What Causes Human Aging? w/Aubrey de Grey | Joe Rogan

So let's bring people up to speed. What have the, what are the latest revelations? What's the latest in terms of what we understand in terms of what could possibly be fixed about human aging? All right, so the fantastic answer to that question is there are no new revelations in terms of what we understand. Our understanding seems to have been pretty much complete already like 20 years ago. The fact that we haven't found out any fundamental new stuff that we didn't know before then is fantastic news because of course it means that we're unlikely to find anything out in the future either. It means that we are pretty much on top of the description of the problem and therefore it's all about solving the problem. Is it possible to summarize the problem? What is the problem? What causes human aging? Sure, that's easy. So aging is simply the same thing in a living organism like you or me as what it is in a car or an aeroplane or any other simple man-made machine. It's a fact of physics, nothing to do with biology, that any machine that has moving parts is going to do itself damage in the course of its normal operation as an intrinsic consequence of its normal operation. Okay. So in the same way that a car rusts. Jamie's going to bring that microphone up to you. Is that good? Yep. Yeah, just keep it about a fist from your face. Yeah. So in the same way that a car rusts or you know accumulates junk in the oil or whatever, similarly the human body does damage to itself. And again, just like a car or an aeroplane, the human body is set up to tolerate a certain amount of that damage so that we can get through to the point where we have kids before we start going functionally downhill, whether mentally or physically. But after that, evolution doesn't care about us anymore and therefore we are only equipped to tolerate that much. And eventually the damage that's being done accumulates to a point beyond what the body set up to tolerate and that's when things start to go wrong and we start to function less well. What is the difference physically between a younger person and older person in terms of their ability to recover from the damage of just regular everyday life and exercise and abuse and running around? Yeah, all that. So that's just one aspect of the difference between a younger person and an older person. So let me answer that question by stepping back one step. So the difference ultimately arises from what the body is made of at the molecular level and cellular level. The body accumulates various changes that are chemical and biological consequences of what the body has to do to keep us alive from one day to the next, even starting before we're born. And those changes, the reason I'm using the word damage to describe those changes is because eventually things don't work so well. So you're quite right that recovery from injury is one thing that doesn't work so well but so are plenty of other things, whether it's how fast you can run, how fast you can think, how strongly you can grip something, how fast you can walk. All of these things become progressively less good. But the point is that the amount by which they become less good is pretty negligible until the age of 40 or 50. It's only then that the decline starts to accelerate. So what do you do in your own life to try to mitigate that acceleration? Yeah, I'm a really bad example of this. For two reasons. That's crazy, but this is your business. So there are two reasons why I'm bad at it. The first reason is that I'm really well-built. I'm just lucky. I'm just one of those hateful people who I can eat and drink exactly what I like and nothing seems to happen and I don't even need to exercise to speak of. And I'm biologically far younger than I actually am chronologically. How old are you chronologically? Chronologically I'm 57. How old do you think you are biologically? Well, I'm told that I'm a good decade less than that. This is what I get told every time I do these tests, which I've been doing for the past, let me say, 18 years. Yeah, so that's pretty good news. So you're lucky genetically. Yeah, but the other thing is, you know, I'm working hard to hasten the defeat of aging and maybe it's a net win. You know, maybe the amount that I'm hastening is more than the damage I'm doing myself by, for example, not getting enough sleep. And you still drink booze? I still drink. How often? I drink probably more than the average American. What does that mean? A few beers a day. A few beers a day. Maybe a whiskey or two. What's a few? Yeah, three or four. Three or four? Three or four beers every day. Yeah, most days. And a whiskey or two every day as well? Yeah, most days. So six days a week or six drinks a day? Yeah, most days. Wow. You want to drink right now? Only if you have one. Do we have any beer? Do we have any Heineken's or we have the fake Heineken's? I only drink actual beer, not Heineken. Oh, you son of a bitch. What is the actual beer? Well, you know, IPAs, things like that. Things that taste like beer. Oh. Heineken doesn't taste like beer? Of course not. I don't know. I'm in the Malibu loop. We had some weed-infused beer for a while, but I think it was bad. Oh, that dud will fuck this dude up. He'll lose all of his gains in biologic aging. Actually, no, I've never smoked pot. Never? I mean, I've experimented with it when I was younger, but it never did anything to me at all. I'm not a fan of beer. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. I'm a fan of the whole thing. 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