Share

For half of my life I thought something was wrong with me because I regularly woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was around one or two in the morning, sometimes closer to three.

I’d lie there staring at the ceiling, frustrated that my body refused to do what everybody said it was supposed to do, which was sleep straight through the night. I even tried sleeping pills for a while, trying to force myself into the modern expectation of a single, unbroken block of sleep. It never felt right and it never solved the problem.

But then, a few decades ago, I discovered that what I was experiencing was not a disorder at all but a very old human pattern with deep historical roots and, I believe, an evolutionary purpose. Once I learned that, everything changed for me.

Instead of fighting my own biology, I began working with it.

Before the industrial revolution and the bright electric lights that came with it, sleep looked very different for most people.

Historians digging through diaries, medical texts, church documents, and literature from medieval Europe through the early nineteenth century kept finding references to something they called “first sleep” and “second sleep.”

It turns out that people went to bed shortly after nightfall, slept for three or four hours, then naturally woke up for anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours.

During that quiet “middle period” they prayed, wrote letters, had long conversations, made love, tended fires, checked on animals, or simply rested. Then they went back to bed for their second sleep until dawn.

This pattern was so common that it was rarely explained. Writers simply assumed everyone understood what first sleep was.

Doctors wrote about treatments that should be taken after waking from the first sleep. Priests advised using the waking period between sleeps for devotions. It was so ordinary that nobody thought to label it a problem until we started using artificial light.

What fascinates me is how universal this pattern appears across time before modern lighting. The historian A. Roger Ekirch documented references in hundreds of sources, and not just in Europe. Segmented sleep is described in ancient Greek texts, medieval Chinese medical writings, and accounts of pre industrial Africa and South America.

In other words, all over the world humans shared this rhythm.

The real anomaly is our insistence today that eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is the “normal” human state. It is not. Instead, it’s what happened when we flooded our evenings with artificial light and compressed our waking hours into a rigid industrial schedule.

We decided that nighttime was for sleeping and daytime was for working, and then we coerced our biology into fitting that mold.

Once I understood this history, my own nightly awakening suddenly seemed ordinary. What had felt like a sign of anxiety or insomnia turned out to be the leftover echo of a pattern shared by billions of ancestors over tens of thousands of years.

But the history alone was only part of what made the insight transformative for me. The piece that resonated most deeply came from thinking about why this pattern existed for so long, kind of a variation on my Hunter/Farmer theory to explain ADHD.

When I look back at the lives our ancestors lived for most of human history, it makes perfect sense that sleep would be broken into segments. Small bands and tribes lived close to the ground, surrounded by animals, unpredictable weather, and the possibility of danger.

Moving through a world like that required both rest and vigilance. Staying alive depended on maintaining a watchful presence even through the night. If everyone were fully unconscious at the same time, the group would have been vulnerable.

But if people naturally drifted in and out of sleep at different times, there would almost always be someone awake enough to hear a branch crack, stir the fire, or sense an approaching threat.

Seen that way, my habit of waking up in the dark suddenly felt like something ancient in my bones. It felt less like a flaw and more like an evolutionary safety mechanism, a built in system for collective protection.

When I wake now, I sometimes imagine that long line of ancestors stretching behind me, keeping quiet watch around their fires under the stars.

Something about that image is comforting. It makes those dark early morning hours feel gentle rather than stressful. Instead of lying there with a racing mind, I keep a book next to the bed and read for half an hour or so. Almost every time it settles me back into sleep without effort.

The moment I stopped treating the awakening as a problem, my body relaxed, and my sleep improved.

I suspect that many people experience the same pattern without realizing how normal it is.

Our “medical” modern culture has done a remarkable job of convincing us that sleep must look a certain way, and if it doesn’t, we must be doing something wrong. But when you peel back the last couple of centuries of artificial light and industrial schedules, a very different picture emerges.

Sleep is fluid. It responds to light, temperature, seasons, stress, safety, and the presence of others. It looks different in winter than in summer. It changes as we age. And for most of our history it unfolded in two natural waves, with a quiet, contemplative space in between.

Learning this allowed me to look at my own nights with new eyes. Instead of resisting my biology, I now welcome that gentle waking period as part of a rhythm far older than any modern prescription.

If you’re someone who wakes in the night and worries that something is wrong, consider the possibility that nothing is wrong at all. It may be that your body remembers something ancient. It may be that you are simply keeping watch with countless generations who came before you.

Share

One of the strangest things about turning 40 is discovering that your body has quietly changed the rules without asking your permission. You eat like you did at 30 but gain weight anyway. You sleep the same hours but wake up less restored. Injuries linger a little longer. Inflammation pops up in unexpected places.

It’s easy to think you’re doing something wrong, but the truth is that the body after 40 begins shifting into a new phase of life, one that requires a different relationship with food, timing, and recovery.

And one of the most remarkable discoveries of modern biology is that this phase of life unlocks a superpower we didn’t even know we had until recently: the ability to clean, repair, and recycle damaged cells through a process called autophagy.

Autophagy literally means “self-eating,” although it’s not as grim as it sounds. It’s the body’s housekeeping system, a kind of overnight janitorial crew that moves through your cells identifying broken proteins, damaged components, misfolded structures, and accumulated waste, and then breaks them down into materials the body can reuse.

When autophagy is humming along, inflammation drops, energy becomes steadier, the immune system functions more smoothly, and the slow drift toward age-related disease decelerates. When autophagy is interrupted—usually because food comes in too frequently—those damaged bits of cellular machinery accumulate, and the whole system feels sluggish, inflamed, or prematurely old.

Scientists have known about autophagy for years, but only recently have we realized how profoundly meal timing influences it.

When Louise and I were first married, more than half a century ago, we read Arnold Ehret’s old book Rational Fasting. His basic argument was simple: most people eat too frequently, and the body functions better when it gets long breaks from digestion.

It made sense to us. So, early in our marriage, we decided to follow his advice and skip breakfast entirely. We’d have just two meals a day—lunch and dinner—and give our bodies a long stretch each morning to rest and repair.

That was 53 years ago. We’re still doing it. We’ve never been breakfast eaters, except on an occasional weekend splurge or vacation.

And it’s been surprisingly easy. In fact, what astonishes me now—after decades of living this way—is how normal it feels to only eat twice a day, and how pleasant the sensation of mild hunger can be.

Not the distracted, irritable hunger that comes from blood sugar swings, but a gentle awareness that your body is ready for nourishment. That feeling makes lunch taste better than any breakfast ever could. It’s a kind of earned hunger, the way people in traditional societies experienced food: not as constant grazing, but as a rhythm.

What amazes me is that modern science has circled right back to what Ehret was talking about in 1910 and what humans practiced for hundreds of thousands of years. Every major longevity researcher today—from Satchin Panda to David Sinclair—talks about time-restricted eating windows.

The most popular forms, like 16:8 or early time-restricted feeding, simply replicate what Louise and I stumbled into by reading a century-old naturopathic book. And the science is increasingly clear: these longer stretches without food activate autophagy, reduce insulin resistance, lower inflammation, and improve metabolic flexibility in people over 40 in ways no traditional diet ever has.

This isn’t about deprivation. It’s about giving the body space to take care of itself. The “overnight repair window,” as some researchers call it, begins a few hours after your last meal and strengthens the longer you go without triggering insulin.

Most Americans close that window before it even opens by snacking at night, eating late dinners, and waking up to immediate calories. But when you finish dinner earlier and let your digestive system rest until midday, it feels as if the whole body exhales.

One of the ironies of the modern longevity craze is that wealthy people now pay small fortunes chasing the benefits of autophagy through pharmaceuticals rather than timing their meals.

Rapamycin, for example, is currently the hottest anti-aging drug in elite circles. It appears to stimulate some of the same cellular cleanup pathways that fasting does. But using it requires a prescription, careful dosing, medical supervision, and it carries real side effects, immune suppression among them.

It’s a powerful drug, no question, but it’s telling that people are willing to take something that serious to mimic a process their bodies already know how to do for free if they simply extend the time between meals.

Autophagy works whether you’re wealthy or not, whether you have access to cutting-edge medicine or not, whether you’re 40 or 70 or 85. The machinery is built in. You just have to stop interrupting it.

Your body is not your enemy in midlife or older age. It’s trying to tell you something. It wants longer evenings without food. It wants a break from constant digestion. It wants the chance to clean up yesterday’s cellular mess before today’s begins.

When you give it that space, everything becomes easier: sleep deepens, inflammation drops, weight stabilizes, mood smooths out, and energy returns in a way that feels almost like youth but calmer, steadier.

If there’s a lesson here, it may be that aging isn’t an inevitable decline so much as a request for partnership. The body is always asking us to work with its rhythms rather than against them.

When you honor that rhythm—by eating less often, by letting hunger come and go without fear, by trusting the long arc of biology—you discover the remarkable truth that repair, renewal, and vitality aren’t things you have to fight for: they’re things your body is waiting to do as soon as you get out of the way.

Autophagy is not a miracle. It’s simply the body remembering what it’s always known: healing happens when you stop eating long enough to let the repair crew come out at night and in the morning.

Share

There’s a strange and damaging myth in our culture that the mind inevitably declines after 40. We treat the first half of life as the real story and everything after midlife as some sort of long, sad epilogue. People joke about “senior moments,” about names slipping away, about walking into a room and forgetting why.

But what if the story we’ve been told about the brain after 40 is simply wrong? What if the changes we experience from midlife into our 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond aren’t signs of decay but signs of adaptation, recalibration, and even growth?

The human brain is not a static machine that wears out like an old engine. It’s a living, plastic organ that reorganizes itself in response to every season of life.

And the truth is that the brain in midlife and older adulthood is doing something profoundly sophisticated: it’s trading raw speed for depth, swapping brute-force memorization for pattern recognition, and exchanging impulsive reaction for contextual understanding.

When you’re young, you remember every detail; by midlife and especially older age, you forget some details but gain the ability to see the big picture. You can feel it happening inside yourself.

You don’t store facts as sharply as you once did; instead, you connect them more meaningfully. You don’t chase every thought; you track the ones that matter. You become less interested in trivia and more interested in truth.

Neurologists now know that the aging brain often becomes better at regulating emotions, resolving conflicts, and integrating complex experiences. The two hemispheres begin to work together more efficiently. Creativity doesn’t vanish; it changes form.

If the younger brain is a spark, the older brain is a slow-burning flame, brighter in a different way. Those so-called “senior moments” that people worry about are often the harmless result of a mind that’s prioritizing wisdom over noise. You forget the name of an actor in a movie you saw in 1997 but instantly recognize when someone is lying to you, or when a situation doesn’t feel right, or when the real meaning of a moment is hiding just under the surface.

A younger brain might have stored more data, but an older brain reads the world with a deeper, more intuitive literacy.

That shift starts around 40 and continues in fascinating ways through 50, 60, 70, and well into the 80s and 90s. Even very old brains continue to form new neural pathways. They regenerate connections, respond to enrichment, and adapt to challenge.

People in their 70s often show higher scores in measures of emotional well-being than people in their 30s. People in their 80s can show greater life satisfaction than they had in midlife. The brain seems to reward long life not with decline but with perspective.

Think of all the times you’ve said something like, “I wouldn’t have known how to handle this when I was younger.” That’s not nostalgia. That’s neurobiology.

Of course the brain slows down. Processing speed drops. Names slip away. But slowing down isn’t the same thing as breaking down. A violinist who plays more slowly isn’t less of a musician; they may even be more expressive.

The brain over 40 becomes more selective, more focused, sometimes more cautious, sometimes more bold. It stops wasting energy on nonsense and pours its resources into meaning.

That shift is invisible in most clinical measures, because modern psychology still fetishizes quick recall and speed-based tests. But the most important work the brain does after 40 has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with integration, wisdom, synthesis, and emotional resilience.

And the mind doesn’t stop growing at 60 or 70 or 80. Older adults often perform better at tasks requiring strategy, judgment, and conflict resolution. They regulate stress differently. They take fewer unnecessary risks. They develop what psychologists call “emotional foresight,” the understanding of which choices will matter a week from now or a year from now.

This is why grandparents are often such stable presences for children. It’s why older adults are often the ones who can calm a turbulent room. Their nervous systems know something younger nervous systems don’t.

The deepest tragedy is that our culture treats these changes as flaws instead of the gifts they are. We treat middle age as the beginning of invisibility and older age as a kind of disappearance.

But if you look closely, what really disappears after 40 aren’t people’s capacities; it’s the frantic energy that once masked their deeper intelligence.

A 60-year-old may not memorize a list of 20 nonsense words as fast as a 20-year-old, but a 60-year-old can tell you with astonishing clarity what those words actually mean. An 80-year-old may pause a moment to find the right phrase, but then they’ll say something that lands with the weight of eight decades of lived experience, something no 25-year-old could produce if they tried.

We also now know that purpose, curiosity, engagement, and challenge keep the brain young in ways no supplement can.

People over 60 who remain mentally active show slower cognitive aging. People in their 70s and 80s who maintain social engagement actually grow new neuronal connections. Learning — whether it’s a language, a craft, music, technology, meditation, or even a new philosophy — physically reshapes the brain at any age. The brain changes because we change, and we change because life keeps calling us to expand.

If you’re over 40, or 60, or 80, the changes in your mind don’t mean you’re losing yourself. They mean you’re becoming a different version of yourself; often a wiser, calmer, more discerning one.

And if culture tells you that aging is a story of decline, look at your own experience instead. Notice how much more you understand now. Notice how differently you see what really matters. Notice how you respond to challenges that would have knocked you down when you were younger.

And when you forget a name or misplace your keys, remind yourself that your brain is busy doing the work of a lifetime: turning experience into meaning, memory into perspective, and years into wisdom.

We don’t celebrate this enough. We should. Because the midlife brain and the older brain aren’t fading versions of youth. They are the culmination of everything a mind can become.

Share

I grew up on the edge of Lansing, Michigan, with a stream just down the road and woods that felt like a secret frontier. We all did: the neighborhood kids, barefoot in the damp grass after rain, boots mucked up with creek-silt, hands scrubbed raw from climbing fallen logs and digging in the undergrowth. Getting in the dirt was part of childhood. We didn’t ask permission from microbes.

So when I read the recent report in The Guardian about Finnish nursery experiments transforming children’s health by simply letting them play in real soil, sand, leaves and forest-floor, I felt the past crash into the present and I knew again that the story of our species and our health lies in that innocent, messy contact.

In Finland, at a daycare centre in Lahti (north of Helsinki), the researchers from the Natural Resources Institute Finland adopted a radical experiment: rip out the asphalt, dig into the soil, roll out a live carpet of forest-floor moss and blueberry bushes, build compost heaps for children to feed, invite the kids to play, dig, muddle, get their hands in it.

The result, in a two-year study of three- to five-year-olds, was striking: children in the “rewilded” yards had fewer disease-causing skin bacteria (like Streptococcus) and showed stronger immune regulation (increased T-regulatory cells) within weeks. Gut microbiomes were healthier, inflammatory-associated Clostridium levels dropped.

This is the antithesis of today’s “modern” societal perspective on childhood and nature.

On the one hand, we have the modern obsession with pristine, sanitized lives: rubber-surfaced playgrounds, plastic mats, antibacterial everything. On the other, there’s the simple fact that our inner biology, our immune systems, our gut and skin microbiomes, were forged in the wild: the wild of forest floors, streams, soils, plants, bugs.

As I argued in my earlier essay “It’s All One Thing – The Story of the Worms” here in Wisdom School, our estrangement from that substrate is the seed of auto-immune disorders, of chronic inflammation, and a body that’s forgotten it’s actually part of nature.

In Michigan I was lucky: the woods and stream were mine for the exploring. I remember fingers crawling over moist logs, the smell of leaves turning, the damp cold run-off water slipping under my boots. I didn’t know at the time that those experiences were more than play: they were calibration.

They were training my immune system, teaching my skin and gut to know what nature looked like and smelled like and felt like. To know that dirt is not an enemy. And those childhood experiences are probably why I’ve never been troubled by autoimmune disorders or asthma.

So let’s call this what it is: a radical restoration. Not of some exotic wilderness, but of our lost contact with the natural microbial terrains that co-evolved with our species. The Finnish results are more than a Kindergarten trend; they’re a signal of what our children—and we all—are missing.

Here are some of the stakes:

• When kids play in dirt rich with soil microbes, their immune system steps into a healthier balance: fewer disease-causing bacteria on the skin surface, greater regulation of internal immune responses.

• The “outer layer” of biodiversity—soil, plants, forest floor—directly influences the “inner layer” of biodiversity in our bodies, our skin, gut, and airways. This is co-evolved, not incidental.

• The modern shift away from exposure—to “sterile” play surfaces, indoor confinement, sanitized surfaces—may appear benign, but it’s been quietly shaping the epidemic rise of allergies, auto-immune disorders, and inflammatory diseases that both disturb the quality of life and can shorten lifespan itself.

• This is not just personal wellness: it’s ecological and societal. The health of children, the immune burdens we carry, the resilience of future generations: all of this ties back to whether we let the next generation touch the living earth.

In the Finnish classroom yard they said: “We’re moving the action from inside to outside. We want to show the children nature so they learn about it.”

That sentence is packed. Show the children nature. Let them learn through contact, through play, through mess. Not as a museum piece, not as a “nature corridor” behind a fence, but as the ground they run on, dig in, climb across, whose bugs and fungus mix with theirs.

So, I want to issue a personal call to you—if you have children, nieces, nephews—or if you’re planning for grandchildren—or if you’re simply human, who used to feel the dirt under your fingernails and the creek cold on your shins—do this: Let the next generation get messy.

Plant a compost heap. Bring real soil into the sandbox. Create a border of moss and stones. Let the rain puddle, let the bugs crawl, let the children burrow. Let the forest floor not be exotic but ordinary.

I remember that stream down the road from the house I grew up in, the woods on the edge of Lansing, the sticky Michigan clay, the little fish, frogs, and crawdads under rocks, the mud mixing into water. I remember coming home with smudged socks, grass stains and a face kissed by sap.

I didn’t know at the time that I was feeding my immune system. I simply knew I was alive and it was a thrill.

We’ve forgotten that aliveness. Our culture has prized immaculateness, separation from the “dirty” wild, the exclusion of microbes like we exclude strangers. Yet the wildness is in us. The soil is in us. We’re made of the same living matrix as the tree roots and the beetles and the moss. Broken contact with that matrix isn’t harmless: it’s a literal loss.

In the wise old words I referenced in “It’s All One Thing”: “When we remove ourselves from that web of life, we do so at our own peril.”

The Finnish story is not just cute or scientific: it’s urgent. Rebuild our contact with the living earth. Let children scoop sand and soil, let them bury their hands, let them build mud-cakes like Aurora in Finland’s day-care. Laugh as they smear soil on their faces. It’s not chaos: it’s calibration.

Yes, modernization has brought us many gifts. Clean water. Sanitation. Vaccines. But modernization taken too far, with too much separation from our biological roots, leaves us with immune systems that misfire, bodies that mistake harmless soil microbes for threats, children who never taste actual dirt. The Finnish experiment is clear: get back to the soil, get back to the forest floor, get back to the messy, ordinary earth.

And the earth—our living earth—benefits too. More forest-floor carpets. More compost heaps. More kids playing outside, fewer rubber mats, fewer sterile boxes. We begin to treat biodiversity as not just glamorous (rainforests, coral reefs) but local (yard patches, old tree stumps, rain puddles). We begin to remember that our health is tied to the health of that biodiversity.

So my invitation to you: On your next weekend, find a patch of ground the kids (or you!) can mess with. Dig into it. Feel the soil. Let a leaf rot into the compost. Let worms do their work. Let the world pull you back. Because we’re not apart from nature: we are nature. And when we pretend otherwise, we hurt ourselves and the world around us.

It’s time to stop treating microbes as abstract threats or invisible villains. They are—and have always been—our companions, our allies, our ancestral family. The Finnish children’s laughter in the sandy forest-floor yard is our ancient laughter too.

Let’s dig in.

Leave a comment

Share

I’ve always believed that work is more than simply earning a living. Louise and I have started multiple companies over the 53 years we’ve been married, and in each case we hung a mission statement on the wall, something larger than profit, something meant to orient us toward contribution and meaning.

For our advertising agency it was “making the world a better place by improving communication among people.” For the community for abused kids it was “saving the world one child at a time.” For our travel agency it was “bringing people together and broadening their understanding of humanity with travel.” For our herbal tea company it was “helping people get healthier.” Each mission guided decisions when the next pitch came in, or when we opted to decline something that didn’t align (we refused tot take advertising clients from the meat or tobacco industries, for example).

In those early days, it might have seemed a luxury—or perhaps a distraction—to speak of purpose. But as I’ve aged and, frankly, reflected on what gives life its quality, I’ve grown convinced that this sense of purpose is not optional: it’s essential. And science now points to exactly that: living your life with a sense of purpose is strongly associated with greater longevity and healthier aging.

According to the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health one of the best-evidenced routes to better health is the trio of sleep, diet, exercise and two additional factors: social connection and sense of purpose. Looking at the “Blue Zones”—regions of the world where people live markedly longer, healthier lives—one of the core habits is simply that they live with purpose.

When I look back, I see how those mission statements made the work itself richer and the journey more sustainable. In the ad agency, we weren’t just chasing the next campaign; we were asking, “How will this help people understand each other better?” In the travel agency, it wasn’t just booking flights and hotels: it was envisioning how one human meeting in another country might change a life. In the herbal tea business, it wasn’t just selling tea bags it was helping someone feel better, reduce inflammation, or reclaim energy.

The money matters—of course it does—but if the money is detached from something meaningful, I’ve found the work doesn’t feed you in the same way. Today, with my radio/TV show and this newsletter, we’re still pursuing what we feel is a purpose greater than our own little lives.

Louise and I found that when our mission was clear, decision-making got easier. When something felt off-mission, we’d pause. We’d ask ourselves: does this move fit our “bringing people together” ethos? If the answer was no, we often walked away.

That said, when it aligned, the energy in the business changed. Clients felt it. Our teams felt it. And I believe our own resilience felt it, because we were working for something bigger than ourselves.

And that brings me to happiness, which is different but intimately connected to purpose. In the hair-on-fire startup days, long hours were inevitable. But when you’re forging something aligned with your values, the fatigue carries a different emotional weight. The long hours feel less like a grind and more like part of the journey. You’re building not just a company, but a piece of something meaningful. Over time that builds into a layer of fulfillment that goes beyond paycheck and title.

Then there’s the longevity piece, which recent science solidly backs up. If we want to live longer, healthier, more vibrant lives, it’s not only about the spinach salad and mountain climbing on weekends (though those matter). It’s about meaning, connection, a reason to get up in the morning.

The Blue Zones research lists “living with purpose” as a key factor among people who regularly reach age 90 or 100. And the Columbia research underlines that sense of purpose and social connection are two big pieces of the healthy-aging puzzle. So yes, our mission-driven work may very well be one of the better investments we’ve made, both for our businesses and for our lives.

I don’t claim that every day is perfect or that having a mission makes everything magical. There have been leaner seasons, distractions, the temptations to chase only “what pays.” But I write this now because I want to offer you the same prompt we used again and again: What is your mission?

What statement can you live by, hang on your wall, carry written on the back of a business card where you can see it every time you open your wallet, whisper to yourself when the morning alarm goes off? And then ask: does what I do today bring me closer to that mission, or steer me away?

If you have that mission, your work takes on two purposes at once. Yes, it makes you a living. But it also fosters meaning. It helps you connect. It helps you draw a circle of impact around you. It helps you ride the waves with calm because you know what you’re for. And it helps you stack up days that feel not just long but full, both for you, for others, and for the living of it.

Louise and I still look at those mission statements. They may have slightly shifted languages over the years, but the core remains. And on the days when the to-do list looms, when the road seems longer than expected, we lean back into the mission: improving communication, saving kids, bringing people together, helping people get healthier. And now using media to tell the truth and rescue democracy.

Because that mission lifts the work out of the grind and places it inside the story of our lives.

If you’re reading this and are wondering whether your work has a why, you’re not alone. Many of us drift into “what pays” mode. But turning toward purpose doesn’t require switching industries or starting a new company. It simply requires aligning the job you have (or the business you run) with a reason that outlasts the paycheck. And that alignment may well give you two dividends: deeper happiness and longer, richer life.

If you’re ready, try writing your mission on a sticky note. Hang it somewhere you’ll see it (I used to put mine on the bathroom mirror, and had a card in my wallet). Then let it guide you today.

You may find that your next task, your next meeting, your next idea takes on a new shape. And faster than you expect, you’ll be stacking not just work hours but days of meaning.

Share

As Louise and I have aged (our 54th wedding anniversary is in two weeks), we’ve noticed that one of the biggest challenges is keeping our posture straight and our bones from getting brittle. There’s science behind this challenge, and it gives us all suggestions for “keeping young.”

Bone is one of the few tissues in the human body that remains alive and dynamic from birth to death. It’s not the rigid, inert structure most people imagine when they think of skeletons. In fact, it’s constantly growing, dying, dissolving, and rebuilding itself through a delicate dance between two main kinds of cells—osteoblasts and osteoclasts.

This balance is what keeps us upright, protects our organs, and allows our muscles to move us through life. But as we get older, the harmony between building and breaking begins to shift, and the results can be devastating. Understanding how that process happens—and how we might slow or reverse it—is one of the quiet frontiers of aging science.

Bone is built primarily by osteoblasts, the construction workers of our skeleton. They take raw materials—calcium, phosphate, and collagen—and create new bone matrix. This matrix starts out soft, like scaffolding, then mineralizes into the hard tissue we recognize as bone. Opposing them are osteoclasts, which act more like demolition crews. They dissolve old or damaged bone so it can be replaced.

In a healthy adult, these two systems are in balance: every bit of bone that’s broken down is replaced by new bone. But that balance depends on a complex interplay of hormones, mechanical stress, and nutrients that becomes harder to maintain with age.

When we’re young, our bodies prioritize growth and repair. Hormones like growth hormone, estrogen, and testosterone all signal bone-building cells to stay active and reproduce. Even the act of moving—walking, climbing stairs, carrying groceries—tells our bones to stay strong.

Osteoblasts thrive on impact; they literally sense mechanical stress and respond by building more bone where it’s needed. That’s why astronauts lose bone density in zero gravity and bedridden patients lose it quickly in immobilized limbs. Bones are designed for stress. They grow from it, adapt to it, and depend on it.

But aging quietly changes the equation. By the time most people reach their 40s or 50s, osteoblasts start slowing down while osteoclasts keep right on working. Estrogen and testosterone, which protect against bone loss, begin to drop. In women, the sharp decline in estrogen during menopause often leads to an acceleration of bone loss so dramatic it can reach one to two percent per year.

The result is a net thinning of the bones that can culminate in osteopenia or osteoporosis. What’s more, osteoblasts themselves become less responsive to mechanical stress and less efficient at mineralizing new bone, while their numbers dwindle with each passing decade.

Yet, there’s another layer to this story that is both hopeful and cautionary. Bone cells are not fixed in number; they arise from progenitor cells—stem-like precursors in the bone marrow and periosteum (the thin tissue surrounding bones). These progenitor cells can, under the right conditions, become new osteoblasts.

Exercise, especially high-impact weight-bearing exercise, stimulates their differentiation. Nutrients like vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium fuel the process. Even exposure to sunlight, through its effect on vitamin D synthesis, plays a critical role in signaling these cells to mature. In a very real sense, every step we take outdoors in the sunshine is a small act of bone regeneration.

On the other hand, disuse and a sedentary lifestyle send the opposite message. When bones aren’t stressed, the progenitor cells shift toward becoming fat cells instead of bone cells, and osteoclasts take over the stage.

This explains why modern sedentary living, coupled with diets low in essential minerals, has created an epidemic of bone fragility even among people who think of themselves as healthy.

It also explains why impact—whether from walking, jumping, or resistance training—isn’t just good for muscle tone; it’s a direct message to your bones to stay alive.

There’s a growing body of research exploring how bone regeneration might be enhanced as we age. Some of it focuses on pharmacological ways to stimulate osteoblast activity or block osteoclast overactivity, like the bisphosphonate drugs or parathyroid hormone analogs now used for osteoporosis. Others look at stem cell therapies that could replenish the aging pool of bone-forming cells.

But many of the most effective tools we already possess are natural. Regular resistance training, adequate protein intake, and maintaining proper levels of vitamin D and K2 can have profound effects on bone density. The simple act of impact—bones striking the ground, muscles tugging on tendons, joints bearing weight—remains the single most powerful way to keep bones young.

The idea that bone “knows” when it’s being used and responds accordingly is one of nature’s most elegant feedback loops. It means that our skeleton is not a fixed thing but a living organ that senses and adapts to our behavior.

When we stop moving, bones interpret it as a signal that they’re no longer needed and begin to fade away. When we challenge them, they thicken, harden, and renew themselves. Even in old age, this feedback loop can be reawakened, though the gains are slower and more fragile than in youth.

In the larger metaphor of life, bone regeneration is a quiet but powerful reminder of resilience. Every day, millions of microscopic breaks form in our skeleton, and every day they are healed. It’s a never-ending cycle of destruction and renewal that mirrors our emotional and spiritual lives. The same principle applies: stress and impact, handled well, make us stronger. Avoiding stress entirely—physical or emotional—leads to a kind of decay. Growth comes from the right kind of pressure.

So while supplements and science continue to explore the biochemical angles of bone regeneration, the most profound lesson may be a behavioral one. Move every day. Load your bones. Walk, climb, stretch, lift, push.

Feel the impact of your feet on the ground, because your bones are listening. They respond to every signal of life you send them, even late into old age. They want to grow. They’re built to grow. But they require our participation—the literal weight of our will—to keep doing it.

In the end, strong bones are not just the foundation of our physical structure but the embodiment of our relationship with gravity, effort, and resilience itself.

Share

This past weekend, Louise and I took our weekly 2-mile hike through Portland’s Forest Park, climbing the equivalent of 30-40 stories up trails that follow the urban hills of the Tualatin Mountain range. My heartbeat, which usually only gets into the low 130s on such a hike, was spiking 145 on my Apple watch.

That was when I realized the only liquid I’d drank since before going to bed was a half a cup of coffee. I pulled out a bottle of water and downed about 8 ounces of it; within 10 minutes my heartbeat rate was down to the 120s. (My resting rate is 57.)

Apropos of this, I’ve noticed something over the past few years that both surprised and concerned me: I rarely feel thirsty anymore.

When I was younger, thirst was like an internal alarm clock: loud, immediate, and impossible to ignore. Now it’s mostly silent. My body still gives me signals, of course. My urine will turn dark, my mouth will go dry, or I’ll feel a faint lightness in my head if I stand up too quickly. But the actual sensation of thirst—the prompt that once made me go to the sink and get a glass of water—has nearly disappeared.

It turns out this isn’t just a personal quirk. Once we pass around 60 (I’m 74), the systems in the brain and body that govern thirst lose their previous sensitivity. The hypothalamic osmoreceptors that once reacted quickly to rising sodium levels or falling fluid volume just don’t sound the alarm the way they used to.

At the same time, aging muscles shrink and total body water declines, so we have a smaller margin for error. The kidneys lose some efficiency in concentrating urine, which means we lose more water than we think. Add in common medications in older adults—like diuretics or antihypertensives—and it’s easy to see how dehydration can become a chronic, low-level condition without a senior citizen ever feeling like anything is wrong.

Studies back this up. Surveys suggest that somewhere between a quarter and nearly half of older adults are underhydrated on any given day. UCLA Health has noted that up to 40 percent of adults over 65 experience chronic dehydration. Researchers writing in journals like Nutrients and The American Journal of Epidemiology have described how age-related changes in fluid balance, thirst perception, and kidney function combine to create what they call “low-intake dehydration.”

It’s not the dramatic, hospital-level kind kind of dehydration caused by vomiting or fever. It’s the slow, quiet kind that builds over days or weeks when you simply don’t drink enough because your body doesn’t ask you to.

And here’s where it becomes more than an inconvenience. There’s growing evidence that chronic dehydration in older adults may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The connection isn’t speculative. When you don’t take in enough water, your plasma volume drops. Blood becomes thicker and flows more slowly. That increased viscosity raises the likelihood of clot formation, especially in blood vessels already stiffened by age or plaque.

Researchers who followed older adults in the Adventist Health Study found that those who drank five or more glasses of water a day had a significantly lower risk of fatal coronary heart disease than those who drank two or fewer, even after accounting for lifestyle factors. Other studies have pointed to how rising blood sodium concentration and reduced plasma volume can trigger vascular inflammation, increase endothelial stress, and strain the heart.

Even modest dehydration can provoke the body to constrict blood vessels and raise heart rate to maintain pressure. In someone with aging arteries or mild diastolic dysfunction, that extra strain adds up.

A NIH-supported analysis has suggested that staying well hydrated may reduce the long-term risk of heart failure. There’s also research connecting dehydration and short-term stroke risk in people with atrial fibrillation.

When blood thickens, clots can form more easily and travel to the brain. A recent paper in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases outlined how both physiological aging and cardiovascular medications make older adults uniquely vulnerable to this cycle. The authors weren’t fearmongering; they were sounding an alarm modern medicine has largely overlooked.

To be clear, no one is claiming dehydration alone causes strokes or heart attacks. Much of the evidence is observational, and many of the mechanisms are inferred from lab and animal studies. But the convergence of data, biologic plausibility, and lived experience points in the same direction: once you’re north of 60, letting yourself slip into even mild dehydration is a cardiovascular stressor. But you might never feel thirsty while it’s happening.

That puts the burden back on awareness and habit, which is trickier than it sounds. I’ve had to train myself not to wait for thirst as the signal to drink water. Instead, I pay attention to things I used to ignore: the color of my urine, whether my mouth feels slightly tacky, whether my energy dips for no obvious reason.

Some days I do well. Other days I look at a glass sitting next to me in the late afternoon and realize I never touched it. I’ve started keeping water or green drinks at arm’s reach, drinking a glass in the morning before coffee, and sipping throughout the day whether I feel like it or not. I also remind myself that fluids don’t just come from water; herbal teas, broth, juicy fruits, and soups all help. The goal isn’t to drown myself; it’s to stay ahead of the deficit my body no longer warns me about.

The research suggests that roughly 1.7 liters a day is a reasonable floor for most older adults, adjusting for heat, activity, and health conditions. But the exact number matters less than the consistency. I’ve also found that pairing water with routines—like writing, reading, doing my radio show, or meals—keeps it effortless.

None of this is glamorous, but neither is a stroke. Every cell and capillary depends on hydration to do its job. When we’re young, the scaffolding of youth masks a lot of neglect. Past 60, the bills start to come due.

There’s a cultural habit of treating hydration as a lifestyle tip rather than a medical issue. But for older adults, it may be one of the simplest and most powerful cardiovascular interventions we’ve overlooked. The blood gets thicker, the vessels get stiffer, the kidneys get slower, and the brain gets quieter about thirst. That’s a setup that deserves attention.

I’m not interested in alarmism; I’m interested in staying alive, aware, and functional for as many years as I’m given. Water is cheaper than heart surgery and quieter than an ambulance.

So I no longer wait to feel thirsty. That signal retired before I did. I watch my body’s other indicators, I err on the side of drinking before I need it, and I treat hydration not as an afterthought but as part of aging consciously.

If you’re over 60 and you’ve noticed the same thing—that you almost never feel thirsty anymore—you’re not imagining it. The system has changed. Fortunately, we can change with it.

Share

There are moments when science throws us a curveball so surprising that it forces us to reimagine what we thought we knew about health and disease. The recent research on lithium and Alzheimer’s — the condition that took my mother — is one of those moments.

For decades lithium has been the province of psychiatrists, a blunt but effective drug used to stabilize the wild swings of bipolar disorder. Its side effects are notorious, and its therapeutic range so narrow that physicians monitor blood levels with the vigilance of a hawk. Nobody outside psychiatric wards or academic circles thought of lithium as a potential shield against dementia, much less as a mineral whose absence might trigger it.

And yet here we are, looking at evidence suggesting lithium — an elemental salt so basic that it shows up in trace amounts in rocks, soil, and even drinking water — could play a vital role in protecting the brain against the most devastating illness of aging.

The findings are dramatic enough to stop you in your tracks. A study published in Nature this summer revealed that mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s‑like pathology recovered memory and cognitive performance after being given tiny doses of lithium orotate.

Even more strikingly, the brains of those mice reversed the classic hallmarks of the disease — amyloid plaques and tau tangles that have baffled scientists for decades.

This was not incremental improvement or a slowing of decline; it was actual reversal.

When researchers examined human brain tissue from people who had died with Alzheimer’s, they found that the affected areas were depleted of lithium, consistent with the notion that amyloid plaques sequester lithium and rob brain cells of its protective presence.

We’ve known for a while that lithium has neuroprotective effects. At the cellular level it inhibits GSK‑3β, an enzyme deeply implicated in amyloid and tau formation. It boosts BDNF, a natural fertilizer for neurons that nurtures connections. It stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub, and stabilizes calcium regulation inside neurons, which otherwise can go haywire and cause cell death.

These mechanisms help us make sense of why, over the years, population‑level studies have found correlations between lithium in drinking water and lower rates of dementia and suicide. What once looked like curious footnotes now seem like early signposts pointing toward a deeper truth.

But here comes our reality check: animal studies are not the same as human evidence. The lithium in question was lithium orotate, a compound that can navigate past the brain’s defenses more effectively than traditional lithium carbonate used in psychiatry. It’s available over the counter in tiny doses, quantities vastly smaller than the therapeutic ranges used for mood disorders.

Enthusiasts online are already claiming lithium orotate as a cure for dementia, although that may be premature, and potentially dangerous. Lithium is not harmless; even low exposures can affect kidney function, thyroid health, and heart rhythms. The leap from promising animal research to self‑medication is the kind of shortcut that too often ends in tragedy; always run supplements past your physician before taking them.

Still, the excitement is justified.

Alzheimer’s has long been among the most frustrating fields of medical research. Billions have been poured into drugs targeting amyloid plaques, only to see patients continue into confusion and decline. The pharmaceutical industry has doubled down with diminishing returns while caregivers and families struggle.

To have something as simple — and unglamorous (and unprofitable, as it can’t be patented) — as a mineral salt show such profound effects feels almost heretical. It challenges our obsession with high‑tech solutions and reminds us how often we overlook the fundamentals.

There is also something profoundly poetic here. Lithium is the lightest metal in the periodic table, the element that powers our modern devices, suddenly recognized as an ancient protector of the mind. Our ancestors ingested it through natural springs and unfiltered water.

In regions where aquifers contain more lithium, communities have long shown lower rates of mood disorders and cognitive decline. For those of us living on processed foods and filtered water, perhaps we’ve stripped away even the trace mineral protections that nature once provided. Science is only beginning to explore how much micro‑doses of elemental nutrients shape mental resilience over a lifetime.

The responsible path forward is clear. We need rigorous, well‑designed human trials to determine whether micro‑physiologic doses of lithium can slow — or even reverse — Alzheimer’s progression in people. We must learn which forms of lithium work, what safe dosages look like, how long it takes to see benefit, and who is most likely to respond.

We need to know whether lithium should be part of a broader strategy including exercise, diet, cognitive engagement, or even alongside new drug therapies. And we need regulators and public health authorities watching closely as supplement makers — already eager to cash in — rush to market. Right now, 1 mg. and 5 mg. supplements of lithium orotate are widely available over-the-counter, but the safety and efficacy studies on humans are still ongoing; again, check with your doc.

Until then, the wisdom for most of us is to resist the allure of self‑medication and instead recommit to the broader foundation of brain health. The fundamentals remain: nourish your brain with whole plants and omega‑3s, move your body, keep your mind curious and connected, manage blood sugar and blood pressure, avoid toxins like tobacco and excess alcohol.

Beyond the scientific implications lies a deeper spiritual lesson. Alzheimer’s has been cast as a great thief, robbing identity, memory, connection, even the ability to recognize loved ones. For families, it is one of the most devastating illnesses. To imagine that something as humble as restoring a missing mineral might offer protection is to confront the unseen threads that connect us with the living earth.

Minerals in soil, water, the balance of elements in our bodies shape not just our physical health but our very consciousness. In a culture enamored with synthetic solutions, perhaps the universe is nudging us back toward humility. Sometimes healing comes not from invention, but from rediscovery.

Regardless of whether lithium becomes part of the standard toolkit against Alzheimer’s, this discovery demands a deeper gaze. It challenges science to move beyond the next drug molecule and consider nutrition and environment as foundational to well‑being. It urges public funding for research not just driven by patents. And it reminds us to listen to the wisdom hidden in the elements beneath our feet.

Share

Before writing this article, I sat at my desk and stared out the window at the trees around our house for about ten minutes. Here’s why.

In a world buzzing with stimulation — music in earbuds, screens flickering, messages pinging — our minds rarely get a moment of stillness. Yet, that stillness is where some of our most incredible brain work happens.

Neuroscience has revealed a hidden network in our brain, the “default mode network” (DMN), that springs into life when we disengage from the outside world and retreat into our own thoughts. Born from detailed brain‑imaging research, the DMN activates not when we’re focused on tasks, but when our minds wander, reflect, imagine, and daydream.

This isn’t idle time: it’s cognitive gold, shaping creativity, self‑reflection, memory, mental health, and learning.

Emerging studies emphasize how critical it is to schedule downtime, those moments when your mind is free to roam. Research published earlier this year in Nature reports that mice exploring virtual environments without explicit tasks or rewards still experienced meaningful neuroplastic changes.

Those mice learned new tasks faster later on than their task‑trained peers, suggesting that undirected exploration primes the brain for learning ahead of time. This underscores that downtime is not wasted; rather, it’s the brain’s backstage rehearsal preparing us for future demands.

Our DMN is far from isolated; it collaborates dynamically with other networks like the executive network (EN) and the salience network (SN) during daydreaming and creative thinking. Studies have shown that these networks interplay, allowing spontaneous thoughts and creative insights to emerge, making mind‑wandering a surprisingly rich cognitive state.

Over two decades of research has deepened our understanding: the DMN supports self‑narrative, social cognition, memory recall, future projection, and the very essence of our sense of self.

Allowing these internal narratives to form requires us to embrace times when external input drops away, and internal reflection takes center stage. Positive, constructive daydreaming (PCD) — where we envision future possibilities creatively — has been linked to richer grey matter volume, planning, impulse control, and emotional regulation. Despite the misconceptions that daydreaming is unproductive, PCD helps us connect emotional insight with forward‑looking imagination.

Moreover, quiet walks, moments without earbud‑driven distractions, and periods of single‑task focus help the DMN do its work. Even just stepping away from intense focus — like using the classic 25‑minutes‑on, 5‑minutes‑off technique — turns on the DMN, making room for creative connections and internal processing.

In this age where endless stimulation can feel productive, scheduling moments of “doing nothing” actually fuels mental clarity and innovation.

Beyond creativity and planning, the DMN plays a vital role in mental health. Dysregulation of its connectivity is linked to rumination, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. But when we’re intentional about downtime — especially with self‑aware, positive daydreaming — we strengthen mental resilience, empathy, and self‑understanding. Positive, constructive daydreaming fosters reflection, compassion, and moral thriving; traits essential not just to our personal wellbeing, but to building more just communities.

Some may worry that letting their mind wander will derail productivity. But neuroscience tells us otherwise: the DMN doesn’t shut off during tasks; it deactivates when needed and reactivates when the moment for internal work arrives.

Its ability to switch appropriately is key to cognitive health. Indeed, studies of resting‑state brain imaging show that well‑regulated DMN activity supports learning, attention, memory consolidation, and the integration of new insights.

In short, the brain’s default mode network thrives not in constant motion, but in carefully timed stillness. It’s a launchpad for creativity, self-reflection, memory, learning, and mental health. To tap into its power, we must break the habit of endless external stimulation and make room for internal quietude.

Here’s a simple invitation: build intentional “unstructured time” into your day. It could be a short walk with no podcasts, a few minutes of unscripted thought, or checking out of sensory input while washing dishes or staring out a window. These moments may feel like nothing at all, but neuroscientists suggest they’re when your brain is most productive, most alive.

So go ahead. Schedule time to daydream, to reflect, to wander, but really wander. Your brain’s default mode network is counting on it.

Share

What if I told you that a diabetes medication that costs less than a dollar a day might hold the key to your living not just longer, but healthier? What if this same drug, which has been safely prescribed for over 60 years, could potentially slow the aging process itself, all while protecting your brain, heart, and other vital organs from the ravages of time?

That drug is metformin, and the emerging science around its anti-aging properties is nothing short of astonishing.

A Humble Beginning, An Extraordinary Discovery

Metformin’s story begins centuries ago in medieval Europe, where physicians used an herb called Galega officinalis — commonly known as “goat’s rue” — to treat various ailments. In 1918 a scientist discovered that one of its ingredients, guanidine, could lower blood sugar. The modern version, metformin, was first used to treat diabetes in France in the 1950s and approved by the FDA for diabetes treatment in the United States in 1994.

But here’s where the story gets fascinating: researchers began noticing something unexpected about people taking metformin for diabetes. They weren’t just living with better blood sugar control — they were found to be living longer, healthier lives than even normal, healthy people who don’t have diabetes!

The Longevity Connection: What the Science Shows

Research suggests metformin has anti-inflammatory effects that could help protect against common age-related diseases including heart disease, cancer, and cognitive decline. This isn’t just theoretical: the evidence is mounting from multiple directions.

Studies have revealed that people taking metformin show a reduced risk of several types of cancers, including gastrointestinal, urologic and blood cancers. Even more intriguingly, there’s research pointing to improved cardiovascular outcomes in people who take metformin including a reduced risk of cardiovascular death.

Perhaps most exciting of all, a British study found a lower risk of dementia and mild cognitive decline among people with type 2 diabetes taking metformin. In our aging society, where dementia affects millions of families, this finding alone deserves serious attention, and it appears to apply to people whether they’re diabetic or not.

Breakthrough Primate Research: A Six-Year Brain Regression

The most compelling recent evidence comes from a groundbreaking 40-month study published in the prestigious journal Cell in 2024. Researchers studied healthy male cynomolgus monkeys aged 13–16 years (equivalent to 40–50 years in humans) and found that metformin administration resulted in a roughly 6-year regression in brain aging.

This wasn’t just about one organ system. The study encompassed a comprehensive suite of physiological, imaging, histological, and molecular evaluations, substantiating metformin’s influence on delaying age-related phenotypes at the organismal level. The researchers used cutting-edge techniques including DNA methylomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics to create innovative aging clocks that could measure biological age with unprecedented precision.

The geroprotective (preventing aging) effects on primate neurons were partially mediated by the activation of Nrf2, a transcription factor with anti-oxidative capabilities. This gives us insight into exactly how metformin might be protecting our cells from the oxidative stress that drives aging.

How Metformin Targets Aging at the Cellular Level

The beauty of metformin’s potential as an anti-aging intervention lies in its multi-faceted approach. Researchers are looking at how the drug may help improve energy in the cells by stimulating autophagy, which is the process of clearing out or recycling damaged bits inside cells.

Think of autophagy as your body’s cellular housekeeping system. As we age, this system becomes less efficient, allowing damaged proteins and organelles to accumulate. Metformin appears to kick this system back into high gear, helping cells maintain their youthful function.

Researchers also want to know more about how metformin can help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, which may slow biological aging. As one researcher explained it: “When there’s an excess of oxidative stress, it will damage the cell. And that accumulation of damage is essentially what aging is.”

The TAME Trial: Testing the Longevity Hypothesis

Recognition of metformin’s potential has led to the design of multiple landmark clinical trials over the past few decades. The TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) Trial is still going, with a goal of providing proof-of-concept that aging can be treated, just as we treat diseases.

This represents a paradigm shift in medicine. If aging is made an indication of a secondary biological mechanism, the TAME Trial will mark a paradigm shift: from treating each age-related medical condition separately, to treating these conditions together, by targeting aging per se.

The implications are staggering. Rather than waiting for heart disease, cancer, or dementia to develop and then treating each separately, we could potentially prevent or delay all of them simultaneously by targeting the aging process itself.

Real People, Real Results

The theoretical is becoming practical for many Americans. Michael Cantor, an attorney, and his wife Shari Cantor, the mayor of West Hartford, Connecticut both take metformin. Michael started taking it about a decade ago when his weight and blood sugar were creeping up, while Shari began during the pandemic after reading about its potential protective effects against infections.

The Cantors are in their mid-60s and both say they feel healthy and have lots of energy. Both noticed improvements in their digestive systems; feeling more “regular” after they started on the drug. As Michael puts it: “We all want to live a little longer, high-quality life if we can.”

And I can tell you from my own experience of taking it daily for about 3 years now, my side-effects are minimal and I feel great for a guy who’s 74 years old; Louise and I climb a mountain twice a week, walk miles every day, and our aging seems to have paused (although this is entirely subjective).

The Cost Factor: A Dollar a Day for Longevity

One of the most remarkable aspects of metformin’s potential is its accessibility. Metformin costs less than a dollar a day, and depending on insurance, many people pay no out-of-pocket costs for the drug. Compare that to the tens of thousands of dollars many anti-aging interventions cost, and metformin’s appeal becomes even more compelling.

This isn’t some exotic compound available only to the wealthy. It’s a generic medication that’s been safely used by millions of people for decades. It’s also available online from sites like agelessrx.com.

Beyond Diabetes: Who Might Benefit?

Here’s where the story gets particularly interesting for those of us without diabetes. Doctors have long prescribed it off-label, that is, to treat conditions outside its approved use, including: Prediabetes, Gestational diabetes, Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and, now, longevity.

Safety Considerations: What You Need to Know

Like all medications, metformin isn’t without potential side effects. They include nausea, stomach upset, and diarrhea, although when they happen these tend to be mild. Research shows a small percentage of people who take metformin experience GI distress that makes the drug intolerable. And, some people develop a b12 vitamin deficiency.

The Critical Conversation: Talk to Your Doctor

The research on metformin and longevity is compelling, but it’s important to remember that Metformin is not yet officially recognized as an anti-aging drug, and thus not currently prescribed “on-label” to extend the life span for people with or without diabetes.

That said, the evidence is substantial enough that it warrants a serious conversation with your healthcare provider. Preliminary studies suggest that metformin may actually slow aging and increase life expectancy, possibly by improving the body’s responsiveness to insulin, reduced antioxidant effects, and improved blood vessel health.

Your doctor can help you weigh the potential benefits against any risks based on your individual health profile, medications, and medical history. They can also monitor you for any side effects and ensure that metformin is appropriate for your situation.

A New Paradigm for Healthy Aging

What makes metformin so intriguing isn’t just that it might help us live longer: it’s that it might help us live better.

Studies have been stacking up. In one, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, researchers found that diabetic patients on metformin lived longer than a matched group of non-diabetics who were not taking the drug. That’s astonishing.

Other large studies have shown that metformin users have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, fewer cancers—especially gastrointestinal types—and even lower incidence of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Animal research backs this up too: mice and monkeys treated with metformin live longer, have better metabolic health, and show fewer signs of chronic inflammation as they age.

We’re potentially looking at a future where aging itself becomes a treatable condition, where we don’t just wait for diseases to develop but actively work to prevent them by maintaining our cellular machinery in a more youthful state.

The Bottom Line

Metformin represents one of the most promising and accessible potential interventions for healthy aging that we’ve seen. With decades of safety data, compelling research across multiple species, and ongoing clinical trials specifically designed to test its anti-aging effects, it deserves serious consideration from anyone interested in extending their healthspan.

The dream of extending human healthspan—the years we live in good health—may be closer to reality than we think. And it might just come in the form of a simple, inexpensive now-generic pill that’s been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Important Note: This article is for educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before starting any new medication or treatment regimen. Metformin is a prescription medication that requires medical supervision.

Share

Every weekend, Louise and I visit Forest Park here in Portland, the largest wild area within a city in the world, with 5,200 acres and over 80 miles of trails. There are some pretty steep climbs and we try to get seriously out of breath.

Not only is it good exercise and a nice opportunity to get away from our electronics and just talk with each other, but communing with nature has well-known positive emotional and psychic effects that help regulate mood and even improve physical health.

On last Sunday’s walk, Louise wondered out loud if regularly walking in nature could also help reduce inflammatory conditions like asthma. It reminded me that back in the early 1990s, I met a woman named Sarah at a conference in Portland who told me something I found both fascinating and counterintuitive.

Sarah had suffered from severe asthma her entire adult life, requiring multiple medications and occasional emergency room visits. “Then I moved to a small cabin near Mount Hood,” she said, “and within three months, I was using my rescue inhaler maybe once a month instead of daily.” When I asked her what changed, she simply said, “I walk in the forest every morning. That's the only thing different in my life.”

I thought about Sarah recently when my conversation with Louise led to my reading about the “hygiene hypothesis,” first proposed by epidemiologist David Strachan in 1989. His radical suggestion was that our increasingly sanitized modern environments might actually be contributing to the alarming rise in allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders we’ve seen over the past several decades. It struck me as deeply ironic — our quest for cleanliness potentially undermining our health.

The hygiene hypothesis has since evolved into what scientists now more accurately call the “Old Friends'“ hypothesis. The problem isn't simply that we’re too clean; it's that we’ve lost regular contact with specific microorganisms that humans co-evolved with throughout our evolutionary history. These “old friends” — found in soil, plants, animals, and unpolluted natural environments — appear critical in training our immune systems to distinguish between harmless environmental particles and genuine threats.

Think about it: for 99% of human existence, we lived intimately connected to natural environments, constantly exposed to a rich diversity of microbes. Only in the past few generations have we created virtually sterile indoor environments, doused everything in antimicrobial chemicals, and separated ourselves from the microbial world that shaped our immune system's development. Our bodies simply haven’t adapted to this dramatic change.

The consequences are becoming increasingly clear. A landmark 2015 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared the immune profiles of Amish children (who grow up on traditional farms with daily exposure to livestock and soil) to genetically similar Hutterite children (who live on industrialized farms with limited direct exposure to animals and soil). Despite their genetic similarities, Amish children had dramatically lower rates of asthma and allergies, a difference the researchers attributed directly to their microbial exposure.

But what about those of us who didn’t grow up on farms or spend our childhoods playing in the dirt? If you’re like Sarah, already suffering from asthma or other inflammatory conditions, is it too late to recalibrate your immune system?

Emerging research suggests it may not be. A fascinating body of evidence comes from studies on “forest bathing” (Shinrin-Yoku), a Japanese practice of immersing oneself (with your clothes on!) in forest environments. Dr. Qing Li, an immunologist at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, has conducted extensive research showing that when people spend time in forests, they experience measurable changes in their immune function.

In one study, Li took a group of middle-aged Tokyo businessmen into the forest for three days. Blood tests revealed significant increases in natural killer (NK) cells, the immune cells that play a vital role in fighting infections and cancerous cells. More remarkably, these participants showed decreased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, the very signaling molecules that drive excessive inflammatory responses in conditions like asthma. Most surprisingly, these beneficial immune changes persisted for more than 30 days after their forest visit.

It makes perfect sense, after all. Our immune systems didn’t evolve in a vacuum; they developed in constant dialogue with the microbial world around us. When we restore some of that dialogue through forest exposure, we’re essentially reminding the immune system how it was designed to function.

This makes intuitive sense when you consider our evolutionary history. Our ancestors didn’t suffer from high rates of allergies and asthma despite (or perhaps because of) their constant exposure to diverse microbial environments. The human immune system appears to need this microbial diversity to develop properly and maintain balance.

A groundbreaking 2020 study published in Science Advances provided even more direct evidence. Researchers in Finland modified urban daycare playgrounds, replacing sterile gravel with forest floor materials: rich soil, native plants, and the diverse microbiota they contain. After just 28 days, children playing on these naturalized playgrounds showed increased diversity in both their skin and gut microbiomes. More importantly, they exhibited increases in regulatory T cells, those specialized immune cells that help prevent allergic reactions and dampen excessive immune responses.

While this particular study focused on children, its implications extend to adults as well. Our microbiomes remain somewhat plastic throughout life, capable of responding to environmental changes. When we walk through biodiverse forests, we expose ourselves to a rich tapestry of microorganisms that can influence our own microbial communities and, by extension, our immune function.

There’s another fascinating aspect to forest exposure that has particular relevance for asthma sufferers: phytoncides. These are natural oils released by trees and plants as part of their defense system against bacteria and insects. When humans inhale these aromatic compounds during forest walks, they trigger beneficial physiological responses.

Research shows that phytoncide exposure reduce levels of stress hormones, decreases sympathetic nervous system activity (associated with the “fight-or-flight” response), and enhance parasympathetic nervous system function (associated with “rest-and-digest” activities). For asthma sufferers, whose symptoms can be triggered or worsened by stress, these effects could provide additional relief beyond the direct immune-modulating benefits.

Laboratory studies have gone further, demonstrating that certain phytoncides have direct anti-inflammatory properties. Alpha-pinene, for example, a compound abundant in pine forests, has been shown to reduce inflammatory markers in lung tissue and may help soothe irritated airways, potentially reducing the hypersensitivity characteristic of asthma.

Not all green spaces offer equal benefits, however. A 2019 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that adults living near areas with greater biodiversity had lower rates of asthma exacerbations and hospital visits compared to those living near less diverse green spaces. This suggests that the microbial diversity of the environment plays a crucial role; old-growth forests with varied plant species likely offer greater immune benefits than manicured urban parks with limited biodiversity.

It turns out there’s a growing body of research suggesting that regular forest exposure may help moderate inflammatory conditions. The combination of stress reduction, exposure to diverse microbiota, and inhalation of beneficial plant compounds appears to create an environment conducive to immune balancing.

None of this means we should abandon modern medicine or hygiene practices. Prescription medications save lives, and basic hygiene prevents the spread of dangerous pathogens. Forest walks won’t “cure” asthma or completely reverse the effects of growing up in highly sanitized environments. But they may offer a meaningful complement to conventional treatments; a way of addressing one of the potential root causes of our modern epidemic of inflammatory conditions.

If you suffer from asthma, allergies, or other inflammatory conditions, consider adding regular walks in biodiverse natural environments to your self-care routine. Seek out older, established forests with diverse plant species rather than recently planted or highly manicured parks. Go regularly: benefits appear to accumulate with consistent exposure. And when you're there, engage fully: touch plants (safely), breathe deeply, and fully engage your senses.

The prescription for what ails us may, at least in part, be written not in the pharmacy but in the forest. Our immune systems evolved in constant dialogue with the natural world. Perhaps it’s time we rejoined that conversation.

Share

It’s winter — and a great time to think about saunas!

Louise and I have added a sauna, soaker tub, or steam room to every house we’ve purchased since the early 1980s. Back in the 1970s, I’d read an article about how saunas boost the immune system, and ever since then every time I get sick I hop into the sauna or a hot bath. And it works!

Now, science is figuring out how and why this is so successful that it’s persisted throughout cultures across the world for millennia.

Sauna therapy encompasses subjecting the body to heat stress, inducing mild hyperthermia characterized by an elevation in the body’s core temperature. This hyperthermic condition activates various physiological systems aimed at restoring normal body temperature, thus presenting therapeutic advantages.

Central to these advantages lies the principle of hormesis, a biological concept where exposure to a mild stressor, such as heat or extended fasting, triggers a defensive response in the body that surpasses the expected reaction to the stressor.

It is, in other words, abiological response to moderate stress that improves the body's ability to handle more severe challenges. This response initiates a range of protective mechanisms, not only repairing cellular damage but also enhancing resilience against more severe future stressors.

It strengthens you, in other words, particularly your immune system.

Remarkably, the hormetic responses induced by heat stress in sauna therapy closely resemble those activated by exercise, particularly in terms of repairing cellular damage and fortifying the body against stress. This resemblance has even led researchers to explore sauna therapy as a plausible alternative to traditional aerobic exercises, especially for individuals facing challenges in engaging in regular exercise due to chronic diseases or physical limitations.

Furthermore, the stressors induced by sauna therapy intersect with pathways related to the “12 Hallmarks of Aging,” a conceptual framework categorizing biological processes associated with aging. Notably impacted hallmarks include cellular senescence (old cells that have ceased to function but still consume nutrients and energy, causing more rapid aging) and loss of proteostasis, aka the proper folding of proteins.

Unraveling Hormesis and Cellular Senescence

The activation of the body’s intrinsic stress-response systems through hormesis, as triggered by sauna therapy, extends beyond immediate stress coping; it plays a crucial role in reinforcing the body against future challenges, including aspects of aging like cellular senescence.

Cellular senescence, a biological process where cells cease to divide and gradually cease normal functions, contributes significantly to age-related health complications as more cells enter this senescent state with aging. Senescent cells secrete inflammatory markers known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), including pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, and proteases.

The SASP has the potential to exacerbate tissue inflammation, often leading to chronic inflammatory conditions implicated in various age-related diseases. Moreover, these secreted factors can induce senescence in neighboring healthy cells, creating a cascading effect that accelerates tissue aging and dysfunction.

By inducing a mild stress response in a controlled environment, sauna bathing may enhance the body’s resilience to the inflammatory effects and intercellular influences of senescent cells, potentially slowing the aging process and improving overall health. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of heat-induced stress at a cellular level is crucial to comprehend how heat stress induces this resilience.

The Role of Heat Stress and Heat Shock Proteins in Sustaining Proteostasis

As we age, a critical challenge our bodies face is the loss of proteostasis, the delicate balance of synthesizing, folding, and degrading proteins crucial for cellular function. Disruption of this balance with age leads to an accumulation of misfolded or dysfunctional proteins, a hallmark of aging linked to various age-related diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders.

To mitigate protein misfolding and dysfunction, heat stress targets this process by increasing heat shock proteins (HSPs), acting as molecular chaperones ensuring proper protein folding and preventing the aggregation of damaged proteins. In aging, where the cellular machinery for protein maintenance becomes less efficient, HSPs become increasingly vital.

HSPs not only prevent protein disorder and aggregation but also play a crucial role in preventing muscle loss and atrophy. Studies on rodents reveal that local heat application can substantially reduce muscle atrophy during periods of immobilization, highlighting the potential of heat exposure, as experienced in sauna therapy, in preserving muscle strength and integrity — a key factor in healthspan as we age.

Research increasingly indicates a correlation between HSPs and human longevity. A study of Danish nonagenarians (people over 90 years old) suggests that genetic variants influencing the production of stable and functional HSPs may contribute to a longer lifespan. This underscores the potential of increasing HSP levels through practices like sauna therapy.

Regardless of the stress source, though, cells respond to stress, including heat stress in sauna therapy, by increasing HSP expression. Studies show a significant and sustained increase in HSP levels with sauna therapy, indicating its efficacy in stimulating the body's production of protective proteins.

The Impact of Sauna Therapy on Mitochondrial Function and Biogenesis

Studies on sauna therapy demonstrate not only increased HSP levels but also significant improvements in mitochondrial function—a critical aspect of cellular health. These improvements include enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis biomarkers and increased mitochondrial respiratory capacity, crucial measures of metabolic health.

Mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses, play a vital role in energy production and metabolic processes. Mitochondrial biogenesis, the creation of new mitochondria, is essential for overall healthspan. Healthy mitochondrial function is associated with efficient energy production, improved metabolic health, reduced risk of chronic diseases, and potential impacts on aging and longevity.

Regulating Inflammatory Responses for Enhanced Lifespan: Sauna Therapy's Influence on Immune Balance

Inflammation serves as a vital defense against infections and supports the healing process following injuries, with a robust immune system being pivotal for optimizing lifespan. However, the transformation of inflammation into a chronic low-grade state after the acute phase can pose a dual threat.

Persistent inflammation, often associated with aging, stems from an imbalance in pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory factors. The diminishing ability to regulate these factors results in an inflammatory bias, marked by an overly dominant innate immune response, leading to chronic inflammation—a condition increasingly recognized as detrimental to overall health.

At the core of this delicate balance is Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a pro-inflammatory cytokine central to immune response and inflammation regulation. IL-6’s role is intricate: while promoting inflammation, it also activates interleukin-10 (IL-10), a potent anti-inflammatory cytokine. The interplay between these cytokines is crucial for the immune response, with acute elevation of IL-6 proving beneficial, but chronic elevation linked to persistent inflammation and various health issues.

Fascinatingly, activities elevating core body temperature, such as exercise and sauna use, exhibit promising effects on these cytokines.

Several studies indicate acute increases in both IL-6 and IL-10 levels in the plasma following thermal therapies like sauna use. This acute rise holds significance as IL-6 and IL-10 play pivotal roles in the body's immune and inflammatory responses, with the noteworthy increase in IL-10 highlighting its role as a potent anti-inflammatory cytokine.

The ability of sauna therapy to boost IL-10 expression suggests a potential role in modulating inflammatory responses positively. This modulation could have broad implications, especially in managing and mitigating chronic inflammation associated with aging and various chronic diseases.

Sauna Therapy and Cardiovascular Well-being: Mitigating CRP Levels and Inflammatory Risks

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a key player in the body’s acute phase response, swiftly increasing during tissue injury, infection, or inflammation: it’s so clear an indication of problems that your doctor can order a test to determine if your levels are elevated.

While crucial for the immune system’s immediate defense mechanisms, sustained elevated CRP levels pose heightened cardiovascular risks, including atherosclerosis and increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases.

Emerging research suggests that sauna use may effectively reduce blood CRP levels. In a notable study involving over 2000 men in Finland, frequent sauna bathing demonstrated an inverse relationship with CRP levels in a dose-response manner. The more frequently individuals engaged in sauna therapy, the lower their CRP levels tended to be, presenting a potential strategy for reducing inflammatory risks and promoting cardiovascular health.

The implications extend beyond CRP levels, pointing to the broader potential of sauna-induced heat stress in modulating various inflammatory markers. This modulation could contribute to an improved healthspan, reducing the risk of chronic diseases linked to inflammation, particularly cardiovascular diseases.

Sauna Therapy and Heart Health: Parallels with Exercise in Cardiovascular Enhancement

Exposure to heat during sauna bathing elicits physiological responses akin to those observed during exercise, offering notable benefits for cardiovascular health.

Biological responses observed in sauna bathing closely mirror those in exercise.

Moderate-temperature sauna sessions elevate heart rate, comparable to moderate to vigorous physical activity, showcasing similar cardiac responses. Studies measuring the cardiac responses of individuals engaging in both sauna bathing and moderate physical activity demonstrated nearly identical patterns.

When I take a sauna or a long hot bath (both produce the same response) I’ll track my heartbeat rate to roughly measure the elevation of my core temperature. If I can kick it up about 10-20 beats per minute, I know I’ve hit a point where my body is in a “fever” state and is now producing the positive effects of the heat therapy. (Check with your doctor before trying this.)

Regular sauna use, akin to exercise, results in decreased blood pressure, increased heart function, improved blood flow, and enhanced ventilation, contributing to overall cardiovascular well-being. The Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease (KIHD) Risk Factor study further supports these findings, revealing a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease mortality associated with more frequent sauna bathing.

The effectiveness of sauna bathing is influenced by both duration and frequency. Regular sessions lasting at least 19 minutes have demonstrated significant positive effects, presenting sauna therapy as a non-invasive approach to promote cardiovascular health.

Sauna Therapy as a Non-Invasive Strategy for Improving Lipid Profiles and Reducing Cardiovascular Risk

Dyslipidemia, characterized by abnormal lipid levels in the blood, is a significant predictor of cardiovascular disease risk and the reason millions of Americans are on statin drugs.

Emerging research explores the potential benefits of regular sauna use in positively influencing lipid profiles, offering a non-invasive avenue for enhancing heart health.

Small-scale studies involving healthy adults engaging in sauna sessions demonstrated promising results. Reductions in total plasma cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) concentrations were observed, representing positive changes associated with reduced cardiovascular risk.

While these findings are promising, the limitations of small-scale and short-term studies should be acknowledged. Larger, longer-term investigations are necessary to confirm these benefits and comprehensively understand sauna therapy’s role in managing dyslipidemia and reducing cardiovascular risks.

Sauna-Induced Heat Stress and Cognitive Health: Elevating Neurotrophic Factors for Neuroprotection

Cognitive decline associated with aging is linked to neuronal atrophy and inflammation. Elevating neurotrophic factors, crucial for neuronal development and effective communication, presents a potential strategy for neuroprotection.

Sauna therapy, inducing heat stress, has been linked to increased neurotrophic factors, contributing to neurogenesis — the generation of new neurons. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a key protein influencing neurons, shows elevated levels following heat stress and exercise. Research indicates that increased BDNF levels can have far-reaching neurological benefits, including improved cognitive function and mental well-being.

An insightful study examining the impact of heat stress on BDNF levels revealed a significant increase after a session of hot water immersion. This rise correlated with elevated core body temperature, emphasizing the physiological response to heat stress. The enhanced expression of BDNF holds promise for improving cognitive health, especially in brain regions critical for learning, memory, and executive functions.

The Relationship Between Sauna Usage and Decreased Risk of Neurodegenerative Conditions

A significant observational investigation involving middle-aged Finnish men offers intriguing insights into the association between consistent sauna usage and a lowered risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

According to the study, men engaging in sauna sessions 4–7 times weekly displayed a remarkable 65% reduced risk of Alzheimer's compared to those utilizing it only once weekly. This discovery sheds light on potential mechanisms by which frequent sauna use may contribute to the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases.

Maintaining optimal cognitive function relies on sufficient blood flow to the brain and peripheral nervous system. The intricate connection between cardiovascular health and cognitive abilities is well-established, with conditions like hypertension known to alter cerebral blood vessel microarchitecture, potentially impeding cerebral blood flow. This impairment, observed in both mice and humans, is considered a critical concern as poor cerebral blood flow is linked to reduced clearance of amyloid-beta, potentially hastening the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Furthermore, sauna-induced heat exposure has been linked to an increased production of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Elevated BDNF levels could potentially support brain health and cognitive function. Additionally, as highlighted earlier, the rise in heat shock proteins following sauna sessions plays a crucial role in preventing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Sauna Bathing and the Process of Detoxification

In today’s modern environment, we inevitably encounter chemical pollution that can inflict damage on our cells and DNA. Additionally, contemporary lifestyles often lack exposure to natural health-promoting factors such as daily sunlight, consumption of wholesome foods, and maintaining a rhythmic daily routine, all crucial for our well-being. Sauna bathing emerges as an appealing intervention as it effectively facilitates cellular detoxification and regeneration.

As discussed earlier, one of the physiological effects of passive heat exposure during sauna bathing is an increased expression of Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs). These proteins play a crucial role in detoxifying our bodies by eliminating toxic protein aggregates, enhancing tissue oxygenation, improving circulation, and elevating metabolic activity.

Moreover, by raising the body’s core temperature, saunas induce sweat production, akin to the process during exercise. Sweating stands out as one of the most effective ways to rid our bodies of toxins.

Heavy metals such as mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and chromium (Cr) are often ingested through contaminated food and water. These metals resist decomposition in the body and exhibit high levels of biological toxicity. Sweating, whether through activities like sauna bathing or dynamic exercise, offers a straightforward means of eliminating these heavy metals from our bodies.

In a study involving 12 healthy young university students, participants were either asked to run on a treadmill or sit in a sauna. Sweat samples collected from both groups were analyzed for heavy metals, including nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), arsenic (As), and mercury (Hg). Both activities, exercise, and sauna bathing resulted in detectable amounts of these heavy metals in sweat, indicating that sauna bathing, much like exercise, can effectively detoxify the body of heavy metals through sweating.

Studies comparing sauna use to exercise have consistently demonstrated that regular sauna bathing promotes the expression of HSPs and sweating, aiding our bodies in eliminating various toxic substances, from misfolded proteins to heavy metals.

The Role of Thermal Stress in Modulating Cortisol and Serotonin Levels for Stress Relief

One of the primary motivations for sauna usage is relaxation and stress relief. Sauna use has consistently been linked to feelings of relaxation and an enhanced sense of well-being. This effect can be attributed to specific hormonal changes induced by sauna bathing, making individuals less susceptible to stress and anxiety.

Cortisol, a key hormone associated with stress, functions as nature’s built-in alarm system. During periods of heightened stress, cortisol levels surge and may interfere with immune, reproductive, digestive, and growth functions. When stress diminishes, cortisol levels naturally decrease. However, consistent exposure to stress can disrupt this natural decline in hormonal levels.

Regular sauna use trains the body to cope more effectively with stressful situations. Each sauna session exposes the body to thermal stress, gradually increasing tolerance.

A study measuring cortisol levels in people unfamiliar with sauna bathing found that while thermal stress from the sauna raised cortisol levels in all participants, those undergoing multiple sessions exhibited a smaller increase compared to those with just one session. This suggests that repeated sauna use conditions the body to manage stress more efficiently by moderating the rise in cortisol levels.

Apart from cortisol, sauna bathing promotes the release of serotonin — which regulates a team of “maintenance workers” in the brain ensuring smooth operations. These workers regulate anxiety, sleep, appetite, and overall emotional well-being.

Insufficient serotonin levels can lead to increased anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other emotional imbalances. Heat exposure during a sauna session prompts the release of serotonin in the brain, ensuring that mental well-being remains stable and positive, alleviating feelings of stress and anxiety.

The bottom line here is that a regular sauna (or hottub, steam-room, or hot bath) can really help maintain your physical and mental health as well as extend your lifespan!

Share

Here’s something that might blow your mind: the most powerful tool for managing pain isn’t in your medicine cabinet — it’s in your head. And before you dismiss this as some new-age wishful thinking, let me tell you about a breakthrough study that’s changing everything we thought we knew about pain management.

Scientists at UC San Diego’s School of Medicine have just confirmed what ancient wisdom traditions have been telling us for millennia: mindfulness meditation isn’t just effective at reducing pain — it actually works better than placebo treatments, and it does so by activating entirely different pathways in the brain.

This is a game-changer for the millions of Americans living with chronic pain. Think about it: no prescriptions, no side effects, no costs — just the untapped power of your own mind.

Let me break down what makes this discovery so revolutionary. We all know about the placebo effect — that fascinating phenomenon where people feel better simply because they believe they’re getting treatment. But here’s where things get interesting: mindfulness meditation isn’t just another placebo. It’s doing something completely different in your brain.

Dr. Fadel Zeidan, who led this groundbreaking research at UC San Diego’s Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, puts it this way: mindfulness meditation helps you separate pain from your sense of self. Instead of getting caught up in judging and fighting against pain, you learn to experience it differently. The result? Less suffering, without a single pill.

The research team put this to the test with 115 participants, comparing four different approaches: guided mindfulness meditation, a placebo cream (basically petroleum jelly that participants thought would help), fake meditation (just deep breathing), and listening to an audiobook. They applied painful (but safe) heat to participants’ legs and scanned their brains throughout the process.

The results were remarkable. Not only did mindfulness meditation significantly reduce both pain intensity and unpleasantness compared to all other interventions, but it was the only treatment that actually reduced activity in the neural pain signal — a specific pattern of brain activity we know is associated with pain.

This matters tremendously, especially given our current opioid crisis. Millions of people are trapped in cycles of medication dependency, dealing with diminishing returns and often devastating side effects. Mindfulness offers a way out — a practice that’s available to anyone, anywhere, without the risks associated with pharmaceuticals.

What’s particularly fascinating is that mindfulness works whether you “believe” in it or not. Unlike placebos, which rely on your expectations, mindfulness is a direct, intentional practice that puts you back in control of your pain experience. It helps reduce the connection between brain areas involved in self-awareness and emotional regulation, essentially helping you experience pain without letting it dominate your consciousness.

Dr. Zeidan and his team are now looking at how to integrate these findings into clinical settings to help those who need it most. While this particular study focused on healthy participants, the implications for people living with chronic pain are enormous.

Want to give it a try? The beauty of mindfulness meditation is its simplicity. You don’t need special equipment or years of practice — participants in this study saw significant pain relief after just a few guided sessions. All you need is a quiet place, a comfortable position, and your breath.

In our world of quick fixes and instant solutions, mindfulness offers something more profound: a way to transform your relationship with pain and, ultimately, with yourself. It’s not about avoiding pain — it’s about changing how your brain processes it.

This research represents more than just a scientific breakthrough — it’s a reminder of our innate capacity for healing and resilience. In a time when we’re increasingly dependent on external solutions for our well-being, mindfulness shows us that sometimes the most powerful medicine isn’t medicine at all — it’s the extraordinary potential of our own minds.

The most revolutionary aspect of all this? It’s completely accessible. No prescriptions needed. No insurance required. Just you, your breath, and the willingness to explore a different way of being with pain. In a healthcare system that often feels out of our control, that’s not just empowering — it’s revolutionary.

Share

My mother died of Alzheimer’s. She was also a lifelong sugar junkie.

When we were kids, she used to make “healthy” treats for us by rolling two or three tablespoons of sugar up in a lettuce leaf to the shape of a cigar. Meals weren’t complete without dessert.

Alzheimer’s apparently has a few causes, including an apparent genetic component, but increasingly scientists are thinking it and other forms of dementia are, at their base, related to a warping of the body’s normal regulation of blood sugar, principally through the insulin our pancreases produce.

Recent research has revealed an alarming connection between sugar consumption and dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. While our brains need glucose for energy, emerging studies have shown that excessive sugar intake may significantly increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

The mechanisms behind this connection are complex and multifaceted. Scientists have discovered that consuming too much sugar can lead to insulin resistance, compromising the brain’s ability to effectively use glucose and potentially impairing cognitive function.

Additionally, high sugar intake triggers increased inflammation throughout the body, including the brain, contributing to various neurodegenerative diseases. Throughout my life, I’ve known that I can knock myself out at night by consuming a lot of sugar, even when it’s just dried fruit. (I suspect that drinking alcohol, which converts to sugar in the liver, does the same thing.)

Now, looking at the research, I’m wondering how much damage that may have done to my brain and if this is how my mom ended up where she was.

When excess sugar combines with proteins in the body, for example, it forms Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs), which researchers have linked to the development of amyloid plaques—a hallmark characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. High blood sugar levels can also damage blood vessels in the brain, reducing blood flow and oxygen supply to brain cells, which may lead to cognitive impairment.

The evidence supporting these concerns is substantial.

A 2024 study examining over 210,000 participants demonstrated that both absolute and relative increases in sugar intake significantly correlated with higher risks of all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Research presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference highlighted that higher consumption of sugary drinks was associated with increased Alzheimer’s risk.

The Harvard Medical School reports that even incremental increases in blood sugar levels corresponded with higher dementia risk, even in individuals without diabetes.

Different sugars appear to affect the brain in varying ways. Studies have identified fructose and sucrose as particularly problematic for dementia risk, while another large study focusing on women found that lactose showed a stronger correlation with Alzheimer's risk compared to other sugar types.

Experts recommend several practical approaches to reducing sugar intake. Limiting sugary beverages has become a primary focus, as research directly links these drinks to increased Alzheimer’s risk. Careful attention to nutrition labels, gradual reduction of sugar in recipes, and choosing whole foods over processed options can help decrease overall sugar consumption. Many processed foods contain hidden sugars, making awareness of ingredients crucial.

The Mediterranean diet and MIND diet have shown promise in supporting cognitive function. These eating patterns emphasize fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats like olive oil and nuts, while limiting processed foods and added sugars.

Healthcare professionals stress that while the relationship between sugar consumption and dementia risk continues to be studied, reducing sugar intake may benefit brain health.

In a recent article here in the Wisdom School, I noted that my physician has me on Metformin as an anti-aging drug (I am not diabetic). It principally down-regulates blood sugar, so I looked into the research between taking Metformin and a reduced risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s; what I found was amazing.

One study found that Metformin could reduce the incidence of dementia in diabetic patients by a full 34 percent. Another “study of 12,220 early terminators and 29,126 routine users of Metformin found that cessation of Metformin therapy without abnormal kidney function markers was associated with 1.21 times the hazard of dementia diagnosis.”

Making informed choices about sugar consumption and adopting a balanced, nutrient-rich diet along with appropriate medication to control blood sugar, particuarly in diabetic individuals, could be crucial steps in protecting cognitive health as we age.

While the evidence doesn’t suggest that sugar directly causes dementia, this growing body of research indicates that managing sugar intake — particulary simple sugars like in processed foods, candy, soft drinks, and dried fruit — could be an important factor in maintaining cognitive health.

I just wish I’d known this when my mom was still alive…

Share

While I have the gene for Type 2 diabetes and can get whacked if I consume too much sugar, my A1C and fasting glucose have never been high enough for a formal diagnosis. Nonetheless, my physician has prescribed 500 milligrams of time-release Metformin for me to take every day with my evening meal.

He did this because it will almost certainly prolong my life. Here’s how:

For decades, Metformin has been a cornerstone in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. This humble medication, derived from the French lilac plant, has helped millions manage their blood sugar levels. However, recent research suggests that Metformin’s benefits may extend far beyond diabetes control, potentially offering a key to slowing the aging process and extending healthy lifespan.

Metformin is one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world; over 200 million people take it today, and it’s been on the market for over 60 years.

The Metformin Revolution

Metformin’s journey from diabetes treatment to potential anti-aging wonder drug has captured the attention of researchers worldwide. Scientists have observed that people taking Metformin for diabetes seem to live longer and stay healthier compared to both diabetics not taking the drug and — in a finding that initially shocked the scientists — even non-diabetic individuals like me. This intriguing finding has led to a surge of interest in Metformin’s potential as a broad-spectrum tool for promoting longevity and health.

How Metformin Fights Aging

At the cellular level, Metformin appears to act like a Swiss Army knife, targeting multiple aspects of the aging process simultaneously. Here’s how it may work:

1. Calorie restriction mimicry: Metformin seems to mimic some of the beneficial effects of calorie restriction, a well-known strategy for extending lifespan in various species.

2. Energy efficiency: The drug activates AMPK, a cellular energy sensor that helps cells use energy more efficiently.

3. Cellular cleanup: Metformin promotes autophagy, the body’s process for clearing out damaged cells and recycling their components.

4. Reducing inflammation and oxidative stress: These are two major contributors to aging and age-related diseases.

5. Targeting multiple aging hallmarks: Metformin appears to influence several key aspects of aging, including nutrient sensing, proteostasis, mitochondrial function, and cellular communication.

The TAME Study: A Landmark Investigation

The most ambitious effort to prove Metformin’s anti-aging potential is the TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) study. Led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, this groundbreaking clinical trial aims to demonstrate that aging itself can be treated as a medical condition.

The TAME study will involve 3,000 older adults without diabetes, half of whom will receive Metformin while the other half receives a placebo. Researchers will assess whether Metformin can delay the onset of multiple age-related diseases and improve overall health and function.

If successful, TAME could revolutionize how we approach aging and disease prevention. It may pave the way for the FDA to recognize aging as a treatable condition, potentially opening floodgates for more research and innovation in this field.

Beyond Diabetes: Metformin’s Potential Benefits

Research suggests that Metformin may offer protection against a range of age-related conditions:

1. Cardiovascular disease: Studies have shown reduced mortality rates in diabetic patients taking Metformin.

2. Cancer: Some evidence indicates Metformin may have anti-cancer properties (when Louise underwent chemo for breast cancer a decade ago, her physician put her on Metformin for just this reason).

3. Cognitive decline: Preliminary research suggests potential benefits for brain health and dementia prevention.

4. Obesity: Metformin may aid in weight management.

5. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS): The drug is sometimes prescribed to help regulate menstruation and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

The Science Behind Metformin’s Anti-Aging Effects

While the exact mechanisms are still being studied, researchers have identified several ways Metformin may influence the aging process:

1. Improved insulin sensitivity: By enhancing the body’s response to insulin, Metformin may help prevent age-related metabolic decline.

2. Reduced oxidative stress: The drug appears to have antioxidant effects, potentially protecting cells from damage.

3. Enhanced vascular health: Metformin may improve blood vessel function, which is crucial for overall health as we age.

4. Modulation of cellular energy pathways: By activating AMPK, Metformin influences how cells produce and use energy, which may have far-reaching effects on aging.

5. Epigenetic changes: Some research suggests Metformin may influence gene expression in ways that promote longevity.

Animal Studies and Human Observations

Evidence for Metformin’s anti-aging effects comes from both animal studies and human observations:

• In nematode worms, Metformin increased mean lifespan by up to 36% at certain concentrations.

• Mice given Metformin showed increased lifespan and healthspan, with effects similar to caloric restriction.

• Observational studies in humans have found that diabetic patients taking Metformin often have lower mortality rates and better health outcomes compared to those not taking the drug.

However, it’s important to note that not all studies have shown positive results. For example, Metformin did not extend lifespan in fruit flies and was toxic at higher doses.

Potential Risks and Side Effects

While Metformin is generally considered safe, it’s not without potential side effects. The most common issues include gastrointestinal discomfort, such as nausea, diarrhea, and stomach upset (I’ve found taking a good probiotic ameliorates this). 

In rare cases, Metformin can cause a serious condition called lactic acidosis, particularly in people with kidney problems.

Additionally, long-term use of Metformin may lead to vitamin B12 deficiency in some individuals, so regular monitoring is important.

The Future of Metformin as an Anti-Aging Treatment

The potential of Metformin as an anti-aging treatment is exciting, but more research is needed before it can be widely recommended for this purpose. The TAME study and other ongoing research will be crucial in determining whether Metformin can truly slow aging and extend healthy lifespan in humans.

If these studies show positive results, it could lead to a paradigm shift in how we approach age-related diseases. Instead of treating each condition separately, we might be able to target the underlying biology of aging itself, potentially preventing or delaying the onset of multiple age-related diseases simultaneously.

Already, there are several online physician services that will prescribe and ship Metformin to people for its anti-aging properties regardless of their diabetes status. They include Healthspan, AgelessRX, and IvyRX.

Conclusion

While the evidence for Metformin’s anti-aging effects is promising, it’s important to remember that the drug is not currently approved for this use. Anyone considering taking Metformin for its potential anti-aging benefits should consult with a healthcare provider to discuss the potential risks and benefits.

In the meantime, there are many proven strategies for promoting healthy aging, including regular exercise, a balanced diet, stress management, and staying socially active. As research into Metformin and other potential anti-aging interventions continues, we may be on the cusp of a new era in how we approach health and longevity.

Share

Do you have a sense of purpose in your life? A mission that feels larger than your own existence? If so, an amazing new 14-year longitudinal study finds that you’ll be far less likely to develop dementia in your later years.

I didn’t grow up Jewish, but early in my life my parents and two of my mentors impressed upon me the importance of Tikkun olam (קּוּן עוֹלָם), our collective and individual obligation — by virtue of our birth here on Earth — to help heal the world.

That led me from joining SDS in the 1960s, to being ordained and pastoring a church in Detroit for two years in the 1970s, to getting rostered as a psychotherapist and writing about ADHD, to Louise and me starting a community for abused kids, to doing international relief work on five continents.

Louise (who shares this belief) and I have also started and eventually sold five successful (and one unsuccessful) businesses during our 53 years of marriage, and every one of them had a mission statement that included the concept of helping, inspiring, or healing people.

Occasionally, friends our age will ask why we haven’t retired now that we’re in our 70s, and our answer is always the same: “We still have so much work to do!” I frankly can’t imagine curling up in front of the TV or taking a cruise around the world instead of doing everything I can to try to make this a better place for humanity and all life on Earth.

And now we discover that that very sense of purpose may be keeping us young and insulating our brains from the sort of deterioration that’s so common among the elderly.

This remarkable study published in the journal Neuropsychiatry documents how people who’ve developed both full-blown dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in their later years were found to have lacked — as much as 3 to 6 years earlier — a sense of purpose in their lives. As the authors of the study noted:

“Considering different well-being components, those who developed MCI had lower levels of purpose in life and personal growth beginning 3 years (−0.126, 95% CI −0.251 to –0.001) and 6 years (−0.139, 95% CI −0.268 to –0.009) before MCI, respectively.”

While the research couldn’t definitively conclude whether a lack of a sense of purpose was the cause of MCI and dementia, or if it was merely an early indicator that MCI and dementia were on their way for other, presumably organic, reasons, they were clear about the correlation:

“Our findings suggest that reduced psychological well-being, even in the absence of evident cognitive impairment, may serve as a predictor for impaired cognitive function in the long-term.”

The research also raises, but doesn’t answer (these long-term studies take a lot of time — this one followed over 900 people for 14 years), another fascinating question: Could discovering or intentionally deciding on a purpose in life — even in your later years — help mitigate or even reverse mild cognitive impairment or even full-blown dementia?

Certainly multiple studies over the years have shown that simple social engagement is critical to staving off or slowing the progression of many forms of dementia and impairment. I’d argue that having a sense of purpose and acting on it daily is at least, if not more, important.

And it need not be Mother Teresa stuff.

While Louise and I have chosen to jump into high-profile, big-bite social works to satisfy our sense of purpose, we know people who are just as passionate about helping raise their grandchildren, volunteering with local welfare organizations, or participating in their church or politics. Louise’s mother, who’s as sharp as I am at 94, is evangelical about her garden, her pets, and sharing her life with her children.

The bottom line is to never surrender to the siren song of the marketers who want you to give up and sit in front of the TV or on social media all day, every day. The world needs you!

So, ask yourself what excites you, or could excite you if you were to throw yourself into it. Find your passion and go for it.

Your brain — and those around you — will thank you…

Share

It’s summer and people are making vacation plans; you may want to think about spending your break on or near a large body of water: new science shows how it can heal and renew both your body and your mind.

When Louise and I were first married in 1972, we were both big fans of author John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels about a houseboat-living beach bum who occasionally did “favors for friends” that inevitably ended up with him doing battle with bad guys on behalf of a damsel in distress. The idea of houseboat living intrigued us.

Louise grew up around water; her parents lived near Coral Gables, Florida when she was a child and her dad had a sailboat they spent a lot of time in (her brother grew up to become a sea captain). Her mom had a home on Lake Michigan, in Pentwater. And they used to camp during the summers along the dunes on Lake Michigan.

Our first apartment together, in 1971, faced the Grand River in East Lansing, Michigan; we’d try to get a rented canoe into the water every weekend. We had a shared fantasy of one day buying a sailboat and sailing around the world.

Instead, we started a community for abused kids on Stinson Lake in New Hampshire in 1978; then moved to a house on a small lake near Atlanta in the 1980s; then later to a floating home on the Willamette River in Portland in 2005; then lived on board a 46-foot 1986 Chris Craft boat in Washington, DC for seven years; then moved to where we live now on the Columbia River (the Northern Hemisphere’s largest river, just behind the Mississippi). And we almost always vacation on or in the water.

All those years, I thought we just did this because it was a pleasant way to live and vacation (and maybe because Louise is a Pisces). Turns out, though, that there are very real and significant benefits to spending time with bodies of water, from oceans, lakes, and rivers to swimming pools and even an aquarium in the living room or bedroom.

There’s a theory about human evolution which ties into this and that the late neuroscientist, brain surgeon, and author Leonard Schlain shared with me over lunch back in the 1990s when we were both speakers at a neuroscience conference.

“Have you ever wondered why we’re mostly hairless except for the top of our heads?” he asked, as I recall, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Or why the salinity of our blood is identical to seawater? Or why from birth to about six months a baby, when dunked under water, will immediately close his throat and not inhale or swallow water? Or why the fatty acids profile of our brains is nearly identical to fish oil?”

I’d never considered any of them, so he proceeded to lay the “Aquatic Ape” hypothesis on me. That theory suggests that at some point in human evolution we were forced to live along sea- or lake-coasts and spend large amounts of time in the water. As a result, the theory went, we lost hair pretty much everywhere except to protect the top of our head and our genitals.

Len noted with disappointment that the hypothesis had been largely discredited in the early 1990s by anthropologists (there was no clear time when a primary chunk of humanity lived exclusively along a coast) but he was still fascinated by the correlates.

He’d written two books about the cultural power and impact of women, the most astonishing and profound being The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, and wondered aloud if babies had been born in the water at some point in ancient human history, accounting for why human babies are born with what’s referred to as the “diving reflex” and to this day many women choose to give birth in a tub of warm water.

In 2009, the same year Len died, the debate around the Aquatic Ape was reopened with the publication by Richard Wrangham, et al, of a peer-reviewed paper suggesting that historically living in or near water was actually consistent with humanity’s history, even inland in Africa and the Middle East, and that we developed “habitual bipedality” in order to maneuver underwater to get and store food. As Smithsonian Magazine noted three years later in a roundup article about the Aquatic Ape hypothesis:

“Today, chimpanzees and gorillas occasionally venture into shallow bodies of water, and when they do, they wade on two legs. It makes sense. Wading bipedally allows the apes to keep their heads above water. As our earliest ancestors spent longer and longer periods of time wading upright, it became beneficial to evolve specialized anatomy for two-legged walking. …

“So, like most things in human evolution, the debate’s wide open.”

Aquatic apes or not, what science does fully agree on is that being near water — even a home aquarium — has measurable positive effects on human psychology, emotions, and even overall health.

At the smallest scale — a home aquarium — watching fish swim induces an involuntary relaxation response. An aquarium is static (staying in the same place) yet dynamic (filled with motion), much like watching a fireplace or campfire. And there are living things in there who depend on us for their lives, which can forge a deep bond.

One study found a home aquarium can produce as much as a 12 percent reduction in people’s anxiety levels. Another meta-study of 19 previously published studies discovered that, “Preliminary support was found for effects [of a home aquarium] on mood, pain, nutritional intake and body weight...”

Widening the lens to living, visiting, or vacationing along larger bodies of water hits the jackpot when it comes to measurable health (physical and mental) benefits.

Remember the craze a few decades ago of “negative ion generators?” Science long ago found that air that had more negative ions (atoms carrying a charge because they’ve lost or acquired an electron) caused a whole cascade of positive impacts on our bodies and brains, including boosting our immune systems.

Most of those studies, in fact, measured impact of the negative ion levels in air near rivers, lakes, and oceans. Bodies of water produce negative ions by interacting with air through what’s called the Lenard Effect, named after Philipp Lenard who won the Nobel Prize in 1905 for their discovery.

Entrepreneurs jumped into the game in the 1980s, selling little devices that arced a bit of electricity through the air in your home or office, thus charging oxygen atoms, thereby creating negative (extra-electron-containing) ions. A quick Amazon search reveals there are still dozens of brands on the market.

Air that contains negative ions, particularly those naturally created by large bodies of water, can, as WebMD notes:

“[P]roduce biochemical reactions that increase levels of the mood chemical serotonin, helping to alleviate depression, relieve stress, and boost our daytime energy.”

A study from Columbia University found exposure to negative ions reduced anxiety and ameliorated the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder and some other forms of depression. Other studies found positive impacts on immune system health and overall physical and mental wellness.

Some of the most popular vacation destinations in the world are beaches and cruise ships on the sea: both are places rich in naturally produced negative ions, which probably accounts for why their revivifying impact on us is so significant that the “glow” from such trips often lasts months.

Most recently, an entire new field of science and popular literature has emerged around the “Blue Mind Theory,” which suggests our brains and bodies need periodic interaction with or exposure to water, from having aquariums to living or taking vacations near the water.

The famed neuroscientist Dr. Wallace Nichols wrote an entire book about it in 2015 titled, “Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do.” He’s also amassed a huge body of research supporting his hypothesis that you can find here.

The bottom line here is that humanity has a deep and ancient connection to water and sea life, one that we all should revisit as often as possible!

Share

It was about three years ago, as I recall, that a fellow called into my radio/TV program to suggest that a great way to slow aging and normalize weight was an intermittent fasting program called the 5:2 diet.

It involved eating normally five days a week and then eating no more than 500 calories for two days in a row, then back to normal eating for the next five days and so on. Several books have been written about it and it’s been the subject of quite a bit of good science, the most recent reported last week in The Washington Post.

Fasting, it turns out, triggers a series of metabolic changes in the body that extend life and reduce the risks of everything from cancer and diabetes to vulnerability to infection. It does so, in part, by causing the body to inhibit a naturally-occurring enzyme in the human body known as mTOR, or the “mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin.” 

This enzyme, mTOR, is, as the authors of a 2013 Nature article noted in the title of their piece, “A Key Modulator of Ageing and Age-Related Disease.”  The authors noted in their abstract that finding drugs to “slow ageing” was inevitable, and:

“A leading target for such interventions is the nutrient response pathway defined by the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR).”

They noted that when the mTOR enzyme was blocked in various animals, including primates like us, it both “extends lifespan” and “confers protection against a growing list of age-related pathologies.” 

A new study just published in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network Open found that 16 weeks of rigorously following the 5:2 diet produced a better result for Type 2 diabetics than even taking the widely-prescribed anti-diabetes drug Metformin.

Our bodies are generally running in one of two modes: Build or repair. In build mode, the mTOR pathway (and others) direct us to manufacture fat from extra calories and use nutrients and calories to sustain our normal metabolism.

In the repair mode, which we enter when we fast for more than a day, our body begins to burn that fat to drive metabolism while also scavenging the body for old cells that are still alive but have ceased, because of age, to do their jobs. They’re essentially zombie cells, using up energy and space but doing nothing more than draining resources from the body.

Through a process called autophagy, such zombie (senescent) cells are broken down and their raw materials recycled for use by new and functional cells. It’s like a major housecleaning of the body, resulting in greater metabolic efficiency and less of a burden on the body’s systems.

Apparently eating more than 500 calories a day is the threshold that tips the body out of autophagy/repair and into the normal “build” metabolic mode. In all probability this reflects an evolutionary process with deep roots in the early human experience, when periods of feast and famine were common.

It also probably explains why people who survived the Nazi death camps — and had experienced prolonged starvation during that experience — tend to live around 7.1 years longer than people who never underwent that horrible experience.

Takarudana Mapendembe wrote about this at greater length in his Healthy Body Is Yours Substack newsletter last week, noting extensive scientific reports detailing how it helps with insulin sensitivity, weight loss, greater mental clarity and function, reductions in inflammation, improved immune system function, hormone regulation, better digestion, and reduced heart disease.

When Louise and I were first married, we read Arnold Ehret’s 1910 masterpiece Rational Fasting. We’d already become vegetarians because of both our spiritual practice and our opposition to the Vietnam War, but this added a whole new dimension to our eating lives; we regularly did 2- and 3-day water- and juice-fasts and continued the practice well into the years when we were raising our three kids (who all grew up vegetarian).

After that caller told me about the 5:2 diet and how it had transformed his life (and body), we started doing that as well and have noticed some real benefits.

One of my favorite things about it is that after two days of only 500 calorie meals I’m really hungry, something that most Americans literally never experience. I can’t describe what an utter pleasure it is to dig into a good meal when in a true state of hunger, as opposed to the “appetite” we normally experience.

I also find that after two days of “fasting” on less than 500 calories, my mind seems much clearer and sharper. Instead of being tired, as most people I’ve shared this with expected, I feel energized.

Check out the book The Fast Diet by the British scientist who figured out that 500-calorie threshold and how it could be used to produce the same or nearly the same effect on the body and mind as a couple of days of water fasting. It’s brilliant, and even if you don’t struggle with weight or diabetes, this is an important addition to the literature on health.

Leave a comment

Back on February 18th, I published an article here about the mTOR pathway and dietary restriction of the animal protein leucine as a way of slowing aging. It was my second contribution to the Health and Longevity section here at WisdomSchool.com, and this is a follow-up.

One of my very best friends in the world is a PhD neuroscientist in Australia who I’ve known for decades and has pioneered some truly transformational techniques for brain imaging. He took up running seven or so years ago at the age of 71, runs a business that operates on three continents, has written scientific papers on ADHD and creativity (among other subjects; he also has a second degree in physics), and recently stayed at our home on his way to a conference in Italy; I dedicated my most recent book to him.

Some years ago, I asked Richard what he attributed his longevity and high levels of energy to. While noting the importance of diet, exercise, and genetics, he also said, “And, I have the most expensive urine in Australia.”

That got my attention because I’ve often said I have the most expensive urine in Portland! When I was 18 and my first business — an electronics repair business across the street from MSU — failed from some dumb business decisions I made (and learned a lot from), I got a job for about six months (before starting my second business) as the manager of the General Nutrition Center (GNC) store in the mall in Okemos, Michigan.

Back then, GNC was mostly in the supplement and herb business, and I was fascinated by all the hundreds of bottles of pills we had on the shelves. I spent every moment the store was quiet reading up on all the different supplements, and began taking a regular regimen of herbs, vitamins, and minerals.

I was already primed to be interested in health; I’d become a vegetarian at 15 in 1966 as a way of protesting the killing in Vietnam (the Gulf of Tonkin incident was in 1964), and a year later, in 1967, had moved out to a rented room in East Lansing and learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) at MSU from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who the Beatles were then following and promoting.

TM being an aspect of Hinduism, and Hinduism being a vegetarian religion, my decision to quit eating meat was reinforced; if that old guy could have spent his entire life without meat and was still spry (the Maharishi died a lifelong vegetarian at 90!) I left behind all the food pyramid nonsense from the USDA and haven’t eaten meat even once since (although I did start eating small amounts of salmon once or twice a month about a decade ago). I also hooked up later that year with an elderly meditation teacher named Master Stanley in Detroit (who I wrote about in The Prophet’s Way), who also promoted vegetarianism.

Anyhow, I’m hoping to keep up with my friend Richard and live a long and healthy life.

Numerous people have asked me, over the years, exactly what supplements I take, in addition to a mostly vegan diet and regular walking as exercise. So, here’s my list, with each one hot-linked to Amazon for convenience (yes, I know it’s an evil, anti-union company, but this way you can easily read about them, check out their labels, and then find them elsewhere, if you’re inclined).

I take almost everything on this list daily, and have for decades, although every few months I’ll take a week or two off from all supplements and over the years I’ve added and removed things from the list.

My comments are not meant to be scientific or medical advice but merely represent my own personal opinions, although there are also hot-links to some of the science I mention. Please check with your health care practitioner and do your own research before taking any supplements:

— Vitamin D 2000 IU (particularly makes up for the lack of sunlight indoors and here in the Pacific Northwest)

— Vitamin K complex 2600 mg (I’ve been told to always take this with D)

— Magnesium L-Threonate 144 mg (this form passes the blood-brain barrier, so is supposed to be good for the brain and memory, plus it doesn’t cause loose stools like most forms of magnesium)

— Milk Thistle 250 mg (good for the liver, but also a good general tonic)

— Ashwagandha 500 mg (good for the nervous system)  

— Sea Iodine 1000 mcg (good for the thyroid, which regulates metabolism: don’t take if you also use thyroid medication without consulting your doctor)

— Curcumin complex extract 1000 mg (anti-inflammatory and some studies show people who regularly eat curry — which contains a lot of turmeric, from which curcumin is extracted — are less likely to get old-age dementia or Alzheimer’s)

— Turmeric (raw) with Black Pepper 600/5 mg (this is closer to how it’s found in curry, and the piperine in black pepper is supposed to potentiate and help the gut absorb the curcumin)

— Apple Cider Vinegar with mother 1600 mg (is said to help with blood sugar metabolism)

— Multivitamin/mineral/herb 2-a-day from Life Extension (I only take one a day)

— Agaricus Blazei Murill Mushroom 600mg (supposed to have multiple health benefits, and recent studies indicate it protects against pancreatic and several other types of cancer)

— Omega 3 with Sesame Ligans and Olive Extract 2000 mg (I take two capsules daily: the list of benefits from heart to brain to eyes is amazing.)

— Phosphatidyl Choline 1200 mg (brain food and said to be good for the liver)

— Quercetin, fisitin, senolytic activator from Life Extension which helps the body rid itself of cells that have become “zombies,” consuming energy while no longer working.

I take one capsule a day of everything on the list except the Omega 3s and the Senolytic Activator (directions are on the label), and realize that many are in gelatin capsules and the omegas are fish oil, so this wouldn’t work for someone who’s a pure vegan. That said, I believe the compromise is worth it.

I also occasionally take 1 gram Vitamin C and 30 mg of chewable zinc oxide a day, particularly around cold and flu season. And sometimes I add Paul Stamets’ 7-mushroom mix for a few months every year.

If you have suggestions for other supplements that have benefited you, please share in the comments section!

Share The Wisdom School: What it Means to be Human

What if there were a magic substance or strategy that would actually slow down aging, allowing us to ease into our later years in generally excellent health?  Turns out, there is, and it can help save the planet as well.

It’s not a drug — it’s an amino acid we should avoid — but the discovery of a new antibiotic helped us figure out how the system works.

Rapamycin: the wonder anti-aging drug?

Back in October of 1975, the Journal of Antibiotics (Vol 28, No 10) published an article titled, “Rapamycin, A New Fungal Antibiotic.”[i]  It noted that the compound was the metabolic product of a fungus found in the soil of Easter Island (known in the local language as Rapa Nui), and represented an exciting and newly-discovered streptomycete antibiotic whose “structure is still unknown.”

Rapamycin, it turns out, slows down aging by inhibiting a naturally-occurring enzyme in the human body that is known as mTOR, or the “mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin.” 

This enzyme, mTOR, is, as the authors of a 2013 Nature article noted in the title of their piece, “A Key Modulator of Ageing and Age-Related Disease.”[ii]  The authors[iii] noted in their abstract that finding drugs to “slow ageing” was inevitable, and:

“A leading target for such interventions is the nutrient response pathway defined by the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR).”

They noted that when the mTOR enzyme was blocked in various animals, including primates like us, it both “extends lifespan” and “confers protection against a growing list of age-related pathologies.”  If only we could take a pill — like the antibiotic Rapamycin — that blocks the mTOR enzyme’s metabolic pathway, the argument goes, we could all live longer and healthier lives. 

The problem with taking regular doses of Rapamycin and substances derived from it to inhibit the action of the mTOR enzyme and thus slow ageing, however, is that these compounds are so new that human studies are not yet conclusive.

Rapamycin seems to stop — and, in some ways, even reverse — aging in mice and other animals, and there are multiple human clinical trials underway across the world, including some intended to end up before the FDA.

It’s the hot new drug for life-hackers who are trying to live longer, with concierge and online doctors prescribing 5 mg. of the drug one day every week. (There are message boards and groups across the internet by and for people taking this drug.)

How to regulate mTOR without taking drugs?

But for the average person, rapamycin isn’t an option, so what other ways can we alter the actions of the mTOR pathway in the human body to slow or reverse aging?

The mTOR pathway drives rapid growth throughout our first twenty to thirty years, but after that it continues to run at full speed, even though after roughly age 30 that process not only doesn’t produce “growth” but, instead, becomes a rapid form of aging. 

Why doesn’t mTOR slow down as we age?  Scientists believe it’s because throughout most of human evolutionary history, aging beyond the 40s was pretty much non-existent. 

But now that modern hygiene and medicine have extended our life spans into an average of the 70 to 80 years range, the holy grail of anti-aging efforts worldwide has been trying to figure out how to inhibit the mTOR enzyme after the first 20-30 or so years of rapid growth and muscle development.

As Mikhail V. Blagosklonny wrote for the journal Cell Cycle:

“[T]he traditional analogy of an aging organism with a rusting (albeit self-repairing) car is misleading.  The true analogy is a speeding car that enters a low-speed zone [after age 30] and damages itself because it does not and cannot slow down.”[iv]

While there isn’t an FDA-approved drug that we can take today to slow down aging, there is a change we can make to our diet that measurably and reliably slows down the mTOR enzyme’s aging pathway.  And that dietary change has an evolutionary history, too.

Throughout human history, pretty much wherever humans lived, there were periodic times of — literally — feast and famine.  Three researchers from the European Institute of Oncology noted in the title of a 2012 article in Frontiers of Physiology how “caloric restriction” produces “a healthy and prolonged life.”[v]

The opening two sentences of the article summarize its thrust:

“Over the last several years, new evidence has kept pouring in about the remarkable effect of caloric restriction on the conspicuous bedfellows: aging and cancer. Through the use of various animal models, it is now well established that by reducing calorie intake one can not only increase life span but, also, lower the risk of various age-related diseases such as cancer.”

Does that mean that we all need to fast a few days a week, or a few weeks a year, replicating, in part, the world we lived in before the advent of modern agriculture?  Or adopt the now-popular 5:2 diet or something similar, where we eat fewer than 500 calories for two days every week, while eating our normal diet the other five?

While those types of caloric restriction certainly have been proven to slow down aging in other mammals, and appear to do so with human populations who’ve been exposed to famine or had anorexic periods in their lives, such a drastic measure may not be necessary to extend both lifespan and quality of life as we age.  And it all comes back to the master enzyme pathway of rapid growth and rapid aging: mTOR.

Nature’s journal Molecular Cell Biology published a remarkable article in January, 2011, titled mTOR: From Growth Signal Integration to Cancer, Diabetes and Aging.[vi]  In the clinical language of their science, the authors wrote:

“The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) coordinates eukaryotic cell growth and metabolism with environmental inputs, including nutrients and growth factors. Extensive research over the past two decades has established a central role for mTOR in regulating many fundamental cell processes, from protein synthesis to autophagy, and deregulated mTOR signaling is implicated in the progression of cancer and diabetes, as well as the aging process.”

In other words, mTOR is a master enzyme pathway that “coordinates” both how cells metabolize nutrients, and how fast they grow as a result.  It regulates everything from the ability of cells to make proteins for other parts of the body to the process of destroying old, diseased, or damaged cells (autophagy) that could otherwise turn cancerous or problematic. 

Even more significantly, when mTOR isn’t controlled or runs in a “deregulated” fashion, aging speeds up and people move faster towards cancer and diabetes.

The article also notes that outside of Rapamycin, no individual compound has yet been found to down-regulate or slow down the mTOR pathway, except caloric restriction. 

You don’t need to starve: just avoid one particular type of food!

So, what is it about caloric restriction that regulates the mTOR pathway so effectively? Turns out, it’s not the simple restriction or reduction of calories, although that works. 

But the reason it works is because when people eat fewer calories — they eat less food — they’re also consuming less protein. And protein, it appears, is what’s actually hitting the mTOR pathway and speeding up (via lots of dietary protein) or slowing down (with less dietary protein) aging and the chance of getting cancer and diabetes.

A study published in the journal Aging Cell in October of 2008 noted that while caloric restriction “protects against cancer and slows aging in rodents,” that, prior to the publication of this study, “long-term effects of caloric restriction...in humans are unknown.”[vii]

They then report that in protein-restricted humans, who were able to eat all the calories they wanted, the result was a significant reduction of the hormones and metabolic pathways that lead to aging and metabolic diseases like diabetes and cancer. 

They ended their abstract with:

“[O]ur data provide evidence that protein intake is a key determinant of circulating IGF-1 levels in humans, and suggest that reduced protein intake may become an important component of anticancer and anti-aging dietary interventions.”

Protein reduction, in fact, not only down-regulates the activity of the mTOR pathway, but it does the same for IGF1, another compound that is associated with aging and metabolic diseases, as an article titled Extending Healthy Life Span—From Yeast to Humans published in Science in 2010 lays out clearly.[viii]

So, it turns out it’s not restricting calories that produces an increase in human longevity (although binging on calories regularly isn’t healthy, either), but restricting protein. 

But are there good and bad proteins for aging?

Taking that to the next step, what if it wasn’t even the protein, but one of the specific amino acids that make up the protein that was producing — when reduced — this aging-slowing outcome?

An article published in the journal Trends in Cell Biology points out that, “Withdrawal of [the amino acid] leucine has been shown to be nearly as effective in down-regulation of mTOR1C signaling as withdrawal of all amino acids.”[ix]

Leucine — the amino acid that ages you!

Leucine, it turns out, is an amino acid that is found in very low concentrations in edible plants and plant-based products, and in very high concentrations in meats and other food products derived from animals, ranging from mammals (and dairy) to birds (and eggs) to fish. 

Researchers in Germany[x] found that feeding human children infant formulas fortified with cow’s milk — which is much higher in leucine than is human mother’s milk — can produce obesity and even diabetes in children as young as two years old.  Leucine, they noted, was the key to down-regulating the IGF and mTOR pathways. 

“In general,” the authors noted, “lower leucine levels are only reached by restriction of animal proteins.”

“Whey proteins” from cow’s milk, they noted, “...contain the highest amount of leucine (14%), followed by casein (10%), the major protein constituent of cow milk and cheese.”  Flesh meats are just slightly lower than dairy products.

And the differences in leucine levels are huge between animal and plant-based foods:

“Just 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of Gouda cheese contains 2400 milligrams of leucine,” they wrote, whereas hitting that same leucine level with vegetables would require eating “4.2 kg [over 9 pounds) white cabbage or 100 apples.”

They concluded that section noting, “These calculations exemplify the extreme differences in leucine amounts provided by an animal meat/dairy protein-based diet in comparison to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Thus, the increased consumption of meat and dairy proteins provide excessive amounts of leucine for mTORC1 activation.”[xi]

This entire long and winding road of science and logic leads to a single inescapable point.  Reducing leucine slows down aging and cancer, and the easiest and most painless way to reduce leucine is by eliminating all or most animal products from your diet.

Living longer through leucine restriction also helps save our world!

The bonus here is that a plant-based diet is better for our planet. Animal-based agriculture is among the top five contributors to climate-changing greenhouse gasses worldwide, because first we have to grow the grains and vegetables that we then feed to the animals we ultimately eat.

The entire process is incredibly inefficient, as you can see in this UN-provided chart:

A single pound of feedlot produced beef requires the nutrient base of 35 pounds of topsoil (to produce 12 pounds of grain) and about 2500 gallons of water. 

While different vegetable, grain, seed, nut, and fruit crops consume or require different amounts of topsoil and water to produce a pound of edible plant-based food, the amounts are radically smaller than what’s necessary to produce a pound of animal flesh, eggs, or dairy.

So, save the world and lengthen your own life: cut back on animal products as much as you can and you’ll become part of the (long-lived) solution rather than the problem.

[i] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1102508

[ii] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11861

[iii] Simon C. Johnson, Peter S. Rabinovitch & Matt Kaeberlein

[iv] Cell Cycle, 8:24 4055-4059, Dec. 15, 2009 “TOR-driven aging: Speeding car without brakes” by Mikhail V. Blagosklonny https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19923900

[v] Insights into the beneficial effect of caloric/ dietary restriction for a healthy and prolonged life. Rani Pallavi*, Marco Giorgio and Pier G. Pelicci Front. Physiol., 09 August 2012  https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2012.00318

[vi] VOLUME 168, ISSUE 6, P960-976, MARCH 09, 2017mTOR Signaling in Growth, Metabolism, and Disease by Robert A. Saxton, David M. Sabatini https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30182-4

[vii] Aging Cell. 2008 Oct;7(5):681-7  Long-term effects of calorie or protein restriction on serum IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 concentration in humans.  Fontana L1, Weiss EP, Villareal DT, Klein S, Holloszy JO. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18843793?dopt=Abstract

[viii] Extending Healthy Life Span—From Yeast to Humans, Luigi Fontana1,2,*, Linda Partridge3,*, Valter D. Longo4,* Science  16 Apr 2010:Vol. 328, Issue 5976, pp. 321-326, DOI: 10.1126/science.1172539

[ix] VOLUME 19, ISSUE 6, P260-267, JUNE 01, 2009 Nutrient control of TORC1, a cell-cycle regulator  Xuemin Wang, Christopher G. Proud Published: May 05, 2009  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcb.2009.03.005

[x] World J Diabetes. 2012 Mar 15; 3(3): 38–53. Leucine signaling in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and obesity by Bodo C Melnik https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310004/

[xi] ibid