What Harvard & USC Just Learned About Protein

[00:00:00]When I was a young boy, I thought I had diet all figured out. And that is because Popeye told us all that you can fight off bullies and save the girl if you just eat spinach.

[00:00:11]>> It's my Popeye!

[00:00:13]>> My mom had a master's in biochem from Cornell, and she told me Popeye was right and that every mother and grandmother in the world would confirm.

[00:00:23]I became even more convinced I had it dialed when Jack LaLanne rose to fame with a Hollywood would star by promoting exercise and the Mediterranean diet. I was his golf caddy at the Orinda Country Club on weekends, and we had receipts.

[00:00:39]Back then, America ranked among the healthiest nations, ahead of Japan, Germany, and the UK for life expectancy.

[00:00:47]And we had low obesity. But then a very odd thing happened on the highway to the danger zone. We got obsessed by extremely [music] low-fat diets, and then extremely high-fat diets, and extremely high-carb diets, and extremely low-carb diets. And now we're obsessed with adding refined protein to ultra-processed food and calling it healthy.

[00:01:08]>> Highway to the danger zone.

[00:01:13]>> As we sloshed from one diet to another, I noticed there was one group that wasn't sloshing. Actual nutrition scientists. The trouble with them is they talk to each other behind paywalls in technical terms only a nutrition scientist can decipher. And unfortunately, none of them have the ability to talk to the public like this guy.

[00:01:35]>> When we were all in the caves, half of everyone born was dead before the age of 30. Fast forward to 1840, that number went up to 35. Everyone back then was eating organic. And [clears throat] the water was clear, the air ran pure, the the game was free-range. Science matters here. You'd be dead by the 30 unless some doctor came in and said we can increase your life expectancy using science.

[00:02:00]>> I resemble those remarks. Five times science has brought me back from the dead starting at age 27 when my appendix burst. Same age as my father's. And who knows if I would have died by now from polio or from an abscessed tooth because a horse kicked me in my canine tooth and broke the root. Actual nutrition scientists have made big advances over the last few decades like showing how amazing nuts and seeds turned out to be for health. Not many people saw that coming. But getting the word out is not their strength and so that became the mission of Viva longevity to find the best scientists and to help them tell their stories. And I had to come to USC to tell this one which brings me to this new paper on protein which is behind a paywall and written in deep scientific language. It caught my attention because the corresponding authors, Frank Hu and Valter Longo, are among the most respected nutrition scientists in the world. In my interview with Valter last year, he told me >> We're going to make the case soon enough that proteins doesn't mean anything, right? Doesn't mean anything.

[00:03:09]It cannot mean anything when you can have a five 10-fold difference.

[00:03:13]>> He told me this paper was coming and it would help explain it. So I reached out to the lead author, Mara Fonti. She isn't a celebrity doctor selling a supplement line. She's a rigorous scientist working in the trenches of Valter's lab. I have a pretty strong scientific background and I've gotten to interview some of the leading nutrition scientists in the world. But I had to hammer her with questions for days to translate this deep science into plain English. Here is what we uncovered.

[00:03:44]>> Am I now your most irritating person in the world?

[00:03:47]>> No.

[00:03:48]>> After slamming you all week long with these long emails?

[00:03:51]>> No, no, no. You wanted to go into, you know, more details, so.

[00:03:55]>> There was a lot of details to go into.

[00:03:56]That paper is dense. You have so much data on the mice and human data. I mean, usually papers have one or the other.

[00:04:02]You had both.

[00:04:03]>> It lasts about 7 years.

[00:04:06]>> 7 years?

[00:04:07]>> Yeah, 7 years work.

[00:04:08]>> So, you've been working on this particular paper for 7 years? Wow.

[00:04:12]Amazing.

[00:04:13]>> I mean, 6 year plus, you know, writing and having that published.

[00:04:18]>> So, Walter told me this paper was coming, but he wouldn't tell me what it was about other than it would explain amino acids quite a bit better. He would say, "Protein doesn't mean anything. The word protein, it's like fat doesn't mean anything. Is it lard or is it olive oil?"

[00:04:31]>> So, it's not really um the amount of amino acid. It's more the amino acid profile.

[00:04:37]>> Yeah.

[00:04:37]>> So, plant-based and amino animal-based protein basically had different amino acid profile. That's why it's really matter the source.

[00:04:46]>> Strikingly different. Shockingly different. I mean, I'm astounded, actually. You study both mice and humans. Let's start with the humans first. This may look a little bit like an eye chart to some people out there in podcast land, but there's a shocking line in here. Can you explain what this is?

[00:05:04]>> Our collaborators was Anti Malik and Frank Hu published a paper about protein intake and risk factor for type 2 diabetes in this very big population, which is the Harvard cohort. They found that there was an increase in risk of type 2 diabetes only in the population with an higher increase of animal protein.

[00:05:24]But, they didn't see the same effect when the participant were consuming an higher intake of plant-based.

[00:05:30]>> So, I think this is one of the most important nutritional findings, and it drives the dietary guidelines for every country in the world except for America's new one. My sense is very few Americans understand this, and I think I know why. What this table shows is they divided the participants into five levels of protein consumption. The lowest quintile one got around 14% of their calories from protein. The highest quintile five got 21%.

[00:06:00]The participants were American where we have a culture of high animal protein consumption. So the consumption of plant protein as a percentage it was down around 30% or less. Here's the headline finding. Diabetes rates were double in the higher quintile even though the researchers noted many of the participants were seeking higher protein because they believed in our current protein obsession that it's healthier.

[00:06:25]This finding is not new. There have been decades of landmark studies showing similar results also for cancer and heart disease. So why do so few Americans know about this?

[00:06:36]I think the first reason is the big influencers who advocate high protein rarely mention studies like this. The beef industry is very proud of the something like $8 million annual budget they have to pay out influencers. They don't disclose who gets the money but I think a second reason is the beef industry are genius marketers so they know to shift the conversation from outcomes, how healthy are you, to mechanisms, like how much protein do plants really have? They have less so they must be less healthy, right? But that isn't what outcome data consistently shows.

[00:07:11]>> At the same time the population with the higher protein intake in general, especially the ones in animal protein intake, they also had an higher incidence of BMI but the higher intake of plant-based protein, they didn't show the same trend in terms of BMI. So we thought that this effect on overweight and obesity could be driven by specific amino acid, what we we have been seen in the mice and so we we thought that it could could have been applied to human too.

[00:07:39]>> Why Why you focus on methionine?

[00:07:41]>> We focus on methionine because it's an essential amino acid that has a direct molecular connection with specific nutrients and same pathway, in particular mTOR. So, this is one reason and the second one is because decades of literature show that methionine restriction improve like metabolic parameters, but also it's very powerful in extending longevity and lifespan. It's very powerful, but at the same time severe methionine restriction could lead to muscle wasting and frailty. So, when we started the diet, the longevity diet was modeled based on dietary patterns of population with exceptional longevity.

[00:08:29]Well, the longevity diet. Either from, you know, Mediterranean areas, in particular South of Italy, Sardinia, but also Greece or of Spain. And Okinawa, in Japan. So, it was modeled based on their diet, but at the same time it's shown to be relatively low in protein, but very low in methionine. And a level that was matching kind of the methionine restricted pattern. So, because we wanted healthy longevity, but also strength, we modulate this a single amino acid in the diet in order to have the diet been able to still produce the same metabolic benefits, but also preserve the muscle.

[00:09:10]>> When you say you moderate the methionine, did that mean you gave a methionine powder, some kind of protein powder?

[00:09:18]>> We had to formulate the the diet for the mice.

[00:09:21]This a number of ingredients that we had to carefully select. There are company where you can customize your diet for the mice. So, we basically sent them the ingredients we wanted them to to follow. And so, they were able to adjust the level of methionine in the way we want it. So >> on food?

[00:09:41]>> Not we they had to supplement.

[00:09:43]>> Oh, they had to supplement.

[00:09:44]>> Yeah, they had to supplement with a powder.

[00:09:46]>> Back to this chart, the thing that really stood out for me the diabetes rate doubled.

[00:09:52]Based on the Harvard studies >> Exactly.

[00:09:55]>> and health professionals. Doubled mainly by changing by eating more animal protein.

[00:10:01]>> It's also interesting that the participant in the quintile five are usually the ones that are they pay more attention to lifestyle.

[00:10:10]>> Yeah, that was a surprise to me. That you thought they were had more healthy user bias in the higher percentile because they thought protein was healthy.

[00:10:22]And so they were eating all this extra animal protein to get healthy and by doing so they were getting diabetes. You can get some insight into the healthy user bias by looking at the beverage consumption on this table. The higher protein consumers were drinking 74% fewer calories from sugar-sweetened beverages and 35% fewer from alcohol.

[00:10:47]>> And if you look at the total energy intake, there is a reduction of about 10%.

[00:10:52]>> Of what?

[00:10:52]>> Total energy intake. So basically >> Yeah.

[00:10:55]>> They were eating fewer calories.

[00:10:57]>> But they're getting an higher prevalence of BMI and overweight.

[00:11:02]>> Yeah, but I thought calories in, calories out. And you're saying well, it doesn't seem to be the case if you're getting too much methionine. Is that your >> Yeah, that's >> hypothesis?

[00:11:13]>> Yeah.

[00:11:14]That's why they re-analyzed the data for us and they they basically measured all the amino acid profile.

[00:11:20]>> I see.

[00:11:21]>> And they found that specifically in the higher animal group, there was increase of 81.5% of methionine.

[00:11:28]>> There is another popular podcast that interviews lead authors of landmark papers, The Proof with Simon Hill. Simon has a master's in nutrition science, and I think he's incredibly sharp. He interviewed Andrea Glenn, who led a fascinating study of the effect of plant to animal protein ratio and its effect on heart disease. This chart shows their key finding.

[00:11:55]The two bars on the left represent people who got about 30% of their protein from plant sources. The two bars on the right represent people who got about 60% of protein calories from plants.

[00:12:07]You can see the reduction in risk was much greater when the plant to animal protein ratio was higher. The other thing that made a difference was that in diets with higher overall protein consumption, the risk reduction from substituting more plant protein for animal protein was much higher.

[00:12:27]Both those results were the same as with Mara's paper. I traded long emails with Andrea and discussed them with Mara.

[00:12:36]Their takeaway is diets high in animal protein are clearly risky, but diets high in protein that are based on high-quality plant protein may not be.

[00:12:46]>> We didn't look at that specifically, and that's something that we're going to do for another paper that's going to come out. So, I think what's happening with this protein density finding is that they're eating more legumes and nuts.

[00:12:57]And then we know that those are really good for cardiovascular disease preventions.

[00:13:01]>> In the case of Andrea's study, which was based on heart disease, the riskiest source of protein was red meat, and nuts were the best at reducing that risk. For example, replacing just 3% of calories from red meat with nuts cut heart disease risk by 20%. That's incredible.

[00:13:21]Imagine swapping 25 or 50% of your calories from red meat for nuts, not just 3%. The numbers were also big for swapping poultry and dairy for nuts, just not that big. Okay, I know some of you are thinking, "Hey, I'm too young to get heart disease and diabetes, but I need abs and I'm working on my bench press, so I need meat, not nuts, right?"

[00:13:45]And that brings us to tomorrow's mouse studies. I'm usually suspicious of animal studies, but I have to admit the monkey and pig feeding studies I covered previous were absolutely foundational in understanding how we get to clogged arteries and how to get them to open back up. Dean Ornish wrote that those papers inspired him to do his famous studies in reversing clogged arteries in humans.

[00:14:10]>> What were you getting from the mouse studies that you couldn't get from human studies?

[00:14:14]>> So, animal studies let you do what you cannot do with human. For instance, for example, follow the lifespan.

[00:14:21]>> Cuz their lifespan is short, so everything's accelerated.

[00:14:25]>> Yes. So, still long in for mice, which is like around 30 months. It's depend on the strain. Also, tissue biopsies, for example.

[00:14:34]>> The other thing about humans, these Harvard studies are free living.

[00:14:38]And it'd it'd be nice Sometimes I say, "Oh, I wish these nurses would eat more beans."

[00:14:44]Nurses and health professionals, but they they don't eat a lot of legumes.

[00:14:48]They're like Americans or something.

[00:14:51]And they eat a lot of meat and not that many legumes. But with the mice you can control exactly what it is they're eating. And on a randomized control trial with humans, there's still the problem of adherence. Adherence could be good in the beginning and then fade later on. Here you show four different diets for the mice, but you actually had a fifth, right? You had the FMD diet.

[00:15:14]So, can you explain what's in each one of these diets?

[00:15:17]>> Before we learn which were the the benefits of the longevity diet, we had to compare to popular diet that in reality people usually follow. So, they're not just random diet.

[00:15:29]The control diet, it's a just commercially available diet. They are made to to make that the mice happy and healthy.

[00:15:37]>> You characterize it as pesco-vegetarian.

[00:15:39]>> It's a pesco-vegetarian.

[00:15:41]>> So, it's like Valter's longevity diet.

[00:15:43]>> Exactly, but >> So, not exactly what Americans are eating.

[00:15:46]>> No.

[00:15:47]>> It's pretty healthy.

[00:15:48]>> It's pretty healthy, but it's higher in protein intake. It's double the longevity diet.

[00:15:53]>> Oh, it is. Why?

[00:15:54]>> Usually diet for mice are in a range of 20 25% of protein. The longevity diet is 12. So, it's half.

[00:16:02]>> Yeah.

[00:16:03]>> So, but it's made with pretty healthy ingredients. So, the only difference it kind of the protein content.

[00:16:10]>> I see.

[00:16:11]>> Because it has protein from fish meal, soy, and whey protein. But, as you said, it's a very healthy diet.

[00:16:18]>> Although, some people may quibble with the isolated proteins. Some people may say, "Well, whey and soy protein is a refined food." But, anyway, that's what the diet was for these mice.

[00:16:29]>> Yes.

[00:16:30]>> That was the control diet.

[00:16:31]>> That you usually need to have when you run an experiment on mice because you want to you want to make sure that you are comparing with something that it's beneficial for the mice.

[00:16:41]>> How did they figure out that it's beneficial for mice? They've just known this for years?

[00:16:44]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:45]>> Figured it out over years.

[00:16:46]>> There are different control diet. It's not the only one. That this is the one that for us was a pretty good control because it's a like a pescetarian or not pesco-vegetarian like the longevity diet.

[00:16:59]>> I see. And then came the keto diet.

[00:17:01]>> It's a very popular diet.

[00:17:02]>> In your human studies, the graphs that you showed, it it wasn't didn't do very well. Didn't do well in weight control or anything.

[00:17:09]>> It yes, even though we tried to make it very healthy. Salmon, chicken, nuts, eggs, fat from avocado, coconut oil, and olive oil.

[00:17:20]>> But there is an apple in there.

[00:17:22]>> And some greens. 8% is carbohydrate.

[00:17:25]>> I see.

[00:17:25]>> It's very high-fat diet.

[00:17:27]>> Do mice go into ketosis? Do they have ketones and things?

[00:17:30]>> yeah, they do.

[00:17:31]>> And could you measure that or did you measure that?

[00:17:33]>> We we measure and they are very >> was enough for them to go into ketosis?

[00:17:37]>> Um yes, basically they they had the higher level of keto ketone bodies compared to the other diet.

[00:17:43]>> And then you put them on the everyday American diet, the Western diet.

[00:17:48]Hamburgers and cheese and steak. They must have been pretty happy mice in the beginning.

[00:17:54]>> They were very happy. We made the diet with food from fast food.

[00:17:58]>> Mhm.

[00:17:59]>> Like burgers, bacon, and buns. But also cheese, eggs, beef.

[00:18:05]>> Yeah.

[00:18:06]>> French fries.

[00:18:07]>> White bread.

[00:18:08]>> And white white bread.

[00:18:09]>> French fries and some kind of What's this drink?

[00:18:12]>> It's a ketchup.

[00:18:13]>> Ketchup?

[00:18:14]>> Yes.

[00:18:15]>> Oh, I see, for the French fries.

[00:18:17]Oh, well, that would make my wife happy.

[00:18:19]I don't know about mice.

[00:18:20]>> They they were happy actually at the beginning.

[00:18:23]>> They were happy until they got unhealthy.

[00:18:26]Just like Americans. Except you're more delicate in your language than I am.

[00:18:30][laughter] Okay, and then came the longevity diet and it looked like those are green cubes there that the mice are getting.

[00:18:38]>> Exactly.

[00:18:39]>> Beans and vegetables, olive oil, some potatoes, carrots?

[00:18:44]>> Yes. Carbs from potatoes and legumes, fish meal, a huge portion was from healthy fat, olive oil, and fish oil.

[00:18:52]>> Just like healthy populations all around the world. Um Some people are going to be outraged that you're doing this on animals, but I was at Petco yesterday.

[00:19:02]I saw these white mice. What kind of mice did you use? AT3 that doesn't mean anything.

[00:19:08]>> Hatrick mice.

[00:19:09]>> Yeah.

[00:19:09]>> Which stand for uh heterozygous mice.

[00:19:13]>> I see. What do they look like?

[00:19:14]>> Basically, it's a crossing that I from uh crossing four different genetic background. So, you get a population of uh genetic diverse mice, the way humans are diverse. They are a gold standard for aging studies. I mean, usually they have only a single genetic background, and they are like identical to each other. So, it's important because they can be more sensitive to develop certain disease.

[00:19:42]Some of them, like metabolic disease or certain type of cancer. In the case of the het-3 mice, they can display like disease from um any kind of disease like the human can.

[00:19:53]>> What do they look like? Are they the kind of mice that you'd buy at a pet store, or do they look different?

[00:19:57]>> I'm so excited. I've wanted a mouse since I was 3 years old. I'm 17 turning 18 this year, and I do not have a mouse yet. Like, I already have a hamster. I want a mouse.

[00:20:08]>> So cute.

[00:20:10]>> Pretty cute girl.

[00:20:11]>> Um actually, the hat can be different colors.

[00:20:15]>> Do you get attached to them?

[00:20:16]>> I I get to know them. Uh but in the in the case of this study, they were too many.

[00:20:21]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:20:21]>> Hundred and hundreds mice.

[00:20:23]>> So, you didn't name them and >> We we we couldn't, but uh we we we are very careful like handling them.

[00:20:29]>> As far as caged animals, are they relatively happy or you're not torturing them in some way except giving them the American diet?

[00:20:36]>> No, my mice actually are happy because I just give them the the diet. So, it it's pretty nice experiment for them. They like to stay with others. They are social uh animals.

[00:20:49]>> Well, I can understand people, you know, being worried about, you know, animals in a cage, but when you think about turkeys and chickens and pigs and everything that we raise for food, these have to be a thousand times happier than any of those, and we just shrug with those and eat them.

[00:21:03]So, I don't I don't know. But, anyway, you showed four diets here, and then there was a fifth one that you showed in the data, which is the FMD. Can you explain FMD?

[00:21:12]>> Yes, the fasting mimicking diet is not there because it's a all these diet were at the administrated chronically. They were everyday at libitum diet. Fasting mimicking diet is it's a different story because it's >> Once a month.

[00:21:25]>> In this case, twice a month.

[00:21:27]>> Twice a month cuz they're mice and things are happening faster or >> We can keep them in twice cycle a month if they're capable to regain the weight during the refeeding. If If we see especially with aging, they start losing weight. So, we need to be careful with fasting and fasting mimicking diet.

[00:21:45]>> Fasting mimicking means you just reduce the calories of their normal diet.

[00:21:48]>> It's a restricted calorie restricted plan for 4-5 days.

[00:21:56]>> I forgot to put my phone on uh People accuse me of forgetting to put my phone on do not disturb.

[00:22:04]That is from my 15-year-old granddaughter, Penny, and we chose that tone together. I get a big kick out of my tones. Uh she and I are going to Paris in a couple of days for 2 weeks uh with one of her cousins who's also 15 years old.

[00:22:20]>> No no problem.

[00:22:20]>> What were we talking about? I have Alzheimer's. Oh, FMD, yeah.

[00:22:23]>> It's a calorie restricted plan that lasts 4-5 days. It's a fasting mimicking because you kind of trigger your body to think that it's fasting but it's not.

[00:22:33]It's not really fasting. So, it's capable to reproduce same metabolic benefits of a water fasting program.

[00:22:39]>> I have a love-hate relationship with it because I hate doing it. Cuz I'm a big guy, 200 lb, and I'm active. I walk my dog 3 miles in the morning and 6 miles at night and then I do exercise and everything and it's like really, you're giving me 800 calories a day? I'm going to die. And And I think Walter Walter wants me to be less active during the FMDs, but I like to go out and walk my dog and listen to audio and everything. So, I just suffer for 5 days. I cheat a little bit and eat some celery.

[00:23:12]>> It's not easy.

[00:23:13]>> It's not easy for me.

[00:23:14]>> But it's feasible.

[00:23:15]>> For other people, it's easier than it is for me, but I suffer.

[00:23:19]What do the mice do? Do they get less active or >> Not really. They tend to be very active, especially the male. We notice the male are more active than female.

[00:23:29]>> So, the data that Walter has been producing through all this research on FMDs in humans is astonishing.

[00:23:34]Intuitively, I would have thought you're going to kill these patients who are on chemotherapy and are losing muscle mass and everything else by putting them on an FMD. What Walter, what are you thinking? This is crazy.

[00:23:44]But it didn't turn out that way. The data is just so non-intuitive for FMDs, and I guess it is for mice, too.

[00:23:50]>> In terms of lifespan, for example.

[00:23:52]>> I'm holding up a lifespan chart here for the mice.

[00:23:55]>> Basically, the graph show the probability of survival.

[00:23:58]>> The keto diet ones were dying at 1,000 days.

[00:24:01]>> The the western diet.

[00:24:02]>> Oh, I have the wrong Oh, the colors. I see. Western diet. You're right.

[00:24:06]>> 200 days earlier than the control diet and longevity diet.

[00:24:10]>> And 200 days in mouse in human years is what?

[00:24:14]>> 20 years.

[00:24:15]>> Wow.

[00:24:17]That's a difference. That's pretty shocking, actually.

[00:24:19]>> It it was, especially because at the beginning, they seems like to be happy, but they they body weight start to decline very rapidly. So, that means that they were getting sick they died.

[00:24:33]>> Just like Americans.

[00:24:35]>> The longevity diet and control diet are the ones that live longer. They both have the same maximum lifespan.

[00:24:42]So, they perform pretty well, especially considering that we start the the experiment with the mice were 60 65 year old in human life with a diet that was half protein than the control diet.

[00:24:58]Without getting fair frail or without losing any muscle mass.

[00:25:05]>> The longevity diet.

[00:25:06]>> Yeah.

[00:25:07]>> Supplemented with methionine.

[00:25:10]Meant that they didn't get frail.

[00:25:12]>> No.

[00:25:13]>> And they lived a long time.

[00:25:14]>> Yes.

[00:25:16]>> The next chart is frailty.

[00:25:17]>> So here the mice are very old. And you see that in this specific graph the frailty index show a significant increase of frailty especially in the western diet. When we measured that the frailty index at 23 months both western and ketogenic diet show to be more frail than the control diet.

[00:25:38]>> But the one that stands out to me is grip strength. What's going on with grip strength?

[00:25:42]>> So basically when we assess the frail the mice is not just a single test.

[00:25:47]There are multiple tests like the frailty index or the grip strength the rotor rod that give us information about strength and function or motor coordination. In this case the grip strength >> said rotor rod?

[00:26:01]>> Rotor rod.

[00:26:02]>> What is that?

[00:26:03]>> It's a test that give you information about the motor coordination of the mice and is not in that panel but still the longevity diet is the one that performed the best and also in the grip strength you see is increased significantly compared to the control diet. So it means that they maintained their strength and their function even though they are 23 months old with a diet that eats lower in a protein intake.

[00:26:31]>> What's your hypothesis on what would happen if you started the mice earlier?

[00:26:35]>> Um we we think that if we had started the intervention earlier probably also we we had seen significant result in terms of lifespan.

[00:26:46]We think that because any nutritional intervention that showed to be you know effective in increasing the lifespan are very powerful in increase the lifespan if they start earlier.

[00:26:57]>> The sooner the better.

[00:26:58]>> The sooner the better. They still work even later, but they they kind of reduce this this this power like the later you start.

[00:27:06]>> So, it reminds me a little bit of the famous British smoking study that lasted for 50 years. I have a real interest in epidemiology. One of the best epidemiologists in the world is Richard Peto, I think, at Oxford. And he was the epidemiologist on the British doctor study.

[00:27:21]And he'd very dramatically said, "Well, what we learned is smoking kills, but quitting works."

[00:27:27]And quitting works so well that if you do it early, it's as if you never smoked.

[00:27:32]>> If [clears throat] you stop before the age of 40, preferably well before 40, then you'd avoid more than 90% of the risk. And the people who stopped at about 30, they'd avoid about 97% of the risk. They're pretty well like non-smokers. So, stopping works. Even later on it works, but the earlier you stop the better.

[00:27:48]>> So, that brings up weight.

[00:27:50]>> With the longevity diet, very interesting thing is that they were able to keep stable the the the body weight until the end. If you see the other groups, these are are male and usually at 20 months the body weight start to decline. As you see, clearly the control diet, the standard show you how it's supposed to go. So, FMD goes like the standard diet. It means that they were able to regain weight after every cycle, which was pretty good. But the other two diet, like the keto and the Western diet, as you see, in 3 months they gain a lot of weight, but after 3 months on diet the body weight start to decline.

[00:28:24]In particular, the ketogenic diet actually here. It means that they were starting to get sick and and dying.

[00:28:32]>> Now, let's talk about fat mass and lean mass because that was pretty incredible.

[00:28:39]I mean, that was kind of a shock finding, I think. Can you walk us through what's going on?

[00:28:43]>> We measured the fat mass and lean mass after 3 months of diet, but also after 6, but here it's after 3 months. And you see how fat mass is significantly increased in Western and ketogenic diet, but it's reduced in longevity diet and FMD. The concern is what if they also are losing muscle, but actually the test that we run showed that all of them preserve or they lost the same amount of mass.

[00:29:11]So, they were capable to maintain the the the lean mass.

[00:29:16]>> This is the most information-packed paper I have ever studied. I could have spent all day in that studio asking more about all the things. I mean, oh my gosh, look at all this. My mind is totally blown. No wonder it took her team 7 years to collect and analyze all this data. So, what does this actually mean to you and I in our daily lives? I think it sheds light on the biggest black box in all of nutrition, protein.

[00:29:47]Everybody has a different impression of what that word means, and usually the answer is more is better. It dominates the design of our meals. If more is always the answer, how in the world can we explain this landmark heat map from five universities in Canada, Denmark, and the US? It shows foods that slow aging in green and ones that accelerate it in red. Look at poultry in red below sugar-sweetened beverages for aging.

[00:30:15]Moura has very compelling data both in humans and in mice to show that just like with carbs and fat, it's not the amount that's the central factor, it's the type. What makes Moura's paper exceptional is she shows the power of staying in the Goldilocks zone for methionine. Too much methionine, premature aging. Too little methionine, frailty. The Goldilocks zone for methionine, the perfect body composition. You can have abs. I made this chart of the amount of methionine per 100 calories of common foods. Look at chicken up there on top. That wouldn't be so bad if we followed the dietary guidelines for healthy countries and moderated, but instead we chicken maxed and quadrupled our consumption since 1961.

[00:31:03]Okay, you say, but look at salmon up there with beef. If Mar is right, why do some pescetarians live so long? One answer is it's a rare person who overconsumes fish, and the great foodie Jim Gaffigan knows why.

[00:31:17]>> Cuz fish is disgusting.

[00:31:19]>> [laughter] >> Who's the first person to walk into a harbor and go, "Hey, whatever reeks in here, let's eat that."

[00:31:27]>> So, what's the takeaway? If someone's following Valter Longo's longevity diet, and it's primarily plants, 2 days a week fish, are they going to be low in methionine? Do they have to supplement?

[00:31:38]>> No.

[00:31:39]>> Why no?

[00:31:40]>> You can get all the nutrients from what you eat. Of course, there are special categories like elderly or strict vegans that might need a supplementation, but you can get everything from what you eat.

[00:31:53]>> And you need some anti-methionine supplementation off Amazon.

[00:31:58]Reduces your methionine, you live longer if you eat all these animal foods.

[00:32:02]>> Exactly.

[00:32:02]>> You should invent that. Except then people would feel free to eat animal foods.

[00:32:06]>> They are already.

[00:32:08]>> So, what about them vegans? The thing is, I am vegan for at least 10 reasons.

[00:32:15]One is the first 10 years of my career was in Earth Science, and I still have PTSD for what Earth scientists see. And for some reason, not even David Attenborough, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, celebrities, heads of nations, and the UN have been able to get the public to see what we see. I will never be able to understand that until the day I die. For those of you who say, "Wait, this is the guy who flew to Paris in record heat and he's lecturing us about global warming?

[00:32:49]Hypocrite." It's true. I still fly to be with my family and interview scientists.

[00:32:54]And if you want to rip me in the comments section, that's very fair. But I think it's also fair to say that agriculture is an enormous contributor to destruction of the planet and every one of us has the power to do something about that. I gave a TEDx talk about it.

[00:33:10]But if you think my dietary beliefs are influenced by veganism, you would be wrong. I have never been able to find data that indicates that a 100% whole food plant-based diet is healthier than Valter Longo's longevity diet, which indicates fish twice a week. But what is a good vegan diet? If you find this research to be credible as I do, then it means getting enough methionine to prevent frailty.

[00:33:36]And that means making sure that nuts, seeds, and soy are in our diets. And that is going to spawn a lot of debunk videos of me from members of the plant-based community whose heroes are people like Nathan Pritikin and Dr. McDougall.

[00:33:52]Those are my heroes, too. I just think they formed their ideas decades ago when we didn't have a studies like Mora's.

[00:33:59]Science has moved on.

[00:34:02]So that brings up the final question.

[00:34:04]What inspires Mora to spend seven years in obscurity working on a paper like this? She's not getting rich or famous.

[00:34:11]She's not funded by industry. So why does she do it?

[00:34:15]>> I'm going to Italy.

[00:34:16]>> Oh, you are. That's where you're from.

[00:34:18]>> Sardinia.

[00:34:19]>> Sardinia. Oh, wow.

[00:34:21]>> Where centenarian come from.

[00:34:23]>> Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:34:24]>> I joined Valter Longo's because I've been surrounded with this longevity my the entire life. My great grandmother was a centenarian, so I always been very interested in the reason behind like someone can live 100.

[00:34:39]>> Yeah, fascinating.

[00:34:40]>> So, I was always been fascinated with the longevity, aging.