[Angela Foster] (0:00 - 0:03)
Why might skipping breakfast be damaging to their health?

[Dr Valter Longo] (0:03 - 0:39)
One is that cholesterol goes up on average as you fast for 12 hours. Long and nightly fasts and you skip breakfast, that's clearly associated with more cardiovascular disease. If you have to skip something, I would say skip lunch.

Most types of fasting are going to be bad for you long term. If you skip meals, that's associated with a shorter lifespan. The most reasonable one is 12 hours of fasting per day and 12 hours of eating per day.

If you start at 7am, you should be done by 7pm. As you get to 16, you're going to get bigger effects, metabolism, weight loss, but then you get the problem, gallstone formation.

[Angela Foster] (0:43 - 0:53)
Dr. Longo, welcome. I think a really good place for us to start would be to explain the difference between our chronological age and biological ageing.

[Dr Valter Longo] (0:53 - 1:23)
Yes, chronological age is just what's on your driver's licence. Biological age instead is how did biology treat you, meaning did you age slower, more slowly than expected, or more rapidly than expected? There was a study years ago, they looked at 38-year-olds, and it showed some of them were as old as 50 biologically, and some of them were 10 years younger.

Then biological age can be very different from what's on your driver's licence.

[Angela Foster] (1:24 - 1:29)
When you're looking at biological age and saying they can be 10 years younger, how is that measured?

[Dr Valter Longo] (1:30 - 2:24)
They can be measured in lots of different ways. There are what are called epigenetic clocks. These are just looking at your DNA and some modification of the DNA that are consistent with the risk of dying and the age of an individual.

Then there are some that are based on blood markers. For example, it could be cholesterol, blood pressure, glycated haemoglobin, A1C. I think any doctor in the world will say, if your cholesterol is lower, your blood pressure is lower, your A1C is lower, even if the clock was wrong, probably you're healthier and you're going to live longer.

Because there are markers that are so commonly tested, like cholesterol, most clinics will get relatively accurately. If you test yourself a couple of times, you get a pretty good idea that those numbers are real, and so the clock is calculated based on a real number.

[Angela Foster] (2:25 - 3:03)
Yeah, I'd heard that, that with those epigenetics, some of the biological age clocks that you can put in a test and get a different result multiple times. It's almost like there's a little bit too much noise at the moment. Whereas as you say, with blood biomarkers, they're pretty accurate.

If someone's tracking cholesterol, they can feel reasonably assured that the difference between one marker and the next actually reflects the change. I know that Dr. Morgan Levine has done some work around pheno age and looking at certain blood biomarkers in terms of biological ageing. Do you find that those are the good ones to track in terms of blood work, or are there others that you think people listening to this should think about?

[Dr Valter Longo] (3:03 - 4:53)
Right now, this is fairly limited, meaning like there's not too many clinics that are offering this, and they're offering it at a price that's reasonable. So I will look for the companies that are more established, and there are a few, I don't want to advertise, but there are a few out there. And I'll let them, usually they have a team of scientists that looks for accuracy.

And so yeah, so I will look for big companies that do this as a focus. The other thing that is emerging rapidly, I think, is organ-specific clots, right? And so, and the idea that a lot of scientists are agreeing with is that maybe it doesn't really matter how old you are.

Well, it matters, but it may matter more if your liver is 20 years older, even though everything else is great, is maybe five years younger, but your liver is 20 years older, and those are becoming available now, the organ-specific clots. And they can be based on blood markers, not on a biopsy of your liver. So yeah, so those, I think, are going to probably emerge as leaders.

If one of your organs is 10, 20 years older than it is supposed to be, and by the way, it could be misleading, right? Because most of your organs are five years younger, but your heart is in terrible shape. You may think, oh, generally I'm doing good, or you're not, right?

You might end up with a heart attack. You could be in perfect shape and get a heart attack, right? So I imagine very soon we're going to see a lot of these organ-specific clots being front and centre.

[Angela Foster] (4:53 - 5:49)
Very interesting thing to follow, and interesting actually, because when you were mentioning there around the heart, I think people, when we think of the cardiorespiratory system, right, people will be thinking, oh, I can exercise, for example, to improve the function of my heart and reduce stiffness and improve my capacity, my lung capacity, and things like that. When we think about other organs, there's research going into dementia, particularly with women, for example, and certain nutrients that affect the brain. But I suppose we haven't necessarily thought about other organs, like when you talk about the liver, I would immediately think about reducing toxin exposure on alcohol and things like that.

And I guess it's specific to each organ, right, as to what we might need to do to improve the function of it and reduce the load that's being placed upon it. I know you've done a lot of work and research into autophagy as a whole. Can you explain what that is?

[Dr Valter Longo] (5:49 - 6:57)
Autophagy is essentially the cell or, you know, parts of the cell being eaten or utilised as fuel. And so there is some indication that potentially some of the worst or the most damaged components are utilised first, but that's not clear that that is always the case. But as you fast for a long time, and now from the work of our colleagues, it takes about five days to start seeing evidence in blood autophagy and probably autophagy everywhere in the human body.

So people think, you know, I could fast for 16 hours and a lot of autophagy is going to go on, but it doesn't look like it. At least you cannot measure that, so it's probably very small. It probably takes about five, six days for somebody to get into a full, you know, self-eating mode.

And this is why, you know, the fasting-mimicking diet was designed to last five days and, you know, unlike lots of other fasting practises that last a lot shorter.

[Angela Foster] (6:58 - 7:28)
When we look at fasting, you mentioned there about it taking around five days to get into autophagy. My understanding is a lot of the research has been done on, um, sedentary people who are overweight, um, and also in kind of rodent studies. If you take somebody who is athletic and lean and fit, um, would you say that exercise is a better tool for them in terms of stimulating autophagy or would fasting these sort of long five, six day fasting periods also be appropriate for people like that?

[Dr Valter Longo] (7:28 - 8:34)
I always say exercise, I just looked at a, um, a, um, you know, review, um, by a group in Italy and they were showing the lack of different practises on healthy and health spend essentially. And they were showing a sevenfold difference between, uh, bad nutrition and lack of exercise. So exercise, great, you should do it, but most people eventually, um, they're going to eat, uh, but they may not exercise anymore.

We also have to think about the reality. And, uh, so I think it's much better, uh, to exercise as much as you can, uh, be physically active, but when we, it comes to molecular, uh, effects on ageing and diseases, I will say that, uh, the focus should be on nutrition. And if you look at a hundred years of ageing research by, you know, a thousand labs, probably the big results are from nutrition, not from exercise, right?

Big lifespan extension, either genetics or nutrition or, you know, calorie restriction, essentially. That's also true for autophagy.

[Angela Foster] (8:35 - 8:46)
So when we look at, um, using nutrition as a lever for, um, you know, reversing ageing as much as we can, or at least slowing it down, what are the most important things that we can do?

[Dr Valter Longo] (8:47 - 12:30)
Number one, of course, uh, we should try to have, uh, you know, what I call the longevity diet, so the longevity diet is something that learns from Mediterranean, Okinawa, Loma Linda, uh, then learn from the mice and the rats and the epidemiology. But essentially it, you know, it seems like a pescatarian diet, high in vegetable, high in nuts, uh, you know, olive oil and whole grain cereal, uh, all grains. Uh, um, it's, uh, you know, it is the ideal diet, some fish, maybe two or three times a week.

Um, so that seems to be the ideal diet. It shouldn't be Mediterranean or Okinawa. It should be whatever version of it based on where you come from, right?

So if you, if you're from, from Norway, uh, you're not going to have the same diet as somebody from Japan. So this idea that everybody should have the Mediterranean diet is wrong. And, uh, uh, but everybody should have, you know, should be at least advised to have a diet that there are certain components, uh, using the foods from, from your own land, let's say, and, uh, from your own ancestry.

It's very important because if your great grandparents and parents and grandparents were lactose tolerant, you probably are lactose tolerant. This is an example of how you can get in trouble by not paying attention to where you come from. Then number two, I would say fasting mimicking diet, maybe, you know, three times a year, right?

So this is a five day, uh, now I think there are over 40 clinical trials, uh, on the fasting mimicking diet is five day vegan diet. Uh, so no matter what you eat and how bad your lifestyle is, uh, having this three opportunity in the year to do five days of something that is being clinically tested in lots of universities and sort of has the job of resetting, like activating autophagy, you know, maybe potentially activating, uh, stem cells and, and reprogramming, uh, lots of cells. If somebody was diabetic, uh, the trials would suggest that maybe you should do it once a month or once every two months until you go back.

So you can avoid, you know, GLP-1 type drugs. We hear a lot about fasting, daily fasting and every other day, but I, I really think either because of feasibility or because of, uh, side effects, the most reasonable one is 12 hours of fasting per day and 12 hours of eating per day. And so if you start at 7 AM, you should be done by 7 PM.

That's it. Right. And very easy.

People used to do it all the time. Now, most people don't do that anymore. Most people eat for 15 hours a day.

And so, yeah, that 12 is very good. As you get to 16, you're going to get bigger effects, right? Metabolism loss, weight loss, but then you get the problems, you know, gallstone formation, uh, it's much harder to do.

And then you start seeing, you know, if you skip breakfast and most people do, you start seeing higher mortality from cardiovascular disease, uh, at least higher risk of mortality and higher risk of death. So we know that if you skip meals, you know, that's associated with a shorter lifespan, any meal, right? So, so yeah, if you skip meals, it should be to eliminate something like I skip lunch, but I skip lunch because I cannot possibly keep my weight in the right place.

Uh, if I don't do that 150 minutes of exercise, uh, per week, um, you know, and one hour plus one hour a day of walking and then sleeping eight hours a night. Right. So those are, uh, those are my recommendation.

[Angela Foster] (12:31 - 13:19)
One thing I think about as well is people who are not necessarily eating all the time. Um, but maybe they're finding that 12 hours a bit more difficult because like, if I, if I take myself sometimes, you know, my, my daughter's a, an athlete, so she's doing lots of different sports clubs in the evening that can actually end up delaying on certain nights of the week, the time that we eat. Um, and then I would wake up and go train in the gym in the morning fasted, but then I would look to refuel afterwards.

How much do we need to be absolute in terms of that 12 hours? Obviously, I understand that if you have your last meal further away from sleep, that will help with deeper sleep. If it's sort of three hours away, cause you're not digesting food, but in terms of if it's a little bit shorter on some occasions, if it's 10 hours, how, how much is this sort of elastic that we can play with?

[Dr Valter Longo] (13:19 - 13:57)
I think I would try to keep it as much as possible 12 hours. But you know, if you're doing something and you, you, you're an athlete or it's okay. I mean, this is not going to kill you that you now gone 14 hours or, or 10 hours, you know, a few times a week.

That's okay. That's a compromise. But I think I will keep in mind that, um, you know, try to try to do 12 and, and, you know, make it a rule, like, you know, try to brush your teeth.

Right. So people do all kinds of things that, that, that, you know, don't necessarily want to do, but, but they do it and it's good for you. And, uh, so yeah, 12 hours is one of those.

[Angela Foster] (13:57 - 14:13)
And when we go the other way, you were saying people who do the daily skipping breakfast, doing an automatic 16 hour fast, often what they'll say is I feel better. I feel more switched on in the morning when I'm doing that. Why might that skipping breakfast be damaging to their health?

What's the cause of that?

[Dr Valter Longo] (14:13 - 15:39)
Yeah, we don't know, but certainly, um, one is that cholesterol goes up, uh, in an average, uh, as you pass the 12 hours, right? So, and some papers suggest 20 to 30 points, right? So that could be one, right?

So every day now you're getting this cholesterol spike, right? Uh, the other one, uh, could be that, you know, there are studies indicating that your metabolism potentially slows and your hunger increases. So they took people and they gave them exactly the same food, but either started at 8 AM or at 12, right?

And those that started at 12 tended to be more hungry. Uh, they think they had worse sleep. And yeah, so the data, um, in general shows that, you know, if you, the breakfast and this is, you know, somebody saying, uh, you know, eat, uh, uh, breakfast like a King, et cetera, et cetera.

If you have to skip something, I would say skip lunch because now you're not altering the 12 hours, stick with the 12 hours. And now you get an opportunity in between. The great majority of people, if you skip breakfast and you, you turn around and you skip lunch, you know, you have breakfast and you skip lunch within a couple of months, you're going to suffer for a couple of months or within a couple of months.

Uh, I think you're going to be back in, uh, in, you know, being fine with the new, uh, with the new setup.

[Angela Foster] (15:39 - 16:02)
So you're kind of bookending your day in that situation with, you know, you've got your breakfast and your dinner. Um, when you, uh, formulated the five, the five day fasting mimicking diet, and this has been shown to stimulate autophagy, um, what's the benefit of doing it that way? As opposed to somebody doing a water only fast, for example, these have become quite popular for three days or five days.

[Dr Valter Longo] (16:03 - 20:50)
Yeah. I mean, well, first of all, it become quite popular for one in a thousand people, right? I always say it's very difficult.

If you think about it to take somebody that is drinking three coffees a day and say, from now on, I want you to drink too. If you start telling people you got to do a four or five days of water only fasting, good luck, right? So, you know, because we are, especially this is why part of the reason of developing the fasting mimicking diet, the people just are, we are slaves of those meals for hormone reasons, right?

This is not just a, you know, a decision that we make rationally is our body is telling us you need to have breakfast. If you always have breakfast, right. Or you need to have lunch.

So yeah. So you remove it all, you got a problem. Then you got potentially hypertension, hypoglycemia, uh, you know, so this is why, um, you know, there are saline solutions, right.

For patients that, um, you know, the, the, the body needs salts and it needs a lots of things, even if you're not eating for many reasons, right. Um, that the fasting mimicking diet is a better idea. Then when I developed it, the fasting mimicking diet many years ago, 20 years ago, I, um, I basically also thought, why don't I make it with the healthiest food from, from all over the world that I can think of, like in nuts and olive oil and, and vegetables.

And, and, um, and so that turned out to be a very good idea. I wasn't necessarily thinking about, I was just thinking about why not, right. I can do it with, with vegan, very healthy food.

Why do I have to get lard instead, right? So, so there's a lot of fat, for example, in the, in the fasting mimicking diet. And it was a good idea because then eventually we showed, um, and Stanford just published a, a paper, so did the University of Miami, one on colitis and one on Crohn's.

Uh, but we had shown that in mice, when we gave mice a, uh, water-only fasting, the gut became leakier. We gave mice, uh, a fasting mimicking diet that the, the, the, not only the gut became less leaky, but, uh, we, um, could reverse or, or partially reverse, uh, inflammatory bowel disease in the mice, right. But, you know, Crohn's and colitis-like symptoms.

So, and then we showed that it probably was the microbiota modulation, meaning that the, the prebiotic in the food, in the fasting mimicking diet, we're feeding the bacteria, lactobacillus, we feed the bacteria. And we actually showed that in the paper. They were, they were growing this population of protective bacteria.

And, uh, and they were protecting the gut, um, and, and reversing inflammation and the autoimmunity. Uh, so the water-only fasting was partially effective. It was not, it was not bad for the mice, but it was only partially effective.

I mean, the, the new data from Stanford is just beautiful. Uh, you know, this is a paper in Nature Medicine, uh, by Dr. Sinha, uh, and it's just remarkable effects of three cycles of fasting mimicking diet. And, and, uh, you know, this is about a hundred patient, uh, trial at Stanford.

So I think that we got it right. Um, you know, and, uh, for many, many different reasons, uh, I mean, I just talked about a few, but another one is the fasting mimicking diet as carbon source reserves, right? Glycerol.

So we use glycerol as a gluconeogenesis reserve, which is gonna, you know, prevent the body from going to amino acids, uh, and potentially muscle mass to, um, to generate glucose, right? So, so it's just a lot of biochemistry in there. Um, you know, that then is to people, it's just food, you know, maybe not what they like to eat, but this is why pretty soon we're going to publish on a study from Southern Italy, overweight, obese people with lots of risk factor, and this is 500 patients.

And we're doing the, the, um, the FMD once every three months, right? So we'll see, right? We haven't published yet, but, uh, we're analysing the data now.

Like, is it possible that you don't even need it, need to do it once a month as, as we've done in many trials? Uh, what about every three months? What about every potentially every six months?

The most important one, the, um, the fact that the fasting-making diet usually comes with some type of supervision. Now I don't know what the companies are doing, but, but, you know, this is also very important to be screened and, and maybe see a nutritionist or a physician, or at least, you know, talk to a dietician before you do it. Um, so that, that's another important reason for, um, for, uh, you know, doing the FMD.

[Angela Foster] (20:50 - 21:27)
Yes. Interesting. Um, because I think it sounds from what you're saying, like it's much easier for people to be compliant with it.

Um, but I have, you know, I have friends, for example, who work with a functional medicine doctor, who is a big proponent of a water-only fast, um, and they seem to enjoy it. But what you're saying is that early rodent studies show that actually that may contribute that water-only fast, uh, may contribute to things like leaky gut alongside potentially losing muscle during that five-day process. But using the fasting-mimicking diet helps promote a healthier gut and also preserve muscle mass throughout that, that process.

[Dr Valter Longo] (21:28 - 23:48)
Yeah. And this is now demonstrated clinically, right? And I'm not saying water-only fasting is bad for you because it's not, right?

So, but, but it doesn't seem to be as good. And, uh, and it's not as easy and it's not as safe. And, um, you know, for all those reasons, but yeah, somebody in a lot of people in Germany, for example, do water-only fasting, you know, and, and I wouldn't go and say, oh, you know, your family has been doing this for 200 years.

Now you stop and do the FMD. I mean, you know, some people are used to it and they've used it and they want to use it. And, uh, but you know, this is why we have an FDA and we have a lot of regulatory agencies all over the world.

And the medicine wants to see randomised trials, large randomised trials, and, and also long-term data. And, and, um, you know, that this is what we're trying to do instead of making it like, it's always been like fasting, water-only fasting, and all these practises have always been a niche, you know, very, very few people, again, maybe one in a thousand right there that are doing it. And the medical community rejects it.

And, uh, and the science community rejects it. Yeah. At some point, we're going to have to face that reality, right?

That, you know, to convince doctors, to convince scientists, to convince big universities and journalists, this has to be tested thoroughly. And, and we have to think about all things. You cannot say, well, but I like it that way better.

And so I'm just going to recommend that. It doesn't work like that. Right.

And, uh, yeah. So, and the doctors are going to be the biggest factor, right? So once the doctors embrace whatever type of fasting, that's going to be a big deal, but they're not going to be easily convinced.

This is why now we're escalating from, you know, 100 patient type of trials to now 500 patient type of trial. Pretty soon we're going to see the thousand patient trials, you know, multicenter. So we're trying to, you know, and by me, a lot of it, like Stanford, I was just a middle outer.

So I was not, I had nothing to do with the trial. So by me, I really mean lots of, you know, university hospitals that are testing and independently or companies and independently of financial interest. And if it works, they say it works.

And if it doesn't work, they'll say it doesn't work, you know? Uh, so that's, uh, that's very important.

[Angela Foster] (23:49 - 23:54)
And what would be a suitable age for someone to start doing something like the fasting mimicking diet?

[Dr Valter Longo] (23:54 - 25:45)
Well, we're not testing in 14 to 18, right? So in, in Naples, in Southern Italy, and, uh, so we'll see what happens. Uh, but the idea in, of course, people shouldn't do that.

Now we'll see this is 330 people trial with, uh, teens in, in, in the, one of the worst regions of Europe for, uh, you know, children, obesity and overweight. Uh, so we'll see, right. But, but our idea, um, you know, in the 14 to 18 is that, you know, is it, is it possible that at least in portion, I think we're going to have a lot of dropouts, right?

A lot of, a lot of these, these teenagers are just not going to be able to do that, but we're, we're hoping that, you know, maybe in 50% of them, can we just train their brain, uh, you know, and without telling them, oh, you got to change your diet and you, you know, drop everything you're doing. And now here's the new plan, which is very, very difficult for them to say, okay, don't, don't worry about it. Just do this for five days and then go back.

And then slowly they'll, this is what we see with adults, right? They'll slowly start eating better, right? They don't, uh, you know, they don't feel as obsessed with, um, with whatever bad food, you know, like ultra processed food or lots of, lots of, uh, you know, uh, bread or potatoes and, and starches.

So we'll see, but for sure, I say 20, 25 years old, right? That, um, you know, it may be good to start doing it like once or twice a year, even though you're, you're, you're fit. Um, and then eventually, um, you know, if, if there is a reason to, to increase it, you increase it.

Uh, so I still do it only once or twice a year, but I, I skip lunch every day. You know, I do everything else. I do the 12 hours.

And so, uh, in my case, uh, you know, probably not necessary to do it, uh, you know, three, four times a year.

[Angela Foster] (25:46 - 26:24)
And what about when we're looking at, for example, the stress, um, or the output of somebody life, do you take that into account? So for example, I work a lot with high performing midlife women. They're also very, uh, into their fitness.

They're pretty lean. They have a lot of stress in their life because they're kind of in leadership positions. They've got young families.

Um, they're pushing their bodies already quite hard. Would they, would that still be applicable to do this a few times a year? And would they need to kind of down-regulate some of the other things they're doing in order to make space for that?

Does it add extra stress, for example, that if you were, you couldn't necessarily maintain that same output or is it always good?

[Dr Valter Longo] (26:25 - 28:47)
I would say that be careful with men always maintaining that output, right? I will argue for the exactly the opposite, right? And this is why some of these fasting clinics, I think are good, right?

Or more for psychological reasons than anything else, right? So it's a way for people to say, okay, stop, right? Uh, yeah.

So I think, you know, especially if you're talking about a couple of times a year, stop, right? So, so it's okay, right? You know, do it when you can just feel better, feel good and dedicate those five days to, uh, to a reset, a true reset, you know, also psychological.

Now somebody could say, Hey, I don't care. You know, I gotta work 365 days a year and I gotta be high performance. People do it all the time.

And, uh, that's, that's okay. You have to be careful, but, uh, but that's okay. I don't think it adds stress.

I think if anything, even if you're high performing and you're continuing, it will sort of reset. And that's what we see with a lot of high performing people. It will help you feel better, uh, psychologically.

Um, and, uh, you know, this has been tested at the University of Palermo for depression and, and, um, and the patient is better when they did the FMD. And now, you know, I know there's several, uh, clinics, um, are using it, uh, with a lot of their patients that are depressed and they have psychological issues. And, um, yeah, so I think that, uh, you know, best would be to stop, but if that's not an option, um, I think that it probably, uh, it's okay to also do it with the high performance.

I wouldn't do it with a high performance in sports, right? I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't combine it with, uh, you know, strenuous exercise because then your blood glucose can go very low and you could have a problem. You could be physically active, uh, but, uh, but no strenuous exercise.

Some people feel really energetic. It's really interesting, right? Some people feel really energetic, say I never had all this, so much energy in my life.

And some people say I couldn't finish work. I couldn't, uh, you know, get to 5 PM. I say most people, when I do it, I do everything, you know, um, that I need to do.

So, so I think it can be done.

[Angela Foster] (28:48 - 29:05)
It sounds like though, from what you're saying, it's quite a nice opportunity to take a bit of a break, right? A pause, which I think we all need in modern life for a week or so, maybe even do it in combination with some friends doing it alongside you, spend some time in nature, doing nature walks, make it a little bit of a spiritual practise, right? Uh, for a reset.

[Dr Valter Longo] (29:05 - 29:28)
That's the best, right? And so, you know, yeah, of course it'd be great to be able to afford a clinic somewhere in the world that, that, uh, that you can go to and do it there. But for most people, this is not an option.

So I say, you know, if this comes to your home and, or wherever you are and you can do it there, yeah, with your friends and use it as a reset period, uh, I would say it was fairly inexpensive and anybody can do it. Yeah.

[Angela Foster] (29:29 - 29:49)
And what about your thoughts around, you mentioning earlier that on a daily basis, we should look at a 12 hour overnight fast. Um, what about fasted exercise? If it's within that 12 hour period, do you see that as a positive or is it more down to preference of the individual, whether they train in a fasted state or in a fed state?

[Dr Valter Longo] (29:49 - 30:32)
Yeah. I, you know, we're looking into it. Um, I'm not an exercise expert.

So, um, yeah, I would say probably, uh, you can pick based on the data that is available and published data. I will, uh, read up on the, on the papers and see if, uh, if there is a better time to do it, so, so now we're collecting the data. So I don't want to come up with, uh, until we have a chance to review, you know, many, many papers, uh, come up with recommendation on when is best to, uh, to train.

Um, but, um, yeah, there's a lot of data out there. I think most of the training is going to be good no matter what.

[Angela Foster] (30:32 - 30:51)
And what about protein intake? Um, are your, um, in terms of what you've studied there, is it moderate protein intake? I know there's a lot of talk now about making sure people get enough protein to stimulate that alongside resistance training, muscle protein synthesis.

Is there a danger of people having too much protein?

[Dr Valter Longo] (30:52 - 32:53)
I mean, there is no doubt people are having too much proteins, right? It is no doubt children are having too much protein. And when we looked at Italian children, uh, they were having two to many age ranges, two to three times more than paediatrician recommend.

This is certainly the case for the United States and UK and lots of places. This protein craze is just, uh, unbelievable. It'd be hard to think I was not going to affect a health span.

You know, the only way that you can make a mouse or a rat live longer without colour restricting them is protein restriction, right? And if you look at the, the centenarians are from all over the world, most of them were protein restricted for decades in their lives. Most of the epidemiological data, uh, suggest that, uh, low protein, but sufficient, right?

It has to be sufficient, but it has to be low is, uh, is ideal, particularly low animal-based proteins, right? And, uh, yeah, so now we're hearing the opposite, uh, and that's going to be a problem, right? And that's going to be a big problem.

Not to be confused with malnourishment because obviously there are a lot of people that are malnourished, right? And so you need 0.8 grammes of, of, uh, of proteins per kilogramme of body weight per day of good quality, right? You can not have 0.8 grammes of legumes, for example, you should have 0.8 grammes. You could have legumes, but you never say two thirds of it have to be with, uh, high levels of amino acids that are essential amino acids that are higher. So, you know, fish or, or, or, you know, uh, other, um, uh, grains, whole grains. And so a variety of the, uh, let's say nuts have usually, uh, amino acid qualities that are better than those in, in legumes.

So, yeah. So then even if you're vegan, you could do it, but it's harder. Uh, but certainly if you're or, or if you eat some meat, uh, you know, three or four times a week, uh, white or red.

[Angela Foster] (32:53 - 33:15)
So it sounds like a mostly plant-based diet as opposed to, because what we're hearing so much about, right, is muscle centric medicine, um, with protein kind of at the fore in terms of fuelling the body, uh, and supporting that strength, uh, for the purposes of longevity. Um, you, you seem to voice some quite deep concerns around protein intake.

[Dr Valter Longo] (33:15 - 35:33)
In my book, uh, I talk about five pillars, right? And five pillars are epidemiology, clinical trials, basic research, centenarian studies, and complex system, right? So, and this is eventually what AI is going to do, right?

So AI is going to say, come on, you know, you couldn't possibly look at just half a pillar, look at everything, right? You know, you want to look at everything and then extrapolate. So soon we'll have that luckily, because that's going to put a stop in this half a pillar, uh, science, which is like, you know, I, I, I did the clinical trial, you know, for a couple of weeks and I showed that people, and we're reviewing those data and it's not a big difference between, you know, 1.5 grammes and 1.2 grammes per day. So, so I say minimal difference in muscle growth and, and potentially huge difference in, in, um, you know, diseases and, and lots of problems. I think that, um, that, you know, makes no sense. And, um, and this health of pillar science is going to do a lot of damage.

Um, so, but hey, you know, people, they, they like to, you know, hear the, the entertainers and the entertainers, that's what they're saying now, you know, and, um, um, you know, the, because they've, they've read 10 studies and this, what this 10 studies show that that's the way to go. Uh, but a hundred years of research and five pillars indicate that's not the case. Yeah.

It is true that, for example, if you look at Okinawa, you know, the record longevity areas from, from the world and probably Japan and, and, um, Southern Italy, there was higher frailty, right? So probably because, you know, the restriction on say the legumes or whatever, you know, the Okinawans historically had 9% protein, so about half of the 0.8 grammes, right? So they have such a low protein diet, but hey, not surprisingly, they had some of the record longevity in the world for decades.

And Japan is being consistently ranked number one in the world for life expectancy for decades and decades. And, you know, they've always had a low protein diet. I think that, that, um, you know, um, we're going to see a problem eventually, uh, from this.

And, um, but, uh, they, you know, people can, can choose whatever they want to choose.

[Angela Foster] (35:33 - 36:14)
So if we were looking at that and we're looking at the macronutrient composition of their diet, um, it sounds like from what you're saying, protein shouldn't be more than around 20%, um, of total intake. So that would then have 80% of those calories coming from carbohydrates and from fats minimum. It could even be higher.

Actually, it could be 15%, um, protein. Does it matter then in your view, in terms of longevity, how that, I know we've spoken about healthy fats, so kind of Mediterranean style, olive oil, things like that, but does it matter how somebody distributes those macronutrients between what percentage of fats, what percentage of carbohydrates or is total calorie intake more important in terms of longevity?

[Dr Valter Longo] (36:15 - 38:26)
No, it matters, right? But, um, so proteins, for example, I think the Japanese, uh, around 13%, right. Of calories, a good, uh, goal, right.

To, to not be too extreme and probably lower to, to get even more benefits on longevity, but, but let's say to be safe, you know, go with the Japanese, uh, uh, you know, percentage, but I think it's better to think about grammes per kilogramme per day, because people, it's very easy if you have an app or even if you don't have an app to say, okay, I got three grammes from this and I weigh so much. And so you do the calculation a couple of times and then, you know, right. Whereas percentage of calories, you know, can calculate that, right.

So it's, it's very complicated. Um, yeah, so then I think let's say 13% or so if you want to do the calculation, but otherwise 0.8 gramme per kilogramme, uh, per day. Um, and then, you know, the, the, the historically, let's say the Japanese had very low fat diet, not anymore, but, but the Okinawans had a very low fat diet.

And, and, uh, and now they have much higher because they have a lot of fish and the Italians, um, had a higher, uh, fat, uh, percentage. So we put fat around, uh, let's say 25, 30%, mostly plant-based, mostly from healthy sources, nuts and, and dark chocolate and, uh, and olive oil. And yeah, so that that's in salmon, um, or, or so 25, 30%, uh, fats and, and then, you know, 50, 55% carbohydrates, um, you know, in keeping the starches using the starch, uh, consumption, sugar and starch law or as law is necessary, um, to prevent weight gain.

Right. So, so if you, if you have a lot of lot of rice and a lot of potatoes and a lot of bread, uh, yeah, so those are, are, that's not how you want to get to the 55%, uh, um, calories if you, uh, if you have a weight problem and most people do it.

[Angela Foster] (38:27 - 38:38)
So it's like whole food, fibrous sources of carbs. Um, okay. Is there anything, um, before we close anything else that you think people should be doing to improve both their health span and lifespan?

[Dr Valter Longo] (38:39 - 39:11)
Yeah. I talked to briefly. Yeah.

Certainly the sleep, right. So keep your, um, keep your room temperature law at night, you know, something that I didn't know until I learned it from, uh, from, uh, Walker and, um, you know, the lights of, uh, in, in the room and little things that, that may help in, you know, as you mentioned earlier, um, three hours, uh, last meal, three hours before you go to sleep. Yeah.

So I think everything else we, we discussed. Um, so yeah.

[Angela Foster] (39:12 - 39:26)
Amazing. Thank you. Um, what is the best way for people to, um, keep up with your research and everything you're doing?

Um, and also if they want to like try the fasting mimicking diet for themselves, um, across the year, um, where should they go?

[Dr Valter Longo] (39:26 - 39:46)
Yeah. Fasting mimicking diet I can advertise so that, you know, people can look it up and find the source of that. Um, but, uh, you know, in my case, Professor Walter Longo on Instagram and the same thing on Facebook.

Um, so people can follow me and my foundations, uh, uh, through, through Facebook or Instagram.

[Angela Foster] (39:46 - 39:52)
Amazing. We will link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this.

Thank you.

Today I’m joined by Professor Valter Longo to unpack what actually slows biological ageing, and what most women are getting wrong about fasting, protein, and diet.

We explore the difference between chronological age and biological age, how biological ageing is measured, and why chasing extreme fasting or high-protein trends may quietly undermine long-term health. Professor Longo shares decades of research behind the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), explains why most popular fasting protocols may increase cardiovascular risk, and outlines the dietary patterns consistently linked to the world’s longest-living populations.

This conversation cuts through longevity hype with evidence from human trials, centenarian studies, and 100 years of ageing research, offering a grounded, practical framework for improving healthspan without extremes.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
• The real difference between chronological age and biological age – and how it’s measured
• Why blood biomarkers may be more reliable than epigenetic ageing clocks right now
• What organ-specific ageing clocks reveal about hidden health risks
• How long it actually takes to activate meaningful autophagy in humans
• Why most intermittent fasting protocols may increase heart disease risk
• The science behind the 5-day Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD)
• FMD vs water fasting: gut health, muscle preservation, and safety
• Why skipping breakfast is linked to higher cardiovascular mortality
• The optimal daily eating window for longevity (and why 12 hours matters)
• How often to use FMD for longevity, metabolic health, and disease prevention
• Why excess protein may accelerate ageing and disease risk
• How much protein humans actually need for longevity
• The ideal macronutrient balance for healthspan and lifespan
• How nutrition consistently outperforms exercise for lifespan extension
• Practical longevity habits around sleep, stress, and lifestyle timing