255. The Longevity Leap: An Interview With SIIMLAND
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Thank you for listening to the Boost Your Biology podcast. My name is Lucas Owen. I uncover the most cutting edge health information on the planet, ranging from hormones, nutrition, supplementation, fat loss, biohacking, longevity, wellness, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Boost Your Biology podcast.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Boost Your Biology podcast. Today's special guest is a friend of mine from Estonia. He's a very passionate biohacker, author, educator and YouTuber. Sim Land, welcome to the show for the second time round. Yeah, I'm happy to be here and glad to talk with you. Awesome, man. So,

Did you want to sort of start out with, because I've obviously built up my audience and people are always interested in learning about your background. So maybe do you want to share a little bit about how you got into biohacking and health optimization? Yeah, like I've always been...

somewhat interested in, I guess, health and fitness. I wasn't very athletic when I was young or I didn't do any sports. I guess my biggest physical trait is just doing calisthenics or my best physical trait is doing calisthenics. I was doing that already as like a teenager slightly, but I got into working out around high school, the last years of high school. And after that, I

shifted more towards like health overall and I started to create content about it started to share my journey and share my insights and yeah since then I've just gradually more shifted towards longevity and I guess life extension or anti-aging stuff so that's been my kind of passion for the last you know 10 years or something in that and the reason I got into like longevity per se was I

So my grandfather died to colorectal cancer when he was 36. And I didn't want to follow anything similar to that. So I figured that preventive health is super important and the most important thing to do when it comes to longevity. And the data also kind of backs that up.

the centenarians who live the longest they get the same diseases but they get them you know two decades later than the average person mostly because of genetics but you know you need to kind of adopt a similar mindset with your health and longevity that okay i'm going to delay these diseases that kill most people for as long as possible because that's the greatest likelihood that you actually like you know live longer or as long as possible

Yeah, and for those listening in, Simland has some remarkable content on YouTube. I remember actually looking up his content probably like five, six years ago when I was researching like intermittent fasting myself back in the day. And he's also got a fantastic Instagram channel, which I'll leave all linked in the podcast show notes. But yeah,

Today's discussion, Simlan, I'm really keen to sort of explore longevity, anti-aging. I mean, maybe you want to share with my audience, I believe you're taking part in a... Is there a competition in longevity, sort of biological score competition you're doing at the moment? Right. Yeah, it's the...

Rejuvenation Olympics that was created by Brian Johnson and people share their speed of aging tests. So there are biological speed of aging tests based on this Dunedin PACE test and

it uh yeah like ranks people based on their score results i was like number one there with uh my average score was 0.65 and for example brian johnson's score was 0.67 if i'm not mistaken so uh yeah there's you know some other kind of uh known names there like ben greenfield and

Peter Diamandis and Michael Ostgarten and some other people in there, but most of them are just kind of regular people as well. Now, you know, whether or not this test is like any good or how relevant it is, that's like a different topic. So I don't think that it's a particularly like, I guess like insightful test is not going to tell you like, okay, this is how long you're going to live or

Or what's your actual biological speed of aging? It's relatively new and we don't have like a ton of data about it. But what we do know at least is that the lower score correlates to like a lower risk of all cause mortality as well. So the lower the score, then the lower the risk of mortality apparently is. But the other kind of nuances to that are somewhat less clear right now.

And were you like dramatically changing your like lifestyle in order to achieve that? Or you're already living a pretty like aligned sort of, you know, lifestyle in order to hit that 0.65 score? So the first time I did a test, I didn't have like the perfect routine. I was like maybe...

you know, still exercising and not being overweight and sleeping enough and that kind of thing. But I was a bit like, I guess I was like just focusing on strength gains and that required you to eat more calories and be a bit heavier. I still was lean and stuff, but my best score was 0.62

when I was like, quote unquote, bulking. But after that, my subsequent score results or test results were worse. So 0.65 and 0.69, probably because I also got COVID there in between them. So there is...

quite a lot of evidence that this acute stress and infections, including COVID, accelerate your biological aging and increase the biological scores. So yeah, like my test results went pretty bad after I got COVID for the next two to three months.

So that kind of skewed my results or made my results. So the average test result was much worse. But interestingly, my other health markers improved quite a lot because I got the first score. I was like, okay, let's try to get it even better. So I'm going to be more strict with my lifestyle and diet. Started doing more cardio as well.

lost a few kilos of weight or body fat mostly and increased my VO2max tremendously. So my biomarkers improved, my lipids, my glucose and other markers got a lot better. My VO2max also improved tremendously. So I got

a VOC max of 66 milliliters per kilogram per minute after that. But the only thing that went worse was this biological age test result because of COVID probably. And the test also looked at telomere length. So the first test, my telomeres were longer than 99% of other people my chronological age. So I had the telomeres of a four-year-old in my first test.

And then the subsequent tests, my telomere length was like 30 year old, which like tremendously accelerated my aging gap because of the COVID. So yeah, like that's kind of interesting that I haven't measured my, the speed of aging and the telomere length over the last, you know, eight months or eight months right now. So I'm interested to see what's it, has it recovered now, like a year after I had COVID. So yeah, we'll see.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And also when you sort of mentioned VO2 max, I'd love to sort of delve deeper into that subject because obviously when we're talking about longevity, most people know about the grip strength as like a very good reliable proxy or marker for general longer life. But it appears that VO2 max is a stronger predictor. So do you want to sort of

Explain to my listeners, what does VO2max even measure and maybe what some strategies are to actually boost that? Yeah, so VO2max is the, usually referred to as the most accurate way to assess your cardiorespiratory fitness. And it just refers to the maximal oxygen consumption during physical exertion. So like near maximum physical exertion. So if you're measuring it at a lab,

Then they'll put on this oxygen mask, they'll measure your heart rate and you're doing this treadmill test where you're initially walking and every 30 seconds they increase the speed slightly. So by like minute 12, you're pretty much running as fast as possible. And at some point you'll reach your maximum oxygen consumption.

And when you can still keep running, but after that, the oxygen consumption might start to decrease. So there's okay, there's the peak of the maximum oxygen consumption is there. And that is your like VO2max test result. And there is a lot of data how VO2max is correlated with a lower risk of mortality and lower risk of heart disease. And the correlations are pretty strong and quite large. So for example,

VO2 max of 50 milliliters per kilogram per minute which isn't like an elite athlete's VO2 max it's you know kind of

Most recreational athletes will probably have a VO2max around in the 50s. So that VO2max is associated with up to a fourfold lower risk of mortality compared to the frailty threshold, which is like a VO2max of 16 milliliters per kilogram per minute. So it's like a 300% difference in mortality risk from just like recreational athlete versus someone who is like...

borderline disabled or someone who needs like help with their everyday life and these kind of everyday activities so yeah that's a pretty stark difference of course if you're a regular person who has a poor via2max but you're still able to run and stuff then your via2max might be somewhere in the 30s and that difference is still relatively large it's like maybe like a twofold difference so yeah like it's

it is quite useful to have a VO2max of at least 50 milliliters per kilogram per minute. And there's a lot of data that it's linked to longer life or reduced risk of these chronic diseases. And I guess the reason for that is because to have a higher VO2max, you need to just put in the effort and put in the work. You can't really, you know, you're not born with a higher VO2max anymore.

and just requires you to do exercise. Now, there are different types of exercise that can achieve that. It's not only cardio. So like people who lift weights and they're with poor cardio, then they will also see an increase in their VO2max from just lifting weights because they have like a poor gas tank to begin with.

But yeah, to get into the 60s with your VO2max, you probably need to do some specific cardio work or interval work as well. And even there are some of these breath devices, I think it's called this resistance breath device or something like that, like Aerofit, where you're breathing into it and holding your breath. Those devices have also been seen to increase VO2max slightly.

But only in like, yeah, people who have a lower VO2 max to begin with. So if your VO2 max is in the 30s or 40s, then you can effectively increase your VO2 max slightly, like a few points with like these breath devices as well. So how do you...

increase it with, you know, actual cardio work. So the biggest determinant is just doing cardio. So, you know, it doesn't matter what kind of cardio you do and how much or how long, just doing more will typically increase your Rio to max. And, you know, it's hard to say, okay, you

Because some people might respond differently. There are these non-responders to traditional cardio, but pretty much everyone will respond to some form of this high intensity interval training and like intervals or this hit Tabata style intervals. The research suggests that longer intervals is better. So like anything above three minutes is going to yield greater results.

results with VO2max. So if you do like an interval at near maximum intensity for what I like to do is four minutes, then that's better than doing short intervals of like one to two minutes. So yeah. Yeah, that's, it's interesting you mentioned that because recently in the gym, what I've been doing is on the assault bike, which is, you know, the really intense form of exercise. And

I've been holding my BPM at around 165 to 170 for 10 minutes, which is pretty long. And I'd imagine that like if I actually did a VO2 max test, I'm sure that would actually stretch it out. But in the buildup to your 66 score, is that the highest you've ever seen your VO2 max? Yeah, so that was my current record. I measured it in November.

I'm going to do the test again in two weeks when I'm going to go to the clinic. And there, well, yeah, like my first result was 53, which I measured in...

August last year. So that was like three months before the other test results. And I didn't have like a lot of history of cardio before. So, you know, I had a VO2 max of 53 by doing just mostly gym and walking and like maybe like occasional cardio. But then I kind of started doing a lot of more deliberate cardio work. So like I did,

yeah, like this interval workout once a week and maybe like two to three of his own two cardio sessions as well. So I did it for three months and that dramatically increased my VO2 max to 66. And yeah, we'll see how it goes, my results in two weeks. Just with the zone two that you're mentioning there, do you know roughly what the heart rate range was when you're doing those workouts?

Yeah, so zone two is categorized as something between 60 to 70% of your maximum heart rate. So that's like an easy way to assess if you're in zone two. But the actual definition of zone two is below your lactate threshold or this anaerobic threshold. So you're able to sustain low levels of lactate

without it increasing like two micromoles per liter is the kind of the threshold. So if your lactate stays around one, one, 1.5 micromoles per liter, then that's your zone two kind of, it's also called like fat max. So the maximum amount of fat to your body is using,

uh during this exercise but yeah like to the lactate thing is that you need to like use this lactate blood test at your home and measure it during your exercise and it's gonna be like you know most people aren't gonna do it it's very inconvenient so the uh easy way easier way to kind of know that is to look at your heart rate during exercise with like a polar chest strap or some something else so 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate and the way you calculate that

So the gold standard method is to like calculate maximum heart rate with 220 minus your age. So mine would be like 191. That would be my maximum heart rate for my chronological age. And then 60 to 70% of that would be my zone two. Now the thing with this is that, you know, if you're fitter, then theoretically your maximum heart rate should also be higher because you're not like a regular person.

chronological age person compared to your peers. So you're like maybe slightly fitter and you have a max heart rate of maybe like, you know, 195, 200, something like that if you're super fit. But yeah, like with age, the max heart rate should kind of decrease slightly. But if you're fitter, then it's going to be like, you know, maybe 10 beats higher than your chronological peers. And then you can calculate your heart rate zones based on that. One like useful method to know if you're in below this anaerobic threshold is

where you're burning the most fat is to look at your breathing. So if you're able to breathe through the nose, then that's a good sign that you're still burning fat and you're below the anaerobic threshold. Whereas if you start breathing through the mouth, which you will do eventually if it's intense enough, then you're switched over to burning glucose and you're out of zone two and in zone three. So the kind of goal, the rationale behind doing zone two training is that

First of all, it's very low intensity. You can do it a lot without overtraining. So professional athletes and cyclists, they train mostly in zone 2.

Probably mostly because they train a lot and they need to rack up so many hours that they can't do it in high intensity all the time. So they need to train in a way that gives them the results without overtraining. So that's why they do 10 hours or 20 hours a week of Zone 2. But obviously most regular people don't have the time to do that. So they'll do some form of interval training that can give very similar results.

with a shorter period of time. And, but I think that it's still worthwhile to do some of the zone two to lay like a groundwork or a baseline or greater foundation to your aerobic metabolism to, yeah, like increase your lactate threshold, so to say, to increase the anaerobic threshold that, uh, the goal is like run faster and faster while still staying in zone two and below the anaerobic threshold. Yeah. It's definitely a really fascinating area. Um,

What about in terms of, I mean, for the listeners, they're probably wondering now, how do they actually measure their VO2 max? And I want to sort of illustrate to them that it needs to be done in a professional clinical setting with calorometers and pulse oximeters and things like that to actually measure. So unfortunately, it can't be done with like an aura ring.

or like a at-home device. They can give you estimations. They can sort of like semi-predict, but the gold standard is definitely like in a clinic. So that's definitely really interesting. 66 is your best score. Do you think you'll be able to, like, are you training harder to actually boot, like increase that score personally? I'm not, yeah, I think probably like just...

racking up the hours is going to be more important than training harder per se. So I'm just staying consistent when doing, you know, maybe increasing the zone two amount that I'm doing, but I'm not increasing the, yeah, like, I mean, there are like studies here that in the short term, if you do like this hit intervals, like, you know, three, five times a week, then those individuals will see quite a rapid increase their VO2 max as well. But it's kind of

very difficult and they do see like worsened glucose metabolism or like higher blood sugar levels because of the overtraining and stuff like that. So I'm not like yet training super hard for it, but I'm just staying consistent with the zone two and the intervals. So yeah, we'll see how it goes. I think

It's just, it's also a matter of, yeah, like kind of training years with the VO2max. So you just train a lot over the course of multiple years and you don't have a time period where you're like falling off, then you'll be able to like see a linear increase because yeah, aerobic adaptations kind of decrease quite rapidly. So if you stop doing any cardio for like a week or two, then you'll probably like start to decrease and then you need to regain it. So just staying consistent ensures that you don't fall down with the adaptations. Yeah.

regarding the measurements, then yeah, like the best, most accurate way is to use it at the sports lab with the

actual monitors, the smartwatches are probably over predicting the VO2max too much and there is still one free method as well to measure your VO2max or it's pretty accurate correlation and that's like the Cooper test. So this 12 minute running test. So you run as far as possible for 12 minutes and there's a pretty good correlation with VO2max. So for example, the

VO2 max of 50 milliliters per kilogram per minute, you need to run 2.75 kilometers or 1.7 miles in 12 minutes. So that's a good estimate to have. And for example, if your VO2 max is 30, then that's only 1.8 kilometers or 1.1 mile in 12 minutes. And yeah, like if you run three kilometers or 1.87 miles, then your VO2 max is 55 kilometers

milliliters per kilogram per minute. So that's also a useful kind of tool. There's like these calculators as well online, Cooper tests, EO2max calculators. Yeah, awesome. And just for the audience listening in, I mean, Sim, you've got a book coming out soon called The Longevity Leap. That's going to be super exciting. And I'm also interested to learn more about some of the other interventions that you found over the years to be, I mean, I know you've been a big fan of

intermittent fasting and you've been asked that a million times on different podcasts. But have there been any other sort of like longevity interventions that you've specifically engaged in in the last like one to two years in particular? So the book itself, the goal of the book was to write, okay, here are the things that we know are like pretty sure that we're pretty sure that is going to be good for longevity. So

Obviously, there's still a lot of unknowns, but I mean, it kind of covers the fundamentals of longevity that we definitely know for sure and then goes into the details of those fundamentals, such as exercise, sleep, diet, relationships, hormones, and circadian rhythms and chronic diseases like metabolic syndrome and chronic inflammation, heart disease, neurodegeneration. So it, yeah, like goes super deep with longevity

the fundamentals that we definitely know and kind of outlines the current evidence about those topics. So I didn't go into like any novel, like experimental topics like peptides or gene therapies or whatnot, or even like this more different kinds of pharmaceuticals. I didn't go into there with the book. So, and personally, what I think is that, you know, we don't have anything like,

in that experimental realm that actually would work, or at least we don't definitely have any evidence that they would work. So like gene therapies, you know, there's a lot of people are interested in it. And I do think that, you know, in a few decades, they will become more, I guess,

not proven, but you know, they will have more evidence of some effects. But right now, they're just very speculative. And, you know, rich people will just buy them for 25k, and then hope that something's going to happen. But you know, there's no, there's never going to be any proof that they have worked. So how do you measure that they have worked? So how have you split tested that it's going to work? So yeah, that's why I think it's wrong for the average person to just kind of

hyper-focused on these novel therapeutics or something like that because right now they're not very effective. So instead of spending hours and a ton of money on those things, I would much rather have the people spend those hours on exercise because the data about exercise is very clear that

the fitter you are the longer you live even to the elite level so even olympian athletes the people who are like you know the most fittest in the world and the elite athletes

They also live like five years longer than the general population. So it's like a common myth that if you exercise too much, you're going to shorten your lifespan or something like that, which isn't really true. So like the fitter you are, the longer you'll typically live and the lower your risk of these chronic diseases as well. So I think, yeah, just...

like investing into your fitness is the most powerful thing for longevity right now. There's no pharmaceutical or drug that is as good as just doing cardio and just increasing your fitness.

And the second thing is probably like, you know, body composition, making sure that you're not overweight and staying on the leaner side. For men, especially, it appears to be more important to stay like lean. Saab 15% body fat is kind of optimal for men, whereas for women, it matters about a bit less. So women don't have to be like super lean. They can even be like 30% body fat. And there's almost no difference in mortality between, you know, 20 to 30% body fat for women.

So, yeah, just much rather people spend the hours and the money on like good food, maybe a few supplements, like, you know, a few of the good ones are like, you know, creatine and glycine, omega-3s, magnesium, collagen, etc.

NAC perhaps as the xanthin. So like, yeah, there are a few interesting supplements, but the supplements will only give you like, you know, 5% of the results, maybe like 80% of the results would probably come from just being fit and lean currently. What about in terms of your perspective on nutrition over the, over the last couple of years? Like I want to, I really want to get stuck into the animal protein versus plant protein debate because

I mean, I'm personally a big animal protein eater and I don't think I'll ever be vegan or vegetarian personally. But obviously, Brian Johnson, he's currently... Is he vegetarian, I believe? I know. I think he's fully vegan. He only takes collagen, I think, is the non-vegan thing. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe...

Do you want to sort of break that down? I mean, do you personally think that, well, first of all, in order for you to achieve that score of 0.65, were you eating animal protein? Yeah, well, I'm not a vegan, so I'm not vegetarian either. Like I eat meat and eggs and dairy. I also eat plants and, you know, I eat carbs. I eat fruits. So I have like, I think very like

Yeah, I balance that and I eat pretty much all the foods. And I think, yeah, the problem with the food talk is that it kind of, you miss the forest for the trees kind of. So the food matters. So like the end goal of longevity is

to maintain the good biomarkers and good body composition and the other fitness status markers. So like if you have a perfect diet, but you're chubby and overweight, you have a low year to max, then it doesn't matter what kind of a diet you have. You know, you just say you can gain weight on a super whole foods diet, or you can gain weight on a carnivore diet or a vegan diet.

doesn't matter. Like what matters is the kind of biomarkers. And you can even take it to the extreme that, you know, even if you eat cheeseburgers, but you have perfect biomarkers, then I don't think you're really harming your health because how does a particular food affect your longevity in a negative way if your biomarkers don't change? So how do you get diabetes if you have perfect blood sugar and perfect triglycerides?

And the same with like, you know, heart disease or something else. How do you get heart disease if you have perfect inflammation and perfect lipids and cholesterol? So there's the step...

the link between diet and longevity is how it affects your biomarkers. And there's a lot of ways to achieve those biomarkers. You can achieve it on a carnivore diet. You can, of course, have perfect biomarkers on any diet. You can achieve it on a carnivore diet, vegan diet, Mediterranean diet, if it fits your macros diet.

paleo diet or the standard American diet, it's very hard to achieve perfect biomarkers with the standard American diet, but there are genetic freaks who pull it off. There are people who are lean with a six pack and perfect biomarkers with a junk food diet. It's just they're very small minority. So most people

will have to eat a semi-balanced 80% whole foods diet to have perfect biomarkers. But there's nothing in the literature that would suggest that if you eat a cookie or a pastry, that you're going to die sooner or that it's going to somehow shorten your lifespan. Even the centenarians who live the longest, they eat ice cream and wine and chocolate and smoke and those kind of things on a regular basis. So a big...

But the reason they're able to do it is probably because of their genetics that maintains their good biomarkers and optimal blood work for decades for them. So there are these genetic freaks who can eat almost anything and still live a long time because their blood markers stay relatively optimal. So, yeah, my philosophy about diet is that I don't really care what kind of a diet you follow.

Based on the evidence, there are certain foods that are associated with reduced risk of mortality. But, you know, there are observational studies in most cases that

And it's hard to say that it's definitely those foods that cause those effects. But chances are that certain foods improve your blood work and certain foods worsen your blood work. And in a general population who don't have excellent longevity genes, they would want to lean more towards the side of caution so that they eat the relatively balanced diet. They eat most of

I guess like most of their plate should still be something like plant-based that they eat a lot of fruits and vegetables because the fiber intake is one of the strongest like predictors of reduced mortality, reduced cancer and reduced heart disease, probably because fiber is very filling and you eat very little calories. So you stay lower body weight in so doing, and you have lower lipids and lower blood sugar levels by doing that as well. But you know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you couldn't achieve that with a lower fiber intake and

or a zero fiber intake either. You just need to look at your blood work. Regarding animal protein and plant protein, so at least in some observational studies, they do find that animal protein is linked to higher mortality, but that's again because of the healthy user bias. In most cases, I would suggest, and plant-based proteins are almost universally linked to lower risk of mortality and lower risk of heart disease. But again, that could be that people who eat plant proteins

they're more health conscious and they need to like deliberately do that decision. They make the decision of eating plant proteins, which requires additional steps that you take for your health. But interestingly, so when it comes to muscle growth, then animal proteins are obviously more complete. They contain all the amino acids, essential amino acids. And, you know, in a lot of cases, you do find that people eating animal protein have more

better bone density and higher muscle mass. But I think that's just a relic of the fact that you get more of these amino acids from smaller amounts of animal protein. In a lot of the other studies where

the kind of amino acid amounts are equated. So you need to eat slightly more plant proteins to get the same amount of essential amino acids as you would from animal protein. So like maybe 30% more plant proteins, you get the same amount of Lucy and other amino acids. Then the muscle strength and muscle growth results are very similar. So there's almost like no difference if you just eat a lot more plant proteins to get the same effect. And the same is also in like elderly people actually. So not,

only young individuals, elderly people who struggle building muscle because of this age-related decline in anabolism, then even then they find as well that

the plant proteins are very similar with the final outcome as long as the person is lifting weights, that is the biggest predictor of muscle growth, and they're eating enough protein, so to say. So they're not under-eating protein. And even if they are eating plant proteins, then the effects are very similar. You might need a bit more plant proteins to get the same result, but the final outcome is

very kind of similar in a lot of cases. But the mortality risk between animal protein itself matters only to the extent of how it affects your blood work and body weight and those things. It's just harder or it's easier to have lower lipids and lower body weight with a plant-based diet. Do you think the major drawbacks associated with a carnivore diet is the fact that they're missing out on

the flavonoids, the polyphenols, you know, or do you think it's like the lack of fiber? Like, what do you think are the major drawbacks associated with like a carnivore diet? Yeah, well, I think most people eating the carnivore diet have pretty good like inflammation and blood sugar markers.

But they might have, you know, higher cholesterol and APOB levels. Now, yeah, depends who you ask. They'll say that it's not a big thing and it doesn't matter if you have low inflammation. But, you know, you can still develop plaque with low inflammation and without diabetes as well. It's more of like the time exposure effect of, you know, how high is the APOB and how long it stays elevated, the higher it is and the longer it stays elevated, right?

the higher the likelihood of plaque accumulation. Now you could also just measure your CT scan or your calcium score with a CT scan. And you can see, okay, I don't have plaque.

well, that's a good sign, but it's not guaranteed to mean that there's no of this soft plaque. So the soft plaque is more dangerous and more volatile. But to measure that, you need to do this CT angiogram, which involves more radiation and it's more invasive. So it's, you know, most people don't want to do that. So, you know, like I said, I would much rather lean more on the side of caution. So like, you know, do you need to be on 100% carnivore diet? You know, if it's a

like a health decision that you can't tolerate plants or fibers you get some autoimmune response then maybe it is a better trade-off but you know if you like i can eat anything i can eat gluten i can eat dairy i can eat any kind of uh lectin oxalate legume whatever it is i have a pretty like healthy metabolism in that sense and healthy immune system so

it doesn't make sense for me to deliberately remove those foods if it worsens my blood work. And yeah, like the same for anyone on a carnivore diet. Do you need to be on a 100% carnivore diet and zero fiber intake or not? Or could you add like a few of these foods that you like and tolerate? And probably you will see like a decrease in ApoB and cholesterol, which would be more on the side of caution. So like a prick

precautionary principle. So the evidence is generally leading towards that higher APOB and insofdoing higher cholesterol is linked to higher heart disease mortality, then it makes sense from a logical perspective, in my mind at least, to kind of okay, I'm going to be more careful slightly. What about in terms of, like if I had to ask you about the top five foods that you would like

Let's say you had only five foods to select from as like the best, highest yielding nutrient profile that's going to contribute to muscle development and also support longevity. What would be your top five favorite foods? Yeah, I think number one would probably be eggs. So eggs are very good for amino acids and profile.

in terms of the amino acid profile and they also contain carotenoids, lutein, the exact same thing that

are good for the eyes and brain. So higher carotenoid intake is linked to lower dementia and lower macular degeneration. So yeah, I think they're like a perfect superfood. Number two is extra virgin olive oil. So there's a lot of data about olive oil intake and reduced heart disease and reduced neurodegeneration and mortality. And it's even like the difference between

like a small intake of olive oil versus high intake, so 10 grams versus 56 grams, there's already like a huge difference in the mortality. It's almost like a dose or like a linear association. So the higher your olive oil intake, you know, up to 56 grams a day is linked to lower risk compared to 10 grams per day. And yeah, and the reason probably has to do with the lipid modulating effects of olive oil and the polyphenols in there.

So it has anti-inflammatory properties. It lowers cholesterol, lowers blood sugar, has beneficial effects on the endothelium. So just, yeah, like heart healthy and good for the mostly like the blood vessels that I think is the reason it's linked to lower mortality. So it reduces the risk of heart disease mostly. And third, I would say is salmon.

So wild-caught salmon, it has omega-3s, astaxanthin as well, which is another carotenoid and also like a good source of protein. So these omega-3s, they are epidemiologically linked to lower risk of mortality,

both from the fish as well as omega-3 supplements. And the interesting thing here is that you can actually have like a biomarker that you track to see your risk. So again, a food linked to a particular longevity outcome has to be mediated or linked through some sort of a biomarker. And omega-3s have beneficial effects on lipids. They lower cholesterol, lower triglycerides and lower blood sugar, lower inflammation as well.

But there's this omega-3 index, which is a separate biomarker that measures the amount of EPA and DHA in your red blood cells. And a higher omega-3 index, in studies, the highest I've seen is like 6.8% is linked to lower dementia, lower heart disease, and lower mortality. But they recommend at least 8% is kind of the sweet spot, and maybe up to 10% is even better, but 8% at least with the omega-3 index.

And the danger zone or something where the risk increases is 4%. So if you have too low EPA and DHA in your red blood cells, then that's linked to higher risk. And number four, I would put still lean beef or lean red meat, something like that in here as well. So...

because if it's lean, then it doesn't have that much saturated fat and saturated fat is the biggest food that raises ApoB and cholesterol. Now again, if it's going to matter, it depends a lot on other risk factors, but yeah, just leaner, you're getting all the benefits of red meat from the leanness or the leaner meats. So the iron and other creatine, other nutrients from there, all the B vitamins, et cetera. So yeah, you would cover all the requirements from there. Interestingly in elderly people,

animal protein intake is linked to lower risk of mortality, whereas in younger individuals, it's slightly less so, probably because the elderly people, they suffer with maintaining muscle, or it's harder for them to maintain muscle, and with animal protein, it's easier to maintain muscle. But those people probably aren't lifting weights either. So if you're lifting weights, then the protein source matters a bit less as long as you're getting sufficient high amounts of the protein.

And the fifth food I would maybe say is like, I like the kind of berries, whether that be blueberries or cranberries or blackberries or something like that. So they're also high in these polyphenols and flavonoids, but they also contain these anthocyanins, which have anti-inflammatory effects and also beneficial for the eyes, containing this lutein, for example. And yeah, they're

just like this kind of beneficial source of different kinds of these polyphenolic compounds. Yeah, awesome. So just to recap there, so number one was eggs. Number two, you had olive oil. Number three, wild-caught salmon. Then lean beef and then blueberries. That's a very similar... I got asked the same question by a doctor friend of mine.

And three out of those five foods were on my list as well as like the best food. So that's, I had avocados as one of them. Yeah, they were like the main ones that I had there. So that's pretty cool. Sort of switching gears, Sim, let's sort of dissect a little bit around. I really wanna go deeper into the carbohydrate discussion because personally as someone who trains very intensely five days a week,

I'm not afraid of carbs at all. So do you wanna sort of, do you wanna share like the link there between carbohydrate intake and maybe sort of share rough amounts that you typically aim for at the moment?

Yeah, so in these observational studies, they find a U-shaped association between carbohydrate intake and mortality. So the optimal range for the lowest risk is somewhere between like 45 to 55% of total calories as carbohydrates. And excess carbohydrate intake, so if you have 60, 70% of your calories from carbs, then the likelihood is that you're eating a lot of refined carbs or the simple sugars to reach that amount.

Now, there might be some exceptions in some of the Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, where their traditional diet is very low fat. So they're getting like maybe 7% of their calories as fat. And most of it comes from carbohydrates. So there are maybe like a few examples where even like an 80% calorie diet of carbohydrates is probably not going to increase the risk if you're eating mostly like this traditional carbohydrates diet.

like rice and even like, you know, this traditional grains like sourdough bread and, and the pasta in other countries. So it might not be linked to high risk in that case either. But the interesting thing about the low carbohydrate intake and mortalities is that that depends on the diet quality. So, uh,

Yeah, in most of the observational studies, low carbohydrate intake of anything below 40% is linked to higher risk, but that appears to be mediated by the diet quality. So people who have a very low carbohydrate intake might also have a worse diet quality. So they'll just eat, you know, onion rings and whatever, like a junk food that has more fat and a bit less carbohydrates. And if you control for that, you can see that

Both a healthy low-fat and a healthy low-carb diet isn't linked to increased risk. So yeah, it needs to be kind of healthy, not a more processed or junk food diet.

And I think, yeah, like the low carb intake matters a bit less. So it doesn't matter if you have a low carb diet, but you don't need to be afraid of the higher carb intake either. So anything, you know, 50% of a calories usually is, I think, a good amount to aim for for most people who are, yeah, like exercising and spending a lot of calories on workouts. So like, you know, the trade off is, you know, you either you're not very physically active and you eat the low carb diet.

And you're not eating much, many carbohydrates. But the problem is that, yeah, you're not active enough. So like I said, physical activity and exercise is one of the biggest determinants of your longevity. So if you are fitter, you'll live longer. And if you compromise your fitness by, you know,

maybe not supporting it enough with carbohydrates, then you might be doing yourself like a disservice. Of course, there are low carb athletes and you can easily maintain very good performance with a low carbohydrate. But I think the point is that you don't need to be on a low carbohydrate because you're afraid of insulin or afraid of carbohydrates. Because if you're physically active, you can eat quite a large amount of simple sugars even and fruits and berries and

potatoes and rice and those kind of things without it affecting your blood work in a negative way. In terms of sort of switching gears a little bit, in terms of integrating cold exposure therapy or heat, let's sort of talk about cold shock proteins versus heat shock proteins. Do you think that there's a time and place for these interventions if we're looking at extending lifespan?

With the heat exposure, there is certainly, I think, pretty compelling evidence that taking a sauna regularly will have a positive effect on heart disease, mostly reducing the risk of heart disease and neurodegeneration as well. So most of these studies come from Finland. They are observational studies, but they're just pretty universally found to have health associations. So

up to like 66% lower risk of dementia if you take the sauna four times a week compared to once a week. So that's, you know, compared to once a week and imagine if it is compared to zero times a week, so the effects might be even larger.

And some of the criticism against these studies is that they're observational. So people who take the sauna are only rich people and they're health conscious people. I think it's important to realize that the context of where these studies are done. So they're done in Finland and Finland is the sauna capital of the world. There's almost as many saunas as there are people in Finland. So there's like 5.5 million people in Finland.

And there's about like 3 million saunas in the country. So like every house, pretty much every apartment building has a sauna. Every gym has a sauna. Every like almost office building has a sauna. So there's a lot of places where you can take the sauna and it's, it's also part of the like cultural identity. So Finns are very proud of their saunas and it's yeah. Like, you know, in Estonia as well, pretty much I've been taking a sauna since I was like, you know, two years old, uh,

So it's something that people do because they like it. And it's not just healthy people doing it. It's like everyone. It's very common for people to drink alcohol in a sauna. They have sauna beers. My dad, he drinks beer almost every day.

And he doesn't exercise, but he loves to take the sauna, drink beer in the sauna. And that's very common for a lot of people in Finland, in Russia, Estonia, Sweden, those Nordic countries where the sauna is a part of the culture. So yeah, it's hard to say that it's some sort of this healthy user bias, in my opinion, or it reduces the likelihood of it a lot because it's done in this Finland.

And funny enough, they have done studies also controlling or like looking at it a bit closer. And in one of the studies, they found that men who had high inflammation, so high CRP levels, something like over 1.5, so like above the reference range, but they took the sauna four times a week, they had the same symptoms.

risk of mortality than the men who had normal inflammation but didn't take the sauna. So like the sauna counteracted the harmful effects of high CRP on mortality. And another study found the same with blood pressure. So men who had high blood pressure, but they took the sauna four times a week, they had the same mortality risk as the men with normal blood pressure, but didn't take the sauna. So it's pretty powerful. And

even like socioeconomic status, people who have low socioeconomic status, but they take the sauna a lot, they reduce their mortality to the same or they offset the harmful effects of their low socioeconomic status, which increases their risk of mortality. But they kind of offset it and they have the same risk as someone who has high socioeconomic status, but who doesn't take the sauna that much. So, yeah, I think it's pretty interesting with the saunas that it's probably quite beneficial for the heart health mostly.

When it comes to cold, then there's a lot less evidence for cold exposure and mortality or longevity. I guess mechanistically, yeah, it has benefits that it lowers inflammation and can increase resilience and boost the immune system to a certain extent. And a lot of people who are in Finland and the Nordics combine the cold with the sauna, so they jump into the ice lake after the sauna. But the studies themselves show

At least I just haven't seen any study that looks at the link between taking cold baths and reduced risk of heart disease. I mean, maybe it is because if you're taking a cold, you're also probably taking the sauna. So maybe you're getting the benefits from the sauna. So it's hard to say. But the cold exposure,

one maternal assist did look at the short-term effects of cold exposure is that it lowers inflammation it lowers apob and has like some benefits on your blood markers slightly but i would say that it's less important at least based on the evidence that it's not inherently like man like

very important to do for longevity. Whereas the sauna I would say is yeah, like after exercise is one of the best things in my opinion. Definitely. Yeah. I definitely, I definitely agree in terms of heat, heat exposure, activating the heat shock proteins. There's definitely a lot more literature looking at heat therapy, sauna use over like cold therapy. Obviously you're probably going to get a better like body composition effect from cold exposure because it's increasing brown fat.

But I think there's definitely a time and place for sauna usage. If somebody is looking at building out the ultimate longevity protocol, I think sauna usage would have to be included in that week by week protocol at least once. I think at least three to four times a week is going to yield some pretty powerful effects. Yeah, four is the maximum benefits. And yeah.

The sauna actually improves the results from exercise as well. So they find that combining the exercise with sauna increases EHMX and lowers blood pressure more than exercise alone. So you're getting more benefits from the exercise by doing this heat exposure as well. What about in terms of

iron's role in atherosclerosis, this is gonna be a really interesting one for people. And I know men are more likely to be at risk because we don't lose blood every month like women do. But did you wanna sort of look at the link there? Because I think excess iron is definitely a contributor and an accelerator of aging. So do you wanna sort of explore the link there between excess iron? Yeah, for sure. Like iron...

high iron levels are a risk factor for heart disease and liver disease as well. And the interesting thing about iron is that it also, if it's too low, then that's also associated with increased risk. So anemia is obviously one of the most common nutrient deficiencies and it does increase the risk of mortality as well. So you don't want to be like too low iron. You need like a healthy amounts of iron

But yeah, like if it's too high, then mostly it has to do with just increased inflammation and oxidative stress to the endothelium that then increases the risk of heart disease. So men have to be more careful with that. And women, you know, most women have normal iron levels unless they and, you know, maybe after menopause, the iron levels will probably rise slightly.

But yeah, the measuring iron level is also kind of important. And you know, the optimal range is somewhere between like 100 micrograms per liter or might be getting the units wrong, but 100 maybe milligrams, I need to double check. So yeah, too high is bad. And too low can also be somewhat problematic. So yeah, blood donation is an easy way to lower the iron very quickly.

And yeah, if you're not, I guess, yeah, not bleeding regularly, then if you're eating also a lot of red meat, for example, then yeah, it's more than likely that the blood iron levels might start to rise. Also, if we look at, I guess, some of these like anti-aging supplements or anti-aging compounds, things like spermidine, curcumin, a lot of these like amazing spices and herbs, right?

Funnily enough, a lot of these herbs actually have an iron chelating effect. They block iron's absorption or they actually help to reduce the damage that iron has on the body. So that's really important for the listeners. In terms of supplementation, I mean, obviously, I know you're probably similar to me and you're taking a whole range of awesome supplements and I'm a big fan of supplementation myself.

But if you had to pick, again, I'm going to ask you that, if you had to pick question, if you had to pick maybe three key supplements that you would like to keep, you would like to see in your pantry year round for the next, how many more years do you want to live, Sim? Maybe 75 more years? Yeah, how many, oh, name the three that you'd like to keep in the pantry. I think number one would be creatine.

So there's a lot of data about creatine muscle growth and muscle strength, which is going to be important for elderly people to reduce frailty. But there's also some emerging data about creatine and brain health and cognition. So it's been even shown to improve memory in elderly people. So, yeah, I think creatine is just an easy, quick and effective win that I think, yeah, why wouldn't you want to take it for longevity? And it's also cheap.

The second one would be, so I would probably take collagen as well. So collagen for skin anti-aging benefits, but there's also some data about collagen peptides and this cardiometabolic risk factor. So it contains glycine and can help with inflammation markers and sleep and blood sugar levels, for example. So yeah.

It's just one of those supplements that you're not really getting that much. You don't get collagen peptides from a diet. So you get some amino acids from pork skin and chicken skin and stuff like that, but it's not nearly enough in the effective dose range. And the third supplement would...

be, I would take astaxanthin, I think. So I would try to eat fish for the omega-3s, which you can theoretically do if you eat fish on a regular basis. But astaxanthin, you probably won't get like the optimal dose from just fish alone. So 12 milligrams of astaxanthin for, so there's clinical trials on blood pressure,

lipids, waist circumference and inflammation markers, but also it protects against UV radiation from the sun and has also been shown in clinical trials to reduce skin aging, so signs of skin aging. So yeah, I would take it mostly for like, yeah, there's a kind of protection against the sun and also good for the eyes and the brain. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, no, that's a nice list there. So you got creatine, collagen,

and astaxanthin-3 of which are definitely some high impact, high yield supplements that tick off many, many, many boxes. So yeah,

To wrap things up, Sim, I want to let my audience know where they can connect with you. And also, if there's a specific link for the Longevity Leap, the book that you're pre-launching now, where they can find that. Yeah, my website is simland.co. I'm Simland on all the platforms and the Longevity Leap you can get from the longevityleap.com. So you can pre-order it from there. It's probably going to be

yeah available you know if it's coming out later then yeah you'll be able to still get it from there awesome i'll make sure to leave those linked in the podcast show notes but um otherwise sim it's always always a pleasure chatting with you man i'm looking forward to to catching you in uh in person at another biohacking summit or another event and just to hang out and you know have some fun there so um yeah appreciate you coming on the show and we'll definitely be in touch

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