How X-Rays Damage the Body | Joe Rogan & David Sinclair

About it, I try to balance my life as best I can. I don't go through airport scanners as much as I can and have x-rays, these little things. Do you think those are bad for you? The new ones, aren't they like a radio wave? Yeah, they're millimeter radio waves. I don't want to take any chances and also don't want to freak people out. But the old style ones that were banned in Europe first, they were potentially damaging. X-rays definitely try not to have as many as you can. But flying is just as bad as an x-ray. Well, that's the problem. I was going through a scanner and I said I don't want to go through the scanner and they got quite upset because it's a bother. But they said, you know, it's just as much damage to your body as the flight. And so I said, why do I want to double it? Anyway, so I go through scanners, but I try not to. But let me tell you why I think it's so bad because scanners are going to change what we call the epigenome. Now, a lot of people haven't heard of the epigenome. The genome, everybody knows it's your DNA, the code of life. The epigenome is what regulates and reads those genes at the right time. And so we've we knew about DNA. We know how to read the genome pretty easily. We can do that now on a Mars bar sized device in a day. The epigenome is quite different. The epigenome is the structure of how the DNA is looped around. If you look at the chromosome, you're not seeing the genome. You're really basically seeing the epigenome. And what I think is causing aging is not that you're losing the DNA structure. You're not having mutations. You're actually changing the epigenome, which is the the reader of the genes. So put it another way. Compact disc. For the young audience, compact discs are little things we used to put music on. But anyway, these are these are digital information, of course. And the reason we switch to digital in the first place is that it's very copyable and it doesn't wear out. Whereas a cassette tape, you know, people our age know that if you try to copy that a thousand times, there's not much left at the end. So the compact disc information is the genome. The epigenome is the reader of the CD, that little laser that goes around. And what I think is causing aging is not the loss of the digital information, but it's the reader, the analog part. And that's like a cassette tape that eventually runs out. So what we what's going on really is that your cells are losing the ability to read the right genes the way they did when you were 20. And that's basically noise, informational noise that gathers over time. And so what we end up with when we're 80 is a compact disc or DVD that's scratched. So the reader cannot read the right genes at the right time. And the cells become dysfunctional. Now, what we're working on is how do you polish that CD or that DVD to get that information back again? And if you can do that, I think that's really the best way to reset your age. And we haven't published it yet, but we're working on ways to actually reset that genome and actually get back the information that we once had when we were 20. So what is happening to the epigenome when you go into those scanners? Well, so what we found is the biggest disruptor of the epigenome is a broken chromosome, a DNA break. And I don't know about the scanners. That's just an abundance of caution. But an X-ray will damage your DNA. No question. Even going out in the sun will do a bit of that. And we think that the cells' reaction to that break, having to unwrap the DNA from its chromatin, we call it, and then re-wrap it, is what eventually disrupts the ability to read the right gene at the right place. So DNA damage is essentially a little scratch on the DVD, and that accumulates over time. So being out in the sun does that, but being out in the sun also is beneficial. Your body produces more vitamin D. So there's also a theory called antagonistic pleiotropy, which is what's good for you when you're young, comes back to bite you when you're old. So you might look good and feel good and get vitamin D when you're young, but the accumulation of these scratches on the epigenome ends up, you know, I'm formerly an Australian, originally an Australian. I'm now American and Australian. I grew up in the Australian sun, and I can tell you that most Australians look older than they should. No ozone. No ozone and lack of sunscreen in the 1970s. Why do you guys have a whole nill zone over Australia? What's that all about? What'd you do? No, it's what did the world do, chlorofluorocumbin. Oh, no, you guys did it. Oh, sure. Well, hairspray. But why does it accumulate over Australia? Is there a theory behind that? Well, it started in Antarctica, and so ozone will... That'd have been convenient. Nobody's up there. Leave it up there. Yeah, well, we need a big fan. Blow it that way. Yeah. Well, yeah, the ozone layer is fairly important if you don't want to get singed by UV light. Yeah. Well, that's one of the first things I noticed when I went to Australia, was there's all these sun cancer warnings, skin cancer warnings everywhere. Well, a third of Australians get some form of skin cancer. That's crazy. But what's also going to happen is it'll disrupt your epigenome over time, and you'll look old. But if you have an X-ray, you're going to damage your organs. You're going to accelerate aging, I believe, in your body. And it happens... You can't avoid double-strain broken chromosomes. It happens all the time. There's trillions of cells in your body, and it's happening all the time. So living is a problem. Okay. Flying. Flying is even worse. But what we're working on is how do you get back that original information into the cell and make a cell, not just believe that it's 20 again, but actually be 20. So what do you do? You reprogram them. There are a set of genes that we and others have found, three main ones, that when you put them into a cell or even into a mouse, they become younger again. Whoa. How far do you think you are from implementing this on human beings? Well, so theoretically... Are you doing it to yourself already? You could do it to yourself. Theoretically. I wouldn't do that because I'm not crazy. We need to figure out the safety. I don't want to become a giant tumor. Why don't we just use it on bad people? Yeah, well... Take people on death row and turn them into 18-year-olds and go, whoa. Yeah, well, yeah, that would be for someone else. Someone else. Well, hopefully no one would ever do that. Why not? We're going to kill them. Here's what we're doing. I agree with you that we want to see what happens in humans. Yeah. I mean, just give them, like, free pizza or something. They're on death row, right? They're already murderers? Do you want to be the first one? To me? I'm going to go on death row. I don't want to go on death row. But I'm saying if you're going to kill somebody, like, wouldn't it be a good idea to, like, go, hey, we'll give you four hours of TV a day. So we want to shoot you up with some stuff that's going to make you younger. If I was on death row, I'd go do it. See what's up.