Hey friends! It occurs to me that I don’t update here anywhere near as often as I’d like. I’m inspired to, but the list of higher priority items is long and often exhausting. But, me making excuses does a disservice to all of you. I know I won’t be able to get to all of the things I want to share with you as fast as you might be able to use them, so I’ve compiled a list of resources that I often go to when I have questions or want to learn something.
Full disclosure, I’m still a lowly undergrad, but my passion and interest carries me farther into the longevity field than just plodding through a degree would. I’m still on the advanced degree track, but that’s going to take a little more time, and I’m bringing you all along for the ride.
I wouldn’t have been able to get this far without following in the footsteps of people far smarter than I, which is a tactic I’m going to continue to use.
The first shouts out go to Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. David Sinclair. Dr. Attia has a podcast called The Drive, which I’m pretty sure I got turned on to thanks to Tim Ferris. He consistently dives deep into topics that both entertain and educate. The focus of the show is on optimizing health for longevity, and that includes mental health and pure joy, in his case archery and race cars, among other things. His podcasts are frequently over two hours long, and subscribers get additional material like show notes that have proven to be invaluable to learning more. I’ve been a subscriber from day one. I’m happy to pay for the massive value he provides. Dr. Sinclair comes into the picture because I heard him as a guest on The Drive, and the path of my life changed forever. I had thought that the quest for a longer life was too fringy, too esoteric as something that one could pursue in the real world, so this interest of mine stayed in the shadows, too weird for the light of day. And yet, here he is, a brilliant scientist associated with other brilliant scientists, doing exactly that, pursuing a cure to the disease of human aging. In less than a week, I was enrolled in Penn State’s biology undergraduate program and I started classes in the summer, less than a month after that. I’d love to do my own show with these guys, but not until I publish something groundbreaking so I don’t fangirl all over them.
Somewhere around the same time that I discovered Dr. Attia, I also discovered Dr. Rhonda Patrick, also likely through Tim Ferriss’s podcast. Her approach differs from Sinclair and Attia in that she’s looking less at pharmacological solutions to human longevity, and focused more on nutritional and lifestyle therapies. Think sulforaphane, DHA and EPA, fasting, and saunas.
All of these amazing humans have been on Joe Rogan’s show too, and I highly encourage you to look up these episodes. Even if they’re a few years old at this point, they’re full of absolute gold.
Some other stellar humans who will present you with delightfully well-researched work include Dr. Nir Barzilai, Dr. Navdeep Chandel, Dr. Mathew Walker, Dr. Ted Naiman, Dr. Layne Norton, Dr. Kelly Starrett, and Paul Chek. I have a double handful of other resources for intelligent conversations in other genres, but that’s for another time. Besides, these links give you at least a month of homework to go learn some interesting things, and by then I will have written a few other articles to share with you, since finals will be over and I can use my brain for something besides school.