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Will Restricting Protein Extend Your Life?
156 Plays19 days ago
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Check out the first volume in the How to Actually Live Longer series on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4dDXjxc
How to Actually Live Longer is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
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Transcript
Discovering the Podcast
Frustration with Content
00:00:47
Christian Yordanov
I couldn't even get through half of it because it's just so, it's kind of frustrating listening to very smart people talk about absolute irrelevant nonsense, right?
00:01:06
Christian Yordanov
about certain proteins that get upregulated when the rats diet is reduced from 20% protein to 5% total protein content. And the reason it's so irrelevant is because like a lot of these people, it saddens me to kind of think about it, but they're wasting.
00:01:30
Christian Yordanov
their entire life and career researching this stuff because they're just really majoring in the minors here. Because here's the thing, if you Take a look at what a standard lab rat chow diet contains.
Problems with Laboratory Rat Diets
00:01:49
Christian Yordanov
First of all, you may throw up your lunch, dinner, breakfast, whatever, or you might not have the appetite for your next meal, but you will very quickly see why a lot of this rat, a lot of the animal research is
00:02:07
Christian Yordanov
largely worthless when it comes to us as humans in the real world living in reality extending our lifespan and our health span. Okay, so typical ingredients in a standard lab rat child diet.
00:02:26
Christian Yordanov
Top of the list, cereal grains, corn, wheat, oats, barley, rice, or sorghum. That's kind of their main source of car carbohydrate. Soybean meal. That is the primary protein source. Soybean.
00:02:46
Christian Yordanov
meal, fish meal or meat meal, additional protein and essential amino acids. So fish meal, think when you hear meal, think about the discarded schmutz from some kind of industry. So we have fishing, you know, the catch a bunch of fish and based on the quality of the product, you have a bunch of different products. You know, you have fresh fish for the markets and frozen fish and fish sticks and a bunch of different products get made from the the best quality and then the lower quality and the the discarded schmutz, you know, the guts.
00:03:31
Christian Yordanov
And the fish heads, these can end up maybe ah ah in pet food or whatever kind of supplement, you know, maybe the bones and it can become collagen supplements. There's a ton of different things. So when you hear fish meal, or think about like ground up discarded schmutz that they had to figure out how to get rid of and maybe even make a few bucks while they're at it. So to cut, you know, cut, cut.
00:04:00
Christian Yordanov
cut into some of those make a dent in some of those manufacturing costs and all that good stuff right so that's what you're getting that's what these rats are getting when they get fish meal alfalfa meal fiber source and micronutrients vegetable oils okay because you have to make sure that those little rats are going to get their essential fatty acids the omega-3s and the 6s because We just can't have it any other way, right? So the vegetable oils include soybean oil, corn oil. So far, so far it looks amazing, right? It looks really appetizing these, really sounds like what these rats would eat in their natural habitat environment surroundings. That's exactly what I see them eating, you know?
00:04:51
Christian Yordanov
soybean meal ground up fish heads guts and tails and god knows what else and a bunch of soybean oil corn oil yeah what else corn gluten meal okay well that kind of That's a supplementary protein source. great Great choice, guys. Wheat middlings for fiber and vitamins. Dried whey or skim milk powder. Brewer's yeast. Calcium carbonate. So that's chalk. okay So chalk. That's their source of calcium.
00:05:26
Christian Yordanov
So yes, so carbon calcium carbonate is chalk, then dicalcium phosphate.
00:05:31
Christian Yordanov
That's apparently to supply phosphorus and calcium, but dicalcium phosphate is actually just a stabilizer in supplements and processed things and that's probably just there for stability. not Not exactly a great source of either phosphorus or calcium.
00:05:48
Christian Yordanov
salt, choline, lysine, dl methionine, and then a mix of vitamin, you know, fat soluble, water soluble vitamins, minerals. And by the way, these are the cheapest lowest bioavailability and quality forms of minerals of course they're not gonna spend a bunch of money to to get methylated B vitamins and you know naturally extracted vitamin E and stuff like that you you get synthetic alpha-tocopherels alpha-tocopheryl succinate or something like that. I think that was the the major vitamin E synthetic one. You get just oxides of the minerals and just
00:06:38
Christian Yordanov
Well, what do you expect? At the end of the day, it has to be fairly cheap because, first of all, the companies that are selling it to the labs, that's a big business, right? That's a huge business. So they have to turn a profit and then it has to be affordable enough for the labs to buy. So you know that's kind of business stuff that's
The Need for Standardized Diets
00:06:59
Christian Yordanov
understandable. But the thing is,
00:07:01
Christian Yordanov
These diets, they're great when you're trying to do research because they're standardized. so That's a massive variable that you're taking out of the picture because if if the if you have like random rats in your study and they're like frolicking in the woods throughout the day and then they come back at the end of the day and then you're testing them and You don't know did this group of rats that they sort of find like a dead carcass and they ate it. as These other guys found like a bag of freaking someone dropped their bag of mixed nuts and they were tucking into that. So their health outcomes would be very variable on the diets that they're exposed to, the predators, you know. So standardizing the diet makes sense when you're trying to study isolated variables. Yeah, we get that. But here's the thing.
00:07:53
Christian Yordanov
This diet nobody because I'll tell you this these diets for rats the one I just kind of described They're very similar for monkeys and rabbits and a bunch of the for the most part they're very similar these diets so they haven't Considered much about what do these animals actually need to thrive? It's about Can we keep them alive long enough to you know torture them and and maim them and inject them and figure out some stuff some science stuff that we can then publish and potentially further our careers or help further an agenda, whatever the case may be. So why am i why am I spending so much time on this? It's because this kind of diet, as you see, soybean meal, corn gluten meal,
00:08:47
Christian Yordanov
chalk cereal grains and I'm sure some of it is GMO with and glyphosate and pesticide laden and the vegetable oil soybean.
Flaws in Calorie Restriction Research
00:08:58
Christian Yordanov
This is a glorified it's It's a concoction of glorified toxic slop, right? So it's toxic in many different ways, you know, the BHA, the BHT, a toxic win, you know, preservatives in there, the various, like I said, vegetable oil, soybean, me just, and there's a lot of phytoestrogens in
00:09:29
Christian Yordanov
uh the soybeans you know it's just it's disgusting any human eating this would get sick very quickly within i would say years would start having health problems and likewise the animals they have a lot of they they develop a lot of health problems eating this diet so what what do they then do when well as it comes to protein restriction and calorie restriction research. So they might have the control group, which often are just allowed to eat ad libitum, aka they can eat as much as they want. So they overeat, they get fat and they develop health problems.
00:10:11
Christian Yordanov
So there then they might have a ah intervention group with the experimental group might be calorie restricted, protein restricted, maybe they might add a specific food or remove a specific thing. And the thing is, if you calorie restrict these animals,
00:10:31
Christian Yordanov
Well, what they're eating less of this poison, the toxic slop, right? So what they're comparing is animals eating various degrees and quantities of glorified toxic slop. And then they're then saying, well, these, these guys, they eat less protein or less calories in total or both. They did better than the animals eating more vegetable oils, more gluten, more fish meal and soybean meal and more grains.
00:11:01
Christian Yordanov
And chalk, and don't forget the chalk, which is actually good if you have acid in the stomach, by the way. Not not that I'm, not that I'm giving you like a tip on what to do if you have acid in the stomach. That's not, that wouldn't be my first thing I try, but anyway, so that's, that's the big problem with this research. So these unfortunate folks are wasting.
00:11:28
Christian Yordanov
They are wasting their careers and their lives researching inconsequential bullshit, unfortunately. And but we, as the kind of the consumer, whether we're the consumer of this research, it's obviously, we're not the consumer, but as kind of the, this is allegedly, it's all about figuring out ways for humanity to you know and reverse chronic disease, avoid chronic disease, live longer, live better, live healthier, health
Limitations of Animal Research for Humans
00:12:01
Christian Yordanov
span, life spanning extension. So ostensibly, this is about us, right? Because the money that these people are wasting often comes from your tax dollars, right?
00:12:16
Christian Yordanov
So should be kind of for our benefit, you would think, but the unfortunate case is that they're just wasting their time and and probably your money doing this. Now, let that aside, and let's just sort of shelve the idea that the fact that these animals are eating such an unnatural diet means we're not really testing there how their physiology was designed right in the natural world, living in natural conditions. they're not we We're not testing that in the their lab animals, so that makes it even harder to extrapolate any of that those research findings to humans who are going to have a different diet, you know live in an entirely different sort of
00:13:05
Christian Yordanov
reality than the animals because these animals you know they're in there and they're in under fluorescent lights and all the all day long and some of these animals are nocturnal and they're being sort of disturbed through the day to kind of you know stick things down their throats and you know prod them with needles and whatever else so they're living very unnatural lives so any any benefits that they find out of this research Not only does it not even extrapolate to those same animals, were they in the real world? There's almost zero takeaways that we can actually take away for humans living in the real world with practical sort of constraints. And when I said that, it's like, yeah, okay, so
00:13:56
Christian Yordanov
Standard lab rat diet is 20% protein, and they're reducing that to a quarter, so they're getting 5% of their total caloric intake is protein. Great that you extended the the lab life by however much. Great that you did that, but what human is going to reduce their their protein down to 5%? And if they do,
00:14:23
Christian Yordanov
what sort of problems are they going to encounter? And what they're going to encounter is frailty, osteopenia, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, loss of muscle mass, loss of bone mass. And they're just going to be weak and frail, accident prone, going to be to have bones made of glass. So, you know, they just look at them and they get a friggin stress fracture type situation. So that's That's why I'm telling you this research For the most part they do in lab rats and stuff. It's freaking useless. It's a waste of taxpayer money It's a waste of their time and so but but let's let's cast that aside for a second.
Exploring Amino Acid Restriction
00:15:08
Christian Yordanov
Let's just and actually look at other research that they've done again in in animals, but what they've done so some bright sparks
00:15:20
Christian Yordanov
along the way they thought what if it's not necessarily calorie restriction that's the of of benefit. And what if not it's not necessarily protein restriction that's necessarily the benefit of those interventions? What if it is specific components of the diet being reduced by virtue of either lowering protein or lowering calories? What if it's something in the diet, a nutrient perhaps,
00:15:56
Christian Yordanov
being reduced, that is contributing contributing to the increased lifespan. So they did a bunch of different research of reducing certain amino acids.
00:16:08
Christian Yordanov
And what researchers found was that certain reducing certain, restricting certain amino acids, actually just those amino acids without lowering calories or or otherwise lowering protein, had very similar longevity benefits in the animals.
00:16:30
Christian Yordanov
So there's like there's a couple of examples I can give you here. For example, methionine restriction, cysteine, tryptophan restriction as well. Those basically are essential amino acids, but when inex When when consumed in excess, they can actually be inflammatory and they can actually reduce lifespan. So I did a little bit of dig digging into this and there actually turns out to be quite a few sort of documented mechanisms through which these amino acids can do this. For example, methionine.
00:17:10
Christian Yordanov
it actually can become homocysteine, depending on how it's metabolized, if there are certain nutrients or a lack of those nutrients, for for example, certain B vitamins, B6, B9 or folate, B12, so on. So methionine is a sort of fairly complex cycle where you know it can become can actually become things like glutathione, cysteine, taurine. Again, that this this this is very much driven by do we have those specific nutrients to to to support those enzymes required to make it to turn into a more beneficial amino acid or compound or does it become homocysteine, which we know that homocysteine is a
00:18:02
Christian Yordanov
actually an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease for one. But we also know that it can promote oxidative stress, inflammation, blood vessel lining dysfunction, endothelial dysfunction as it's known. So there's there's a bunch of there's a bunch of sort of different inflammatory pathways that homocysteine can can trigger. For example, there's one called NF-kappa-beta, that's an inflammatory pathway that can in yeah that can lead to you know oxidative stress, that can lead to lipid peroxidation, which we've discussed before, that damages our cells, our components, their mitochondria, that can accelerate aging, right?
00:18:52
Christian Yordanov
Then when it comes to cysteine, this is actually a precursor to the master antioxidant, as it's known, glutathione in the cells.
00:19:02
Christian Yordanov
But the thing is that excessive cysteine can have a pro-oxidant effect, right so it can generate hydrogen peroxide and other react reactive oxygen species. It can increase sulfide stress leading to mitochondrial dysfunction. It can also drive chronic inflammation.
00:19:24
Christian Yordanov
So this is probably why reducing cysteine in those diets also had some kind of benefit in terms of the longevity ah of of of the animals. then also tryptophan, this is actually a precursor to serotonin and I think I've discussed on the podcast before that actually excess serotonin is pretty pathological. It's pretty harmful for humans despite the propaganda and the the marketing by certain companies that sell.
00:19:57
Christian Yordanov
certain chemicals that raise serotonin, also it can it can be metabolized down other pro-inflammatory pathways. For example, quinolinic acid, this is a um it's basically a new marker of neuroinflammation and the organic acids test and the metabolomics test that I run with a lot of my clients.
00:20:20
Christian Yordanov
we can actually catch if this marker is elevated. And I do see it elevated once in a while. And usually when it's elevated, people have some fairly unpleasant symptoms to go with it. you know um Also, there's the kynurenic acid or the kynurenate pathway. It can also be disruptive. So when you kind of think about it, if these, these are essential amino acids, but just like iron
Moderating Amino Acids for Health
00:20:59
Christian Yordanov
or, you know, selenium, manganese, there's there of vitamin A, there's, we have new nutrient, nutrients that are essential for
00:21:17
Christian Yordanov
growth, development, life, e etc. But there's there's sort of a ah ah thin range where there you know you don't want to be deficient in the thing, but you don't want excess of it because it's goingnna be it's going to promote, for example, too much iron that can promote oxidative stress, it can promote tissue damage, age pigment formation when it reacts with certain other things like polyunsaturated fats. So we know Even minerals, even certain vitamins in excess, there they're not they're not beneficial. It can actually be detrimental. So similarly with amino acids,
00:21:57
Christian Yordanov
It seems to be the same case with certain ones, too much of them can promote just these pathways that are more pro-inflammatory. For example, if you have a lot of methionine, if you don't have the co-factors and various other nutrients required to metabolize it down the more protective pathways, for example, towards taurine, glutathione, stuff like that, well, you might be generating a lot of homocysteine, which can then lead to issues. If you're getting too much tryptophan you might be producing just just serotonin alone in excess can cause a lot of problems for a person. But then of course we we factor in the quinolinic acid pathway which is again a neurotoxic pro-inflammatory compound. So this as you kind of get deeper into it, it absolutely makes sense that
00:22:48
Christian Yordanov
restricting some of these things can be beneficial. So when the researchers restricted these, they got similar longevity benefits as as you do by caloric restriction and protein restriction. Because what you're doing when you're reducing calories is you're reducing also often protein, which means you're reducing these amino acids. And when you're reducing protein, let's say you're keeping the calories the same, but you're reducing protein.
00:23:18
Christian Yordanov
Well, you're still reducing these amino acids, right? So that's interesting. But here's the thing. And this is this is why I'm not even not even
00:23:35
Christian Yordanov
sort of exaggerating when I say that these guys, these gals doing this current caloric restriction research and this protein
Glycine's Role in Health
00:23:46
Christian Yordanov
restriction research are wasting their lives, their careers and their time in general and all their energy is because researchers surmised at some point that if methionine restriction increases lifespan, reduces inflammation, improves metabolic health,
00:24:06
Christian Yordanov
but it's impossible to fully eliminate methionine because it's an essential amino acid.
00:24:13
Christian Yordanov
Could they mimic the benefits of methionine restriction while maintaining muscle mass and overall health? And absolutely they found that certain amino acids, when we add those to the diet, even if we keep methionine content the same, we because of the way the the way they sort of interact with each other,
00:24:43
Christian Yordanov
they could get a similar Lifespan extension effect without having to actually lower calories lower protein And and this kind of sort of things that are possible in the lab But are freaking impossible with real-life humans that don't want to you know just starve themselves in order to live a little bit longer because what kind of a what kind of an What kind of an existence?
00:25:13
Christian Yordanov
Would that be, it would be pretty just horrific. So they found that actually if you increase the amino acid glycine, it can actually neutralize methionine excess and reduce homocysteine buildup.
00:25:35
Christian Yordanov
So the question is, I know, and look, I'm not ah ah obviously i'm not i not a child, I know that as they do this research, they're going to learn more and more every time, every time they do a study and they find new sort of correlations and biomarkers and stuff like that. They're learning stuff and some of it can potentially then feed into randomized control studies in humans and stuff like that. But to me, they kind of, they figured this stuff out quite a while ago is that, yeah, do if you're eating a lot of methionine rich foods, like a lot of muscle meat,
00:26:16
Christian Yordanov
and you're not balancing those
Promoting Health Coaching Services
00:26:18
Christian Yordanov
with, you know, glycine containing collagenous tissue, you're potentially leaving health, health, lifespan slash lifespan gains on the table. So this is why this is something super important that I try to get my clients to start doing from a very, but basically from day one is something that I'm trying to incorporate into their into their diet, into their lifestyle, into their supplementation routine. And it's super important. And actually, if you're a your client in over the next week or so, I'm going to be ah ah recording some presentations around this in a little bit more detail, just to kind of give you a better understanding of what we're doing, what how how we how we actually mimic this methionine restriction and how we, it's it's all about basically buffering the the negative effects of methionine it and and we're already you're probably already doing it. So that's look out for that in the next week or so. It will be appearing in the in the client portal. And I think that's that's where I'll end it. If you are not yet a client, but would like to accelerate your health goals, if you'd like to maybe do a little bit of investigation,
00:27:39
Christian Yordanov
with some lab testing and you want to figure out what what chinks in the armor existed we can identify decades before they become a problem for you and then create a plan for you to start you know optimizing all of those things and a a whole lot of other cool stuff Make sure you Book a call with me over the next few days. I have a few slots open And let's get to talking See where you're at with your health and see how I can help you achieve your health goals and see if we're a good fit to work together because think this is without a doubt a
00:28:21
Christian Yordanov
the best investment you can make for yourself for your health and of course for your family because if you if you learn these things and you start applying them you start it's just no way that they don't sort of rub off on everybody around you so we're creating a lot of really awesome self-perpetuating positive change in the world and it's what I love to do So if you're in in that sort of frame of mind right now, if you're looking for for someone to help guide you along the way and make things a lot clearer for you, simplify things for you, give you your a proper plan and help you implement it and help you sort of tweak it as you as we go, as you start improving and responding to everything we do. if you need If you're looking for that level of support, make sure you get in touch with me, book a call down below.
00:29:08
Christian Yordanov
Click the the link to go to the livelongerformula.com and let's let's meet and talk. That's it. That's all for today. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.