00:00 - Andy Smith
Welcome back to another episode of The PEMF Podcast. Today I'm joined by molecular biologist NAD expert resident scientist on the What's My Age Again Podcast, with Katherine Ryan, and one of the leading voices in the longevity space, Dr Nichola Conlon, Nichola's here to share her expertise on NAD longevity and cellular aging, as well as why it's not advised to beep the horn on a driverless vehicle, which we will come to at the end.

0:24 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Ah yes yes.

0:27 - Andy Smith
Nicola, welcome to the PEMF Podcast

0:29 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Hi Andy. Hello. Thank you for having me.

0:31 - Andy Smith
I'm going to go straight in and I'm going to go in with a quick fire.

0:34 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Oh go on then.

0:35 - Andy Smith
So I am going to ask you sone quick fire questions

0:37 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yep

0:37 - Andy Smith
Don't worry no wrong or right answers. And then we'll kind of drive into them.

0:41 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Do you want one word kind of answers like whatever comes to my head?

0:44 - Andy Smith
Pretty much, whatever comes to your head and we can take a deeper dive later.

0:50 - Andy Smith
Do you think we will ever be able to reverse aging?

0:53 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yes, we already can.

0:54 - Andy Smith
Do you believe stress aged us faster than diet?

0:57 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Oh, No

1:00 - Andy Smith
sunshine. Is it a friend or foe when it comes to aging?

1:04 - Dr Nichola Conlon
God. Foe if it's a skin friend if it's general

1:09 - Andy Smith
sleep or exercise, which is more important for slowing biological age?

1:14 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Sleep

1:14 - Andy Smith
One longevity habit, You can't personally live without?

1:17 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Exercise.

1:19 - Andy Smith
Do you think biological age testing would ever become as routine of checking blood pressure?

1:24 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yes.

1:24 - Andy Smith
Can extreme biohacking increase your biological age?

1:27 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yes it does.

1:28 - Andy Smith
Biggest myth about NAD+?

1:31 - Dr Nichola Conlon
that you can get it from your diet.

1:32 - Andy Smith
Cheapest and easiest longevity hack that everyone should be doing without thinking?

1:37
Dr Nichola Conlon
Sleeping.

1:39
Andy Smith
if you could only do one thing every day, any cost for time, dedicate it to slow your biological age, what would it be?

1:46 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Cut out ultra processed food.

1:47 - Andy Smith
Favourite guest from what's my age again?

1:50 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Like, oh, Jill Scott.

1:53 - Andy Smith
who's funnier? Katherine Ryan or Jimmy Carr?

1:55 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Katherine Ryan, obviously.

1:59 - Andy Smith
Learning from your experience and involvement are large drug companies, friends of foes?

2:05 - Dr Nichola Conlon
foes.

2:08 - Andy Smith
We'll come back to that. You've come from, I don't know if you have been doing it today but I know this week we've been recording for the what's my age again? podcast, which is my absolute favourite podcast other than The PEMF Podcast. Absolutely amazing the concept of that. Can you give a brief explanation of what that podcast is about but then lead into. What's the difference between biological and chronological age? To get that one out.

2:29 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So the first thing is the what's my age again podcast is like officially the only podcast where we actually ask guests for their blood, which is obviously quite an unusual request. So when you're going on a podcast, but what we do is we give each guest a biological age test. So this is a test that measures how old you are on your inside. So you've got your chronological age, which is just the number of years that you have been alive according to your birth certificate. But then the biological age is actually the more important because it's how old or how fast you are aging on the inside. And interestingly, there's often a discrepancy between people's chronological age and the biological age. So for some people, they get a nice surprise because the biological age comes back younger. For other people, it's not so great because the biological age comes back older and that means that they are typically aging faster on the inside. So each of these guests has the biological age test. Catherine does a great job interviewing them and grilling them on their lives, on their lifestyle, all sorts of things like that, how they feel about aging, what their attitudes are towards aging. And then I come out, wheel the scientists out, with the this is your age and we do an age reveal and then give them the good or bad news and then talk about why we think their result is what it is.

4:01 - Andy Smith
And you've got all sorts of different celebrities going on there, and you reveal their age. Literally in front of them. So it's, quite intrusive to them. And there's been some quite interesting results. Is it more the environment around them, the effects their age. Like what is it that typically will give someone a really high age compared to one that getting lower biological age?

4:24 - Dr Nichola Conlon
It's typically lifestyle. So a lot of people when it comes to age and will think that it's kind of down to their genetics, like a lot of people blame the way they age on the parents and go, oh, you know, my, my mum or dad, they didn't age very well, so I haven't got a chance. There's nothing I can do about it to my genes. But what we know is that most of it is lifestyle. About 80%, only 20% is kind of out of your control. That means. So it's you know, if you see someone that has a good lifestyle where they're kind of doing all the all the really obvious things that, you know, you should be doing and not doing the things we know we shouldn't be doing. They are generally the people that have the better biological ages as opposed to, you know, the people that, drinking and smoking and, not exercising, eating a rubbish diet. They will generally have a high biological age.

5:16 - Andy Smith
You said generally. Are there anomalies?

5:19 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, sometimes we do. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. We do see exceptions. And that's where the caveat comes in. So I've said like okay so about 20% is genetics. But what we do know is that some people kind of are genetically blessed where they do just seem to have, a sort of body that is much more resilient, much better at repair, much better at lower lowering inflammation, even when kind of bombarded with things that are damaging it. So that's that is an exception to the rule. But as with any science, as always, scientific anomalies, we always see that the outliers. Well, yes.

6:01 - Andy Smith
One of the episodes that really interested me. Was the one with Jill Scott? Because she's just recently retired, she is not what you would call old. You know she is elite level football. But she got quite a high biological age. And she was quite pissed off with it. What was it you think that was really affecting hers.

6:21 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, this was an interesting one because I think everyone kind of expected her to come back younger. So, I'll not give it completely away in case anyone wants to listen to that episode. But she came back. She's the same age as me, but she came back quite a lot higher, and she was very shocked. And I think a lot of people were very shocked. But I wasn't that shocked. I was kind of expecting it because this is a common pattern that we do see an elite athletes where if you are overtraining, with lack of recovery, it tends to push the body more into this chronic stress state. You've got a lot of inflammation. The body's really working hard. It's not having a chance to recover. So you kind of see the balance tipped the opposite way. And when we think about our biology and our bodies, everything in our body likes balance. And I think this has become a bit of a problem. Because a lot of the things that we're told to do that are good for us, some people will then take them to extremes and they'll think more is better, like exercise, like diet, things like that, where it's not, body enough. Biology likes balance. Everything in, in our cells at all goes by a kind of a mantra of homeostasis, which is like balance. So when someone is doing a lot of exercise without much rest or little exercise is generally good for us, it really does tip it in the pro-inflammatory direction. Now, the interesting thing is that this seems to be much more of a problem in women than men. And the reason for this is that in women, if you, using a lot of energy, if you are over exercising, if you've got very low body fat, what that does is it actually impacts the hormones. So it'll turn down estrogen. And we know that estrogens very protective. And in a female body, especially when it comes to inflammation. So you've got this kind of perfect storm where you are putting a lot of stress on the body, you getting a lot of inflammation, a lot of sort of damage from overtraining, but then also estrogens going down. And that means that you haven't got that protective effect. So it's kind of like two things that, accelerating the age. And so this is why in women, the over exercising actually does have much more of a negative impact. And we we not only saw that in Jill, but we also had Denise Lewis, as well. Now obviously she's been retired for quite some time, but even her biological age was a bit older, so it's like there was still some effects there we thought.

8:55 - Andy Smith
So this is my opportunity to get you in front of me and say, talk about my biological age because I've done two different biological age test now. Although they came in lower, than my chronological age, I still wasn't impressed with it. Some of the biohackers in the field they get 20s, you know, and I wanted that. That's the golden ticket number that everyone wants. I know you haven't seen my results and my, I haven't filled out paper work in front of you but off the top of your head. What do you think the things. So I did the glycan age. I got 32. too. I'm nearly 38 so still a bit better and why whoop age is 31, so quite comparable. So what do you think that is in there that is not giving me 20?

9:43 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So without seeing your results, so I interpret a lot of glycan age test results. Now, obviously, there are other brands. I, I do, I don't work for, glycan age, but I work a lot with them because I believe in the science behind their tests. And also the way glycan age works is it measures, inflammatory markers. So it measures glycans, which are like the little sugar structures that are on your immune cells. And you can look at these different patterns of glycans where in young cells, they will have a very useful and inflammatory pattern in older cells that will change and that will be more pro-inflammatory. So you look at the patterns and then that basically determines biological age. Now I'm going to guess what yours would look like without seeing it. Maybe I could have a look after. But I'm going to guess that you will have a profile that looks like something that we call the, manager's profile.

10:40 - Andy Smith
I was about to say business owner, is that?

10:43 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, that pretty much hit the nail on the head here. And, what this what this is, is it's normally normally, sometimes it can cause people's biological age to be older or if it's not quite got too bad it's just you can see it's sort of slipping in that direction. And just from the very brief conversation we had in the left on the way up about, our lives, you know, I think, we're, we're both business owners, you know, we're both have busy lives, and it's a pattern where it's somebody who has quite a lot of stress in their life. So they're constantly busy, can't really switch off. Maybe burning the candle at both ends maybe does quite a lot of travel. That maybe upsets circadian rhythm. And, and in this pattern, we do normally see that even in people that have younger biological ages, there are some hints that, you know, you may be making up for this stress and up for this lack of sleep in other ways, like supplements like lifestyle. And it's kind of balancing it out, but you can kind of see it slipping. The other thing that we also see in this group of people, is these types of sort of, I'd say, like high performers, people who are running the businesses doing loads of things have, you know, jobs that are very responsible are usually also the type of people that are trying to do things to improve the health and just by their personality type, they usually people that will take things maybe to extremes. So there will be doing everything. I've done some biological ages of some of the sort of biohackers and they come in being like, yeah, I'm doing everything like it's going to be really good. And I'm like, yeah, you're actually ten years older. And they're like, no, I don't believe this. I do 15 minutes in the ice bath in the morning and then I do an hour sauna and then I do two hours cycle, and then I do it and I'm like, okay, yeah, this is probably why, you know, when you get people that go to extremes and then they're doing so much biohacking that it's actually going the the wrong way because it's putting the body under too much stress. Again, back to that kind of balance thing. So I mean, I, you know, it's great that yours is below, but obviously if you I think it would be interesting to see because I think, yeah, it would just be interesting to see what those it's fair enough getting a number, but actually it's what is behind that number. And this is, this is actually why, you know, some of the biologically biological age tests will literally just give you a number and that is it. And then it's like, well, what do I do with this? How do I like how it it's high. What does that even mean. Where's it coming from. What's causing it. Which some of them like looking at glycan age, you can actually look at all the different markers that have built up that number. And you can get like little hints as to, oh, it's probably that this person's stressed or it's probably that this person, has a bad diet like there's clues of how to how to interpret it and where you should be looking at within their lifestyle.

13:45 - Andy Smith
Yeah, yeah. And it was good that you mentioned about moderation in biohacking because, you know, anyone who sees my Instagram knows that I have a sauna at home, you know, an ice bath, you know I do my PEMF and red light without every single day. You know, and that's what I wanted to see like really really good score. And. But you know compared it to other people my age. You're also running businesses. I have seen theirs come back in their 60s. And it's like so you know. I shouldn't take it for granted. But, the other question I want to ask is, is the three year old and the six year old's stress that leaves a home are they affecting my biological age? So do we know if there correlation between people that have children, does that affect your biological age?

14:28 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, I mean, I think generally kids make do make it better. Because when you look at it within like life purpose also you married, right?

14:38 - Andy Smith
Yep

14:39 - Dr Nichola Conlon
That's great news for you. Not so great news for the wife. So the there are some studies that show, that, married men have a better outcome in terms of biological age and all around health span than unmarried men, women. It doesn't actually really make any difference. So we do think this is probably just because of the general idea that men are a little not quite so good at looking after there health and sometimes don't go to the doctor and things when they should do, but when they're in a relationship with a female, especially this seems to be that the, the women are more like conscious of like, no, you need to check something else. No, we'll do this because generally females are a little bit more and can like, have a bit more of a connection with their body and how they feel. So they're a lot more aware of it, and are more likely to do things about health. And. Yeah. So that's, that's the kind of theory behind that. Yeah. Kids. Kids, I mean, kids the problem with kids is like for most of that first stage of life, they just don't sleep like, and this is this is a really difficult thing because sleep is so important and that massively impacts biological age. But there really is nothing you can do. So, you know, if you do have young kids and they're not sleeping and you're getting disrupted sleep, and it's really important to then double down on the other things that you can control at the time and, you know, not get totally stressed out about the sleep because then, yeah, that becomes another problem.

16:11 - Andy Smith
Yeah so our little 3 year old got in the bed last night, and I get the foot end. You know she is kicking me continuously and it's just. So you see these influencers online. They wake up at 6am and have this perfect routine, you know and it's just like mother f***ers but so I get it the sleep side of things is big on what's going to affect biological age not the kid but that is the result of the kid being there.

16:40 - Dr Nichola Conlon
But then also they fill you with, you know, joy and happiness and purpose. So that has a positive effect. So it's. Yeah, again, it's all about balance.

16:51 - Andy Smith
So there is loads of studies around a lot loneliness. Like so you know you're getting that from having a family around. So it's kind of swinging and roundabouts.

17:04 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. There is a really interesting study that came out quite recently, and it showed that the number one thing that positively impacts, like your health and biological age is actually the quality of relationships in your life. So not all the other things, not the diet, not the exercise, it was actually the quality of that, you know, connection, whether that's relationships is in family relationships or just like having like a, you know, good friends and a good community around you where you feel supported and you've got people to talk to and you've got like a purpose within those relationships. That was the most profound marker of aging. Well, so that's

17:44 - Andy Smith
So all those Friday night trips down the pub, drinking non alcohol is very good for you?

17:46 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. Perfect.

00;17;48;02 - Andy Smith
Is very good for you.

17:48 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yes very good. Keep it up.

17:50 - Andy Smith
Okay I will tell her, I will reduce her biological age by doing more pub trips.

17:55 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Not being there.

17:57 - Andy Smith
Exactly. Gut health is a big one when it comes to biological age. How important in the grand scheme of things is your gut health?

18:06 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Oh. So important. Like, I think for a long time people thought it was kind of gone. It was like something that was a bit of a fad, and it was having its moment. And everyone's talking about the gut microbiome and, you know, all this and all that. But actually it's the more and more we learn about gut health, the more we realize how it really does impact our entire bodies. And this is, you know, so it's not about just having a good digestive system. If our gut health is bad, it actually influences inflammation across the entire body. And we know that inflammation is one of the key drivers of the aging process. So much so that within the longevity space, we call it inflame aging because it's it's so fundamental. And the sort of the link here is that if you so what you want is you want, you know, you've got a lot of different microbes in the gut. But sometimes you can get a dysbiosis. So this means you get way more bad bacteria, shall we say then good beneficial bacteria. And so that diversity reduces. And what that does is it means that first of all, the bad bacteria tend to drive inflammation. But also the good bacteria also make some beneficial compounds that are like kind of, I guess, anti-aging across the entire body. So, you get things like Butyrate released from the good bacteria, and then they act as a signal around the entire body that actually dampens inflammation. So I think it's something that people should pay way more attention to. And I think people are now which is is great. The, I guess, the ways to improve gut health are through diet. And I think this is actually how diet has such a profound impact on biological age, partly through not just the nutrients that it contains and the molecules, you know, like antioxidants and phytochemicals and things like that, which we know are good for cellular health. I think part of it is what you would do to your gut diversity in the microbes. That is then also having a completely separate effect.

20:15 - Andy Smith
Yeah, yeah. And putting this into like a practical sense, is there like a food or food group, like a couple of food groups that you would recommend. So if someone wants to reduce their biological age, they want to do this for a number of. You know, bit of time. And I know we talked about moderation so don't go stupid and eat beetroot like three times a day for the next you know. So is there a food for foods type that you kind of steer people towards when it comes to reducing inflammation or biological age?

20:43 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So actually what I am going to say here is you do want to go a bit crazy because you don't want to be specifically having one type of food, because actually what works really well is diversity when it comes to food. And this sort of going thing is you really need to increase more plants in the diet. So people will often hear me say, you want to be eaten around 30 different plants. And the reason for this is because plants, are actually like nature's medicine cabinet. They have so many molecules in them that are active molecules that have a profound impact and positively on, cellular health. And again, this is this is part of the reason I left drug development, because I was like, all these things are natural that I found in plants that people can't patent are actually way more powerful than any of the drugs. And the more types of fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices that you can get into your diet. The more variety, the more you are getting all sorts of different beneficial compounds just through your diet that actually have a profound impact. So a good thing to do is try and increase diversity. So lots of plants, doesn't mean become vegan like you don't. You can still eat meat. The other thing is, looking specifically at gut health, you want to be may be trying to have something like fermented food. So fermented foods have probiotics in them. So that's like they're putting good bacteria into the gut. The other thing which is really important is eating more fiber. Most people just don't get enough fiber in the diet. And fiber is what we call like a prebiotic. It's like it's like a food for the good bacteria. So if you can naturally if you eat more plants, you will then get more fiber.  So those kind of crossover, but also putting the, you know, the, the fermented foods in there, like the kombucha, the kimchi, the, you know, some things like that.

22:44 - Andy Smith
You mentioned something in there which you kind of glossed over and over and it was one of my later questions but I want to drill into it because I think it is so important You mentioned about ingredients that the drug companies can't patent and being a business owner and the family business. We've we've, done medical devices for many year. Patenting something is important. Yeah, yeah. Espically whne it comes to making money. If you can patent something, you can protect it. People can't copy it. So what I understand is you used to work in the drug industry in terms of doing the testing and looking at what ingredients were effective. And do you want to take over and tell me or tell us

23:25 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So, so my role in drug development, first of all my role used to be in cancer therapy. So that's what I initially was, was in my, my sort of immediate background before that was like all my PhD. And everything was in the bioavailability of nutrients and drugs. So when you take a nutrient or a drug, how does it get from wherever you put it in, whether that's I.V. or whatever? How does it actually then get to where it needs to have its an effect in the body. So, I then went off and worked in drug development, worked in cancer therapy. Then one day my boss was like, okay, we're going to move you into drugs that are, or molecules that are looking at drugs to slow aging in our cells. So first of all, this was like well over ten years ago now. So this was before the longevity industry ever became like a cool thing. You know, it's a really early, at least start of the science. So I was a bit like, oh, this sounds interesting. Like drugs to slow aging. Like, really? And anyway, long story short, that was that was the world I got sucked into. Went around, met all the key researchers, realized how amazing this research was, how how much science was out there that literally people didn't know about, that could could change people's lives. And at this time, I had two elderly grandparents who who were not having a great time with age. And, you know, they they, they were in care homes, they were sick. And I was like, okay, so there's all this research happening and you've got all these people who have all these age related diseases and are not aging well. And there's this disconnect where nobody knows about it. So, you know, I thought, great, this is great because now I'm in the world of drug development where we're going to develop drugs against aging, and we're going to get this science out there and it's going to help people. And, so that's what we did. We started developing, looking at molecules, looking at which molecules were slowing aging at the cellular level. With this aim of improving healthspan and I would send all these molecules to the labs to be tested. And then I would literally get like a spreadsheet back and it would be like, okay, these were amazing. These kind of work a little bit. These don't work. And nine times out of ten, the things that were at the top of the spreadsheet were natural molecules. And when I say natural, I mean things that are kind of already known, the kind of in plants that, you know, things that were already regulated as supplements, even. But unfortunately, as I was mentioning, this is a the commercial side then kicks in. So I had to then go through and look at which things were patentable and which things weren't. And all of the great stuff at the top that we kind of knew already existed, we knew was was safe. We have some amazing data on it wasn't patentable. So we would go halfway down the list and go, okay, that unknown molecule that we may have to chemically alter a bit, so we might not even know it any. You know, becomes even less known about its toxicity or side effects or anything. That's the one we're going to put 100 million into, even though it works half as well as everything else that we already know at the top of the list is safe. So I was like, commercially, totally get it ethically. Should somebody not be just doing something with all these other things? Yes, I know they're never going to be drugs, but like, why can't we be putting research into these things? Why can't we be giving them the research they deserve and getting these things out? Yes. They're never going to be a drug, but they could still be benefiting people if they got the research. So that's kind of how I got into this space. Is is having a supplement company. So I left I left my job in drug development to start a supplement company, which, yeah, everyone was like, what are you doing? Like you've got a really credible scientific job and you're going to do a snake oil supplement company. Like, why you why have you done this? This is crazy. And I was like, but your body has no idea.  When you take something, your body's not like, oh, this is a drug. So I'm going to let it have an effect. Everything you put into your body has a physiological effect, whether that's water, whether that's sugar, whether that's a, you know, a nutrient out, a plant, a drug, whatever. Your body doesn't know the difference. They're all having an effect. So yeah. 

27:42 - Andy Smith
No it's so interesting. That's what I wanted you to explain. Like, you know, it's very much like the whole biohacking, you know, I manufacturer a PEMF device. And, you know, my ultimate aim is to get a PEMF device into every single home. That would be great you know and the benefits of PEMF are amazing but there is no point spending the money and adding these things in if your not doing the fundamentals. Like it's you know, if someone comes to me and they're like, I'm sick I need a PEMF device I need this I need that. Tell me because you know people come to me all the time for advice on what kit to get but I'm like are you doing grounding and you going outside exposing yourself to some light and, do the breathwork are you're doing exercise. And then like, nope nope nope nope nope. And it's like okay well, start there. Come back to me in a month here is a list of things that are all free, and it's like building those foundations first. You know, like you say, there's all these ingredients in there that's super effective. But they're not protectable, you know? Like we can't make money out them products. So, you know, we we get reminded online to drink more water. It's so simple, we just forget about it. Because we think it's grandma's medicine. It's, it's a real eye opener. We'll come to your product in a minute because I want to talk about that because it's really interesting and the whole NAD space because but anyway going back to the longevity space quickly. Inflammation you mentioned as something you want to reduce ultimately for biological age. Have you got any other top tips to reduce inflammation.  

29:20 - Dr Nichola Conlon
To reduce inflammation. So, so yeah, I think the we're probably going back to diet. So we're talking about all the good things like you can eat to, to actually reduce inflammation. But we haven't mentioned any of the bad things. You know you could be eating all the plants that you want. But if you're also having McDonald's three times a day, it's not going to work. So one of the biggest drivers of inflammation and, sort of modern lifestyles is actually ultra processed foods. So these, when we talk about ultra processed food, this is when something has been changed so much from its original, like whole food that it just doesn't even resemble anything that could, you know, grow in a field or come from an animal or whatever. And often these, these things like the ready meals, like the, you know, cakes and, sugary breakfast cereals, things like this, these it's what we now know is that these are so incredibly damaging in terms of driving inflammation. And it's not because they don't have any nutrients in. It's actually because of the additives, the chemicals, the the harmful types of fats, that they actually contain that are almost, you know, create in this oxidative stress in our bodies, which is then incredibly damaging. So again, I think diets just so underestimated. And I think the reason it's so underestimate is because people become sick of hearing about it. People are just like, can't be bothered to hear about being eaten healthy anymore. And, and I think everyone's just become a little bit exhausted by it. But I also think it's because diet diets also been framed in a way that it's all about losing weight, or it's about going on some sort of like, like a diet where you've got to do something for so many weeks, whereas it should be completely reframed as like not eating to restrict ourselves.  It's like eating to, to, to improve our health. It's like eating for the benefit, of like a, you know, a really good diet that doesn't have to be restrictive. It's actually eating more, just more of the, the right things.

31:23 - Andy Smith 
It's all the labels as well, like the carnivore diet, you're a vegan, all these sorts of things. And it's just like, I'll just eat steak then for like the next three years.

31:32 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Don't do that. That's really bad for biological age. There's a lot of people talking about, you know, only eating steak and meat. And, again, it's like there's so many different camps and so many different opinions. But again, just looking at the, the, the research and some of the even some of the cases that I've sort of if people's biological age when they're just eating meat, that it's not, it's really not good. You know, completely just relying on one thing again, it's like that balance that the body likes.

32:02 - Andy Smith
Yeah, it's moderation and varied diet.

32:05 - Dr Nichola Conlon
I apologize if you're like, a hardcore carnivore fan.

32:08 - Andy Smith
No, no not at all that's the thing.

32:10 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Your like by the way Nichola I only eat steak

32:14 - Andy Smith
I'll throw that steak away. No that's the thing my biggest thing is moderation. It's, it's it's very diet. It's like. The same thing. Stop putting labels on things. Stop trying to overcomplicate s**t. Just eat the better foods, less processed foods. Like. And you'll just see what. To try and simplify it like you say things just get too complicated.  

32:35 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. And I liked what you said earlier about how like, you have a company that is trying to sell something, but you're the first person to go actually sort your lifestyle out. I'm exactly the same. Like if someone comes to me and they think that a supplement is going to, like, fix everything, I'm like, no, you really need to do. These are the simple changes. And I think the thing that helps with some of the things that are the more, shall we say, things your grandma told you kind of thing, that are a bit boring like, drink your water and don't eat that and whatever. I think now we understand in scientifically a bit more about how they are actually helping to slow aging, that if you can explain that to to someone and make it relevant to that and the like. Okay. Actually I now understand why that is so important. So maybe I will try to eat more vegetables or maybe I will. Whereas before it was kind of like we just told eat well because it's good for you, the end.

33:34 - Andy Smith
Yeah, yeah exactly it kind of explains it a bit better.

33:37 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Got to eat five fruit and vegetables day. Why like.

33:41 - Andy Smith
And that's the thing like you know you've got to eat your 10 colours and that sort of thing and it's like, just be smart. Last one, the kind of, longevity and the biological age sort of thing, is that Katie Price came one. She got, like, a really high score. She looking at her you know her feedback, I'm literally giving away all the scores for what's my age again but you need to watch it, it's great. But I think a lot of those came down to She's she's slim. She eats well, she exercises, all the kind of things you want to do to kind of keep score down. You know her's wasn't just high it was one foot in the grave like and I think a lot of what you guys were talking about that was like trauma that she has had through her life so where does mental health fit into all of this with biological age. Does that push it up or there is something people can do to help with there bringing there biological age down with there mental health?

34:47 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. I think I mean, Katie's episode was a very interesting episode. I mean, this she there's obviously a lot of things that Katie Price's done that's, you know, not like possibly glaze over that aren't so great for your biological age, you know, like all the surgery and things like that, which we do talk about in the episode, you know, things like that do impact inflammation across the entire body. But I think what what we weren't expecting and what was really interesting about that episode, was the amount of trauma she has had in her life. I don't think I really realized, like she has been through an awful lot. And we do know that trauma a lot especially. But, you know, in people have had significant trauma that's caused like had an ongoing impact on their mental health where they've got PTSD, for example. We do know that that increases biological age. So there was a study done in it was in war veterans that had PTSD. Those who had some sort of significant trauma from that compared to the control group who didn't were, on average, 15 years older biologically than the chronological age. And this is really, you know, stress. Again, this is like an old wives tale. Ooh, a stressful age. You it will make you go grey. And all these things. Well, it does it literally does. It ages you from the inside out. And that's because when you, stressed your body is going into a fight or flight state. So it's releasing adrenaline. It's releasing cortisol. Both of those things are great. Like you want that if you need to do something fast. But the problem is, when we're chronically in that kind of phase, these, these, these hormones then actually become damaging. So they're actually switching on inflammation. They're putting that body in that metabolic rate. That's just like pounding out all the time. And it's not getting a chance to rest and repair and relax even when you're asleep. You know, people with high cortisol are not going into the parasympathetic state where they should be resting and relaxing and repairing. And all of this, these things are literally it's like your body's working double time constantly. So we do know that stress really is is a significant impact. Has a has a significant impact on biological age. And I do think despite everything else, that was one of the big drivers of of Katie's age.

37:09 - Andy Smith
And one more thing that I want you to unpack on this side of it is the sun. Like so in the biohacking space you've got two sides of the coin at the moment, you've got the ones that sit outside

37:20 - Dr Nichola Conlon
and sun their bits

37:23 - Andy Smith
Exactly yeah I mean, men exposing balls to the sun it suppose to you know increase  testosterone levels and all that sort of thing and then you have the Bryant Johnsons of the world that like walk around under an umbrella above there head shielding themselves. You know she would disappear against the white wall and he's supplementing to to give the benefits. What he's lacking from the sun. So in terms of biological aging and skin aging thing. Where does the sun sit in all this?

37:56 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So skin age, you know, there's absolutely no denying that if you are out in the sun more, you will be damaging your skin like there is. There is no there is there is a lot of people that will say, you can go out in the sun and sunbathe and not get any sun cream on or anything. I mean, I really don't know what studies there sighting here, but there are an awful lot of studies showing the complete opposite that if you, constantly exposed, especially if you're burning, you know, constantly exposed to UV damage from the sun, it will be increasing at least the biological age of your skin cells.

38:35 - Andy Smith
And that is literally even if you don't burn.

38:38 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Even if you don't burn, you know, our skin cells, constantly when we're outside, getting exposed to UV damage and UV specifically damages DNA. And we do have an army of repair enzymes in our cells that are literally going round looking for any DNA damage and repairing it before we even know it's an issue. And when we're young, that works very efficiently. But as we get older, that starts to get turned down. So even so, when you, older, the risk becomes even more that some of that damage that's happening isn't actually getting picked up and repaired. And we know that DNA damage is a hallmark of age, and it's one of the things that drives the aging process. So there is a lot of evidence that, you know, I wouldn't say you should go as far as Bryan Johnson and not go in the sun, because we do know sun is beneficial. Sun, daylight. It's it's.

39:31 - Andy Smith
So yeah what are the benefits of going in the sun?

39:33 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So the vitamin D first of all from sunshine but also that resetting of the circadian rhythm that natural wavelengths of light from daylight, whether it's sunny or not, you still get in those natural wavelengths that are resetting the circadian rhythm, which is very important for biological age, because if your circadian rhythm becomes upset, you sleep becomes upset, your hormones become upset, your metabolism becomes upset.

39:57 - Andy Smith
I love how obsessed with circadian rhythm as I am

40:00 - Dr Nichola Conlon
It is. It's important to get outside. You know, we say sit in a dark room with artificial lights just for this purpose. But yeah, it's it's really, important. So I think, again, it's back to balance and moderation. The other important thing here is that we we know for a fact, you know, too much UV exposure will damage your skin and now the really interesting evidence that's coming out is about skin health and aging across the entire body. For a long time, skin health has been perceived as vanity. It's been thought of of you, you know, doing stuff to look after your skin. It's like all about how you look. But now we know that if you have better skin quality and less inflammation in your skin, you actually have less inflammation across the entire body because inflammation is not localized, it travels. So even, you know, from that perspective of not getting sunburn and looking after your skin is actually helpful and crosses through the entire body. So for me personally.

40:59 - Andy Smith
About to say the golden question do you expose yourself to the sun?

41:02 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, I mean, I will, you know, I will go outside, I will go in the sun, I will wear SPF. I'm not, you know, I'm not like a religious like in the winter covering myself from head to toe in SPF. But if I know that I am going out in, you know, in the summer in the UK, going abroad and I'm going to be outside in the sun for, you know, more than 20 minutes, whatever. I'll have my SPF on. Yeah, a mineral one, not a chemical one.

41:30 - Andy Smith
So when you go on holiday. You don't put time specifically in the sitting in the sun?

41:39 - Dr Nichola Conlon
I'll sit in the sun. I do like to sit in the sun. I mean not like I would if, when I was younger where I'm like forcing myself to lie in the sun for the purpose of getting a tan before I knew any better. But now I do like sitting outside. I like being in the sun. The sun makes me feel good. Like, I don't know, there's something about just having the sun just like, oh, I like, recharges you. But I'm not like, I, you know, through the the peak times of the day. I'll sit in under an umbrella. You know, I'm not I'm not going to completely avoid it.

42:11 - Andy Smith
And I think that's where we talk about like, this tech and biohacking tech and stuff, where it can help in these aspects like red light therapy panels no. Like good red light therapy panel can help expose you to those wavelengths not necessarily the UV.

42:24 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Which I use. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the UK. You know sometimes you don't want to go out in the middle of winter to reset your circadian rhythm. Not going to lie. So you know, yeah, I use red light as well.

42:38 - Andy Smith
I think that's a great one that you said about learning. Before you learn the benefits or the dangers and stuff like this is the true story. My mum used to have one of those sunbeds. Yeah, a few, you know.

42:51 - Dr Nichola Conlon
When I was young, my mum used to encourage me to go in the sunbeds.

42:52 - Andy Smith
Yeah and you know what we use to do, we must of been 12 or something at the time we would cut out little Nike shapes and put it on our chest long enough for it to burn us. It was insane what we use to do to ourself, so anyway, we learn and make these mistakes and now all we are doing is trying to reverse the damage we've done.

43:18 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So when, you've still got little, suddenly little Nike tick like sun spots start appearing on your body.

43:25 - Andy Smith
I know it's insane what we use to do to ourselves, let's talk about NAD because being the in biohacking space being that exhibitions in longevity, health and wellness and all that sort of thing, a couple of year back like probably longer for you but for me you know NAD started popping up on the scene. And it started with one stand then it was two stands now you go to exhibitions and it's like NAD everywhere. And it was like the ice bath trend, I was fed up of ice baths now and I was sort of fed up of seeing NAD until I understood what it is, let's start with what is NAD?

44:06 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So the first thing is that it stands for Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, because most people don't know that. So that's a that's what it stands for. And that's why we call it NAD because it's a really long name. So we do shorten it. And you write it is something that is completely have an it's moment. It's become a buzzword. Everyone's talking about it, but it's, it is something that as scientists we've known about for many, many years. Basically it's it's a natural molecule that's found in every cell in the body. And it's probably most famous for its role in energy production. So anyone that can remember anything to do with high school biology might remember something called the Krebs cycle. And that's their process that literally takes the glucose from the food that you eat and turns it into ATP, which is the energy that all the cells used to function. And now it's a really important part of that little pathway. So without NAD, you literally wouldn't be able to, produce any energy. Your respiration would stop. So it's it's incredibly important. And again, it's not something that's that some sort of magic molecule that's just suddenly appeared, like we've known about it in that role for many, many years. The reason why people are talking about it a lot more now is for some of the other roles that it's now known to have, in particular its role in sort of cellular maintenance and repair. So it seems that as well as its role in metabolism and energy production, what it does is it also powers a lot of the cellular repair processes in our body. So you heard me talk about earlier the fact that we've got this army of repair enzymes, like things like DNA repair enzymes that are literally going around our body looking for damage and repairing it well, NAD acts as a fuel to drive a lot of these processes. So again, back to the DNA repair, the DNA repair enzymes, many of the important ones literally rely on nowadays if you. So if you don't have the energy, you know, getting the repair. The other thing is that if you if you're hearing about nad, you may hear about something called the sirtuins and the sirtuins. Basically these they get sort of branded the longevity proteins in the cell. All these longevity enzymes. And again, they are like, these proteins that like sit at top of a cascade. And when they are switched on and active, they switch on all these downstream beneficial pathways in the cell. So things that promote anti-inflammatory effects, things that switch on autophagy, like cellular recycling, things that kind of promote good health in the cell. And the link between the sirtuins and NAD is that basically the sirtuins need NAD to function. It's their fuel. So if you don't have any energy, these beneficial longevity proteins don't get switched on. So it turns out that NAD does a lot more than just energy production. And it's very important in cellular health, which is obviously very important in longevity. But the reason it then became so popular was when we realize how much it actually declines as we get older, it halfs every 20 years. So even by the time or 20 you've lost half your nad. So this is when it really started to sort of the research kick off is like, okay, if it declines. And it's really important for cellular health, then why don't we stop it from declining? Can we keep NAD levels high so that it keeps energy production switched on? It keeps our, repair system switched on. And it was basically, again, a long story short, found that yes, you can boost nad and that was beneficial because not only did it promote cellular health. So we see, you know, in cells that have had their nad boosted, you see improved cellular health and they start acting younger. But also this translates to effects across the entire body CC improvements in cognitive function, muscle function, all sorts of things. Skin health. So it does show that by increasing this one thing, you get a whole host of benefits across the entire body that ultimately translate to improving our health, spend that proportion of our lives that were healthy.

48:15 - Andy Smith
So it kind of fit into the longevity space at the moment as like, it's a way of, keeping us looking healthy. Living younger and that sort of thing. We had, Christian from Stemregen, so he was on before. Another episode that anybody listening to this should also listen to that episode, because it's really interesting to see the similarities in terms of like stem cells and how they decline over age. Again, getting old suck like, everything starts declining stem cells go NAD product all these sorts of things. So there is quite a lot of similarity and another one is how your product works so. Your product Nuchido Time+ which I am taking everyday at the moment, since my biological age test. I am putting it to the test. But it's interesting to see how this works and the same sort of process as Stemregen your not taking stem cells, your not taking NAD ether. So how does this work and how does it differ from the other NAD stuff you get online.

49:22 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Good question. So the very quick and simple answer is actually fixes the root cause of the problem. So if something is declined in our bodies there's usually a cause. There's usually a problem. And unfortunately for a long time in the NAD space you know everyone's been like okay nad decline. So how can we just get as much nad back into the body as possible? Like how can we do it? We just need to top it up. And that's meant we've gone through all these different phases of people experiment and trying all sorts of different things, and the first thing that people thought they could do was just take pure nad. So, you know, if something's declined, just put the pure powder in a capsule and swallow it. Unfortunately, NAD is really unstable. Which means that not only is the product that you're buying off Amazon telling you it's 99% pure probably not got any energy left in it by the time it gets to you. But also when it goes through the gut, it just gets completely degraded. So it was realized very quickly. You can't just put pure energy in a pill. So people started, thinking, well, let's bypass the gut. Let's put it in IVs, let's put it in injections, because we'll we'll bypass the gut. We'll get it straight into the blood. But the problem is that you have just put it straight into the blood. And nad actually doesn't do very much at all in the blood. It actually has to get into the cells because in the cells, that is where our mitochondria are. That's where the sirtuins are. That's where the DNA is. That's where everything that NAD interacts with is found inside our cells. And because NAD is a very large and charged molecule, it struggles to get across the cell membrane. So cells don't like it like a fortress. So don't just let things in and out. Now there's a little bit of evidence that, there may be some of our cells, particularly, neuronal cells that may have some channels that do let the whole NAD in. But for the majority of our cells, it just can't get in. It's just physically impossible for it to get in. So unfortunately it gets stuck in the blood. And this is why sometimes when people have these IV's and they actually feel quite sick and not very good.

51:28 - Andy Smith
Yeah so I've tried all sorts of things biohacking and trying the IV and it does it makes you feel quite sick during the whole process.

51:40 - Dr Nichola Conlon
But the doctors usually go, oh, well that's because you're detoxing or you really need it. It's your body telling you that you really need it. Actually, what we don't know is what it is is it's the body having a reaction to you putting a huge amount of something into the blood that's never naturally found in the blood at those levels. So studies recently come out that shows, that when people had NAD IV, it actually induces an inflammatory reaction. And this is because you are putting so NAD is usually only found inside of the cells. And then all of a sudden you've got a huge amount of something that should be inside the cells, outside the cells. So the body's like, oh. There's been some sort of trauma, like we don't know what's happened, but let's induce an inflammatory reaction to make sure we're covering all bases and dealing with what potentially could have happened, which, as we know, is actually nothing. So, yeah. So we do see this inflammation. So I think that's really going to it's going to change that space a little bit as more of this data starts to come out, you know. But this is science. It changes some some things we thought were good. We then realize are not so good. And we have to be willing to move with with what the research shows. So the other area that became really big was, precursors.

52:49 - Andy Smith
Like weight loss jabs.

52:51 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Oh my goodness.

52:52 - Andy Smith
But we won't go there

52:56 - Dr Nichola Conlon
That's a whole different podcast. But, but with with the, with nad the other way that people have been trying to boost energy for many years is with something called precursors. So if you look into the NAD space, you can't avoid hearing the words NMN  or NR and what they are is they are kind of the next best solution. So again, what we thought at the time was if you can't take pure NAD, you can't IV pure nad, then how are you going to get the body to make more NAD. And what we know is that your body actually makes nad inside the cells. So NMN and, NR and, nicotinamide pure vitamin B3 are all what we call precursors to nad. So they're like the raw materials or the building blocks your body uses to make the NAD. So a lot of people and so I taken the precursors with the idea that if you take more of the raw material than hopefully your cells, which the raw material smaller, by the way, so it can get into the cells, then your cells will then convert it into NAD. So for a long time it was thought that this was the best way we we know there are large clinical trials that show it does boost NAD levels. So it was like great doing its job. But then all the research came out about why energy actually declines. And this was threw spanner in the works, because it turns out one of the major reasons why NAD declines is because the enzyme in a cell that takes the raw material and turns it into NAD, that declines with age. So when you are taking big doses of these precursors, effectively, what you are doing is you are putting a huge amount of raw material into a factory that doesn't have the machines to turn it into anything. And then we started to see knock on effects, where it builds up. People are getting methylation problems and all sorts. And then it was like, okay, maybe this isn't the best way. So this is kind of like all that research was coming out when I first sort of started getting involved in the NAD space. And I could see like the science and see, okay, we now know what the root cause of the decline is. It's this enzyme. And also there's another, another cause, which is inflammation, which actually drains a lot of our NAD supplies. So we know we've got all these problems going on, but everything else out there is just ignoring them. Like none of these products are actually fixing these problems are just literally going, you know, going into the factory, going, oh, well, the machines are broken, the pipes leak, and there's no staff, but who cares? Let's just order some more raw material and pray on a miracle. So what I wanted to do is go hang on, let's build a second generation energy booster. Something that's actually based on the latest science that that actually fixes the root causes of the problem. So that's what Nuchido does. So it doesn't have NAD in it. It doesn't have anything in it. It's got a range of different ingredients that are actually designed to switch back on your body's natural production. So it switches back on that enzyme, it turns down inflammation, and it basically makes your cell kick start it into making and recycling all the energy that it made and recycled when it was younger, because naturally, that's how we get it. We don't get any from our diet. Our body literally makes it, recycles it constantly in cells.

56:07 - Andy Smith
And putting the link back to, you know, PEMF. We always talk about how painkiller are there to stop the pain but they are not actually there to do anything about the cause. It's just hiding the problem. Something we say a lot about PEMF is PEMF therapy is going to go to the root cause and fix it. I try and stay away from you know things generally that are going to replace something in my body in terms of like when you, you know, putting an example of like steroids people can be on testosterone for years and years and years and years and years. And then because you were injecting that, your body is always switched off to it. So it's like, well, you stopped doing it your body is like well don't need to produce that anymore you've been giving me years. So is that, you know, if there was really effective NAD supplements that you could inject or could swallow, could that have a reverse effect in 2 years time, when the body is like well I don't need to create this thing anymore. Is there a way of training your body not to have that. Does that make sense?

57:20 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. It's like it makes your. Are you saying like does it make you turn down your natural production.

57:26 - Andy Smith
Yeah so in long term you're actually, you know, unless you're going to stay on it for the rest of your life, you know, the longer term, you could be doing some like damage in terms of the body's natural ability to, you know, the root cause of creating NAD.

57:39 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So interesting you say that. So we know that the body, like I say, has it has what it's called a salvage pathway. It's called the NAD salvage pathway. And what it does is when NAD in the cell and it's used up nad actually get split apart and broken back down into its precursors. Now the precursor, it gets broken down into two is actually something called nicotinamide, which is basically plain vitamin B3. What happens in young cells is this nicotinamide should be scooped back up by this enzyme and recycled straight back into fresh energy again. So when we're young, it's this really clever way that the body has this, self-sustaining kind of pathway where if if you use of NAD goes up, more is going to be broken down, which means more precursors and available to make more. So it kind of the demand and supply thing is kind of met. Now, what happens as you get older is that if you, if this enzyme goes down, the one that's recycling the NAD, but you are still using a lot of NAD, then it actually the breakdown products then start to build up. So you start to get old. It's been used up. It's broken down the precursors, but then the precursors then aren't getting recycled again. And our body doesn't like it when things get built up so naturally. Then what it does is it goes, I need to get rid of the buildup of precursors, because we're not converting it back into NAD. And it switches on another enzyme which is a methylation enzyme. And what this methylation enzyme does is it literally sticks like a methyl group, which is like a tag. It's like putting a sticky label on something to tell the workers to get it out, you know, recycle it, move it out. So we start to see all of this precursor, this raw material that could be getting made where NAD is now not getting made aware NAD. And actually it's using all the missile groups to try and get rid of it. So you start causing another problem. So imagine then what happens if you then take a huge dose of NMN and it goes into the cell, some of it gets converted into NAD and then you've got even more precursor building up. It's like again it's like this negative feedback where the body's like not trying to then recycle it. It's just trying to actively get it out. So actually what we see in people that are taking big doses of things, I NMN you are actually having that problem where it's turning down the natural production even more because it's trying to get it all out the recycling chute. Yeah. So we actually have saw that in some of the clinical trials. Even when you increase the dosage, it doesn't increase the amount of NAD because your body's almost turning down the system because it can't deal with it. So with our product, it's completely different because you're not replacing something without fixing the problem. You're actually fixing the root cause, so you're switching back on the enzyme. The really interesting thing is the enzyme that we switch back on is the same enzyme that naturally gets boosted if you do things like fasting or if you do exercise. This is exactly how your body increases energy production naturally by switching on this enzyme. So it's like mimicking naturally what your body does rather than trying to replace something.

1:00:49 - Andy Smith
No that's great. I mean, my non-negotiables, non-negotiables at the moment are 3 of these every morning with my breakfast. PEMF and red light.

1:00:58 - Dr Nichola Conlon
I was just about to say, have you noticed anything? Because some people do really notice the difference. I mean, what we know is that so we did a full, human, double blind, placebo controlled clinical trial like, you know, we really have done a lot to prove this works. And like, a lot of NAD products that claim the boost energy and zero evidence. So we know after seven days, you will start to see an increase in NAD in the cells. Some people like feel that some people it's more subtle. So it is interesting that you do you do notice.

1:01:26 - Andy Smith
Yeah I mean PEMF and red light naturally increase ATP and that. Anyway so adding this in as well. Yeah it's very synergistic. Yeah so no so I am trying this now I am doing this for the next 6 months and I will have to update you in part 2.

1:01:43 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah. Well again so we know in a clinical trial we saw a reversal of biological age. So, in the placebo, they had obviously no change. And then in the, in the, the group with the supplements or when they took the supplements because it was a crossover trial. So everybody took the placebo and then also took the real thing.  We saw a reversal of biological age by 1.26 years in 28 days.

1:02:07 - Andy Smith
That's really good. Well we will put it to the test. You answered my question a minute ago. I want to see if you come up with the same answer but.  Outside of supplements, outside of diet, what other ways are there to naturally boost NAD?

1:02:21 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Exercise and fasting. The way that they work is because they're putting your body under a bit of energy stress. So both of those things are kind of the cells going don't have any energy coming in. We've got either exerting more energy than we're creating. Doing exercise or we have less fuel coming in than the energy that's going out when we are fasting. Both of those same things ultimately trigger an energy stress. And what that does is it switches on something in your cells called AMPK, which is like an alarm bell, that the cell is under a bit of stress, and it needs to start actually looking after itself. So what it does is it says, okay, we need to stop being wasteful. We need to somehow switch on energy production and also somehow turn on repair to make sure that our body can survive this period of stress. So the thing that AMPK then goes and switches on is this enzyme that naturally produces NAD, because what does energy do increases energy, and it also improves repair. Quite cool really, we quite clever our body's.

1:03:31 - Andy Smith
It is interesting. I have been looking forward to this episode because there are so many things so many rabbit holes you can take in all of this, it's incredible. I am going to start wrapping it up? During our quick fire session you answered one of those actually that kind of surprised me. I really want to take a deep dive into this so, I asked you about whether we would get to a point where we will actually be able to reverse aging. I thought you would say no. We just slow down. But we started out really well. But you said yes.

1:04:00 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Yeah, no, you can reverse it 100%. Like, even even though like I'm what I'm talking about, I mean, is, is reverse. And, you know, when we reverse people's biological age, we're not just slowing it, we're actually turning it back. So obviously there's argument about, well, what bit of it are you turning back and we like, what are you considering as reverse in biological age. But if you take something like some of the different biological age tests, like people are using, say for example, an epigenetic biological age test, the way that is working and what that is measure in is it's looking at patterns of gene expression. So in your cells, like every cell in our body has an identical set of DNA, it's got all the same genes. It's just different cells become different things and act in different ways because, epigenetics is is telling our cells to play different patterns of genes. Essentially, it's a different patterns are switched on. Now, if you look at a young cell, what you will see is they have a very different pattern than an older cell. And if you, you know, coming back biologically older, it means that that pattern of genes, acting like an old cell, if you then do something and, you know, implement some of the strategies you've been talking about and remeasure the biological age, and then you look at that, set those cells again and measure the epigenetic age younger. You have literally reset that cell into acting younger again. That is exactly what you measuring. So that is actually showing us that you have been able to technically reverse something that is causing aging. So that's why I kind of say that. Yeah, actually we already know that you you can't you it's not just slowing it. It's not just like putting a pause on where that pattern was and not letting it get any worse. You're actually taking it back to a younger profile.

1:05:56 - Andy Smith
So let me rephrase it a little bit. Do you think we're going to get to a point where we can live to our chronological age of 1,000?

1:06:03 - Dr Nichola Conlon
No.

1:06:04 - Andy Smith
Ohhh, there was no hope.

1:06:09 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So this is a this is a.

1:06:12 - Andy Smith
The ultimate question is really would we want to.

1:06:14 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Would I want you to if I, if, you know what? I don't know, like, if I could if I was like me today and I could just kind of keep going, then maybe. But then also, I, I also am a firm believer that we go through, like, many different lives and we have different past lives and we'll have many more lives. So I'm like, I kind of want to see what those other lives would be. So yeah, what I wanted to say being me, I don't know. I want to be some other people, maybe some animals, a tree. Who knows? But I yeah, again, when I first got into the longevity space, longevity was very much focused on extending lifespan and living forever. And I've had some very interesting conversations with some very interesting people that really do believe that they can escape death. You know, they have this idea, something called the longevity escape velocity. So the longevity escape velocity is this idea that human born today will be the first human like, basically live forever because, advancements in science are happening so quick that if you kind of can live long enough now to get to the next stage where they'll bring out some crazy therapies that allow us to then even live a little bit longer, you kind of escape death. People really are  very serious. I guess these are call like you'd classify that most transhumanism. Again, very interesting conversations with people about, cryo preservation, you know, people that have the bracelets and the rings where, once they drop down dead during this number, someone comes and tastes, you know, if you've got enough money, they'll take your whole body and freeze it. But if you've got that much, they might. They'll chop your head off and put your head in a freezer. Very, very popular in Russia. Apparently.

1:08:05 - Andy Smith
Yeah and in Austin Powers.

1:08:09 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So, yeah, for me, I, very much more of the opinion that everything that I'm working towards personally and what I promote and advocate for is about let's take the really good lives and the lifespans that we have now, but actually live them in good health. Because, you know, the first argument from anyone, when I say what I do is I don't want to live any longer, and I don't want to live in a care home. So shoot me, you know? And I'm like, it's not about that. This is about taking the 83 years that we have on average and actually living maybe 80 of them incredibly well, having a happy, fulfilled life where we can live independently, free from disease and then maybe have in a much more short, a compressed phase at the end of the life, which isn't as great. And then I'll figure out the next one.

1:08:53 - Andy Smith
Yeah, I think, you know, people that see Bryan Johnson's work and things, you know, he's he's tagline don't die. But I, I'm lucky enough to meet him. Quite recently and we had a chat and he said you know it's not all about that's exactly what he said. Yeah. About living this life to the best you can. Just before I wrap this up,  I should probably explain a little bit in the, introduction. You know, you've talked about community and how we kind of like, you know, the guest for me and the people I surround myself with. And the guest on our podcast you know, they're not we haven't we never have people pay to come on the podcast. We don't pay people to come on the podcast. We don't just do this for financial gain, or anything like that a lot of people we have on I really believe in we are friends with and have experiences with and you know we have met a few times now at exhibitions. And recently in Austin in America for a trade show. And you know, we went to a little afterparty for the thing and then we couldn't get in one of those Waymos those driverless cars.

1:09:50 - Dr Nichola Conlon
I love this story.

1:09:52 - Andy Smith
We couldn't get one you were getting one every 5 seconds so, we were about to leave and you said if I get one jump in it. So one of my collages who is also my sister in law. We jumped in one of your Waymos were on the way back and probably my bright idea, let's honk the horn. See what happens.

1:10:16 - Dr Nichola Conlon
So what does happen, Andy? What happens when we honk the horn in the driverless car?

1:10:22 - Andy Smith
They really don't like it. They really don't like it. Do they, a voice came from the gods. And I think the vehicle stopped.

1:10:31 - Dr Nichola Conlon
I got a very angry phone call asking if we needed assistance, that I could barely speak because I was laughing so much.

1:10:37 - Andy Smith
I know and the funny thing is me and my colleague sat there in silence and made you apologize for something we had done.

1:10:45 - Dr Nichola Conlon
But it was fun. We had fun. And fun is good for longevity. But I'm not promoting and trying to interfere with driverless vehicles.

1:10:52 - Andy Smith
Do not touch the controls.

1:10:54 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Or sit in the driver's seat.

1:10:56 - Andy Smith
Or sit in the driver's seat. So no thank you, we could talk for hour literally we are going to have to have a part 2 because like, there's so many more questions I need to talk to you about when it comes to longevity space and what we can be doing to like live to our maximum ability. Thanks for your time today Nichola I know you have a super busy schedule these day.

1:11:12 - Dr Nichola Conlon
No thank you for having me, it was great.

1:11:15 - Andy Smith
It's been amazing thank you.

1:11:16 - Dr Nichola Conlon
Thank you.