Senescent Cells & Aging Powerfully with James Schmachtenberger

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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 and lose weight, heal your gut, detox and lots more. So if you want to get healthy and get off that dieting for life merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better fast. All right. If you've been listening to the podcast at all, you probably know that I'm really interested in longevity, brain health, body composition, exercise, diet. Diet in terms of the way we eat that best supports us. I have a whole thing on what diet should and shouldn't be and I love to find super smart people who are well researched to come on and share the latest in any of these topics. And today's guest is exactly one of those people. I know him and his brother Daniel from, from San Diego. We are having James Schmachtenberger today. He is the co founder and CEO of Neurohacker. I can say this collective and they are doing some super cool stuff over there at Neurohacker. This company is focused on making groundbreaking products for health and well being through complex system science. So they are really digging into the research and test, tackling the tough, the tough questions. And that one today is going to be the tough question on anti aging. But really in anti aging we are going to be looking at senescence cells and if you're going what JJ are senescent cells? What are you talking about? We will be talking about these senescent cells, what you can do to break these down, what the heck they are, how they are impacting aging in every area of your body and what you can do about them that you'll notice quickly, which is super exciting I always love. And you'll find that some of the things you're already doing because you've been listening to the podcast and you are exercising and eating the foods that work for you and lowering your sugar impact and getting rid of snacking and shortening your feeding window, all that stuff is helping. And now you have some other things that you can throw into your toolbox. So I will be right back with James.

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All right, so I am here with one of the smartest human beings on the planet. And I'm super excited to be diving into longevity because I am all about anything right now that is going to make it. So when I'm in my 80s and 90s and hundreds, I'm like, you know, running up and down the stairs. That's it. So I'm hoping, James, that you have some solutions here for us on how we can just like, kind of stay 30 for as long as possible. So what you got?

Absolutely. Well, first, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. And yeah, I'm excited to dive into.

I know you look amazing for 80. Like, you're definitely selling yourself. All right, not quite 80 yet, but not quite. If you could see them, if you're watching this, you're knowing I'm full of it anyway. But we are diving into aging. Why are you so excited about this? What got you interested in this?

Well, I guess aging as a whole. One of the key reasons that I'm excited about it is it's not just about slowing the aging process. The things that you do that would orient around slowing the aging process also just make health better across the board.

And don't you find that with most stuff it's like, okay, you want to have better blood sugar control, look at all the other things it fixes. So it's good to know that that's the same here as well. And I kind of cut you off. What were you going to say in addition to that?

Well, you're definitely right. Like pretty much anything you do for like one area of health is going to have effects across everything and make you feel better. But then I think particularly in the anti aging space, it's often even more so because you're working at pretty foundational levels. Like a lot of the stuff in and around anti aging is like at the level of the cell. So when you make cells function better, everything functions better. Right. And that I think is where it gets exciting. Because of course, we all want to live to much older than what is considered normal today. We want to be running stairs at 100, 120. But it's not just about how long you live. One of the things we talk about at Neurohacker a lot is the term health span. And that's not necessarily how many years you're on the planet, but it's how many years are you in thriving health? Because if we can add an extra 10, 20 years to life, but you're bedridden and in pain, it's not necessarily the most important.

No, thank you. I think that's everyone's worst nightmare is to live out the last their life that they spent all their life working towards being able to enjoy and not be able to enjoy it. That would be a shame. And you say that it all starts at the cellular level.

Yes.

So and improving your cells. So how. How do we, how do we even know what we're looking at there? Like, how do you, how would you measure that? And what do you do? Like, what are the things that you can do that can improve. Improve your health at the cellular level?

So, I mean, there's a number of things, right? There's what's known as the hallmarks of aging. So these are like nine different areas that are kind of the core pieces and research around what cause aging and then also what can slow the aging process, right? So you have things like mitochondrial health, things like stem cells, telomere length, or like what I think we're going to dive into a little bit today is senescent cells, which is probably a term that no one's ever heard of, because I hadn't even heard of it not that long ago before my research team brought it to me. But so talking about cells, the way that healthy cells are intended to function is they're able to create immense amounts of energy that the body utilizes for everything. And as they're healthy, they continue to divide and replicate. And then once they get past the point where they're able to divide and replicate, there's something that's supposed to kick in called apoptosis, which basically means scheduled cell die off. Once they're no longer healthy, they're supposed to die in healthy systems. That's generally what happens. But as we age and some of the things start to break down, and particularly as our immune systems aren't as strong as they once were, then some cells will become senescent. And what that means is essentially they're still living and taking up resources, but they're no longer contributing anything positive. So they're basically just taking away resources that could go to healthy cells. What's worse than just taking up resources is that once a cell becomes senescent, they start emitting a series of proteins that cause the other cells around them to also become senescent. So it actually rapid effect on increasing the aging process.

That's terrible. Is there a way to measure that protein to know if that's going on and how much of it's going on?

There is, but not super easily. So a lot of the research that's been done on this, unfortunately, involves taking tissue samples. A lot of the research has been done more in animal models than in humans, though there has been quite a bit in humans. But most people don't want to have samples taken out of their body and measured all the time. So what has been kind of translated from that is being able to look at the core symptoms associated with senescent cell buildup and be able to see reductions in those symptoms.

What are those symptoms?

I mean, it can be very quite varied because every single type of tissue in our body can build up senescent cells. And so you've got senescent cells that are in skin tissue and fat tissue and muscle tissue and brain tissue and going to have different symptoms. But the thing that's been most heavily studied, because it is kind of the most direct correlation, is joint related health and pain. We recently launched a senolytic product. Senolytic basically being the kinds of compounds that break down and kill off senescent cells. And when we were developing that product, we did a pilot study on it. And with that we were testing joint health and it was actually quite remarkable. I expected the results to be good, but not necessarily this good. What we found was after essentially three cycles with the product, where people take it two days and then take a month off. Two days, take a month off. After three cycles, we saw a 53% decrease in joint related pain and discomfort and a 51% decrease in the difficulty people had with doing regular activities.

It's only taking it two days and then a month off.

Yeah. So this is, and this is where I think a lot of people that are starting to study senescence haven't maybe dove deep enough into the research. Because what you see, I mean, there's not a lot out there. It's very much like the cutting edge of anti aging medicine right now. But you do see a lot of places where people are taking certain senolytic compounds every single day. And though there can be benefit to it, the way that the research actually shows is that there's what's kind of commonly referred to as the hit and run technique. That with cellular senescence you want to provide a very high dose of the things that are needed to be able to kill off senescent cells. But you do it for a short period of time and then you give the body a break and then you come back to it. And that actually is much more efficient, both in terms of the amount of cells to get killed off, but also how much energy it takes away from the body.

Nice. It's almost like doing a deep detox where you detox, then you replenish, then you detox. So would combining that with doing some fasting for autophagy, would that be like a one, two punch? Would that help?

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, there's a very close correlation here. So like fasting or fast mimicking, I think for a lot of people, they kind of err more on the side of fast mimicking just because it's a.

Little bit easier really if they're really doing that correctly. You got to make sure you're actually following the fasting, mimicking protocol. Otherwise you're just, you know, eating a little less and maybe not triggering autophagy. Do you want to explain really quickly for everybody what autophagy is and how this would be important in this.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so autophagy, like the actual translation of it, basically means self eating, right? And so it's. It's the body's ability to essentially dissolve or eat away compounds that are building up in cells that are going to speed up the aging process. And, you know, there's a number of things that trigger autophagy and be. And like, the core things from a lifestyle perspective are certain aspects of diet, exercise, and particularly fasting. Right. And so that's where there's been, you know, those last few years, this kind of huge surge in. Why am I forgetting the term intermittent fasting? Because actually, fasting for most people is pretty hard. But being able to do intermittent fasting, where you're only kind of fasting for relatively short periods and you're still getting regular food, is something that's relatively doable, but that triggers autophagy, which slows down the aging process, makes muscles work better, all kinds of positive things. Now, there's also a close correlation between senolytics and autophagy. Like, most of the compounds that we use in our senolytic products have also been studied to increase autophagy. So you're. Even though the focus here is on being able to clear out senescent cells, it's not the only thing that's happening. It's actually triggering a number of different mechanisms that are all going to have positive effect.

Very cool. So you could combine the two and be even more powerful. It sounds like. And what, what is in this synolytic formula? Like, what are the things that help do this?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So there's. We have nine different ingredients that are in the product. The two that are kind of, maybe the most known in the research world right now would be called fisetin and quercetin. And these have both been studied very extensively for being able to kill off cell senescent cells. But we have quite a bit more than that because, again, where a lot of the very cutting edge research is showing is that like I mentioned earlier, there are senescent cells that build up in all the different kinds of tissues. And each different kind of compound tends to target senescent cells in different kinds of tissues. Where some of the products on the market maybe only have fisetin or only have quercetin or might even have both. That means that you're getting the ability to break down senescent cells in certain tissues, but not necessarily across the entire.

Body and our own age, I would assume, wouldn't you? Like, if you're aging in one area, it's probably not your bias going, you know, we're just going to age in your food fat cells. It's the only thing aging like that, it, that doesn't make any sense. Right. It would be, you know, across the different areas of your bodies, from your mitochondria to your brain to your fat to your. Right, everything.

Yeah. And, and this is where I think a lot of times kind of the, the product development processes loses, loses sight of the way that the body actually works. Right. We're a very complex integrated system. If something is going wrong in one area, it's not isolated to that area, unless maybe you're talking about like an acute trauma. But generally with overall health, if there's something causing challenges in fat cells, for instance, it's certainly not going to be isolated there. It's going to have effects everywhere. And so, you know, the approach of just trying to kill off senescent cells in certain areas, still beneficial. And it probably would have some like positive cascading effects. But ultimately if you can be able to address the whole system, you're going to have far better results. And that's really our AT neurohacker. Like that's our core orientation. We're kind of the thing that we're most known for was pioneering the use of complex system science applied to the human body. And with that, the orientation and the intent is to not look at health in this like really narrow, isolated kind of way, but to actually understand how does the entire system work and what is the interface between all the different systems. So if you're thinking about brain health, for instance, you can't just think about that in isolation because so many of the neurotransmitters are produced in the gut. So if you don't factor the gut, you're still missing out. Everything has these kinds of deep tie ins because we are one integrated system. So our approach has always been do the like, do all of the research necessary, however much time and energy that takes to really understand the whole system and understand how the body is designed to optimally function and then be able to create products that support that optimal function and don't just address one or two particular biomarkers.

So I know you've been looking at a lot of the research and I want to get into some more of this. I'm going to take a short break, so hang with me and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by McAfee.

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So I know there's been research being done out in Scripps and Mayo. Like what, what is the latest research, since this is a relatively new field? Like, what are some of the big things that have been uncovered here that would be good for us to know? And are there other things beyond fasting and this specific supplement blend that you've created that can help?

Yeah. So, I mean, this is where to me this is a very exciting area because it's so new and so cutting edge. Right. Like, senescent cells have been understood in the research community for probably close to four decades, but we didn't understand much about them other than they existed and they caused the speed up in aging. But it's only since 2015 that researchers actually found out anything could be done about it. So we know that.

To be clear, there's only an increase in aging if you're not breaking them down.

Well, I mean, like we talked about before with the hallmarks of aging, there's a number of different things that affect aging. So even if you're addressing senescent cells, there may still be other factors that are relevant. But certainly.

But senescent cells would be okay if your body was. Because you need to have them, you need to get rid of them. So it sounds like the issue more is that your body isn't getting rid of them as it should be. And is this one of the things that happens as we age? Or could there be some genetic markers or some lifestyle things that also do that? All right, back to you. Back to you, James.

I mean, there likely are some genetic factors. I haven't seen that directly in the research so far. It's more related to general aging and particularly immune health, because senescent cells aren't inherently bad. They're bad when they last for a long period of time. Because there's also what's known as transient senescent cells, where, like, for instance, if you do a really hard workout, your body will Actually produce quite a bit of senescent cells, but then within very short order, they die off and get cleared out. And it's actually part of the process of speeding up that cell die off. That's supposed to happen. But the problem comes that senescent cells can break down a few different ways. But the key thing is that the immune system goes after them and attacks them. But when the immune system isn't working as well, where you start to get what should be these transient senescent cells, they aren't transient and they just live in your body for a long time. And that's where it becomes an issue because like we talked about, they end up turning the other cells around them into senescent cells. And this is like the speed up in the aging process. So the key thing is you do want to be able to get rid of them. And what the research shows is you don't actually have to get rid of all of them. You have to get rid of about 70 to 80%. And then even though these proteins are still being emitted, it's in a small enough amount that the body can totally handle it. And so you don't have to go crazy with it. You just have to do some of the appropriate things to be able to keep those levels down. Exercise, though it creates transient ones, is one of the key things, lifestyle wise, that will be able to break them down.

And then any specific type of exercise, essentially high intensity.

So I mean, any form, like hiit for instance, would be a really good approach to being able to address senescent cells. And then the thing that has the most correlation is fasting and fast mimicking.

Is there anything around fasting, like length of time that's optimal? I'm sure that this is all so new. It's kind of, that's the big question because I mean, that's been. Everything about intermittent fasting is how long does it take to get into autophagy? How long? But anything out yet about optimal times or if there's a length of time that's needed or how often? I mean, like with mimicking, it's once a month type of thing.

Yeah, I mean, in terms of like, there's quite a bit of information on that around different aspects of health as it goes like specific to senescence levels. I actually don't know. I haven't seen that in the research that I've read so far. Now granted, I'm not a hardcore researcher, right. My team is. We've got a whole team of PhDs and doctors that just dive into this all day. I tend to kind of study things at a high level.

I was like, bless those people. Just give me the, give me the key points. Exactly what do I need to put into practice here? That's what I'm always looking to come forth.

Yeah. But then, so, yeah, there are these lifestyle factors and those should absolutely be done because they're, you know, inexpensive, they're consistent, they're available to everybody.

And they fix a lot of other stuff too, as we know.

Right. I mean, fat mimicking is extraordinary for all kinds of things. Right. It's going to improve brain function, it's going to support weight loss, it's going to do a number of things for cellular health. So I mean, certainly something that's worth the effort, even though it can be a little unpleasant or uncomfortable at first. But I think, you know, as you probably know, once you do it for a little while, you kind of adjust and it stops being a big deal. But yeah, so, I mean, there, there are the core lifestyle factors which I think everyone should focus on. But then in addition to that, there are things from like a supplementation perspective that can really kind of ramp up the benefits. Now, a lot of the research that was done wasn't actually with supplements, at least initially. It was like most of the research out of Mayo Clinic and Scripps was done with a leukemia drug called Dysatin, and some of it was Dasatinib paired with quercetin, which is one of the ingredients we're using. And with that, you did see these huge drop offs in senescent cells. But satinib is not a particularly safe compound. And so though it can have certain benefits, it also causes a lot of other challenges. And so that's where the research then started to advance. Say, well, what other compounds can be able to have the same kind of effect but without the associated downsides?

Well, did they compare the drug, the drug plus quercetin and just quercetin, all three?

They did. So the drug plus quercetin is where you saw the biggest benefit. And it makes sense because again, what we have seen from the research is different kind, like different kinds of tissues having different. Having senescent cells and each compound kind of affecting them differently. So the combination is generally where you're going to see the best benefit.

And then the question would be, what was in that drug? What was that drug's mechanism of action? Could we mimic it with a supplement that wouldn't hurt you, right?

Yeah, exactly. And what we have seen is that particularly fisetin seems to operate in A very similar fashion seems to hit on a lot of the same mechanisms and have a lot of the same benefit. But fisetin is basically plant extracts. It shows up commonly in things like strawberries, onion peels. There's things that we eat on a daily basis that have fisetin, just maybe not in high enough amounts to be able to be effective for what we're talking about, or at least not as effective. So that's where you can be able to essentially extract it, have high doses that can have a really big impact here.

It makes you wonder with some of these blue zone places, if, you know, like, and I, and I just say this because just being in Peru where they had 192 microclimates and all this, you know, food biodiversity and all different polyphenols, you wonder if some of these blue zones, one of those things that's happening is they've got, you know, foods that are rich in these things that are contributing to the. Being a synolytic. Is that a crazy leap to make?

I don't think it is. I mean, I think that, you know, a lot of our food naturally had much more, not just polyphenols, but all kinds of nutrients, right? There was way more vitamin content, way more mineral content. The problem, like one of the key problems that we live with today and why I think supplementation often becomes important, is that we've done so much damage to topsoil the way that we do kind of mass scale agriculture. And so even if you're eating totally organic, you're getting a small fraction of the nutrients that you would have gotten with that exact same plant 100 years ago. And then not only do you have topsoil depletion, then you have the fact that a lot of produce has been hybridized like crazy and transported, right? A lot of it's remotely fresh, right? So take it all the way across the world before it gets to your door.

I know it's like local, seasonal, organic, everybody. Local, seasonal, organic. But the other piece of it, like, we shouldn't be having cherries in February unless they were frozen in July. But you look at that and then you combine it with. And again, it was just fascinating to be at Machu Picchu and see those gardening terraces and go, oh, oh, what a big difference this is. But then to look at that and go, okay, we have the issues with soil, we have the runoff of all of these chemicals that are getting into the organics, but then we have just a toxic world and a stressful world, increasing our nutrient demands. Not reducing them. So we have higher nutrient demands and less nutrients from our foods. So I don't personally see how you can be healthy without supplements. I've been even just looking at basic, you know, nutrient deficiency testing. You just never see someone without supplementation who's even like, got the basics and the basics. And if anyone's seeing the basics are the recommended daily intake or allowance or whatever the heck it is now, that is like, no, that is so you don't die, right?

Yeah. I mean, the FDA recommended amounts of, like, most of the common vitamins and minerals are actually insanely low. And like you said, they're basically so that you're not suffering and dying, but they're not oriented around optimal health.

It was the don't get scurvy. I was like, okay, wow.

All right. Big picture around health. One of the things that I don't think people think about enough is human physiology does evolve and adapt, but it takes tens of thousands of years for that to happen. And in the last 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, our entire world has changed. And so our physiology hasn't been able to catch up to the world that we live in. So we're exposed to so many more toxins and stressors and time pressure and all kinds of things that we're not actually naturally designed for.

Right. Well, look at the last 30 years. I mean, just look at what's happened from computers and phones and, you know, pop Tarts.

Right? We're getting insane amounts of sugar, fats, all things that, like, you're supposed to have some of in your diet, but you are not.

You do not need to have sugar in your diet.

Not, not refined sugar.

I mean, you don't even have to have. You don't even have to have sugar from fruit in your diet. You can live without it. Just, you know, just won't be as much fun. But. So, okay, what else came out of those? Any. Any other big hallmark stuff from. From what's been being researched out there?

Yeah. I mean, so one of the other areas that we've dove really deeply into is mitochondrial function. Right. It's one of the other main kind of hallmarks of aging. So for those who aren't familiar, mitochondria are a little part of cells that are known as the powerhouse. They're what produce most of the energy in cells. And again, with aging, mitochondria start to break down. You get less of them, you get less functionality out of the ones that are there. And there's a bunch of different things that affect Mitochondria terms that people have probably heard like bdnf, ATP, nad, Right. So our, we developed another product called Quality of Life, which focuses on mitochondrial health. With that, we are kind of like we do, we took a complex approach. We're hitting up all of the major pathways, but there's a real focus and emphasis there on nad. Nad, if people aren't familiar, it's basically a part of vitamin B3. But that molecule is the primary energy source for mitochondria and for cells. So if you have more nad, your cells are able to continually produce more energy, which essentially means everything is going to work better. As we age, NAD levels start to drop off pretty drastically. By the time that people hit about 30, their NAD levels start to go down by sometimes as much as half, and then that progresses as time goes on. Being able to boost NAD levels is a key part of the anti aging process as well. But NAD by itself is a unstable molecule. So you can't actually just take it. It'll break down in the stomach acid. So what you need to do there is take certain things that are called precursors where they're going to then cause your body to naturally produce more of it. And so with that product, we are using a few different precursors to be able to help the body produce more. But then we did another thing there that's really. I haven't seen anybody else do this, but I think it's particularly interesting. We also use compounds to close the salvage pathway so that when your body is producing more nad, you're actually able to get utilization of all of it. And we actually, we did a.

Hold on, you said a thing, you said a thing that bears discussion. You said closed a salvage pathway, right?

So with, with many things in the body, your body will produce whatever the compound is and it'll make utilization of some of it, but some large portion ends up getting exhausted out, right? And so like a lot of times people talk about with supplements, if you take the wrong form, you get a whole bunch of the thing, but ultimately you just pee most of it out, right? Because the body can't have utilization. And so this is where the salvage pathway comes in is with nad, you can produce quite a bit, but NAD is something that sort of recycles. You use nad, it turns into either nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide, which then converts back into nad, and it's kind of a cycle. But oftentimes that cycle becomes inefficient. And so even as you get more nad your body ends up expelling some of it and you don't actually get the full use. So that was one of the key things that we were looking at in the research was how do we increase that utilization? How do we make sure that people get as much of the NAD as they possibly can? Because just increasing it without that will help, but nowhere near as much.

Got it. So you're figuring out how to close the door to that.

Right. And again there we did another pilot study. We do a lot of studies, our orientation, but with that particular one we were doing before and after blood labs, looking at how much NAD people had in their blood and their plasma, and then what the effects were over 30 days on this particular product. And it was awesome. We ended up seeing a full 100% increase in NAD levels and a 40 and 60% increase in NR and NMN, which are the two metabolites associated.

This is a big thing because I know most people, a lot of the docs are doing IVs. I was like, it's four hours, I'm not doing that. Or injections. I wonder if you could do a urine plus a blood test so that you'd see kind of that sweet spot of how much you need versus at the point you start excreting more. Or maybe that's just like. Because wouldn't you see excretion?

You probably could do a corollary study like that and look at as the numbers elevate in the blood, how much secretion is there. I don't know if that's actually even doable yet. Like when we did our study, we actually had to work with the research organization to help refine how to test levels because this is also a pretty new area. So, you know, it's not like just going and getting a simple blood test for checking vitamin levels, which is something that's been done for a long time. And we know exactly how to do it. The ability to even effectively test NAD levels has only existed for a couple years. And so, and I haven't seen anything yet that in terms of being able to actually test how much is being excreted in the urine, I imagine that that will be something that will start to.

As I say, the supplement companies don't want to come out. And so someone taking this then, because again, you talked about with your other study being able to see this marked increase in reduction in joint pain. Like, and that's massive, like 50%, you know, I'm listening. That going a 50% reduction in joint pain. You know, any Pharmaceutical company would jump all over. Right. So, you know, the ultimate thing with any of this is what does a person notice from it? And I would imagine here that it would be something in the energy, daily energy, they'd be noticing.

Yeah. So like when, when you get your mitochondria working better, and particularly like if you get your NAD levels up there, I mean, there's a kind of everything starts to benefit. But the key things that people tend to notice is more total energy. Usually a pretty meaningful improvement in recovery time when you do a hard exercise, how quickly you bounce back from it, or if you do get an injury, how quickly does that heal. Then pretty noticeable changes in brain function as you have more energy and as cells are being able to continually drive more energy, you start to have a lot more clarity of thinking, more presence, faster processing speed, all these things, those are the core areas that people notice. Amazingly, they notice them pretty quickly. Like with that, with a number of our products, we design them to be something that people can feel right away. Right. Like, particularly our cognitive products are designed to be able to be felt the first day you take them. When we were doing the NAD research, we weren't even doing it with the idea that it was something that people would notice right away. This was more like a long term health approach. So I was actually kind of surprised and obviously delighted to see that almost everyone within about two weeks started noticing more energy, better recovery time, better cognitive function. And like, that was consistent feedback. We got across almost all customers.

Well, I've been really looking at, I'm working on my next book, my next last book, Famous. And so I'm really looking at aging and muscle. And it's funny, I feel like I'm coming back to where I started because when I first started and I was starting in weight loss and everyone was telling you you had to do cardio. And I'm like, I think you need to lift weights, man. That's going to make the bigger difference. You know, we got to focus on muscle. And now I'm back, we got to focus on muscle. But, you know, and, and I've been listening to a lot of Dr. Peter Attia's podcast where he's like, you got to lay down the muscle in your 20s and 30s and 40s so that you in your 50s. And. But a lot of that would be because I. One of the first things I started to notice in my 50s that I was able to turn around with some hormone replacement was like, I could not recover like I used to. And I'm like, What is that?

Right?

So just the ability to be able to recover is huge. Huge. Which you might not think about if you're listening to this in your 30s, you're like, I don't know what you're talking about, and trust me, you will later or not, if you're using this right.

I remember some of the things I said when I was in like my late teens and twenties about how I would never have those symptoms of aging. And I was like, like, oh, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And, and that, I think that's one of the challenges that makes this so exciting is for a lot of this stuff, when you're listening to these podcasts, it's like, well, you know, you better do this in your 20s, 30s, 40s, because otherwise you're going to be screwed in your 60s and 70s. I'm like, well, what about the 60s and 70s? People listen to this. Like, that's not very comforting. Like, you know, I mean, and the answer is, it's always great to start at any age, but if there are those things that can help you recover faster, do more, have more energy, Holy smokes, that is huge.

Yeah, I mean, obviously the sooner you start these things, the better. Right? Because you're having better health all throughout the process, but you're drastically slowing down the aging process. And so that's going to have phenomenal effects. But it is never too late to start, even if somebody's in there, 60s, 70s, or later. It's just when you really start to study the body, it's incredible how resilient it is, especially when it's given what it needs. And so even if somebody is already a bit older and they're having a lot of the effects of aging, the pain, et cetera, when you do things like address senescent cells, when you work on improving mitochondrial function and you do all these things, you can see a pretty significant turnaround. Because as the body's getting the base nutrients that it really needs and it's getting the support for a lot of these core functions, its own healing capacity is extraordinary. And I've seen pretty drastic turnarounds in a lot of the symptoms of aging and people that are quite a bit older, and if you are focused on this and you're paying attention, you can start a lot of these things in your 20s. It's ideal. Like, even for me, I was, it was maybe a year or so ago, there was a bunch of like, anti aging things I was wanting to do. And I'm like, God, they're so expensive. Should I Actually spend that money. And as I thought about it before, I'm like, that is the silliest thing for me to think. Like, you know, I'm fortunate that I can afford a lot of the things and if I do them now, I can not have a lot of the damage occur versus waiting till it occurs and then trying to reverse it, which is always harder still. Largely doable, but much harder doable, a.

Lot more expensive, a lot more painful. And it takes away from quality of life. And I think that is the real key. When you look at everything with longevity now, it's not, you know, I remember reading it was maybe 30, 40 years ago. Everything was about like increasing lifespan. And then there was like the light bulb moment of like, oh, wait a minute, you know, increasing lifespan and having crappy last 10, 20 years is not what anyone's talking about here. So the fact that you have things that can make you. Because that's, that's what I've been really looking at is I have a mom. I wish my mom was my biological mom. She is my adopted mom and she is like 93 and, you know, lives in a two story house on her own golfs. She's just like kicking it, right? And totally there, cognitively does her own shopping. In fact, during COVID I was like, mom, you cannot go to the store. I will either have stuff delivered or I'll have someone go get it. Oh, honey. You know, she was so frustrated with me and I'm like, I'm sorry, but you know, forget it, you're not doing it. Lives on a big hill. So she walks around the neighborhood on the hill. So it just, you know, it is absolutely something that you just, I think you reverse engineer going effectively. I want to be that way at 90. What am I needing to do in my 40s, 50s, 60s? Because you don't wake up at 80 and go, oh, here's what I need to do. Like start now.

Right?

And it sounds like you start now and you're going to be reaping benefits right away anyway. So who doesn't want more energy? Oh, and to recover faster and not have pain, right.

I mean, I've noticed like I'm, you know, when I started doing the Snesen product, for instance, within a few weeks I started noticing a change in recovery time because, you know, I, I like to do relatively extreme sports kind of things. Like I'm way too addicted to paintball, for instance, and.

That'S hilarious.

Painful sports.

Yeah.

Jumping so your knees are feeling it. But if you do get shot. Then there's bruising, like, and I definitely noticed very clear change and how quickly those things were repairing. So, like, sometimes exciting.

I've been lifting really heavy weights, and I'm like, this. Game on. I think you guys sent me some stuff, and it's in my. My. My pantry is just literally a supplement pantry. I'll be honest. It's like, I'm sure you can relate. Oh, yeah, Going. Okay. It was. I was waiting to talk to you to find out what to do with everything. So I'm like, running down after this to try it and I'll. I'll report back in because I'm a great guinea pig because I do one thing at a time and really monitor it and see what's going on. So.

Well, let me know what you have there, because with, like, with the senolytic, you'll get some benefits right off the bat. But, like, what are. Like, where we did our research was three cycles. And, you know, and I definitely noticed, like, for myself, as I've done it longer, the benefits are cumulative. So if you don't have enough for at least three cycles, I'll.

I will shout at you on all of this stuff. So I think the big takeaways for everybody. And. And honestly, here's the thing, James. The more you dig into the research, I haven't once heard, oh, you know what? That exercise, that's going to hurt you. It's like every single thing you look at, you go, man. So I always like to start with exercise and diet because I think it's ridiculous to sit on the couch and eat a crappy, inflammatory diet and think that things are going to save you, they're not. But when you put the exercise in with the right eating, which, if you're listening to this podcast, you know what those are. And then you put this on top. Holy smokes. It's not one plus one plus one equals three here. Like, it's massively exponential. So I'm really excited about this. I know you have something special for our listeners, too, so I'm going to put that at. I'm trying to think of what the easiest spelling is going to be. I think I'll do JJVirging Neurohacker. N E U R O H A C K E R Neurohacker. And they are going to get a discount coupon, correct, to try these amazing things.

Absolutely, yes. We've put together a coupon code. It's JJ Podcast, so pretty easy to remember. And if anyone uses that coupon code, it'll give them 15% off on any of the products. But, you know, today, obviously the focus is on anti aging with senolytic and with quality of life.

Cool. So here's my throwdown to you listening. And again, we'll put all of that@jjvirgin.com neurohacker plus, you know, just recommendations on the exercise piece of it. I am going to be recording some new exercise, a new exercise program. I've been like, putting it off, but I'm going to do it. And so you heard it here, I announced it. And putting that together with some of our intermittent fasting protocols that we have in our programs with these, I would love to hear what happens with you. So I'd love to hear that on my Instagram @jj Virgin and James, thank you so much for doing all the research for us or having your team do it, rather.

Yeah, the credit really goes to the team.

I love doing podcasts because I can bring smart people on who can give me what's the latest and greatest and then I can just put it into what are we going to do with all this information? So you were absolutely a delight and I appreciate everything that you guys are doing over there at neurohacker.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. This was, this was great. I'm glad we got a chance to have this talk today and get to hopefully share some useful information about slowing the aging process.

It's useful information if you guys do it. So again, jjvirgin.com neurohacker and I will see you next time. All right, just a quick reminder, you can grab your discount code for those awesome products. And remember, those awesome products get combined with exercise and the right nutrition. Right? Like, this is how we do. We lay the great foundation with the right lifestyle diet, and then we add in the things that will make it pop. And so Here you go. Jjvirgin.com neurohealth hacker that's where you'll get the discount code. And again, reminder, if you have not yet subscribed to the podcast, pop on over to subscribeto JJ.com Sign on up. Make sure you never miss an episode and I will see you next time.

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 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, 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.