Steve Austad is a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Alabama and director of one of the Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in aging biology. Steve's current research seeks to understand the underlying causes of aging, specifically with a longterm goal of developing medical interventions that slow the agerelated decay of human health. In this episode, Steve tells Peter about his unusual childhood and stints as a cab driver and lion tamer. He goes on to describe what led to his focus on studying aging and some of the major challenges and limitations of working with laboratory animals. Steve and Peter talk about the relationship between caloric restriction and lifespan, including some of the most important studies exploring this question. Additionally, they hypothesize what might explain the sexrelated differences in longevity between men and women, explain the importance of finding longevity biomarkers, and discuss the most promising molecules as potential longevity agents.

We discuss:
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:10 Steve’s background and unusual childhood
00:07:19 Steve’s adventures driving a cab in New York City
00:12:11 How Steve drove to LA and accidentally became a lion tamer
00:22:18 How Steve’s early graduate school experiences led him to study longevity
00:30:35 The challenges and limitations of working with lab mice
00:43:49 The connection between caloric restriction and lifespan
00:52:30 Mice vs. rats and rodent aging experiments
00:57:32 The impact of dietary composition and the harm of sucrose: Comparing two caloricrestriction studies in monkeys
01:12:22 Challenges of studying animals due to major differences in the lab animal vs. wild animals
01:28:22 Human studies of calorie restriction
01:37:18 Better dietary protocols for humans: Alternatives to longterm caloric restriction
01:42:12 The protective effect of fasting
01:50:53 Reflecting on the sex differences in human lifespan, and why women have more neurodegenerative diseases
02:10:17 The importance of identifying longevity biomarkers and which ones show the potential to change the landscape of longevity research
02:21:35 Molecules showing the most promise as longevity agents

Show notes page: https://peterattiamd.com/steveaustad/'>https://peterattiamd.com/steveaustad/


About:

The Peter Attia Drive is a weekly, ultradeepdive podcast focusing on maximizing health, longevity, critical thinking…and a few other things. With over 30 million episodes downloaded, it features topics including fasting, ketosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, mental health, and much more.

Peter is a physician focusing on the applied science of longevity. His practice deals extensively with nutritional interventions, exercise physiology, sleep physiology, emotional and mental health, and pharmacology to increase lifespan (delay the onset of chronic disease), while simultaneously improving healthspan (quality of life).

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