Speaker 1Hey, hey, hey, what's going on gorgeous people how the hell are you guys doing welcome back to the James Kennedy podcast apologies for the somewhat sporadic nature of when I'm dropping these episodes at the moment We are neck deep in album promo for the new James Kennedy and the underdogs album Rebel which is coming out in just three months time man Man, I can't wait for you guys to finally hear this thing It feels like it's been a long time coming and we've been really enjoying playing the new tunes over to summer festivals and stuff like that And you seem to be going over pretty well as well so that bodes well But I want you guys to hear the proper recorded versions now man So if you haven't pre-ordered your copy on vinyl yet It is available on limited edition vinyl signed by the band hand numbered at James Kennedy official calm slash Rebel Only a few left they've been flying out so grab them while I hot But I'm not going to waffle too much with the preamble this week because I want to get straight down a business with what I think is a really really important episode of the podcast I have been living and breathing the book by today's guest ahead of our conversation with him today And I can say a hand-on heart that has changed my life for the better and I know that it will do the same for you too So be in the generous all round legends that we are over here We're going to be giving you guys the one-on-one with the author of said book and giving you guys some of the many pearls of wisdom and life changing insights contained within a book called The Age Code by Dr. David Cox If you want to know anything at all or get the truth about food and health and well-being and what's actually good for you and what's actually not And how better to feed your body, feed your soul, feed your spirit and feed your mind for a long, happy, healthy life There is only one book you need to buy at this point and it is this one David leaves absolutely no stone and turn in this absolute beast of a book and lays out all of the latest science-backed information about what actually works and what doesn't It's a fascinating and super interesting book that blew my mind and opened my eyes on every page So as you can tell I'm a fan and I really really hope that you listen to the whole of today's conversation Because I really think you'll get some life changing tangible information out of this that you can apply in a daily life that will make your life longer, healthier, happier and much more informed about what you're putting in your body All I ask in return is that you take one second out of your life and you click follow, subscribe or like or hit the star button Or whichever thing you got to click or whichever platform you're listening to it on, please, please, please just go and do that I nag you guys every week, I see the analytics, I know how many downloads these things get, you free loading so-and-so All you got to do is give me a star rating maniac, smash that five stars, smash a four star, I don't care, just smash something Live and die by that stuff, it costs you nothing, it takes no time, we just got to click it with your finger, so please go and do that And I'll keep this good stuff coming Right, lecture over, let's get down to business and welcome on to the show Neuroscientist and best-selling author, Dr. David Cox, whose latest book, The Age Code, has only been out for a few months But is already an international bestseller and has been picking up nothing, but amazing praise and acclaim everywhere it lands Totally so, because I said, the book is simply incredible, so David, we really appreciate you taking time out to be with us here today, mate, how are you doing?
Speaker 2Good, thanks so much James, so looking forward to discussing all this with you
Speaker 1Me too, man, I mean, I must confess straight out of the gates that I'm doing this purely for selfish reasons, not for the audience's benefit Because I want to glean all this knowledge for myself We all want to live longer, right? Surprisingly so, right? But I think we should probably explain from the outset that even though the book is called The Age Code And of course it does deal with living a longer, more fulfilling, happier, healthier life But there's another fact that determines that, which is the biological age, which is not always the same as our actual chronological age And it's that internal biological age that you focus on predominantly throughout the book Would it be worth explaining to the listeners from the outset what the difference is between the two, what is the biological age, what are some of the factors that affect it positively or negatively And what are most of us doing wrong on that front?
Speaker 2Definitely, definitely What aging is so interesting, and you know, in the book I sort of try and break it down into sort of these two different types of aging You've kind of got what I call program aging, which is the aging you can't really control, like you know, we all know there are certain things which happen to us at different time points in life You know, we all go through puberty, women all go through the menopause, men go through the andropause All of that and we also know that there seem to be certain changes which happen in our late 70s, early 80s, which represent like another time point But beyond that, it is very much a gray area which is something which, you know, we find really, really fascinating And it's the reason why, you know, we have some people, I think the super ages, as they're known, are some of the most interesting populations Because everyone gets a little bit hung up on like the centenarians and the super centenarians But super ages are people who get to like 85, 90, have they don't have any disease, which is really, really, really interesting Because, you know, a lot of people think, you know, do you really want to live like, so the long life, if you're going to spend like so many decades of that in poor health But if you can be 95 and still living your best life, you don't have heart disease, you don't have anything impacting your ability to see friends and family And that's pretty great, so those people are really, really interesting And we've started to see, because over the past 10, 15 years, scientists for the very first time have developed these tests like actually measuring different aspects of the aging process from how well lights of your organs are doing, how much stress they're under, how well your DNA is aging And from that, we can really see though, are quite big differences, if you look at say the average 40-year-old, you know, you will get some who are perhaps many years biologically younger in different ways, what other people are many years biologically older And, you know, for me lots of, I think you saw this perhaps in a really big way during COVID, you know, because we got people in their 80s and 90s who got COVID and they weren't really affected at all, you know, they just had mild infection, you know, felt a bit grotty for a few days and then like the rest of us, you know, bounced back pretty pretty quickly And from other people, even though they were decade younger, they were just affected by COVID, so much more strongly than mean systems weren't equipped to respond, they ended up being hospitalized And that's an example of, you know, what biological aging really is, these different variations And being able to unpick that can really, is really starting to yield a number of secrets which show us, you know, what we shouldn't be doing and what we should
Speaker 1Yes, fascinating stuff, man, I mean, the book is very broad, very dense, but also, you know, a very concise and easy to read book as well, I wish through it, I couldn't put it down And there's no way we could cover everything in the book in this conversation today and either should we, because we want everybody to go and get their copy But, what are some of the main bad guys, the main processes that cause the worst of the damage and accelerate this internal biological aging I mean, you mentioned tons of them in the book, things like inflammation, visceral fat, oxidization, free radicals Would you say that those are amongst the main sort of processes that we need to understand and address if we're going to reverse the damage and change the rate of which most of us are aging a lot faster than we should be
Speaker 2Yeah, 100% I mean, like, so these are some of the big kind of like biological processes going on, so within our bodies, they're completely invisible, we have no idea really that a lot of these things are kind of like playing out, but, you know, they're kind of silently aging us over time But I think what's quite interesting is some of the, the dietary habits which we're all doing and we all kind of just slip into, you know, particularly sort of through middle age as life kind of gets busier and stuff like that Which are sort of silently enhancing kind of some of these things in the background and I think one which is quite fascinating is actually just timing of meals, you know, in the UK and to be honest like most of the western world, you know, most of us have dinner has always been the biggest meal And in fact, if you look at aging sites, it should be completely the way around like humans, we've evolved to work with the sunlight, really we should be eating during the daylight hours, we should be getting the bulk of our calories across breakfast and lunch and having a small dinner reason because of that is if you're having a small dinner relatively early, it's not going to impact your sleep And we know that sleep is so so important for immune health and repair and if you just look at the core of a lot of stuff relating to aging, it comes back down to this balance between damage and repair and so many of us are kind of doing things which inflict more damage in our bodies without giving our bodies enough chance to repair And because the body is actually quite incredible at repairing, you know, at any one time there are millions of like really sophisticated repair operations taking place within ourselves And if we give our body like more chance of that to happen, then, you know, over the long term, like the benefits can really be quite profound
Speaker 1That's interesting, man, why is it then? I mean, people talk about the Mediterranean diet as, you know, the one that people should aim for, but when I travel to the Mediterranean, which I love to do, very is super late, man, I mean, like I could increase and then I eat until 10 o'clock at night, why is that?
Speaker 2I think unfortunately, it's just simply how I would sort of evolved in the last 200 years, isn't it? I mean, I think in many ways artificial light is to, it's to blame for that because, you know, back in the days 200 years ago when we just had candles and oil lamps, you know, most of us had to eat quite early because it was getting dark, you know, our sleeping patterns were completely different and our orders totally changed in the last 150 to 200 years and because of that we've ended up working later, eating later and I'll just tell you just one fascinating little nugget which just really illuminated that for me. There's a massive nutrition study in France which is really really incredible. It follows about 200,000 people and tracks all of this information about their lives, they've followed these people for decades and they were looking at what are some of the kind of behavioral habits which correlate to heart disease and fascinatingly, the two which really really stood out are, you know, not skipping breakfast and having an early dinner, but it was with the two biggest predictors of, you know, whether you're going to be lots of, you know, protective from heart disease and that's really really fascinating because, you know, if you look at some recent dietary changes, you know, intermittent fasting has become like really, really, really popular, but a lot of people who intermittently fast, they skip breakfast, you know, they don't start eating until midday and intermittent fasting can be good, but if you're doing it earlier in a day, if you're doing it between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., that makes a much bigger difference,
Speaker 1but hardly anyone does that. You always see you're already disbellying some popular myths and dropping a truth bomb which is why we appreciate you because intermittent fasting is fashionable and we live in the age of, you know, lots of noisy conflicting information from very credible seeming influencers with millions of followers, all telling us to do different things and conflicting things and it's impossible to know which way is up, what's the right thing and what's the wrong thing. So that's why your book is so important right now because these, you know, what we don't realize with these influencers online and stuff is that one, they've got all the time in the world to spend 5 hours at the gym and drinking, you know, hundreds of pounds worth of expensive supplements every day, but also they get a lot of this stuff for free and a lot of the stuff that they're pushing and a lot of the knowledge that they're pushing is basically come from their sponsors, you know. So this book is a really important science back antidote to all that stuff just to get some clarity. And so then sticking on the theme of establishing what the bad guys are first before we talk about how we can make things better for ourselves. We've talked about processes, what about some of the ingrediential, and if that's even a word, ingrediential bad guys, things like fructose and obviously sugar is
Speaker 2just the devil. What are some of the others? Definitely. I mean, I think the interesting thing is a lot of us are simply eating too much too often, which is one of the biggest things. And I think the real reason if you get to the core of wild troposis foods is so, so damaging is they're so addictive. No one eats just one cookie. And that's the whole problem at the end of the day, and they just make it so easy to just consume more energy than we really need. So when putting the book together, I wanted to try and live it. I didn't just want to kind of speak the scientist. I wanted to look at what am I doing. I wanted to walk for a walk of longevity and aging science. I got a nutritionist to sort of map out the amount of calories I was consistently consuming on an average day right at the start of a book. And you know, I got my resting metabolic rates, just really scientifically calculating. Now this is the number of calories your body just really needs. And that's there. That's quite important to figure out because it varies so much depending on your height, your body type, your gender, your age. And for me at that point in time, I basically should have been consuming about 2,100 calories a day. In fact, I was consistently getting 2,700 calories, which is because so just that 600 more calories. And this is the interesting thing because if you're just doing a, you know, one or two days, that makes little difference. Your body can cope with that. But if you're doing that over a decade, that really adds up and correlates the consistent weight gain. And one of the things we've sort of realised is that, you know, a lot of us has kind of assumed that, you know, our metabolism, our ability to kind of process energy kind of slows down through mid-life, which is why a lot of us gain weight, we get middle age bread. But that doesn't actually happen. It's more the fact that probably through all to process foods, a lot of us are just consistently consuming too much. And then doing that over 20 years, like takes its toll basically on the body. And I was doing that, you know, I was eating twice as much sugar as I really should have been. And, you know, when people told me that, it all kind of made sense. And, you know, I had gained 10 kilograms between my university days and my mid-30s. And, you know, I had a lot of these scans done. I had too much visceral fat. So, I think that's one of the big issues of all to process foods. They just simply make us, you know, eat too much. And one of the interesting things is that if you're just constantly not giving your body lots of, you know, any time, any breaks, your body's constantly in growth mode. And growth mode is really great when you're a child. You want to grow as quickly as possible. But when you're 35, you know, you don't really, you need to be consistently growing, you need those breaks. And it's those breaks when you're not eating, which is when your body is actually repairing. And just a lot of us are not doing that. So, I think that's the core of wild to process foods above for us. With sugar, it's quite interesting because this actually comes down to a class of toxins, which no one on the street has probably really heard of. They're called AGEs or Ages, and they basically correlate to pretty much every single aspect of the aging process. So, when you eat loads of sweets, or even when you eat refined carbohydrates like white breads, because there's no fiber really in them, they hit your bloodstream really, really quickly, you get like a big overload of starch essentially into your blood. This actually causes like caramelization. So, in the book, I sort of liken it to like when you see a chef making a creme bouleu, you kind of get that caramel. That's actually happening in your blood. If you have like a packet of haribo, this is happening. And it's quite disgusting when you think about it. And the problem is, it basically takes proteins, which are very, very good for you, like your collagen in your skin. And it kind of dries them out and stiffens them. It's why it's why we get wrinkles, basically over time, is due to the formation of these AGEs. And you know, more invisibly, they cause your heart to lose elasticity. We now even know that involved in pretty much everything from cancer risk to risk of Alzheimer's disease. So, and again, the problem with a modern food environment, too much sugar, too many processed foods, a lot of us are getting too many of these AGEs, more than our body can cope with over time. And saturated fat again, you know, there's a huge amount of misinformation about saturated fat. But when you look at aging science, the issue is, if you're getting more saturated fat than fiber, for example, or healthy fats like emigre freeze, it actually creates a lot of inflammation in your gut. And one of the key things we really see, which, you know, differentiates the super ages from the rest of us, is they manage to keep their immune system working for much longer. And the issue of just having too much saturated fat over time is, you know, it is just aggravating your immune system, like accelerating immune aging. And then that makes your immune system less capable of fighting off top, you know, fighting off pathogens, spotting cancers, things like that. So, yeah. So sugar really is the devil. And sugar is the devil, you know, and I think sometimes what people sometimes maybe misunderstand with some of this, it's not about just like giving up chocolate for the rest of your life, it's just about finding like a slightly better balance. Same with saturated fat, you know, I've sort of written as a health journalist, you know, this sort of should you eat butter or margarine piece like numerous times, like people love that argument. But ultimately that one doesn't really matter because how much butter are you really going to eat, you know, no one's eating like a whole like pack of butter. It's more about just it's more just about getting less of the balance right. Like most of us are just, you know, through all to process foods and ready meals and pizzas and things like that, getting like a massive dollar of saturated fat, I've been relatively a little of a healthy fat. And it's just all about trying to, you know, not eliminate foods, but just kind of like change
Speaker 1shift the balance of it. That makes a lot of sense. That's very reassuring to know as well that we haven't got to give up all of our voices because I am a fully blown chocolate. If there's a box of chocolates in front of me, no matter how big I will be annihilating the lot of it. I'll still be shoving the chocolates if I face as I feel sick. I think I've got one of those jeans that you mentioned in the book where if I like something, I just cannot stop. And so I switched to dark chocolate so I could have my cake and eat it so to speak because apparently that's really healthy and it's got loads of polyphenols in it. And it's considered a super food. But then other people say, "No, no, it's really high in saturated fat. You shouldn't have too much of that." Oh my god. Oh my god, what do you do? Why do you win? So this is really reassuring to know that, yeah, we can still enjoy some of the fruits of life, but moderation. Exactly. I think this is a problem now. There's so
Speaker 2much health anxiety because everything is in such black and white terms. And the reality is it's just so much more nuanced. Even with auto-process foods, I say that the average British person is getting 60% of their calories from auto-process foods, which is too much. But it's not about getting that down to zero. It's just about shifting that balance a little bit. If you can get that to 60% whole foods, 40% auto-process foods, then you're doing a lot better. If you can push it to 70, 30, you're doing even better. So I think that's the easier thing to keep in mind because we've built world in the world. this way you know we can't you know you can't fight it too much and your body can cope with a lot a lot more than you realize it's just about giving it a bit more assistance.
Speaker 1That yeah I was going to say because it is very difficult especially for myself as a traveling musician it's really difficult to eat the way that I would at home when you're when you're on the road it's just impossible everything is garbage and petrol stations. You know exactly yeah
Speaker 2I mean it was quite funny when I was doing my first longevity diet for the book which is basically the aim of it was to sort of completely revamp my diet for two months. Actually try and eat 2,100 calories a day and just cut out all the process foods entirely and just replace them with like more nutrient dense whole foods and I did two conferences in that time and it was really really difficult and ironically one of the difficult times is covering the World Cancer Congress where you know I was listening to all these talks all about you know the dangers of sugar and all of these things and you know and you come out of the of the main seminar and all the snacks are sugar you know coke all of that so when you're traveling and going to these things it is really hard to to eat healthy.
Speaker 1Well it's good to hear that we you know like we can have the occasional you know laps because it's just the nature of most people's work life balance these days without trashing the main the main mission here so that that's good to hear just a quick one on process foods before we move on what about things like fuel these these are massive now and they're convenient and we we all snack on these things when we're out on the road thinking that we're eating a healthier version because it's full of minerals and you know vitamins and stuff like that but it's not real food you know it's a meal in a in a bowl and it that's technically
Speaker 2still ultra process food right exactly exactly I feel sometimes like some of these things kind of help like some a little bit in terms of like maybe getting in a few more micronutrients but the most important thing really is the whole foods just because you know when you're eating like an artificial kind of shake you're you're getting certain nutrients but your body doesn't absorb them in the same way as when eating a broccoli or when eating a potato and and also you know when you're eating a vegetable you're getting some such a variety of things you're getting fiber you're getting vitamins you're getting minerals you're getting all of these things in one package and I think that's why ultra process foods can never quite really replace that and also I think the other issue is a lot of things the steps within food processing you know they might be adding certain micronutrients in but the processing is also destroying other nutrients you know we know that the heating we know that some of the most common preservatives are basically you know inactivating kind of key vitamins and minerals we know right and also you know there's some really interesting stuff about you know some of the kind of flavorings some of the dyes some of the some of these kind of artificial chemicals because the body doesn't recognize them are actually aggravating your immune system over time so you know I think that's that's ultimately why whole you know nothing can
Speaker 1really replace the whole foods right what we need to come on to that bad boy then because that sounds like the info that we all need a little sort of reassure a word of reassurance before we delve into that for the people who who haven't read the book yet and might be thinking like I would have before I'd read it that I'm I'm too far gone I'm middle age now I'm a child of the 80s and 90s raised on you know Kellogg cereals which white sugar on top and Coca-Cola and McDonald's and smoking and we all thought all that stuff was fine are we too far gone how much is reversible do we stand a fight in chance is it worth us bother in to do the sort of things that we're going to come
Speaker 2and talk about next it's a very good point I mean and I think that's the the message I really wanted to try and address in a book because it's never too late with so many different things I mean actually smoking is a really really interesting one because I think everyone you know who's smoked for 40 years and they get to 60 you're like you know why quit now you know my risk of lung cancers probably already so high but actually in fact it's probably all the more important to quit at 60 than it is of any way younger because with things like we know smoking causes heart attacks you know if you quit as a six-year-old as a lifelong smoker your risk of a short term heart attack is really really really high but if you quit that drops massively within just two weeks so that's just one example of like how does taking a small step to protect your body even switching from smoking to vaping you know all just overnight make a big difference simply just because you're bombarding your body with less toxins and the same and the same with food and the interesting thing with food which a lot of people just don't realize is that your actually your body's needs for nutrients actually go up with age like really you know at 90 we should be eating way healthier than we are at 30 you know because and it's quite interesting there was a fascinating study I came across while reporting the book it came out about six years ago and it sort of modeled our bodies for requirements of different vitamins and minerals across the life course and you could just really see you know how much vitamin C you need at 20 how much you need at 50 how much you need at 17 it just kind of keeps going up and the reason is the body is just going getting less efficient as we age you know everything is just kind of slowing down getting a bit more sluggish and you just need like this assistance on your body to kind of help it you know kick it back into gear give it some extra fuel to kind of fight off and do all the things that it needs to do so it's very interesting and we actually see you know people who like in their 20s and 30s are eating you know doing all the bad things but if the ones you change at 40 and then stick to it for the next 30 years they're biologically much much younger when they get to the 70s right so definitely definitely we can we can reverse
Speaker 1this and turn the turn the tide around from all those happy meals and chocolate cookies and things like that that we munched up my health was terrible until I was about 35 and then I got really really into this stuff and lost a load of weight and was exercising loads and stuff like that so it always stuck in the background mind have I done is the damage done me too you know
Speaker 2I mean ironically you know I was I was a neuroscientist doing a PhD and probably at the same time as I was doing about my lifestyle and diet could not have been any worse which you know is probably why I did lights of all these biological aging tests at 35 and found oh yeah I'll know to his biologically older but you know them there is the good news that there's so much you can do in a very short space of time which can make a big difference how the body is a wonderful thing isn't
Speaker 1it you know well I took a load of notes throughout the book for my own personal use as well so as we commit towards the sort of halfway mark for the conversation we've established what we're all doing wrong but there is hope we can turn the tide around one of the main things that you talk about if I'm going to try and summarize very simplistically would one of the main things that you said that suggests people should do is a low calorie nutrient dense diet is that accurate and also what does that look like for most people on a daily basis definitely I mean I feel like so the
Speaker 2low calorie nutrient dense diet is it's a good kind of like you know mid-life health kick and I think the interesting thing about is you can just even in a month two months you know you can do that as like you know a new year reset or a summer reset and you can just see these differences you know in such a short space of time I mean I did it and by the end you know I could not only see the benefits and the tests like my immune system I think the age of my immune system I've gone down by like three years like so within this two month period but I also just felt sharper you know I was writing the book at the time and you know I rattled off six chapters in the in the time it had taken me to you know kind of write one or two kind of before so I was performing I think that you know at a battle level as well so it's it's it's very interesting just how quickly you can make a change you know obviously it's tricky to stick to like a low calorie nutrient dense diet you know kind of like for months years just simply because of a way to food environment is so that basically just involves kind of trying to you know there's these calculators online you know I kind of list a few of them in the book which you can use to you know estimate your own resting metabolic rate like the number of calories you really need to and then just try and stick to that for as long as you can and you know but again I don't want to stress people out too much because you know I eliminated all the process foods for two months you know doing that long term is tricky but I feel if you just manage to kind of get that reset and then just maybe do that just for two months of a year you know and keep doing that over time that will probably make a long term difference to your health and I think it's just in terms of just on a day-to-day basis it's just some of the principles of that which make a little bit of a difference you know we should all be getting for example more vitamin K it's it's one of the micronutrients no one really talks about and you get that in things like egg yolks you get that in dairy you get it in soy point beans you get it in leafy greens like things like spinach and kale are really you know the forgotten super foods and the reason why vitamin K is really really important is because it stops classification of the arteries vitamin K is really really important in transporting calcium you know to where you actually need it which is in your bones and you can actually see you know when when people get to the early 50s the amount of calcification they actually have in their arteries you know really just correlate to their life expectancy so you know the sooner you can be trying to get more vitamin K in your diet that can make a really, really big difference to, you know, how long you're actually.
Speaker 1you're going to live. That is incredible, man. And with personal feedback like from your own story as well, that's just insane. And as you said, you know, there are no hard and fast rules with these things. Everybody's biology is different. Everybody's situation is different. But if we're talking general principles, a low calorie nutrient dense diet is clearly one that we should be trying to work into our lives. But also another one, which is very prominent throughout the book, is that we should all be
Speaker 2getting a lot more fiber. Yeah, 100 percent, 100 percent. Fiber is kind of like the macro nutrient, which really sort of gets forgotten. Like everyone likes it. It's massively focused on protein at the moment. We're sort of living in this protein obsession. But there's a nuance of protein, which always gets kind of left out. And I think again, this comes down to like marketing, because protein is an industry worth about 90 billion dollars worldwide. You know, it's colossal. Like there's huge amounts of influencers, brands, a lot of people who are making serious money on this and like promoting more and more protein. But no one really talks about is more protein is great if you're working out. You know, if you're one of those people who is actually doing 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and doing strength training two to three times a week, then great. Eat more protein. Your body will be able to use that to build more muscle. But your average 50-year-old is probably not doing that. They're probably just eating the more protein. And again, from an aging perspective, the problem with that is protein really promotes growth. And if your body's got nothing to actually use that protein to grow, you're just going to be growing all kinds of other things. If you don't want to be grown, you're going to be growing more. You're going to be creating more inflammation. You're going to be creating more fat. You're also, you know, if you've got damaged cells and you've got growth pathways in your body being activated, it's more likely that one of them might, you know, spiral out of control and eventually develop into a tumor, which is why we see that, you know, people who eat more protein, but aren't doing the exercise, that their risk in like the next kind of five to 10 years of all kinds of different chronic diseases is actually a lot higher. And you even see it in animal studies as well. It's quite interesting. We take rodents. They give them a low protein diet and high protein diet. And the ones on the low protein diet actually live 30% longer. So there's a real, real life. So a lot of misinformation about protein, which is quite interesting.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's, it's crazy. And that's why I love about this book. And that's why I would do it with everybody because I mean, you've given quite a lot of great advice and wisdom from the book already just in this, in this half an hour chat we've had so far. But people need to understand that this book is a broad book and you go into all the science behind it and your personal journey as well and all the tests that you personally did and what that uncovered about yourself, which was one of the most fascinating parts of the book for myself. But it like if people really want to expand on this stuff and understand why the things that you're saying are the truth behind it and the evidence behind it, they need to do a deep dive into the book. And it's also a great reference point, you know, because I've been like leafing back through it and everything like that because you got the breakdowns of all the minerals and what they do and where we can get them from. It's a fascinating reference book. So I would urge everybody to rush out and get the HCO because, yeah, it's kind of the Bible, I think, of where we're at with, you know, modern food, science and understanding and health. So yeah, I just want to sort of wedge that in at this point in the conversation to remind people that, you know, there is a book out and they need to get their hands on it because it's really life-changing stuff that's going to make all of our lives happier and healthier. So coming back to the chat, just drop a little adverb in there for you. We don't want to give all this stuff away for free, right? I want people to go out and buy the book because they need to. So one of the things that I was fascinated about, because I already do this because I'm a guitar player and I worry about my arthritis and things like that happening at a later age, is I do take a lot of omega-3s and I didn't realize, I only take it for that personal issue. I didn't realize how important omega-3 is to a whole range of bodily functions. Could be
Speaker 2talk about that for a second. Yeah, definitely, definitely. If someone just picks one thing from that entire book to do, it probably is a good argument that that should just be having more omega-3s. That alone is probably going to make a significant difference both in a short term and the long term to how well you're aging. I mean, I'm going to give you an example of that, you know, so I'm now 37. I love playing tennis and I think this is certain like time points in our life. We just really start to notice like, oh, okay, I am actually aging. And I sort of had this one of those little awakenings when I was 35. And just for the very first time, I started waking up, just feeling a little bit stiff in the mornings, you know. And I just remember when I was 18, I could play, you know, I could play free sets of tennis and not feel it at all the next day. And now that's a playing tennis for a few hours, the next day I'd wake up in the morning and just feel so, so, so stiff. And so I started taking more omega-3s. And then suddenly the morning stiffness started to go away. It was really, really interesting. And omega-3s are at the heart, really anti-inflammatory nutrients. And we know that they actually play like a really, really big role in muscle and joint health. So now one of the really fascinating learning some sports sciences actually, the omega-3 index, which sort of measures the amount of omega-3s you're getting compared to like different types of other healthy fats. And so now in, you know, in the premier league, in the six nations, it's quite routine for the sports scientists working for different national teams or the clubs to be constantly measuring how much omega-3 the players are getting. And, you know, the VML present in their blood. Because over the course of the season, they see that makes a big difference in terms of how resilient the players are to injuries. And, you know, how better they recover. And that correlates to all of us. Like we get more omega-3s. We're also kind of, you know, less, more resilient to getting injured. We also maintain muscle a lot better, which is one of the big changes, which happens to so many of us across middle age, you know, our bodies kind of go through this sort of invisible change in body composition, where, you know, we go from being having quite a lot of lean muscle to becoming progressively just more and more fat, which is really, really bad for the many aspects of the aging process. But actually, having more getting more omega-3s in your diet can really help you avoid that and maintain muscle. And, you know, it can make such a huge difference to a lot of us over time.
Speaker 1And it's such an easy thing to get. I mean, you know, I take a supplement, which gives me a gram of omega-3 every day. It's so easy to do. So, yeah, I mean, that's really powerful that you said that if there's one thing people can take away from the book that is that. It's such a simple fix that we can all put into practice as well, yeah, 100%. So, we need to talk about one of the main organs involved in this as well quickly, if we can. We had the great Tim Specter on the podcast previously, doing a whole episode specifically on the gut. I'd love to get your thoughts on the functionality of the gut and the role it plays in this just briefly. And also, is there any updated science on this since we had Mr. Specter on the podcast, which may change the nature of the conversation about the gut's role in this stuff? Definitely. I mean, I think the gut is
Speaker 2so, so, so fascinating because I think everyone kind of thinks about the gut of it, so to think about fiber, all that kind of stuff. But the gut is connected to so many different organ systems, you know, there's always kind of spidery networks, which kind of link out between the gut and the brain, the gut and the liver, even the gut and the muscles, you know. So actually, keeping lights of your gut healthy plays such a big role in keeping all kinds of different organ systems healthy. And, you know, obviously Tim has played like such a big role in like enhancing a lot of that science. And around the world, you know, there's been some really fascinating studies. So, for example, China has a blue zone. China has this one particular hot spot. It's in a very remote kind of region where they have quite a high proportion of centenarians and they've done some studies on them. And, you know, one idea seems to be that they simply managed to keep their gut's healthier for longer. And why about's really, really key in, if you're going to just highlight one reason, is there's this big link between the gut and your immune system. And everyone kind of forgets a little bit about the immune system when it comes to longevity. But it's absolutely key because, you know, when we get to sort of our 70s and our N80s, our risk of just, you know, being hospitalized with infections massively goes up, you know, and it's your immune system having a more active immune system, which can fight off all these bacteria and viruses and things like that. Your immune system plays such a big role in terms of screening for cancers. It also plays a massive role in just removing toxins from your brain. So, people who have a better immune system are going to be, you know, much less vulnerable to getting dementia. Your immune system is really also even important in protecting the heart. So, the immune system, you know, all those kind of major killers, which should become more and more susceptible to, you know, if your immune system is working, then it can delay a lot of that for much, much longer. And that comes down to the gut. And part of it is because two-thirds of your immune cells basically kind of lie in your gut. So, what you're eating has this very direct impact on the health of your immune system.
Speaker 1I'm guessing things then like acid reflux, bloating, cramps, or anything like that is in an indicator that something in the gut is not happy. Definitely, definitely. I mean, and it's
Speaker 2interesting, I think a lot of this can be like mitigated again in like sort of a relatively short space of time by just simply say like increasing the amount of fiber in your diet. And to give you an example of, you know, we talked earlier about how it's never too late, you know, there was a fascinating study, I think last year or the year before which came out. I mean, it took people in the early stages of cognitive decline. So, these people kind of had, I think we might have even had, early, early Alzheimer's, and they just simply increased the amount of fiber in their diets. over the course of five months, their performance on all kinds of different cognitive scores just like improved. And a game, that's because you're stimulating, you means the system, which in turn stimulates the brain. So you can get all of these very short-term benefits. Keeping the gut healthy also mitigates against frailty. You know, one of it brings us why we could become both physically frail and cognitively frail is related to the immune system, and we're just a much less resilient to trauma. But if you again, this increasing fibre, increasing fermented foods, all of these things which helped gut produce lots of useful chemicals, which can be then used for all of these different organ systems, that can help massively delay
Speaker 1and even reverse aspects of frailty. It's so fascinating, isn't it? I mean, that's super important stuff. And it can all be enacted so simply with just a little bit of understanding about what we're eating, and when we're eating it, and how we're eating it, and just eating actual food, I think it comes down to you for the most part. And it's so simple and so powerful that can enhance all of our lives. So yeah, like I've said before, it's such a wonderful way that you've condensed all of this stuff into one really accessible book for us all to refer back to. So again, thank you for that. You also throughout the book, as I mentioned, undergo a variety of very fascinating and obscure bizarre tests, which I think I would be hesitant to do myself because I wouldn't want to know the results. I'd love to, I'd love to just expand the list and just a few of the more interesting ones that you undertook, because there's tons throughout the book that you did, which are mind blowing. And also, if you could recommend just one of them as the most important one for people to spend their money on, which one would it be? Yeah, no, I think this is the great thing now,
Speaker 2because you know, 10 years ago, we didn't really have like much in terms of the way of actually measuring aging. You know, if you think about likes of a standard kind of NHS health checkup, you know, you're sort of measuring likes of your bit, looking at your BMI, your blood pressure, you know, but these things don't really tell us that much about some of the key organs, which are really, really important in longevity, you know, keeping your kidneys healthy, for example, is hugely, hugely important because they are the organs which regulate toxins, like so from, from the bloodvites of, you know, same with likes of your liver, likes of plays, likes of a huge role into your ability to still break down, like, some alcohol, metabolise caffeine, there's all of these important likes of functions for you, and none of that is sort of captioned by the typical things which we pick up in healthcare. To kind of give an example of one particularly interesting test I did, I got my DNA sequence, because we now know like, so there's big variations between one person and another in terms of how something like coffee, for example, like effects, like like coffee is a really, really fascinating drink because there's been a lot of research which has actually shown that coffee really is something of the superfood, you know, people who drink more coffee have better brain health. More coffee actually is even, is great for deliver, like, there's now some liver doctors, particularly in the states who they have someone with fatty liver disease, one of the first things they prescribe is start drinking more coffee because coffee has all these beneficial properties, not just a caffeine, all these beneficial plant chemicals within it which can both act like nourished darts, and through the garlics that activate a lot of these different organ systems. So, but coffee where we should be drinking caffeinated or decaffeinated really depends on like a very new carrier of a particular gene, and this seems to sort of split like the population like roughly like it's a 50/50, and for some people they're like the fast metabolizers. They, these people can happily drink five cups of coffee a day and have no ill effects. Basically, we just have these enzymes which break down caffeine just so much more quickly, and so, you know, they can break down the caffeine, knock it in the ill effects from it, and benefit from everything else within coffee. But then for the slow metabolizers, that caffeine is just lingering around for so much longer in the body, and it's why for some people they get really anxious, really jittery from drinking coffee, you know, some people call it panic juice, like for that reason, and for them they probably should be able to stick into one or two cups of coffee, and then going to decaffe, or just purely just drinking decaffe. It gives us a really, really interesting one for me to do because I had noticed in the past that when I drank some particularly strong coffee, I would actually, my eyelashes would actually start twitching, so I subconsciously knew this, but kind of persisted in drinking coffee anyway. As many of us do, I am a massive coffee fan. But then I did this test and it said, you know, you are a slow metabolizer. If you are consistently drinking three cups of coffee a day, okay, that, you know, might have some benefits for your brain health, but it's also going to be raising your blood pressure and stressing your heart, so it's bad for you for that reason. So, for now, and so instead, I now just drink one cup of coffee a day, and then, you know, we'll maybe drink two or three cups at the cups of decaffe. So it's that sort of information, which can allow us to make these more tailored decisions. You know, I also found out that I am, you know, some of my weaknesses in terms of foods, I'm a super taster of fats, so I love chocolate to chocolate digestive, so I find it really, really hard to kind of eat just one or two. I will just devour an entire pack, and it is because my body is primed to lights have sensed that fat content within them, and then just like it tells my brain to discreet more and more. So, you know, you learn these things, it's like, okay, I know now that lights that I need to stay away from those foods, because, you know, I'm going to find it harder to control myself.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, now this stuff is fascinating, man. I mean, these tests, unfortunately, as esoteric and as interesting as they are, are quite spendy, aren't they? So, would there be one you could recommend there's a starting point for people that if they were going to get one done and put their
Speaker 2money down, which one would it be? I think a good one, there's one called Finoage, which you can now get like privately through like a few providers, like Randolph's Health, and like various others like offer it. That's really, really interesting, because it basically does kind of like provides an overview of the amount of stress which your organs are under. Okay. So it measures these different biomarkers in the blood like this one could album in which like reflects lights of your liver health. There's another one which basically reflects your kidney health, and you get you get like just quite a good like some kind of like top line lights of overview of how each of these organ systems in your body are doing, you know, how much it measures warm protein, which sort of reflects inflammation. So I think that's quite a good one to start off with, and also the good thing about Finoage is it's quite responsive. So if you make changes, it's reflected in that quite quickly, which is quite good positive feedback because you can say do it once. It's relatively cheap as well compared to some of the others, like some of these tests can cost 300, 400 pounds. Finoage I think costs about 70 pounds to do. That's amazing. Yeah. You can do it like a couple of months apart, really likes to get some feedback on like how, you know, what your changes are actually doing, and if it's something you
Speaker 1still need to improve on. Yeah, that's great to know, and thank you for sharing that. I will be getting my order in ASAP. Now, one of the questions that I know are going to be a lot of people's minds right now, after listening to everything you've said so far is what about Keith Richards? Yeah. What about Anthony Bourdain? My man is 99, and she's drunk neat whiskey every day for the past 60 years of her life, but she's still going strong. What do you say to the people that would be like those guys are spent all their life smoking and drinking and rocking and rolling and doing what the hell they like and they're fine. So why should I bother with all this healthy eating
Speaker 2stuff? It's very true, it's very true. You know, Keith Richards is probably going to live to 100, isn't he? He's sort of like bark lights of every expectation of him. I kind of, I sort of hope he does just to defy us all. I think that just does show, you know, there is a significant role which genetics kind of plays like in all of this. You know, I think sort of the thinking now, there was like a fascinating paper which came out in science, which is one of the most prestigious journals at the start of the year, which did kind of suggest that probably lights of the likelihood of living to 100 is 50/50 in terms of genetics and lifestyle. You know, so, you know, genes can play lights that are a really, really big role. And there are some people who just simply seem to have these genetic variants, which mean that their bodies repair systems are just working, you know, three or four times more efficiently when the rest of us. So, it could be that simply Keith Richards has, you know, one of these genes, which means yes, you know, he's smoking, yes, he's taking, you know, he's taking all of these substances across his life. But his genes are just working over time to sort of clear away lights of a lot of that damage. And you know, I think the interesting thing along Gevity Science in the next kind of 10 years is we're going to start honing in more and more on exactly what some of those genes are. We already know a few of them, which is really, really interesting. And, you know, I think there probably will be tests, you know, you'll be able to get your DNA sequence in 10 years time. And they'll be able to tell you, yes, you know, you probably can, you know, keep drinking alcohol for longer, because, you know, you do have lights of some of these genes, which are mitigating like a lot of that. Right. But where I think lights of diet is still really, really important is because diet allows you to max out what you have, you know, for example, you might be someone who's got great genes, you might have the potential to live to 120, but perhaps because of the lifestyle aspect, you know, you might only live to 90, whereas on the other hand, you might have really, really bad genes. but by doing the right things of your lifestyle, you will kind of live like 20 years longer than what otherwise would have done. So I think it's like your genes just kind of like set this sort of framework for lifespan, a little bit like so how they do for height, but then what you're doing, what you're eating allows you to max out your capability.
Speaker 1- Can you imagine if Keith Richards read your book, Jesus Christ. (laughing) - He's still been roaming the earth. - He's been if he's a little bit juicer than me. (laughing) - Well, I gotta let you go soon because I could pick your brains all day long and I know that's the fifth me to do. So I just wanna end with one question. When everybody takes on board everything you've said and hopefully they will, is it still possible for us to live and enjoy the fruits of life, pizza, cake, whiskey, beers, all that good stuff and still work within the framework that you're proposing within this book?
Speaker 2- Yeah, 100%, you know, I mean, I'm all about balance basically within the book. So, you know, at right at the end of the book, I encourage people to maybe just pick three things, like out of all of the suggestions, three things they think they can kind of commit to, you know? So it could be that you just continue on what you're doing but you just simply have more mega-freeze. You maybe just change the timing of your meals. You maybe just start getting more leafy greens. There's a whole chapter in there on how you can change your cooking, which can help you live longer, you know? Just some of these things. So, you know, you can still kind of keep your treats but just incorporate a couple of these lights of little tips which can help maybe lights of mitigate some of that. You know, it could be that, you know, if you're having lights of kind like a big pizza but, you know, several times a week, but you're eating lights of kind of most of your calories across, you know, breakfast and lunch for most of a week. And if you have those pizzas at a weekend, then, you know, it doesn't do, you know, your body's overall still going to be repairing better.
Speaker 1- Amen to that. Thank God. (laughing) That's great to hear. Our David, we got to let you go, unfortunately. Thank you so much for your time. I've been very generous today with sharing some of the wisdom from within the book. Very empowering stuff. And we all, I totally appreciate what you've done in writing the book and in sharing all of this amazing research with us in such an accessible way. So, thank you for that. The brilliant, the age code is now available everywhere and packed with so much more of this good stuff. You need to get your hands on it. Buy a copy for your friends and your relatives as well. Go out and get it right away. You will not regret it. And set yourself up for a happier, healthier, a longer, lovely life. I'll put a link to the, to buy the book directly in the show notes as well to make it easier for you to go and click on it. You can also go and keep up with what David is up to on Instagram at Dr. David Cox Health. For updates, David, this has been a real gift. Thank you so much for everything you're doing. We appreciate you. Thanks for giving us your time and stuff and buy the day.
Speaker 2Absolutely, thank you so much. Like, I fully enjoyed it.
Speaker 1Me too, yeah, thank you so much, David. And best wishes with everything. Best wishes with your mission as well to make us all healthier. We appreciate you. Thank you, thanks a lot. Cheers. Thank you, man. Dr. David Cox, ladies and gentlemen, put together for him. What an absolute gent. That was a super generous giving of one's time and expertise there. I learned an absolute turn and I hope you did as well. And please, please, please do go out and get a copy of the age code I wouldn't like to you, man. If you found that conversation informative, inspiring, and interesting, then trust me, the book has got about a hundred times more goodness in it. It's a real standout piece of work on this particular subject. And I hope David is very proud of it. And if you want to cut through all the noise and just have one book to refer back to on your bookshelf that covers everything you need to know about food and food science and health and well-being in your body and how best to keep your machine operating an optimal performance, then the age code is the one you want to get on your shelf. Unless you're key for itchers, in which case, carry on as you are, sir. Put a reminder on David's Instagram as well. He is at Dr. David Cox Health checking out there for new releases and new stuff that he's got coming up. A link to get the book will be directly in the show notes. So if you would just want to click on it, then you can just go and click on it there. And watch it there. You can click the star button for this episode of the podcast. You can click share if you want, go crazy, knock yourself out. Please, please, please do that. I'm being dead serious. That stuff is the life and death of these podcasts. So if you can give me a rating, I would love you forever and I'll keep these things coming. Now, go and eat more fiber, lay off the processed food, chuck the sugary snacks in the bin and go out for a walk. God dammit. And I will see you on the next episode with another awesome guest. God, I'm good to you. Hit that bloody subscribe button.
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