Eric Topol Returns (on longevity)

Eric Topol (Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity) is a cardiologist, researcher, and author. Eric returns to the Armchair Expert to discuss being Monica’s epilepsy consultant after their early interview, recent findings suggesting that AI aids doctors in providing better care, and an intense gag order suppressing getting a detrimental drug taken off the market. Eric and Dax talk about hospital beds that can monitor people as they sleep, no one having yet done a healthy aging study of genomics, and the true anecdote that inspired him to write his new book. Eric explains creating a segue to effectively prevent diseases we never could before, how Viagra was initially a failed blood pressure medication, and why despite troubling trends in diseases he remains optimistic about the future of aging. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. Uh, I'm Mike Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:07Dax Shepard?

  Hi. Returning guest from the early, from the bygone era.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 0:12Dax Shepard?

  And this is, there have been a few guests that have really captured our heart.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 0:17Dax Shepard?

  We fall in love with their spirit.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  We do.

• 0:19Dax Shepard?

  And Eric Topol's like at the top of that list. We think he is the cutest person alive.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  And smart as all heck.

• 0:26Dax Shepard?

  Outrageously smart. Uh, he is a cardiologist, a scientist, an author, and the director and founder of Scripps Research Institute. His books include Deep Medicine, The Patient, We'll See You Now. That's what we had him on for last time. And now his new book, which is out, Superagers, An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. This was a blast.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Yes, and I want to say his approach to longevity is different from a lot of people's approach that we've had on or talked about, a lot of optimization. He's actually, I mean, he's like with a lot of those people, but he has a lot of other opinions about it as well.

• 1:05Dax Shepard?

  Divergent. And friendly dust-ups between Eric and I, because I'm on one side of the spectrum.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:10Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Dr. Eric Topol. We get support from Quince.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts. And Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.

• 1:34Dax Shepard?

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• 1:50Speaker 01

  It's the dream. The cashmere sweater's starting at $60. Down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.

• 2:01Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first time this year in California, and I'm so excited. And I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here and it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.

• 2:36Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Gusto. So here's the thing about running a small business that nobody romanticizes. It's not the big idea that wears you down, it's the payroll, the tax filings, the wait, do I need workers comp for this stuff? That's the part that quietly eats away your whole afternoon, which is where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefit

• 3:19Dax Shepard?

  software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use so you can pay onboard and support your team from anywhere. They handle automatic tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, 401k, all of it. And you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. If something tricky comes up, you've got direct access to certified HR experts who actually know what they're talking about. And they're ranked number one on G2's highest satisfaction products list for 2026 and trusted by over 500,000 small businesses. That's not nothing. Try Gusto today at gusto.com/dax and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll

• 4:04Dax Shepard?

  at gusto.com/dax. Again, that's gusto.com/dax.

• 4:27Dax Shepard?

  You're promoting longevity and we're giving you Liquid Death.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I know.

• 4:31Dax Shepard?

  The irony.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Something wrong with that picture. Is that your super cute Bronco out there? That's my daughter's.

• 4:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I like it.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  It is cool. It's a very cool car. It is a bit OJ.

• 4:43Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  In a good way, in a good way.

• 4:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, in a good way.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46Dax Shepard?

  Also, I like that there could be a good way.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Well, he was cool before he married.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:53Dax Shepard?

  I don't know if you remember, but sales of those Broncos exploded after that. Oh, yeah, you couldn't get your hands on a white Bronco.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  No kidding.

• 5:00Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, Ford couldn't make them fast enough.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  It was an accidental marketing. One of the main things you remember is the Bronco.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  What was the appeal? They could be like, OJ?

• 5:09Dax Shepard?

  That's a great question. I think just seeing a vehicle on display for such a long period of time, and I guess it looked formidable. And I think young men were like, oh, yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  It's like a nice car.

• 5:22Dax Shepard?

  It's nice. Yeah, yeah. Someone should do some social science on that.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Malcolm.

• 5:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. How are you? It's been a while.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  I'm well, thanks. Yeah, it's been six years. Pandemic in between.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  We sure did.

• 5:34Dax Shepard?

  Sure, lots of stuff's happened.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  And you've moved a few times. I don't know what it was when we first did it. Then you were on Spotify.

• 5:41Dax Shepard?

  We were independent for three years. Then we were at Spotify for three years, and now we're at Wondery.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  That's great. I was Monica's medical consultant for the show.

• 5:50Dax Shepard?

  I think primary care physician for a while.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I definitely did reach out to you about my weird experience that turned out to be epilepsy.

• 5:59Dax Shepard?

  Congratulations.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  I remember that.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Is it all under control now?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm on medication and it's all good, but you said it could be.

• 6:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, did he? Because it was quite a mystery.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  You said it could be seizures, but there really isn't any way to know unless it happens again, which is correct.

• 6:14Dax Shepard?

  Can't do it over the phone.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  One of the things I really enjoyed was doing some fact checking. You would have somebody else and he would make stuff up.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Is that true? No.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I did.

• 6:25Dax Shepard?

  Was that other person making stuff up? Me?

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 6:30Dax Shepard?

  But I hope it's gotten to you over the years. We talk about you quite a bit and we have such a warm spot in our heart for you. That was such a lovely interview the first time.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 6:38Dax Shepard?

  So last time you were here promising us that we would be completely without a need of a doctor, our smartphone would be doing all of our stuff and here we are six years later and where are we at on that? Before we move on to.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  We have a bone to pick. We haven't been able to scan our kidneys.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  If the medical profession would let things happen, we would, but AI doctor thing has really come a long way. We had an op in the New York Times recently about how there were six studies that showed that AI compared to a doctor with AI, the AI did better.

• 7:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Jesus. So even having the human involved in the system made it worse?

• 7:13Speaker 02

  We don't know if it's because doctors have a bias against using the AI even when they have it or they haven't learned how to work with it, but to see that, it was not predicted at all.

• 7:22Dax Shepard?

  I bet it's both, right? Because I do think half of the art of AI is learning how to prompt it. It's such a specific way to communicate and I've only been dabbling in it and I'm learning as I go how to get a better answer out of it.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think the doctors have not yet gotten grounded. That could be the explanation.

• 7:40Dax Shepard?

  How significant was it?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Well, in these six studies, all of them were pretty substantial. No one in the field really predicted that. They always thought the human plus the AI hybrid would be the best. And one of the biggest things is doctors who have been keyboard slaves, data clerks, are now getting three hours less keyboard time a day.

• 8:00Dax Shepard?

  Because the AI is just in the room listening and handling all that stuff?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  And making a great audio with a transcript, follow-up appointments, lab tests, prescriptions, pre-authorizations, nudging the patient after the visit, what do we talk about? So all these things are happening and it's just a gift to doctors, nurses.

• 8:17Dax Shepard?

  Could save the career path in a way because every time I interview a doctor and I ask if they would push their children into medicine, almost all of them say no. It's very disheartening to see how few doctors want their kids to pursue that.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  It is, and it's such a great profession, and I can't imagine one that would be more exhilarating sense of caring for people. But the work of having to deal with insurance companies and keyboard stuff, and most physicians are managed by being counter administrators, and they basically want them to see more patients or read more scans. And that's interrupting why they went into medicine in the first place. So there's a disenchantment level. The burnout is as high as it's ever been.

• 8:59Dax Shepard?

  It seems like we need AI to be able to prescribe us medicine. And I guess we could have a bucket of that medicine, non-narcotic, or whatever things you would not want to be gamed or be dangerous. Where were we at with that? And that's ultimately what you would really want, is you get a thorough examination, ask all the same questions as the doctor would ask you, you take some pictures, and then it says you need this topical ointment, go pick it up here.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  That's coming. For the common things like skin conditions, rashes, urinary tract infections, ear infections for children. The US is different. A lot of countries, you would get the prescriptions through an AI. Here, there's much more protection about the medical need, oversight. I think the next couple of years, for common things that are not life-threatening.

• 9:43Dax Shepard?

  Right, like one rung above over the counter.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 9:46Dax Shepard?

  That would be incredible. Now, I am curious, because in your own history, you famously left the Cleveland Clinic in oh five, because you were sounding an alarm that there was this drug, Vioxx?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Dax Shepard?

  That was quite detrimental to patients.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  What was it doing?

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Causing heart attacks and strokes. The company, Merck, was suppressing it because it was a multi-billion dollar enterprise. We found out they knew about it. They actively were trying to hide this from the public. If I had to do it over again, I'm not sure we would have confronted Merck, but we did. And eventually, they took the drug off the market in oh four.

• 10:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you were victorious in this.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. In 2001, we'd predicted that it was going to be a real problem. They were denying it for three years. They were basically having people try to take me and others down. About sounding the alarm. At the end of the day, they took the drug off. They never were charged criminally, which I think they should have been. They went through all sorts of legal things and they never really paid a price for what they did. And we don't even know how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of people were ill affected by this.

• 10:54Dax Shepard?

  And your pursuit of that then exposed this other problem that you got immersed in, which was this interconnectivity between the institute you're working at and the pharmaceutical company.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was the real shocker there. So I didn't know what was causing the new CEO to tell me I couldn't talk to the media, basically put out a gag order. Normally, never an issue about talking to a journalist. We had a 60 Minutes thing. They were going to come to Cleveland Clinic and he ordered them not to come. I had to go to New York, but it got even more intense. And then ultimately, I found out that the chairman of the board of trustees was the best friend of the CEO of Merck.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  That was basically the telltale of why it was such a ferocious suppression of me. And that got into a conflict that was so profound. I certainly needed to get out of there.

• 11:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we would love to think there's a wall between research and Big Pharma and even hospitals and Big Pharma. And this kind of showed that if there's a wall, it's permeable at best.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  That's a good way to put it. I would never have predicted it. All kept secret from me.

• 12:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Until it came out. When this first came out in 2001, it was a different CEO. He was very supportive. This is really important for the public. Couldn't understand what was going on. And then finally.

• 12:13Dax Shepard?

  So, okay, you left in 2005. 20 years later, do you think this problem is the same, less, or more?

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard to know for sure, but it doesn't seem like we've done a good job of dealing with the pharma companies in general.

• 12:27Dax Shepard?

  Did anyone from Purdue go to jail?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  No, that's a great example. And that was much bigger than Vioxx, the opioid crisis.

• 12:34Dax Shepard?

  But you're talking to millions of people.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  And publicly, everyone knows about it. It's not even like it's hidden.

• 12:40Dax Shepard?

  There's been nine shows and 20 docs.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Millions have ruined their lives and died. The Sacklers and Purdue, it's just been a money thing. How much money do we have to put this aside? And how Purdue did this, all their illegitimate marketing and raising the dose and the false claims. It's basically taking the Vioxx thing to the third power.

• 13:00Dax Shepard?

  It correlates beautifully with however much money the drug makes is what exponent it goes up by, really.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  How these companies can get away with this stuff and be immune to what any other person would have to face for doing things like this?

• 13:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  It's just beyond me.

• 13:14Dax Shepard?

  So I guess I asked that question in pursuit of wondering, will these big institutions, big insurance, big pharma, the networks, will they try to put up roadblocks for this very democratized access to AI in phone medicine?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  There's such perverse incentives in our country as opposed to other countries.

• 13:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  That may well be a problem. It's much less likely that AI will take full hold here as compared to the UK, many countries in Europe, even Canada, certainly in China. So for example, we could see getting rid of hospital beds for the most part, except for like intensive care units or the emergency room, operating rooms. But most hospital beds aren't necessary. We could monitor people in their home.

• 14:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you got beds that are telling you how you sleep and your O2 level. I mean, we're getting there.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can convert a hospital room to an intensive care unit, equivalent of monitoring. And American Hospital Association isn't going to let that happen.

• 14:12Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  So that's just one example of what we could do with AI because AI would be used there to predict if a person's starting to develop the signs of trouble. And then you would send in a team or you'd bring the person to the hospital. That's the number one cost of our $4 trillion a year healthcare is hospitals. We could make a big dent in that, but we have mal incentives to go in that direction.

• 14:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I have an unpopular view, especially being a liberal. People love to hold up the UK's national health system or Canada's. You're looking at what sector it's beneficial to. If you're looking to generally just raise the overall access in health, I think it's very effective.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:55Dax Shepard?

  But I think you can't ignore the fact that anyone that needs something for real comes here. That's also true. We are also leading in so many areas. So all of this is built on this highly profitable system. So I think to ignore that aspect, and I have lots of friends that live in England, they're not all wild about it. I have lots of friends in Canada, they're not wild about it. What we get sold on here, just talk to folks. That live there. Not everyone's wild about it. But I think the tipping point would be if those countries did embrace all this. And we saw, oh, no, you actually want to go there and use that because again, the AI is catching the tumor at 78% accuracy and our doctor is getting it at 50. If it becomes superior because the tech is so much better.

• 15:39Dax Shepard?

  I think the current argument that holds sway kind of falls apart.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  I agree with you. So back in 2018, the UK government asked me to do a review of the NHS. So I spent two years going back and forth. They got me this incredible group of like 50 people, all the disciplines I got to work with. And you may know, they are the leaders in the world in genetics, genomics. They have rarely run circles around any other countries.

• 16:04Dax Shepard?

  Is that because they're access to data?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they just took a lead on this early on that they wanted to make that future a part of their healthcare. They set up this big UK biobank, which is the world standard, has 550,000 participants. And they're now doing our future health, which is 5 million. They already have 3 million into that. They're getting everyone's sequence, they're getting newborns sequence. But when I did this review, what I learned is they want to be the world leader in AI. And do just what you said, Dax. They want to be getting the accuracy amped up because they don't have any obstacles. There's no billing.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 16:41Dax Shepard?

  There's no tiers to the system.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Do doctors get paid a lot less there?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Less. Some of them do private practice on the side to supplement their income. But yeah, generally it's less, but it's not real low. The physicians in this country do quite well relative to world standards.

• 16:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so your new book is Superagers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. This is right up my alley as someone who turned 50 this year.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  You're just a young puppy.

• 17:10Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's very kind of you to say, but my most optimistic self doesn't think that I am not minimally halfway over on the ride. And I put a lot of thought and effort into trying to see as much of my kid's life as I can. So I'm really, really interested in this. You start the book with two patients, Mrs. LR and Mr. RP. Why do you start with them and what is interesting about them?

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Lee Rosso, Mrs. LR, who is proud to be identified. She was a recent patient and she was really a trigger for me to write the book because she came to see me and a clinic appointment referred. The symptom was that she had some leg edema and didn't know why. Her primary care doctor wanted to know why. And then when I first saw her, I said, well, Mrs. Rosso, how did you get here today? I drove. And she didn't look anything like her age, but her age was real. And then I started realizing her medical history like there was none.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  So she was a prototype of a study we did, actually called the Welderly. Actually, my daughter Sarah ran that study. 1,400 people she found with a couple of other research nurses over the course of years like her.

• 18:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's almost impossible to do, right? To find someone who's 90, who's not had any, even the stat in the book is 95% of people over 60 have one chronic illness and 74% of people have two by the age of 60.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  She didn't even have high cholesterol?

• 18:32Speaker 02

  No, she had nothing.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 18:34Dax Shepard?

  She's like a newborn.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  She's amazing.

• 18:36Dax Shepard?

  Did you find her battery pack and her motherboard?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  That was why we sequenced those 1,400 people. No one had ever done a healthy aging study of genomics to see it's got to be in their genes, right?

• 18:47Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  It wasn't. There's nothing there, hardly anything that we could find. And that was one of the earliest studies of whole genome sequencing in a big cohort. And to this day, the only study that we know of of healthy aging. Most of these studies looking at lifespan, they'll do sequencing of people 100 years old or 90, 110, but no one has tried to select out a group that were never sick with any chronic disease. So when we didn't find anything, that said, hmm. And so that's why I started to try to understand Lee as to what was accountable. For this and she's an artist, oil painting, has a gallery. She plays with her friends Rummy Cube every week. She does all these big jigsaw puzzles. So she's really a vibrant lady and fully intact.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  And then the other patient that I introduced as a patient for thirty five plus years. And he was a very different ninety eight, now ninety nine. He had significant heart disease, heart attack, a bypass. I had put stents in when I was back at Cleveland Clinic. And he's also had ablations for age or fibrillation. But two years ago, when he had COVID and was in the hospital, he never had to get into intensive care unit. And he's just a really resilient person who also got to super aging with only one chronic problem of the age-related diseases. Heart disease.

• 20:06Dax Shepard?

  But man, it sounded like a pretty significant bit of heart disease. None of this sounds very mild.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Not at all. And that was really a reflection, like a triumph for modern medicine.

• 20:18Dax Shepard?

  Right. In the sixties, he would have died.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. He is really a segue to where we could prevent his disease now. That's what's so exciting. We couldn't have prevented it when he started having all these problems, but we can now. Between these two patients has kind of run the gamut of why we have this exciting opportunity to become super agers. One route is to be the rare one, which is just never get any disease. And the other is, okay, we could prevent these diseases now. Everybody's working on magic potion or pill for aging.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Peptides.

• 20:50Dax Shepard?

  We'll get to that, Monica. Don't you worry. That's the last chapter.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Okay, we have a lot to talk about.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  But on the other hand, we have a whole route we can go to take the big three age-related diseases on.

• 21:00Dax Shepard?

  Well, one thing I found very comforting, and I'm leaping ahead a bit, but if I understood this paragraph correctly. We do know some markers for aging, some DNA markers that are good for aging. But you say that even if you were to have all twenty of those, really, it's gonna be about twelve percent of the pie. That's gonna predict your lifespan or health span. I found this deeply comforting because I don't come from a long line of old people.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  You and me both.

• 21:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's very scary. I think common wisdom growing up was, will you get? Good genetics or you don't. I guess I was a little relieved that that maybe at best is only 12% of the story.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  You're touching on one of the most important messages because so many people like us have a pretty poor family history. And we think all the time we're going to be like our parents. That's not true at all. There's a limited part of that, but for the most part, it's really our lifestyle factors and the things that we can do now that our parents, grandparents couldn't do. That's making a big difference now.

• 22:01Dax Shepard?

  You break it up into five dimensions that help with health span extension. And I guess, even though we've talked about it in the past, maybe we'll just delineate the difference between lifespan and health span.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  This is a big one. The focus on living longer is of course the wrong one. Most people would agree that if you're demented or you're suffering all sorts of other chronic illnesses, that isn't really worth living longer. But if you can live healthily without a major disease and you're cognitively intact and you're not frail and you're vibrant, that's the goal.

• 22:35Dax Shepard?

  If you could hike to 85 or be sedentary to 105 from 70 on, yeah, I think we would all likely pick very active with a little less time.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  That's the goal. And I think most people would agree. They would like to have the longest health span that they could. There's too much focus on this longevity with these clinics and all this stuff and not enough on what we really are after.

• 23:00Dax Shepard?

  This is off topic, but to hear you say demented in the clinical sense.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 23:03Dax Shepard?

  Did that fly for you?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  No, I like it.

• 23:05Dax Shepard?

  Be demented. And I'm like, oh, I never hear it in the actual. You're only saying someone's wacky, right? Like a young person.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Or they have a bad idea.

• 23:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, crazy, yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I do need to know, have you watched The Pit?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. I've watched one episode and I do want to get back to it. I just haven't had a chance.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  It's really good.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  That's what I hear.

• 23:22Dax Shepard?

  If you listen to the show, you'd hear it even more.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  I talk about it a lot.

• 23:26Dax Shepard?

  Every single episode. Okay, so the five dimensions that you break it up into are lifestyle, cells, omics, artificial intelligence, and number five, drugs and vaccines. So I just. We'll say upfront, I read Outlive, Peter Tia's book.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 23:44Dax Shepard?

  And just loved it, probably because it corroborated my belief in what you should do. But at any rate, lifestyle has got to be the biggest chunk of this.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  The biggest, and that's the biggest chapter in the book. And I get into a lot of the nitty gritty that people may not know about. People generally know some of the lifestyle factors, the big ones, diet, exercise, sleep. But they don't know that they're at risk for this condition. And that they really got to use these changes in their life to avert, prevent. So the lifestyle factors are definitely of those five, the big one. But they all have interactions. In Peter's book, he doesn't really mention AI. That has a big role now and in the future. There's really not mention of cells, which is saving people's lives now. We're learning how we can control our immune system, dial it up or down. The immune system is kind of the basis of most age-related diseases, in fact.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  And then omics is not just the genes, but it's our proteins. That's where there's been explosion of new knowledge. Organ clocks, we'll talk about, but the gut microbiome. So I think what's different about Outlive, which I read and I actually interviewed Peter on my podcast.

• 24:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, great.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  You know, a lot of good parts of the book, but there's some crazy parts.

• 24:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great. I want you to flag those.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  He takes rapamycin. There's no data to support that. It's potentially dangerous. It suppresses your immune system. That's the last thing you really want to do.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I know someone who qualified for the trial for it and they immediately got shingles. And it was so bad, spread through the whole body.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, you don't want to suppress your immune system with unproven longevity or even health span. He also had everybody getting a total body MRI. That can set up all sorts of false rabbit holes.

• 25:25Dax Shepard?

  So I had an argument with Dr. Mike about this because I've had it and I'm pro. I understand what your concern is, but I do think you can go into it with the right mindset, which is I'm not going to chase down everything. I'm not going to have a bunch of follow-up stuff. I'm going to look for a big ass tumor that we're going to monitor. And I'm going to go next year and see if that thing's exploding. I mean, I think there is some way to do it, but I understand it does set off. All this medical intervention that potentially has more downside.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  A perfect example in the book, I talk about a friend of mine who's a physician, writes for the New Yorker, Drew Kular. And he went, because he was gonna interview Peter, gets a total body MRI, he's like forty. They find this thing in his prostate, now he has to get prostate biopsies every six months and this is crazy. That's not a fun procedure to have to have and there's nothing wrong with him, but he's become, you know, mentally.

• 26:15Dax Shepard?

  You gotta be strong mentally to have it, is my argument.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  The other comeback I'd have for you is if you're worried about cancer, which obviously a lot of people are, there's much better ways to go at it than to get a total body MRI. Cause if it shows up as a mass on a total body MRI, it's gone pretty far along. You can find it in microscopic in the blood if you're at high risk. First you wanna know if you're at high risk, then you get a blood test that says in your plasma, there's some tumor DNA. And we get that sequence and find out where it is. Then you could get the MRI and hopefully it doesn't show up on the MRI because that means it's pretty far along.

• 26:48Dax Shepard?

  But Eric, I smoked crack for years and I smoked cigarettes for twenty years, like I needed a good scan. I stand by my scan. Found out I had scoliosis, I was like, oh, that's cool. I had no idea. It's extreme.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the other thing about Peter, he makes recommendations for the affluent. Not everybody can go and have a nine hundred, two thousand dollar MRI, sure isn't covered by insurance.

• 27:08Dax Shepard?

  But that's like saying driving Mercedes are bad because only some people can afford them.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  I get that, but you'd like to come up with things where everybody could benefit.

• 27:16Dax Shepard?

  Yes, ideally.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Lifestyle factors, everyone can benefit. Everybody could sleep better, exercise more, eat the right foods. And that gets me to another thing I have a problem with as far as Peter.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  A lot of things are good in his book, which has obviously been a big hit. But in the book, he advocates a ridiculously high protein in the diet. And I don't know if you adhere to that, but the recommended daily allowance is point eight grams per kilogram. And he says one gram per pound.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  He does it.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  That's way too much. It can be dangerous for your arteries.

• 27:51Dax Shepard?

  Not the protein itself, but what you're eating to get the protein?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  No, the protein itself, particularly if it's from animal derived proteins. It's been shown in. The experimental models to test this, that if you get past a certain protein level, like the equivalent of one gram per pound.

• 28:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Which no one else would recommend, except Peter.

• 28:11Dax Shepard?

  Well, Lane Norton, anyone that's into bodybuilding would. The most important part of those studies is every single keto, plant-based, all diets, all the meta-analysis, if you control for protein, they all work the same. That's really, really relevant and that's just uber consistent.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  I actually think you should increase over the allowance. I'd say even up to 1.2, 1.4 per kilo. But we're talking about two to three times the highest. And there's no data to support that it's safe. It's all conjecture. I want hard data. If there's risk, you better balance it with some proof that it's helping people.

• 28:47Dax Shepard?

  Surely.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  So those are the sorts of things.

• 28:49Dax Shepard?

  They're too extreme.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  But there's a lot of really good things that he put in the book.

• 28:52Dax Shepard?

  Well, what we could agree, and the only thing I was going to borrow from the book, is he points out, we got great with vaccines and we got great with treating with antibiotics, a lot of different diseases. What we all now have to deal with is these chronic four disorders, obesity and diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and then neuro, which are in your book. So these are the four that are going to most plague us now. We're not going to die of cholera or some medieval disease anymore. These are the four that we got to really focus on. And lifestyle is hugely impactful for the four horsemen.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I actually say the three age-related major diseases, heart, cancer, and neurodegenerative. I don't see obesity and diabetes. They're very important, but they feed into the other three. You don't die of obesity. You don't die of diabetes, but they accelerate atherosclerosis, increase the risk for cancer, increase the risk for dementia, Alzheimer's. So I see it differently. What I'm getting at is obesity isn't an age-related disease. The three big killers are the age-related diseases. The Glimp one drugs, Ozempic and Monjaro, they have had transformational impact well beyond we ever would have expected. We're going to build on that. Now there's a pill that simulates the injectables and just going to get more.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  More and more practically accessible, not requiring injections, more potent, and building on that success, which I'm not saying we have the definitive treatment for obesity.

• 30:19Dax Shepard?

  We have the best we've ever had.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It takes down obesity along with all of its associated conditions and then gets on to things like addiction. And who would have thought?

• 30:29Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  So it's now being tested in Alzheimer's. We now know the mechanism. It's not just about weight loss. It's about blocking inflammation in the body and in the brain. The fact that it's being tested in Alzheimer's in big trials that will get the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, should we just all be on it?

• 30:46Speaker 02

  I posed that question in the book, that someday would this be something that would be maybe not universally used, but very commonly used because right now it's the most impressive class of drugs we've ever seen because the side effects are short term. They're GI side effects.

• 31:03Dax Shepard?

  The only one that troubles me is the muscle loss.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:07Dax Shepard?

  That's the only thing you gotta really be on top.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So the muscle loss is a concern and you know it's a concern because the drug companies are buying up companies that make drugs to build up muscle. When you lose weight, you also lose muscle mass.

• 31:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  And all the studies so far, there are some people that are losing more muscle mass than they should corrected for their weight. That seems to be blocked if people do a lot of resistance training, strength training, but there are some that the so-called sarcopenic obesity where they get rid of the obesity, but now they're frail. We don't want that.

• 31:40Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  The other thing we don't want is to have to require a person to take a drug for the rest of their life.

• 31:46Dax Shepard?

  Although, okay, so I was arguing with a friend recently and he said, oh, I don't want to be on that because I hear you might have to take it for the rest of your life. And I said, are you stressed out that you have to drink water every day for the rest of your life or that you gotta eat food every day for the rest of it? There's a lot of shit we gotta, you gotta brush your teeth for the rest of your life. I think that's a weird mental hiccup.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  I'm glad you brought that up, Dex, because I've had some medical colleagues, when I say we gotta come up with a weaning plan, they say, does a diabetic have to take insulin? Do you have to take your high blood pressure medicines every day? So yeah, but it's a little different because first of all, we haven't had people just with obesity take these drugs for more than four or five years.

• 32:24Dax Shepard?

  Am I right in that the diabetics have been taking this medicine for 15 or 20 years? It's not as new as people think.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  That's right. And in fact, they'd been taking it for 20 years. And the real thing that got off the track there was we kept thinking that. They never lost much weight. Diabetics, they lost three pounds, five pounds. So why would you ever study a drug to lose weight when the people didn't lose weight?

• 32:46Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  And then this woman scientist at Novo Nordisk in Denmark says, we got to study it in people who are obese. And finally, they listened to her.

• 32:54Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  And it took 20 years to show that the people who don't have diabetes but are obese, they can lose 20, 30, 50, 60 pounds. And we still don't know today why people with diabetes don't lose much weight.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  We have no idea why.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  I didn't know that. If you have diabetes and you're on the drug, you don't.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Minimum amount. There's lots of theories, but no one knows really why.

• 33:17Dax Shepard?

  Also, the precarious origin of the medicine having been invented by a company that's primary source of income is insulin production. And the fact that they even allowed this drug that potentially was going to cannibalize their real business. All of it's very interesting.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  It goes back to the Gila monster saliva and, you know, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, but the big diabetes companies are the principals.

• 33:38Dax Shepard?

  You could have seen them almost killing this thing because they're like, well, that's just going to destroy our insulin business.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  They took a gamble that this would be bigger and it seems like it is.

• 33:48Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  What?

• 34:05Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the grill master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand-topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern, so every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles side by side, so you know. Never in a pickle desert.

• 34:49Dax Shepard?

  Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a quarter.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Me too. That's my order is a quarter pounder with cheese. I love it. I didn't know they put so much effort that they did a star formation. I should have known because you can taste.

• 35:07Dax Shepard?

  You can taste it. Yeah. The love. Don't tell anyone this, but I'll put two of them back.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not surprised.

• 35:13Dax Shepard?

  The quarter pounder with cheese with fries and a drink now $8 for a limited time only. Only at McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery. We get support from No Bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 35:42Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. And that's why I keep my training routine through the holidays. It's the whole no bull idea. There's a no bullshit training brand built around consistency, honesty, and just putting in the work. It's not about adding more pressure to an already packed schedule. It's about having the gear and the habits to move through the season your way. My personal favorite, all three of the shoes are fantastic. The Outwork, the Outwork Flex and the Drive Two. I like the Drive Two because it's a hybrid and I lift, of course, but I also like to do what's called box jumps. Right? I do a lot of jumping onto a little platform and I want a little more flexibility. And boy, do they deliver.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  And if you're a cardio person and you're running and you also need to be lifting.

• 36:23Dax Shepard?

  And the style is banging. I don't know what to say. Beautiful style, very breathable, very, very comfortable, lots of support. They were built for lifting.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  They also make a great holiday gift. You know, I love gifting, a purposeful one that actually supports someone's goals and routines. And it's not a gift that just ends up in the back of the closet.

• 36:40Dax Shepard?

  Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobolproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week. This episode is brought to you by Dell. Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence. And unwrap more of who you are. This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box. The Dell XPS 13 laptop. With a beautiful design and cutting edge performance, it helps you unlock more possibilities. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet. With touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and long-lasting battery life to power you through your day. Built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds, and Intel Core processors.

• 37:25Dax Shepard?

  It's fast, reliable, and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities of XPS. While shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards. Fast, free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. This Black Friday sale is one you don't want to miss. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 37:59Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already right there, inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it, it's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important?

• 38:42Dax Shepard?

  It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed, at your service, not after your job. So, do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go. From the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 39:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so in lifestyle, let's go through some of this stuff. So diet, you're taking a real magnifying glass to a lot of these things that we're already aware of. When we talk about diet, let's talk about ultra-processed food and sweeteners a little bit.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  The ultra-processed foods, the evidence is remarkable that they're toxic. The age-related diseases, the big three, they're potentating all of them. The US is the worst in the world for intake of ultra-processed food.

• 39:34Dax Shepard?

  My kids bring home stuff sometimes. I'm like, how did they even think of this, much less construct this product?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:40Dax Shepard?

  It was like Reese's Pieces, cups, popcorn. And I was like, well, you're damn right that's gonna be delicious. But how did they do it?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  The kids, more than 70% of their intake of calories is through ultra-processed food or energy. 70% for the adult population. It's horrible.

• 39:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  So we have to do something about this. Nothing really has been done. That's different in other countries, particularly in Europe, where there's a lot more awareness. How are we gonna let this go on? Because the companies have figured out what tastes good, where the reward circuits are in the brain, and changing the texture, adding these things, alien stuff that they throw in there. It's all programmed to be ingested at the highest level.

• 40:19Dax Shepard?

  There was a 60 Minutes on long ago, and the segment was about food additive chemists. They're basically perfumists, really. And they take this group of them to an orange grove in California. And they're watching them all take one off the tree and peel, and then they're tasting it. And this one scientist says, oh yeah, it's this, breaking down all the things. And he said, now, we wouldn't design it like this because you'll notice the taste lasts for a really long time. It stays in your mouth for a bit. And we want something that goes away almost immediately after you experience the nice taste so that you want to replace it. And I was like, this is actually nefarious. It's not just I want to make it taste good. I want to make it taste good for a blip, so you have to have more immediately. How are you gonna compete with a brain trust like that figuring out how to make you eat as much as possible?

• 41:03Speaker 02

  We're the prey. We have to do something about this because all these foods can be made without all this gunk in there. In the book, I bring up about the young people developing cancer now. It's a big issue. It's been going up at Levels we've never seen.

• 41:17Dax Shepard?

  Specific types?

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Colon cancer is one of the biggest ones, but even breast cancer in women in their twenties and thirties. Ridiculous. We never saw this stuff before. Now it's starting to become a big issue.

• 41:29Dax Shepard?

  What's the mechanism that would be happening?

• 41:32Speaker 02

  The big theme is inflammation. Ultra-processed foods, once it gets through your GI tract, you absorb it. It incites inflammation throughout your body and even the gut to brain, which is how the GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic works. It also activates the circuits and the brain is the master circuit for the immune system. So basically you've got activation of immune system inflammation. That's not good. And the ultra-processed foods are doing that. And so they can convert a person who's prediabetic to be actually diabetic. It certainly would be considered now clearly a risk factor for cancer, for cognitive deficit, for heart disease. I mean, the list is pretty remarkable. How can we keep denying it?

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Now, when I talked to my friend, the FDA commissioner twice, Rob Kalof, who was on to this. He says, well, Eric, the US Department of Agriculture is really tough to work with. And then we got big food. We're talking about the pharma industry. Big food try to change their ways, try to challenge them. So we haven't taken them on and we need to.

• 42:33Dax Shepard?

  By the way, this GLP-1, there's so many things that are auxiliary to it. One of them being you've read these articles where these food companies are now worried that people are not going to be eating junk food as much.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:45Dax Shepard?

  They have to have a game plan in place. So isn't that weird?

• 42:49Speaker 02

  What you're bringing up is extraordinary because by understanding these circuits between the gut and the brain axis. The fact that people now want to eat healthier foods while they're on this drug. So they're not only eating less food, drinking less alcohol, but also turning to healthy foods. And so like you said, the food industry, now what do we do?

• 43:06Dax Shepard?

  It feels too good to be true.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Is that why a couple of months ago, there was that whole study about alcohol causing cancer? Is that because of the inflammation?

• 43:15Speaker 02

  I'm glad you brought that up.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  It sticks with me.

• 43:17Dax Shepard?

  We're both going to service our own pet projects. Hers is alcohol, mine's weightlifting.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  My next Substack, Ground Truth, is going to be on this because in the book. There's a little bit of that, but there's three new studies, one of which was the Surgeon General, who I did a podcast with Murthy.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, Vivek, we've had him on as well.

• 43:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we like Vivek.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Before his came out, there was the National Academy of Medicine, and then subsequently there was another HHS report. So there's three, and they're all different.

• 43:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  First of all, the one that was the most carefully done, the National Academy of Medicine, original data, they drilled down on everything. They say, hey, you know, moderate drinking can actually save lives and reduce cardiovascular mortality.

• 43:56Dax Shepard?

  That's what we grew up with.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:57Dax Shepard?

  One glass of wine's good for your heart.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  They were not so stringent, whereas Murthy and the Surgeon General's report and the other one were even a little bit of alcohol is bad for you. The mechanism isn't known, but we do know that in large quantities, that's really the big debate, it's mutagenic. Alcohol can cause mutations, and mutations can lead to cancer. So that doesn't necessarily have to invoke inflammation. There are countries that now have labels on the bottles of alcohol and wine that this could cause cancer.

• 44:29Dax Shepard?

  As well as everything else in this story.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:32Dax Shepard?

  You're just overwhelmed by it at some point.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  We don't really have the data to support that, but Ireland, where there's some heavy drinkers and other places, they have put that on labels. So the cancer story is the one that's of main concern. The only thing that these three reports agree on is the breast cancer risk. The other cancers, esophageal, colon, is much less definitive. They're fuzzy, they don't agree.

• 44:53Dax Shepard?

  Now, I love this, because I am a user of caffeine. So tell us about caffeine and its impact.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  This is, I think, the shocker.

• 45:01Dax Shepard?

  This is only good news in your book, I think.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  No, there's more, there's more. I'm a cheat out. And I talk about good food in there.

• 45:08Dax Shepard?

  You do.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  And all about exercise, I'm into that.

• 45:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  I think the interesting thing about caffeine is a lot of people have thought, I better not drink too much, it's bad for me. All the data, as I review in the book, show if you're drinking less than four cups a day, not only is that not harmful, but there's lots of benefits.

• 45:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you need to pick up the pace.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Wow, this is great.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  After four cups, for the most part, when you look at all the studies, then you say, hmm, maybe that's not so good. But coffee, we don't know why it's so beneficial.

• 45:36Dax Shepard?

  Well, it has a huge antioxidant effect.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  It has, but you know, a lot of antioxidants. We don't really know, but you have to say, looking at the studies, it's just the opposite of these things like ultra-processed foods, where the evidence is all going one way. For caffeine and coffee, it's all going the other way, and it's good.

• 45:52Dax Shepard?

  Where are we at on red meat versus plant-based?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Red meat is a problem because it induces inflammation. It's okay to have it on a limited amount, but some people eat a lot of red meat, and they ought to reassess that because the correlation with all-cause mortality, cancer, cardiovascular, Alzheimer's, it's all there. And so, ultra-processed foods and red meat track together, and then there's the words, which is the meat and processed.

• 46:17Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Anytime you study humans, it's just such a messy business.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  It is.

• 46:21Dax Shepard?

  So you go red meat, okay. Well, what's your red meat consumption? Well, if we look closer, it's like, well, red meat consumption is largely probably happening through hamburger consumption. And now, when we eat hamburgers, what else do we eat? People eat french fries with hamburgers. Like, how you're parsing out the red meat, as opposed to, have we studied anyone who only eats a plate of ground beef? That's a hard person to find.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Nobody's condoning the french fries as a healthy food, right?

• 46:46Dax Shepard?

  Right. I'm just saying, how do we parse out?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  I think the question is, the red meat is something that, hey, if you have it once a week or a couple of times a month, no one's going to say that's a problem. But if you have a good portion three times, four times a week, that's where you start to see, hey, this is going to be inciting inflammation in your body. And we have some inflammation markers. They're not great. We need better ones.

• 47:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  But that's a way to tell if your diet is off track. So I don't know how many hamburgers you eat.

• 47:13Dax Shepard?

  You would be so mad at me. I don't want to lose you as a friend.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  He doesn't eat hamburgers, but a lot of red meat.

• 47:18Dax Shepard?

  I eat a lot of red meat.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 47:19Dax Shepard?

  I eat a lot of meat. But also, I'll add, I have psoriatic arthritis. I do not want to be on an immune suppressant. I was for years. It took me seven years to figure out what was triggering it all. So I have a diet now that works for me. And I don't have to be on any medicine, and I don't have any symptoms anymore.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Is that a ketogenic diet?

• 47:36Dax Shepard?

  Well, I can't eat gluten. I can't eat garlic. I can't eat peanuts, a list of things. But what the result ends up being is, yeah, I have a pretty low carbohydrate diet because I can't eat pasta or bread, but I'm not afraid of a potato or some rice.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's all right.

• 47:50Dax Shepard?

  And my cholesterol right now is great. All my markers, and I'm spoiled in that. We're in a study with Dr. Richard Isaacson for Alzheimer's, so I'm getting a lot of work done there. I get a lot of blood panels. Things are good.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  That's terrific.

• 48:02Dax Shepard?

  But I do eat an amount of red meat that would really break your heart.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Well, but that has to be individualized. You present a different circumstance. You have this autoimmune disease. We make these recommendations for everyone, but everybody has a little different story behind it.

• 48:15Dax Shepard?

  And that's the most exciting part of this chapter is with the help of AI, for people to actually know what diet they should be on, to me seems like would be one of the most helpful things.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  I totally agree. There was a fascinating study that just came out. Over 105,000 people filed for 30 years, and only 9% of them made it to age 70 with no age-related diseases. And so they say, well, what is 9% eating?

• 48:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  And basically, it was plant-based diets, vegetables and fruit. That's the best-known diet we have, best-validated, a Mediterranean-like diet. But that doesn't mean that's the right diet for everyone. And as you say, using AI, there's some big studies going on right now. Hopefully, they won't be derailed at NIH, a big investment, to see if we can find the right diet for each person, because each of us metabolize things differently.

• 49:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  And we have other coexisting conditions, or we're at risk for different things. And so when you have all that data, and that's where you use this multimodal AI, you can really help people to guide them as to what would be best for them.

• 49:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the notion we'd have a food pyramid for 300 million people is a fucking fantasy.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so then we get out of this mode of you eat too much this. That's where we are right now. It's crazy. We have to get down to the individual level.

• 49:26Dax Shepard?

  And I think it's been the great frustration with consumers, with the nutritional sciences in general, which is we're wanting them to have a magic bullet for all humans. And of course, that's why they contradict each other all the time. And there's no consensus in that field. It's a very frustrating field to monitor. But it's because we are so individual, and that's really gonna be the answer, probably.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  This is such a- Fundamental part of our life, what we eat and the fact that we haven't cracked the case yet. We know from glucose sensors that people have a totally different response to having spikes of glucose for the exact same food, exact same time, exact same amount. And so we've seen the same thing with our lipid. And that's what we have to get to the determinants and to give the best counsel to people so they'll know. And it may not be that it's the same diet throughout their whole life. And maybe you need to reassess it at times, but we're going to get there someday. We didn't have the way to deal with all this data. Billions of data points for each person and many different layers of data. Their gut microbiome and their glucose sensors, their diet and their stress, their physical activity. All these data points, now we can actually analyze that, which is extraordinary.

• 50:30Dax Shepard?

  And what would that AI model look like? Will that be a combination of it having mapped your genome? You're wearing some sensors, it knows what you're eating. How will that come together?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we just did a study soon to be published. We had a thousand people. We got all those layers of data. They took pictures of everything they ate and had the glucose sensor. We did their genome sequence, their gut microbiome, tracked their physical activity, sleep. And so we could figure out in those people, what was driving their abnormal glucose spikes? And also who would wind up being the ones to go risk from marching on from pre-diabetes to actually getting to diabetes?

• 51:06Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  So it can be done now. It requires some pretty sophisticated AI modeling, but it's just going to be done a lot more. This was one of the first studies to really try to get at it. And I do think the interactions between sleep, physical activity, stress, what you eat. All these things are very complex. We as humans can't analyze this stuff.

• 51:25Dax Shepard?

  We can't even keep track.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:27Dax Shepard?

  Even when you ask people to say what they ate, they need help. And also it's a tall order to ask people like, don't eat carbs. Well, wouldn't it be great if they said, oh, no, you can have as many potatoes as you want. Stay away from rice and you're allowed to have this. That's a manageable approach for people. Oh, I think that'll be a breakthrough. Okay, I have to ask because my wife will want to know this the most. Environmental toxins, how serious of a concern are these?

• 51:47Speaker 02

  I think it's very serious. And the data, I reviewed the big three, the fine particulate air pollution in less than 2.5. The micro- Plastic nanoplastic story, which is really troubling. And then the forever chemicals. You could add pesticide to that, of course. But they're really troubling because if you watch all the graphs, they just keep getting higher, higher, higher burden. More plastics, more forever chemicals, worse air quality, even without wildfires. So we're not doing anything about it. Here we are, we have these great new ways to prevent age-related diseases. Fantastic. But what are we going to do is I call lifestyle factors, which is our exposures to these big three. The plastics one is really compelling

• 52:29Speaker 02

  because we now have plastics in the brain correlated with dementia.

• 52:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I need more info on. When I get in these debates with her, I go, I'm not arguing at all that we're not measuring more plastic in the body. Or is this studies where we know the impact?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  There's one, it's in the book, because I'm a cardiologist. It's the one that gets to me. So it was done in Italy. These patients were having what's called a carotid endarterectomy, where they took the plaque out of their carotid artery, which can cause a stroke. And so it's an operation and they analyzed, did they have microplastics and nanoplastics in their arteries? Seventy percent of them had. And then not only had that, but you could see right around where the plastics had accumulated in the plaque. That was where there was really nasty inflammation.

• 53:10Dax Shepard?

  So the body was rejecting.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  It was seeing it as alien, foreign matter. And it was inflamed to try to protect the body. But in fact, it was inciting big time inflammation in an artery that gets in the bloodstream that you wouldn't want. But that's not all they did. Then they followed these people. Do they have more heart attacks and strokes? And did they die because of heart attack? Yes, four and a half fold more than the people who didn't have plastics.

• 53:35Dax Shepard?

  You're going to pull out a gun and shoot me. But again, I'm just curious.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:38Dax Shepard?

  Where would you be getting all these plastics? Other than you're drinking from a ton of soda? And are we actually seeing the result of massive soda consumption or the plastics in the bottle that the soda came in?

• 53:50Speaker 02

  We're actually even breathing in. But the most of it is coming through what we drink and eat. So plastic bottles, where is all the water bottles?

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it's not just soda, water.

• 54:00Dax Shepard?

  It's a great counter.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  You know, what we have, people take their food, put it in plastic to store it. And then they're going to heat it up and they put it in the microwave. Talk about a double whammy. The food's stored in the plastic. And now we're going to heat it up. So all the microplastics can fully embed into the food that we're now going to eat.

• 54:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, fuck, I gotta change that. Okay.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I use plastic.

• 54:20Dax Shepard?

  I do. I'm the only one in my family. The whole family is like all plastics. But I'm like, I'm like the old man.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Well, it sounds like Kristen is on to it.

• 54:27Dax Shepard?

  She's on it. I'm the only one that's still drinking out of the plastic water bottles.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  I do drink out of plastic water.

• 54:31Dax Shepard?

  I know. I have these blender cups and I fill them up over and over again with protein shakes and stuff.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Essentia comes in plastic.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  But you see the millions of tons of plastics that are accumulating that is non-biodegradable. So it just stays with us forever. Now our fish are eating the plankton. It's everywhere. We're not doing enough to work against that. And it's one of those things that's this kind of compounded problem. It's getting worse all the time.

• 54:54Dax Shepard?

  I lost that one.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  The heart attack study to me was the most compelling of all. And then the recent study about a spoonful of plastics in your brain and how that was associated with a much higher risk of dementia, that didn't feel good either.

• 55:06Dax Shepard?

  I don't know how someone is two standard deviations above or below the plastic consumption. It comes in your can that is aluminum, but it's got a plastic line. Like, how on earth is anyone taking in more or less?

• 55:18Speaker 02

  So your point is a really important one is at the individual level, how much can you do? Cause it's so pervasive. You can do some, but we also need to take this seriously. Cause there are some solutions in sight. There are ways to combat this that have been published. Some really elegant science work. We're just not implementing it. It's like we're just ignoring it all.

• 55:36Dax Shepard?

  There's so much happening. You get fatigued on all the problems we have. The fires thing happened, right? Big panic in my house. And I'm like, it's gonna cut however many years off our life, but it's gonna cut that many years off of every single person we know. And some weird way I go like, yeah, but we won't be uniquely punished for this. It's everyone. It's everything. And an illusion that you can escape it. So maybe I've surrendered.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Despite the fact that we've been talking about some worrisome things, I have overwhelming optimism. And the reason I say that is because, okay, we've got these things are in the way, but we have a new path to preventing the big three age-related diseases. And if we can do that and start to get serious about the burdens that we are facing environmentally, then we win it all.

• 56:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay. So we nailed the lifestyle portion. We skipped exercise, but I talked enough about that. Social isolation. We've also had Vivek on a couple of times talk about that. That's really relevant. But let's talk about cells and what's coming our way and what's gonna help us.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  A perfect example, since you've had an autoimmune condition.

• 56:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  No one would have predicted that lupus, systemic sclerosis, you could give them a way to ablate their B cells in their body and then they regenerate. And they forget that they ever attacked you. The autoimmune is cured. Who would ever guess that?

• 56:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you think it's destroyed and you even say there's damage within these organs and you would think that would be permanent.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, basically you stop any autoimmune attacks because the disease is over. Now, if there's already been kidney damage from the lupus or something like that, you may not get reversible effects.

• 57:05Dax Shepard?

  How does that work? What happens?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  This is fascinating. There's so many things in medicine that we don't know for sure. We've talked about a couple of them. When the B cells come back, it's like control alt delete. When your computers aren't working, you just reboot it. Whatever the memory was that was leading to the self attacks, it's now lost.

• 57:23Dax Shepard?

  And that's with altering your T cells or suppressing your T cells?

• 57:26Speaker 02

  These are B cells.

• 57:27Dax Shepard?

  B cells? I'm sorry. What are B cells?

• 57:28Speaker 02

  B cells are the ones that produce the antibodies. T cells are your cellular immunity that are basically going after cells, like the CD8 cells that are cytotoxic that just basically kill the cell. But I wouldn't be surprised because of all the advances that we're seeing in controlling the immune system, dialing it up or down. Dialing it up in cancer especially to fight the cancer. Dialing it down to get rid of autoimmune diseases, which is amazing.

• 57:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Instead of you having to take an immunosuppression drug all your life to block something like psoriatic arthritis, these drugs like rapamycin, you get more infections. They're risky drugs.

• 58:02Dax Shepard?

  I didn't want to be on it. I'm trading this for cancer potentially. I'm trading this for an infection. And you're having to increase them, which is the nature of them.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's why it's so exciting to see the discovery that we can cure. We never were able to cure autoimmune diseases.

• 58:16Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  And multiple sclerosis is a horrible condition.

• 58:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Which we now know is rooted with this virus, Epstein Barr virus. And now we know that we can also potentially use this tactic to cure it.

• 58:30Dax Shepard?

  Did they find that MS has this triple whammy? If you've had Epstein Barr and herpes?

• 58:35Speaker 02

  You don't even have to have herpes.

• 58:37Dax Shepard?

  You don't?

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Just Epstein Barr will do it. Almost all of us have had Epstein Barr. You have to have a genetic predisposition as well.

• 58:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  And then there's even potentially a third hit, which would be your microbiome of your gut. But the two principles are requisite Epstein Barr virus exposure and a Genetic susceptibility for immune system to go into self-attack mode.

• 58:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and it just starts eating your myelin sheath?

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Yes, horrendous condition. The treatments for it, they're not good in terms of completely blocking the progression of the disease. And so we have needed for all these years, a much better approach to controlling our immune system. And the chapter in the book is dedicated to that because this is one of the really exciting frontiers in medicine right now.

• 59:18Dax Shepard?

  And where are we at in that? We're in clinical trials?

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Every few months is another big breakthrough. We treated these four people with this multiple sclerosis, or what was a few, now is probably a hundred plus people that have had cures.

• 59:31Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  And yet now studied for three years later and no sign of any comeback of the disease. So it looks really encouraging.

• 59:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay, omics.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  So omics is all this biological layers. It's our DNA, but you used to think DNA, that's our whole programming that determines everything. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth. That's just one layer. It's important, but it's not everything by any means. There's RNA, there's proteins. Then there's the gut microbiome, and the epigenome is the packaging of the DNA. So it's the methyl groups, acetylene groups, histones. These are all things that, how does that DNA get so compressed into this tight structure? Epigenome, those components, they are really important because they are like a regulator of the DNA and the proteins. Don't make this one, make this one.

• 1:00:19Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  So these layers of the omics, we've now learned so much about all of them. One of the biggest ones is we now have clocks for the body. So I could say, thanks, we're gonna get your proteomic clock. Each organ, I can say, you're 50, but your heart is 38, your kidney is 52.

• 1:00:40Dax Shepard?

  Your liver's 65.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. We can do that. Who would have ever thought we can do that?

• 1:00:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  How?

• 1:00:45Dax Shepard?

  I gotta say, there's another thing I get skeptical of is these people parade out of some tests and they're like, I'm 38. And I'm like, I don't know.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  I agree with you because when it's being sold, they want to give you favorable results.

• 1:00:57Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  I don't trust that stuff. I don't trust anybody hawking supplements who says they're on longevity. Scientists, if you're a good scientist, you don't need to hawk a supplement. If it's done right, the epigenetic clocks, the methylation, Steve Horvath is the one who discovered this. Uncanny, that is a bodywide clock. So we'll say, okay, you're this age. Well, there's a gap here because your bodywide clock tells us it's this age. Biological.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Is it a blood test?

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Can be done with blood, but it can be done with saliva.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  Then the organ clocks, this was discovered by a fellow at Stanford, Tony Wiskore, who's a brilliant guy. Very humble, he's made these amazing discoveries. This was back the end of 2023 in nature. And these eight organ clocks now have been validated by many other groups. And that's much more to me important than just your bodywide aging. Because I want to know which is the organ that's.

• 1:01:51Dax Shepard?

  We need to monitor.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Exactly. We couldn't do that before.

• 1:01:55Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  And then we have these proteins like PT-217, which says, hey, 20 years before you could ever see mild cognitive deficit. We've got this marker that you're at risk. And we're going to get all over it. So you never have to worry about that. And that's basically the theme of the three age-related diseases. One, that they take more than 20 years to set in. So you can't get Alzheimer's or cancer, except for very rare types of cancer. Or heart disease, you gotta wait 20 years. You have a lot of runway to work with.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  The second thing is, we talked about, they all have this problem of hyperinflammation, abnormal inflammation, immune system that's basically the underpinning. And they're all preventable. Right now, they're preventable overall, like heart disease 80%, 40 to 50% for cancer and Alzheimer's with lifestyle factors. But when you know who's at risk and you know all these things we can do to go into surveillance and high gear prevention, there's no reason why we can't prevent these diseases fully.

• 1:02:55Dax Shepard?

  And then now we get into artificial intelligence.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Yes, when you have all these layers of data, all your omics, all your records, all your behaviors, lifestyles, exposures, you have multimodal AI. And it says, you're not at high risk for these three age-related diseases. Lucky you. Or. Usually is one of the three, not three, most people. This is the one you gotta go after and you go into surveillance and prevention mode. And this is where we're going to tighten up these certain risk factors.

• 1:03:25Dax Shepard?

  We're going to direct our resources and our mindfulness on this.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so just like we're talking about with the nutrition, but now for health span, we individualize a preventive plan for you now that we know this is your vulnerability. A lot of people fortunately don't have vulnerabilities until a later point in time.

• 1:03:44Dax Shepard?

  Do you think a lot of people will be listening and going like, yeah, that all sounds great. Some people are going to get access to that, but there's no way it's going to get democratized to a point where I'm ever going to be able.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that goes back to our earlier point. I want it to be for everyone because the data that you need to put the layers of data for the AI, the AI software, it's inexpensive. If we are really interested in the health of our population, we would make this available to everyone. If it wasn't an insurance company that only has you for one year before you switch, but if it was a country that the overall population is their responsibility and what they're after. So if we really are into it for that reason, then we would make it available to everyone. Because what is the cost in our society to these big three diseases? That's what eats up all our resources.

• 1:04:35Dax Shepard?

  Four trillion?

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we talked about the hospitals, but it's the people that are in the hospital because they have the cancer or they're in these facilities because they have Alzheimer's and then all the heart disease that we still have, number one killer still today.

• 1:04:49Dax Shepard?

  They say like 80% of your lifetime resources you spend in the last couple of years of your life.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Yes, and there's these three diseases. If we can prevent them, it's in the national, the world's interest.

• 1:05:01Dax Shepard?

  We could spend all that money on defense.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Well, that'll sell it. Sure.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Too much common sense there, I know.

• 1:05:11Dax Shepard?

  So we talked about GLP-1s, the T-cell engineering.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  That's another part of the cell story. This is really amazing. Now, you can take T-cells out of the body. With CRISPR, you take the T-cells, you genome edit them. You basically are directing them now to go after certain proteins of a person's cancer. It can be curative for leukemia, lymphoma, and now, there's been many cures even in solid tumors, even in tumors that are the worst, like pancreatic. They're sent in as a seek and destroy mission. And by the time they are gonna lose their life, they've done a lot of their work.

• 1:05:46Dax Shepard?

  How long do they live?

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  This is weeks. And you're talking about a patient whose cancer is uncontrolled. And so basically, they're revving up the immune system, and so they don't have to do it all themselves. The T-cells are connected to the B-cells that are connected to the everything, natural killer cells, the tumor microenvironment. So basically, they are setting the stage for an attack. Then there's the other part of this, which is, these antigens, the proteins on the surface of the cancer cells, you can make vaccines directed against them. So it doesn't have to be cellular. You can make a mRNA vaccine, using that platform with nanoparticles, and then inject that. And that can rev up an immune system as well against a cancer. It's a different way, but we've seen some cures now for kidney cancer and pancreatic

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  cancer with that.

• 1:06:34Dax Shepard?

  Are we in an age where we might get a vaccine for every type of cancer at some point?

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Well, there's two parts to this story. One is using a vaccine to amp up the immune system in a person who has cancer, which you can never get enough immune responses of one with cancer. We're learning all the tools, like the engineered T-cells, CAR-T as it's called, or the neoantigen vaccines. But that is different than, you're at high risk for this type of cancer. We're gonna give you vaccines so you never get that cancer.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:04Dax Shepard?

  Right. We're basically training your T-cells to identify this preemptively.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is a part in the book, when I get into what is the Missing link right now because I want to do that, but we don't have a readily available way to check your immune system. There is no such test today that's available. Basically, you get this cockamamie ratio of your white cells to your lymphocytes, which is not worth much. What we want is a immune system checkup to know because if your immune system is down, that's when you start to see the vulnerability to cancer, or if it's up, the vulnerability to an autoimmune condition. They're done in academic labs. Like I volunteered to be in the Human Immunome Project, which is run out of Yale. And I also put in the book, a big immune test where every auto antibody in my body,

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  every exposure to every virus I've ever had in my life, that's the kind of thing we all should know about. We will someday. We're on the brink of starting to get that to a commercial level. As we get to my age, we have this thing called immunosenescence, right? And some of us, because of aging, our immune system isn't working real well.

• 1:08:14Dax Shepard?

  That's all the old people who died in COVID.

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so if we knew about those people's immune system, that's how stupid we are today, right? Because not all old people were susceptible. Right. But the ones who their immune system was compromised, we could have done things to rev that up. We're missing that right now, but in the next few years, it'll be available. I mean, I've already had one of these tests and working on getting the other more comprehensive one. And I just hope that we rev that up because that's the missing link right now.

• 1:08:43Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:08:49Dax Shepard?

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• 1:13:04Dax Shepard?

  Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:13:15Dax Shepard?

  Every time I have someone equipped to answer this question, I have so much curiosity around senescence. Okay. Because the great mystery to me is if you have this process, mitosis, and it makes an exact replica of itself, why on earth at some point does it stop making an exact replica of itself? What is the process? And the one thing I heard on NPR one day, it was like an hour long story, and you quote him a ton in your book, is this guy who started erasing layers of the epigenome in mice. And he was erasing so much that initially it would put their body into a state of being like a baby and their organs would grow too big. And then it was learning to dial back how much we erased from this. Because you accumulate.

• 1:13:58Dax Shepard?

  Garbage and flaws in your epigenome, yeah?

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:14:02Dax Shepard?

  I know already, you don't care about living to 200.

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  You're right about that.

• 1:14:07Dax Shepard?

  I already know you don't care. I am fascinated by that.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  I wouldn't mind living to 200 and being healthy. That'd be great. That's unlikely.

• 1:14:14Dax Shepard?

  Go ahead, shatter my fantasy. That one seemed really promising.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  So Juan Carlos Belmonte, who you're referring to, is a close friend. He used to be at the Salk Institute, which is right next to where I work at Scripps. And then he's more recently at Altos Labs. And he discovered this, the fancy term, partial epigenetic reprogramming. What it really means is he's taking these factors, called yamanaka factors, which can be used, this was a guy in Japan that discovered those, to make stem cells. But if you just give an exposure to an animal bred to be prematurely aged.

• 1:14:51Dax Shepard?

  Progeria?

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Progeria, exactly. Wow.

• 1:14:53Dax Shepard?

  I got one wow out of them and I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight. Continue.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  If you get the right dose, timing of this, you can take that, and not just a mouse, but other species, and you can reverse their aging.

• 1:15:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  And all the features of their organs, now they're young. This is amazing.

• 1:15:11Dax Shepard?

  I think that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:15:14Dax Shepard?

  They took these old mice and they made them young again?

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, of all the different approaches, the one that is the most striking, there's like 12 shots on goal here.

• 1:15:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  That one is wow. But as you'll see, when you look closely at the data, there's two issues. One, it's very finicky. It's kind of like Goldilocks. You gotta get it just right, otherwise you get tumor development. Because youth cells that are vibrant and dividing, never divide perfectly. We're always accumulating mutations.

• 1:15:41Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  So it's never as identical as you'd like to think. So you can get cancer from this. We've seen teratomas in these animals. Now, the problem is, their company, you know, it's billions of dollars of investment.

• 1:15:52Dax Shepard?

  Three billion, you said, a raise?

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  There you go. They are supposed to go into clinical trials. Well, how are you gonna inject this to a person? Who's gonna be the person that wants to get this body-wide yamanaka factors to see if they can reverse their aging?

• 1:16:05Dax Shepard?

  A 96-year-old that's like, either make me young tomorrow, or I wanna die in a week. That's who you're looking for, I guess.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  But that might be too far gone.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then you get a misread that it doesn't work. Good point. So they're gonna try it in a knee that is just about to have to undergo a total replacement and see if it makes the knee healthier before they go to a total.

• 1:16:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  This one is potent, but also a bit dicey for risk. So we're gonna see. That's why I say in the book, I used to think all these reverse aging things were never gonna be a go, but there's so many different ones.

• 1:16:42Dax Shepard?

  It breaks some of our previously held tenets of biology.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it used to be, oh, the mouse live longer. Well, a lot of things make mice live longer. But when you do this sort of thing, like you said.

• 1:16:54Dax Shepard?

  When you cut their age in half.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  And you see it, all of a sudden they have all this muscle and they're cognitively crisp as best you can tell when you put a rat in a maze test. I mean, it's fascinating.

• 1:17:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's incredible. Eric, you're so impressive.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  What about peptides?

• 1:17:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay, go ahead, but I wanna make sure we get them out of here in a reasonable time.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  I know, but you promised.

• 1:17:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay, then I'll save how much I adore you and I'm impressed. Go ahead, peptides.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Should we be taking all these peptides?

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  No. What peptides? Which peptides?

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Actually, we can be done now because that is exactly.

• 1:17:25Dax Shepard?

  Hold on one second, though. This will dovetail beautifully into why I would recommend this book to people. Because you are an optimist, but you haven't drank the Kool-Aid.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I align with you so much.

• 1:17:35Dax Shepard?

  It's a very, very moderate approach with a lot of optimism, and I think this is the book for Monica.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I fully align. Because, okay, here in L.A., there's a group of friends, Dax being one.

• 1:17:46Dax Shepard?

  Several of the peptides are in his book.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so are dabbling with these injectable peptides. And I feel that that's very scary.

• 1:17:55Dax Shepard?

  People are on Metformin, people are on Simorlin.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  There's a bunch of them. There's like a beauty one, there's a copper one, there's a brain one.

• 1:18:03Dax Shepard?

  Listen how upset he is before he.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  I know, I like that you're upset because I feel upset, but I also feel, well, if everyone's doing it, then they're all gonna look 22.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  No, that's not gonna happen.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  This is a craze, no basis and potential harm when you don't know for sure. I mean, Metformin is different. That's a pill that's. Been around forever and that's not really considered a peptide itself. But these injectables, that's what I'm worried about. Because anytime you're injecting something and you don't really know what it's doing good or bad. There's no evidence that any of these have helped people. This was really the impetus to do the book because there's so much of this stuff out there now. And let's just set the record straight. There's reasons for excitement, but let's not jump the gun. Let's not be taking drugs that could be doing harm. Eventually, we're going to get there. There may well be a peptide.

• 1:18:52Dax Shepard?

  I'm going to make a counter argument. You guys aren't going to like it. Many of these peptides, these are off-label uses of peptides because they saw different results from studies that weren't even addressing this. In the exact same one, the GLP-1s, which you love. It was not designed for what we're using it for, but we started noticing something.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  Like which one?

• 1:19:13Dax Shepard?

  Tessa Morlin. This was developed for HIV patients. What did they find when people were on this? They had a reduction of abdominal fat. That's what was a side effect they found. Very well studied, administered. It's been used for 40 years. It's a very well-known peptide and it had this auxiliary effect of reducing abdominal fat. There's a peptide.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  So you would inject yourself to get rid of abdominal fat?

• 1:19:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Then we could get into how many studies are that abdominal fat is a huge indicator of future four horsemen stuff. This is the Dr. Isaacson. This is a dementia.

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  I agree about the abdominal fat not being good. Yeah. I don't know the study that connects the dots between this Tessa Morlin and better health outcomes.

• 1:19:56Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  Also, there's no free lunch with any drug.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  That's how I feel.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  What is the potential side effect? Let's go back to the GLP-1. They were studied in massive clinical trials with placebos for the purpose, whether it's diabetes or obesity or heart failure. Where is the study for these peptides that were done for this purpose?

• 1:20:14Dax Shepard?

  We'd have to go through each and every one of them, but most of them weren't developed for the thing that it's being used for.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  I'm into repurposing. Viagra wasn't studied to give men erections. It was studied to be a blood pressure drug and it was a bust. But you know what? It worked and they did trials to prove.

• 1:20:31Dax Shepard?

  Latisse. This eyelash thing is a glaucoma medicine that they found, oh, everyone using it has beautiful eyelashes.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  But then they did do tests before it became publicly used.

• 1:20:43Dax Shepard?

  What you're upset about is that there isn't the data for the off-label use. But there is plenty of data for the peptide itself in the other application. In the same way that the GLP-1 had a ton of data for diabetics before, as you said earlier, they were refusing to study it for obesity.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  But then they did, but it could have turned out bad.

• 1:21:02Dax Shepard?

  But you're at a stage where you're going, we should try it for obesity and you're going, there's no study for obesity, it's for diabetics. It's like now we're post that and it turns out, no, that was great for.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  How do you know taking this peptide doesn't interfere with your sleep?

• 1:21:15Dax Shepard?

  Well, because I've slept like shit forever. So that's my hunch there.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  The point is they did prove that it was good for obesity.

• 1:21:27Dax Shepard?

  I'm just pointing out you have an argument for one thing that you feel solid about, which is GLP-1's work for diabetics. It wasn't being studied for obesity. It is very safe. And now it turns out it's great for obesity. So we were at a phase with many peptides where the off-label use is just now happening. And it's already been studied for these other things to be safe. So now we're just at the point where we're going to evaluate them for the off-label use. But you guys are going, no, don't use it for off-label because we don't have that study yet. It's a little contradictory to your embracing of the GLP-1.

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  But I would say not quite because there were specific studies for the off-label. It was specifically studies to do a new label, a real label. But I don't summarily dismiss, I haven't seen the data for peptide.

• 1:22:12Dax Shepard?

  Tessa Morland, just one I happen to know, was for HIV.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  It does a great job.

• 1:22:17Dax Shepard?

  Reducing abdominal fat.

• 1:22:18Speaker 02

  Abdominal fat and it doesn't do anything else. That's really interesting. I'll review any data set and if it's a really good case for somebody to use it. But overall peptides are being heavily promoted and there's lots of them. And I say, where's the data and who are these people that are peddling them?

• 1:22:34Dax Shepard?

  So where the data is totally fine, but a pessimism about that the data will prove out to be not real, I don't think is warranted. I think it should be. Given the same neutral opinion that the GLP ones.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  It is a neutral opinion, but they're being used prematurely.

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  The one thing I'd say is that the peptide story, you'd like to see it all in published period journals. We have a different problem right now. We're in the midst of an anti-science world where people want to take the peptides because they're not from Big Pharma. They're not mainstream medicine. They gotta be better than those cockamamie doctors.

• 1:23:08Dax Shepard?

  I agree. That's a huge problem.

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  I worry about that. We've rejected the norm of evidence and we basically are at a time when there's a revolt against mainstream medicine.

• 1:23:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Some of it, maybe it's deserved. I don't know. But the problem is we're embracing things without what we used to say would be the requisite body of evidence.

• 1:23:26Dax Shepard?

  It's the Bitcoin thing. It's like, I hate that the government regulates. Okay, well, now it's been stolen from you. And what do you want now? You want a regulatory committee to come in and chase down your money and give it back. So everything you liked about it, you now are a victim of, and now you want all the regulation. I totally agree with that mindset of, I just want anything that's not that thing I hate is ridiculous and dangerous.

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  I'm with you because there may be some hidden jewels in these peptides.

• 1:23:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm of the opinion there are hidden jewels. And I agree with you that they're being overused and without a doctor.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Dax Shepard?

  But there are good doctors who do believe in some of the ones that have now a great off-label use that will ultimately, in my opinion, be just like the GLP ones.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  I hope. I'd love to take a beauty peptide every day, but I do want it to be tested thoroughly before I do.

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  I'm staying with Monica on this one.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been outnumbered a few times in this, but that's okay. I can handle it. Now, my closing statements. You're so impressive. Your body of knowledge is mind blowing. Reading the book and then also just what you can bring off the dome, it's mind blowing. And I think you have real integrity and a great heart. And I'm really, really delighted you're a voice in this space. I loved getting to meet you the first time and I'm so glad you came back the second time.

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  Oh, well, I have so much enjoyed our conversations. If there's more fun podcasts out there, I don't know of it.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:24:46Dax Shepard?

  Have you done Rogan yet?

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  No, I'd be happy to meet with Joe. That would be interesting. But the two of you have amazing chemistry and it's good that you don't agree on a lot of stuff.

• 1:24:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, nothing.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  As a non-scientist, I love how you think. Totally different backgrounds, totally different domains of our work, but you're on it. And really appreciate you going through the book so well and asking all the great questions. It's been fun.

• 1:25:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful. Well, we'll have you back for sure. You're gonna write another book and you'll give us more fun information.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Keep us updated on all these studies.

• 1:25:16Dax Shepard?

  Door is always open. I really encourage people to read your wonderful book, Superagers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. Again, we got bogged down in the bad stuff. It is a very optimistic book.

• 1:25:29Speaker 02

  The hope is that people will find ways to extend their health span. And that's what it's all about. I hope that will work for all of us here.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:25:37Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks for coming.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:25:41Speaker 05

  Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at.

• 1:25:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you wanna hear the thing that I, uh, screen grabbed?

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay. This is a callback to our, um, period underwear episode.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:25:59Dax Shepard?

  And this is by Tracy3872. "I was at the pediatrician with my daughter when she was probably around four, and my purse fell over and a tampon fell out. She grabbed it and said, 'Mom, here's the medicine for your butt.'"

• 1:26:14Dax Shepard?

  Thanks, baby girl.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  That's cute. One of the kids in the pod, a boy,

• 1:26:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  said, um, "Why do, why do girls only have butts?"

• 1:26:26Dax Shepard?

  Right, right. Or front butt? No, no.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  No, I think, I think he thought the whole thing was just a big butt

• 1:26:32Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  on women.

• 1:26:33Dax Shepard?

  And if anything, it's like you have your big butt and then you have a miniature butt up front. It looks like two little butt cheeks, if you really look at it.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  God, it's so weird that we're attracted to these parts. They're, they're objectively so ugly.

• 1:26:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  All of it, like,

• 1:26:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  the boobs, the penis, the butt.

• 1:26:53Dax Shepard?

  Even when you're saying it, I'm like, well, no, not that one. Like, you go, the boobs. I'm like, no, no, everyone knows those are beautiful. And then the, what?

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  The aliens. The aliens don't think they're beautiful, probably.

• 1:27:05Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I think, um, obviously the penis is the most ridiculous.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:27:09Dax Shepard?

  Part of the body. The placement's goofy. It looks silly. Uh, yeah.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  But the butt is very strange. Like, we poop out of there.

• 1:27:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  And yet, it's like an erogenous area. It's so interesting.

• 1:27:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Um, what else? We're both in white.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got a new outfit yesterday and I'm wearing it today.

• 1:27:35Dax Shepard?

  Fun. It's, um, the top is like, um, it looks like the inside of a sweatshirt.

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  It's a little bit fuzzy.

• 1:27:43Dax Shepard?

  It's fuzzy.

• 1:27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  It's a little bit fuzzy. Um.

• 1:27:46Dax Shepard?

  And you're an eyeliner again.

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 1:27:48Dax Shepard?

  You're not an eyeliner.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:27:52Dax Shepard?

  Uh, what?

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Maybe what you're noticing is different. Do you think I look different today again?

• 1:27:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you look like you looked the other day. I mean, now I'm noticing, yes, the eyes were an extra bit. But yes, it's still something a little different.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Okay, Rob, can you guess what it is now?

• 1:28:07Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:28:09Dax Shepard?

  Cheek filler.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  No. Um, I'm wearing concealer. Under eye concealer. Oh, I would not, I would not have guessed that. Okay.

• 1:28:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, under eye.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  That must.

• 1:28:20Dax Shepard?

  And lipstick.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I wear lipstick every time.

• 1:28:23Dax Shepard?

  Every fucking time I leave the house, I'm in lipstick.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  It's kind of, if I only have four seconds.

• 1:28:28Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  I will just put something on my lips.

• 1:28:32Dax Shepard?

  If, yeah, like.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  If some people do mascara.

• 1:28:35Dax Shepard?

  If you're in triage.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:37Dax Shepard?

  You only have time for one application.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:39Dax Shepard?

  It's gonna be lips.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  For me. Some people do mascara. That's like their big thing. Like, they have to, or their brows, like, have to be done.

• 1:28:45Dax Shepard?

  What about cover up?

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, if my skin is bad.

• 1:28:49Dax Shepard?

  That's gonna, that'll trump lips, no? Yeah.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Yes, but. Because of not my not witch, but my regular human esthetician corrective skincare Jen.

• 1:29:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Um, I can pretty much go out of the house without any foundation on, but I still like a little lip.

• 1:29:08Dax Shepard?

  Sure, a little pop. Remind people what's happening. Yeah. I'm gonna say this with um, the utmost gratitude. I am so happy I live with all women. It's such a blessing.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:22Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad I don't live with a bunch of men and boys.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:25Dax Shepard?

  Um.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:29:26Dax Shepard?

  And I'm blessed to work with you all day.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:29:29Dax Shepard?

  But sometimes the spirits blow through town.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Okay, you mean periods?

• 1:29:35Dax Shepard?

  I don't mean period.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, let's hear.

• 1:29:36Dax Shepard?

  Now, it would be easy to blame period, and in a few years, I will be able to blame period. But it's.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Cause perimenopause?

• 1:29:44Dax Shepard?

  No, cause none, not neither of my daughters.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 1:29:48Dax Shepard?

  But sometimes the spirits, just the emotion spirits blow through town.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:54Dax Shepard?

  And all the ladies are so emotional.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:29:58Dax Shepard?

  And I, as the guy, I'm like, what has happened? Is it weather, moon, food, is the well-poisoned, what?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  I really like that you included moon astrology.

• 1:30:09Dax Shepard?

  You know, I'm clutching at straws, cause I'm not sure what it is, but it'll just be, we have these days where everyone is very emotional.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Upset, or just like?

• 1:30:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, assign your emotions, so.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  Can you give an example, cause maybe I can help, maybe I can tell you what's going on?

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so, um, boy, and I keep really trying to evaluate, when's, when do I have to stop talking about my kids? Cause they're all, no, I'm not sure. Fuck, it's very hard for me to.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  This is hard.

• 1:30:40Dax Shepard?

  It is, but I'll just say, cause whatever. Yeah, like just indiscriminately, you know, D money's got a zone, or it's almost maniac. It's like she's laughing really hard, and then all of a sudden, she's crying, and she's completely upset, and there's nothing.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  She's on a roller coaster.

• 1:30:53Dax Shepard?

  She's on a big, big time roller coaster. And then we had, um, now Lincoln had her play last night, right? The sixth graders put on a thing.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Last night?

• 1:31:02Dax Shepard?

  For, it's like an art show.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:31:04Dax Shepard?

  And then they've made these enormous, um, papier-mache heads. And when I say enormous, they're, um, they're the size.

• 1:31:15Dax Shepard?

  Of ten basketballs.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Wow, cool.

• 1:31:18Dax Shepard?

  And they have to go on stilts on the, someone wears them. Lincoln was lucky enough to have one. And they're the Greek gods. And then there's a play and a dance.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:31:27Dax Shepard?

  Really cool. First song they kicked us off with was Seven Nation Army.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  I don't know it.

• 1:31:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yes, you do.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Do I?

• 1:31:33Dax Shepard?

  Jack White. Is it The White Stripes or just Jack White?

• 1:31:36Speaker 05

  It's The White Stripes.

• 1:31:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's the toughest, coolest song. And all these little Catholic schoolgirls are fucking rocking.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 1:31:44Dax Shepard?

  To the most badass song.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Wow. So she was on stilts?

• 1:31:48Dax Shepard?

  She had like this contraption on to hold the head up. I'll send you a picture. Of course, pictures and video. You know, D money can't even get through that thing. We gotta go outside a few times. I'm on the verge of going like, hey, everyone had it together for your thing, but I know that's, that's only gonna make things worse.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:07Dax Shepard?

  I can't really see anything.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:32:09Dax Shepard?

  Then we get home and I don't, Lincoln had that thing on her thing for a very long time. And, and her legs hurt in a way that honestly, it seems like she would have had to have been shot with a shotgun for them to hurt as bad as they did. And again, man, growing pain.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:22Dax Shepard?

  All of it's possible, but it's just, but it's a grand mall meltdown. And I gotta carry people upstairs and the other person's already thing.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:32:30Dax Shepard?

  Sweet Belle's just home from New York and she's frazzled and there's too many suitcases. And I'm just, and I, the guy perspective is whatever I say is gonna make it worse. I can't think of a magic thing.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:45Dax Shepard?

  And.

• 1:32:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:32:46Dax Shepard?

  And I need to just accept that people are emotional. And, and I do that.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:53Dax Shepard?

  I'm not trying to talk anyone out of it.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  But I can see how these patterns emerge, which is just like, I just say less and less and less. And I'm more and more scared to just interact with anybody.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Dax Shepard?

  And so I find that like, I'm just quiet for like eight hours, which is really funny.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:33:14Dax Shepard?

  And then I go to bed, I'm like, you know, well, hopefully we'll wake up tomorrow and everyone will.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  New day.

• 1:33:19Dax Shepard?

  Kind of be reset for whatever reason.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Dax Shepard?

  It's just one of the very funny gender gappy things that I think is really interesting. And I don't know what it is. And it's just funny to be the solo male in this, in the, in the situation.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Gosh, I mean, I think you're right. There's not much to do.

• 1:33:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  And you can't take it personally. Which you aren't.

• 1:33:47Dax Shepard?

  That's the great thing is that throughout my life, I generally would make that my, I would be the cause of that. That's my knee jerk. And I think that's why people's emotions are so insufferable to me is that I convince myself it's because of me.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:02Dax Shepard?

  I knew it was not because of me, luckily.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:06Dax Shepard?

  So that's a huge load off my shoulders. Yeah. Because if you can figure out a way that it isn't your fault, then it, then it really is kind of grueling. Yeah. Now that I experience it, I like kind of go back in my head and I think of all these like dads I knew who just were like, I hadn't heard them talk in six or seven years.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Dax Shepard?

  You just kind of, they just stopped talking because they're, they just are afraid they're gonna make it worse or whatever.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  Well, they're just like, eh, like whatever. I, I think they just learned to not take any of it very seriously. And there might be some chaos happening around, but they just kind of block it out and they think about something peaceful.

• 1:34:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You know, like when they hear on the movies, like walking away and the explosions are happening and the cool thing to do is not look at, and look over your shoulder. You just gotta keep strolling. I think that's a little bit like that.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's a ding ding ding to the Nick Kroll episode when I was saying, you know, there's just so many dads in chairs at stores. Like, you know, they just go to the store and then they just look for a chair and then they sit there while the girls are out shopping and then they get up when you're ready to leave.

• 1:35:14Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of a funny experience being a guy, a lot of times, you know?

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Dax Shepard?

  Like, there's many times where I like, I'm, I look at myself and I'm just kind of laughing. I'm like, look at this guy. You're just kind of like wandering from room to room, hoping you don't bump into anyone and yes, oh yeah. And like a little panicked when you do, when you're forced to say something.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  I think maybe you're in a transition cuz you wouldn't have been like that before. Like you, I don't think for a long time would have been okay with people being like emotional. You'd be like, get it together. And I think maybe you're transitioning into understanding that's just not a good option.

• 1:35:56Dax Shepard?

  What also happens, and maybe you should just always grant everyone, this is like, they build up, you build up trust with one another.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:05Dax Shepard?

  And they are demonstrating who they are over a long enough period of time that you can really, you have a lot of data to talk yourself out of it, which is like, I know these kids, they're not wimps, they're not, they're not easily defeated, you know? So it does get easier over time cuz you, you start to see the actual character of your kids and you're not as worried as much.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But all to say, you end up just being really quiet. And I just think that's really funny. I think it's really funny.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  That's hard. It's hard to be, I, I, I see you.

• 1:36:39Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  It's hard, it's hard to, um, feel like I can't talk or something will erupt.

• 1:36:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Walking on eggshells is not a good feeling.

• 1:36:49Dax Shepard?

  Walking on eggshells, yeah.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  But I do, um...

• 1:36:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I'll add one other thing.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:56Dax Shepard?

  I also have to be realistic about the trade-offs and the rewards. So the joy of having these girls is like, I am, get to be so affectionate.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:07Dax Shepard?

  And loving all day long. That's like the apex of it. And so, yeah, you don't get that, you don't get like the, the, just the good emotions you want to swim in all day, which I do, and not have the other side of the coin.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  You should aim for the best version. Now, we're not gonna hit it every time, we're not. But if you know like, gosh, a lot of times I understand that my emotions are causing people to walk on eggshells, a lot.

• 1:37:40Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  Then maybe it's like, I need to try not to. I'm still gonna do it.

• 1:37:46Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Like, it's not gonna be a hundred percent.

• 1:37:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  But... I should try to be better about that.

• 1:37:53Dax Shepard?

  All anyone's looking for in life and what is comforting and get you through all of it is if there's any sense that you're getting even fractionally better and you're committed to getting better, then there's like this ultimate tolerance for it, I think. It's when someone's not gonna change at all, or it's getting worse.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah. And then I do think I will say something, I will say, I'm not speaking for all women.

• 1:38:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Um, or all, nope, or all, anyone who's emotional. Yeah.

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Um, but, or in touch with their feelings.

• 1:38:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, beautiful.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Uh, sometimes I'm like, yeah, it's oh, like, we don't, it's fine. It was a bad day.

• 1:38:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  And then it's over.

• 1:38:29Dax Shepard?

  They come and go.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they come, they go.

• 1:38:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  It's over, like, sometimes as the person who has the, yeah, strong emotions, then it's like, huh, now they're upset because I was upset. It's like, can't it just be done now? Everyone's, it's done.

• 1:38:46Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 1:38:48Dax Shepard?

  Totally. Um, it totally makes sense. I was having kind of a funny thought, which was, when you meet your grandparents, they've already been through this whole thing, right? So you meet them and you kind of think you're meeting the original them. But like, I think about my Papa Bob, he was so quiet sometimes.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:08Dax Shepard?

  And I just kind of thought he was a quiet guy at times, but I now realize, like, I met him way into the game. This is his second time around with the kids in the house and the whole thing. So it's like, he, I don't even know, who knows that my grandpa was like at 25?

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  I know, it's true.

• 1:39:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he just learned to be quiet over time. And I think that is the trajectory of all men, if they're gonna succeed.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  But, and to be fair, and not to upset you.

• 1:39:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  But, sometimes there's walking on eggshells, both ways.

• 1:39:41Dax Shepard?

  With men or me? Just me.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  I'll say all men.

• 1:39:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  To be nice. Well, because we're just talking about the people we know.

• 1:39:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:39:52Dax Shepard?

  I have moods. They just, um, they show themselves. Their phenotype is different. It's just a different version. And I know a lot of guys that's like this. It just tends to, again, we do the same thing. We get quiet. We isolate.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07Dax Shepard?

  And then we, we, what feels like is we abandon or we retreat.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:11Dax Shepard?

  That's almost our version of being moody or, or having big feelings is I'll just, I'll remove myself from everyone.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:19Dax Shepard?

  And I will soothe with something that's generally solitary. Like, I don't want to be around everyone when I'm depressed or in a mood.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think more, I mean, for, for all men, um, it's more like there are areas you can't go.

• 1:40:38Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  Like with, with you, there are some areas you just can't go with you.

• 1:40:44Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:40:45Dax Shepard?

  Carly?

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  And I don't, I'm not gonna say any of them. Don't trap me. Okay? But.

• 1:40:52Dax Shepard?

  Anyone in my family.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  There's like, there's some scary areas with you. That feel, that do feel a little eggshell-y, like if we're getting into any of these remote topics, like you really have to be really careful about what you say, or like, you're gone.

• 1:41:07Dax Shepard?

  Ah, uh-huh.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Forever. And I, and so that's what, that's funny as a woman, I'm more sca, like that is more scary to me. Than like just strong, like annoying emotions.

• 1:41:21Dax Shepard?

  You guys are comfortable around each other, having big emotions. And then we're, and then what's scary to you guys is when we just vanish.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:41:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, okay, so that's it.

• 1:41:36Dax Shepard?

  That was it, okay.

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  Well, that's it for this chat. Now let's move into facts.

• 1:41:40Dax Shepard?

  Great.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:41:49Dax Shepard?

  This episode is supported by Helix.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

• 1:42:03Dax Shepard?

  It really is the foundation, and I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes and they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip, it's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds recently. That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it and I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.

• 1:42:37Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 1:42:40Dax Shepard?

  Look, they've got over 20 mattress models. So whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365 night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic, the experts agree.

• 1:43:02Dax Shepard?

  Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 1:43:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  Cute.

• 1:43:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love them.

• 1:43:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay, my update is that he just did Dr. Mike's podcast a few days ago.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Fun.

• 1:43:39Dax Shepard?

  And Mike said to me, I saw the picture of you and Eric and it's the cutest picture ever.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  It's very cute.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Very, very cute.

• 1:43:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh my gosh, yeah, I really wish he was my dad.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:43:54Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I already have a dad, Tom Hanson, but.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:43:57Dax Shepard?

  But just look how sweet we could have so much fun lifting weights together and doing father-son stuff.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure he'll come hang out with you anytime if he's around.

• 1:44:07Dax Shepard?

  If he's around, yeah, he's a busy man.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  If he's in town. Yeah, Dax and Eric Topol took a picture together.

• 1:44:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he had brought a sleeveless tee because he's been lifting.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:18Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and I said, "Not only yes, do I want to do that, let me go grab a tank top."

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Dax Shepard?

  So I did a little wardrobe change, and his daughter took the picture.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, really cute. Well, he's awesome. He definitely is more my speed.

• 1:44:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  As far as approaches to longevity and taking not as drastic of measures.

• 1:44:41Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  And I just like him a lot. I used to reach out to him all the time as he brought up for fact checks.

• 1:44:47Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  To help me out.

• 1:44:49Dax Shepard?

  And what happened? Did you just, like, at some point, did you go like, "I gotta stop bothering this guy"?

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  I think the truth is, I started taking fact-checking less seriously.

• 1:44:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, sure, yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Like, I was really asking for real, like, what, from a real expert, what is this? And now I just mainly rely on the internet.

• 1:45:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. So does everyone else, I mean.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've increased our

• 1:45:11Dax Shepard?

  Laziness.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  Output, so something's gotta give. All right, now, he talked about Vioxx being pulled from the market, which he was

• 1:45:25Dax Shepard?

  Spearheaded.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is incredible. And there's an NPR on this.

• 1:45:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, there is?

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. It's called Merck pulls, oh, it's from 2004. Wow. Merck pulls arthritis drug Vioxx from the market. Yeah, so this is when it was happening.

• 1:45:42Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  Study confirmed earlier concerns that it raises the risk of heart problems, including heart attack and stroke. It was currently being used by 2 million people

• 1:45:53Dax Shepard?

  Boom.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  Worldwide, and had been used by more than 84 people around the world.

• 1:45:57Dax Shepard?

  Eighty-four million?

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  Eighty-four million, sorry, only 84. Eighty-four million. So good for him for sounding the alarm.

• 1:46:05Dax Shepard?

  I wish I could cite something right now, but I have run across numerous articles that talk about just the overall efficacy of the drugs that are passed by the FDA. And it's abysmal. I mean, it's truly, truly abysmal.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:22Dax Shepard?

  We're talking like 20% of people will actually benefit from them, you know, really, really low. I guess when the doctor prescribes me something, I think like, well, this thing works. That's why they're prescribing it.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:33Dax Shepard?

  And in their defense, no, they're gonna try that. It might work. And then if it doesn't work, they're gonna try another option.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:46:38Dax Shepard?

  And they're just knocking out. But I, I, I think the general public thinks medicines do the thing they say they're gonna, at like 100%.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:46Dax Shepard?

  It's not.

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  It's more of a process of elimination. You said that, well, you said that men got AIDS over nine to one.

• 1:46:53Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. In the eighties.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  In the eighties, yeah. Um, I mean, yeah, it's, it's still quite vast, the difference. Let me see. In general, this is current, though.

• 1:47:07Dax Shepard?

  This current, yeah. It, I'll admit, it changed in the nineties and it got different.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  It's still pretty.

• 1:47:12Dax Shepard?

  Lopsided.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. In general, men tend to get diagnosed with HIV more frequently than women. Though this doesn't necessarily mean they're more at risk, whatever, we know that. Okay. In 2022, men accounted for 81% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States compared to 19% for women.

• 1:47:28Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  It says, whoa, it says, however, women are more susceptible to HIV infection than men. And male to female transmission is more likely than female to male.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that almost doesn't happen.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Women's genital tract is more susceptible to HIV than men's.

• 1:47:44Dax Shepard?

  As are men's rectums. So bottoms get it way more than tops get it.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  Lots of pores in there.

• 1:47:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Fissures, uh, openings.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:54Dax Shepard?

  Friction.

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  That makes sense. But then that is, why can't women, why are women not like giving it to men via their vagina?

• 1:48:03Dax Shepard?

  Well, because the receiver tends to get it more. Than the giver.

• 1:48:08Speaker 01

  Right, but if like if I got it.

• 1:48:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  From a man.

• 1:48:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  And then I had sex with another man.

• 1:48:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  I'd be surprised.

• 1:48:15Dax Shepard?

  It would be harder for you to give it to him because he has far less.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 1:48:20Dax Shepard?

  Openness on his penis than you have in your vagina. And you have more fissures and openness in your rectum than a penis is gonna have.

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  It would only work if a woman's vagina could have sex with the man's butt.

• 1:48:34Dax Shepard?

  Then we would be apples to apples.

• 1:48:40Dax Shepard?

  If men and women had sex anally to vagina.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Can you kind of picture it like?

• 1:48:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, this is how it seems like making out.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:48Dax Shepard?

  And a lot of like suction noises and stuff.

• 1:48:50Speaker 05

  Like a reverse scissor?

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:54Dax Shepard?

  I'd like to try it.

• 1:48:57Dax Shepard?

  It sounds kinda kinky.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Though, it'd be really hard cuz the butt cheeks like to really get in there.

• 1:49:04Dax Shepard?

  To Rob's point, you'd have to really sideways scissor.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 1:49:11Dax Shepard?

  Who's that?

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. Chris, mom?

• 1:49:14Dax Shepard?

  Hello.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Lincoln?

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  No, come in. Were you running?

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  Are you okay? Oh. Well, when you come, I don't see you and I hear.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  I did also think for a second.

• 1:49:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm assuming you've come in crying and someone just assaulted you.

• 1:49:32Speaker 05

  Wow, I maybe don't want what I came in here for. I was gonna tell you I did my bike ride for the first time this month. I'm very proud of myself. I'm going to hug as well.

• 1:49:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm happy to give you one.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Where did you ride your bike?

• 1:49:42Dax Shepard?

  You can understand if you heard me. Kinda go.

• 1:49:45Speaker 05

  But then isn't that on me that the only time you guys see me out of breath is when?

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:49:53Dax Shepard?

  It's double whammy. You came in to the podcast space, which you don't do often.

• 1:49:58Speaker 05

  No, because I got back from my bike ride. I was so proud of myself. I'm verge of tears. I was like, I'm gonna go get.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Oh, see, on the verge of tears. In fact.

• 1:50:07Dax Shepard?

  And you're.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  And you are about to cry.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Seems like maybe we were right the whole time. Um, where'd you, where'd you go?

• 1:50:20Speaker 05

  I just went in the park.

• 1:50:21Dax Shepard?

  The Hilli Park?

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  There's only eight hills, ten if you take the two.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  That's too many.

• 1:50:27Speaker 05

  Look, it's a lot, but I hadn't done it in like almost a month and I was like, because you know, I just copy whatever he does. I was so disappointed in myself this whole month. Like I just got off the wagon. I was so disappointed in myself and then this morning I was like, fuck it.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Doing it.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Wow, that's exciting. I love that. Good job, mom. I haven't ridden my bike ever. You know, I don't know how.

• 1:50:57Dax Shepard?

  Look at me. Look, look at one of these cameras. Come over here and look at one of that camera.

• 1:51:03Dax Shepard?

  Because.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Don't make her cry.

• 1:51:05Dax Shepard?

  She's already crying.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  I know. I don't want her to cry more.

• 1:51:09Dax Shepard?

  What's so cute is that you're proud of yourself and you're, and you're a little bit crying.

• 1:51:14Speaker 05

  Let's normalize this because you can, you don't have to just have a, like a big emotion, big feelings when you're sad at yourself or ashamed of yourself. I truly am so proud of myself because when I do it, I can then get a a routine and I just feel better mentally and physically. And I came back and I was like, you did it. You did it.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  That is something to cry about.

• 1:51:40Speaker 05

  I'm gonna feel really good. And then I thought,

• 1:51:44Speaker 05

  are they done? My second thought was, I don't care. My third thought was, be polite and text Rob. My fourth thought was, I'm too impatient to wait for Rob's response after like a nanosecond of waiting for him. I was like, well, he's not there.

• 1:52:00Dax Shepard?

  Cause you're Delta's mom.

• 1:52:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then I thought, you know what? No. I mean, I love your podcast, but I love you guys more. I want to see my friends. I don't want to tell them that I'm really proud of myself.

• 1:52:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're proud of you too. Good job. It's hard. Those bike rides are hard.

• 1:52:13Speaker 05

  They're so hard.

• 1:52:14Dax Shepard?

  They're kind of the hardest workout.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  They seem too hard.

• 1:52:16Dax Shepard?

  Right?

• 1:52:16Speaker 05

  And it's also hard when you get out, like I said, out of the habit. They feel so unattainable, like unaccomplishable. It feels like you, you, you could have been like Everest, this bike ride.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much the same.

• 1:52:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:32Speaker 05

  But I didn't. I'm so proud. Cause I, I have to work really late tonight and I wanted energy and the whole, I just went through a whole thing this morning of like, prepare yourself. Nice, you did it. That's where I am, guys. And then I also thought on the way home, I mean, you can cut all this.

• 1:52:48Dax Shepard?

  No, this is great, actually, because it's for Eric Topol, and it's about longevity.

• 1:52:52Speaker 05

  Ding ding ding. Doing it for you, Eric.

• 1:52:53Dax Shepard?

  This feels now scripted, almost.

• 1:52:55Speaker 01

  Scripts.

• 1:52:56Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:52:56Dax Shepard?

  Scripts.

• 1:52:57Speaker 05

  I, uh, are you gonna come on Saturday? To the, um, meeting?

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  No, I'm going home to visit my mom.

• 1:53:04Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:53:05Dax Shepard?

  Tomorrow morning.

• 1:53:06Speaker 05

  I'll take notes.

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  Take notes. Um, I did send in my proxy.

• 1:53:10Speaker 05

  Who, Bertie?

• 1:53:11Speaker 01

  No, it's like, yeah, Bertie's my proxy.

• 1:53:15Speaker 05

  I wish.

• 1:53:16Speaker 01

  Um, no, the little, like, form you have to fill out.

• 1:53:18Dax Shepard?

  I filled it out, too, in case we missed it.

• 1:53:20Speaker 05

  I think that'd be really funny to send a kid as your proxy, because one time, when you were working, the girls had, um, both of their, like, teacher-school initiation meetings, like, beginning of the year, where they say, like, what to expect in first grade, but it was second and kindergarten. And I, they were at the same time, and I was like, okay, so I sent Lincoln to the kindergarten Zoom while I did Del.

• 1:53:45Dax Shepard?

  Lincoln.

• 1:53:45Speaker 05

  Lincoln Zoom. And I said, you gotta take notes. I still have the notes. They are absolutely unintelligible.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  You have to prank those.

• 1:53:55Speaker 05

  They don't make a lick of sense.

• 1:53:57Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:53:57Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:53:58Dax Shepard?

  There's no way they could.

• 1:53:58Speaker 05

  There's, like, numbers and the letters and the words.

• 1:54:01Dax Shepard?

  What was the, uh, the number that she said endlessly? Do you remember she used to say a number over and over again? And she wrote you a...

• 1:54:09Speaker 05

  They used to think sixty was the highest number, but this was a Mother's Day card. You said, back when she was really little, like, three, maybe.

• 1:54:17Dax Shepard?

  Tell me what you want to say to mom, and I'll write it.

• 1:54:19Speaker 05

  And she said, "Dear Mom, eight, four, nine, two, seven, one."

• 1:54:29Dax Shepard?

  It started repeating.

• 1:54:30Speaker 05

  One, eight, two, five. It was like, uh, probably three or four phone numbers combined.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:54:38Speaker 05

  I don't know, forty numbers. And then she stopped, and pretty elegantly, just wrote a Happy Mother's Day card to you. She said, "I love you so much. You're the best mom ever. Happy Mother's Day."

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  But it was a.

• 1:54:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  She had to get those wheels turning.

• 1:54:53Speaker 05

  And he wrote it down verbatim.

• 1:54:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. That's fantastic. We were discussing the play earlier. The two versions of the play.

• 1:55:01Speaker 05

  Alice in Wonderland Junior.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  Alice in Wonderland Junior. We were talking about, because you're, I don't know if you know, you're a professional actress.

• 1:55:08Speaker 05

  Okay, I've heard.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  Okay. And so when you watch the play.

• 1:55:12Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  What happens? Do you, well, do you think I feel bad for the kids that are very highly committed? Or do you not?

• 1:55:24Speaker 05

  Definitely not feel bad for them. If anything, I'm a little impressed. It's sort of like, how many disruptors can you have on set? While maintaining what you know you're there to do.

• 1:55:37Dax Shepard?

  It's good training.

• 1:55:38Speaker 05

  It's really good training because some of those kids are wholly and completely digging in their nose, having side conversations.

• 1:55:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:47Speaker 05

  Just truly.

• 1:55:47Dax Shepard?

  Waving at their parents.

• 1:55:48Speaker 05

  Truly wandering the stage.

• 1:55:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:51Speaker 05

  But then you have like the girl who played the Queen of Hearts.

• 1:55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:54Speaker 05

  Who is giving 110, even during curtain call, she's Queen of Hearts.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:56:00Speaker 05

  I, I don't feel.

• 1:56:01Dax Shepard?

  And the Cheshire Cat. I'm like, that kid definitely auditions. He's probably been on TV. You know, there's, because we're in LA, there's real.

• 1:56:07Speaker 05

  The White Rabbit.

• 1:56:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, White Rabbit.

• 1:56:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Um, the, I get excited if they've, this is stupid and I hate this, but I do, I do say it all the time on set, I think it's so stupid. Um, but when you drop in.

• 1:56:21Speaker 05

  When you really drop in.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, to a character.

• 1:56:23Speaker 05

  You know, like I'm here, I've dropped in.

• 1:56:24Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:56:25Speaker 05

  But like, some of those kids are legit dropping in.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  They are.

• 1:56:28Speaker 05

  And they're feeling it and pretend is so fun. I don't feel bad for anyone, though the, the complete emotion I have around those plays is that it literally doesn't matter what anyone's doing. It doesn't matter the lines they're saying. It doesn't matter if their acting is good or even passable. What matters is that a girl. Group of people have come together to play pretend. And they're standing on a pedestal in front of other people who have agreed to witness it. And there's something so magical about that. Doesn't matter if they restart the song. It doesn't matter if Delta gets handed a microphone and then yells at the stage manager about what she's supposed to do with it mid-song.

• 1:57:01Speaker 01

  So funny.

• 1:57:03Speaker 05

  None of it matters. What matters is the witnessing of it.

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  That's, that's lovely. Do you feel that way about sports? Like if the kids are playing sports, is it the same like, oh, they're just like, it's fun and it's a beautiful thing? Or do you think we do more care about the result?

• 1:57:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's really weird because I would, I think I would answer it differently. I would like you to score a goal.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:27Speaker 05

  If I'm watching it.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  I'd like you to work a little harder at this.

• 1:57:30Speaker 05

  But, but I'm not saying that's the right way to be or an evolved way to be. But if I'm being honest, yeah, I'm going to root for you to score a goal. Whereas when I'm sitting in the theater, I'm not rooting for you to hit that note. Whatever you hit is going to be great. I'm so glad you're putting yourself out there. And it's probably healthiest to have that.

• 1:57:46Dax Shepard?

  Well, I was telling Delta before the play, the night before, she's like nervous. And I said, you just, I just want you to hear from me. What impresses me is putting yourself out there. I do not care if you're good, if you remember your lines. What is admirable is putting yourself out there. And you will do that because you'll show up. So there's really nothing to be nervous about from my approval.

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's for sure.

• 1:58:09Dax Shepard?

  And I'm sincere about that.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially at that age.

• 1:58:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:13Speaker 05

  Do you feel there's a difference in sports and theater?

• 1:58:16Speaker 01

  I am a double Virgo. What can I say? I, I do.

• 1:58:22Speaker 05

  You're like two months away from learning Dematria.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 1:58:26Speaker 05

  You know, that's the like.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  What's Dematria?

• 1:58:29Speaker 05

  Maybe a crazy person's calculator where like letters mean numbers and the numbers have significance. And if you spell someone's name and it equals like.

• 1:58:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, meaning like it's a fringe astrology thing? It's an evolution of astrology.

• 1:58:42Speaker 05

  Like spell your name and like padmen would mean false. And then I'd be like, you're Sim.

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  I can't wait to learn it.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  Oh my god, what a challenge. Um, yes, I think I take everything very seriously. So when I'm watching anything, I mean, I'm mainly just laughing because it was just so funny. But yeah, so, so I am evaluating it like, oh no, these people care a lot and these people don't. And if I were them, I'd be like, why can't everyone just get their shit together? And do this, you know, care?

• 1:59:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  And I would feel the same way about sport.

• 1:59:24Speaker 05

  But I think there's not a right, there's probably not a right and right, wrong way to witness things. It's like, what, what's the perspective, the lens you're looking through? You are like such a consummate professional and ambitious woman, like to the letter of the law. In a great way, it's like you're the one that like, that, that, that Argent puts in their suits to be like, this is a, this is a woman who will get stuff done. And it's, how would you be able to drop that whole facade and go and be like, try to act like a preschool teacher when you're watching that? No, you're like, there's.

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, commit, guys.

• 1:59:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know. But I, but I do think your, your way of looking at it is, is the correct way. I do think that. I don't know.

• 2:00:04Dax Shepard?

  I think it's just a way.

• 2:00:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, everyone's right.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  It's a way I would like to be doing it, I guess, is the better way of saying it.

• 2:00:12Dax Shepard?

  Salt, settled.

• 2:00:14Speaker 05

  All right, well.

• 2:00:15Dax Shepard?

  I love you, great, great job, great job. I'm very proud of you. Those, that's the hardest workout.

• 2:00:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:22Speaker 05

  I wasn't patient, Rob.

• 2:00:28Speaker 05

  Okay, bye, we're almost done. Love you guys. Love you. Okay, let's just wrap this up super quick. There's a fair amount of evidence to say that over 200 grams of protein or an excessive amount can lead to kidney issues and liver issues.

• 2:00:49Dax Shepard?

  What's that from?

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Oh, Medical News Today is where this one is from. But there's a few. There's Harvard, one from Harvard Health, one from University of Missouri School of Medicine.

• 2:01:00Dax Shepard?

  I will produce, I will cite the many articles that say it's great for you.

• 2:01:05Speaker 01

  Great. Thirteen pounds, you said there's 13 pounds of microbes in a body, according to this National Institute of Health, two to six pounds of bacteria in a 200-pound adult. Um, because of their small size. But there are 39 trillion.

• 2:01:26Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  All right, well, that's it for Eric Topol.

• 2:01:29Dax Shepard?

  I love him. I'll, we can't wait to do it again.

• 2:01:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, he'll be back for sure.

• 2:01:34Dax Shepard?

  With probably more gains.

• 2:01:35Speaker 01

  More gains and he'll have aged reversely.

• 2:01:38Dax Shepard?

  I hope he's bigger than me in the next photo. That would be incredible.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  That would be incredible.

• 2:01:43Dax Shepard?

  He's gonna have to help his protein intake.

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's gonna have to reverse his position on protein, probably.

• 2:01:47Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  All right, love you.