with aging is declining muscle protein synthesis rates because with aging, you hit this anabolic resistance, right? So that's the key. So you need to add more to be able to get the same what you were getting in your 40s.

So is the anabolic resistance happening because of aging? Because of people being more sedentary and not getting their muscle active because of hormones dropping? Because of all of the above? What's going on?

I think it's all of the above, plus a key factor that a lot of times we miss and we will touch upon it is mitochondrial health. Because a lot of times with aging and muscle is a very active metabolic organ, the mitochondria in the muscle are sort of becoming quite. Or they're not in the best shape. So it's sort of this declining mitochondrial function is also adding to this anabolic resistance. So it's a blend of everything you said.

So how would someone know that their mitochondrial function in their muscle is declining? And let's just talk about what, like what, what does. What are mitochondria? I know we talked, we've talked about them, people at the powerhouse of the cell. But what are mitochondria? Why are they important in muscle function? And then why are. How would we even be able to tell if they're declining?

Yeah, so. Well, yeah, the standard definition of mitochondria, you put it, is basically the power of the powerhouse of the cell. Now, what it means basically is the mitochondria are the, the, you know, the energy factories in your, in your cells and your organs and organs, such as the muscle, the heart, the brain. These are very extremely active and metabolic organs. And so they need a lot of energy to do what they. They're supposed to do. So think clearly to, to move around for the muscle, to pump blood for the. What happens is that these think of mitochondria as a network of batteries, you know, in your Tesla car for Example, so these are this network, if it's not working in sync, you're not going to get enough battery to power your Tesla to go a certain distance. So that's essentially what mitochondria are doing now for the muscle. What happens is with aging is that they pretty much rapidly deteriorate. Now, today in clinic, we are still finding ways like doing muscle biopsies, which are a bit more invasive, to study mitochondrial function. But in your regular daily life, if you are feeling fatigued, if you're exercising and then taking longer to recover, if you're having difficulty kind of climbing a set of flight of stairs that you were able to kind of run through before, these are again, signs of decline mitochondrial function.

Okay, so if someone has declining mitochondrial function, which it's, you know, again, you just ran through the typical symptoms of it, I think most people listening will go, yeah, each of those things could probably be improved some. What are the different ways that you could improve this?

Yes. So today there are two great ways that I always say, well, there are two approved drugs out there to improve mitochondrial function. One is exercise and one is good nutrition. And it's easy to mention that as a clinician to patients to tell them to do regular physical activity and to eat good, healthy nutrition, but the compliance rates are very poor. So in a sense, there are now, of course, other regimens like caloric restriction and intermittent fasting that have been studied a lot as ways to improve mitochondrial function. That's another segment. But then in our diets, in our ecosystem of food, they exist nutrients that are being very well studied to improve mitochondrial function. There are different ways you can hit mitochondrial function. You can increase the number of mitochondria to produce more energy. You can take existing mitochondria and make them function better. There are ingredients like Coenzyme Q10 that do this. The ingredients like or actives like resveratrol and NAD boosters that are known to increase the number of mitochondria. And then the last is improving mitophagy, which is basically cleaning the faulty mitochondria and giving way to healthier mitochondria.

All right, let's go a little deeper in exercise and nutrition. And then I want to definitely talk through some of the supplements because I just have a pet peeve, I will admit. And maybe it's because I started in the world as an exercise physiologist and I kind of come back. It's like full circle because, gosh, the more I study anti aging research, the clearer it is that exercise you Cannot, you cannot be healthy without exercise. It's, it's. And even those who are exercising are probably not doing enough of what they need to do. What are you seeing as the most effective types of exercise to help here?

Yeah, so I think there's no one particular exercise in the studies. They've looked at aerobic exercise regimens, they've looked at resistance exercise regimens, they've looked at high intensity interval training regimens. And there's no perfect, as you pointed out, no perfect regimen to boost your aerobic capacity or mitochondrial function in different ways. And I think that the jury is out there, but I think the consensus is building to a mix of you need to do aerobic training, you need to do your brisk walking or running or jogging and then you need to do sort of resistance training. And if you had hit to it, then you get even some other benefits associated with it.

Yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense. Like I've been looking at all this and I always go, well first off is just move more, you know, just like track your steps, stand up more, walk the dog, take the stairs, etc. But once we get past that, there's a definite difference between doing things like resistance training or doing cardio. And you need both of them, you know, resistance training. So you really have that muscle mass that would decline otherwise and can even, can even stay up if you're fasting, if you're doing the resistance training, then the cardio and gosh, I'm, I'm preparing for a talk right now and I was looking at just some of the research on people in the highest cardiovascular fitness versus the lowest and more all cause mortality and it's insane. Same with people with grip strength. So it's really clear that you've got to get both of those things. And so the more, you know, it's like, and the more different things that you can do, like yoga, hiit, you know, walking, cycling, resistance training, the better. So I love that into diet. Before we go into nutrients, are there some key things in the diet that can help here?

Well, a lot of research is now pointing to a healthy gut microbiome. So a lot of, you know, a lot of fermented foods and eating right fibers is typically at the top of it. A lot of antioxidants as well, berries and nuts. Anything that is beneficial to the gut microbiome sort of. And there are even companies out there studying what are the beneficial sort of gut microbiome profile of healthy top athletes versus, you know, old frail people. So Definitely that, that's part of the puzzle is getting your right fiber intake and taking the right sort of, you know, high protein is definitely fits the discussion we're having today because we touched upon it as well. So you're drinking, getting enough protein from your diet to boost your muscle. So that's part of the.

Yeah, okay, so protein plus plants. I just actually was reading one this morning, a study this morning that was showing from Stanford. They were looking at weight maintenance after weight loss. And the big thing, they found that people at the, in weight maintenance, the people who are gaining weight and the people who are, who were maintaining their weight were actually eating the same amount of calories. The difference in those who maintained was what they'd done to their gut microbiome.

There you go.

You know, so it's, it's amazing. I can't wait till we can really pinpoint this. But I think overall what we'll find out is it's, it's why there's issues with things like the carnivore diet, because where the heck, where are the polyphenols, you know, like where's the fiber?

And it's one of the reasons why nutrition trials are so difficult to show an effect, I think also because the gut microbiome is sort of the underlying factor that is dictating a lot of the, you know, who benefits from what.

So yeah, so then you talk to nutrients and I would love to like, let's go, let's go deep into this. But before we do, we're going to take a quick break, so stay with me.

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Okay, so let's talk nutrients and I like to do it in this order because I want to make sure that people are doing the basics first. You know, you're getting the exercise in, you're eating correctly and then you supplement what you're doing. Right. Okay, so let's talk supplements and which things can be the most help here. And I know we're also going to get into mitophagy, which I'm sure talk about, so dig in.

Yeah, so I think I started touching upon it some of these nutrients have been studied for, for decades. You know that they can hit different aspects. So I was starting to talk about how you can boost or add on to the benefits of good exercise and good nutrition. On top is bite. So we have been studying, for example, a lot about on pomegranates. And pomegranates have for long been known to be the superfood. And we have taken a deep dive into some of the nutrients inside pomegranate, for example. And what happens in pomegranates. There are a lot of polyphenols. So they're extremely rich sources of polyphenols, a certain class called ellagitannins. But what depends on how you process Elliot tannins. And if you get the benefits out of the elliotannins is really back to the gut microbiome story. And so what we found was that down the road of metabolism of these polyphenols, the gut microbiome can synthesize a nutrient that we call as urolitin A that has some remarkable mitochondrial rejuvenating effects. So this is one of the nutrients we are studying. In addition to your lithin A, there are a number of nutrients such as Coenzyme CoQ10, there's the NAD boosters, which are basically precursors of vitamin B3. And, and they're known to boost sort of the, the abundance of mitochondria and get. Give you more energy. So in essence, these, the field is kind of studying all these different bioactives.

And so let's get into urolithin A because that's the one we're going to really dig into. And I'll just give a little background is you guys sent me a kit. First of all, you told me how to drink pomegranate juice and I freaked out a little bit because I never drink sugary juices. I was like, oh, no. But, you know, I was just doing a trial. But like walk through what you had me do with that trial and then let's talk about this urolithin A and what it does.

Yeah, so in essence, about 30 to 40% of the healthy adult population can make the gut metabolite neurolithin A if you are taking the right diet. So for example, if you're taking a glass of juice or you're eating a bowl of nuts, like pecans or walnuts, which are also good sources of.

A bowl.

Yeah, bowl. A bowl is what, about 80 grams or something like that of pecans or walnuts.

Like a bowl, like a cup Like a cup. Yeah, like that's a lot of calories of, you know, that's a lot.

Yeah. And. And same with, with pomegranate.

Yeah, the juice. Like, I mean you're either talking about you just like loaded yourself with a load of. A big load of fat. I mean it's healthy fat, but still too much is too much, or you're hitting yourself with a bunch of sugar. So, yeah, problematic.

So problematic. And in addition to that problem is that you're thinking you're getting these polyphenols that are going to give you these great effects. Turns out that 30 to 40% of the people only have the right gut microbiome. And I'm in the camp of those who don't have it. So I invented a test which basically would allow you to know if you are bodies making this nutrient by itself from the diet. So you. Basically what you got was you got a box with two set of tests. One where you would have to drink the juice, a glass of juice, which is about 240mls, and a glass should give you, if you have the right gut microbiome, exposure to about 50 to 100 milligrams of the nutrient. And so that's the first part of the test. So, you know, if your body is making it, if it's not, then you take our product and you take one sort of intake and then you see the difference of bioavailability and the levels that can change from.

You made that test up.

Yeah, yeah. It was mostly inspired by the fact that one day I drank six glasses of juice and my body refused to make any.

But you got pretty hypoglycemic probably.

I did. I was wearing one of those glucose sensors and it was flagging all red warnings on the sensor.

That's. But you know, here's the thing. Like even if you can make it, if, even if you were in that lucky 30 to 40% of the gut microbiome, what you have to ingest in order to get sufficient levels is not really practical.

It is not. And it's very imprecise. So even if you're making. It's not a 100% conversion rate for every molecule, your body will make it. So we see 2% to 10% population, they're really blessed, as I call them, that have everything right in their gut microbiome ecosystem and they can work well, well. But then the remaining 20, 30% that who convert, they convert it poorly to a point where those little levels are not going to give you any therapeutic sort of effect or benefit or health benefits associated with the molecules. So. Yeah, plus as you said, you're taking all the sugar and.

Yeah, well, why is this a big deal? Why do I need this urolithin A?

Well, it is a big deal because we've been studying this for close to 15 years and we have.

And how did you, before you start like you've been studying it, like, how do you even find it to start studying it?

Yeah, so a little bit about the background of how the company was formed, you know, 15 years back. We said, hey, there's a lot of nutrition, there's a lot of supplements where everybody's blending probiotics and, you know, antioxidants and plant extracts, but nobody's really doing a deep biotech dive into sort of how is it happening? What is the biology? What are the exact bioactives? So we set out and we basically went around all the major pomegranate producing countries. We started with pomegranate because pomegranate juice was. There's a lot of studies around pomegranate juice. And as I said, some of them are positive, some of them are not too positive. And so we started basically studying pomegranates and pomegranate juices from different parts of the world, Spain, Azerbaijan, whatever, wherever pomegranate was being produced. And we started looking at its effects. And what we found was that inside the pomegranate there were hundreds of, of thousands of actually beneficial compounds. And what led was one eureka moment where we were working with a famous professor who we gave one of the compounds and he came back running and saying most of the, let's say health span lifespan studies start with worms. And he was sprinkling all these hundreds of compounds and he found one that was dramatically extending the lifespan of worms so they were more mobile and they were living longer. And so he said, what have you given me? And we said, well, we went down the list and we saw Urolutena and that's how it started, basically.

Wow.

You know, and from there we went into older animal models, studying if it had an impact. And we saw that older animals were running 50% longer and there was 10% better grip strength. And then we've been basically building off that 10 years in clinical research now.

So what exactly does this do?

So we have studied a number of populations in our clinical studies, all of which are randomized placebo control studies. We started studying older adults first. So in the first studies we did, we took a cohort of older and active individuals who were all 70 plus. And we did what we call as muscle biopsies, which is taking small chunks of muscle and trying to study them. And what was clear was that the active folks, mitochondrial health was very good. The sedentary older adults, mitochondrial health was not good. And we took these folks, these sedentary folks, and we supplemented them with a month of oral supplementation with this molecule. And what we saw was that it was much more bioavailable compared to, for example, the precursors, the polyphenols that always have a problem of bioavailability. Then when we again retook the muscle biopsies a month after we saw the mitochondria in these older adults who weren't moving too much, they were looking very, and they were almost looking like the mitochondria of people who were exercising regularly. From there we went and we did longer studies with two and four months in older adults and overweight adults. What we see is improved endurance, people tend to walk longer. We see resistance to fatigue, which means that people can exercise longer. And we see better muscle strength by about 10 to 12%. These are some of the findings we are seeing in these trials.

You know, you hear that and that's the closest thing to exercise in a bottle. You know, it's like, right, like you just, you just talked about all the things that happen as you start to improve your cardiovascular fitness and go out and do some resistance training, improve your grip strength. Now, this is not to say, if you're listening, that, oh, you just need to take this pill. But think if you combine this with, you know, getting more protein in your diet and doing the right types of exercise, it's like, bam.

Yeah.

So what exactly is it doing? How's it, how's it doing this?

Yeah, so well, just to finish, I think you touched upon two very important things that can you add it to protein and can you add it to exercise? And it's hitting a pathway called mitophagy, which exercise is known to do. So exercise is a well known inducer of autophagy and mitophagy, autophagy being the clearance of all the waste, cellular waste inside the cell, and mitophagy being autophagy specific to mitochondria. So as we get older, as our cells sort of functionally decline over time, they accumulate waste and the mitochondria accumulate waste. And we can't clean out this garbage bin as efficiently as when we are 70 than what we were doing in our 30s and 40s. And so essentially, this is what mitophagy is it's basically the garbage disposal system that, that slows off with aging. What we see with urlitin A is that it revs up mitophagy during the aging process. So now you're taking all this cellular trash and this gets more efficiently cleaned and becomes sort of the building blocks for near healthy mitochondria that are producing more energy, that gives people more endurance, et cetera. And yeah, it's supposed to be taken in combination. Today the studies we are doing one is with a professor called Stu Phillips, who's one of the sort of eating high protein guys and, and he said, well, if I combine something with a muscle mass boosting, which is, let's say 20 grams of high protein intake, with something that is a bioenergetic booster, this is really sort of the magic intake for muscle, boosting muscle health. And so he's studying this right now as we speak. And then there's another study in, in Australia we're running with Professor Luis Burke, who studied master athletes all her career. And she's wondered why a lot of these athletes performance over time during a calendar year or with, you know, their career decline sometimes. And, and she thinks a lot of time over training is causing a decline in mitophagy. And so she's supplementing top athletes, Olympians actually, with Irlitin A to see if by improving mitophagy, some of their, you know, recovery can be much faster.

So is mitophagy something that, like mitophagy and overall autophagy, is this something that slows down as we age? I'm assuming so, yes.

The answer is yes for sure.

And what happens when your mitophagy slows down, your autophagy slows down, and now you're not getting rid of the cellular debris and the mitochondrial debris that you should like. What are the. Is that where you get this fatigue, you can't recover, you can't work as hard, all of kind of stuff? Maybe some inflammation?

Yeah. So it happens all in all cells in all tissues. So for example, in muscle, the mitochondria of the muscle, if they are slowing down, mitophagy, for example, you won't produce enough energy, which will mean now that your muscles can contract too well, which means you can't produce enough energy to move around, for example, or your muscle function will start declining. Now this is a phenomena very well studied in the brain as well. In brains as we age, for example, mitophagy, there's a very famous paper from the National Institute of Aging that Showed that in the brains of older adults who had early onset dementia, they found declining mitophagy. So it's almost like aggregates of cellular waste are accumulating in the brain of these older adults. Similar things happen in other organs, like even in the immune system. Our immune system system has mitochondria, immune cells and mitochondria and they slow down mitophagy and which is why with aging we don't respond as good to vaccination, for example.

So we know then like beyond exercising helping induce some of this and maybe you know some. And I know that's all over the board right now with time restricted feeding and how long it actually takes and you know what's happening. But is there any other nutrient that's been discovered that can do what what urolithin A does or is that it?

So in terms of boosting mitochondrial function, there are are several nutrients.

I'm talking mitophagy though. Any other thing that we found in.

Terms of mitophagy, I think it's the one I'm aware that has been translated into humans. They of course exercise is one, don't do it. I believe there are some studies with spermidine. There's another bioactive called spermidine that is known as an autophagy inducer.

But such an unfortunate name.

Very unfortunate.

It's like why isn't someone changing that one?

But it hasn't been yet shown that it is specific mitophagy inducer. So it is a known autophagy inducer but not a mitophagy inducer. So I think urolitin A is the only known mitophagy activator that I think has been shown to be safe and have health benefits in human trials.

Then in order to use it, because I'm looking at going to me the ultimate playful out at 100. That's my new. What am I focused on playful out at 100 would be to do the combo fitness training, making sure that you've got optimal protein with, with plant rich polyphenols and fibers. So I think clean animal protein and plant rich fiber foods and then taking urolithin A seems like the trifecta here.

Well, that's the message I think folks that I always say there are three pillars, fundamental pillars of good health. I don't know about lifespan, but I am more focused on health span because we all want to be fit when we are in our 80s and 90s. And I think the first pillar is exercise, as you mentioned. The second pillar is is good nutrition with all the, you know, bullet points we talked about. And the third is what can we do in addition to these two that can maintain good health and good cellular health is. Is key to that.

And this nutrient, this is something that you take every day, correct?

Yeah, I do. I do take. We have studied doses between 500 milligram to a gram. We see health benefits starting at 500 milligram. And in some of the other studies, we see 1 gram being even better. So I personally take a gram.

Great. And it's. You can take it in capsule, you can take it in powder. So easy enough to take.

Yeah. So we have several formats. We've studied all the different formats in terms of bioavailability. They're very equivalent. So today we have four products that are, you know, tippins into yogurts and smoothies that have come with fruit flavorings like pomegranate flavored or ginger flavored that you can put, you know, kind of blends with the lifestyle. A lot of people then now prefer to take soft gels and pills. And so we have the soft gels that are also giving you the right calibrated dose. And then we have the high protein in combination with high protein as well.

Well, I know when I first heard about this, because our joint buddy, Dr. David Perlmutter, turned me onto this. And then I did a little test and I started to read about. I'm like, holy smokes. First of all, you never see a nutrient that has this kind of research. It just doesn't happen. I mean, that's one of the challenges we have in the supplement field. But then you start to look at what this can do, and it's like, oh, my goodness. So I have been on it. My husband's on it. As I'm listening to this, I'm realizing. And it was funny. Even last night, my ex husband came over and he goes, he showed me. He goes, you know, have you heard this research? I'm really looking at our son. I have my son with a traumatic brain injury. And we've been looking at what we need to do about some of the issues. You know, he's got some real neurodegenerative issues from having a massive brain injury. And I was like, reading this. He was reading something, I think, about your lithonates coming over to the house going, have you heard of this? I'm like, as a matter of fact, so. So this is quite spectacular information. And what's super awesome that you guys are doing is making this easily available to my audience. And here's what's great. If you're listening, you're going to get an opportunity. Now, I have to warn you that this is a first come, first serve. So if you're listening to this one, this is one that you want to immediately after listening, take advantage of. And you can do this@jjvirgin.com forward slash timeline, that is the name of the company. They're going to give you an opportunity to have a little free trial, a little test. And so if you go again to JJvirgin.com timeline, you'll have that opportunity to say, yes, take advantage of that. If for some reason you missed the deadline of that, they'll still have a great option for you there because we always do something amazing. Plus, you'll have the ability to access all of this research, which is ridiculously compelling. Like one of those things where you go, okay, if I could only take one thing, what would it be? Right? Like, people always ask me, so what are the things that you take? And again, I always start with the diet and exercise piece because I think it's ridiculous to, you know, you're not going to sit there, lie on the couch, eat, eat cupcakes and think you're going to solve all your health problems by taking a nutrient. But boy, when you put these things together, it is not a one plus one plus one equals three. It's like an exponential impact. So I know a bunch of my buddies who are all focused on this too, like Dr. David Perlmutter and Dr. Mark Hyman are, are loving this stuff. So this is one we're making available to you and I thank you for doing that too, Dr. Singh. Like, this is like, first of all, like, just even coming up with that cool test and really digging into this, you are going to be, if not already, one of the game changers here in the, you know, playing full out thing. Because again, it is like, who wants to be 100 and can't do anything? 80, 70, right? I know I've got a mom who's 93 who's still golfing. And then I had a dad who I watched waste away from 220 down to 150. So I've seen both sides. I know which side I want to pick. So this is part of my, my playful out plan. So thank you so much for being with me. Amazing information and thank you more for all the work you're doing doing.

Thank you so much, J.J. for having me. Great talk.

For more info on this and other health topics I cover or to rate and review. Find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojay.com thanks again for being with me this week.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.