Aubrey de Gray visiting Joe Rogan

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Joe Rogan : Well, we're on the air. First of all, thank you so much for coming, I really appreciate it.

Aubrey de Gray : Well, thanks for inviting me, I have been waiting for this for quite a while.

Joe Rogan : Me too! I was glad to talk with you then in New York. How many, two years have passed, right? And it was fun. And I was a big fan of your work long before that and I consider you an amazing character. And I am glad that ... well, you got up early this morning, London time, at 8 o'clock here, in Los Angeles, that is, it turns out, we have 8 o'clock difference?

Aubrey de Gray : Yes. Eight o'clock difference.

Joe Rogan : Yes. You have been on your feet for a long time, however. Not particularly useful for longevity, right?

Aubrey de Gray : Definitely so. People marked it. I think of all that I do, for sure, from the least useful things for me. And I never get enough sleep.

Joe Rogan : Eternal lack of sleep, and you are not averse to a drink, my friend ...

Aubrey de Gray : Well, maybe it benefits me, who knows ...

Joe Rogan : Really?

Aubrey de Gray : At least if it is moderate, as they say ...

Joe Rogan : If it is moderate, yes ... Well, here we are now drinking ...

Aubrey de Gray : Yes ...

Joe Rogan : Drop by "Jack Daniels". Should help for colds? What do you think?

Aubrey de Gray : It helps me.

Joe Rogan : OK. Does it help you, really? Is it warming?

Aubrey de Gray : Definitely, yes ...

Joe Rogan : If only you were comfortable. You are engaged ... - for those who do not know, Aubrey de Gray, you are a researcher at Cambridge, you are busy, for the most part, with the problems of aging, increasing life expectancy, if we talk about medical sciences ... on the front lines of this research.

Aubrey de Gray : Actually, first, I want to fix it ...

Joe Rogan : Ok.

Aubrey de Gray : I have not been associated with the University of Cambridge for a very long time.

Joe Rogan : How long?

Aubrey de Gray : Since 2006

Joe rogan: Fucking Wikipedia ... Here, assholes ... Since 2006, really, a long time ago.

Aubrey de Gray : Something like that, yes. Yes, in fact, as soon as we were able to find enough funding to pay me a full time, it became wiser for me, in general, to work on something else to pay bills.

Joe Rogan : So, what is your organization's name now?

Aubrey de Gray : So. In general, we are a SENS Charitable Research Foundation based in Mountain View, California, and today we are at about $ 5 million a year, in terms of the research budget. That is, we are still very small, but I think we spend them with considerable benefit.

Joe rogan: And for those who are steaming, “What's wrong with his voice?” He caught a bit of a cold, ladies and gentlemen. That's why he drinks whiskey. I do not know how much this helps ... What is interesting happening now, in terms of medical research regarding the extension of life? What is the most exciting thing for you now?

Aubrey de Gray : Probably the most fascinating thing is that there are many fascinating things. To truly understand the scope of medical research on aging, you need to start with the idea that aging is far from a single phenomenon. It is an aggregate, a system of interacting phenomena. And the problem will eventually be solved by medicine using the divide and conquer strategy - a set of interventions, each of which should work well enough for the whole system to work at an acceptable level in terms of delaying the deterioration of health.

Therefore, from my point of view - a person from the front line, so to speak, is simply fantastic, that there is always something, something that means a breakthrough happens every week, here and there. But, of course, these breakthroughs are often quite technical, things often happen that only specialists will understand that these are, in fact, breakthroughs. Not that we double the life span of mice that week, for example. However, this is normal. In general, advanced technology is always being developed. And people who really need to understand, in other words, those who are engaged in research, who need to know about each other's results to determine which experiments to do next ...

This community is, in general, sufficiently uniform for such information to spread. Of course, I myself play a large role in this, in addition to overseeing the research conducted by our foundation. So, going back to my initial statement ... There is no definite answer, but ...

Joe Rogan : This is a very interesting point, because ... How developed is cooperation between different researchers around the planet working on life expectancy technologies and medical sciences in this field?

Aubrey de grayA: This is, in general, a slightly different question. The answer to which is depressingly different. Separate areas, which, I think, all need to be developed to a certain level of efficiency, in order to give a certain result together, these separate areas are very united, and people in such areas communicate with each other. But between the regions is a completely different story. I had, from my very first steps in this field, and, definitely, during the last, say, ten or twelve years, I had to literally bring these people together. There is too much disunity, growing misunderstanding and unnecessary barriers between areas that, for some reason, do not think that they are meaningful to each other. And, in any case, I do not blame scientists for this.

This is due to the nature of financing. The fact is that everyone doesn’t have enough money, and therefore, in order to get what may have to, it’s necessary to focus on what they have already proven themselves to be. This makes any possible interdisciplinary work extremely difficult. And already begun work with high risk. It really seriously slows down science and technology. That is - a tragedy. And everything, as it were, is up to date with what is happening, but no one knows what to do with it, in anybody’s interests to do something with it. That is, the whole system is rolled.

Joe rogan: That is, a situation, like the one when different pharmaceutical companies or anyone else, is standing by, waiting for something to bet on. What can you invest in, saying that this is a promising research, and we will do everything to make it profitable in the future. Since drugs, especially to finally become profitable, require a huge period of testing, research, and they ultimately happen to cost millions and millions of dollars before the effectiveness of the product becomes clear.

Aubrey de gray: Absolutely. And, again, this is not exactly what I said earlier, although related to it. What I said earlier was about academic studies, as such, people relying on government funding in their work. The pharmaceutical industry or the medical industry as a whole has a different perspective, but, as it were, similar problems. Medicine is a tricky thing, and everyone wants to simplify it as far as possible, which causes the original prejudice against interdisciplinary research, against the strategy of "divide and conquer," which means applying more than one procedure at a time, to the same patient.

But ultimately, we will have to come to terms with necessity. And, in the pharmaceutical and medical industry there are reasonable people, as well as in academic circles, but everyone, as it were, is getting used to the situation. It's just very difficult for anyone to be the first group, the first company, the first research group, to really do something new. That, as it were, will be a collective shift in the way of thinking, a kind of cultural transformation of the process itself.

Joe Rogan : So, is this actively being explored around the world? Or are there groups of intellectuals working on this, or ...?

Aubrey de gray: Worldwide, but yes, I am afraid, only groups. At the moment, so far, there is a tendency, an incredibly seductive tendency to return to what simply makes money quickly or speeds up the appearance of publications, regardless of their weight. In other words, does it lead to significant progress in the longer term? And, most importantly, to which I pointed out - it is ABSOLUTELY biologically erroneous and pernicious idea that the diseases of the elderly, in a certain sense, are independent of aging itself. Absurd. Diseases of old age, this is all because of which people who were born a long time ago are ill, but that rarely affects them in their prime.

Everything happens as it is - the side effects of life. The side effects of having to live are accumulating wear and tear in the body over time. And this, too, is the only thing that anyone will say as a definition of aging itself. Therefore, we should not separate these two things, saying that these things are diseases, and those are not. So you can not do. And if we stop doing this, we will have a chance to actually understand how to influence this set of interrelated painful manifestations in the elderly so that it really works. We will stop trying to be too optimistic about the things that we decided to call diseases, and too pessimistic about those that we did not decide to call so. We can begin to realize that we can fight with all of them.

Joe rogan: That is, you consider aging itself as a kind of disease?

Aubrey de Gray : I would, in general, take a different path. I would say that it would be correct not to consider the so-called diseases of old age as diseases. Because, of course, there is a huge difference between the side effects of the life process, in the first place, and infections. Infections are what the concept of disease should be limited to. Well, infections and congenital diseases, let's say. Infections ... can, in general, be banished from the body. They can be cured. Effects on symptoms and extermination of pathogens. And an attempt to do the same with a certain side effect of life will obviously lead to nothing. If you just do not want to destroy life itself, that, in general, is completely different, right?

Joe Rogan : Yes ...

Aubrey de Gray : So, this is a conceptual problem. People think that illnesses like Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis or cancer, in fact, are not very different from tuberculosis. Complete nonsense. And because of this fundamental conceptual error, an incredible amount of money is spent incorrectly in the treatment of diseases of the elderly. With very minimal impact on these diseases.

Joe Rogan : That is, scientists, as it were, resigned that Alzheimer's is only a side effect of old age, and nothing can be done about it?

Aubrey de Gray : No, no! No, I do not say that they are humbled. They say it is a disease, and we have to CURE it!

Joe Rogan : And you have a different opinion. But I mean ... well.

Aubrey de gray: That's the problem. They think they can cure it, separately. They think, oh, people get old, let's cure Alzheimer's disease.

Joe Rogan : So you say that we need to cure aging?

Aubrey de Gray : Exactly.

Joe Rogan : Good. What do you think will be the solution? Surely there are a lot of different ideas. What do you think will be the methodology for deciding which direction to go?

Aubrey de gray: It is clear to me, already for at least 15 years, that the solution will be the repair of damages. What we need is to develop a system of intervention, a set of therapies that restore the molecular and cellular structure and the interaction of the processes in the body of an elderly person to a state of approximately early adulthood. In general, this means things like replacing cells when the cells of the body die and are not automatically replaced by their division. Which means removing excess cells when they divide, although they should not. Or when they do not die, although they should. This means cleaning out molecular waste if it accumulates because the body does not know how to get rid of it. How to break them down or out of the body. Everything is very simple, in fact. But it turns out that such thinking already sounds like a very big simplification,

Joe Rogan : Do you think nutrition plays a role in this? Maybe you recommend a specific diet to improve the body's ability to heal on its own?

Aubrey de Gray : I, in general, do not do this. For two reasons. First, with regard to nutrition and lifestyle in general, everything that people can do today, I definitely think that there are many people who know more about it than me, and that means that if I become an expert in this areas, I can hardly achieve more than if I continue to waste my time as it is now.

The second reason is that it is rather depressing, but it is also important to mention that as far as can be judged, multiple testimonies say that such things are not enough for me, for most people. If you are unlucky, something has happened, and you are aging unusually fast, then everything is a little different. Especially if you are unusually fast aging in only one or two specific aspects. Then, perhaps, there will be vitamin supplements, diets or lifestyle restrictions that significantly normalize the rate of aging, which is naturally good. But those of us who have an average rate of aging, and especially, just below the average, simply have no sense. Observations show that such interventions simply do not give you anything more, the body is already set up as acceptably as possible, and requires the development of much more subtle procedures, such as

Joe Rogan : That is, things seem to get enough sleep, eat well - in fact, in fact, they only help until a certain moment?

Aubrey de Gray : They help, but very little, right.

Joe Rogan : And how much is this? Years 10 years of life on top or so?

Aubrey de Gray : Even 10, I think - exaggeration. I think we can talk about a year or two, if you're lucky.

Joe Rogan : Wow! A year or two? So, sour on, guys!

Aubrey de gray: Here ... here is a good illustration of this. People, often in the rest of the world ... often laugh at the United States, at the fact that even though the United States spends a lot of money on medicine, a lot more per person than in any other country, and still, if you look at life expectancy , USA deep down list, 45th or something like that. Really very low. And people say - “Well, that’s just that ... health cannot be bought for money,” like that. But in general, much more important is found, if you look at the real numbers, not only on this table. I would like to ask, Joe, do you know about this?

Joe Rogan : Good.

Aubrey de gray: What do you think, what is the difference between the life expectancy of the US population and the same indicator among the inhabitants of Japan, where the highest life expectancy in the world?

Joe Rogan : Well, I would say, life expectancy in the US is probably an average of more than 60 years, while in Japan it is probably more than 70.

Aubrey de Gray : Tell me the number, what's the difference?

Joe Rogan : 64 - 78, so go?

Aubrey de Gray : That is, say, the difference is 14 years?

Joe Rogan : Yes.

Aubrey de Gray : The answer is 4 years.

Joe Rogan : Four?

Aubrey de Gray : Four.

Joe Rogan : Just?

Aubrey de Gray : Four.

Joe Rogan : Not so much.

Aubrey de Gray : Exactly. I mean the same.

Joe Rogan : And four ... last four ... Really, the best years ...

Aubrey de Gray : Well, of course. Of course, the last 4 years ... And in Japan too ... The way to live a long time is to stay healthy for a start, and then the period of decline is typically about the same, no matter how long the period of good health is before it.

Joe Rogan : So, in all these factors that people are trying to improve, such as surrounding themselves with those you love; communication with congenial; do what you like to do. Speaking about this, they generally talk about a small period of time, in any case?

Aubrey de gray: I'm afraid so. I spend so much time emphasizing it and helping people understand, because ... If they don’t understand it, if they think they can fairly postpone the deterioration of their health, simply by doing what they can now, they would be correspondingly less optimistic. and less absorbed by these questions and help in the improvement and development of what is not yet in their power, just the very thing that I am working on. In fact, this is because the impact of what we are capable of today is so small that we have to feverishly develop the new.

Joe Rogan : What do you think will be the method to eliminate wear? I mean, how will this manifest in our life?

Aubrey de grayA: There are many different types of damage. And I was able to put forward a really solid, sound and understandable research program only because 15 years ago I found a way to classify a variety of similar types of damage into a much more manageable number of categories, just 7 categories. And in each category there is one universal intervention that may differ in details for different examples within the category, but only in details. That is, we are talking only about seven different types of damage repair.

For illustration, let me tell you about one or two of them. One type of wear is cell loss. Cells dying off and not automatically replaced by the division of other cells. This is the reason why we have Parkinson's disease - probably the best example, the most obvious example. And, Parkinson's disease occurs when in one of the parts of the brain called the substantia nigra, where there is a special type of neuron, called dopaminergic neuron. They die much faster than neurons in most parts of the brain, and, naturally, ultimately, they are not enough. Most of us lose only 20% of these neurons in old age. But, some people lose them a little faster, and can lose 70%, or 80%, towards old age. These people suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

So, the question - “What is the approach to the elimination of damage?” The answer is, in general, obvious, and well known in this case. Namely - stem cell therapy. That's what stem cell therapy is. You enter into the body stem cells prepared in advance, so let's say they are configured to tend to divide and transform into cells that the body does not replace with its own. That is, we restore the number of cells in the tissues, the tissues begin to work again, the disease is defeated. And about 20 years ago, they began to try to do this, because they realized this. But it did not always work, only from time to time. And the main problem was that we did not know enough about how to prepare stem cells before being introduced into the body.

Today, we know a lot more, and now new stem cell tests for Parkinson's disease are starting, causing great optimism. And I think there are very good chances, I would even say, 50 to 50, that we can say, in just 10 years, that Parkinson's disease is finally cured with stem cell therapy.

Joe Rogan : Wow, very promising! Incredible! 10 years! This is a relatively short time. Unless ... you are not 74.

Aubrey de Gray : Yes, yes, yes ...

Joe Rogan : So?

Aubrey de gray: This is a short time. With many therapies, which, we believe, also need to be developed to fight other aspects of aging, I think everything is a bit more complicated ... And I think we can talk about 20 to 25 years. And even then, we are talking only, say, about 50 to 50 likelihoods of the like. For anything, for periods of more than a few years, it is obvious that the discourse on the time frame is exclusively speculative.

I think it is our responsibility to transfer the right to guess to the general population, since the best guesses of the general population will be much worse, right? And you need to know, to have some kind of understanding, how close a certain goal is, to understand how much it costs to fuss, so that this happens faster. If you think that before something else is a thousand years old, it will not be a priority to do it in just 990 years, right? That is, in many ways, why we have to talk about the time frame. But, yes, I think there is at least a 10 percent chance that we will not achieve this in a hundred years.

Joe Rogan : Wow! It's ... but ...

Aubrey de Gray : Like, nothing like that, huh?

Joe Rogan : Yes.

Aubrey de Gray : Since the chance of 50 to 50 is already enough to cost to fight.

Joe rogan: Surely ... We met at the Global Initiative 2045 conference in New York. It is like two different groups of people. A group of people preoccupied with biological aging, to which you belong. Medical, biological aging. And some, so to speak, sci-fi dreamers who believe that we can load our consciousness into a robot and bypass the entire biological process, in one fell swoop. And that all research on the problem of aging will be useless, because we will come to the moment when we develop the body, much better than the biological one with which we are born, and we will simply transfer our consciousness to it. How do you feel about this? Interested in or just concentrating on what you do yourself?

Aubrey de gray: I am used to approaching such things with a very open mind. I am not at all delighted with people talking about the obviously impossible. But, very often, when something initially looks obviously impossible, the more carefully you look, the more you realize that this can actually be very complicated. And this is a good example. Loading consciousness ... The idea of ​​transferring human consciousness to another iron ... is not at all obvious that this is impossible. But in the end, there may be reasons why this cannot be done. But I think it’s much more important now that we can say that it’s very difficult. I think ... Yes, I would definitely say, in general, that I would put serious money, that the problem of aging will be finally solved by medical means - like what we do - long before

Joe Rogan : Well ...

Aubrey de Gray : However, such a moment. Like any sensible technologist, I know that I can be wrong. And, therefore, I am happy that there are people working in other areas. So, if their work turns out to be easier than it seems to me, and my work will be more difficult, and they will achieve their first, they will start to save lives that I could not. Here I do not mind.

Joe rogan: But, there is also a philosophical debate ... a philosophical discussion ... Why would you want to live long? How long do you really want to live? Do you want to live a thousand years or a hundred thousand years? And will this not be a problem, because natural resources are running out? The Earth is already overpopulated, we are already a difficult test for the natural resources of our planet, which is only aggravated by the presence of people of millennial age giving birth to children when they are 900 years old.

Aubrey de Gray: Well, I will answer this question in two very separate parts. First, I will say about the so-called philosophical problem, how long we would like to live. I find it very striking that people worry about it. Just because people, in fact, think differently about everything else. Let's not forget that the aspect of longevity in all this work is only a side effect. I do not work on longevity. I am definitely not working on immortality, which you can think about when reading my publications. I work only on health. I just wondered how to help people not get sick when they grow old. And, if you think about it, all medicine is the same. All medicine is engaged in the prevention of diseases in humans or their treatment, if they are sick. And any medicine has side effects! That people live longer than they would live without it.

Therefore, the only real difference between the work of the SENS Research Foundation and everything that everyone else among medical researchers does is in the level of side effects. The fact that longevity, as a side effect of our work, can be significantly higher than the similar side effects we already know. But it remains a side effect. And, if we go back to the question of how long we WOULD LIKE to live. I do not know ... This is just a meaningless question! For me, the same thing is to ask what time would you like to go to the toilet next Sunday? We know that it is silly to think about such a question. And this is stupid, because we know that we will have more information on the topic closer to the deadline, and we can act according to the information. And here - the same thing! No one makes decisions based on how long they were born. People, for the most part, make decisions as they grow older, based on how long they think they have left to live. But this is because the amount of time they think they should live is reduced.

But it will stop shrinking. If you have lived a long time, and a lot of time is ahead, your decisions will be based on more short-term considerations. If you want, on the opinions of others, and so on. When I am asked, I sometimes say, “Okay. Remember the moment when you first slept ... ”

Joe Rogan : Oh, yeah!

Aubrey de Gray : Exactly. Yes.

Joe Rogan : It began ...

Aubrey de Gray : Imagine what you thought at that moment? Did you think, - Oh, God! Oh God, I have to get her to bed right now, because I have only sixty years left to live! So? Do you understand what I mean? This is ridiculous.

Well ... And now I want to go to the second part of your question. Which was about overpopulation and the like. I jerk if I hear that this is a philosophical question. For me, this is a sociological question. Which is not the same thing at all. We will not delve into the semantics. What is the answer? I have, as it were, a three-level answer. And this applies to all questions that may arise in relation to problems that may hypothetically arise, as the consequences of solving the problem we are discussing are problems of aging, ok?

So, first of all, specific answers, let's just take a closer look at the real scenario, rather than the reaction of despair, and ask if there is a possibility of a problem at all? And in the case of overpopulation, we need to ask ourselves: “Okay, how quickly would, in fact, increase the population, in the absence of death from aging? And how much would this affect? At the moment, we already have a problem of overpopulation, there are too many people on the planet, global warming and so on. But, we have global warming - not because of the fact that there are 7 billion people in the world, but because these 7 billion are burning a lot of carbon. And this will change soon. The use of solar energy is growing, we have nuclear fusion, and so on.

In the relatively near future, we will greatly increase the carrying capacity of the planet, with the help of technologies that allow a greater mass of people to live with less impact on the environment. It is very likely that a similar trajectory ... And, of course, I’m talking not only about global warming, but also other types of pollution to which we are involved ... Such technologies will be ahead of any changes that may occur due to demography. So this is the first level of my answer.

The second level of response is probably more important, as if the general approach, always applicable, you worry about overpopulation, boredom or dictators living forever, or how pensions will be paid, or any other of the standard despair reactions. The answer is “How bad will it be?” Let's not forget about the sense of proportion here. How difficult can these problems be regarding the complexity of the problem that exists today? To answer this question, we need to remind ourselves well what the seriousness of this problem is today. How many people die from aging every day? The answer is a hundred thousand. And, of course, most of them do not just die, they die after a long illness, depletion of the body, deterioration of health, addictions and general adversity.

That is, no doubt, aging is responsible for the majority of human suffering in the world today. And, do not even need to be limited to the industrial world. I asked about life expectancy. And we say that there is a 4 year difference between the United States and Japan. It turns out that only 10 years difference between the planet as a whole and Japan. Is it amazing or what?

Joe Rogan : This is quite amazing. That is, between the worst and the best scenario scenario there is only a ten-year difference.

Aubrey de Gray : Not the worst option, but the average ...

Joe Rogan : Medium, yes ...

Aubrey de Gray : It can be much worse when people die after forty or fifty, but yes, everything ...

Joe Rogan : The worst option, on average, planet, right?

Aubrey de Gray : Yes, exactly.

Joe Rogan : Good.

Aubrey de Gray : So, I mean, we are saying here that aging is undoubtedly the main problem in the world at the moment. And it was such a long time. And we have to ask - even assuming that we will find ourselves in a situation where overpopulation may become a problem, if we have not invented technologies, to fix this by increasing the carrying capacity of the planet as quickly as was necessary. And we are faced with this rather annoying need to have fewer children than we would like to leave room for all seniors who are still healthy and not going to die. Difficult situation? It seems to me that it would not be easy to say that it would be better to allow people to grow old and die than to have fewer children.

And the third level of response is probably the most convincing of all. And he says - even if you have convinced yourself that such problems will manifest themselves, and even if you also convinced yourself that these problems will be so HARVEST that you will outweigh the problem we solve, the question is who are you to solve it? Who, in fact, must make decisions, whether to use such therapies? The answer is obvious - humanity of the future, rather than humanity of the present.

If we say to ourselves, “O God! Overpopulation! ”Anything! “We will not risk it!” And we, because of this, postpone the development of such technologies. We, in essence, deprive humanity of the future of the opportunity to decide whether to use such therapies based on information available to it, on available technologies and so on, while if we develop them as quickly as possible, the future humanity will receive such a choice. And I don’t want to be the one who helped condemn future generations to an unnecessary painful and early death, just because I thought I knew better than themselves.

Joe roganWell, innovation and development look like a fundamental part of human society and civilization. We always seem to be doing something, wherever you look, there is always someone who is trying to improve something. If we talk about medicine, it is no less obvious that it will also try to improve and develop, and life expectancy, of course, the way you described it, that this is the number one physical health problem in our world. This will be a serious task. The task that we will solve is the fundamental aspect of being human.

Aubrey de gray: I really like the way you said. I think this is the right way to explain the fallacy that we should leave aging alone, for it is natural, as some say. They say, “Aging is not a disease, it happens everywhere, it is, in fact, naturally, you should not touch it.” That is, you are absolutely right, and they expressed it perfectly. I would say so ... It would be unnatural for us to say - "Oh, God, let's leave it alone, in spite of the fact that it is terrible." It would be natural for humanity to see what we did not like from the natural and correct the matter.

Joe roganBut there is this existential anxiety in which people tend to flounder, like “What is the point? Will it all end once, why steam? ”And there are different groups, ways of thinking, on this issue, some just think,“ This is absurd, enjoy the moment, live the moment, live today, do not worry about the future ... ” But there are many people who disagree with this. Who really depressed, worrying about his imminent demise. And when you see them, you tell them - “Hey, we are developing new technologies that will allow you to live longer, in this life we ​​will see people who will live a thousand years ...” They answer - “Cool! A thousand years of suffering and existential anxiety! ”They don’t need it. This is where the philosophical question really is.

Because, it is a question of attitude towards life. How do you feel about what is happening with you? You see him, as you said about the first sex, - "I have to get her into bed, because I have 60 years left to live." Or do you look at life, saying - “While all this is happening, in life there are a million interesting things!”

And besides, it seems to me that, over time, we are becoming better absorbed with all this civilization. And one thing, I think, would be more useful than anything, if there were people alive and healthy among us for 400-500 years, imagine the level of wisdom that they could share with all of us. Imagine the life lessons that you would receive from several centuries of trial and error, lessons and information that you absorbed. We could transform society and culture, the world society is not a country’s society, not a local society, but a world society, in a radical way, only with the help of wisdom, which we all could share?

Aubrey de gray: I think there is a lot of truth, of course. I think you could argue that the existence of culture, writing, and so on means that it is not so important that people live longer than elephants or someone else. However, on the practical side, it is important that things tend to be forgotten. When people who invented something pass away from life, and this something is rediscovered 20-30 years later, it is rather ridiculous.

However, there is a related point, which I think is worth mentioning here, regarding the value of a long lifespan and the value - the perceived value - a long lifespan. Namely, that at the moment, people who think that they should live for about five hundred years or more, in fact, the very same people who with great difficulty understand whether it is worth living up to 50 - people who waste their time by Essentially, the existence of a TV.

Their problem is only the lack of education. The fact that most people today do not have enough knowledge to understand how to achieve something from life. And if you have them, there is a good education, a good understanding of how to achieve something in life, you always have a lot of desires. This means a thousand years of desires - what I would like to do - songs, what I would like to sing; books that I would like to read; places that I would like to visit; people who would like to meet. And, having finished with this, I will definitely gather desires for another 10 thousand years, so I think that all we need is, in general, to give people a good education.

Joe rogan: An interesting look at the problem. Education. I would like to agree with you, but I think that for many people it is a matter of mental health. There are people suffering from depression or struggling with depression, and it becomes very difficult for them to endure this life itself. And I think ...

Aubrey de Gray : Well, I want to interrupt you ...

Joe Rogan : Please.

Aubrey de gray: Because it is ... I think we need to understand, we need to look at it in perspective ... Of course, there are people suffering from severe depression. I have a girlfriend in England, she is in clinical depression, now, because of the problem of aging. Her elderly parents are in poor condition, and, in general, I tried to help ... She is simply in despair. This is an extreme example. If we speak only of indisposition, anxiety - that is, a softer version of the same, then I would agree with you that this is quite common. But, I would also say that this, in part, is what I said — lack of knowledge, lack of attention to the opportunities available in life. Lack of understanding of how to actually find these opportunities. So, I do not think that it is difficult to fix something here.

Joe rogan: I do not agree with you that the matter is in education, because I know very educated people suffering from depression. I think a lot of this is related to physical health, to the ton of meat that you carry on yourself, that you drag through your whole life. If this burden is beyond your means, you start having problems, if you don’t take care of it - if you eat poorly, smoke cigarettes, have a habit of overdoing with alcohol, your liver is constantly processing something, you are a ruin. Such people are prone to boredom, despondency, and probably more painful experiences.

Aubrey de Gray : Of course. I just said that these are extreme manifestations - people who run themselves.

Joe Rogan : That's right.

Aubrey de gray: And there are many such people ... And if we are talking about the majority of the population, so to speak, about the bulk, we are talking about a less acute problem. But, in general, you reminded me of something else. Today there is a very strong tendency in society, - when confronted with ideas about the ability to control aging and, consequently, live longer, - a very stable tendency to think - “Oh God, the quality of such a life will be bad.” Just because people used to think that quality and quantity are inherently opposite to each other. What the higher the quantity, the less quality you get.

And, of course, it makes some sense in today's world, because, in general, today, a lot of things that we love to do are harmful to us. And we shorten our lives - by smoking or something else. But everything will be different, in a situation where the world will be therapies that can affect different types of damage to the body and eliminate them. In such situations, the quality and quantity will be on one side of the fence - the quality will be what gives the quantity.

Joe Rogan : That is, you imagine a world where cigarettes, ultimately ... if you smoke cigarettes, throw it in your mouth, like, pill, and BAM! - and no Marlboro cancer.

Aubrey de Gray : Well, in fact, yes! In general, I don’t like to pay too much attention to this, because, of course, this is still far away ... So now we are talking ...

Joe Rogan : So you want people to count on it?

Aubrey de Gray : Yes. Exactly! I mean, we do not know how long it will take to develop such technologies. And the best way to preserve your chances is to maximize your chances of staying on this side in order to take advantage of the benefits of such therapies, in general, to lead the healthiest lifestyle you can. I said earlier that maybe you have an extra year or two, but they may be key, right?

Joe Rogan : They can be the year that will give us another thousand years?

Aubrey de Gray : Exactly.

Joe rogan: You said that stem cells for a decade ... do you think there is a high probability that they will be able to cure Parkinson's disease. And other technologies, with chances of 50 to 50, in 25 years. What are they? How would you put high hopes on any of them?

Aubrey de gray: Well, in general, almost everything we work on at the SENS Research Foundation is such complex things. We, in general, do not do stem cell therapy. Just because so many are engaged in it, understood as a very convincing and very exciting approach to the treatment of many different diseases, of course, not only associated with aging. And, it would be a bad use of our limited means to add our bottle to this bucket. But most of the other things that we think should be done are simply neglected. So let me think about where to start.

Well, well, one great example of what we work on is heart disease. So, atherosclerosis, of course, is the number one problem in the Western world. It is the cause of heart attacks and is associated with aging, because it is caused by the accumulation of a certain type of damage over the course of a lifetime. In this case, the accumulation of waste on the walls of the artery, of which oxidized cholesterol is most important. Cholesterol in itself is not such a bad substance. This is a misunderstanding. Cholesterol is a vital compound. No need to get rid of it. It is necessary to get rid of contaminating cholesterol, which accumulates in the body at a low but significant level - oxidized cholesterol, in particular. This is what poisons white blood cells on the artery wall, turning them into what I call foam cells,

And we would like to stop this process and prevent atherosclerosis from developing. And, we did this by identifying a bacterium in the soil that has enzymes that allow it to break down oxidized cholesterol. And we identified these bacteria, genes and enzymes, and introduced these genes into human cells, into cell culture. And it works. We have shown that cells with this gene are much more protected, much more resistant to the presence of a certain amount of harmful oxidized cholesterol than cells that do not have it. And, of course, we are working to switch to other cell types and mice, before clinical trials. Here is an example of what we do, this is the earliest stage, so everything can take a little longer.

Joe rogan: Can you get rid of oxidized cholesterol by diet?

Aubrey de Gray : Certainly not. The fundamental problem is that this compound, oxidized cholesterol, penetrates the inside of white blood cells into what is called a lysosome, and poisons them by deactivating lysosomes. Which means that white blood cells can no longer do what previously could, for example, process normal cholesterol. No, with a diet with bad cholesterol, you can’t do anything, because the cells lack the mechanisms to get rid of it.

Joe Rogan : But, aren't they a consequence of what we eat, or what?

Aubrey de Gray : Consequence, but, in general, secondary. That is, this happens only because it has to happen.

Joe rogan: Cholesterol comes from animal protein, or ... mostly?

Aubrey de Gray : Like, yes ... Cholesterol is ingested from the outside with food, and also synthesized by the body, in the liver. So it should be, cholesterol does the right job. The problem is that oxidation is a chemical reaction that will occur in the body, whether you like it or not. The fact is that we are aerobic organisms, we need breathing, we need to breathe oxygen in order to live. And breathing is really bad for life.

Joe Rogan : Is breathing bad for life?

Aubrey de gray: Oh, yes ... Breathing is the cause of the appearance of free radicals, but there's nothing you can do. As it is. So we have to intervene in this process, a step down the chain in order to get rid of harmful breathing products, rather than abandon the breath itself.

Joe Rogan : Breathing is bad for life!

Aubrey de Gray : This is a fairly straightforward statement, and, unequivocal.

Joe Rogan : Wow! And, what ... when ... use hyperbarchamber, oxygenated environment to speed up healing, then what is even more harmful?

Aubrey de Gray : Not necessary. After all, of course, breathing is also good for the body. If you don't breathe, you just have a cap, right?

Joe Rogan : So!

Aubrey de graySo, this is a compromise, there are just aspects of breathing that are harmful. And we need to deal with them.

Joe Rogan : And such aspects are not related to nutrition at all. That is, this type of cholesterol ...

Aubrey de Gray : I would not say AT ALL. That is, if there is almost no vitamin C or vitamin E in your body, you deprive your body of the ability to limit the harmfulness of breathing. And, therefore, breathing will be even more harmful than otherwise.

Joe Rogan : So antioxidants are necessary if you decide to breathe?

Aubrey de Gray : Until a certain moment. But it turns out that since breathing has been around for a long time, breathing ...

Joe Rogan : Why are we here too ...

Aubrey de Gray: Breath invented about 2 billion years ago. Evolution has done what it usually does - chose the "best" from the set of "not very." And, then, at this stage, some of the harmful byproducts of breathing, free radicals, are in fact not only bad, but also good. They are used by the body as signaling molecules. So, if we had a magic wand, so that, having waved it, to get rid of all the free radicals in the body, it would be extremely bad. We would die right away.

So we have a rather interesting balance inherent in the body. If it has too few antioxidants, this is bad news. But when they are in abundance, if you take mega doses of vitamin C or E, for example, it makes little difference, in fact. Just because the body needs a certain amount of free radicals. Therefore, it slows down the internal, built-in antioxidant mechanisms ... And, you are again where you started.

Joe Rogan : And the bacterium that you inject into the cultures of skin cells ...

Aubrey de Gray : We are not introducing the bacteria themselves ...

Joe Rogan : Yes.

Aubrey de Gray : ... only one gene of these bacteria.

Joe Rogan : One gene from ...

Aubrey de Gray : And we are not introducing them into the skin ...

Joe Rogan : And then everything develops by itself ...

Aubrey de Gray : We inject it into the cells of the artery wall

Joe Rogan : Artery tissue ...

Aubrey de Gray : Yes, in cell culture, for now, yes ...

Joe Rogan : How far do you think from the realization of this in the human body? Or ...

Aubrey de Gray : Well, clinical trials, I think, can begin in 10 years. I think ... We probably say ... This is an intermediate stage ... We can ... I assume that we have 50-50 chance of bringing research to full implementation of therapy in about 15 years.

Joe rogan: I, as an amateur, from the side, looking at this, is ALWAYS a big optimist. “Oooh, it will be just great! Even during my life, everything will change! ”However, speaking with you, it’s not that I lose optimism, but I learn more and more about the real landscape, as such. And I begin to realize that “In this thing - in the body, what we carry with us, there is an indescribable number of processes at the same time, and we do not fully understand all these reactions and response reactions.

Therefore, when you talk about the fight against aging or increasing life expectancy and such things, you are talking about just an incredible number of different processes in the body that we have to figure out, and it will take a very, very long time. And no one person will ever understand all these processes.

Aubrey de gray: You perfectly expressed why people studying the biology of aging, by about the mid-1990s, came to an absolute rejection of the idea that even what they work on would help in solving the problem of aging. In general, it is not at all approved to even talk about intervention and application for a grant, for example. In fact, since everyone understood, “Oh, God, the body is so complex, and we understand it so badly that this will never happen ...”

Joe Rogan : So you are talking about ...

Aubrey de Gray : So ... second , second ...

Joe Rogan : Please, please ...

Aubrey de Gray: And, that's what changed. In two stages. First, which did not work, then - the one that could. The first happened in the late 80s - early 90s, when scientists began to find simple ways to increase the life expectancy of certain laboratory organisms. First - the worms, and finally - the mice. These were incredibly exciting discoveries, and many of them still dominate this area. In the eyes of most people. The problem is that it does not work with long-lived organisms. In fact, since it’s all about the body’s ability to respond to hunger. And short-lived organisms need to respond more actively to hunger, rather than long-lived ones. I can go into details if you want, but I described the basics.

The triggered stage happened when I appeared 15 years ago and started talking about repairing the damage. Repairing damage is so important because it avoids all this complexity that you talked about. And all our ignorance about this complexity. Why is that? Because the harm caused to the body during life, as side effects of its normal vital activity, is felt only at its end. The body maintains a certain level of this harm. And problems begin only when the size of the damage exceeds the level that it can withstand. This means that until that moment, the damage does not participate in the entangled tangle of processes called metabolism. They simply accumulate as an inert by-product. And only with mass exposure, when they become too much, at the end of life, they become part of the metabolism. And this is very important. This means that if we aim at these injuries while they are not involved in metabolism, we are MUCH more likely to do this without noticeable side effects than when trying to influence the metabolism itself.

Metabolism itself - yes, this is a crazy, insane interweaving of spaghetti code, nobody can handle it, so to say ... And you try to do something with it so that it does not do what is not required of it, - did not save by-products, and in the end you get a result that does more harm than good. But if you act differently - by acting on the by-products, as long as they do not participate in the metabolic processes, the problem looks different.

Joe Rogan : And whoever concentrates on the potential ... You said that the body has an enhanced ability to deal with similar injuries in youth. And as he grows older, he is less and less capable of this. Would not it be better to deal with them before? To take people who are still quite young and apply similar methods to them?

Aubrey de gray: Not really. After all, the only reason why an elderly person is less able to cope with injuries is because there is more damage in an older organism. Hindering his recovery.

Joe Rogan : And why is that?

Aubrey de Gray : Because they have been accumulating longer.

Joe Rogan : I see.

Aubrey de gray: And get rid of them longer. In general, there is little damage in a young body, there is not much point for up to thirty years, even ... Let's take a look 20-30-40 years ahead when similar therapies appear. Does it make sense for a 20-year-old to use such techniques? Probably not. Since it will be at least 20-30 years before they feel any really serious functional deterioration as a result of some damage. And during this time therapies themselves will become even better! Safer, more convenient and more versatile, and so on ... So, nevertheless, it is better to wait until the therapy becomes even better.

Joe rogan: This is not exactly what I had in mind ... I meant - you said that over time the damage accumulates until the moment when the body can no longer cope with them. Would not it be wiser to deal with them before they accumulate? Deal with problems before they become serious?

Aubrey de Gray : Well, SENS does that. We say so - let's not deal with 20-year-olds, but, yes, 40-50-year-olds, not 80-year-olds.

Joe Rogan : Not 80 years old?

Aubrey de Gray : Right.

Joe Rogan : You leave, if you are 80.

Aubrey de Gray : Optional, leave.

Joe Rogan : Today he has a break ...

Aubrey de Gray : Just harder ...

Joe Rogan : It's harder ...

Aubrey de Gray : Let me get a little deeper into the details ...

Joe Rogan : Good.

Aubrey de Gray : If you take someone who, say, 50 years old, then all he needs is therapies from the SENS Foundation, therapies to repair injuries that reduce wear and tear to a state of 20 or 30 years old. And, of course, periodically repeat it. But, if the harm is caused so much that it caused a disease or incapacity, say, in an 80-year-old, and they have been through a lot, then our therapies will also be very useful, but in a slightly different way. They will be useful when used in combination with traditional geriatric therapies, like the ones we have today.

I said earlier that geriatric therapies do not work, and will never work, in fact, because they only affect the symptoms as part of the misconception of the diseases of the elderly as infections. This means that, in essence, they are cutting off something that is becoming more and more difficult to cut off, since its causes - damage accumulated over life - continue to accumulate. Therefore, if you think about it, it means that if we could really repair the damage, we would, if you wish, give strength to geriatric therapies. We would allow geriatric therapies to actually work. And it may turn out that we need to do this. If someone's health, over the age of 80, is deteriorating, and we will only repair the damage that led to this state, this will not be enough, since pathologies are already living their lives at that time.

Joe Rogan : And what about geriatric therapies about which you ..?

Aubrey de Gray : I just mean dopamine injections for Parkinson's disease, for example. In fact, short-term, moderate improvement, but, in fact, the problem is only complicated, the cells continue to die off, more and more dopamine is needed, the body is more and more resistant to it. Dopamine is not supplied regularly. All such things prevent these therapies from being flawless when, if we could put the cells back in place to repair the original damage, then everything that happens downstream, what’s wrong with the rest of the brain will be treatable by other therapies, nutritional therapies are much more effective. way than it is now.

Joe rogan: What other methods do you consider to repair damage other than the gene of those bacteria?

Aubrey de Gray : Well ... That is, this is the second method of influence. The first was stem cell therapy, right?

Joe Rogan : That's right.

Aubrey de gray: Let's take another. Let's take ... the immune system. So the immune system is a classic example of what is called the problem of non-dying cells. Which means cells that are not too small, like in Parkinson's disease, you have too many of them. And, in particular, you have too many of them, because they do not die when they should. People do not often think about the idea that cells should die. But the immune system is a good example of this. Where, when you grabbed an infection, - like the one that I have now, in general - there are very few white blood cells in your blood, dividing like crazy to reach a large enough population and, having attacked, eliminate the infection. And, at the end, almost all of them die again to leave space, in fact, for a possibly different subset that will be crazy to share when you pick up another infection.

It turns out that in old age this whole cycle of division and extinction in general fails. And you have a crowd of cells dividing like crazy to attack an infection, but when it's done with it, they don't die. They continue to live, preventing the reproduction of other cells. So what do we do with this? Well, there are various options, but we think that it is necessary to try on, you need to do something very decisive. And we are considering a method called suicide genome therapy.

Joe Rogan : ...

Aubrey de Gray: Yes, it sounds very strange, true, but it turns out that in reality, everything is not as strange as the name suggests. Therapy with suicide genome is a routine laboratory technique used in mice, for example, for a very long time. In fact, you are introducing a gene that produces a toxic protein into cells. When protein is produced, the cell dies. But, everything is organized in such a way that the protein is produced only if the cell comes to a certain state that you do not want. You want the cells to die at that moment.

A relatively standard idea, we just want to make it work for people. And the problem, of course, is to make it safe. Gene therapy, IN PRINCIPLE, is very difficult to make safe. She has experienced ups and downs, the last 20 years, at least, but suicide gene therapy has additional difficulties. You hardly want this gene, this toxic protein, to kill all cells indiscriminately, when not needed. Therefore, we are working on new and improved ways to build multiple lines of defense against this problem.

Joe Rogan : How many different people are hired to work on all these different techniques?

Aubrey de gray: It seems to depend on what you mean “hired”, because we have people funded through university laboratories, but, with a broader definition of everyone depending on our salary, I think about 30 people at this moment.

Joe Rogan : And do you personally supervise all these different projects, or ...?

Aubrey de Gray : I am the chief scientist. I supervise our project in the sense of ... Yes, I supervise the decision-making process on project priorities, deciding which new projects to engage in, observe how our projects are going, I regularly communicate with professors, heads of laboratories responsible for projects. In general, this is what I do. In addition, of course, the position of the main troublemaker.

Joe rogan: And the main magician ... I mean, it is not ... Everyone notes that you are talking about the extension of life, and you have a magician's beard.

Aubrey de Gray : Yes, that’s all true, and that’s my wife’s fault. My wife adores beards.

Joe Rogan : Really, it's your wife?

Aubrey de Gray : True! Many years ago, my wife persuaded me long after we met, we met 25 years ago. It took her 5 years to convince me to grow a beard, and finally, I decided to try, and was not surprised, like others, that she had grown up like that.

Joe Rogan : This is - interesting, because it is, as it were, your chip.

Aubrey de Gray : I guess I managed to become one.

Joe rogan: Are you satisfied with your research? Do they stimulate you? Do you truly enjoy this process?

Aubrey de Gray : Well, I'm never completely sure. On the one hand, yes, I am extremely satisfied, how well everything is moving, in this sense, I, of course, am proud that I could achieve something serious. But at the same time, a shadow of understanding always hangs over this, as many people in the world continue to die, that everything is not moving as fast as it could. I have already spoken about our budget, I said that we have about $ 5 million a year in expenses. This is incredibly small. To fight the thing that caused the most suffering in the world, right? What the hell? What the hell is going on here? That is why I spend more of my time trying to find money, what I do in science. Have to. If…

Joe Rogan : The dilemma of politics, huh?

Aubrey de Gray : Well, that is it. I mean, even if we could add just one zero to the budget, if we had $ 50 million or $ 100 million of budget per year. Perhaps we would go forward three times faster. THREE TIMES FASTER! And it would save just an insane amount of lives! That's what really makes me get out of bed in the morning.

Joe Rogan : Do you communicate with politicians? Do you communicate with university leaders, who will listen to you, and, perhaps, allocate more money, as it were ..?

Aubrey de grayA very confusing set of conversations with different people should happen. The difficulty with politicians, of course, is that they have only one goal in life - to be re-elected. And, politicians tend to follow public opinion rather than direct it. Therefore, it is more important for me to appeal to public opinion, give people information and improve the quality of discussion. Therefore, I give so many similar interviews, among other things. Then, of course, there are other people, there are wealthy individuals who are trying to try to meet as many people as possible, like me, and, in general, understand what is happening. The fact that we are a charitable foundation, of course, helps ... It means that anyone can donate money to us by receiving tax benefits, but, all the same, there is not enough money ...

Joe Rogan: Do you have an account on Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or something like that?

Aubrey de Gray : We tried to do crowdfunding, but in the end ... almost any possible crowdfunding approach is really difficult to link to what we are doing. In fact, because if you are looking for small amounts, everything is fine. And we need quite large sums, for projects with five or six zeros, for such things we need to really appeal to the imagination what kind of concrete achievement it will be. And in the early studies this is really difficult to explain in terms that catch people. That didn't work so well for us.

Joe rogan: You described earlier that pharmaceutical companies, as it were, are not in a hurry, looking out from where they could make a bet. I would like to change the situation as much as I can, as far as we can affect our podcasts, they are downloaded millions and millions of times. And I am sure we can somehow influence this, but I would like to ... I do not know ... as you say. Maybe you need posts about you or tweets?

Aubrey de Gray : The more the better.

Joe Rogan : Yes ...

Aubrey de Gray : The more the better ...

Joe Rogan: These are amazing things for me, of course, since I have neither research nor medical training, so for me, when I have a chance to talk to someone like you, this is a kind of window into the world that I can only appreciate by articles and publications. I think this is extremely important! And also, as I said, I think this is a fundamental part of human nature - we want to improve everything. Your health, your ability to enjoy this time is enormous. If you can extend it, you have the opportunity to become a better person.

I think I am better than 10 years ago. I think I would be even better if I had another hundred years from above. And I think we could really change something, and I think many of these changes could ... People say, like, why worry about it, our fundamental problems are environmental poisoning, blah blah ... I think we could make a greater emphasis on this, if some of the outstanding people living today lived longer.

Aubrey de gray: I think it is true! In 2006, speaking at TED, I made this concept the basis of my monologue. I said, in fact, all of you guys are visionaries, striving for lofty goals, this could be a critical moment. Even regardless of the initial humanitarian value of the victory over aging, it was aging that trampled us into the ground the entire history of civilization. It made us understand that we are at the mercy of nature. If you really take it under control, it will give us strength, help us feel much more confident. And then we can deal with other really complex problems: global climate change, world peace, anything.

Joe rogan: Those guys from Global Initiative 2045, inspired by the idea that there is some kind of technological answer to this question, support biological ideas and the interaction between your two groups?

Aubrey de Gray : Of course, of course, support ... There is always a certain range of opinions regarding the desirability and feasibility of such things. But, without question, everyone knows that we are on the same side. We are all against the joy of being sick.

Joe Rogan : You really are a crazy professor. I know you are tired, and I know that you usually go to bed much earlier in England, so I really appreciate you coming. And, for those who are listening, how is it better to find you, how convenient is it to donate money, how easier is it to go out?

Aubrey de Gray : The best way - sens.org

Joe Rogan : sens.org

Aubrey de Gray : Yes. Just go there, there is all the information about what we do, what we would like to do, what we have already done. There is all the information you can imagine, why it is so important, there, of course, there are convenient options to contact us, send us any messages you like, and of course, a large and beautiful DONATE button.

Joe Rogan : At any time when you are in the city, please, I will be more than happy to contribute to any of your speeches, any of your lectures, everything that you support. Please do not hesitate to ask, I will be happy to help.

Aubrey de gray: Well, you are exceptionally kind, thank you for inviting me to the show, I'm quite sure that the appearance here will change something by itself. And the more you can help, the better, and the more lives you save.

Joe Rogan : Wow! I hope you are right, you are a really impressive person, I really, really appreciate that you have found time for us, Aubrey de Gray, ladies and gentlemen, can you ... do you tweet? Are you looking there?

Aubrey de Gray : Oh, yes ...

Joe Rogan : Look in there sometimes, check what's there?

Aubrey de Gray : Of course.

Joe Rogan : Do not write him rudeness ... you fucking freaks! Thank you so much for coming, I really appreciate it ... Aubrey de Gray, ladies and gentlemen!

Translate Unseen Matters!, scientific advice and edits by Ariel VA Feinerman , text kindly sent by Alan Grant