Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 24 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and any other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I am a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for quite a while now, and Mike also draws on his experience from working within the healthcare industry. And today's episode is part two of our three part series talking about how to slow aging and extend lifespan. In part one, we discussed the different theories behind aging and lifespan and why increasing our metabolism is really the key to extending lifespan and slowing aging, which is contrary to often, what we're told and what many people think. So definitely go and check out that episode if you haven't listened to it already. And in today's episode, we're going to be talking a lot about calorie restriction. And for those of you who don't know, calorie restriction is really one of the most one of the areas or topics that's most focused on when it comes to aging and lifespan, and one of the things that's most universally touted to slow aging and extend lifespan. But in today's episode, we're going to dig into the research around calorie restriction and why we why we don't want to actually calorie restrict to slow aging, and why instead, we want to be eating more food. So we'll be discussing that research. We'll also be talking about why carbohydrate restriction and fat burning is not the answer for aging and lifespan, and how, instead, it actually causes stress that can increase aging. We'll also be talking about why we may want to be eating fewer omega threes and Omega sixes to slow aging and extend lifespan. And then in part three of this series, we'll be focusing more on other aspects of nutrition and also exercise and stress and so things to consider when it comes to longevity and aging. So to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll link to any of the studies or articles or anything else we discuss on today's episode. And if you are looking to improve on any low energy symptoms, whether that is age related symptoms, maybe it's chronic pain or joint pain or weight gain or gut issues, maybe you deal with constant hunger and cravings or hormonal imbalances or low libido or just low energy and fatigue throughout the day. Maybe you're not sleeping well, if you're dealing with any of those symptoms or any other chronic health conditions, or you're just looking to optimize your health. And head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course where I'll teach you the primary things you want to focus on as far as Nutri style and diet are concerned, in order to optimize our cellular energy balance, which is the key to recovering from all of these low energy symptoms. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

Caloric restriction is cited all the time as like, the thing that makes you age slower and live longer. It's shown in all the research. It's definitely the case for humans. It's all over. And so it's really important that we take some time to dissect why this is not the case.

Mike 3:39
So I think so basically the idea of caloric restriction is you restrict your calories to a certain percentage. So I think what's it like? Decreased by, I think 40% or something like that, yeah.

Jay Feldman 3:49
Yeah like 20 to 40% I mean, of course, it depends what you're eating originally, but normally, that's the range that they're looking at.

Mike 3:55
And so essentially, you basically just are decreasing your overall food intake, because calories are a proxy for that. So the problem with some of these studies is, first of all, they're using lab diets, which is just a problem in and of itself. I mean, most of it's like purified casein protein, sucrose and a bunch of synthetic vitamins and minerals, which is what they do in a lot of studies. And then the first issue is that they're, when they do the studies they're they're performing the studies where they have animals who are restricted when they eat to a certain percentage of calories, versus animals who are eating as much as they want, they're eating as much food as they want, in general, of this purified lab diet. And so what they find is that the the animals who are restricted tend to do better, and so there's a lot of issues with this, because you're not really comparing a normal consumption pattern with that of of a restricted pattern. You're comparing basically synthetic environment with a synthetic diet eat in as much as much as possible, versus a highly controlled situation. So there's a numerous variables at play there, besides just calories, which, again, we've talked about this in the past as just being a poor proxy for amounts of food being controlled for. And so this lens into other research, where basically they found that in certain diets, when they when what they basically did was, rather than restricting calories, they restricted certain aspects of the diet, and this was specifically amino acids. And the amino acids they restricted were methionine. The main one is methionine, but I think there's also some for tryptophan and cysteine. And basically what they found is they could produce the same increases in lifespan, and I think in rats and monkeys, by just restricting these, these amino acids, rather than restricting calories. And so that lends to the question of the idea of restricting calories in general. And then you've seen things crop up now with like protein fasting and stuff like that. And then there's some new research that's talked about ratios of amino acids like methionine to glycine and things like that. And then the other thing that that this ties into what it gets into, um, there's actually two really important ones that I think are more feasible, um, in terms of of lifespan increases, the than just amino acid restriction. But the first one is with, uh, with, like, a dietary modification, there's a change in membrane saturation. Did you want to add something before?

Jay Feldman 6:26
Yeah, I want to go over those first couple real quick, and then, and then I'll let you go on about the membrane saturation. So the first, I just want to clarify that what you were saying is, in a lot of the research with clerk restricting, they're comparing caloric restriction versus what they call ad libitum feeding, meaning that they can eat as much as they want. So instead of looking at rats or mice that are on a control regular diet versus ones that are calorically restricting 20 to 40% or whatever, what they're looking at is rats that are overeating a ton versus rats that are caloric restricting. And that's a huge difference there, because they know that when they look at a regular diet compared to the overeating, they know the overeating causes problems. And this is, as you mentioned, this is it's only a problem because they're eating really garbage diets. It's not, it's not in general problem in general. Hunger signals should be able to dictate these things. Fine, and there shouldn't be a problem. But the rats are eating terrible diets and terrible environments. So, so that's why, when they eat as much as they want, when it's not controlled, they already have issues. So they're not, and they found that when they account for this variable, that that it takes away the effect of the caloric restriction. It's basically just saying that the problem is just that these other rats are eating way too much. Not that, not the benefit of caloric restricting. So which is, which is incredible.

Mike 7:38
Well, completely changes the outcome of the research, yeah,

Jay Feldman 7:41
yeah. And then to talk about the amino acid restriction, as you said, the presence of high levels of methionine, cysteine and tryptophan are major issues, and they found that within these caloric restricting studies, they don't even need to caloric restrict all they all they need to do is just take out, like reduce the amount of those amino acids, specifically methionine, and it has the same effect, so they can still eat just as many calories and just restrict those particular amino acids, and it has the same life extending effects. So again, these are just a few examples, and we'll go through more suggesting that it's not the calorie restriction that's that's beneficial. It's not the lowering of the metabolic rate that's beneficial. It's these other confounding factors, and as far as the amino acids go, and we'll talk about this more at the end, but you don't have to protein fast. You don't have to simply entirely avoid these amino acids. In fact, they're necessary in certain components. They also find that when they restrict these amino acids, the rats don't grow because they're needed for growth. So instead, you just want to make sure that these amino acids are balanced by protective amino acids like glycine and proline and hydroxyproline. So we'll talk about that more at the end, as far as what we actually want to do.

Mike 8:47
But yeah, it was like crazy reductions in growth and liver size and things like that, like, just like emaciated rats, basically a long time. Yeah, I mean, and that begs the question, if you were to extend this into people? Would you want to be living a long time emaciated and skinny if, if that was, if that is, extend it Po, is it able to be extended to people? If that's the case, what was, basically, I don't think I would choose the option to be extremely skinny and whatnot going forward and not growing and stuff like that, versus living a longer time.

Jay Feldman 9:23
They're saying that you might not have to make that choice either. If you're not restricted by their paradigm, perhaps you can have both. You can have your cake and eat it too. Yeah.

Mike 9:30
So then the next thing we get into is membrane sat saturation, or unsaturation. And basically, as we talked about earlier, with an increase in membrane unsaturation, there's a decrease in lifespan. And so there's a few things that can affect membrane saturation. The amino acids are one thing that can affect it, the ones we talked about before, methionine, cysteine, tryptophan, high levels of those can lead to maybe an increase in membrane on saturation through different hormonal pathways. And then, or they're not hormonal pathways, they're like cell. Regulatory pathways. I think it's through mTOR and things like an insulin, insulin signaling. No, if I remember correctly.

Jay Feldman 10:08
Well, I know that part of it so I do know that they were saying that part of it does have to do with the amino acid restriction. Again, it's another confounding variable here where just just restricting methionine account led to a decrease in or an increase in membrane saturation.

Mike 10:23
And so then the other thing with membrane saturation is diet can adjust membrane saturation. And if I remember correctly keeping polyunsaturated content of the diet less than 10% of calories allowed for the membrane saturation to conform, to some extent, to dietary intake. So there are controls outside of diet on membrane saturation and unsaturation. But if you want to adjust membrane saturation and unsaturation to some extent keeping your poly total polyunsaturated fatty acid intake below 10% of caloric intake, which is not that difficult to do if you really look at the total amount of polyunsaturated fat, you have to be eating um, so basically keeping it lower than 10% um. And then from there, it adjusts the ratio of the different types of polyunsaturated fatty acids you have within your membranes. And then, as far as the specific ratio, we don't know specifically which ratio of omega six to Omega three or anything like that. We don't know which ratio is better at this point. There's a lot of speculation in the research. But essentially, whatever you can adjust the amount of unsaturation by keeping the total amount of calories of PUFA less than 10% and that's important. And so if you have a higher amount of monounsaturated or saturated fast in the diet that basically can decrease the amount of unsaturation in your membranes, and there can be some protective effect there.

Jay Feldman 11:46
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a really important point. And along with that, too, is when they do these calorie restricting studies, inevitably, they're also restricting PUFA intake, which is another confounding variable, yep. And as you said it, the changes in the membrane composition don't happen until the PUFA is less than at least 10% I think I've seen lower than that too, which is another important thing to consider, because a lot of times people are looking at PUFA research and saying that there aren't, you know, there are certain it's not as effective to eat lower PUFA. And, like, there's some, there's some research that is, the research is kind of vague, or it's or it's goes both ways. It's conflicting. And part of it also is because, when they're reducing the polyunsaturated fats, how much are they really reducing them, and for how long, like, how much of it is already made up in the composition of the membranes? And then also, if they're if they only brought it down from 35% to 25% as you said, that's not going to be in the range where it's actually going to affect the composition of the of the membranes or of the fatty acids in the cell. So that's an important consideration, just in general, when looking at fatty acid research, yeah.

Mike 12:58
I'd say that's really important. And because a lot of studies will compare an unsaturated group to a saturated group. And number one, they'll use lard, which is mostly unsaturated. But number two, the amount of change in saturation isn't isn't really that much. What you wind up seeing is just a small difference between saturation and unsaturation. There's only a few studies that actually use that actually get on saturation really down, and saturation really high, and it's and the other thing is, there are some differences between different types of fatty acids within the saturation that have so for example, medium chain triglycerides, which you can find in coconut oil, which basically have a smaller carbon chain from what we saw earlier, they they don't have as much of a structural effect as longer chain saturated fatty acids. So again, those those things can change the result, and they can change the effects. So it's important to keep those in mind. And there's the research in the area is still ongoing as far as membrane on saturation and diet and things like that.

Jay Feldman 13:58
But when we look at the big picture, I think it's pretty clear.

Mike 14:00
And the big picture, we see the general trend and where it's going. And so that's great. It's just we, there's not a specific, direct answer so far. These are extensions from from different types of studies and things like that. And trying to draw a big picture example. So then the next, the next portion that becomes really important with these studies with an ad so, particularly with ad libitum eating or eating as much as you want, essentially. And this really depends on what you're eating, to some extent, but you have a increase in endotoxin and gut permeability in a lot of ad libitum studies, especially especially with refined foods and things like that, and that can cause gut issues, or gut overgrowth and whatnot. And so reducing endotoxin, which is an endotoxin, is basically, we've covered this before, but it's, it's a metabolic product, or it's not really a metabolic product, it's a component of bacterial cell walls. That is, that the that when you have an increase in bacterial growth. Um, in the intestine and things like that, you basically get an increase in endotoxin. And endotoxin is an extremely potent immune trigger. Um, extremely potent inflammatory trigger. Um, basically the immune system picks up the endotoxin and saying, Oh, we have a lot of this. We might have an infection. And then it starts an inflammatory cascade in every single metabolic syndrome, type disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, heart disease, you see elevations in postprandial endotoxinia and low grade endotoxinia with inflammatory cascade. And it's important to draw that difference there, because there's a lot of people that will sit there and say, well, saturated and this is this goes with what we're talking about, but saturated fats basically increase postprandial endotoxemia and so that. So how are you going to the a lot, some people will sit there and say, Well, how can you recommend saturated fats because of membrane unsaturation, but they increase endotoxin and the thing is, is when you actually dive into more of the nuances of the research, what you basically find is the saturated fats actually help detoxify the endotoxin by binding the endotoxin and that they form something called a lipid raft, and it brings it into the into the body, into the bloodstream. But once it's bound to the saturated fat, the immune cells basically don't pick it up. It goes to the liver and it's detoxified. So it's actually a detoxification mechanism with the saturated fat. And you can see studies where they give people large amounts of saturated fats in the form of cream, and when they give them the cream, they have endotoxin levels that would be indicative of like a really potent bacterial infection with no inflammatory cascade, or an extremely minor inflammatory cascade. And so basically what that's showing is the saturated fats are protective and bile acids are protective and things like that. But besides the tangent on saturated fats, there basically a decreasing endotoxin exposure to the body in general will increase lifespan overall, because endotoxin is a very potent inhibitor of energy metabolism, and then also an extremely potent inducer of the inflammatory cascade. So inhibiting the increase of endotoxin to the bloodstream and production in general is very important. And there's some studies basically showing that people who live longer actually have increases, or are decreases in gut permeability, so there and decreases in endotoxin and things like that. And that's really important to the overall picture. And and you basically see with almost every single of the current, modern chronic diseases, increases in polyunsaturated fatty acid content in the diet, particularly from vegetable oils and heated vegetable oils, as well as an increase in refined food consumption, specifically related to like sugar, like very refined sugar or very refined starches with little nutrient content, no protective polyphenols can cause increases in poly endotoxin production. So the combination of those factors is a recipe for disaster for health and particularly in longevity. I don't know. I know I went on a tangent there, so no,

Jay Feldman 18:08
But it's all relevant. And to what you're to summarize some of it, and then I'll add in a little what you're saying is that rats that are fed bad food, which rats in these studies are, are going to have gut issues that lead to endotoxin production, among other things. Just that baseline, especially if they're eating ad libitum, it's going to be even worse. So when you have calorie restriction, what you're saying is that a huge confounding variable here is you have a reduction on all these gut toxins and all gut permeability and all these things, which is going to be beneficial. And it's not just because you reduced calories, it's because it's just because you reduced irritating food, essentially, or foods that are contributing to these gut issues. So the alternative would be in health like giving them a healthier diet, that even if it's the same number of calories, wouldn't cause the same gut issues, then you would still see the same lifestyle, lifespan extension and health increase. And there's research suggesting this specifically so with rats that were calorie restricted, they then saw that this was mediated by changes in their gut microbiome. They then transplant, transplanted this gut microbiome into a rat that was not calorie restricted, and they saw the same benefits. So it was so and we're kind of looking at all these different factors that can all potentially account for calorie restriction. That are not just calorie restriction. They actually have very little to do with eating less. It's more of specific amino acids, polyunsaturated fats, gut issues and so yeah, so it's a pretty major, it's a pretty important study to consider that so much of this is also mediated by our gut, and we would consider the gut health of the average population and the type of food that the average population is eating, or even especially people who are eating a quote, unquote, healthy diet, that's almost worse a lot of times. So, so the gut, the gut factor here is, is another major thing to consider,

Mike 19:57
as with almost every single disease, yeah, and. Toxin and polyunsaturated fatty acids take center stage. And I say most of the chronic Western diseases, and it's specific, very specifically related to the Western diet and things like that, which is not butter and steak, like many people believe, it's actually high amounts of vegetable oil, refined pastry goods, high fructose corn syrup and different foods fried in vegetable oil. That is the Western diet. It's not though the research tries to paint it as butter. It's definitely not butter, especially when you look at some of the trends over the course of the century and consumption of butter and things like that, it's actually decreased, yeah. But just just interesting to see that the there's like, a broad picture here that plays into longevity and and goes hand in hand, um, and you, and it's on multiple different levels, and they all interact to some extent, on the energy production and things like that, of the cell.

Jay Feldman 21:00
Yeah. Another important thing to consider here, too, that was interesting in looking at the research. So one I know I mentioned Drosophila earlier, the flies, and so calorie restriction seems to be beneficial in the Drosophila, not because of a reduced calorie intake, but because it's mediated through yeast. And so there's less yeast in these Drosophila, which again, probably has to do with what they're being fed. And that account, yeah, and that, that accounts for the extension and lifespan there. And then another thing too, is the whole idea, the whole connection between calorie restriction and rate of living is that this is supposed to lower the metabolic rate, and so that's what leads to life, lifespan extension. And it's actually been shown that it doesn't lower the body rate. Lower the metabolic rate relative to body size in rats and mice and Drosophila as well.

Mike 21:48
Just to just to clarify with something you're saying too. Basically, the metabolic rate per size of body does not decrease. What winds up happening is the body size just decreases, and then the metabolic rate either stays the same or actually increases

Jay Feldman 22:04
Or decreases, but relative in the same like in the same proportion.

Mike 22:08
Yeah, exactly the in proportion to the body size, the metabolic rate is the same or increases a little bit with the caloric restriction, yeah. So basically, what you're not seeing is that you're not seeing a decrease in metabolism per unit of body weight or body mass, you're seeing either the same or more, which basically flies in the face of the idea of less in metabolism. What we're really seeing here is just less junk in the system. Yeah,

Jay Feldman 22:33
Yeah, yeah. And it was shown that in the rats, it is they do actually the caloric restriction actually creates an increase in metabolism relative to body size. So yeah, it's and as you're saying, it's not because what we're not saying here is you should calorically restrict to raise your metabolism. Or instead saying is that it's probably the reduction in endotoxin, the reduction in harmful amino acids, the reduction in polyunsaturated fats that mediate this increase in metabolism, or at least keeping it the same despite calorie restriction so much like the stress from calorie restriction not being beneficial. Even if it does maintain metabolic rate, it's still not beneficial. There are so many other factors to consider, and we know that based on the physiological effects of calorie restriction, it is directly stressful, making it something that we should be avoiding, especially because not only is it directly stressful, but it doesn't have these benefits. Instead, you can get all the same benefits and more by reducing endotoxin, reducing harmful amino acids, reducing polyunsaturated fats and which, which leads us to what we should actually be doing to slow aging, like to slow aging and extend lifespan, what we should be eating, what we should be doing in our environment and and all these different factors, as far as which, again, as I said earlier, slowing aging is also slowing and reversing all of the diseases and chronic health conditions and symptoms that we experience.

Mike 23:52
So yeah, so it really comes down to, again, eating a decent, a decent diet and not having a lot of junk. And the thing is, is you see this too, even in, even in the historical accounts, like with less than a price, is nutrition and physical degeneration. Basically, you had the people on their admit on their initial diets, and then when they moved to reduce, uh, to, like refined products. And I say refined products because they were specifically sugar and margarine and canned foods and like refined wheat flour and things like that, you saw huge increases in diseases and things like that. And I think it's largely related to endotoxin in the gut and an increase in polyunsaturated fatty acids and things like that. One of the main things they were doing was vegetable oils and margarine. So there's definitely issue with that. The other thing I want to point out here is when you do things like caloric restriction, there's also a negative effect on the hormonal profile, specifically, and because the way you lose all that body mass and all that body weight is you rely on stress hormones, specifically cortisol and adrenaline and Cate. Cola means and things like that, to liberate fatty acids from fat tissue, and then at the same time to also eat away at muscle tissue. And I think it's really important to point that out, because having increases in those hormones and things like that is not good for longevity. Having high levels of cortisol over an extended period of time and high levels of catecholamines over extended period of time has a negative impact and turns on a bunch of negative regulators of metabolism, like basically switches and regulators and metabolism within the body itself and so and moves the hormonal profile towards things that can be problematic, like increases in expression of aromatase and estrogen production and things like that. With this decrease in with this increases in the adaptive hormones like cortisol and catecholamines, and a decrease in protective hormones like thyroid, which directly increases energy metabolism and things like that, and also the androgens and progesterones and hormones along those pathways and neuro steroids and everything like that. So you basically down regulate the whole system, and you rely on these adaptive hormones that have a degrading effect on the body. I mean, if you look up the effects of cortisol, it lit and it literally melts muscle and and joint and bone and connective and protein is tissue away to provide to liberate glucose for the body, from the amino acids stored in these tissues, and then catecholamines directly break down the fatty tissue and the and the fatty tissue, despite what a lot of people believe. And we've covered this in our in our recent Q and A having in having a certain amount of fatty tissue, if it's from, you know, good, if the fat that is in there is monounsaturated, saturated fatty acids from good quality food is not necessarily an issue. It's literally a story Tory and is to store energy doesn't mean that you're going to get disease. Obesity is a different story, because the pathways that lead to obesity are from an underlying physiologic problem. But in general, having some extra fat is not a problem within a certain within a certain degree, it's actually considered healthy. That's why there is the classification of underweight. So it's really important to to keep in mind the hormonal context as well. There's a negative impact on hormonal context with with strong caloric restriction, you can see increases in cortisol with caloric restriction, and that is how you get the decreases in body size and things like that.

Jay Feldman 27:24
Yeah, yeah, directly. And it's important to mention too. As far as the fact goes, is that, again, oftentimes that a significant increase in body fat is a symptom. It's not always a problem itself, as we were saying. And it's also important to mention too. A lot of people think that if you're avoiding the things that lead to the liberation of free fatty acid or fatty acids from the fat tissue, then how could you possibly lose body fat? And this is a much larger conversation, but the short answer is that there's always some liberation going on. There has to be baseline. I mean, there's a very significant amount always going on. And so it has more to do with how much we're storing, how much of the substrate we're taking, that we're storing as body fat versus how much is being liberated. So we don't have to do anything directly to increase the liberation of free fatty acids via stress hormones. As long as we're that baseline is still being liberated and we're not storing much, you can still lose body fat, plus the body fat can also and even if you're not burning the body fat too, you can it can be removed through glucuronidation and the liver. So yeah, just kind of a little side note there. But

Mike 28:24
well, yeah, you always have fatty acid oxidation, particularly to run your musculature and things like that. And so it's important to number one, you may not want to just start massively increasing your fatty acid liberation, particularly if you have a high amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids stored in the tissues that might cause issues, it would be important to just slowly take things down instead of go on. And you see in different studies, and even in, like, some of the gastric banding studies and things like that, people tend to regain the weight after they lose the weight. So the question of sustainability of that, I think, is a completely different episode. But yeah, I wouldn't want to rule out the hormonal pathways as well. And I think I have an article discussing androgenic tone, particularly in males, being important for longevity and things like that. Like a study, yeah, basically, the study was saying that an overall increase in androgenic tone was important for was, like, associated with a higher amount of longevity and things like that. And I think they were looking like that. And I think they were looking at DHA, DHEA, testosterone, DHT and things like that. It was just an association study, but also important, also interesting, yeah.

Jay Feldman 29:31
And it's also worth mentioning too, that in talking about stress and liberation of fatty acids, is that some amount of stress is also unavoidable. So we're not saying never exercise, never do anything that increases the stress hormones. We're just saying that the increase in stress hormones and that liberation is not necessarily a good thing. You want that response and response to stress, but we don't want to be increasing things that cause stress. Just because they cause stress. They can have other benefits. But we don't want to like it's not the stress itself that's beneficial.

Mike 29:58
And you also it's you also don't want it. Chronic doing it for exercise. You know, three times a week, that's, that's a normal response. That's, you're gonna release some fatty acids depending on the level of exercise that you're doing, yeah. But at the same time, having, like, a chronic pathway like that going on has, is, has direct signaling effects in the body. In general, chronically elevating cortisol has direct signaling effects downstream with negative effects in the long term. And you see that in multiple studies, it's known that chronically elevating the stress cascade has negative effects. I mean, there's it's understood that acute that acute use of adaptive hormones is fine, but chronic use of adaptive hormones is problematic. And basically that's what you see in chronic disease states, as chronic elevations of these hormones with subsequent downstream negative effects from their signaling, yeah, and their direct effects, right?

Jay Feldman 30:49
And as we mentioned, caloric restriction is a good way for increasing those stress hormones chronically. And same with carb restriction, which we'll talk about too. Yeah. All right, so in talking about carb restriction and calorie restriction, these are both really good at a few things. I mean, basically what they're what they're really good at, is causing stress. And I've written a couple articles. We've talked extensively on the podcast about how carb restriction does this, where, in many ways, it basically mimics a fasted state, or it mimics a starvation state, which calorie restriction does too It basically puts our body under stress because it's recognizing that it doesn't have as much fuel as it needs to function properly. And so in order to account for that and adapt to that, it in the short term, has to mobilize stored fuel, which it does through the stress hormones, through adrenaline and cortisol and glucagon as well. And so that helps to mobilize, mobilize our fat stores and protein stores as well, in order to use those as fuel in the short term, and then in the long term, these have depressive effects on our larger metabolic function. They end up depressing our thyroid activity. They depress the production of our reproductive hormones. And these are the things that govern how much energy we use as a whole, how much energy our brain uses, and our digestive systems and our immune systems. So when we do things that create the stress, like restrict carbohydrates and avoid carbohydrates, or trying to restrict calories or diet or just eat less, rather than doing what they're supposed to do, as far as extending lifespan goes, they actually drive aging by increasing the production of stress hormones and depressing our functions. And there, I mean, there may be certain contexts where this can lead to essentially a life expense extension, kind of like a hibernation effect that we talked about earlier in certain organisms. And there's something to be said for that, where maybe you do end up living longer to compared to if you weren't going to do those things, but you just live a much lower quality of life, where you don't have the same energy available to function at a high level. But that isn't necessary, and there are better ways, much better ways, to extend lifespan and slow aging that don't require that calorie restriction, don't cause that stress, and don't require a lower level of function

Mike 33:07
going along with that. I think it's important to point out that with a lot of the stuff that's going on now, because in all these different diets, like keto or or low carb or the calorie restriction group or the intermittent fasting group. And a lot of these diets, just as in the studies that we talked about earlier, they actually lower different compounds that have a negative effect. So like lowering the consumption of four or five grains with iron and things like that, and a lot of processed foods, and like, I know we've gone on the processed foods thing before, but and like specific things like store bought pastries made with a ton of different industrial ingredients that half the time we don't even know what they are, things like that. It lowers the overall intake of those. It lowers the intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids, and then it lowers the intake of foods that can cause issues in the gut, specifically, and a lot of a lot of things, like, for example, with intermittent fasting, a lot of the benefits seen there, or some of the benefits, some of the major benefits seen there, can be seen with a decrease in endotoxin, digestive distress and things like that. So in a lot of these areas, the question can really and this will lead us into like, how to actually slow aging and extend lifespan, at least from the perspective of which we're talking about. But getting rid of some of these things and getting off the standard American diet and moving to some of these other diets will actually have a beneficial effect. And the whole idea of low carb or intermittent fasting may actually be inducing secondary effects that may be holding the benefit, as opposed to the proposed primary effect of lowering calories or or getting rid of carbs, or something like that. I mean, if you're on a low carb diet, it's kind of hard to eat a whole box of Cheetos or or have 10 pop tarts for breakfast or go to make. DS and have whatever is going on over there. What about having in the Mickey D's? And I don't think for breakfast and ever so the point being is that what by going into these processes of low carb or of intermittent fasting or calorie restriction or anything like that, you you change the diet, and you change the lifestyle in a lot of different ways that can be having those beneficial effects. I mean, if you the people who are really caring about extending their lifespan, if they're going on a calorically restricted diet, and some of the people that you've I've watched videos or read blog posts from these people, I mean, they wind up eating spinach and nuts and all these different types of things that in on a scale, if you had a spectrum of quality of foods, they beat the crap out of standard American diet fare. I mean, you just they have more nutrients in general, even if there's PUFA in the nuts and even if the spinach has fibers that might be irritating, there's a lot more nutrients. There's a lot less toxic compounds. And from like an industrial perspective and things like that. And they have a lot less damaging effects, in some cases, depending on the food, on the microbiome in general, so And like the basically the floor and the intestine. So a lot, a lot less opportunity to increase endotoxin production and things like that. And they do have protective plant compounds things like that in them as well. So as far as like, you have to really look at what you're changing. You have to really look at where and what those specific changes are doing. Besides just, oh, it's just, it's carbs are the problem, or oh, it's, it's, it's too much calories, or Oh, you're eating too often, or things like that. They all change those things. And just the process of saying, I want to, I want to live longer. I want to move in a particular direction with my health, and health, health and things like that, is going to induce better or, in general, should induce better habits. And overall, I mean, most people who are going to do intermittent fasting like, oh, I want to look I want to look good, and I want to get in shape and things like that. So it's like, oh, so I'm going to be eating adequate protein, I'm going to be working out in the gym. I'm going to be Oh, chocolate's healthy for me. All you see these people, they go on all these oh that I have this good quality coffee. So they're changing a whole bunch of processes. And I think that that's really where you're seeing the benefits of some of those things and getting rid of some of the negative factors. And so that would fall if you have standard American diet over here on a spectrum, and you have you have eating enough food that's quality food with decent amount of nutrients, providing enough for energy and has a decrease in toxic components in the food. You have it over here on the right. The other options can fall somewhere in between, moving over towards the right hand side,

Jay Feldman 37:47
yeah. So what you're saying is that the low carb, keto, carnivore, fruitarian, maybe I mean a lot of these alternative diets, or the fasting and intermittent fasting that are the Bulletproof Diet. For example, a lot of these, these diets that are saying that they will reduce aging and extend lifespan might still be better than what the average person is eating, especially the average person who's trying to eat healthy, which is often worse than just, I would say, not from the standard American diet. When the people who do start adding in all the raw vegetables and whole grains. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, there's something to be said for the people who do just kind of eat what they want, and they don't stress too much about it, and sometimes they're better off, as opposed to the people who are trying to eat healthy, and sometimes make their health a lot worse. But, but yeah, the Yeah. So what you're saying is that even these things are definitely stressful, the reduction of calories and avoidance of food for a period of time, whether that's fasting or just trying to eat less in general, or diet, as well as the lack of carbs and on keto and carnivore and all that. So those things are definitely the case where there's inherent stress there that is inherently pro aging and anti longevity. But there are benefits there to avoiding a lot of things that most people are eating, avoiding a lot of the things that affect our God in a negative way that also drives stress. So you might still end up with a net benefit. So it might still be better than an alternative, but that doesn't make it the best option, and it's also the most important thing here is that the carb restriction itself and the calorie restriction itself and the avoidance of food for a period of time with fasting or intermittent fasting is not the part that's responsible for the benefits. So,

Mike 39:26
yeah, so getting rid of eliminating toxic compounds and moving to more nutrient dense food sources and things like that, and getting rid of industrial fillers and whatnot, and it is probably a better step overall, and moving towards the right direction, whether or not lowering carbs or decreasing calories or only eating in a certain time window, or things like that, has the specific beneficial effects in and of themselves, you're still making a step in the right direction, or in a better direction than eating a whole bunch of deep fried food and or. Food deep fried and vegetable oils and things like that, which just problem in and of itself. So,

Jay Feldman 40:05
yeah, yeah, exactly. And so the good news here is that if you're doing a lot of those things, if you're if you are avoiding foods that you're not digesting well, and fixing your gut health and and all of that, then you can just have all those same benefits while also having the benefits of including carbs and eating a lot of food, you know, using calories as proxy, eating a lot of calories, and that will actually be a much better way to keep the stress hormones down, support the pro metabolic hormones, like thyroid and the reproductive hormones, and also support the more important part when it comes to aging, lifespan. I mean, it's all one system. But as far as the focus supporting energy production and supporting protection against oxidative stress and reactive oxygen species and all other forms of damage, and promoting the ability to repair and regenerate in a way that supports longevity and opposes aging. So I guess that kind of is a good transition towards some of the more important things that we should be doing to support lifespan and aging. And so to start out, which I guess, because we kind of alluded to it, that there are certain benefits from the people who are typically going low carnivore, whatever, one of the most important points there is often PUFA reduction. And in general,

Mike 41:21
PUFA being polyunsaturated fatty acids, for anyone new to the show, that's the shorthand.

Jay Feldman 41:27
Right one, and we just went into depth about how much the how impactful PUFA are on lifespan and aging. And so the important point here is that reducing PUFA consumption makes a huge difference as far as aging and lifespan goes by increasing the saturation of the cellular structure, and that improves the efficiency of energy production and reduces the susceptibility to damage and oxidative stress and all of those things. And so that would, I would say, would be one of the biggest components here is, is reducing PUFA, and that means avoiding vegetable oils, which are kind of in all sorts of processed foods, and like amazing, especially cooked,

Mike 42:08
especially cooked vegetable oils is, I mean, you want it overall, I would say to avoid them. But I would really make an effort to avoid anything fried in vegetable oil, or any vegetable oil cooked at high temperatures, and even fats like even sort of middle, middle of the line, fats like olive oil or macadamia oil or avocado oil or something like that, I would really do my best to avoid things that are heavily cooked with those just because of the amount of polyunsaturated fats they have with them, in them and cooked at high temperatures is just recipe for disaster.

Jay Feldman 42:45
It creates the lipid peroxidation and oxidative damage that we were talking about earlier. That's such a huge component to aging and lifespan, or as far as causing aging. And yeah. So

Mike 42:55
So that would be a big one. I think the next big one, the next biggest one, would be avoiding things that induce endotoxemia or cause any type of gut distress or things like that, or or gut symptoms or bacterial overgrowth, or things like that, because endotoxin is a huge regulator of energy metabolism, in the sense that an excess of endotoxin will basically shut down energy metabolism and things like that, and then it has like a synergistic effect with the polyunsaturated fatty acids create massive inflammatory responses. And so in that case, if you do have a sensitive gut or anything like that, and this is, to a large extent, individual specific, but getting rid of starches and things like that, and focusing more on foods that are higher in sugar, like fruits or fruit juice, or if you do, if you do, tolerate starches better than eating starches that come with the protective plant compounds and a decent amount of nutrients and are easy to digest. And that thing could be like eating sweet potatoes or white potatoes or white rice or yams, squash, cassava, all those types of things would be better options than whole grains and things like that, which oftentimes can cause a lot of issues. GI issues for people.

Jay Feldman 44:16
yeah, and we've i'll link back to some of those gut and digestion digestion episodes to zoom out real quickly. Well, actually, I guess I want to zoom out on endotoxin and gut health real quick. But before that, I want to also mention some other PUFA containing foods, the fish oils and omega threes that are in like fatty fish, like salmon, which we're told are supposed to prevent aging and all of that. Those are those omega threes, particularly DHA, we talked about how this is the fatty acid that's most susceptible to peroxidation, and that the more of those types of fats that we have in the cellular structural components, the faster we age and shorter our lifespan is. And this is not only in an individual, in a species, but this is across all. All species throughout the animal kingdom. This is one of the primary factors that accounts for differences in lifespan and aging. So that's a huge component here. As far as things that we would probably want to be avoiding, which would again, omega threes that are in fatty fish, fish oil and the fish oil, especially because it's probably already oxidized. Already oxidized. Yeah. And then also in, in a lot of nuts and seeds as well. And, yeah, I mean, that would be the main ones there. But especially the vegetable oils is, is the largest source of them.

Mike 45:33
Vegetable oils and fish oils. And that doesn't mean that, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't eat any seafood or fish like that. I mean, you can eat seafood. You can eat some fish. There are beneficial proteins in there as beneficial amounts of minerals and different nutrients that are difficult to obtain from land animals. But I don't think eating large amounts of very high fat, cold water fish on a regular basis would be a good idea overall. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 46:01
Yeah, there's a lot of Lean seafood, yeah, like shellfish, so like shrimp, lobster, crab and bivalves, like mussels and oysters, clams are all good options. And then on the fish side, there's a lot of Lean fish as well that don't have a lot of PUFA. So a lot of the white fish, like cod and haddock and Paul soul flounder, and then also halibut, grouper tuna are all pretty lean as well. Of course, there are other concerns there as far as Mercury and things, but, yeah, yeah, there's some others too, but, but the leaner fish in general would be very low in PUFA, so there's still a lot of seafood options. Yeah.

Mike 46:38
And for the other thing I want to stipulate here is, there is a ton of research coming out on the fish oil stuff and the benefits of fish oil and oxylipins and things like that. And for people who, I mean, both you and I obviously don't necessarily, don't necessarily agree with that, but for people who are on the side of fish oil, or fish oils are in Mega threes, and this and that are a good thing. I would still recommend that if you are going to go that route, to get it from Whole Foods, from fish and from seafood, rather than supplementing with the fish oil in general. And that's just because, I mean, some people, there's a lot of research coming out of it, people are going to believe what they want to believe with the different things and that that's fine. But I would say just even from that perspective, getting it from seafood would be a better option overall than than just taking fish oil caps. I don't think that that's a good idea in any case.

Jay Feldman 47:34
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Um, also, as far as, like, Omega three needs. If you're eating grass fed beef and some amount of leaner seafood and things you'll still get in Whole Foods, you'll still be getting enough omega threes to satisfy those requirements, even without trying.

Mike 47:51
Yeah, it's very minimal. There's a very and especially if you're not taking in ridiculous amounts of omega six from vegetable oils and things like that. The requirements are adjusted downwards by a lot, so that, I would say more important would be avoiding Omega six and vegetables and things like that, than trying to take in an excessive amount of omega threes to supposedly combat the the amount of omega six that you're taking in.

Jay Feldman 48:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a good point to bring up. I definitely would still caution against it and say that I don't think trying to get omega threes is a good idea. And I mean, we, you know, we talked extensively about their relationship with aging. And if you look at virtually any disease, the you'll find the incidence of oxidized forms of omega threes, and like the lipid peroxidation products, are found in higher levels. In virtually every disease that you can think of, there's and and as we talked about, they directly inhibit efficient energy production. They make it a lot less efficient, a lot more wasteful. And this is really at the crux of health. So yeah, not a fan.

Mike 48:53
Our recommendation overall would be to avoid until to the most extent, I mean, not in different qualities, seafood sources that we talked about, and especially from grass fed meats and grass fed fats and things like that. But going out of your way to take in excessive amounts of them, we don't think is a good idea. And then in the interim point there, if you are, if you do believe omega threes are helpful, and that's something that you want to go for, the recommendation would be to eat to get it from whole seafood and things like that, which come with a whole bunch of other beneficial compounds, and to not really get it from a capsule or or supplement or anything like that, I think there's those are definitely problematic.

Jay Feldman 49:29
Yeah, and just another caveat there, and we've, we've talked about PUFA in more detail before, so I'll link to that episode. But people who feel better with omega threes, it's, there's a lot of talk about them being anti inflammatory.

Mike 49:42
Well, they do have, they do affect the the inflammatory enzymes. So they do, they can have an anti inflammatory effect, but can, like, there's other ways to get the anti inflammatory effect. There's, I mean, besides all the plant compounds and then having a less A, D. Decreased amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids in general. I mean, you don't, you don't need to go out of your way to use fish oil as an anti inflammatory, especially when you can just take a bunch of different fruits and vegetable specific vegetables and things like that that also have inhibitory properties on those specific enzymes like Cox and lox, cyclo oxygenation, lipo oxygenase things like that. So there's definitely, um, there's definitely benefits from having a decreased functional enzymes, and you don't have to use it through fish oil, which can have other negative effects. Yeah,

Jay Feldman 50:34
Well, yeah. And the Omega threes are directly immunosuppressive. And yeah, have been shown to, like, improve organ transplant acceptance and things like that by suppressing immune responses. Yeah.

Mike 50:45
I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying a lot of they do a lot of so they have the immunosuppressive effect and they have the anti inflammatory effect, so that it is there. But there's just better ways to do it that says you don't have to do it through that way. Right, right? You don't have to get rid of cancer by cutting your arm off.

Jay Feldman 51:01
Yes, controversial opinions. All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode that was part two of our three part series talking about how to slow aging and extend lifespan. And make sure to tune into Part Three next week, where we'll discuss other aspects of nutrition and then also exercise and stress, basically how to optimize those things and how much exercise is ideal. We'll really dig into all of it as far as what we should do in order to extend lifespan and slow aging. If you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a review or a like or a comment wherever you're listening, and also, if you can leave a five star rating on iTunes, it really does a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at links to anything that we discussed today, especially in regard to the research regarding calorie restriction, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, or any age related symptoms, whether it is chronic pain or joint pain or weight gain, gut issues, if you're dealing with constant hunger and cravings or motor imbalances, if you're lacking energy, you're dealing with a lot of fatigue, if you're not sleeping well, getting good rest throughout the night, or if you just want to make sure that you're doing the right things to extend your health span and lifespan as much as possible and slow down that aging process. Head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll walk you through the things that you want to be doing as far as nutrition and exercise and stress are concerned, in order to optimize our health, optimize our cellular energy balance, and also get rid of any of these low energy type symptoms or chronic health conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.