The REAL Cause of Cancer Men & Women NEED To Know

Ajouté : 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]You mentioned uh cancer earlier on as something that you're working on in your laboratory. What progress have you made in your laboratory and what has that taught you about what the nature of cancer but also how we might prevent and cure it someday? Cuz I I was reading that in your laboratory you have been able to slow the growth of certain cancer cells and kill those cancer cells completely.

[00:00:21]>> Yeah. Uh uh so my my wonderful student Nalat uh is is doing her PhD on this and what we've hypothesized and now tested is the idea again based on the information theory of aging is that cancer is expressing those genes differently in the same way that aging is is a cellular identity crisis. Cancer is a cellular identity crisis and that if we can rejuvenate an old cell to be normal and turn on the right genes again, we should be able to do that for a cancer cell >> and either make it normal or if it tries to be normal and wakes up from its zombie-like state, it might even kill itself. And that's what we're finding in my lab. Nat's work has shown that a majority of cancers that we've grown in the lab will die and shrink in an animal if you try to reverse their age >> through the injection >> that you were referring to earlier on.

[00:01:22]>> Yeah, we can do it a couple of ways. One is using those three genes that rejuvenate the epigenome and make cells young again.

[00:01:30]>> Yeah, >> the one for the eye. The same technology for the eye we're using in cancer cells.

[00:01:35]But we also have this chemical drink that we can give to animals or to put on the cells and that also wakes the cancer cells up tries to they try to become more normal. They turn on the original set of genes that they might have had on 30 40 years ago. Some of these cancer cells that we grow in the lab were you know from the 20th century. We rejuvenate them. We turn on those those genes that were originally in the normal tissue and the cells kill themselves.

[00:02:04]And so I believe that we may not be able to cure all cancer using this. That would be crazy to even say that. But I do believe that if we're successful rejuvenating the human body, cancer is not going to be a risk. And that's just a nice side effect of what our original mission was, which was to treat aging.

[00:02:26]>> So from this we can start to try and understand what we think is causing cancer. And I guess this goes back to the a lot of the carcenic behavior that you described earlier, things like smoking, anything that's applying stress on the DNA. Is that like a >> Yeah, you have to break the DNA.

[00:02:42]>> Um that's the cat a catastrophe is really broken DNA, but you can do other things that catastrophes like overheat the cells. Um even mechanical stress, you know, too many hits on the brain in football will will do that. So yes, that's exactly right. And that drives aging. And aging drives cancer. By the way, one of my theories called the Goncoenesis hypothesis. Terrible name, but nevertheless, Goncoenesis it is.

[00:03:12]It's the idea that as we age, we're becoming more cancer-like as as a as a human. Our metabolism when we're old is closer to heading towards what a cancer cell's metabolism is like. So that when we actually do get cancer, the cancer cells grow better in an old person than when you're young. And so by rejuvenating those cancer cells, giving them the the ability to be young again, they actually either slow down in their growth or as I said, kill themselves in response.

[00:03:42]>> I've got a bit of a a prop here which might be useful for the the context of goodness. There are people here that may not know what I'm holding in my hands, but uh for those of you who don't know and who are just listening, I'm holding a record uh in my hands, a vinyl record uh that Steven just handed me. So, the the information theory of aging, uh the analogy that I used is that it disrupts information. And so, this record, this album has information on it. It's music.

[00:04:14]And just like DNA, it's information. So instead of the DNA information, the control of the DNA bit getting messed up. It in the album, it's like scratching this album. So I'm literally going to scratch this album. Is that okay with you?

[00:04:28]>> Of course you can.

[00:04:28]>> All right. I'm not sure I can fix it, by the way.

[00:04:31]>> It may be a one-way thing, but I've never done this before, but that's painful.

[00:04:39]Maybe you can hear that happening.

[00:04:41]So, if we were to play this on a record player with a needle, it's going to jump around and it's going to read the wrong songs or it's it's going to certainly not sound very good. So, that's that's now the equivalent of an old cell. The information, the beautiful music is there, but the ability to read it has been messed up in the same way that old age, the information is in the DNA, but you the cells don't read it correctly.

[00:05:06]And what our technology is is to get rid of those scratches and so we can play the beautiful music of our youth again.

[00:05:15]>> Um I have got this uh you told me to to bring my weighted vest and this neck brace.

[00:05:22]>> Oh my goodness. Uh >> I think I put it on the wrong way. Okay.

[00:05:24]>> Any anyone listening, Steven's putting on a very heavy jacket right now with lead weights and a strap around his neck to limit his neck movement.

[00:05:33]>> Oh wow.

[00:05:34]That's a lot. Listen. So, I'm I just I put on a 20 I think it's 20 kg. My son weak now um jacket and a neck brace. And ahead of this conversation, my team told me to get one of these. What is the analogy here that you're you're creating? This is very hell.

[00:05:53]>> It's bad, right?

[00:05:54]>> It's hard. Yeah.

[00:05:55]>> Right. Imagine do feeling like that for a decade. That's old age. You feeling tired, weak. You can barely hold your body up. You can barely move your neck.

[00:06:05]It would be painful. You're not in pain yet. No.

[00:06:08]>> But most people in their 80s have some sort of disease and a aches and pains.

[00:06:13]>> Try doing that for another 10 minutes, maybe. How long can you keep that on?

[00:06:18]>> I'll keep it on for another 10 minutes.

[00:06:19]But so why is this cuz it just it's weight and immobility. I can't move my neck the same. My shoulders feel heavier.

[00:06:28]>> How how is this a relevant analogy to aging? because it it just kind of feels like immobility and weight.

[00:06:34]>> Uh well, I have to come over there and use this pair of scissors to be stabbing you as well. So, you can feel pain as you move as well. That's part of old age. It is not a fun thing being old.

[00:06:45]And most old people, the reason that they don't love life anymore is because they feel like you do or worse.

[00:06:53]Not to mention the fact that there you need to put Vaseline on your eyes, earplugs in your ears if you want to know what it's like being old.

[00:07:01]>> Oh god, it's not nice.

[00:07:03]>> Or even worse, shut your eyes and you can never open them again.

[00:07:08]That's what it's like for those patients that we hope to cure blindness in.

[00:07:12]If if I'm going to ask you a really tough question, which is if I put a calculator in front of you right now.

[00:07:17]Yeah. And you had to hit a number on that calculator and then hit enter >> and that was the age that you were going to live to and you had to make that decision now.

[00:07:25]>> What number would you hit on that calculator?

[00:07:29]>> Infinity.

[00:07:30]>> Really? So you did 999 no.

[00:07:32]>> There's no day if you're healthy where you want to die. Even if you're 100, 120, if you have friends, family, loved ones, you're healthy. Would you say, "Okay, tomorrow I'm ready to die."

[00:07:43]>> No, it's not going to happen. Unless there was some kind of psychiatric issue as well.

[00:07:47]>> Exactly. Right. So, that's my point is when people say, "Oh, when I'm 80, kill me." That is It's Excuse my language. Am I allowed to swear on this?

[00:07:55]>> Of course, you can.

[00:07:56]>> Um, >> sorry, I'm going to have to beep for the kids, I guess.

[00:07:58]>> It's it's only when you're sick or you have depression that you want to leave leave this world. Otherwise, life is a joy for most people on in the world, not everybody. And we have to fix that as well. But for most of us, being alive is is the greatest gift of any, you know, collection of atoms.

[00:08:19]Consciousness is even greater. And why would you want that to end? Who would choose that if they had the alternative to be with family and friends?

[00:08:29]>> Interesting. I say that's interesting because I have always assumed that I wouldn't want to live forever. But the when when you asked me if I was healthy and I had my friends and family and I was doing things that I loved professionally, would there come a day where I would choose to go now? No, there wouldn't. Just like there hasn't come a day in the last 33 years where I've chosen to go now.

[00:08:54]>> Mhm. Exactly.

[00:08:56]>> Do you think it's it's going to be possible in the next 50 years for us to live forever? I'd be shocked if that happened, but I've been shocked my whole career at how fast this technology is moving. And now with AI, things are going so fast, my head's spinning.

[00:09:12]So, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I'm I'm skeptical that we could live forever in my lifetime at least. But, as I said, you're pro you're probably going to live you are going to live into the 22nd century. We can't imagine what the world's going to be like then.

[00:09:27]>> And AI has really changed this equation.

[00:09:30]>> Oh, absolutely. We're we're doing things in my lab that would have taken 160 years before and and quite literally billions of dollars on a 10 $10,000 budget.

[00:09:41]>> Well, I guess I better make it to 2040.

[00:09:44]Um, so let's talk about fasting and food and nutrition and get go a little bit deeper on that. I've had so so many conversations over the years about this subject of fasting. But um as I was reading your research, you really do feel that fasting, just eating less often is one of the most important things that we can all do for longevity.

[00:10:05]>> I I do I do and I practice it as much as I can, though it's challenging in a world that's full of abundant food. But yes, we've known for thousands of years the ancients are not dummies. They they could witness what happens when you fast.

[00:10:19]uh clarity of mind, long-term health.

[00:10:22]They could observe the difference between the glutton and the people that fasted for religious reasons. It's obvious, but there's certain ways to do it. Fasting doesn't include malnutrition. You have to do it with abundant, you know, vitamins, minerals.

[00:10:34]You want to make sure that you're you you have adequate nutrition.

[00:10:38]But I think three meals a day is is craziness. It turns out this idea breakfast is the most important meal of the day is marketing from the early 20th century by companies I will not name, but it was breakfast cereal. Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day for most people, especially adults, especially if you're not hungry when you wake up. There's no point in eating if you're not hungry in the morning. I'm one of those people. So, I've skipped breakfast. How about you?

[00:11:03]>> Yeah, I'm the same. I'm the same. I don't eat. My first meal today was 300 p.m. because I had a podcast until, you know, 2 2 p.m. So, which is typical for I just don't get hungry in the mornings because of the marketing though for breakfast. Sometime I've sometimes I've said to myself, you should eat and I'll make myself eat, but it's very very rare. I'm notoriously people know that I'm notoriously um a late eater. 4 p.m. sometimes 5 p.m.

[00:11:26]if I'm in the office.

[00:11:27]>> How you feeling with that heavy?

[00:11:28]>> It's it's heavy, David. I've got to be honest. It's not I'm finding myself like trying to find a comfortable position.

[00:11:33]Yeah, it it's tough being old and by the end of it you will be so convinced that this research is important because to live like that >> in most people life is not worth living.

[00:11:44]>> I put a suit a very heavy suit like that but on the arms as well not just the body and he had the the ear muffs and the the eyes. This was the uh the governor of Massachusetts. 15 minutes in that bodysuit and he was crying. Not because he was in pain, because he, as he said on stage, it was the first time in his life he understood how his father feels and could be empathetic. We young people, I'm relatively young, 56, you're very young, 33. We have no idea what it's like to be old. It can be horrific.

[00:12:18]So why wouldn't we do the right things like fasting, exercising so we can get an extra 10 years, 20 years, maybe longer of healthy life.

[00:12:28]>> It does also give me a lot of empathy for people that um have a bit more weight on them as well because of you know if I was if I weighed that much I don't know if I'd be very active to be completely honest with you.

[00:12:40]>> Exactly. And you're in pain too. Don't forget every joint can be hurting. How do you feel taking that off?

[00:12:45]>> Much better. right >> free like I want to jump.

[00:12:47]>> So let's hope pray wish that these technologies that I'm talking about today work cuz that could be what it feels like to be rejuvenated when you're 80.

[00:13:01]>> I hope so. Um to close off on this point of of fasting, why why does it help extend my life? Yeah, just eating less.

[00:13:08]>> Part of it came out of research in my lab, but of course many others I need to give credit to. But in my lab specifically, what we worked on in initially when I started, we studied yeast cells, little uh microscopic cells that as everyone knows we use to make beer and bread and champagne. These yeast cells live about 10 days and then they die. And we used yeast as a model for aging. And what we discovered with yeast cells, which turns out to be true in our bodies, is that adversity, as long as it's not killing these cells, is good for you. It's called hormesis. It's the technical term for what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and live longer.

[00:13:46]Adversity mode is what we're aiming for.

[00:13:49]The opposite is abundance mode, which is what modern life is all about. Popcorn, movies, wheels on your suitcase, sitting down all day.

[00:14:00]It's we're in an abundance world. So adversity is something we don't often feel. We have to work at it. Fasting is adversity. Exercise is adversity. cold plunges, sauners, adversity. Adversity mimics. They're not really threatening your life. What happens at the cellular cellular level is that those cells, they get freaked out. They're worried that these times of adversity could kill us.

[00:14:26]So, they fight back. They turn on repair systems. They turn on recycling systems.

[00:14:32]They turn on DNA repair systems that help slow down aging. So in this modern world, we when we have total abundance, we don't have to exercise, we don't we eat three meals a day, we get overweight, we don't sleep much, we have air conditioning in summer, we're actually aging faster than we need to cuz our bodies are not fighting aging like they do when they feel adversity.

[00:14:54]>> Your team discovered I can't say the word serunis.

[00:14:58]>> Oh well, I was one of many scientists in the 1990s. Uh I was part of a team called Sertuins. Yeah, twins.

[00:15:06]>> Yeah. Yeah. In yeast, actually. That's right. Uh that's a good story. I went to the US to figure out why we get old, but I didn't choose to study humans cuz I figured if we can't figure it out for little yeast cells, we'll never figure it out for humans. So, I went to MIT. My professor was Lenny Gorenti. I went to his lab and I said, "I'm I'm not going.

[00:15:29]I'm not leaving." The goal was to in my mind was to figure out are there longevity genes at that time most people thought that there were aging genes that caused aging death genes that doesn't make any sense to me our bodies would have longevity genes that give life so in yeast I went searching for them and out of that work came two things the first is Lenny and I my professor and I published in the journal cell which was a massive big deal in those days still is but it was my first time the First evidence for a cause of aging for any species. We figured out why yeast cells get old. Do you want to guess?

[00:16:08]>> Why do yeast cells get old?

[00:16:11]>> Have you been paying attention? What does the information theory of aging say?

[00:16:14]>> I was going to say they have an identity crisis, but >> they do.

[00:16:18]>> How would we know if they have they're having an identity crisis?

[00:16:20]>> Oh, you can measure the identity of yeast cells. They have an identity. It's called their mating type. The main identity of a yeast cell is they are either a type or alpha type, male, female.

[00:16:33]And the hallmark of a yeast cell that's old is it loses its A and alpha identity and gets an identity crisis. It doesn't know what sex it is and it doesn't mate anymore, becomes sterile. So when I arrived at MIT in 1995, we knew that the hallmark of an old ye cell besides it being a bit slow and bigger is that it became sterile. It had an identity crisis. So we figured out that broken chromosomes distract the certuan defenses and that causes aging in a yeast cell.

[00:17:08]But we didn't know in the '90s that that was going to be true for us as well. It took another decade or two to figure that out. And how does this link to eating all the time?

[00:17:17]>> Yeah. So, sertuins are proteins that actually are attracted to DNA. They actually associate with it and they protect uh the DNA from getting damaged.

[00:17:29]>> Okay. Like bodyguards.

[00:17:30]>> Yeah. And they repair broken chromosomes, right? It's all coming together now. But they also get distracted. So look, a sertuin's normal job if there's no crisis is that they turn genes on and off. They are epigenetic regulators. They control the epiggenome. They tell a cell what type it is. Nerve cell, skin cell, right?

[00:17:49]>> Like a conductor.

[00:17:50]>> Thank you. Conductor. Exactly.

[00:17:53]But the conductor becomes demented over time. What happens is when you have a chromosomeal break, the sertuins panic. They leave the DNA, what they're supposed to be doing, controlling the cell's identity, and they go and they repair the DNA. That's their other job. They have two jobs, identity and repair. So when you have this break, the Suins go away. They repair the problem, but they don't all go back in the next few minutes. It's very quick. They don't all go back to where they started. So you've got like this tennis match that the sertuins are the balls and they get hit over to the break, then hit back. Most of them find the genes that they should go back to, but they don't all do that. And that total game of tennis or ping pong, if you like, is what I believe causes the identity crisis. And aging itself causes aging in yeast cells. It's why yeast cells don't live longer than 10 days.

[00:18:45]And I believe it's why we struggle to live beyond 80 or 90.

[00:18:48]>> So if I'm eating all the time, then those sertuins, they're not going to be doing their job as the um the conductor making sure I know the identity of my cells. They're going to be doing repair stuff, so I'm going to age faster.

[00:19:03]>> Yes. And the breakthrough happened in the lab as I was just leaving to go to Harvard. I got a job at Harvard when I was 29. Super excited. And just as I was leaving, there was a big breakthrough that act they actually kept it secret from me because they they worried I was gonna work on it when I left. And in fact, my professor tried to prevent me from working on it when I left on certain in general. It's crazy to think about. But what they discovered was that there's a a metabolite, a molecule that goes up and down with food and up and down with sleep called NAD. We have lots of it. There's grams of it in our body.

[00:19:40]It's one of the most abundant molecules in the body. It's very ancient. It's in yeast. It's in us. And what they found was that sertuins to control genes and to repair DNA that's broken. They don't do it unless there's NAD. It's the catalyst. It's the fuel for their reaction. They need NAD.

[00:19:59]And when we're young, we have lots of NAD. So, it works well. Well, the suins control the information on the genes and they repair the DNA very well because they've got lots of NAD to carry out their their work. These are enzymes.

[00:20:12]They work. They do things. As we get older, by the time you're 50, about my age, you have half the levels of this NAD molecule. My body is making less NAD and it's also destroying the NAD faster than when I was 20. That's a problem.

[00:20:27]And so what we found was that when we fast the yeast or we fast a human NAD levels go up again. So fasting raises NAD and makes the sertuins young again essentially and that preserves the epiggenome and it also repairs the DNA better.

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