How To Live Forever, With Bulletproof Exec Dave Asprey

What can we do to live longer, healthier lives? Bulletproof Coffee founder Dave Asprey joins us on The Upgrade to talk about the practices he’s adopted that he believes will help us all lengthen our lifespans. Hear him talk about the surprising ways we can fend off ageing that he includes in his latest book, Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever.

Then Lifehacker’s Health Editor, Beth Skwarecki, talks about the longevity secrets she learned while visiting the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica—an area that author Dan Buettner has designated as a Blue Zone.

Listen to The Upgrade above or find us in all the usual places where podcasts are served, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio and Stitcher.

Highlights from this week’s episode

From the Dave Asprey interview

On self-experimenting for his latest book, Super Human:

I did the world’s most extensive stem cell procedure, had stem cells in my brain, inside my spine, every joint in the body, my reproductive organs…You say, Dave, you’re you’re a crazy person. You’re hacking your biology. But think about it like this—I had multiple traumatic brain injuries. I whacked my head a couple of times and I had chemically induced toxic brain damage from living in a house with toxic mould when I was young. I’ve grown my brain back…I have a healthy brain. So if I could do that, given the crappy biological background I started out with, it’s pretty likely that the rest of us can.

On why he’s jumping on the most cutting-edge health science and technology

The research is right here on my body. I’m not feeling as good as I want to. I want to live longer than you think I’m going to. So I am going to take what you just taught me in your paper. And I am happy to be a human guinea pig, because every time you pick up a fork, every time you decide to move, every time you go to bed, you’re already running an experiment yourself. You just might as well do the one that’s most likely to work. You might be wrong. You’re just less likely to be wrong than not. So let’s talk about making you live a long time instead of waiting 100 years to see if something work. You’re gonna be dead in 100 years if you wait a hundred years to see if it works.

From the Beth Skwarecki’s discussion on her trip to a Blue Zone

On learning about the role religion played for the centenarians she interviewed:

One thing that that everybody I talked to said is people [in the Nicoya Peninsula] that live a long time tend to have like a spirituality. They’ve got family that cares for them…And it was often spoken of in terms of like having a reason to get up in the morning, not just like, “OK, I’m still here,” but like you have a life that feels full and people that support you. And, you know, if you’re religious, you kind of feel like you have a reason to be on the earth. And so, you know, how much does this matter to physical health? I don’t know. But it seems to be like a very important part of mental health.

To hear more of Dave’s discussion on the emerging science behind longevity and Beth’s experience in one of the world’s Blue Zones, we recommend listening to the podcast!