94. Can We Slow Aging? Dr. Sandra Kaufmann on the Science of Longevity and Living Better Longer

What if aging isn't something that simply happens to us? What if we could influence how we age?

In this episode of Joy of the Hang, I sit down with Dr. Sandra Kaufmann, physician, researcher, and author of The Kaufmann Protocol, to explore the cutting-edge science of longevity and what it really means to age well.

Dr. Kaufmann explains why we age at the cellular level, the seven key mechanisms that drive aging, and how today's science may allow us to slow the process and improve both lifespan and healthspan.

We also discuss practical strategies for protecting your brain, preserving your energy, and making choices today that could significantly impact how you feel decades from now.

Whether you're 40, 60, or beyond, this conversation will challenge what you think you know about aging and leave you inspired to take charge of your future.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

•  Why we age at the cellular level 
•  The difference between lifespan and healthspan 
•  The seven drivers of aging 
•  How lifestyle choices influence longevity 
•  The role of supplements and emerging science 
•  What you can do today to age better tomorrow 
•  Why it's never too early—or too late—to invest in your future health 

Connect with Dr. Sandra Kaufmann:
https://kaufmannprotocol.com

Subscribe to Joy of the Hang for conversations that help you live with greater connection, purpose, and well-being.

#JoyOfTheHang #SandraKaufmann #Longevity #HealthyAging #Biohacking #TheKaufmannProtocol #AntiAging #Healthspan #Wellness #AgingWell #SocialWellness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Imagine you're 90 years old. Close your eyes for a moment. Can you still walk up the stairs, travel, play with your grandchildren, laugh with friends, live independently, or are you confined to a chair dependent on everyone around you? Because here's the truth. Most of us don't fear getting older. We fear losing ourselves. For generations we've accepted aging as something that simply happens to us, a one-way a one-way street that we can't control. But what if that's not entirely true? What if science could help us slow the process? What if the choices we make today could influence not just how long we live, but how well we live? Why do we age? Today's I'm sorry, today's guest has devoted her career to answering one of humanity's oldest questions. Why do we age and can we do something about it? Dr. Sandra Kaufman is a physician, scientist, and author of the Kaufman Protocol, the first organized system designed to explain the biology of aging and provide personalized strategies to decelerate its effects. Her mission is simple yet profound. Translate complex science into practical information that helps people live healthier, longer, and more vibrant lives. Because perhaps longevity isn't really about adding years to your life, perhaps it's about adding life to our years. Please welcome Dr. Sandra Kaufman.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

That was a beautiful introduction. And I think I'm going to steal your last line because that was so well said. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Thank you very much. Well, I'm excited to talk about this because I can't tell you how many of my friends are worried about aging and are doing everything under the sun from gold plunging to all the biohacking things that come up to peptides, to I mean, we're all throwing stuff at it because we're all at that age now where we want to reverse the number, right? So I'm super excited. So let's start with a big question. Why should the average person care about the science of aging?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So that's actually a really good question. And I guess it depends on an individual's personality. Some people want to know exactly why they're doing what they're doing, and other people just want to be told what to do. Um, the science is sort of so new and so novel that the people that are into longevity and biohacking tend to be very interested in the science. So, just as a general rule, people want to know. And you know, it's it's it's really fun to hang out with longevity people because that is the buzz. Everyone's talking about their pathways and their this and their that and their experiments, and it and it's just really a very positively contagious environment. Uh, that being said, some people want to know and some people don't.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Like right.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah, because I mean some of the names, I think, what is it, Gary Breca? Is that am I saying that right? Sure. Big name in longevity. And the other name is escaping me, and I'm I'm mad at myself. There's another name, but the the gentleman that is uh doing all the, you know who I'm talking about? Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson. I thought I that's who I thought it was, but I didn't want to say it incorrectly. So Brian Johnson, so you're familiar with all the all the different things they're doing, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. You're in that space.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So what do you think about that? I I think that some of it is extremely reasonable and some of it is a bit off the deep end. But the the issue is that we have a lot of really good science, but we don't have every bit of science. So, you know, Gary Breco is more conservative, Brian Johnson is a bit of a lunatic. And people define healthy aging differently. So I think honestly that Brian Johnson looks terrible. So I wouldn't necessarily say he was aging well. So I there's lots and lots and lots of perspectives, which is really interesting in the longevity field.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And he's fascinating because he's someone who's really using himself as a human science experiment, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Well, to be perfectly honest, all of us are. Okay, interesting. I mean, not I mean, there are some people in the longevity space that say, oh, you could theoretically do all of these things, but they don't. So, example of those a guy named Aubrey de Grey that, you know, he he speaks it, but he doesn't do it. And I think that's kind of nuts. So as a longevity specialist, I do innumerable crazy things because I believe it. So I think that we do this because we're interested in ourselves and helping others, but mostly like you start it because you're interested in not aging yourself. So we all are running these sort of like n equals one experiments because that's who we are and that's what we can do.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And I am so looking, we're gonna dive into it further, the science of it all. But I just interviewed on the podcast a woman who is going to be 102 this year. And I, of course, ask her what the secret is to longevity, and she still, you know, is clear as a bell, very, you know, has all of her faculties, gets around just fine, and did it without all of the all of the current things that we're trying to keep ourselves alive, right? So I'm fascinated by people like her who just have lived, you know, this long life with pretty much diet, exercise, you know, the old, the basics, back to basics, right? And we're trying everything under the sun. I just think it's fascinating. I wonder how many additional years we're gonna be able to, our generation's gonna be able to get, and if we're going to live in a healthy way and not have Alzheimer's or succumb to some major disease, right? But let's talk more about this. You study aging every day. Has it changed the way you personally live your life? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

In what way? Oh gosh. From the morning, I from the time I wake up in the morning to the night time I go to bed, I am biohacking. I I start my day with eye drops and supplements, and I take them throughout the day, and I make sure I eat reasonably well, and I make sure that I exercise, you know, according to sort of my plan for the week. And when I go to bed, I take some of my peptides and I finish the day with more eye drops. So it is a full commitment to all of this, but there's such positive feedback that you can't not do it at some point. So, what got you interested in the study of aging? Good question. Uh, so I so I started life as a cell biologist. So my my sort of perspective has always been cells, right? You go to med school and they talk about organs and tissues and systems and that sort of thing. But at the root of it all, it's cells. And, you know, I'm not, I've never been a professional athlete by any means, but I've always been athletic, right? And I've been a rock climber and a mountain climber. And you hit I hit my mid-40s and I thought, you know, I'm feeling myself decline, my bones are aching, my joints hurt, I'm tired. There's got to be a way to solve aging. And so, based on my, you know, cellular focus, that's where I started. And I'm actually still very much convinced that that's where it ends. Like you've got to, you know, that is the absolute basic of age.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

And most people think aging is inevitable and out of our control. How much influence do we actually have? I would say a significant amount. Really? Yeah. Significant. Interesting. So tell me about the eye drops. Why do you put eye drops in morning and night? Is it so you won't need these glasses that I that I need? Because if so, I need to buy some right away.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Essentially, yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah. So they special eye drops?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yes. Okay. So I have five different types of eye drops to keep my vision perfect. And and it is. So I don't have presbyopia. I don't have issues at night. I don't need glasses. Um, you know, and I may be fortunate, maybe, you know, genetic to a certain degree, but I know when I'm a little bit of a slacker, I do get a little bit of blurry vision and you know, can't see quite up to cl up close. But when as long as I stick to my eye drop protocol, my vision's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Interesting. So is it too late if I've already started to lose vision? Is it too late to start that? No. No.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

That can be reversed. It is never too late. Never too late. I tell people if you're dead in the ground, it might be too late. But if you are still living and breathing, anything that you can do to increase the quality of your life is going to be beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

So, what's the biggest misconception people have about getting older?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

I think that people confuse lifespan with health span. And you sort of broached this in your introduction, which I thought was beautiful. Life span is clearly how old are you in physiologic years. Health span is how long can you be super healthy? And I think that people don't disconnect that in their minds, right? And and and again, you don't want to be 104 in a wheelchair and intrached and demented, right? You want to be living life to the absolute fullest. And it is absolutely possible. And as a personal example, like I went to my 40th high school reunion last weekend. And I gotta tell you, people aren't looking so good. You know, I mean, they're lovely, lovely people, very kind, but they are all succumbing to age. You know, they're a little overweight and their hair is thinning and their vision's terrible and their muscle mass is going down. And they're looking at me like I'm a nutcase, right? And yet they are they are my peers and I do all of these crazy things, and there's just evidence standing in front of you that says this works.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah. And I love that story. And I have to share another story. I was just on a flight recently, and the woman that sat next to me happened to be 92 years old. She was flying from Sarasota to Boston. And the funny part was I was like, Oh, where are you flying to? And she goes, Well, I'm going to visit my nephew. But after that, we're headed to Machu Picchu and then to the Galapagos Islands. And I went, How old are you? I said, You need to let me see your license. Because she walked on the plane. She did not, she was not one of the ones in the wheelchair. And there were people much younger than her in wheelchairs. And I thought, you're about to climb Machu Picchu? Like, how does that even happen? And she said, Well, we're not actually climbing, it's a national geographic trip and whatever. But I'm like, still, you're taking the long journey to go to Machu Picchu at 92 years old. Like, that's what I it's amazing. I'm like, tell me what you drink because that's what I want, right? It was amazing. So, what do you think people fear most about aging?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I don't know. I think it's I think that just depends on the individual. I think it's fear of losing control, fear of losing their minds, fear of losing the things that they love.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. I would agree. I would agree. And for me, it's a fear of looking looking like I'm a hundred years old too. And not being able to, you know, I don't have grandchildren. And that's part of the reason I want to stay fit and healthy too. Because if I am ever blessed with grandchildren, I want to be able to play with them and and climb mountains with them and you know do things with them. So that's my big thing. So we kind of talked about this, but what's the difference between living longer and living better?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Well, I think I think we did touch on it to a certain degree, right? But living better is about doing all of the things that you just look forward to doing. And again, I'm gonna hearken back to this reunion because it's it's just you know big in my mind at the moment. And people are just afraid to do things, right? They were afraid to climb a ladder for fear they fall off and break something. They were afraid to go on a cruise, afraid to travel the globe. And I'm like, I just I don't I can't imagine adopting that fearful attitude of age. Right. Because the idea is if you are happy and you're healthy, you can do whatever you want, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

How long how long, Sandra, had a doctor, would you like to be called doctor? Sandy's fine. Sandy. Okay, thank you. How long have you been biohacking? How many years? I was 45. So 55, 12 years. About 12 years. And you've noticed a big difference since you've adopted these, like nine and day. Oh my god, yes. Tell me some of the things that have changed for you. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Well, it it's actually just the fact that it you don't get worse. Like my skin has actually gotten better, my vision has gotten better, hair has gotten better, my endurance is better. I guess my muscle mass is roughly the same. I have zero medical problems, like zero, which is insane. I don't ever get sick. Like I truly kind of feel, and I should, you know, knock on wood, feel a bit immortal.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

That so, do you want to share with our listeners, take us through a typical day and what you do and what you take and eat and oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, that's gonna be a little overwhelming for people. So I take so I take, and this is crazy, but I take 72 supplements a day. Okay. And I take 13 pharmaceuticals for diseases that I do not have. And the idea is that I as a as a scientist and as an anesthesiologist, I consider molecules important, right? So I don't care if a molecule came from a plant or if we invented it in a factory or, you know, in a lab, a molecule is a molecule. And if a molecule shows benefit to you, right? Everything that you do is a risk-benefit ratio, eating the Twinkie or not, walking across the street or not, everything, every decision you make is risk-benefit. So when I look at longevity, it's the same thing. So I have looked at a gazillion supplements and I have rated them according to my protocol system. And I've decided that very specific ones and specific doses and at specific times are extremely beneficial, right? And the same with medications. I don't take medications to treat diseases. As a consequence, you can take a smaller dose with different timing, but you're decreasing whatever pathway will eventually lead to a disease, which and disease is sort of like part of lung, a part of aging, right? Like as an example, diabetes is the inability to deal with glucose. So as a consequence, glucose stores in your body via the form of AGEs, which are called advanced glycation end products, excuse me, and it destroys tissue over time. And it's one of the reasons that your skin droops. It's one of the reasons that your bones become fragile and you get heart failure without uh coronary disease. But you're gonna get the same AGE accumulation over time as a diabetic would. They're just gonna do it faster, right? So, as a consequence of this, I take three different diabetic medications to lower glucose products to prohibit things from happening as I get older. And as a consequence of that, I don't have any heart problems. My skin doesn't droop. Like there are a zillion things that you can sort of do prophylactically. And that's what longevity medicine is. It's prophylactic understanding why you're aging and preventing it instead of treating a problem when you get it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

It totally makes sense. And it's it's like I said, fascinating. And you brought up your protocol. So you developed the Kaufman protocol to explain why we age in simple terms. What causes our bodies to age? Okay. I'm not sure if you're gonna consider this simple, but I'll but I'll try it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

All right. So if you think of a cell as you you are made of cells and cell products, I think that cells age in seven main categories. Uh, and there's lots of subcategories, and I don't want to bore you to tears, but the main categories are number one, bad things that happen to your DNA. Two, mitochondrial failure. Mitochondria make energy, they deal with calcium, hormone uh production, a variety of things. But so, and there's seven reasons roughly why mitochondria fail. Uh, category three is what I call pathways. And they're all of these enzyme pathways. There's sertuans and AMP kinase and mTOR and your circadian rhythms. And when you hit 40, all of those things just sort of go afluey. So that's a problem. Category four is what I call quality control. And if you picture a factory, we all know that factories screw up over time, right? The manufacturing equipment gets mucked up as well as the widgets that you are producing. So if you translate that idea to a cell, number one, your DNA gets screwed up. That is, that is your equipment. You have 10 to the fifth DNA errors per cell per day. And if you don't fix them, you will have increased morbidity and mortality. The good news is that you have five different ways to repair your DNA, which is kind of nice. Anyway, so that's one aspect. And then proteostasis, those are the widgets that your cell would make. And there's this whole system to keep your proteins made and folded correctly that fails over time. Good news is you can upregulate that. And then autophagy is also in the category, but that's another subject. So let's see, that's four. Five is your immune system that turns into your inflammatory system as you get older. And we all know that we are increasingly inflamed with increased susceptibility to disease. Six is what I call individual cell requirements. And this is the idea that you want to be really nice to your stem cells and yet eradicate your senescent cells and recognizing that a brain cell needs different things than a kidney cell or a liver cell. Um, and then lastly, is waste management. And this is mostly like glucose accumulation issues. So in general, every reason that you age stems from one or many of these factors, sort of as it gets translated into organs and tissues, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

And in your book, you refer to them as the seven tenants of aging, right? That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

And your book is called The Kaufman Protocol, Why We Age and How to Stop It. Because the first half of the book is legitimately like, why are we aging? And it's really depressing. I I try to make it kind of light and funny, but it's still a bit depressing. Yeah. And and then in the second half of the book, uh, it was at the time, probably I think it was 12 or 13 of the top supplements, and I rated them in each of those seven tenants. There is book two that's 28 more agents, and I'm working on churning out more of them. So basically the idea is to educate people as to how they can best create their own longevity strategy.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Now, do you take clients on and help them figure out? Yes. Okay. I do. I do.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I have a clinic in Miami, I have a clinic in Las Vegas, and I see a lot of people by Zoom. And what generally happens is people go, I can figure this out. So they go to my website or they get my book and they start and they're doing really well, and then they get stuck and they want some help, so they call me. And I'm happy to do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

So do you have people go and do lab work? And do you look at their do you look at different labs than a normal doctor would? So I start with normal doctor labs because I am a normal doctor.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

And I That didn't come out right at all. My apologies. No, no, no. I totally understand the implication. But so so the answer is when people come to me, I do treat it like a regular physician office visit. Okay. Who are you? What are your medical issues? What is your family history? What do your family die of? What are your siblings aging from? Right? Like, what is your diet? What is your so we go through everything, soup to nuts? And I generally look at people's standard labs to start with. Because I want to make sure you don't have any liver function problems, kidney function is fine, you're not anemic. Like, I want to rule out baseline medical problems. And then we go in and we do some fancy stuff, right? Yeah. Um, and in terms of fancy stuff, it sort of depends on what the person is most interested in looking at. So, as an example, we can measure telomere length, but it's a bit esoteric and it's not really going to guide principles, but some people are just curious about it versus an epigenetic age, then there's there's a bunch of them on the market. And those are actually quite useful. You can look at those because you can actually change it and change your metabolic age by changing your supplements and your lifestyle. So there are some things that are really important, and other things you go, kind of nice, but not necessary.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Right. It's not really gonna help us. Is aging one process or is it a combination of many systems breaking down simultaneously?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

My God, it is a multifactorial, horrible problem. In fact, when I give my basic why we age lecture, my very first slide is this horrific diagram. And it looks sort of like a scattergram. There's arrows and things going absolutely everywhere. And it was published in 2017 and it's brilliant. Uh, and I've looked at the details and it's spot on accurate, but I always say that like no one has ever looked at the scattergram and said, aha, Eureka. Now I know what to do. It is just too complex and too scary, which is why I broke it into the seven tenants with a rating system to make it way more digestible.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

So which mechanism mechanisms? Some of these words are hard to say. No, you're doing better than me, and you have science-y words of aging are most influenced by our lifestyle choices. Good question.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

So, all of it, huh? To a certain degree. So in the DNA category, there's three main things that occur. One is telomere shortening, two is epigenetic modification, and then three is something called heterocrematin distribution. And epigenetics is massively affected by your lifestyle. And so, epigenetics, just to sort of explain it to your listeners, for people that are not quite sure what that means, epine means on top of the genetics. So if you think about the DNA from the fifth grade, it looks like a ladder that's been twisted, right? In in reality, that is true. However, it's packaged very specifically. And that spiral is packaged around things called histones, right? And if you strung it out, it would look like Christmas lights. So there'd be a string, a regular DNA, a swirly string, a swirly, and then it gets bunched together. And that is controlled by additions both to the histones and to the DNA. And to the DNA, we have things called methyl groups, which is just a carbon and some hydrogens that get stuck on a bit like a lollipop. And then on the histones, you can get methyl groups, acetyl groups, phosphate groups, lots of different types of things. And what they do is they block the ability for your body to use that section of DNA, right? So that is really interesting. Epigenetics can either be inherited from your grandparents or altered by what you ate yesterday. It is incredibly plastic. So if you look at like identical twins, right, genetically. They come out, they're exactly the same, their parents dress them the same, they look precisely the same. If you revisit them 40 years later, they don't look the same anymore. They're not identical. And that is the effect of epigenetics.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Okay. That's lifestyle. That is absolutely lifestyle. Yeah, interesting. So, in terms of lifestyle, what's your thoughts on drinking alcohol, for example?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

So there are pros and cons with drinking alcohol, right? Okay. Various types of alcohol have things in them that are quite good for you, right? Right, red wine has resveratrol in it. White wine has something called quercetin in it. So you can identify aspects of it that are really quite healthy, right? I mean, once upon a time beer was healthier than water because all the water was contaminated. So you say, oh, that's not bad, right? Yeah. On the other hand, alcohol is a toxin. So you don't want to drink that much of it. And some people swear it off entirely, which is fine. Some people just have a little bit and that's fine. When you take a lot, that's when it's going to be hazardous because it is toxic and it is going to destroy the mitochondria in your liver, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

And how do you feel about fasting? Or what does the science say about intermittent fasting?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

So fasting is demonstrated to be extremely good for you. Extremely good for you. And one of the it works by several mechanisms. One of the reasons it does it is it tells your body that you are starving. Okay. And it activates a pathway. We go back to like section three pathways. Um, and this is your AMP kinase pathway. And if you recall, ATP, adenosine triphosphate, is how we measure energy in the cell, right? The opposite of A is AMP, adenosine monophosphate. So the more AMP you have, the less energy you have. It's inverse, right? So there's an enzyme, AMP kinase, that gets turned on when you're starving. And so intermittent fasting turns this on and it initiates a lot of like sort pseudo-hybernation states. And that's extremely good for longevity.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Okay, so when we're talking intermittent fasting, are we talking a 16-8 window? Does it matter the amount of hours?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

So everyone has been debating this, and there is no absolutely completely perfect study that says, ah, it must be this many hours and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It is going to be extremely different from everyone. And what's really interesting is that women have an extremely hard time doing this.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I do. I have a hard time doing it. I I've tried. And sometimes I feel benefits when I've done it for a week or so. But other times I'm just feeling hungry all the time. And I never get past that feel good marker. So yeah, I and I have a girlfriend that swears by it who doesn't eat until noon or something every day. And yeah. And they have a small small eating window, right? And then they can eat pretty much what they want.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah. So every everyone is going to have their own. So everyone's metabolism is going to be slightly different. Interestingly, so women, based because of estrogen, we preferentially use lipids in our mitochondria versus men that preferentially use glucose sources. So inherently, our energy source, because it's different, makes some things harder and some things easier. And there are, of course, women that can intermittent fast, but for the most part, I have found that most women can't do it. And I personally turn into a raving lunatic bitch. So I just do. So I'm more of a snacker, right? Right. So everyone's going to be slightly different. Is it good for you? Yes. Is it, does it make your life miserable? It can. Right? So again, it's a light, it's it's you know, pro con thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And how about exercise? I'm assuming, well, I'm not even gonna assume I'm just gonna ask. What type of exercise do you think is best in terms of anti-aging?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

So I think that you need two, three basic types of exercise. So one is cardiovascular. There is no doubt that you have to get your heart rate up, right? And you can do this so many different ways, right? Um, but anything, I mean, running, swimming, tennis, like whatever it is, get your heart rate up. So that's important. Two is going to be muscle development. There is absolutely perfect evidence that as you get older and you lose muscle mass and become frail, you just don't do as well. So maintaining muscle mass is crucial. And then the last thing that we sort of forget about is bone. Bone responds to stress. And if you are jumping up and down or you're standing on a vibration plate, it activates your osteoblasts and it's going to prevent osteoporosis.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Right? So when I go through this with my clients, I don't care if you're boxing, if you're doing, you know, aerobics in the gym or whatever it is, but you have to do a combination of those three things to sort of maintain the longevity goals. Interesting. And how important is sleep? Sleep is incredibly important. And the reason it's important is because you repair your DNA and your proteins at night. Right. And how about what does stress do on the body in terms of aging? Gosh. So stress does lots of things. So physiologic stress can be interpreted probably five or six different ways. Of the things that are important, here's an interesting one. Corticos corticotropin releasing hormone, right, which is related to stress. And I can never say that without going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there are receptors for that on your mast cells. Mast cells are your immune system cells and they're first responders. And they're the cells that when you have an allergic reaction, release like histamine and serotonin and all of those make things that make you feel kind of crappy. They also release a lot of proteases, which are enzymes that dissolve proteins, right? So interestingly, when you are stressed, you can activate your mast cells, which then causes you to have more stress and more allergies. So I always laugh. You can be physiologically allergic to, which is, you see this in people, right? They get stressed and like they start itchy and they're red and they're sweaty, and that's kind of crazy. In addition, physiologic stress gets interpreted as oxidative stress in your cells. And oxidative stress will kill you over time.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

That's fascinating. If someone listening wants to age better starting today, where should they begin?

SPEAKER_01 28:10

It depends who you are and what you're already doing. So if someone is an absolute couch potato, get off the couch. Right? If you're sitting there eating a bag of Doritos, don't. All right. Easy stuff. If you already have the diet and the exercise thing down, then you want to figure out, okay, what what else do I need to do every day? And the answer is going to be supplements. How old you are and what your concomitant medical problems are is going to determine what's good for you and what is not. Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

So let's talk a little bit more about nutrition. Do you follow a whole food plant-based diet? Tell me about what you would recommend for nutrition.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I believe firmly in a well-rounded diet. I think that any particular narrow diet leaves things out that are very important, right? So, for example, a plant-based diet, you're going to be deficient in carnosine. Carnosine is one of the most potent natural transglycosylating agents that we have. And therefore, you're going to have more AGEs. That's not so good, right? If you're plant-based, you're going to tend to have less iron intake, which probably is good in the long term. On the other hand, it could lead to anemia. That's not so great. On the other hand, there are all these people that are obsessed with these carnivorous diets and you're missing all of the nutrients that come from plants. So I am a true firm believer in moderation because I also think that it's more sustainable.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Do you suggest, I'm assuming again that you do, suggest not eating processed foods and staying away from sugar?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

So yes and no. So the answer is yeah. Processed foods are terrible for you, clearly, right? Terrible. Staying away from glucose would be good. However, it's extraordinarily hard to do. And again, I believe in quality of life. So as a direct consequence of that, I take innumerable diabetic drugs to lower the effects of the sugar that I, in fact, eating. Because I refuse to watch my diet. Shocking. I'm shocked. Well, I know. I'm a bit lazy. I make up for my laziness in like medications. So but you can, I have a seven-step process for blocking the effects of glucose in your body.

unknown 30:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

And I'm not even going to ask you about the supplements because you said you take 72, and that would take a long time. I remember the number for you to name them all. I was going to ask, but I'm like, hmm.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah, it'd take a while. But I so I will tell you, because one of the common questions I get is if you were gonna like, if you're over 40, what do you start with? Right. So years ago, I came up with something called the panacea. And it's really not a panacea per se, but the letters kind of work out that way, right? So it's kind of fun. So over 40, if you have no medical problems, you want to start with something called pterostilbean. And it comes from blueberries and it's a Sartoin 1 activator. It does a couple things as well, but that's key. So pterastilbin. Astaxanthin, PA. Astaxanthin comes from algae, so it's very natural. Um, and it it is the strongest lipid-soluble free radical scavenger that we have. And the reason that that is important is free radicals are gonna kill you over time. They're horrible. Astaxanthin travels in your LDLs and your HDLs in your bloodstream, blocks oxidative stress. And that's important because it blocks the beginnings of atherosclerosis. It also saves your skin. If you're on it, your skin doesn't burn in the sun, and it also saves your vision. So astatanthin is crucial. An NAD precursor is crucial. So after the age of 40, or even younger if you have some sort of concomitant inflammatory disease, you are NAD deficient by definition. You need more of it as you get older and you have less, and therefore all sorts of things sort of decline, like energy and DNA repair. Curcumin is incredibly important. The caveat to that is that regular curcumin is pretty much worthless. So you need to get one that is bioavailable. And there's several on the market. The old-fashioned way to make it bioavailable is to add pepper. I use one that's in a specialized nanomyal. But if you get a good quality one, inflammatory processes are better controlled. Um, and then the last thing in the panacea is carnosine. And this again comes from meat, mostly turkey and chicken. We have it in ourselves, and we have less as we get older, and of course, men have more than women. And not only does it help with uh acid production, it sort of sucks up acid in your muscles, but it's a transglycosylating agent. So glucose that you eat is less likely to affect you. So if anyone's gonna start, that's where you start.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Those five supplements. Correct. Okay. If you had to choose only three habits that that have the biggest impact on healthy aging, what would they be? Well, number one would be keep moving.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Keep moving, okay. Keep moving. Two, sleep. Three, swallow a lot of supplements.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

That's funny. What are some of the most promising discoveries happening right now in longevity science? Oh gosh. Well, at the moment, I am completely obsessed with something called exosomes. Exosomes, yep. I've heard of them.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yep. Um exosomes are truly amazing. And uh they come from, well, every cell emits exosomes. That's how cells communicate with each other. And if you get them from periphetal or very young mesenchymal stem cells, right, these exosomes carry messages of youth and vitality and regeneration to your own cells. So I firmly believe that anyone over 40 should inject them on a regular basis. To this end, I run something called club exosome in Vegas, and we do this. People fly in from all over the country on it, you know, four times a year, and we inject them with exosomes. And at the moment, that is considered kind of avant-garde. But I think over time, that's going to become a standard thing, right? So is that the next level above peptides? Or what's the difference between well, so so when you think about what they do, so supplements are actually incredibly good because they create, they optimize your cellular function, all of your cellular function, right? Peptides I use to fill in the blanks. So let's say you're on your agents, your supplements, and you're like, oh, you know what? I'm just not feeling quite up to snuff. There's a peptide that helps your immune system, right? Or, you know, I'm doing all of these things, I'm just not building the muscle that I want. There's a peptide for that. Or, you know, copper tripeptide for skin. So I like to think of it as like spot welding or just filling in the cracks. That's what peptides do, right? And that would be on the things you do every day to every week sort of process, right? Every month to quarter, that's where exosomes fall.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Okay. Every month to quarter?

SPEAKER_01 34:20

To quarterly. So I do it every month to myself because it's in my freezer and I can. But it's kind of, you know, it's challenging. And some of my patients do. We use small doses every month instead of a bigger dose fewer times a year. But I think that's one of the massive keys to longevity.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Well, that's interesting. So I just started peptides. That's new for me. So I was doing, I broke my arm a few months ago. So I started doing BP157 with the TB500 combination. And noticed the funny, I it seemed like my bone, well, the doctor said my bone healed much faster than he would have expected. I had better range of motion than I should have had. I didn't end up having to have surgery. It was borderline. So it's done an amazing job of healing itself. And I credit I did that only for one month. But I think that that helped significantly, actually.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I'm I'm sure it did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, I think it did. I and I I have to say I was reluctant and I've been reluctant to get into the peptide game because I hate needles. So for all of those that are listening that hate needles, I have to have my husband uh inject me when when it's time because I really can't do it myself. I did have an issue with one of the peptides. I think it might have been Ipamorlin, where it really burned and I stopped it because it was quite uncomfortable for me. So I is that common to have that side effect with some of the peptides? Yeah. No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I think one of the crucial things to understand about peptides is that peptides are messages that go to your DNA and ask them politely to make a protein. This is what they do, right? But if your cell as the factory is not outfitted or optimized to be able to do that, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

So so if older people, and this is not uncommon, older people try peptides and they're like, you know, I've stabbed myself 12 times and like nothing's going on. It's because their cells aren't functioning. I always say it's it's like going to a sneaker factory and asking them to make Skittles, right? You you just can't do it. But if your cells are optimized and then you throw a peptide on top of it, then you're gonna have better results. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

That makes sense. So many of my listeners are women over 50 who suddenly feel like their bodies have changed overnight. Yeah. What do you want them to know?

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Um that menopause is optional. I wouldn't do it. I I opted out. No. So I because I started all of this crazy stuff at 45, I delayed any symptoms until like mid-50s. And then as my own endogenous levels were going down, I just started supplementing.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

So I have a million questions about this because I've really struggled with hormone replacement therapy and finding the right blend and the right doctors to help me. So I started and stopped. But I am also 10 plus years post-menopausal. Is there a point where it's too late to introduce the additional progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone? Is there a point where it's not helpful?

SPEAKER_01 37:23

So interestingly, so the original studies, right? There's the, it was 2002. They only looked at older ladies, 60s and up, that had started and they found that there were a lot of um bad things that happened, increasing cancer, increasing cardiovascular disease, and that sort of thing. Recently they have realized that that's because you they started it late in life. The question is, is how late in life is it a problem? And no one really knows. Um, the other thing that happens is as you get older, your receptors become downregulated. So depending on how old you are and how long you've been out, it may or may not work at all. And if it does work, it may actually be harmful. So I advise most women to think about it prior to that stage because you don't, if you never let your levels drop precipitously, you're going to avoid all of the major problems, right? Because coronary disease goes up, dementia goes up. Uh, pretty much every disease of aging escalates as soon as your estrogen drops. Yeah. So the key is to be on as little as you need to maintain your homeostasis. And then, of course, progesterone is if you have a uterus, if you don't, then that's another game. And then, of course, the question is which estrogen, right? Because there's several to choose from and several different formulations and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So all of that, I'm working on actually writing that up in terms of when you should do it, when you shouldn't do it, the algorithm, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

So I will I will get back to you on that because I haven't Well, if you need a test person, I'm gonna volunteer because so anyway, no, I so I'm 60 and just started. I decided to go with the pellet because I hate beetles so much. And uh didn't notice a huge change. My only complaint at my age right now is I'm not able to really build muscle very easily, and I had low libido. So those were my two reasons for wanting to go on test testosterone specifically, and that's all she put me on. She didn't even put me on the progesterone on an estrogen. But anyway, those were my my reasons for exploring it. And of course, all my friends were on it, so they're like, you've gotta do the pellet. So I would be interested in whether or not that would be beneficial going forward, or if I should just find another uh avenue to address some of the concerns that I have as I age. And I do have osteopenia too, but I think a lot of people do at my age.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

So well, so so I I hate to interject, but I I you gotta stop saying at my age. Okay. Because you're you're assuming that these things are normal for your age. Right. Right? So my argument is completely the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

As a healthy adult, you shouldn't have those problems. So let's get rid of them. Shouldn't have low libido. And yeah, you should you shouldn't have any of these things. You shouldn't be osteopatic or osteoporitic. You shouldn't have coronary disease. You shouldn't have, like, you should not have necessarily broken your bone unless it was like massively traumatic, which is fine. Right? I mean, if you're hit by a bus leg, you're gonna break something.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

It was a skiing accident. And the funny thing is, Sandy, you're gonna appreciate the funny thing is I have broken my arm three times, different both sides, three times in the last five or six years. Oh my all different, but this was a skiing, a fall skiing that I broke it, and it probably should not have broken, but it did.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Well, in in that case, you need to work on your osteoblastic activation. All right, we'll talk offline.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah, how much of what women experience in midlife is aging versus hormonal changes? I would argue that's exactly the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Okay. Is it too I know you've already answered this too? Is it too late to improve our health span after 50 or 60? Never. Never too late. No. Here's a funny thing in the grave and not bright breathing.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Here's so my dad is a physician, but he retired and he's 85 years old. And he lives with his 85-year-old girlfriend on her horse farm. And my dad is the stable boy, right? He's 85. So twice a day, he's out there for hours raking stalls, moving hay, feeding them, watering them, whatever one does to horses, because it's not my gig. Anyway, when he hit about 82, he goes, you know, I think there's something to this longevity thing. Like I'd written these books a while ago and he never read them. But he goes, you know, I think that exercise and and health is important. I'm like, thanks, Dad. Nice of you to come around. Yeah. But anyway, but so he, you know, he came to it at 82 and he's like, this is good. So any time before you are dead is going to be helpful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Well, I yeah, I definitely need that encouragement because there's definitely a few things that I'm like, okay, I'm not feeling as good as I should feel. So yeah. What gives you the most hope about the future of aging science? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

The fact that people are even talking about it. Yeah. When I started down this road, I felt like Don Quixote, right? People are like, longevity, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. And I would go to like conferences and there'd be women with crystals and like sound healing things. And I'm like, yeah, no. Oh, you know, I would get up on stage after a sound healer and talk about like DNA repair mechanisms, and I was clearly odd man out. But now when you go to conferences, it is all cellular biology, molecular biology, like, you know, new molecular options and very intense studies. And a lot of people are pouring a lot of time, energy, and resources into figuring this out. And I think that that's just an amazing new trend because it's going to help all of us.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah, that talk about longevity. I feel like it's a hot topic and has been for the last five or six years, anyway. Remember watching Dan Butner's The Blue Zones, you know, and and his that he did on longevity, and which was obviously fascinating too. So I think a lot of people have been really interested now in figuring out how to live not just longer, but better and healthier, right? That's the goal. So yeah, I love that. So this has been absolutely fascinating. What else should we know about longevity, or what else do you want to teach us about aging well? Let's see.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Well, I think that creating a mental framework is kind of important. So I like to think about medicine in today's world in three tiers. Tier one is traditional Western medicine. We wait until you get a disease and we treat it, right? We measure your blood pressure and we go, oh no, your blood pressure's going up and you get a medication, right? Or you get pendicitis or something. But right, it is it is reactive. Tier two is more what we call functional integrative medicine. And they're a lot of naturalistic stuff. And they test for like Lyme's disease and toxicities and arsenic poisoning and all that kind of stuff. But I want people to understand that tier three is longevity medicine. And tier three is the going to be the most proactive way of seeing the world. So we know why cells are aging and we know that certain things will decelerate that. So we fix it before it becomes a problem. And people don't like that train of thought necessarily because they're like, well, why do I have to do this? And the answer is because statistically you are going to die or you're going to get such and such, right? Everyone's always shocked when grandma gets cancer. Grandma's gonna get cancer because her DNA repair mechanisms are going down, her natural killer cells are going down. Like she will get cancer. Everyone's shocked. Even they see it in themselves, they're shocked. But we know it's coming. So prophylaxis against aging and disease is crucial, but you have to buy into the idea that you have to do things before they become important. That and that is tier three. That's where I live.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

The prevention. I like that. How important do you think connection is in anti-aging and having community?

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I mean, it's very important. You know, I I don't ever talk about it because we don't actually know in terms of science, yeah. Yeah. But you know, being close to people, your brain chemistry obviously changes. You tend to have a healthier outlook. Positivity, we don't know why, but that seems to be quite helpful.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Yeah. I know. It'd be interesting if someone could figure out what's going on, right? No, it would be great.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

And and the problem, however, with human longevity studies is that they take an extraordinarily long time.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Right?

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Yeah. You know, if you could we use mice and rats because they die in three years. I mean, a true human longevity study is going to take hundreds of years. Um and the chickens out there want to wait for these studies to exist. And I'm always like, you be my guest, yeah, you'll be dead. And, you know, if if if there's a if there's a pro-con and the pros have it, like just do it. You know, why wait for these massive studies? Because they will exist for our great grandchildren, but for us, they don't.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

So you're looking at aging on a cellular level. So almost, so I would imagine that it's pretty much the same globally, but are you finding that different cultures and different parts of the world handle longevity differently in in your in your work? Or is it just a human?

SPEAKER_01 46:21

No, I think it's more of a human thing. I think it depends on what people where they come from in terms of their their training, right? So doctors tend to come at it from more of an organ systemic basis. Cultural anthropologists come at it from a happiness, you know, system, or like the blue zone, like, you know, exercise and eat good tomatoes in Italy kind of deal. I just came from cell biology world, so I live by the cells. Yeah, ultimately it's all going to be synergistic and come together, but I think it's just more training-based.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Interesting. Well, we're down to our final five, and you can answer this in one sentence, one word or less. Ready? What brings you joy? My children. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

How many children do you have? Two. I have two girls, a 20-year-old, 20 and a 22-year-old. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

They live with you? No, they're off in college. Yeah, I have a 24-year-old daughter and a and a 30-year-old son, and they're off living their life too. Although she was just here, I got to spend the week with her, and it was my favorite time. I was very selfish with her.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Right? I mean, that's but that's fun.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Yeah. All my girlfriends are like, Aren't you coming out to meet us for a drink? And I'm like, actually, no, we're gonna binge watch a TV show, and we're gonna sit on the couch in our pajamas. I was very selfish.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

No, but that's that's perfect. They love it, you love it, right? Makes you happy. That's that's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Yeah, we both needed it for sure. What's one daily habit that you never skip?

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Well, you could say brushing my teeth, but that'd be pretty generic. Exercise. You did you exercise daily, every single day? Yeah. For how long? Depends on the day. Sometimes it's a half an hour, sometimes it's several hours. Just sort of depends.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Yeah, same. Some days I'm in it to win it, other days I'm in it to get it over with.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Yeah. If you could give to every person one piece of longevity advice, what would it be? Take Astaxanthan. Astaxanthan. I had never heard of that one.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

I think other than people with gout, it's one population that probably shouldn't take it. It is it is the best thing in the world. Can you get it anywhere?

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Anywhere. Okay. I'm going to get it after we get off the after we get off our call. At age 90, how do you hope your life looks?

SPEAKER_01 48:36

A lot like it does right now. I want to be working. I want to be creative. I want to enjoy my family. I want to, you know, be productive and keep learning new things. I want to travel extensively. I don't want things to change. And at the end of your life, what do you hope people remember about you? That I tried really hard to figure all of this out and that I made some sort of contribution to humanity. Are your daughters also studying biology? One is and one is not. My older daughter is a musician, and my younger daughter is getting a biomedical engineering degree at Purdue.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

So she'll follow in my footsteps. I love that. Well, we're going to sign off, and I am going to say we spend so much of our lives trying to look younger. Maybe we should spend more time learning how to live better because aging isn't the enemy. The enemy is believing that decline is inevitable and that we have no say in how we move through the second half of our lives. Dr. Sandra Kaufman reminds us that while none of us can stop time, we can influence how we experience it. We can invest in our health, our minds, our relationships, and our future selves. And perhaps the greatest gift of longevity isn't simply more birthdays. It's having the health and vitality to fully experience the people and moments that matter most. Dr. Kauffman, thank you for helping us understand that growing older doesn't have to mean growing smaller, and that every day is an opportunity to age with intention. And to everyone listening, remember the goal isn't just to live longer, it's to stay curious longer, love longer, laugh longer, connect longer. Because in the end, a long life means very little if we don't have people to share it with. And that's why the joy really is in the hang. Thank you, Dr. Sandra Kaufman, for being here today. And how can people find you? Um, let's see. So uh I have two websites.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

If you're curious about science, uh you can look up Kaufman Protocol. And if you want to find me specifically, Kaufman Longevity. On your website?

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Website, correct. Kaufman Longevity.com. All right, excellent. Thank you for being with us today. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Okay. Bye bye.