Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Siim: For every centenarian who smokes and makes it to 100, there's like a million smokers who die before the age of a hundred . So it's a very minority of cases, like example of the survivorship bias. Anyone over the age of a hundred already has fairly good genetics to begin with in order to reach the age of a hundred.

[00:00:18] there's not a lot you can learn from their recommendations or lifestyle because yeah, they'll say things like whiskey every day, ice cream every night. Pancakes in the morning.

[00:00:39] CODY: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Mind Hack, where we geek out about psychology of getting better at well, everything. I'm Cody McClain and I've got someone pretty cool with us today. You know those people who seem to know everything about staying young. Meet Sin Land. He's written not one or two, but eight bestselling books about optimizing how we live in age.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Sim looks at longevity through his unique lens. One, he got a as a background in anthropology, which is studying human societies for those two, those who dozed off in social studies, and he combines that with cutting edge science to figure out how we can actually hack our biological age. You heard that right?

[00:01:19] We can actually influence how old our bodies think they are. His new book, the Longevity Leap, turns a lot of conventional wisdom about aging on its head. You know how most doctors wait until something's wrong before fixing it? Sims got a different take. He's big on this Benjamin Franklin quote. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[00:01:41] We're going to get into some wild stuff today, like why some people hit 100 and still play tennis while others feel old at 50. What science says about extending not just our lifespan, but our healthspan. So without further ado, please welcome sim land sim. Welcome [00:02:00] to the podcast. Hey,

[00:02:00] Siim: thanks for having me.

[00:02:01] CODY: When I was researching you the other day I learned as you say that your grandfather passed away at just 36 from colorectal cancer. I'm curious whether that experience or something else entirely is what led you to develop such a deep interest in studying longevity.

[00:02:18] Siim: Yeah, I do think that it was one of the origin or origin stories for me getting into preventive health.

[00:02:26] And so that maybe that was like something like 21 years old back then. And I, yeah, I was already into fitness and exercising and those kind of things. But just thinking about things and thinking about life. I thinking about my grandfather's death, that made me want to not get a bunch of chronic diseases early in life and to try to prevent them from happening in the first place.

[00:02:49] That's obviously one of the best ways to, increase your longevity , is to make sure that you don't get a lot of these chronic diseases early in life that tend to kill people. But there's also the anthropological [00:03:00] side of why I got into it. So yeah, I studied like anthropology and always been interested in a human species as like an , I guess like an animal or a creature.

[00:03:11] And living longer is one of those things that is becoming increasingly more possible for uh, the human species. We're not going to be living to the age of 300, 400 or something like that in the near future, but theoretically that is possible. It's not of the scope of science.

[00:03:29] So there are like a lot of other animals that live hundreds of years. And theoretically, yeah, you could also extend human lifespan for many decades at least. Not to maybe even up to, several hundreds of years. So yeah, as an anthropologist, I'm more about interested in, of this idea as well of all the like, implications that come with that.

[00:03:49] Biological implications and ethical implications and those kind of things. How does your anxiousness contribute to this co contribute to this, et cetera? Yeah. I'm not [00:04:00] only interested in about my, own health in the sense of trying to live longer, but also, as an anthropologist or a philosopher like that trying to think about how it's gonna play out

[00:04:12] CODY: when researchers look at those who are in the centenarians.

[00:04:17] When those, when there are people who live past a hundred. Oftentimes they've credited their motivity to things like daily martinis, smoking cigarettes cheese puffs or ice cream. I think there's, there is research showing that centenarians who are delaying chronic disease in some cases and upwards of 24 years compared to the rest of this.

[00:04:39] So I'm curious if you can explain what's going on. Are these just outliers? Are they just lucky? What are we missing about how the human body ages?

[00:04:49] Siim: Yeah. There are some people who do live significantly longer than the average person. So depending on the country, the average life expectancy in [00:05:00] the developed world is somewhere like high seventies, early eighties.

[00:05:05] So in like Japan, it's over eighties in, uSA , it's 79 yearsold right now. So that's the average expected life expectancy at birth. But that's a lot of things that can contribute to that. But there are centenarians who live over the age of a hundred. And the reason for thatsometimes attributed to a healthy lifestyle and staying physically active and not smoking and not doing some sort of other risky behaviors.

[00:05:30] But in most cases, the centenarians don't have exceptional lifestyle habits. They don't have some exceptional diets. They have very similar lifestyle as everyone else. But whether that be because of luck, some genetic differences, or they're at the right time, they take care of their health or something like that there's, they end up living significantly longer than the rest of us.

[00:05:53] And in a lot of cases. I think in the majority of cases, why the longest living people especially the [00:06:00] supercentenarians. So people over the age of 110, those are, yeah, like genetic anomalies, , for lack of a better word, that they have very favorable genetics for a lot of the chronic diseases that kill the average person, such as heart disease and cancer and kidney disease, et cetera.

[00:06:16] So they do get those same diseases, but they get them, yeah, like up to 20 years later than the regular person. And these genes, they obviously they're in the same family families. So if you are the offspring of a centenarian, you have something like 60% lower risk of getting heart disease. If you have someone in your close family especially like mo mother or father who has lived over the age of a hundred.

[00:06:41] So you have significantly lower risk of these chronic diseases as well. And you have a. Very high likelihood that you will also reach centenarian hood into your 100 years of age. And, a lot of the centenarians might also smoke that it's like a joke almost even that my grandfather smoked every day eat bacon and eat a [00:07:00] lot of sugar.

[00:07:00] And all those things had bad ha bad habits, but he still made it to 105 or something like that. That's an excellent example of a genetics. So like for every centenarian who smokes and makes it to 100, there's like a million smokers who die before the age of a hundred . So it's a very minority of cases, like example of the survivorship bias.

[00:07:20] Anyone over the age of a hundred already has, fairly good genetics to begin with, to in order to reach the age of a hundred. So it's very, there's not a lot you can learn from their, like recommendations or lifestyle , because yeah, they'll say things like whiskey every day. Ice cream every night pancakes in the morning, or whatever the reason may be, not having children, et cetera.

[00:07:43] You can't really take their advice for that because they don't have, the scientific mind to interpret why they live so long. And and also they tend to have very good genetics that in spite, despite their, let's say, not optimal lifestyle and [00:08:00] not optimal habits, they still made it to 100.

[00:08:02] Because if we, everyone else, like we, we start to smoke every day. We drink whiskey every night. We're gonna get some sort of a chronic disease in our, fifties, sixties, or seventies.

[00:08:11] CODY: And some additional stats that I have in front of me is that for historical context, pre 1860, global life expectancy was under 40 years old.

[00:08:21] And right now the average is around 73.67. But it's projected that by . 2,100 or 2100, is that the projected lifespan is going to reach 82. And so it seems that I think there, there is an increase in obviously healthcare medical advances that have had a dramatic impact on our increase in life expectancy over the past a few decades.

[00:08:47] But I think we're gonna see another increase simply from this interest in how to extend aging. And I think it's a stark contrast that we go from, say your grandfather, if I'm correct, who died at [00:09:00] 36 from cancer we go from that and Soviet era Russia to, or Soviet Estonia, apologies. And now we're at a point where we're looking at asking ourselves these questions about how do we reverse aging?

[00:09:12] I think that's just a amazing journey for us to have gone in such a short period of time. So one of the things that I'm, I think a lot of people are just interested in, and I know this is not a quick answer, that you can just give you, you gotta eat healthy and exercise more.

[00:09:25] I know those are two components of this, but what are some of the most important things that people can do, like pound for value in terms of decreasing the amount of aging that they're experiencing?

[00:09:38] Siim: It? It's important to maybe differentiate between lifespan, so that's your maximum lifespan of how long you live.

[00:09:45] And also healthspan, which refers to the disease for years in your life. So that years without some chronic disease that would have like debilitating effects. So like a stroke [00:10:00] or kidney disease or diabetes or something like that. We don't necessarily, yes there is the concept of biological age, which theoretically would refer to.

[00:10:09] Health and the health status of your body, so to say. And you have the chronological age, which refers to, yeah how many years. It's like progresses linearly. Every year goes by. One chronological year increases. Whereas with biological age, it can be influenced by a lot of factors like your genetics.

[00:10:26] Some people just age faster because of genetics. But of course the environment is more important in the, a lot of cases than the genetics, as what I say. So how healthy you are, whether or not you get a lot of these chronic diseases, et cetera. So I think that the most practical like philosophy or like a North star to follow is to just try to delay these chronic diseases for as long as possible because like I said, this is the key reason, why arians live decades [00:11:00] longer than the average person.

[00:11:00] So they have the genetics that protect them against these chronic diseases. But the effect, the practical outcome is that they get the disease 20, 30 years later than the average person. So they have they start to age, or not age, they of course age from the moment they're born, but they start to see a decline in their health few decades later after they get the chronic disease.

[00:11:21] So they have a extended hail span because of their genetics in all of cases and regular people. We all have our, different mixed bag of genetics. We have good genes, we have bad genes. There's thousands of genes that affects our longevity and health. And we can really never rely on that. So we, what we can still control is our lifestyle.

[00:11:39] So with these healthy lifestyle principles, exercise, eat your diet. Don't be overweight, sleep enough, don't smoke, don't drink excessive amounts of alcohol et cetera. You are. Maintaining health for longer. So your body is naturally declining in health. So even starting in your twenties, starting in your twenties, you'll already [00:12:00] see a decline in skin collagen.

[00:12:02] You see a decline in your V two max and muscle strength and muscle mass and start to decline a little bit later. So in your thirties the decline already begins. It's just that you're not really noticing it until maybe your forties or fifties depends on the person. But the decline already begins that decades earlier.

[00:12:18] And the same applies to heart disease and, Alzheimer's. Heart disease is a very slow, a prog disease, takes decades to develop. And they actually find that it pretty much starts from birth. Like even these autopsy studies on children who've died to like car accidents, they see that they already have this atherosclerotic plaque in their arteries.

[00:12:40] And like people in their twenties already have this atherosclerosis. It's just very small, undetectable, and it takes decades, usually in their forties, fifties, sixties, where it begins to be noticeable. So you wanna delay that as much as possible with the healthy lifestyle that would, reduce your risk of these chronic diseases.

[00:12:59] And [00:13:00] of course, there are a few of these chronic diseases that end up killing the most people that are like heart disease, cancer, neurodegeneration, kidney disease, and diabetes. In the like developed world. These are the top killers. But the, they all fall under very similar umbrella of lifestyle practices.

[00:13:18] So don't overeat too much food, maintain a slightly slimmer body weight leaner body composition. Get enough sleep exercise regularly. You don't need to become like an athlete. But although like athletes do typically live slightly longer than average people. But yeah you wanna be, physically active quite regularly and do both cardio and resistance training.

[00:13:38] And from a diet perspective, then there's a lot of different diets out there, different opinions, but the main, I guess thing you can't go wrong with is just like a healthy whole foods based diet. So trying to minimize ultra processed foods and eat generally whole foods, like foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meat, eggs, fish grains olive oil those [00:14:00] kind of things, dairy, et cetera.

[00:14:01] So if you just eat those foods and, like it's, I think like a 80 10, 80 20 or 90 10 rule, so that 80 to 90% of the food is whole foods, then 10 to 20% can be ultra processed or slightly processed. That's not gonna affect your results that much. And I guess. One, like the way, how do you know?

[00:14:20] How well are you doing? Then you know, the obvious answer is to like test things and measure. So tracking your blood work regularly, I think is one of the most underappreciated, let's say, methods or tools for proving your longevity. Because with tracking your lipids, your inflammation, your visceral fat, your cholesterol and blood sugar, et cetera, you get a insight into, okay, how healthy you actually are or what's the state of your body?

[00:14:47] Because all these chronic diseases, they also have a set of biomarkers that are associated with increased risk. So for diabetes, if you have very high blood sugar levels, then your risk of diabetes is significantly higher and [00:15:00] or you might already have diabetes. If you don't measure it, then you don't know and if you measure regularly preemptively, you can see, okay, are you heading in the wrong direction?

[00:15:09] Are you slowly creeping towards diabetes? So to say, like it's not gonna happen overnight, and there is a slight worsening of the trend already before you get the, the disease. So you can course correct if you track regularly, but unfortunately lot of people like might not do that.

[00:15:30] CODY: Yeah I have an interesting question for you. So I know you're not a doctor, you say that on Instagram. So I've, I regularly track my own blood sugar through, the glucose monitors, and now they're actually available in the United States without a prescription, one of them being stellar, S-T-E-L-L-O, and you can track your blood sugar.

[00:15:48] And then I also use a company called Levels Health. And they combine the data from your glucose and then they'll look at any type of event, whether you exercise, what type of food you eat, [00:16:00] and then you can log say, Hey, I ate this food. And then you'll see, it'll give you a rating for how healthy that, that food was for you, because it'll track the glucose response.

[00:16:11] Now I've regularly had like this blood sugar that's right at the cusp of if you were to just measure regular average fasting glucose level, it's at like about a hundred, which is we're on the precursor to, to pre-diabetic. But my A one oh C is fairly low and it's not pre-diabetic as a marker.

[00:16:29] I've been trying to find how can I lower this and so I Is there any specific ideas that you would have or advice you would give for somebody who's trying to lower their blood sugar, but maybe there, it just feels like it's creeping up. Do you have any opinion on drugs or supplements like metformin, which I know Dr.

[00:16:48] Peter Attia was a huge advocate of Metformin a long time, but then he stopped taking it partially because he noticed that there is a decrease in bone density as well as a decrease in ability to build muscle. And [00:17:00] that's obviously a marker in helping you live longer. So I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on maintaining blood sugar glucose levels, especially if it just seems like it's high for no apparent reason.

[00:17:10] Siim: Yeah, there are a lot of things that can affect the fasting blood sugar, so you know, how long you sleep, stress and et cetera. I think, you look like a healthy person and looks like you exercise regularly. Usually from a diet perspective, like what I've seen is that, it is counterintuitive, but actually like a lower carb, a high protein diet typically results in higher fasting blood sugar levels. And the reason is because if you're not really in ketosis because of maybe uh, eating too much protein or eating too much carbohydrates, so you're like on the, not on the, in ketosis, but you're not getting enough glucose either, then your body will start produce the glucose, especially when you're sleeping to prevent episodes of hypoglycemia.

[00:17:54] With a diet, like if you were to be in like a very strict keto diet, you probably wouldn't see that. But if you are like eating [00:18:00] a slightly lower pro, lower carb and higher protein diet, then a lot of the protein can also be converted to the glucose, which then results in a higher fasting blood sugar level.

[00:18:08] I've seen online at least a lot of carnivore like influencers or doctors, they also have slightly higher fasting blood sugar levels, although they're not eating any carbohydrates , but they're eating a lot of protein, which then converts that and they have a . Like a slow steady supply of gluconeogenesis, which the conversion of their protein into glucose.

[00:18:29] Whereas, eating more carbohydrates, actually for my own example and a lot of people as well, is that their blood fasting blood sugar levels tend to decrease because by eating the carbohydrates your body produces the insulin. And, you insulin is the hormone that reduces blood sugar levels.

[00:18:46] There's a lot of fear about carbohydrates online and these glucose spikes or insulin spikes. But there's been research that the people who actually produce the most incident in response to a glucose challenge have the [00:19:00] most robust metabolic health few years down the line. Because producing incident isn't the problem.

[00:19:06] Having chronically elevated incident levels, that's the problem. That's a hyper incident. Anemia. Which mostly results from this insulin resistance and not producing enough insulin or that's the kind of the side effects of that dementia there. Increasing carbohydrate intake might actually do work and reducing the protein.

[00:19:23] Although I, I don't know what exactly your diet uh, might look like. So that's my opinion about this based on my own experiments, based on some of the studies out there. And a lot of people have discussed this with as well. So like,having like a moderate amount of healthy carbohydrates and producing insulin actually lowers your blood sugar because insulin is the hormone that actually lowers the blood sugar levels.

[00:19:45] And from supplemental side then yeah, Metformin does, you can significantly lower blood sugar. Whether or not it has longevity benefits, it's hard to see. At least there's no evidence in in humans and I think the evidence in rats is also . [00:20:00] A bit limited that studies weren't done that properly and it didn't actually increase cell lifespan in mice either.

[00:20:09] But it certainly increases life expectancy in diabetics so people have high blood sugar levels, so it helps to reduce the damage from excess uh, blood sugar levels. Does it have side effects? Yeah, it probably can have side effects for some aspects of health. I think Peter ATT was also concerned about increase in lactic acid, which for his concern would be harmful for endurance performance and VOMX.

[00:20:34] Whether or not that's true I haven't dug that deep into that endurance side of the literature, but there's reasons to. Not take it if you are not a diabetic. So yeah, there's, and there's also some safer alternatives, like a berberine that has a very similar blood sugar lowering effects.

[00:20:53] Of course, it's not as effective as metformin, but if you don't need a lot of blood sugar lowering effects, [00:21:00] then berberine can provide those minor effects.

[00:21:03] CODY: Yeah that that's a great answer. Thank you. I haven't really received that from a doctor because all of my biomarkers are pristine.

[00:21:10] Other than what it appears, my, my fasting glucose level is just a little bit high, so thank you. I think I might give that a try. Even with the berberine, it's something I've considered or taken, but not on a regular basis. But on another note from a perspective of what we can take for longevity, I know there's other things that have po popular, particularly in, in the realm of peptides, which have been just completely exploding recently.

[00:21:33] A, a peptide is I believe so. I'm you probably know that answer better than Me is like a, it's a amino acid or a gastric juice. I'm probably getting it wrong, but most famous cases of peptides are insulin and now, more recently the GLP one, drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

[00:21:49] And with that there's been a resurgence of people looking at peptides as an alternative for health. Something that doctors don't really know a lot about. And some of the ones that I think could be [00:22:00] related to longevity, I'm not sure if you have opinion on these are epi talin as well as NAD plus and possibly BPC 1 57.

[00:22:07] But I'm just curious, do you have any any knowledge in the area of peptides related to longevity in health?

[00:22:13] Siim: Yeah. I have do did done some research on peptides and, there's these small, amino acid change that, are essentially like very safe because they're just amino acids in a sense.

[00:22:25] Of course, a lot of the PEPs peptides don't have that many human studies, if at all. Most of them are done enamels, especially like these BPC 1 57 and epitol and those kind of things. But yeah, like they are thought to be beneficial for some aspects of, let's say healthy aging. So BPC can have anti-inflammatory effects, can help with tendon healing, gut healing, gut brain axis function, neuroinflammation, skin health, and gut health as well.

[00:22:56] you know, There's a lot of hype or potential with those peptides. [00:23:00] But yeah, the challenge right now might be that, we don't have yeah, many human clinical trials for most of them. And a lot of. Right now, mostly people are using them based on yeah, animal studies and taking a, I guess a risk or, depending on a source in the states, a lot of these compounding pharmacies, they're prohibited to use or to make uh, or sell these peptides injectable peptides.

[00:23:24] But some of them can also be taken orally, which are still legal and allowed. So like oral PPC 1 57, and I've used PPC 1 57 myself as well, the oral one, and it definitely worked for me in a healing like mi, minor tendon injury. But yeah, people would definitely have to do their own research and yeah, be careful with which suppliers are they, if they ever think about using anything of that which suppliers are they getting from?

[00:23:53] CODY: And it's really like the wild West out there right now. I know. I know that reddit.com/r/peptides is a great, [00:24:00] there's so many there's probably at least three or four like main communities just related to peptides alone on Reddit. They, they don't talk about sources, but, the interesting thing here in the us, I'm not sure how it is in your country, but there's a lot of companies that sell peptides, but on the bottle it says, not for human consumption.

[00:24:16] And then they don't give you any information about how to use this or inject it. Because unfortunately, a lot of peptides, they don't pass the blood or the blood gut barrier. So it, the absorption for a lot of these peptides is very small compared to when you inject it, which is effectively bypassing the immune system.

[00:24:33] But yeah, it is a wild west. Sometimes I've read stories of people who take something and then they just get like a terrible reaction or they say that they just feel really bad. And then like the first piece of advice is just stop taking this thing, you but yeah it's weird in this case I know my doctor that I have who's really well connected, he's really into Peter Tia, Andrew Huberman. So we're able to jive on this aspect of even peptides. But unfortunately, most doctors in the us, this is not part of [00:25:00] the medical training and we're starting to see that this is becoming something that is at least anecdotally showing is very useful.

[00:25:08] And people, just, the amount of stories you have people who take, say BPC 1 57 and say there, there achiles heel, healed like within weeks rather than months or something. There's just so many of these stories that it's becoming harder and harder to really deny it. But yeah, I think peptides are just fascinating and I think they're gonna be one of the, one of the areas of health that are continued to grow as more people find an interest in it.

[00:25:30] But outside of that, I know the other like, big question I think people would have is really around supplements. You know, Are there any supplements that, that you take or would recommend that people take on a regular or daily basis as a means to help their body function? I think I was following uh, like Brian, Johnson, I'm sure you're familiar with him.

[00:25:50] The, The ex PayPal co-founder who is now all about longevity. And I think he has like a whole list of supplements that he takes on a daily basis, but it's 20 [00:26:00] or 25 different supplements. It's like insane. But I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on what kind of, what supplements we might be taking.

[00:26:07] Siim: There is more, obviously more research with supplements. You have actual clinical trials and meta analysis on a lot of supplements, so we can see okay, they actually work so to say. And I think the ones that I would say definitely would have beneficial effects based on the evidence would be uh, creatine.

[00:26:24] So that's as like usually considered a sports supplement, but it has a lot of benefits on the brain as well. So cognitive aging is useful for that memory. Then the second one would be uh, collagen. So collagen peptides have also been shown to improve skin wrinkles and skin aging in multiple clinical trials.

[00:26:43] And the skin collagen already starts to decline in your twenties slowly. The third would be omega threes. EPA and DHA. Those ones have been researched for, decades and, they consistently show benefits on cardiovascular disease risk. So they [00:27:00] improve things like triglycerides, and they also seem to reduce the risk of uh, cardiovascular events.

[00:27:08] So they have a lot of cardioprotective effects, also neuroprotective effects, and people who have a higher Omega-3 index, so higher amounts of E-P-N-D-H-A in their red blood cells. These people appear to have a, yeah, like a lower risk of these occurring diseases and a lower risk of all causes mortality as well.

[00:27:27] Four supplement I would say is magnesium. So magnesium is one of those are, minerals that a lot of people are deficient in. So up to like over 50% of people aren't getting enough of a magnesium. I. A deficiency in mean magnesium can have a lot of negative effects, especially on cardiovascular health.

[00:27:45] So magnesium deficiency can raise blood pressure, can cause endothelial dysfunction, can raise blood sugar, can cause dyslipidemia, can cause incident resistance and a lot of other problems. I find it a safe bet or a [00:28:00] safe thing to do is to just take like a magnesium supplement because it's very, it's not that easy to get it from food and a lot of people are already deficient.

[00:28:08] Plus it helps with stress and sleep as well.

[00:28:12] CODY: And is there a specific type of magnesium that, that you recommend?

[00:28:15] Siim: My favorite types are like threonate glycinate, and taurate, I think those are the top 3, threonate especially for the brain and taurate, especially for the heart. And um, glycinate is.

[00:28:30] More so for sleep and relaxation. And I think, those are the most evidence-based supplement out there in my opinion. There's a few more probably that have been shown to have benefits. Like Ashwagandha can have benefits on stress, sleep, and the disaster levels, although I don't think that it's like something everyone should take, whereas Omega threes creatine magnesium and and what was the last one that I mentioned?

[00:28:53] Those ones, they have benefits pretty much for everyone in rap opinion. Yeah,

[00:28:57] CODY: I completely agree with you there from the research that I've [00:29:00] done and just being a big an Huberman fan, one of the things he, he would recommend is a thousand milligrams of EPA fish oil per day.

[00:29:07] Which is actually really hard to get an over the counter fish medication. So actually I have a prescription for my doctor for something called vascepa, which is spelled V-A-S-C-E-P-A. And it can be expensive without insurance, but it's effectively just a thousand milligrams of EPA medical grade fish oil.

[00:29:23] It's from like a good place. The quality is good. And that's actually prescribed for people who typically have high cholesterol since it's been shown to really help decrease that. And magnesium for sure. I think I like to rotate between vitamin C and magnesium so that it's not just building up the tolerance every single night.

[00:29:40] But yeah, I think, the at the end of the day, supplements are, they're contributing maybe 10%. Of, your goal towards optimal health and wellbeing and longevity. The, these are just like cherry on the top. They don't have nearly as much of an impact as getting enough sleep eating right, and exercising as much as you should.

[00:29:58] But on the [00:30:00] point of exercise, I know that you said earlier that athletes, they tend to live longer. But is there like a specific amount of exercise, I think you mentioned in, in your book, something of like two 50 minutes of moderate exercise per week and maybe 150 or 200 minutes of intense exercise per week.

[00:30:18] So i, is that saying like, if someone's crushing it at the gym like three hours every day versus somebody who's just sitting on the couch what's the fine line here? When's, when is somebody exercising too much to an extreme and when are they not exercising enough? What's the sweet spot?

[00:30:33] Siim: Yeah. We don't have an exact . Answer to that. There's no way to like exactly measure that or to assist that. But there are, one recent review last year, went through the major studies over the last 10 years or so, and uh, based on all the studies they collected the data from, then they concluded that the optimal amount of like vigorous [00:31:00] exercise.

[00:31:00] So that's over 70% of your max heart rate. The sweet spot for that is some, something between a hundred and, yeah, like a hundred and 40, 160 minutes per week. So that's slightly less than three hours. So that's a vigorous exercise when you're doing sprinting, some sort of plyometrics and weightlifting, et cetera.

[00:31:20] Now with the issue weightlifting, is that a. You're not always in the 70% heart rate when you're lifting weights. Maybe, yeah. Like immediately after you finish your set, you probably are with the elevated heart rate. Depending how long you rest, if you do some power lifting style of training, you can rest, five to 10 minutes sometimes.

[00:31:36] And your heart is gonna be pretty normalized after a few minutes. So it's, imperfect, daytime in that sense, because some people work out, yeah, three hours per day, but they do this powering style that the rest, that 10 minutes in between sets. So it's hard to say, okay, which one is it? But I would say that, okay, if you do weightlifting three times per week, then that already maximizes it for the [00:32:00] health benefits.

[00:32:01] And 45 minutes each session is what I like to do. And I think that maximizes the benefit you get from resistance, strength, or the muscle growth strength development, bone density, et cetera. And anything above that tends to be like. More for other reasons or other benefits, more like athletic reasons.

[00:32:18] And this also would include like, high intensity cardio, et cetera. So if you do, every day high intensity cardio, then based on the study that I just mentioned earlier that review, then they did find that there was this slight U shape association with high intensity exercise that if you do too much, so like over 200 minutes per week, then that was seen to be associated with slightly higher risk compared to the sweet spot of 140 to 160 minutes per week.

[00:32:45] If you did less than that, you did only 30 minutes, then that was also not optimal. But if you get it too much, then eventually the risk started to provide like diminishing returns. And the other [00:33:00] type of exercise they investigated was the moderate physical activity. So that's 40 to 60%. Of max heart rate 40,

[00:33:07] CODY: is that zone two Cardi?

[00:33:09] Siim: Yeah. So zone two is 60 to 70% so moderate. So the moderate physical activity would be like 40 to 60 and vigorous would be over 60 percent, if I'm not mistaken. And what they found was that moderate physical activity was pretty linearly associated with reduced mortality and reduced heart disease.

[00:33:28] So the more you did moderate physical activity like walking, hiking, some jogging, et cetera, the better it was for the risk of heart disease and the mortality. So my takeaway from that study was that yes, you wanna do vigorous exercise, you wanna hit the gym and you wanna do some high intensity exercise, but not too much.

[00:33:51] So like 140 to a one 60 minutes per week appears to be like the sweet spot. And what I would want to. Do more would be the moderate [00:34:00] physical activity. So more walking, more regular jogging, more cycling, more hiking. So this slower and less intense type of exercise that you can do for many hours. And they found that even up to 800 minutes per week of moderate physical activity.

[00:34:15] Even then you saw better risk reduction. So even up to, several hours every day that you do every day over an hour of moderate physical activity that's that will be the most optimal.

[00:34:27] CODY: And I know that there, there was a research from the Journal of American Heart Association that showed for every additional 1000 steps up to 8,000 steps per day at which the benefit kind of plateaued.

[00:34:38] It reduced mortality risk by 15%. So I think 8,000 steps, at least 8,000 steps. Then I think you're in a sweet spot on a daily basis for for longevity from a low to, to moderate cardio range. But, exercise is one component of aging and as well as food, which are probably like the one of the two biggest.

[00:34:59] But I think [00:35:00] there's another aspect of aging that it's not as glamorous and I don't think it's talked about nearly as much as it should be. And that's the social aspect. And there's this really fascinating thing happening in Japan as if I'm saying it correctly. It's called the hikikomori, where young people just completely withdraw from society.

[00:35:18] And unfortunately we're starting to see that here in the US and I think probably even around the world, because you have social media and it's just really isolating everybody to a greater extent than it used to. And I think there was some research showing the importance of being of not socially isolating isolating.

[00:35:35] So do you have any science or have you done any research on how the overall, like the Longit framework fits in with social in our need to socialize? In, I think there was something that, about it being just as bad as smoking. And if you don't get out and have friends or socialize.

[00:35:53] Siim: Yeah. I have a chapter in the book about socializing and relationships. It is social isolation and [00:36:00] loneliness are pretty bad, but they're not as bad as smoking still . They do, they are associated with increased heart disease and mortality, but not as much as smoking. And I think it's very subjective as well.

[00:36:13] Some people get more stressed out or they, I. Have worse mental health if they spend a lot of time with other people, . And some people are fine being more alone, I guess. yeah the def or how you define social isolation and the loneliness is depends on the person. And I guess the subjective feeling of feeling lonely is what matters.

[00:36:34] If you are feeling lonely, then that's uh, at, based on the research is bad for overall longevity and mortality risk. So there's, many things that can affect your lifespan if you suffer from a, a loneliness or social desolation. But it also like physiologically can just worsen your physical health.

[00:36:56] So like you can have higher stress hormones, higher heart rate, [00:37:00] and, those things. So like poor mental health has like a physical effect on your body as well that worsens your health. So that's why it is an important aspect of longevity. So if you're, chronically in a state of this physical despair or physical stress, then that will wear your body out much faster as well.

[00:37:19] And a lot of these hotspots, longevity hotspots in the world, they are the smaller communities where families are closer and more with tighter social ties. And that I think certainly has a important role in their longevity as well. So not only are they like physically happier, they have better mental health, but they also, if you are an 8-year-old person, then you fall off the stairs or something, you don't have anyone else to help you.

[00:37:46] You could be laying there for, many hours and that could actually, be the end of it. Whereas if there's someone close by who can come and help you, then this is the luck component that I mentioned earlier. So some people they might accidentally [00:38:00] fall somewhere and just per chance.

[00:38:02] There's no one else to call the ambulance and they die because of that, or they get physically disabled for, with by break breaking their hip or something that then has a cascading effect on their physical health and they die faster. Whereas if there is someone to like, immediately help them up or immediately call the ambulance, then that's the luck component that actually extends their lifespan a bit lot more because they get the medical help much sooner for that reason.

[00:38:26] CODY: But surely there's more to the social isolation component. In terms of may, maybe it raises cortisol. I, if you don't have friends. You can feel lonely. There's a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. And I think when you're feeling lonely, you're feeling a certain level of distress of lack of connection, maybe lack of purpose.

[00:38:45] And that causes you stress internally. So do you know, what's the specific tie in to how social isolation impacts longevity?

[00:38:55] Siim: The biggest effect can be like suicide or something that you voluntarily [00:39:00] end your life. So that's, obviously plays into life expectancy, statistics and the mortality risks in the studies.

[00:39:07] But the physical stress component, it can, if you have higher stress hormones, higher elevated heart rate, higher blood pressure because of the despair or like the distress, mental distress, I. That increases risk of heart disease kidney disease and neurodegeneration, et cetera.

[00:39:26] Yeah, the risk of this chronic diseases does elevate as well from emotional distress, chronic emotional distress, and psychological distress uh, as well.

[00:39:36] CODY: And so is there a specific guideline as to what is recommended to avoid the the negative effects of social isolation? Is there a specific number of friends, is there a specific number of social interactions?

[00:39:49] Should you get married? Do you have any information on the research behind the social factors that are optimal for longevity?

[00:39:57] Siim: In a lot of studies it's, [00:40:00] so how do you like, assess subjectively? Are you lonely or socially isolated? Then at least one of the questionnaires is like, how easily do you have access to social support?

[00:40:11] So like on a scale of zero to 100. If you're below 50, then that's usually associated with a higher risk of or like it's associated with an unfavorable, let's say, profile for, from the social isolation perspective. So if you have, if you subject subjectively feel that you have a lot of access to social support, then you're probably not lonely or not isolated.

[00:40:37] Whereas if you feel that you are, you don't have anyone to share your worries or problems with et cetera, you are you don't have yet someone to spend time with that either, then that will be categorized as in having a higher degree of social isolation and loneliness.

[00:40:52] So how do you like fix that? That's a hard problem. A lot of people might not be socially isolated or lonely because of their choice. [00:41:00] It might be because of whatever circumstances, social media or just modern lifestyle et cetera. So it's a hard problem. I don't have the the answer to that.

[00:41:08] And just appreciating your already existing friends and family and trying to reach out to them is the first thing that makes more sense to address uh, this issue. I, it depends on their parents. At least my parents would always welcome me with open arms and show me support.

[00:41:27] But that's not the case with everyone. Depends a lot on the situation and unfortunately, a lot of people don't have that kind of a social support for. Whatever reasons they might be.

[00:41:39] CODY: Yeah. And I'm I wonder how AI's going to play into that. There's already been instances of young adults or even children using AI or building relationships with ai.

[00:41:50] And I think that's going to continue to grow exponentially. And I think on one hand it's great that there's this resource that people can turn to that [00:42:00] it allows them to feel like they're being validated because often that's what we lack is we lack somebody to help us accept how we feel is it's very difficult to do that on your own.

[00:42:12] And that's why we need a therapist to ask the right questions. Or you need a friend who you can just rely on and know that they're gonna support you. And I think AI is filling that gap for a lot of people. But I wonder, if that's gonna have some kind of down the line negative effects on our ability again to interact with people because we're now in this society where, we're automatic cars, without a driver.

[00:42:34] And I would even find myself like I, if it's me and an Uber driver that stands between having someplace I want to go, there's something just inconvenient about having a driver there and you have to like, say hi or interact with them, even if it's like the smallest thing, or even if you're at the grocery store.

[00:42:54] I will still feel the anxiety of, ugh, I have to interact with this person now. And I know that [00:43:00] Gen Z is experiencing this to a much higher degree than previous generations. And I think it's to do with the, how much technology is really starting to, to wean its way into our everyday lives. And I, you go to our restaurant and I would see little kids on their iPads and, I'd I so very hard want to judge that parent for letting them kids be at our restaurant on their iPads, because I'm sure you've seen it that kids are just glued to their screens and there's obvious evidence that it's going to have negative effects on their mental health.

[00:43:32] But simultaneously, if you ever ask a parent about Why do you let your kids like, look at this iPad and they're just like, only parents can really understand it. And I've seen glimpses of that, right? Where it's just having a kid. It's so much work. At so times you just wanna say, here, just take the iPad and just, go off it and do your thing.

[00:43:52] But I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on this aspect of how we're raising our kids and technology and how, and maybe [00:44:00] how AI might, I know these are all new questions, but it just in case you have any thoughts on this either way of how technology's evolving and what you think our future is gonna be like.

[00:44:08] Siim: Yeah. Obviously the arrival of robots and actual let's say more interactive AI will make it even more complicated in a sense back because then, you could theoretically live your entire life or go through your everyday life without interacting any humans at all.

[00:44:28] Like you would the waitress or the. The barista would be a robot who would be doing that. So I, I don't know if the people would get anxiety or let's say some emotional socializing points, even like the, do they even feel that they're interacting with someone if they know that it's a un sentient robot , although they might be speaking to them.

[00:44:50] So it's, I think, yeah, it's a very kind of a complex issue. And I think it's probably gonna get worse over time that people [00:45:00] will start to live more and more in, I guess their technology uh, bubble that they'll spend more time online. They'll spend more time in their online communities or these social circles that tend to, be people want to see, people want to do.

[00:45:18] What they like and what they want. Interact with people who like, agree with them or like they want to interact with people they're interested in. So they're gonna be more and more living in this world where everything is to their liking or at least the way they would like it to be from a social media or a perspective.

[00:45:35] And I think that might just make people more, fragile mentally. So they say it's good for your mental health to be able to be like mentally resilient and anti-fragile in that sense instead of being fragile. So you wanna, we don't want to do uncomfortable things and we don't want to be in uncomfortable situations, especially the social situations, but they're good for our mental resilience [00:46:00] and in a sense they're good for mental health because then we condition ourselves to not get anxious if.

[00:46:07] Someone on the street asks us a question or whatever it is, which in the future might be more the case that people will become more anxious and more afraid of actual human interaction because they do everything online and they're always in this, their own tech bubble. But for mental resilience and mental anti fragility, you wanna actually, interact with that person and and interact with a person who you might disagree with, so to say.

[00:46:36] CODY: Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully the AI will actually help us, if anything help us to overcome some of these negative effects of social isolation. But there's another growing aspect as well to overall like life satisfaction. Say if you're eating right, if you have enough friends if you're really at in some ways like laszlo's hierarchy, hierarchy pyramid, where at the very top, [00:47:00] once you take care of your survival needs you're thinking about why are you here?

[00:47:04] And unfortunately spirituality or a belief in God, religion, it's been on the decline. And what happens is now that we have a void, there's been like a spirituality void in people. Because when you don't have something that's higher than yourself, that's a more important, being outside of yourself, there is no easy answer to explain why bad things happen, and therefore you have to fill that gap yourself.

[00:47:31] Thus, it's led to what Benny described a crisis of identity a lack of purpose, because now we're no longer worrying about where are we going to eat next, but now we're really concerned with why am I here? And if you don't have a God that you think is created a destiny, you have to create that destiny for yourself.

[00:47:50] And I know that in your book you've talked a little bit about the Japanese concept of Ikigai. So I'm wondering if you can explain how does this concept of Ikigai or really [00:48:00] having a strong purpose, how does that tie into the longevity?

[00:48:05] Siim: Yeah. So you know, ultimately if you don't have a desire or a reason to live, then then based on the research, you also have a shorter life expectancy or higher mortality risk.

[00:48:16] And this, especially is seen in elderly people who, uh. they're like in their eighties, nineties, hundreds. But there's something that kind of keeps them alive or motivated. So that can be the community, their grandchildren or pets, a religion or a job or some sort of vocation, a craftsmanship, whatever it is that, that just motivates them to keep them alive.

[00:48:42] The effect is kinda mediated through a similar mechanisms that, if you wanna die or something, then you will have higher stress hormones and higher, like now let's say adverse physiology. Whereas if you have joy and happiness, you wanna stay alive, then yeah. It is true that your body will also have [00:49:00] a better state of health because of the way your mind affects your physiology.

[00:49:05] So you can literally change your physiology with your thoughts to a certain extent. Like, You can change your heart rate by, thinking about certain things. If you think about . Sad and depressing things then, or scary things or whatever it is, then yeah, you will have elevated heart rate.

[00:49:21] Whereas if you think about happy and, enjoyable things, then typically will have a more parasympathetic or like more at ease body as well. But yeah, like the sense of purpose, ikigai is something that I think we should all have. So it's especially gonna be useful if you are lacking motivation sometimes, or you're lacking consistency.

[00:49:50] So if you don't have a, like a reason to live or you don't have a reason to stay healthy, et cetera, then you will be more likely to revert back to some some of the bad or unhealthy [00:50:00] habits. Some people, I wanna see my, grandchildren get married or something like that.

[00:50:04] That's some of the goals that, all the people might set for themselves or wanna see the birth of my great-grandchildren or whatever the goal may be. Like, that's a pretty big motivator. And when it comes to fitness, then I wanna be able to lift my grandchildren up when I'm old instead of being in a bed or using a cane, et cetera.

[00:50:23] So that's these kind of goals or these reasons to stay alive, they can be pretty powerful. And, a lot of the times it just comes down to you start making better decisions like, okay, you wanna live until your great-grandchildren are born, then you're less likely to smoke. Whereas if you don't care about that, you care about the smoke in the immediate gratification sense, and then you're gonna just smoke continuously.

[00:50:46] This kind of a trade off that we all have to make and we set our own purposes or goals. So there's no I think there's no any objective right or wrong in this. We just. Have to think about what we [00:51:00] want and what kind of goals we want to set for ourselves.

[00:51:03] CODY: And on, on that point I think, there's Viktor Frankl who created who wrote the book, man Search For Meaning.

[00:51:09] And this guy was in a concentration camp, and he noted just that the people who often lived, they had a will to live. They had a desire to live. They had somebody or something greater than themselves that they were there trying to serve. Maybe that was other people in the camp. Maybe that was a specific job.

[00:51:29] I think he's quoted as saying he who has a will to live or no I'm I know the quote and then I butcher it. He who has a why or, okay, I'm not gonna try, I'm not gonna try it. But it more or less is that if you have a reason outside of yourself, then that's going to motivate you to, to live and persevere.

[00:51:47] There's this interesting tie in to this study of the pink elephant, or if, I'm sure you've seen the video of the gorilla that walks past and people are trying to count how many times like the basketball gets thrown, but they completely miss [00:52:00] this gorilla. But simultaneously, if you ask somebody to not think of a pink elephant, it's pretty hard to not think of a pink elephant when somebody's telling you not to do that.

[00:52:08] And so when you're focused on trying not to do something, your brain can't distinguish between whether you wanna do that thing or not. And so if you're somebody who dwells in a lot of sadness or depression, or d, what's wrong with you or the negative effects. That's what your brain, that's what your body is really like taking in, is that you're depressed and that you feel terrible.

[00:52:30] You have low self-esteem. And so you have to shift that mindset to focusing on what you're good at. And it can be really difficult sometimes, but that, as you say, it can have a, a dramatic impact on our life and ultimately have an impact on our longevity. So I think those are all important points when it comes to longevity, not just the other stuff like exercise and eat healthy, but our mind is an important component in that.

[00:52:55] And speaking of our mind, we have to really create the foundation [00:53:00] to have a great mind and a healthy body. And a lot of that, it's not the goal that makes you it's the thing that you do every day. That is really the that's really what has the greatest impact. For me, I'm lucky enough, I have I have a Japanese hot soak tank, I have a sauna, I have a coal plunge, and I have one room and I call it my mindset room.

[00:53:21] I, I'm so proud of it. It's the first place I bring everybody when they come over. But I'm wondering what your kind of routine is that you've settled on? Is something what's your non-negotiable routine? What things do you recommend that people do on a, at least a semi-regular basis to help contribute to longevity and overall health?

[00:53:39] Siim: I have a, like a pretty simple routine and have a lot of gimmicks or a lot of gadgets, et cetera. I, exercise pretty regularly. I try to do something every day. But I do gym workouts three times per week for 45 minutes. And I do cardio like [00:54:00] twice a week currently. . For 45 minutes or something like that.

[00:54:06] And then on the other days I'll do some maybe like brief intervals or some longer walks or yoga or some stretching, et cetera. So I do try to move my body every day, but I'm not doing some sort of high intensity exercise every day with my diet. IFI think I follow like a Mediterranean diet lots of fish uh, vegetables uh, fruit and uh, nuts, seeds and uh, dairy and eggs, et cetera.

[00:54:33] From my sleep. I have a regular sleep schedule, so I go to bed around like 10:00 PM and wake up six, 6:00 AM and I'll always try to sleep in pitchback darkness. In the evenings I'll dim down the lights before bed wear blue blocking glasses. And I'll, yeah, sleep on like a cooling uh, mattress, so that keeps the bed uh, a bit cooler.

[00:54:57] And in the morning I always try to get like [00:55:00] bright light exposure, whether that be with like a rail light therapy panel or some uh, bright light face lamp as well. Most of my days are, structured around work, so I'm, a lot of, in front of the computer doing work. And yeah, I take breaks quite frequently.

[00:55:14] I have a, like a small dog with my wife. We uh, go outside and it's a good way to, get more movement in, get more sunlight in. But there's, yeah, a lot of research about that. Dog ownership is also associated with longevity . So, you know, If people are associated uh, like. lonely or something.

[00:55:33] Uh, Then dogs can also be like one option that they can bring more joy or make you less lonely if there's no other option. And they're also like, it can be a sense of purpose for like elderly people. So if uh, elderly people have pets, then uh, usually if the pet dies, then they see also like a decline in their health because of that reason.

[00:55:54] And like having a pet is also like a motivator to stay alive. I need to take care of this thing. That's why I can't [00:56:00] die. what else? Uh, Sauna. So I take a sauna about four times a week. And yeah, it's something like 20 minutes at a 70 degrees Celsius. Uh, Supplements. What supplements I take. uh, collagen.

[00:56:12] I take a trimethylglycine, I take creatine. I take whey protein. I take magnesium. I. Omega threes vitamin D right now for the winter, in the winter months, and vitamin K two as well for balancing the vitamin D I think that's pretty much it. So ,, I have a very like, uh, routine. Like I have a very uh, consistent routine in the sense that days are quite similar, mostly because of, work related things that I like to follow like a routine.

[00:56:43] CODY: Yeah. And I think a lot of that I vibe with stuff that I do as well and I frankly, I wish that there was more people interested in proactively improving their health. And unfortunately, I'm not sure how it is in Estonia, but you know, here it's really doctors only prescribing medications [00:57:00] after you're already sick.

[00:57:00] They don't really prescribe how to live healthier. It's not really something we teach in school. I have to hand it to, to, to people like you who are really sharing information and to how we can live healthier longer lives. Because I think there, there's definitely a difference between somebody who's older and sick versus somebody who's older and livelier.

[00:57:21] And, you know, we all wanna be the latter. We all wanna be the person who's able to live long and still have their brain with them. I've had older relatives and it seems like a lot of people have dealt with somebody who has dementia, Alzheimer's, and those are just terrible diseases for, for them to wake up and not know who they are or who are the people around them.

[00:57:41] And just to be stuck in this, like a groundhog state, like over and over just repeating like the same day. So we all want to, I think in the back of our minds wanna minimize that. And so I can only hope that content like the stuff that you make as well as others online, can continue to help guide everybody so that we're making [00:58:00] healthier choices and we're able to live longer and healthier, not only for ourselves, but for those around us.

[00:58:07] With that said uh, sim, I wanna thank you so much for being here today. We've covered a lot, probably more than I thought we, we would be able to cover in this time. I know people can find you at siimland.co. That's S I I M land.co. Where else should folks go? Uh, Where can they get your book? Are you doing any other stuff that people can join?

[00:58:30] Siim: Yeah my social handles are all Siim Land and my book to Longevity Leap is on Amazon so they can get it there.

[00:58:38] CODY: I apologize for pronouncing your name wrong this whole time.

[00:58:41] Siim: That's fine. It's

[00:58:42] CODY: uh,

[00:58:42] Siim: common.

[00:58:43] Siim uh, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today and all of those listening. Till next time, keep optimizing.

[00:58:49] Thanks again.

[00:58:50] Thank you.

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