How This 63-Year-Old Reversed His Age to 37 Without a Billionaire Budget

Introduction to Dave Pascoe 0:00

The keys to having a slow pace of aging, at least, are the basics. Truly, the basics. It's proper sleep, proper nutrition, good exercise. Because there's people on the leaderboard, and I love talking about Julie Gibson Clark. I bring her up on every interview I've ever been on. She was beating both me and Brian, right? Brian was seven, I was six. I think she was five. And she wasn't doing a whole bunch of supplements. She wasn't doing any kind of crazy interventions. She's like basically a soccer mom.

And the only thing that she was doing was like the Novoscore supplement was about $50 a month. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode of Radcast where we explore the science and soul of human flourishing. And today you are in for a real treat. I am so excited for this conversation because our guest isn't here to sell a product or chase the spotlight or trying to be the next longevity influencer. He's a 62-year-young self-proclaimed biohacker on a budget.

Love that. Who's ranked among the top contenders in the Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard with an epigenetic age of just 37 years. Meet Dave Pascoe. He's a systems thinking, supplement slinging, AI obsessed, former engineer who's cracked the code on how to live younger by design. You guys are going to learn all about this today. He's living proof that you don't need a lab or a limitless budget to slow down your biological clock. You just need curiosity, consistency, and commitment to the long game.

So today, we're going to dive into Dave's journey. He's going to help to pull back the curtain and give us a little insight, a little inspiration, and some of his top secrets that will help each and every one of us to live our best today for a longer, healthier, and more vibrant tomorrow. Dave, welcome. Hi. Thank you for having me. I have to say, I'm in awe of that intro. That was just amazing. You know, I get to thank my team helping to like do the prep, but I loved your website. Like I do love and you and I have met in the past, but to like really go to your website and to just kind of read your story laid out.

I'm like, oh, this is so great. Like this is going to just be a fantastic talk. So here's what I want to kind of start with. We are going to assume that many people Don't know you and so I know you've had this talk probably many times, but it's a fresh talk today and we're going to let the conversation go where it wants to so that our our listening audience can just really come to appreciate you and I want to say this really quickly gang. Dave is going to be at RADFest this July 10th through the 13th.

Now this is the 10 year anniversary of RAD and it's so exciting because of course we have the best and the brightest scientific minds out there and we have people that are living longevity examples like Dave. So it's not just theory, it is how we are actually living it and practicing it. So Dave, how did this start for you? Kind of what sparked your deep dive into Longevity, like living and breathing and being a representation of it. How far back do we want to go?

Childhood Curiosity and Observing Success 3:25

Well, you know, this is your time. Well, I hate to tell some of the same stories over again for different podcasts, but assuming that this is the first time that some people have seen me, I guess I can go back. I was a really odd kid, I guess you could say, a very inquisitive kid. I had a lot of questions and my parents, especially my father, had no patience whatsoever for questions. So anything I asked, it was always a stupid question and I was always told to shut up. Which, you know, is not very kind, but you know, that's just the way my dad was.

Anyway, because I couldn't get any good answers to any of my questions, which I thought were good questions. I didn't think they were stupid questions. I just had to simply observe all the people around me as to what they were doing. Like, OK, so why am I so why can't I do anything right? Was like one of my favorite questions to ask, because I was always being told that I was screwing up no matter what I did. So, I was always looking to the successful people in life at whatever that was. Like, what is it they're doing and how do I do that?

So, like, for example, I would look at, okay, so different lifestyles of people, right? I would see some people would live in really big homes, expensive cars, Uh, you know, others, not so much. And like my family, we were pretty, I thought we were middle-class. I assumed we were anyway, just because we had the same things that all the neighbors did. But I always wondered like, what is it that those people do that have these really big homes and big expensive cars and. And why doesn't everybody do that?

Whatever that is, right? And then watching people that had really great relationships, right? People that would just get along like, oh, best friends, you know, always holding hands, they've married for decades and they just still adore each other. And then you see these couples that, you know, together probably as long but they just bicker and the eyes roll when you know the other person is speaking and they just don't have any kind of love for each other at all. And so I always wanted to know what is it that the successful people are doing in relationships.

And then also came to aging. I would see like these really old people some not necessarily in my own family, but in other families that were thriving. They were just doing so great. They just seemed like older young people. Tons of energy, out there doing stuff, just exercising. And then there were people way, way younger, decades younger, beat up, broken down, aches and pains, always complaining about things. And they've got this and that ailment. I'm like, all right, so what is it that these older people are doing?

want to do that. I don't want to have the the problems that these other folks are having. So, things like that, observations is what originally got me into longevity of of all the other things, you know, of finance, of relationships. I tried to emulate the best that I can see of anybody out there on anything. Like, why not, right? Success leaves clues as Tony Robbins likes to quote Jim So that's pretty much how I started into lingerie way back as a kid. I didn't exactly know though, like I could only see what I could see.

I couldn't see what they weren't doing. Like I didn't know that the healthier people weren't eating a bunch of junk food. I knew that they were eating health food, right? But I didn't. It just didn't put it together that the things they weren't doing were as important as what they were doing. Yeah. Some things were obvious, like smoking. They weren't smoking. They weren't drinking alcohol in excess. Things like that. Obvious, right? But yeah, the things like not eating a bunch of garbage, a lot of processed foods.

That made a big difference. It took me decades to figure that out myself. It's a really important statement that I think bears repeating. It's just as important as what they're not doing as well as what they are doing. And that's a really important distinction that I think often gets overlooked. And so I appreciate you kind of calling that out. And as we peel back the layers of all the things you begin to notice that weren't being done as well as were being done, and then kind of applying them to your own life.

So as you're kind of going through this internal, you know, inquisition process, if you will, you became a network security architect. So let's talk about that wonderful left, logical, analytical brain. And how do you think that has shaped or influenced, informed or supported kind of your human biology optimization experience? You know, kind of taking that systems approach that you might use in tech. and kind of applying it to your own personal journey of the what not to do and the what to do. Yeah, yeah, absolutely in a major way.

It did have a big impact. I also did a number of years as an application developer. I did database optimization. I did performance and tuning of operating systems. So in order to do all of that, and especially the network security, you have to gather a lot of data. You've got to be able to churn a lot of data and be able to process it and be able to look at it in ways that other people maybe haven't. And so being able to chart and graph all of this data to be able to see trends. tweak things and see how that affected the outputs, it's a major experimental experience.

Systems Thinking and Self-Quantification 9:20

I realized way early on in my career that the human body is just an incredibly complex machine, more complex than most of the things that we've developed as far as applications or databases or operating systems. I really wanted to get data Yeah. To be able to chart and graph. So I recall going to my doctor and asking to get some blood tests. And the funny thing about blood tests, doctors don't usually run blood tests for no reason. Right. They usually only run a blood test if there's something wrong with you.

And so it's a diagnostic tool. So he basically had to make something up just to be able to. And I told him, I said, look, I want to know what my testosterone is. I want to know what my estrogen is. I want to know what my estradiol is. And he says, whoa, wait a minute. No, silly. Men don't have estrogen. They don't have estradiol. Only women have that. And he just kind of laughed me out of his office. And so I'm like, wait, how does this doctor not realize that men have those too and that women have testosterone?

How did I understand this back 30 years ago? And my doctor didn't. I guess a lot of doctors didn't. frustrating, just very, very, very frustrating. So it took me a number of years until I could find a doctor that would run tests for me. And they were just very rudimentary tests. They weren't anything that would be very helpful. And it took probably another decade until you could get like your own blood labs. Like I found life extension, right? You could run your own blood labs and go off to a lab quest and get the blood draw.

And then they mail you back the results. How simple is that? And then you can even call them and get a free consult. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Well, those things didn't exist, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So thankfully they do now. But that, that was really back, you know, those days thinking that I just need the data and trying to get the data. That was the struggle. So I used to wear a Zeo headband. You hear Dave Asprey talk about this thing that he used to wear around his head that would track his sleep.

I had one of those back in the day. Like anything I could for self quantification, I was totally into. The Longevity Revolution is about more than just searching online for a few hacks or any one of us moving our biomarkers in the right direction. It's about coming together to learn, share, to connect and create the unlimited future we want. That's why you need to be at RadFest 2025 in Las Vegas from July 10th to the 13th. RadFest, the revolution against aging and death is proud to be partnering for the first time with Dr.

Aubrey DeGray and Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation. perform the single most comprehensive, advanced, informative, and inspiring event on age reversal for a general audience. Meet the people you want to make forever with. RadFest 2025. Take advantage of lower advanced pricing now at roundfest.com. Yeah, and I love that. I mean, I think it's important that for everybody listening to kind of ground this for ourselves, you know, there's the sayings of what we measure matters. And it's interesting.

I was just speaking with a group last week that actually with I was presenting at a big technology conference. And what's so interesting is that we all think we want the data. And I'm not saying that we don't. As someone that also works with other practitioners and clients and patients, the end user that wants the data often doesn't know what to do with the data because you do have a brain like you have. And I'm not saying that we don't all possess the same capability, but it isn't naturally ingrained in us to see the patterns and to understand, especially the human body, as a whole entire human system that's interconnected and interrelated and interdependent and what happens in one area is informing and influencing another area and how our outer environments are driving our inner expression.

it can feel really overwhelming and go, great, I've got the data, but how do I start to make any sense of it? Maybe you can give just a couple of, for somebody that's in it and they're like, yeah, I relate with Dave, I wanted the data too, but shoot. Talk to us about what data markers you have come to feel are the most important, the most relevant, and how could you simplify it for baby people listening so they feel like, I don't even know what to do with all this, and I don't even know where to start, but I've got a couple of things, or I've got my watch, or I do have my annual labs for my doctor.

What would you say to them to give them a little clarity in the sea of data overload where we live nowadays? Yeah, that's a challenging question. I'm still trying to simplify it for myself, right? I have so much data and trying to get my arms around it to be able to get the bigger picture is always a challenge. How do I recommend to somebody else how to do what I'm still struggling to do? OK, well, first of all, I appreciate your honesty, but let me ask this question. I don't mean to cut you off.

So this is actually really interesting. So from collecting your own data and doing it for so long and doing all the metrics, how would you what do you feel like you've learned the most about yourself through the collection and observation process? Hmm. Okay. Well, like I mentioned earlier, I've been a sleep tracker for a long time. So I originally found that I really wasn't a good, efficient sleeper and didn't understand why. And then as time went by, my sleep even got worse. And I understood why that was because I ended up with a little rotator cuff in pigments on each side, which made it very difficult for me to sleep on my sides.

So I was constantly tossing and turning all night. Big issue. I also found that once I put blackout curtains here, this is my bedroom that I'm in by the way, once I put blackout curtains in here and sleep mask, put tape over every little LED that was in my view, that made a huge difference in my sleep scores. So that was, yeah. Having that data was very helpful to see the things that mattered. And when you started to make those little nudges, those tiny little things that we might so easily write off in our brain, like that can't be that big of a deal.

And you start to do it. What did you then? So now you've got the data showing like you're sleeping deeper. What, if anything, did you start to notice in your own physical expression? That's hard to answer too, because I'm always doing so many different things at the same time. When I'm more physically active, I do sleep deeper. I think that's my body's mechanism to doing repair, trying to fix all the things that I broke during the day because I was pushing so hard. You know, I'm a marathon runner from time to time.

I'm down to half marathons now, and hopefully we'll be quitting those soon. I also do P90X, which if anyone's familiar with that, it's a very extreme exercise program from the 90s. Yes. I'm like, you're going old school on us. Okay. Yeah.

Sleep, Stress, and the Telomere Wake-Up Call 16:50

I still do that regularly because I've tried so many other different exercise programs, but nothing gets me in shape like that one. Yeah. It's a great workout. Yeah. That's, that's so fun. I haven't, I haven't thought about P90X in a minute. We used to do those workouts in the living room. I love it. Yeah. That's right. Well, okay, so let let's dive into some of the things that I know people are curious about and let's let I want you to describe a few of these things. So you are 62 years young right chronologically and you compete in the rejuvenation Olympics.

You are ahead of on the leaderboard above Brian Johnson. And so let's Let's talk while you were. I was reading on your site and there was the changes in the stats. So maybe technically he is now, I'm not sure, the most up-to-date reading. Give us some context. So people who don't know what the Rejuvenation Olympics are, help them to understand. And why does this become really relevant? Like all of a sudden you're 62 years young, but you're really 37. And for people who maybe don't understand the significance of this, take us through this journey and why you decided to start this competition, being involved in the competition.

Ah, okay. So to answer that question, I actually have to go back a little bit in time, if that's okay. Let's do it. All right. I think it was around like 2012. Okay. It was probably later than that, but 2012 is when I was training for my very first marathon. And I thought I was Joe Cool. I thought I was like Mr. Athletic. I'm doing my P90X. I'm running. I'm just like Mr. Physically Fit. I'm doing all these supplements. I have no idea why I'm taking them. Right. You know, because I really wasn't blood testing available back then, so I couldn't measure anything.

taking them on faith yeah and i heard on this well actually i think it was a blog at that point back it was a ben greenfield blog yeah about something called telomeres and i'd never heard of telomeres didn't know what the heck they were um they were explained like being the little aglets on the end of your shoelaces that keep the shoelace from unraveling The analogy there in DNA is it's the end caps of spans of your DNA that mark where it begins and another one ends, basically. I had to say that just for the people that- It's perfect.

No, thank you for that. Yeah, of course. Apparently, as we get older, as our cells divide, these things get shorter and shorter and shorter until eventually the cell is no longer viable and we die, basically. So I heard that there was a commercial test available for this. I thought, well, I'm going to take that test. I'm positive it's going to come back and tell me that I've got the telomeres of a 20-year-old. But no, not much to my shock and horror. When I took the test, I found out I had the telomeres of a 68-year-old.

And I was just turning 50. And that was a huge shock. I'm like, wait, wait, why? I think I'm doing everything right. Why are my telomeres so bad? So I took a consult with the company that's now defuncted. They don't exist anymore, but I spoke to their staff position and the first thing they wanted to know was what was my lifestyle like. And I'm thinking, okay, yeah, I explained to them about, you know, the exercise and I like to eat right and all that. And they're like, no, no, we want to know what your day-to-day life is like.

It's kind of an odd question. I didn't really see how that was relevant, but I thought, okay, I'll play along and answer their question. I said, well, I've got a really stressful job. I work as a network security architect and engineer, and the work can go from zero to 60, nothing flat, especially if there's a breach. I found myself working 36 hours straight at a stretch before, just trying to resolve issues. It's pretty brutal at times. Yeah, I'm training for my first marathon and I do P90X, which is an extreme workout.

And oh, by the way, I'm the sole caretaker for my two parents who are battling cancer right now. I actually moved back in to take care of them because now they have cancer at the same time. So when my mom had her first cancer, my dad was able to take care of her. When he got his cancer, she took care of him. But now they were both down at the same time. Wow. And they're like, whoa, whoa, stop. Okay. All right. We've heard enough. We understand why. We've seen this before in endurance athletes. We put on the heavy miles and it's really hard on the body.

And yeah, that stress shortens the telomeres. We've seen it before in type A personalities. They have heart chargers. They have really stressful jobs. The stress again, shortens the telomeres. And we've seen it in the caretaker of elderly parents. because that's incredibly stressful. And you, my good man, you have the trifecta. All of them. Yeah. All of them. And you're pretty much killing yourself with stress. Are you ready to redefine aging and unlock your full potential as a longevity leader?

At the Human Longevity Institute, our world-class certification programs train doctors, coaches, and wellness professionals how to deliver cutting edge, integrative longevity health solutions so people can live better today for longer, healthier and more vibrant tomorrows. If you're ready to join the Longevity Revolution, visit humanlongevityinstitute.com to enroll and become a practitioner today. And this is something I just press pause for one second, Dave, for our audience. You know, I often talk about stress and there's a really good side to stress, but there is the size.

So when we think stress is a demand to the system, physical, mental, emotional, chemical, environmental. We often, as an individual going through our life, we just think stress is stress and we just don't appreciate the load, the demand it places on our physical system. And so if we keep it super, super, super common sense, you know, the way I always want to invite each of you to get curious about your own body and your own forms of stressors, the demands coming in, again, physical, mental, chemical, environmental, is do you have the internal resources to keep up with the demands?

So it's not that Dave that you couldn't take care of your parents. It's not that you can't meet the demands of your job. It's not that you couldn't do the workout, but all at once and with the intensity and the level and not the time for rest and recovery. And potentially was your body able? You were actually in a very pro inflammatory state. And did your body have the internal resources? You were taking a lot of supplements, but even the time that necessary sleep to bring down some of that inflammatory load, get some of the waste out.

It's like day over day or putting more gas on the fire, so to speak. And I just wanted to highlight this nuance because this is where I think so many of us we just get in our little humanine lane and we put blinders on and we don't step back. to get curious about what are the quality and the quantity of the inputs aka stressors coming in the demands on the system and do we have enough gas in the tank of the human body so to speak to keep up with those demands so you are at this pivotal moment the doctors say we see it all right here you got all of them you're on the fast path to letting the stress take you out young and so then what happened for you so their recommendation to me was you know maybe look into doing things like yoga and meditation right and i started laughing because i'm thinking whoa i always used to do yoga and meditation but because my life got so hectic those things sort of fell off the table onto the floor yeah i thought wow yeah i definitely need to incorporate those again And so I did that helped a lot, but also like reshaping the way I looked at things.

Like I hated running. I absolutely hated it. I was doing it because I was doing it for charity. You know, it was our church was trying to raise money to build wells in Africa for kids that are dying from dirty water. So we were running with team world vision and it was a great cause, great charity, but the running itself was torture. So I had to change the way I looked at running. It would sound weird that you could just decide to change how you look at it, but you can. You can. Yeah, instead of looking at it as a chore, I started looking at it as, I get to do this.

Yes. And I love the power of get to versus have to. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like look at all the people that would love to be out running and can't right now. I would run by a hospital and I would look up at the windows and think of all the people that were stuck in a hospital bed somewhere, looking out that window, wishing they could be out running instead of lying there in bed. Stuff like that really reframes your mental. in the space. So that helped. So at that point when you're going through this and you're starting to have some ah-has about, okay, I have a real opportunity to reframe and to reverse, to do something about this this telomere length.

And I just want to, you know, kind of thread because I know I love we're having this beautiful conversation. We are coming back to the Rejuvenation Olympics Gang. So I know you guys are interested in hearing about this and this is kind of Dave's taking us on this path of of what really sparked the interest to competing in this, right? And again, kind of that ongoing curiosity of data and the, not only what you should do, but the things that you shouldn't be doing. So you're kind of pulling all this together and running and reframing and keep telling us, we're loving it.

Yeah. Sorry, I'm getting there rather slowly, but I am getting to a point. So this whole telomere thing. Yeah. Me wondering like, all right, so what else am I missing? I think I'm doing the exercise, the sleep and the diet, but what's going on at a cellular level that I'm not aware of? And so I was really digging into what can I do to increase the length of my telomeres? At that time, there wasn't a whole lot. There really wasn't. It probably took another five years until they realized that, well, they discovered that cancer cells somehow end up producing their own enzyme that lengthens their telomeres, which virtually makes them immortal.

And so in the study of cancer therapies, they were able to synthesize this enzyme, and they called it telomerase. And so the first telomerase activators were available. I'm sure you've probably interviewed Bill Landers before. found his product when it finally became available. And I began purchasing that. Not a small purchase, I might add. Very expensive product. But at that point, I was willing to do anything I could to increase my telomeres. Yeah. So I was just doing a deep dive then into everything I could at a biological level.

And I found other places like True Diagnostic that could do epigenetic age testing. That was relatively new. And Again, that's about when I started doing all of my life length telomere measures. I began doing the blood extension, blood testing, just gathering all this data. I've already lost what my point was. Well, you're taking us. I mean, and here's what's beautiful, because this is a testament that you've been doing this for a while. And it's like you said, it's the long game.

Rejuvenation Olympics and the Basics of Longevity 28:35

So you have been over time, you know, exploring and going deeper into your own process. And we're kind of making our way to the Rejuvenation Olympics, right? So gathering all the data, going deeper down the rabbit hole for yourself, having all of it. And then, like, take us to the point When did you all of a sudden say, I'm stacking all my data up against the best on the leaderboard and break down the difference because here's really what's interesting. There's a lot of things that are interesting about your story, by the way, but something that's very curious and I know our listeners want to understand.

Is, you know, Brian is really, he's known for good bad or otherwise about his quest for for reverse aging and and really being able to live the longest, the healthiest. And so biologically, you know, he's been kind of top in the leaderboard. And how do I how do I keep myself as young as possible, as healthy as possible? And he spends a lot of money. He does a lot of things. And this made a lot of headlines, right? So it's kind of like, hey, here's the billionaire who's spending a million, you know, just to just to sustain this.

And, of course, while that might make an interesting headline. that's not realistic for the average person. Like we're not walking around with an extra million just to throw down to get a couple extra years to reverse age a little bit. And so part of this is where do we find our meaning? What's the real cost and what's the real benefit? And so why did you decide to throw your hat into the rejuvenation Olympics? And you're kind of going head to head with Brian and you're taking a much different approach.

So I really want you to share that. with our audience. So I think that's kind of the humorous thing, because I didn't do it intentionally. I had no idea there was a competition. When I started True Diagnostic, there was no competition. I took my first two diagnostic tests just to see where I was, like what I'm doing. Is it one more marker that's validating that the direction I'm going in is the correct direction or not? And then I took my second test, probably, I think each test was about six months apart.

And it was about the time I took my third test that I got an email from True Diagnostic. And I already had my results back, but this new email came in talking about a competition, brand new. And so I'm looking at this competition. I'm going, wow, this is kind of cool. But then I'm looking at this guy who's number one on the leaderboard and I'm looking at his score going, wait a minute. Hold on a second. So I pull up my results. I'm looking at like, wait, can this be right? I'm actually beating this guy who's supposedly number one in the world.

Wow. Okay. I must be misinterpreting this somehow. Yeah. Or even if this is correct. Are they going to let me beat this guy? You know, because it was sort of his competition. He was sort of in it with true diagnostic, right? So I'm like, well, okay. So I set my results in and about a month and a half later they updated the leaderboard and Brian moved down from number one to number seven and I was number six and that's where we stayed for like the entire year. Wow. So and then of course that attracted a bunch of attention because everybody wanted to know like who is this nobody that's obviously not spending two million dollars a year that's meeting the guy who is.

And that was kind of fun. So that started my whole new side career that I didn't even expect to have. And that's fun, right? You never know when we get to reinvent or expand ourselves anywhere along our journey. It doesn't have to be linear. So what have been some of your big takeaways? So here you are kind of head to head with the time that we have left. Let's break down some of your favorite Your own longevity hacks or your own longevity stack like what you really in this journey in the things you've been doing what you kind of have boiled it down to for you become.

just non-negotiables these are the things that here's the musts and here's the like let's start with the essentials these are the things you feel that you must do because they are the they they just are those essential longevity gems and then we can kind of break down some of the and here are the other here's my next favorites but here's my tops right whatever a few of your tops Well, here's the things that I would have hoped that everybody who participated in the Rejuvenation Olympics would have learned, or those that were following it would have learned, because when it was originally developed, the tagline was crowdsourcing longevity.

And I saw all these top people that were like Tony Robbins on there. He had some big name people, right? And I thought, Well, what an opportunity for those of us that are on the top of the leaderboard to get together and discuss, what is it that we're each doing so we can try to figure out what are the commonalities, right? What are the least common denominators? Like maybe I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff with supplements, but somebody else isn't. And I expected that Brian, being the leader of this, would have brought us all together and formed a mastermind so we could discuss things like that.

Much to my disappointment, he instead turned that into like, well, here's my supplements that I'm selling and this is what you need to do. Yeah. Which, yeah, I didn't really think was the correct answer. And now after having watched interviews with all of the people that are in the top of the leaderboard. I've pretty much realized, and I think everybody else at this point has too, that the keys to having a slow pace of aging, at least, are the basics. Truly, the basics. It's proper sleep, proper nutrition, good exercise.

Because there's people on the leaderboard, and I love talking about Julie Gibson Clark. I bring her up on every interview I've ever been on. She was beating both me and Brian, right? Brian was seven, I was six. I think she was five. And she wasn't doing a whole bunch of supplements. She wasn't doing any kind of crazy interventions. She's like basically a soccer mom. And the only thing that she was doing was the Novos core supplement was about $50 a month. And, but she was doing all the basics, right?

She was doing rucking. She makes all of her own food, which again is what almost everybody in the leaderboard is doing. They're not eating processed foods. That's what I saw even when my, when I got my qualifying score, the leaderboard, that was the one thing I changed that brought my score. When I say lower, my pace of aging slower than my previous two scores was I cut out all processed foods. Wow. That made the biggest difference. So I suspect, and this is a theory, I can't prove this, but most people I've won this by seem to think this makes some sense.

I suspect that the people, those of us that are in the top of the leaderboard right now for the Rejuvenation Olympics, we're the ones that are aging normally. I suspect that everybody else is aging faster because of all the processed foods that we're eating, all the garbage and junk that's in our foods, that's in the water that we're drinking, that's in the personal care products that we're slathering in and on our bodies, right? All of these chemicals that we're being bombarded with. Once you remove all those, what a huge difference it makes to your numbers, to your measures.

I love it. Yeah, it is. I cannot say enough how. It's not about the next bright, shiny object or really cool piece of tech. If we want to hit longevity escape velocity, as Aubrey de Grey speaks of, it's just getting comfortable doing the basics, doing the foundational things. We can't build a big house. If we don't have the foundation and again, when I was speaking last week, you know, one of the ways I help I just use very common sense. I'm like, okay, here's the reality game. How long can we go without air?

Minutes, right? How long can we go without water days? How long can we go without sleep days? How long can we go without food weeks? That's it like so like the right kind now and this is just general building blocks, but how we breathe matters how we sleep how we rest matters right how we how we nourish matters. And these are often overlooked. And this is not about, and I do wanna talk to you for a moment. One of the things I appreciate is that when I looked at your kind of your meal plan for your week, yes, you eat clean, you know, minimally to no process, like no processed food.

And everything's fresh, everything's whole foods, good macro nutrient density. But you're also really good about you're not doing vegan, you're not doing just plant-based, you're not going all carnivore, you're not going to the extremes. I like seeing, I personally, because I tout this, you're kind of a man after my own heart, I see a good macronutrient balance for you in your approach, which depending on which side of the aisle you're on on some of these longevity conversations, that goes a little bit against some of the dogma out there.

So why have you landed on the approach that you're taking? Tell us a little bit about your personal nutrition philosophy and why you are nourishing the way you're nourishing. I was going to say, if I go to any extreme at all, it's to the extreme of maximum nutrient density. Yeah. Yeah. So does my body need all that? I don't know. I would rather give it to my body and let my body decide. Right. Yeah. And if it doesn't, you know, if I'm just having very expensive pee from all of the good food that I eat and all the supplements that I take, so be it.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I've read a lot of books. I've listened to a lot of podcasts. I try to follow again, the experts, right. The people that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. Right. So I can't say I can't claim that any of this is my own wisdom. I learned from the smartest people that are out there. Which foods are regenerative, right? Which foods are restorative? Which ones are like going to tear us down and make us sickly? And so the foods that you'll see that are on my website, I tried to pick them from like the many lists that I've seen of all the most restorative foods.

I thought to myself, all right, so which of these foods do I actually like? So long that I'd be like, I'm not eating that. No, thank you. Which do I actually have access to? Yeah. There's some really great mushrooms out there in the world that I just can't find in my local store. Right. So I picked from those the best foods for me that I could find and that I would enjoy and built my meal plans basically around that. I love it. It's that simple. Yeah. So run us through a day in the life of the aging in reverse, the Benjamin Button, Dave Pasco.

I would say that my life was way more regimented while I was still working because I had to do things at very specific times in order to get them done. Now that I'm retired, Wow, it's so much harder for me to be disciplined like I was before. So it tends to be like my life is all over the place, especially now because I'm doing podcast interviews, which throws off my entire schedule for the day as far as what my routines were, which is fine. That's not a complaint. I would much rather spend time with people than to be doing the next workout or be sitting in the sauna.

I can do this on a session or the workout later, but getting a chance to sit down and actually talk with people and connect with people, friends, family, that's precious. At the end of my life, I'm not going to look back and say, oh gosh, I wish I had done at least a dozen more workouts. I'm going to say, wow, I wish I had spent more time with so-and-so. I try to look at that now and make that the priority of my life. Yeah, I have all the routines on my website, but I'm not that regimented about those.

That's the structure. That's what I try to hit each day. Yeah. But if I don't, it's no big deal. So talk to us about your longevity vision. So from where you're at right now, what's your future forecast for you, your intentions, your desires, your vision? I hear people say, oh, I'm going to live to 120. I'm going to live to 180. I can't. I can't do that. I just can't. Because there's really nothing available to us today.

Nutrition Philosophy and Daily Longevity Habits 41:45

Today. Yet. It's coming. That is going to get us to past 120 years old. It is coming. But with all the stuff that we do, it's not going to get us there. What it is going to get us is to stay younger, longer, more viable. It will increase our health span. Maybe not necessarily our lifespan. If we're gonna live to 180, it's gonna be because one of those brilliant doctors or scientists or researchers that we get to hear of at RadFest, they're going to develop something that they're going to gift to the world and say, look, we just figured out how to solve this problem or this hallmark of aging.

Somebody's gonna hand that to us at some point and then sure, we'll all benefit from that if we can afford it. But right now, my focus is really just living the healthiest I can now, trying to stay as youthful as I can now, so that when the longevity escape velocity does come, I can try to stay at this age right now for the rest of that time. That's the key. I love it. All right. I would be remiss if I don't ask, let's talk about your supplements. How many have you taken? Oh, man. I think at the last count on my website, I think I'm up to about 170 different something today.

You know, I think there's about why. Why do you think it's 100? I'm just curious. I'm not in judgment. I'm just like, dude, 170 is a lot. Even I admit that that can tend to be pretty extreme. Yeah. Well, that kind of goes back to the thing that I said earlier. If I truly believe that, you know, pace of aging is done by the basics, then, yeah, why would I take all these supplements? But pace of aging is only one aspect of the whole big picture, right? Many of the supplements I take are to address higher level organ functions like brain health, eye health, you know, even liver and kidney health.

When you take that many supplements, if you don't know what you're doing, you really can damage your liver or your kidneys. So I take things that I know are actually supportive of those and a blood test every month to validate that, yes, I am supporting those organs that they're actually doing well. They're not struggling. Gosh, what was my point? My point was that basically I have three genetic markers for the same macular degeneration that my father suffered from. So that's why many of my supplements are definitely for eye health.

I wanted to try to stave that off for as long as possible and avoid it if at all possible. Have you ever used bioregulators? Absolutely, yes. Okay. Yeah. Because that's the ticket right there for macular degeneration for sure. I do the ones for the retina and gosh. You've probably seen me at the integrative peptides booth at many of the conferences. I tend to buy quite a bit. I love those things. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Well, I think so if somebody is wanting to kind of get started because again like you know what's exciting about your journey is again you have been on it for a long time but let's say somebody is only just getting started and maybe they're in their 50s or they're in their 60s or whatever age it doesn't really matter at the age but they've got They might see themselves as well.

I'm not like Dave. I didn't start all the way when I was a kid. I wasn't asking those kind of questions. I'm only just now finding this podcast and even realizing that something more could be different until I really have to take 170 supplements. And so you have crafted your own journey. With medical oversight, right based on many years of data collection. So I really want to, I really want to point that out to our listening audience. So if somebody is just kind of getting started, what, what might you.

Recommend just and again, don't worry. This is just your personal opinion, but what type of advice might you give. So even though I've been at this for many, many years, I haven't always done everything right. I've done some pretty stupid things to do that those times. We tend to try to follow the best advice that's out there, but the best advice may not be correct. They say that 50% of what we think we know today will turn out to be wrong tomorrow. So trying to hedge your bets to get the right 50% is the challenge.

Honestly, and people are bored by this answer because it's not a sexy answer. The basics are really what's necessary. They say sitting is the new smoking. We sit way too much in front of our computers all day. Our jobs require that a lot. We also spend a lot too much time on our devices, which that's our own addictions that come into play there. Getting away from those, getting up, going and moving. That's really key to keeping your cells vital because if you're sitting, you're not moving your lymphatic fluids.

And basically, your lymphatic fluid is where all of your cellular waste goes. So as your cells are burning and doing their processing, they're eliminating waste out of their. their cell walls into this interstitial fluid. And they're just going to sit there in their own waste unless that gets moved. And the only thing that moves lymphatic fluid is massage or muscle movement. So getting out there and just moving, make sure you move every muscle in your body throughout the day. That gets that lymphatic fluid moving, cleans out your cells, gives your cells a fighting chance to get fresh nutrients to them and wastes away.

That's usually important. So that's exercise is number one. Sleep, number two. That's when your body does all of its rejuvenation and repair. So why would you want to short yourself on that time? Giving yourself as much time as your body needs. Don't feel like you're lazy. Get what your body desires. Get as much sleep as you can. Because that's, like I said, that's when all the repair is going to happen. And you're going to be really grateful for that sometime down the road. And then nutrition. Would you put crappy fuel into your race car?

Or if you had a very expensive racehorse, would you just give it any old crappy food? No. You would probably give it the best nutrition that money could buy. So why would you do anything different to your own body? So those three, those are the three foundational. And of course, trying to reduce stress, those would be the four foundational things. That's why I tell everybody to start, really do a deep dive, focus on those things. Once you nail all those down, then maybe you can graduate to another level and start looking at, you know, supplementing for things or, you know, buying some of the expensive biohacking toys to play with.

Those can help, but you can't supplement your way out of a bad diet. And you can't supplement your way out of lack of exercise. Yeah, I love it. I often say to my doctors at Human Longevity Institute, and, you know, even good can become bad in an overloaded system. And so, you know, it's a it's a beautiful process. And I think it's it's remembering your why. So why jump in today? Why why live better? Right? Why live longer? And so we all have our own personal why. And we are emotional creatures.

So your why will help to drive the action, the movement. the food choices, the rest, you know, and as you are, I try to instill, as I've said, common sense approaches because this can feel overwhelming, it can feel exciting, and it is doable, it's measurable, we know it, but it can also feel like, well, shoot, if I can't do it just like Dave, then why should I even do it? If I can't do it just like Brian, or I can't do it just like, no, this is a personal process. So it's get curious. I love that from the very beginning.

That's one of the things you said, Dave, that started you on that journey. You got curious. What does success look like? What are people doing? What are they not doing? So curiosity, curious as to what do you want and why do you want it? And then getting curious about, okay, the choices in my life. Are they helping me to have that or are they creating a barrier? What if anything can I reduce and remove? What, if anything, very obvious, very low hanging fruit, can I replace and replenish? So what can I do less of?

What can I do more of? That will kind of align with my why around all those beautiful foundational principles that Dave just shared with you all. You know, I think the more we can offer a little bit of grace and kindness to ourselves because it is the long game. Longevity truly is the long game. I love that you said that because I say it all the time as well. And so I want to thank you for showing up, showing up for the long game, showing up as a great representation, holding both a youthful essence and realizing that age is simply a number.

and you're not letting yourself be confined to the construct of what society might think that number is supposed to look like, act like, or be like. So thank you for being a great longevity representative of showing more as possible. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, we appreciate you. Dave, where can everybody go find out about you and all your stats and all your number? You guys want to geek out about his labs, his metrics, his meals, his daily rhythms and workouts. It is all on his website.

Tell them where they can go find you. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I put it all out there for free. Everything. It's almost overwhelming. There's so much stuff. It's at DavePasco.net. That's my website. And it can be found on Instagram at Dave.Pasco. And I have a lot of people trying to convince me to start my own YouTube channel. I have a channel. It's there. There's just no content in it yet. So I am planning to put some stuff out there if there's interest. I love it. We'll have our eyes on you and we'll make sure that the links are with the show notes.

So as always, you guys, I wanna thank you for tuning in, investing the time in yourself and learning what is possible for you today to truly live longer, healthier, happier tomorrow's day. You've been a phenomenal guest. Thank you. I will look forward to seeing you at our 10 year anniversary out in Vegas, July 10th through the 13th. Come join us everybody. The whole RadFest crew will be there. And until next time, continue to stay curious, be bold, and truly go out and thrive forward. Take care, everybody.

Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com. Stay connected, stay healthy, and join us next time on Doctor Talks, real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.