The Self-Cleaning Heart: How To Activate Autophagy For A Healthy Heart

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Thank you, Dr. Kahn. Always a pleasure. And hopefully, we’re going to change somebody’s life today.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Yeah, many people. Now, we could fill easily half an hour with your academic scientific career. But why don’t you give everybody just you know, two minutes on your training and your involvement now in the science world in this particular field of science? 

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah. Well, I’m an M. D. Ph.D. and my passion was to like yours to treat patients all day. And I wanted to be a cardiologist like yourself as well. And then doing my rotations, I started thinking about, well I’m putting, I wasn’t familiar with functional medicine, what you do. I was more on the aliphatic side and we were putting people on pills every day for the rest of their lives and I wanted to change the healthcare system into a more preventative and true curative system. So when I did my master’s in health policy and master’s in public health and started a career in health system reform and advocating for true changes in the healthcare system. And that’s not easy to do, you need to incentivize the system towards prevention and create products so that products get into policy and reimbursement. And it was like, what is the product for prevention? What is that one product that for one intervention it can help people stay healthy long or through the cure health conditions? And after 15 years of traveling the world looking for it. A lot of researchers and top scientists were pointing at Valter Longo with the fasting, mimicking nutrition; it was a dietary intervention. But having the power of medicine and both in prevention and potentially now we’re going to talk today about therapeutic fasting but potentially in therapy. I got fascinated by the topic of fasting and the science of healthy aging and rejuvenation and ended-up after they carried a little bit with the biotech industry and see owning a consulting company in health care, decided to join a neutral fasting nutrition company and his mission to change the world through nutrition for longevity and here I am today.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So for anybody that possibly hasn’t heard that name, Valter Longo, PhD in the University of Southern California for half a year and a gerontology research center in Milan Italy half a year obviously native-born Italian but spending nearly 30 years now in the United State. The highest funded researcher and nutrition in the United States from our Institutes of Health and other locations and probably one of the most esteemed if not the number one most esteemed scientist. So his relationship with L-Nutra was, that he was the founder.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah so Valter is the head of the longevity institute at USC. He started thinking about longevity 25 years ago coupled with nutrition and nutrition is the only product we put in our body every day. So that was his actually tailored food to be the number one longevity driver and the number one for medicine and supplement to medicines. When he discovered the power of fasting and the fasting nutrition, he and USC decided to found L-Nutra our company L is longevity through nutrition and they founded it just to make the discoveries you know available for people around the world and they stay very separate so it’s all donated. All the ownership shares with that at all donated back to create cures foundation and all the science now we have 18 universities joining so we have Stanford, UCLA, USC, University of Milan, and Genoa in a lot of top universities in the world, they form this network of research on nutrition and they’re studying our programs and random clinical trials to bring them to patients or to consumers to change their life with food.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I have to say this with a little bit of comedy. The only copy of Dr. Longo’s best seller international bestseller I had in my office was the Italian edition, The Longevity Diet. I’m sure for those of you that don’t read fluent Italian there’s an amazing English version and probably other languages. It’s more of an orange-colored book and it’s truly, I have so many copies in my office. I think it’s the number one most-read book coming out of my cardiology clinic is The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo. And I highly recommend it because you know we can’t possibly talk about all that went into his background that culminated in L-Nutra, and now you running what is an increasingly impactful company but you know people know fasting. I’m hungry, I’m angry. I’m kind of upset but now we’re talking about fasting as a therapy and may be defined for a couple of minutes. What would a scientist say is fasting? How long do you go with diminished or no calories for a scientist to say that’s a human

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

There are three kinds of fasting. There’s the normal no food and if you ask any, you know any person on the street. What is fasting? You know the more physiological definition is when you start seeing ketones in the body. So you went you know long enough and typically this happens you know 14 hours 15, 16 hours when we do ketone measurements is when we start detecting them. Again, it depends if you’re skinny, have a high metabolism, you exercise, and you’re gonna start getting those earlier. If you have a little bit of you know more reserves and more glycogen in the body and your metabolic rate is low and you’re not exercising that day you’re gonna need 18-20 hours or more or longer. But we start seeing ketone production detectable in the blood between 12 to 16 hours. There’s a third definition of fastening which we came up with or Professor Longo came up with and this is where it allows you to consume some nutrition but that nutrition did not spike the recognition of the body of food. So when you eat the cards trigger insulin it’s anabolic you know and it’s a signal of the presence of carbs it’s a growth hormone and then you eat proteins IGF-1, Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 increase.

So when you eat carbs and proteins typically these to spike in the body and they tell the body, hey, there’s at the systemic level. We can go into an embolism there’s food. At the cellular level, there are three main pathways for the cell to the deck food PKA and the rest of the TOR pathways. And you know the TOR is accelerated a little bit more by the protein, whereas the PKA and the rest by carbs. So the new definition of fasting with food is can you eat without using a spike in insulin and IGF? So that is how the fasting-mimicking diet was born. It was a special nutrition technology that actually increases, barely increases insulin and stays long and barely increases IGF and stays, you know, plateaus and the similar pathways the PKA, TOR, and the RAS pathways. They’re not overly triggered so that the cell does not feel satisfied and that’s now the new molecular definition or similar definition of fasting.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So for those listening, you can avoid a spike in insulin and avoid a spike of IGF-1 by not eating at all. But Dr. Longo and your team worked on a fasting-mimicking diet that by keeping the protein content of a five-day diet and the added sugar content of a five-day diet very low. You get the physiology of a fast or nearly the same physiology, but you’re not completely devoid of calories. I mean, I’ve never gone five days of not eating anything. I’ve done five days of eating the prolonged fasting-mimicking diet and can function very well as hundreds of thousands of people can give testimony to. So, I mean it’s brilliant. I mean that this actually happens. Tell us about how we actually know this the 2017 human randomized study what somebody might expect by taking a box of Prolon for five days and then eating carefully on the sixth day and then rejoining humanity, eating a clean, healthy diet for the rest of the month. And what did that study show?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah, and people ask us why you want us to fast with nutrition. Why the invention of fasting-mimicking nutrition, of the fasting-mimicking diet? You mentioned the name of the products called Prolon. The entire objective is to help you go longer on a fast while not taking the risk of the fast. If you water fast you have the hungry, you mentioned the emotional side effects the hunger, pain, and headaches but there’s also the risk of hyperglycemia and lower blood pressure, et cetera. So this is where the food comes in to make it safe and compliant. But why do you want people to go for the five days? It’s actually to cross the day two and three where the body says okay on day one and two, I always say you have a checking account, savings account, and a credit. 

The checking account is glycogen. So the first couple of days the body goes directly to glycogen to tap into calories to compensate for the fast then it goes to fat, that’s your savings accounts and then deliver those genesis helps you a little bit with some credit. And that’s enough for the first two days where there’s enough of a compensation mechanism. But then on day two, the body says, I’m depleting my reserve pretty fast and asks the cells to go and look for intracellular ways of saving energy that is better performing and using the reason organelles in that process called autophagy or cellular rejuvenation. And it’s a big word today, won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2016 and it starts around day two. A lot of people think that if they do intermittent fasting, they push the 16 hours, 18 hours, they’re getting into autophagy. That’s not happening in 99.9% of the cases. It starts around day two or three. Again, we go back. If you’re skinny, high metabolic rate, and exercise you might start reaching that on day one or between day one and two, you have more reserve. It takes you three days to touch on that but the power of the Prolon in five days is yours, most people get a little bit 73% of Americans have some weight to shed.

People get a little bit 73% of Americans have some weight to shed. So it’s a great way to shed the weight. It’s a great way to protect lean body mass. And now there’s a pattern because fasting is a stress. The growth hormone is high. The muscle tone is there. You’re nourishing withdrawal on the muscle so you preserve lean body mass. As a cardiologist, it is so important for you because the biggest problem when people buy it, they lose muscle and fat and then they regain the fat but not the muscle. They become more insulin resistant and they go back to the next diet and they lose another cycle of muscles. So with Prolon on the metabolic side, you’re losing a lot of fats you’re preserving the body mass but you’re pushing yourself to rejuvenate which is a critical improvement of biological age. And that’s the essence of why we’re a longevity company and why Prolon, because the better you, is a younger you.

You’re not concerned about your first heart attack at age 40, and at age 35, you’re not concerned about Alzheimer’s at age 35, and you’re not concerned about most cancers at age 20. So the younger you are definitely the healthier you. Is a you that has the power of you know, stem cell rejuvenation, younger cells, are better-performing cells. And Prolon’s goal is to help you metabolically very fast. This is why now over 14,800 clinics in US are registered to recommend Prolon with us is a major metabolic benefit and we’re gonna talk about that. But also it’s very important that we clarify, that there’s a major cellular benefit when you fast. Every cell of the body is going through that cycle because every cell lives on calories and every cell tries to rejuvenate to survive which is biologically helping you go slow down your age or get a step backward and that’s probably one of the best things you can do to prevent the onset of running.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Alright well that was an incredibly provocative overview of what has been learned you know for now. Like you said it’s taken decades to create the fasting-mimicking diet. And I think commercially available now is Prolon. Is it now the fifth year anniversary or not quite yet? Fifth year?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah. Actually, it was the sixth this past month and we just crossed the one million Prolon sold.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Wow. You know we’re gonna interview Dr. Alan Goldhammer from True North and talk about inpatient monitored water fasting for days to weeks. And they’ve had tens of thousands of people in 30 to 40 years. There’s a clinic in Germany that has treated in the past 50-plus years. Maybe a quarter million people with inpatient carefully monitored water fasting. Nobody’s doing these Prolon fasts at home under any medical advice but you’ve already reached one million in five years which is the practicality and the science. It’s not a compromise. I mean nobody has yet to my knowledge on five-day water fasting versus a five-day Prolon fasting-mimicking diet. But I think you and I suspect we get relatively similar physiology even though you’re allowed to eat a little bit within this amazing white box called Prolon. Right?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It’s actually very interesting. A lot of people say and why there’s no fasting mimicking Grishin versus just a water fast the IRB Board is unethical now today to push unless you mention the clinics that can do it. So if you’re under clinical supervision definitely. But you don’t want to send people home and tell them to live your normal life and exercise and run and it’s just a water fast. But it’s amazing in mice, we’ve done that and you see in many ways the fasting nutrition actually doing better and people is the intensity of fasting. Maybe they’re closer. But what’s very important I always say it’s a funded rejuvenation with Prolon because if your cells want to rejuvenate they’re gonna still need the minerals, the vitamins. If the muscle, and this is where it’s so critical. People don’t talk about muscle protection with nutrition and diet which to me is the most important thing. If every time you want to a little bit diet or lose some weight you’re gonna lose muscle. That’s the biggest disaster you can do because you’re going to regain the weight pretty fast and just lose muscle and that’s a vicious circle that people get into. Now if you are water fasting. Yes, there’s the stress growth hormone is high, the muscle is pushed a little bit to grow but there’s no food and so on water fast you’re not going to have to you’re not gonna have enough ammunition for the muscle to preserve. The Prolon, the fasting-mimicking nutrition, a lot of people ask us how come you have a little bit of high-carb and the soups at night. This is where you want to spike a little bit further the insulin. And this is a big secret in the formulation because at night you have high growth hormone, you couple a little bit with a little bit of higher early kind of, you know, minuscule spike. And then the muscles are getting all the push and this plant-based protein in the product. So the muscle is actually getting nourished and getting pushed to be preserved. And this is why you get out of it with fat cut but not muscle cut.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So I think you’ve made a beautiful case, but I want to make sure that everybody just writes down the science and a randomized study, and in many animal studies, you lose fat with the five-day fasting-mimicking diet, particularly visceral fat, which isn’t only around the waistline and internal organs, that’s where much of it is. Where everybody wants to lose an inch or two or three but you’re not sacrificing muscle mass because we have data that as you get older, preserving muscle mass is critical. So it’s like the perfect diet tool to lose visceral fat and not muscle mass. Whereas other programs just result in an overall loss, and like you say, you get 70 years old and you try and regain your muscle mass. No easy job there and may be impossible and maybe detrimental long term to shape.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

You know, in random controls. We went against the Mediterranean diet every day and or five days and we went against medicine, you know, as you know, we just published with University of Heidelberg in Germany on diabetes and it took Prolon just six months, meaning five days, only a month for six months, 30 days total to take 67% reduction in medication to drop HB1C by 1.4 and to decrease insulin resistance by 59%. And we always get these questions, how come you’re superior to an everyday diet? How come just five days do all this? And again, two secrets. Secret number one, you lose weight fast but it’s cutting fats and you’re protecting muscle. Number two, you’re getting your body biologically younger. You at a younger age were burning fat better. You were correcting yourself better. You did less mistakes, the less prone to chronic diseases. So the cellular rejuvenation key is very important cutting only fat while protecting muscle is key as well.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So if I ran into an elevator in an elevator and I saw you wearing a prolonged shirt and I said, what the heck is that? We’re not saying it’s a therapy yet, even though you just quoted a new publication, it’s not an FDA-approved therapy like insulin or Metformin. But I mean, what are some of the areas, I mean, what would you tell that person? It’s a five-day fasting, mimicking diet that can and some of the benefits you’re allowed to say with the current regulations that you live within with the FDA. 

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I’ll give you the elevator answer but I want to clarify that regulatory, it’s changing and I’ll tell you what has changed. The Prolon is a five-day fasting-mimicking nutrition that will help you get the benefits of fasting while you’re consuming food. These benefits are in four categories. Number one is the fat loss while you’re protecting lean body mass. Number two is healthy aging and cellular rejuvenation and that’s based on the 2016 Nobel Prize and the data that we have. Number three, there’s a big emotional transformation with Prolon. You’ve worked with many patients in Prolon and they will tell you, I just feel amazing. I feel empowered. I’ve achieved. The diet is only five days. I always say this day one there’s a day five and they feel empowered. They feel they have better performance and better self-esteem. And I can talk a lot about that because we have trials on depression and others that we just concluded. And the fourth benefit is really changing your relationship with food when you do pro long you’re saying, you know what I’ve done five days of a plant-based diet. I wasn’t addicted to big plates. I wasn’t addicted to late-night snacking and I just did it. So why go back to my old habits? So changing the relationship with food is the fourth and major, not least in major benefit with Prolon. 

So that’s the elevator pitch. I want to go back to what you mentioned which is how to claim, what are we allowed to claim, and 6 to 7 months ago associations came together I think the American political diabetic association and others. And they came up with this definition of diabetes or disease remission and regression. And the definition is it’s a lifestyle medicine intervention in non-pharmaceutical and the definitions and non-pharmaceutical intervention and that you actually if you show science you can you’re allowed to talk about disease remission and aggression. Disease regression means you need less medication and disease remission it means you need no medication and you can see how this definition is actually probably was created to say, okay if treatment and cure are left for medicine, diabetes obviously is a weight-related lifestyle-related disease. Most of it, in the solution to diabetes, was never built in a pill that as you know, most of the pills just facilitate the migration of glucose from the blood to the tissue which in many cases ends up stored in more fat and more insulin resistance. So we don’t see a lot of cures in diabetes from medicine. We see a lot of reversal and regression or lifestyle exercise, healthy eating etcetera, and behavioral change. So they created this definition: diabetes remission and regression. It’s based on needing less medication or no medication. And this is how we’re launching our diabetes program in Q1 of 2023 is gonna be the fasting that we can die with a dietician to support and an app. And that program is going to be the first-ever program to induce diabetes remission of aggression.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So right as people are listening to this, they will want to go over to l-nutra.com or prolonlife.com and study this new available city of disease management program for type two diabetics. I see over your right shoulder and I’ve got one right here. There is actually a one-day Prolon called Reset for those. I mean, how would you describe the people just putting their toe in the water before they jump in or doing this? We’re not going to necessarily induce autophagy and cellular regeneration. But why did you design there to be one?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It was a popular request by the way, a lot of folks saying before I step into five days of fasting nutrition, can I try? Can I experience it for one day? Can I prepare my body for a healthy premium plant-based protein diet? A lot of Proloners are saying, I don’t want to go back to my, necessary to all the time to my pizzas, pasta, and burgers. I wanna maybe once a week or twice a week. And as you know, in Europe, it comes a little bit more from a religious background. They call it the 52 or the 61 fast as well where people twice a week they do two days of fasting. In the Christian, it’s a Wednesday and Friday. In the Muslim, it’s a Monday and Thursday. I think the prophet used to fast. I’m not sure about the exact days but it migrated from religion and ended up being an intermittent fasting practice where it’s called 5-2-5 days to eat whatever you want during the week and two days during the week you fast, a little bit of nutrition that is under 600 calories for males and 500 calories for females. 

A lot of people love to do the 6:1 eating. I eat unhealthily and sometimes I over-cheat during the weekend and go out and on a Monday, I want to reset. I want something to kind of wash out my sins or rebalance. So this is how we launched this reset. And honestly got accelerated by NBA players, they were, I don’t want to mention the big, big superstars in the NBA that we’re buying Prolon on the five days and we’re like, it’s impossible that they’re, when they’re active we know there’s a lot of professional players in all the leads, the major leagues that do Prolon when they’re injured, when an off-season, and they just want to cut fast fat. And we called the coach and we said, how come these big giant players that need 6000 calories a day doing Prolon? He said, no, I just buy the box and every Monday I put them on one day in order to wash the weekends partying, you know, habits. And so the combination of the science, a combination of history and 5:2, and the 6:1. A  lot of people wanting to balance after Prolon to this product very clean plant based in a full day. Obviously, a lot of us have got issues and I don’t wanna get into the details of what happens there but from a gut, from away from a balanced perspective, and from training yourself whether getting into Prolon or keeping the benefits of Prolon if you want to do it after the five days.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Dr. Antoun, don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back to dove into this topic in a little more detail for our general listeners. Thank you so much. Has been fascinating for our premium members. Stick with me and we’ll be right back.

I don’t know if I see it over your right shoulder. I bought one. There is a product that you guys make all the fast bar, which is an adapted basically the breakfast that you eat when you do the reset or the full five-day parole on different. But tell us, I mean I’m still fascinated by the, you know, so much of L-nutra is based on human randomized studies and you have one for this bar as a substitute. So tell us what was the thought and what did you actually observe? Because I still think it’s amazing.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

They call us the Pfizer of nutrition because of that every product we put out there, we do randomized control including the bar that you just showed and there’s no bar in the market controls and patents. We have a patent on a fasting-mimicking diet. But the goal is a lot of people with the craze and they’re reading about autophagy and the science that honestly comes from the Prolon the five days that a lot of folks and coupled with the science on intermittent fasting weight loss. A lot of folks, a lot of Americans and people around the world started doing intermittent fasting and trying to get to 16 and 18 hours. Again, there’s not a major artificial happening there although this is what has been marketed, but it’s a good way sometimes too if you want to lose weight to skip the morning in the morning breakfast. Although recent science will tell you, to eat in the morning and at lunch and a little bit less and dinner. So front load your calories instead of downloaded towards the end. 

But if you want to skip breakfast and keep the same amount of calories, not over-binge then that’s probably a good way to go. We don’t believe in water fast. We don’t believe, we do obviously believe in fasting but because you have a technology now that gives you the benefits while nourishing your essential organs. We came up with a fast bar. So a lot of people skipping breakfast in the morning. They’re starving at the same time. The essential organs, the brain and the heart. These organs have to work and they’re calling for calories. That’s why you lose a little bit of weight. There’s no switch happening there. We did the fast bar to provide the body with plant-based proteins some carbs, some healthy mid-chain fatty acids, and fats for the brain so that you go through the morning fast in a healthy way in a compliant way. You don’t get your headaches and your fingers and your and your fingers.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Yet in your study your subjects maintained a low insulin level and a higher ketone level as if they had basically skipped that morning meal. But they did 200 calorie bar that is very delicious. And it’s very often my 8:00 AM with a black coffee pre-clinic. Yeah. It’s a way to start the day.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I actually, so we did another trial with coffee. We haven’t published it. It’s still if you do black coffee you can add a little bit of stevia to it but not milk or sugar and you do it with a fast bar. Your glucose is absolutely flat like water and your ketones. They barely a little bit dips that significantly. But then they go overshoot over a water fast because the fast part is designed to accelerate the fasting with mid-train natural and healthy from macadamia ingredients.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

It’s truly, you know, if you didn’t understand how profound the science coming out of your company and Dr. Longo’s research where you might say this is marketing and magic, but it’s magic but it’s based on nutrient technology science that so profound. If we had another half an hour we go into the cancer studies and the brain studies and all the areas of muscle and athletic performance studies. I encourage everybody to continue to be a student. Maybe just because this is a reverse your heart disease naturally summit, let’s finish with what you would tell, you know, you’re an MD PhD, you can give medical advice or maybe you’re lecturing to a crowd of cardiologists. What are possible ways that incorporating the five-day fasting-mimicking prolonged diet into a cardiology practice could benefit patients avoiding our disease or with our disease?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Well, I think 73% of patients statistically show that they are a little bit overweight and then some 40% are metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetic and a good 11,12% could be already in diabetes And that’s the continuum where we love to position the fasting nutrition to support with because you’re hitting on multiple angles. You’re hitting on the fat loss one preserving muscle, any other diet you put them on. First of all, the drop-out is very high because they have to be on it every day. Number two, they’re losing muscle at the same time. Number three they intervene, they impose on their lifestyle and that’s not a sustainable way for most people. Number two, you’re helping the body cope with all the implementing processes. You know, fasting used to be in the books of autoimmune and inflammation in the old days and we see a lot of improvement in the markets of inflammation, but which is important for both preventative and acute instead of in cardiology. Number three is really the power of cellular rejuvenation and regeneration again. 

In medicine and you and I went, you know, decades, a little bit to medical. Everything we got trained on is that maybe a little bit of genetic predisposition and then given medicine towards it. I think what we’re discovering is most diseases are related to lifestyle and aging and the fasting-mimicking nutrition hits on both. It’s very important to keep that body a little bit biologically younger because that’s how it can deal better with how to stock less calories into fat, battle inflammation, and support regeneration. We don’t have data on your regeneration or others but a younger body is a body that’s better. There is less prone to chronic disease and can better deal with acute settings. So it’s a key to impact the shorter metabolic benefits and metabolic health. It’s key to impact to preserve the muscle while improving the body too, better than any.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

You know, having used Prolon in my cardiology preventive clinic now for five years, I will say it has been one of the most powerful tools and I agree with you both the physiology and the psychology, the ability of the patient to get back in the driver’s seat and determine their health and realize they don’t need to overeat and they don’t need to eat late and they don’t need to eat tons of meat because it just is joyful that this is a very clean plant forward program. So obviously it jived right away when I read about it, maybe the last little bit that will shut it down. You have a sister company if I can call it, that’s called Nutrition for Longevity, and I’m not sure everybody listening and a lot of people listening know about it. So why don’t you just riff on that for a moment and what that offers?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

So a lot of people doing programs that I wanted to go back and eat healthy food and you inspired us is why the fastbar and reset. If you want to continue fasting after Prolon. You continue with the fasting nutrition pipeline the one they reset the fasting but a lot of people they want to go back and eat you know pescetarian, in a flexitarian, diet everyday healthy food. So we decided to put together this company called Nutrition for Longevity and basically merges three concepts: concept number one is clean ingredients. We want to make sure that everything resource, it’s organic, it’s gluten-free, it’s a clean source of ingredients. Number two is the longevity formulation designed by Valter Longo as you know Valter studies centenarians around the world and he travels all over the world to meet with them to study the diets and we have a formulation which we believe is common to a lot of centenarians and again it’s that border zone between pescetarian and flexitarian. 

So plant-based and some nuts within the gums and nuts within the plant-based then fish are the main source of proteins and sometimes but really you can add other sources of meat. This is where the longevity formula sits on and then on top of that, the third layer is we tailor the food to the world’s health condition based on the American Heart Association american diabetic association, and other associations. So we have tailored nutrition for kidney disease heart disease diabetes for cancer and this trio you know made us really shine very fast and 3.5 years to be one of the nutrition of choice for you know C. D. C. And Medicare, Medicaid and many insurances and we became eligible for reimbursement in November of last year. In between November and this August we already kind of passed 59 insurances that they signed us for embarrassment. They’re now paying for us as food is medicine. They pay food for a patient eligible for the food, the patient can get the food like a drug, no copay, no payments and we deliver the food every day.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So they are fully prepared delicious meals. You have amazing coffee. Amazing extra virgin olive oil I’ve sampled. And what you just said is incredible because it’s actually I mean why would an insurance company offer to pay for it for a patient with a medical condition if there wasn’t evidence but it’s really probably one of the best examples between the five-day fasting-mimicking diet and nutritionforlongevity.com. Hippocrates food is medicine. You guys are just making it real making it available, making it meaningful. So I just want to say thank you so much. Tell the person that wants to be hungry for more. They want to learn more about Valter. He does have a website, doesn’t he?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah. ValterLongo.com, the createcures.org. He’s active on Twitter, on Instagram I believe as well as in a lot of videos including TEDtalks on YouTube. Amazing. You and other professionals changing the world and donating all of it back to fun new cures as well as keep the pipeline alive.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And then if somebody wants to look at the, we’ve talked about three products the five-day fasting, mimicking diet, the fast fire, the reset and I guess with nutrition for longevity would be the fourth product line. Where would be the best site to find that and learn more?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

At the high level, If you want to read about the mission of the company and the product pipeline, you go to l-nutra.com. L is for longevity, nutra dot com. You can see the mission of the company and most importantly read the science. There’s a science section there, which is second to none. There’s no other probably interesting company that has as many clinical trials and papers as we do. If you want to read specifically about each product, you can go to prolonfast.com. For prolonged, you can go to prolonreset.com, for the one-day fast or the fastbar.com, nutritionforlogevity.com. You can see all the meals there and the benefits.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

This is the only company that’s a fasting company that everything’s delicious. It seems the ultimate oxymoron but fantastic. Well, thank you for your time. You’re a busy man, you’re all over the world and really, really changing. And this idea of aligning what you’re doing with health insurance companies to make it available and actually a covered benefit is just wonderful. Good luck on the diabetes project. And everybody at this summit Reverse Your Heart Disease Naturally. Thank you very much.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I appreciate you very, very much, Dr. Kahn.