Aug 9, 2021
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 long-term goal of developing medical
interventions that slow the age-related 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 sex-related 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:
- Steve’s background and unusual
childhood [2:30];
- Steve’s adventures driving a cab
in New York City [9:00];
- How Steve drove to LA and
accidentally became a lion tamer [13:30];
- How Steve’s early graduate school
experiences led him to study longevity [23:00];
- The challenges and limitations of
working with lab mice [30:45];
- The connection between caloric
restriction and lifespan [43:00];
- Mice vs. rats and rodent aging
experiments [51:15];
- The impact of dietary composition
and the harm of sucrose: Comparing two caloric-restriction studies
in monkeys [56:00];
- Challenges of studying animals
due to major differences in the lab animal vs. wild animals
[1:10:00];
- Human studies of calorie
restriction [1:24:45];
- Better dietary protocols for
humans: Alternatives to long-term caloric restriction
[1:33:45];
- The protective effect of fasting
[1:38:00];
- Reflecting on the sex differences
in human lifespan, and why women have more neurodegenerative
diseases [1:45:45];
- The importance of identifying
longevity biomarkers and which ones show the potential to change
the landscape of longevity research [2:03:30];
- Molecules showing the most
promise as longevity agents [2:14:00]; and
- More.
Learn more: https://peterattiamd.com/
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