Episode #43

Dr. Peter Attia

How to Increase Longevity & Improve Your Quality of Life

People who live the longest experience chronic disease the latest. Click To Tweet

Is there a secret to longevity that only centenarians know?

Is a glass of wine or whiskey a day really the common denominator to living longer?

As you may have guessed, these anecdotal stories of people living past 100 years of age and claiming their drink-a-day habit is at the root of their long lifespan aren’t exactly the norm; these are outliers.

But if that’s the case, what does it take to live longer?

Are we all just predisposed to whatever our genes dictate?

Or can our lifestyle choices determine our outcome?

As you’ll learn in this podcast episode with Dr. Peter Attia, founder of Attia Medical, a medical practice that uses the applied science of longevity, there are a number of different factors that can affect your quality of life and how long you live.

And while some are out of your control, such as your genes, there are plenty of other strategies you can focus on to offset the cards you were dealt.

Dr. Attia — who also happens to have over 138k followers on his Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channel combined — and I sat down to discuss these principles as well as how fasting can be an incredible tool to add to your toolkit, why blood glucose management is a key to living longer, and his experience with the Oura sleep tracking ring and Dexcom G6 continuous blood glucose monitoring device.

Any effort at living longer has to begin with a foundation of minimizing insulin resistance or maximizing glucose disposal and insulin sensitivity. Click To Tweet
And that’s not all we dive into.

We also tackle the following topics in this podcast episode:

  • What is longevity?
  • The difference between lifespan and healthspan
  • Three key components that make up quality of life
  • Peter’s approach to longevity
  • The connection between chronic diseases and how long you live
  • The difference centenarians have when it comes to developing chronic diseases
  • Is chronic disease prevention genetically driven?
  • Is it possible to get a sense of your chronic disease risks?
  • How insulin resistance is connected to the big three (heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancers)
  • How living longer involves building this specific foundation when it comes to insulin
  • Why most people learn best with this strategy when it comes to changing their health
  • What is the best tool to break the cycle?
  • Is keto the best one to prevent insulin resistance?
  • Two things to alter when it comes to transitioning from a standard American diet (SAD)
  • Why a narrow approach to nutrition can cause you to miss out on other options
  • How much metabolic damage can be resolved once someone transitions from a SAD diet?
  • One of the more important tools in your longevity toolkits
  • Some of Dr. Attia’s foundational principles
  • His thoughts on caloric restriction, both in the short and long term
  • Protein synthesis, mTOR, and important amino acids
  • The difference between your leucine and methionine levels when fasting
  • How leucine is good for muscle hypertrophy (gains) and the problem with BCAAs for this purpose
  • Are chronically low mTOR levels a good or bad thing?
  • Dr. Attia’s view (and general rule) on increasing protein and how this affects ketosis
  • His opinion on the carnivore diet based on seeing lab results
  • Two biomarkers we should be tracking but aren’t
  • What Dr. Attia calls a metabolic signature
  • I also ask Dr. Attia whether or not he uses his Oura sleep ring to track sleep only or other markers and his thoughts on it
  • What he’s learned since using his Oura ring over two years ago
  • The difference between his sleep and heart rate when he drinks alcohol and what happens when it’s more than 2 drinks after 6pm
  • How this compares to eating too many carbs too late at night
  • The phospholipid nutritional supplement Dr. Attia uses to get the best sleep
  • His experience with the continuous glucose monitoring device Dexcom G6 (which is the same one I’m using to track my blood sugar)
  • The problem with only measuring hemoglobin A1c and how a continuous blood glucose monitor remedies this
  • What Dr. Attia tells his patients when it comes to using a continuous blood glucose monitoring device
  • Four things to track when it comes to your blood sugar meter
  • Three targets to aim for when it comes to blood glucose monitoring
  • Two strategies to create glycemic control
  • The blood glucose results that surprised Dr. Attia the most
  • How his blood sugar levels change during periods of stress

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