Joe Rogan | What Do the Longest Living People Have in Common? w:David Sinclair

Yeah, the other day someone said humans tamed fire 500,000 years ago and I said that can't be true. 500,000 years ago, that's too long ago. I checked it out. It's true. And these weren't even humans. These were pre-human. I think it was probably one of the two species back. We've been doing this. We've been changing the environment using tools, using fire for that long. The fire went crazy, right? Because it's not just manipulating a physical thing. It's changing the state, right? You're doing something, whether it's with Flint and something, the spark and some tinder. You're really creating, changing the state of matter. Well, we are. And we'll continue to do that. We'll continue to evolve. And one of the reasons that I wanted to see human origins is in my book I talk about we've evolved to our natural lifespan. We're now at our maximum. 122 is the longest-lived human that ostensibly is on record. So without intervention, we've reached our maximum. But why not now give us what evolution failed to give us? Why can't we be like other species that are at the top of their game? Are there any factors when you look at the oldest people that are alive? Are there any common factors? Actually, not really. They do seem to have a collection of gene variants that predispose them to get to that long. There's one called FOXO3 that if you've done your genome, we can have a look. 23andMe. Have you done it? I have. We should look at it. I will check. You need an A or a T at a certain position. I've got one of them out of two. My kids got two of my kids out of three have both. So they, if they look after themselves, might have a better chance of living longer. But anyway, these long-lived people, they tend to live a long time no matter what they do. Then they smoke till 90 years old. Really? They quit at 90? There's a few cases of that. And they live another 12 years? Right. Or more, 22 years, right? You said 122 years old? That's one lady in France. But one of my friends, his name is Nero Barzilay. He was with me in Israel. He's got a story of when he asked the centenarian lady, the lady that lived over 100, that he knew, why didn't you quit smoking? And she said, all four doctors I went to told me to quit smoking and they've all died. So keep going. That's hilarious. What did she do for a living? Jean Calmain. I forget the French lady. I don't remember what she did. I would imagine that would play a part, like how stressful your occupation is. Yeah, she had a great sense of humor. That was probably part of it. She used to make jokes with reporters all the time. One was, how many wrinkles do you have? She says, I've only got one and I'm sitting on it. The other one I think is even better is a reporter who was young said, you know, you're 116. I hope I see you next year for your birthday. She says, I don't see why not. You seem pretty healthy to me. Wow. And she made it to 122. Now, have there been any anecdotal reports of people that live longer? Well, Methuselah and biblical figures. Yeah, but not biblical, like not unsubstantiated reports of because I had heard of there's some people that claim to have lived like ridiculously long, but they've never really figured out whether or not it's accurate. Sure. There's a few of those. But even even John Calmain at 122, there's a big argument now between us researchers whether that's even true. Oh, really? Yeah. It's a massive debate. I've got an inbox full of long angry emails from scientists. What's the evidence point to the contrary? So the hypothesis is that her identity was subsumed by her daughter to avoid paying taxes. And there's photos of them and there's a blotch on one photo that matches the daughter. So there's a lot of forensics going on and people want to subsume the grave and the French government's not or French researchers aren't giving up the blood samples. They don't want to know. They don't want to know. Exactly. So it's probably horseshit. Well, probably like a hundred years old. It could be horseshit. I would say it doesn't actually matter. God damn French. It doesn't matter. People have lived to 117 and that's still pretty good. That's what we know. If we can all live that long, who's going to complain? Wouldn't you like to get one of them old, old, old, old, old people and start doing work on them? Yeah. Just pump them up with NAD, get them on a drip every day. Well, my dad's experimenting on himself. So he's not a hundred yet, but he's 80. How's he look? Well, I wouldn't say he looks young, but his fitness is like a 30 year old. Really? He's stronger than me. We tested out in the gym the other day. No way. That's embarrassing. He can lift more. He's fitter. We were going across the Serengeti and he was leading the charge. If you saw him, if you didn't see his face because he's got gray hair and whatever, physically put a bag on his head. You'd say he's 30 the way he moves. Be very weird to put a bag in your dad's head. Yeah, I shouldn't do that. Sorry, dad. But he would think he's 30, really. Well, he's reinvigorated in life. So in my family, we've got some Ashkenazi bad genes. We tend to die young. And my grandmother died. My grandmother is actually only 15 years older than my dad and she died a few years ago. The last 10 years of her life, horrible. So we know what's going to happen in my family, probably to all of us. So your grandmother had your father when she was 15 years old? Right. Whoa. Yeah. Back in the early days of World War II, she apparently was playing around with her boyfriend. She claims to be a virgin at that point, but something got somewhere that shouldn't have and so it was during high school. So I was raised by my grandmother. She was in her 40s when I was a kid and she was the one that taught me to always stay young, keep your adults, ruin everything. That's probably why I work on aging. Adults ruin everything. What was her advice in terms of why, how do you avoid what adults are doing wrong? Well, you know, she'd grown up during the Depression and then World War II and then the communists came into Hungary and raped a lot of people. She had no respect for humanity. So by the time I came along, first of all, she put all of her energy into me and I was a spot bride as a kid. So that wasn't helpful to me, I think, now as an adult. More importantly, she wanted me to do the best I could with my life. She said, David, do what you can to make this world a better place. Make sure that you leave this place better than you found it and that's what I'm trying to do. Wow, what a profound piece of advice for a grandchild. She was a rebel. She taught me forget the rules, kind of like you do. I'm going my own way and we'll see how this goes. So she went to Australia. She said, fuck Europe, I'm out of here. She went to Australia, the furthest place she could find from Europe, never went back. She went on Bonday Beach in Sydney in a bikini, which was rebellious and she got taken off the beach by the police. What'd you have to wear back then? Oh, the full little British thing. Down to your knees. Oh, down to your knees? I think so. What did they look like? Maybe it was a one piece, but... You want to go out and show your belly? That's what I think. But she was a rebel. She went to New Guinea by herself in the 60s. What year was this where she was wearing a bikini? That would be 56. You couldn't wear a bikini in the 50s? Wow. Wow. Okay. Like those pin up girls, right? When you see them, they always had one piece suits on. Like yeah. So imagine New Guinea in the 60s as a woman on her own, up in the highlands. She claims to have eaten human flesh and she spent most of the time drunk as well.