Can we live to 120?

Nick Bitz: Hi everybody. It’s great to be here, Peter.

Peter Bowes: Good to talk to you, Nick. Neurohacker Collective. I gave a very brief outline as to what you do. Could you embellish that a little bit and explain what your purpose is working alongside these other experts?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, in short. Neurohacker Collective is a biohacking company. We are a group of scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, health enthusiasts that that enjoy building nootropic products and anti-aging products overall. And so we’re really on a mission to just really improve people’s lives, to optimize human performance on all levels and in very significant and meaningful ways. And so we know that there’s a vast array of dietary supplements in the marketplace, and we really want to provide novel solutions that, again, provide significant and meaningful upgrades in life.

Peter Bowes: You mentioned nootropics and I mentioned them in the introduction. Again, could you explain perhaps how they are distinctly different from many of the supplements that we see on store shelves and that have been on the market for a long time?

Nick Bitz: Yeah. Nootropics are a word that’s been thrown around a lot. It’s definitely an older word. It has Greek roots, which means to turn the mind. And so in short, these nootropic substances or nootropic products are really anything that can improve cognitive performance overall. And so just in short, nootropics are cognitive enhancers. They influence higher brain functions, cognition, behavior, memory, learning. Generally speaking, they have little or no toxicity. They can be used every day to just kind of give you that added brain boost that you’re looking for.

Peter Bowes: And you are indeed involved in quite a variety of different programs, different disciplines, but the central, the dominating factor is movement, hence the name of your company. Anyone Can Move.

Peter Bowes: And you are indeed involved in quite a variety of different programs, different disciplines, but the central, the dominating factor is movement, hence the name of your company. Anyone Can Move.

Nick Bitz: Yeah. So let’s see. Presently, I’m the VP of Product Development of Neurohacker, so I oversee the product development team. I am by training. I’m a naturopathic physician. You know, I’ve practiced for several years up in Los Angeles, up in Seattle, as well as Vail, Colorado. At the time, I was focusing on family medicine and viral medicine, environmental medicine, and I specialized in Ayurveda, and Ayurveda is really my specialty. It’s my my passion. And I would say it’s really the lens that I, I see patient care. I see foods I see botanicals through. And Ayurveda, for anybody that may not be familiar, is considered the first form of medicine in the world. And it comes from India. It’s about 5000 years old. It’s considered the sister of science or the brother science to yoga. They go hand in hand from a philosophy standpoint, and I’ve just seen Ayurveda work very well for conditions that are very hard to treat in a clinical setting. And so kind of what’s what’s old is new. Again, we’re seeing this resurgence, renewed interest in these old therapies, these old ways of thinking. And Ayurveda is no different. It’s certainly is making its way into the US. We’re seeing it on the shelves. Of Whole Foods and Sprouts markets and various health food stores in the form of Ashwagandha as an example. These tried and true botanicals that come from the Ayurvedic tradition. And so, you know, I’ve really been in the dietary supplement space for my entire life. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and I worked the aisles of some of the early health food stores and was passionate about botanicals and nutritional therapies. And so I really wanted to focus my life in that area, which is why I went to study naturopathic medicine up in Seattle. The reason that I chose naturopathy medicine over more conventional medical training is because they give you that good background in botanical medicine, in nutritional therapies and counseling. It’s much more holistic, and I felt that integrative medicine was sorely needing, sorely needed at the time when I was when I was studying medicine. And so naturopathic medicine and Ayurveda really helped to fill that void for me personally. And so, you know, in 2009, I moved to Los Angeles. I moved out of clinical practice and I started formulating for a couple of different companies in the supplement space. And so that was really my foot in the door as a formulator. And then from then, I’ve worked for a couple of different companies now, most recently with the Neurohacker collective developing products.

Peter Bowes: You said holistic. Holistic is another one of those words that’s bandied around quite a lot. And and when you hear it, you almost instinctively think, Oh, that means better, that means more wholesome, that means more organic. Can you give me maybe a better definition of that and why we should be excited about things being holistic?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, it’s a really good point. I think there probably is a fair amount of confusion around that term. Obviously, holistic means whole. And in short, I think of anything that that is holistic as being more broad and its viewpoints. And so when you look at a human, you really can’t reduce that human down to a specific disease or a specific pathway or one specific imbalance. Everything is interconnected and everything interplays with each other. And so the only way I think to get the real benefits that you’re looking for is to address the whole system. And rather than just pushing one pathway, you need to look at everything that’s going on inside the body. And so that obviously includes a lot of lifestyle facets, including sleep patterns, what you eat on a daily basis, how you relate to people, how you relate to your job, your environmental surroundings. We take all of that into consideration and we look at the person as a whole because everything influences that person. And so when I think of holistic medicine, I think of it less as a disease oriented system of health care and more as a health promoting system of health care. And so as a holistic physician, my goal has always been to promote health. And so I’m not looking at somebody’s knee pain or their headaches or these, you know, one off imbalances. I’m looking at the entire person and saying, how can I bring that person from their current state of health into a more elevated, upgraded, increased state of health? And I find that when you can increase somebody’s state of health overall, these these disorders, these imbalances that they’ve had forever or even for a short amount of time will spontaneously disappear. And so the analogy that I like to use is just turning on the light switch. You know, if you walk into a room, in the room is pitch black, you don’t try to push the darkness out, right? You just turn on the light. And so holistic medicine is doing that. It’s creating whole body health from a very broad perspective.

Peter Bowes: Which I guess comes back to how I started saying that there is no one solution to better health today and ultimately longevity. It isn’t just diet, exercise, sleep or the supplementation regime that we choose. It is a combination of of all of that.

Nick Bitz: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and when I think about dietary supplements, they’re just a tool. You know, they’re a tool that I recommend people use, but they’re not the only tool that I recommend using. You know, you really need to look at all facets to make sure that people are getting the full benefit that they’re looking for.

Peter Bowes: So as I often phrase it, where do we start? This can be quite overwhelming for someone who has maybe that light bulb moment that they need to do something to improve their everyday health and. Hopefully their healthspan, the number of years that they enjoy optimum health. But when we’re talking about all these different parts to the jigsaw, it can be quite overwhelming, can’t it, in terms of which intervention or which combination of interventions to start with?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, you know, absolutely. I think it is important to work with a health care practitioner that understands the intricacies of all these different therapies, all these different recommendations, so that you’re getting the very best tried and true suggestions that that are pertinent for you. I think a lot of people simply rely on Google. They look up something and then they try something and that’s fine. You know, I think that that’s certainly has opened people up to these more holistic natural interventions, such as dietary supplements, because there’s a trial that really feeds into that that interest and they may or may not get benefit, but they are trying it. And so I think that opens the door for them, which is significant because five years ago people weren’t looking at dietary supplements from a very mainstream perspective. But I think over the last five years, I think that there’s been a lot more acceptance to these types of therapies, but not all therapies, not all dietary supplements are the same. And it’s really important to understand what is needed for you as a person.

Peter Bowes: And do you think in this well, hopefully post-COVID world, COVID hasn’t gone away, but hopefully the situation is getting better, that people are more aware of their needs with respect to what we’re talking about, that supplementation and other interventions to improve our health is what we need. And that that sort of base immunity to help us fight new viruses potentially if they come along is all important?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, I think COVID has been an opportunity for everybody to really assess their immune status, and I think that that specific issue has much larger ramifications for health. And people are understanding that that in order to be fully healthy, fully well, even just looking at the immune system as an example, you need to be proactive in that area in order to get the benefit. You can’t just passively allow the days to go by and and the environmental conditions or these internal conditions that arise if you don’t have the tools or the vitality to rise up and meet the demand, you’re going to be in trouble. And so I think people are understanding that they need to be proactive. And then there are tools that allow you to be proactive in your own health care.

Peter Bowes: And we’re approaching the winter season and there’s a lot of reporting around at the moment. It’s a little unpredictable, but it could be a very bad flu season. We haven’t had much flu over the last couple of years. And again, that helps people focus their minds in terms of how they can not deal with it when it happens, but hopefully prepare for it and perhaps prevent some of the the worst aspects of the flu if it were to hit them.

Nick Bitz: Yeah, and there’s a lot of really actionable things that people can do on a daily basis. Right. And again, it all starts with some of the basic lifestyles, making sure that you’re getting enough sleep, making sure that you’re eating a nutritionally dense diet, of course, adding in vitamin D and looking at your vitamin D status, critically important. And then there’s more targeted nutritional regimens as well. When you get into functional medicines or you get into beta glucan, which is an isolated component found in functional mushrooms, you can take these things day in and day out just to make sure that you’re building your immune system and you’re not just trying to be reactive when the time arises to be reactive.

Peter Bowes: You’re listening to the Live Long and Master Aging podcast. Our guest is a naturopathic doctor, Dr. Nick Bitz. This is Nick, a podcast about human longevity. It is about the aging process. It is about looking ahead to hopefully future decades when we enjoy the best of health. I’m curious what your perspective is on aging and perhaps this phrase the hallmarks of aging that are you so frequently?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, aging is an enormous topic. There’s a lot of new science in aging every week, but I do think a good starting point for any conversation around aging is the hallmarks of aging. And this idea of the hallmarks of aging came about in a 2013 groundbreaking review article that summarized all of the aging science up to that point and successfully, they were able to categorize the underlying causes of aging into nine different categories. And these are called the Nine Hallmarks of Aging. And they’re really just these functional mechanisms that we know that drive the aging process overall. And so this idea of these nine hallmarks really has been I think Instrumental in guiding and pushing forward research in the area of the biology of aging. And so these hallmarks are not diseases themselves, but rather they’re, again, these underlying factors that really drive the aging processes overall. And so some of them are a little bit technical, but some of them are, I think most of your listeners probably know about one would be mitochondria. And we know that as we age, we tend to acquire these mitochondrial dysfunctions. And mitochondria are just these powerhouses that are in the centers of all the cells throughout the body. And as we age, we tend to these mitochondria powerhouses tend to become less efficient and they produce less ATP cellular energy, which has very broad consequences throughout the body. Another hallmark would be the shortening of telomeres. And telomeres are just these protective caps at the end of DNA that protect the DNA. And so when they shorten, you have consequences around DNA and genomic instability. And so one that’s getting one hallmark, that’s getting a lot of press these days and getting a lot of attention in the lab is this area of cellular senescence and cellular senescence, I think, is that one of the most fascinating hallmarks overall? And, you know, we’re starting to see a lot of product development in this area because the potential and the promise in this area is so vast.

Peter Bowes: And what is interesting to me is that what you’ve just been talking about are aspects of aging that we can’t see. We’re talking about cellular science and the health of our cells, mitochondria cells, the perhaps to use a common term past their sell by date that they’ve done their job. They are no longer any use. They need to be either thrown out or in some ways repaired before they can be used again. And the processes that you’ve just been referring to and especially mitochondrial health, are so crucial to us. But also, I imagine for a lot of people, easily overlooked because there is no obvious outward indication that perhaps our mitochondria are not doing as well as they could. So I’m wondering how you can share that knowledge and share that education with people in a way that it matters to us as much as our diet matters, which we can see in terms of being muscular or we can see him being overweight or perhaps our exercise regime more generally, that enables us to to run and to walk fast and to do all those physical things that we enjoy. Targeting our cellular health isn’t quite as easy as it.

Nick Bitz: You know, it’s not. But it is possible. And I think that’s the promise of healthy aging and anti-aging medicine overall. You know, there is something called chronological age, which is really your your calendar birthday, but there’s a lot of other forms of age. Right? Biological age would be one, the perceivable age. How people view you. Do you look young? Do you look vital? There’s the felt age. You know, do you feel your age? If you’re 40, do you feel 40? Or maybe do you feel 60? Maybe you feel a little bit younger. And so overall, anti-aging medicine is looking at these invisible forces and trying to figure out what can we do to make significant and meaningful changes in ways that are felt, that are that are visible, that actually create change in the body. And so I think the promise of cellular senescence and getting into this area of senolytics is really fascinating because it’s very actionable and it’s a tool that people can use day in and day out and they can feel the results. You know, it’s a lot of times you end up taking, as an example, a supplement. You take a probiotic and you wonder, is it working? It may not be felt, you may not have less gas, less bloating, better bowel movements, but you end up taking it every day because you think that it’s working. And so there’s a lot of value, I think, in these therapies that can be felt. And I think neurohacker collective is building products in this area because we want these these, these positive experiences for our customers overall.

Peter Bowes: So I think when you’re talking about senolytics and senescent cells, it is important, as you said, to work with a professional to work with someone when you’re talking about supplementation as to precisely what is best for you in terms of the products and the dosage required for the individual. Because we are all different, we all respond to interventions in different ways. And I always say I say this repeatedly on the podcast if you are considering a change. A dietary change. Consult your doctor or your health professional first, because as a complete as a full whole human being, everything is interconnected and you need to be checked out. But I’m curious in terms of what you would suggest in terms of physical changes or dietary changes, leaving aside supplementation at the moment, just purely physical changes to our lifestyle in terms of interventions and what we eat that could benefit us at a cellular level.

Nick Bitz: Yeah, I mean, if we focus on senescence as an example, there are some lifestyle suggestions that that some of the bigger minds in this space tend to make. Obviously, exercise is critically important. We know that people that do exercise have a lower incidence of senescent cell burden over the course of their lifetime. So critically important to find an exercise regimen that works specifically for you. Obviously, if you’re doing something that’s taxing your immune system, that is going to reduce the body’s ability to get rid of these senescent cells over time. And so, you know, running long marathons, training, overtraining, as it were. Lifting too many weights too frequently, these types of things can actually stress out the system and create more issues than they do positive benefits overall. So finding the right kind of exercise is critically important. I’m a big fan of yoga. I’m a big fan of walking. Those two are very low physical load on the joints. There’s something that you can do every single day and you can do them for your entire life. You know, when you’re 120, you can certainly do some mild stretching. You can go for a walk around the block. So exercise critically important. I think everybody understands that when we talk about senescence, another area that you can you can impact through lifestyle regimens would be diet. And we know that fasting really helps to prime the body to get rid of these senescent cells. It actually induces what’s called a autophagy. And autophagy is just the cellular recycling. So when you have stressed or damaged cells, your body will go in there and renew these proteins or renew these cells to make them whole again. And so we know that fasting sets the body up to effectively do that, as well as to lower the senescent cell load overall. And then the immune system is critically important. So when you have cells that are stressed out, that are worn out, that have gone through their entire life cycle from birth to death, you need to prune them from the body. And so in part, one of the ways that we do that is through the immune system. And so when you have a robust, strong immune response overall, you’re going to be able to go in there and lower your your senescent cell load over time.

Peter Bowes: And in terms of embracing Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of medicine for people who are used to modern day American Western world systems of medicine, why would you suggest that people start perhaps just changing the emphasis of their health care?

Nick Bitz: Yeah. When it comes to Ayurveda, I do think it’s important to work with somebody who knows what they’re doing. In part, I think the starting point for any Ayurvedic regimen is understanding your body type, your your constitution. And so we’re all made up of these five different elements. And depending on the interplay of those elements within your body, you then would understand what you need to do from a botanical diet, lifestyle regimen, choice. And so you need to understand, are you a vata, pitta, or kapha body type? Those are the kind of the three primary body types. But then there’s mixtures. You have a Vata pitta, you have a pitta vata, you have a vata kapha and on and on. So it really is important to work with somebody who can listen to your concerns, understand who you are, what your needs are based upon pulse, diagnosis, tongue diagnosis, face diagnosis and such. The thing that I like that Ayurveda does so well is again, that it works from an energetic standpoint. And so whenever it looks at a botanical, let’s talk about ashwagandha, which I mentioned earlier. It looks at the energetics of that plant and it understands that those energetics are going to influence your body energetics. And so Ayurveda is a medicine of opposites. And so if you have too much heat, you need to do things that are heat reducing in your diet or botanically. And so ashwagandha tends to be heating. Overall, it tends to be oily. It tends to be calming. And so it’s perfect for body types that are the opposite of that, that are cold, that are dry, and that tend to be frenetic or nervous. And so it perfectly balances out that person If you’re taking ashwagandha and those are your energetic foundational qualities, you can create balance day in and day out. Once you understand what’s needed for your specific body type.

Peter Bowes: And balance is hugely important, isn’t it, in so many aspects of our health? And in other word that I like to use often is moderation. And that is, I’d be interested in your thoughts on this or not going to extremes in terms of potential interventions that we think might help us. But then sometimes there’s a temptation to go over the top with them.

Nick Bitz: Yeah, I mean, you’ve probably talked about it, and if not, you’ve probably heard the term orthorexia. And people, they take these health promoting regimens, protocols, therapies, diet recommendations, they take those to an extreme and it actually creates an imbalance. So it is incredibly important to have flexibility in the mind and to have flexibility in your your diet and your regimen. And so I often recommend an 8020 rule where 80% of the time you’re doing things pretty strictly, but then it allows for that 20% where you can kind of play around. You can indulge, you know, you can stay out late with friends, you know, you can you can veer from that strict course 20% of the time. And so it is critically important, I think, for balance, because you can’t be 100% all the time. It really, I think, limits your freedom around health.

Peter Bowes: So, Nick, I think you mentioned a few moments ago or you referred to potentially getting to I think it was 120 years old. And again, this is a podcast about aging and the potential to live a very long, healthy life. I’m curious what your own personal aspirations are in the real world, what you think is possible, and what you’re doing in your own daily lifestyle to achieve a great long life.

Nick Bitz: You know, it’s a great question. I often ask people what are their intentions around? How long do you want to live? I think a lot of people haven’t really framed that question or ask themselves that question. But it is a very interesting question. You know, when you get into the Ayurvedic sciences, you get into the yogic sciences. The literature shows that we can live to 120 comfortably. It takes a lot of work. But I think given our current technology, what we know from a health promoting perspective, that is absolutely achievable. Of course, anti-aging science is constantly evolving where we have new discoveries every day, every week. So I think that within the next couple of years, there’s going to be some new strategies that can help us along the way. But I think just given some of the foundational basics that we have at our disposal today, I think hitting 100 should be no problem. And beyond that, I think is absolutely achievable. And so, you know, in my studies of Ayurveda, I’ve been able to capture a lot of these really core concepts that that I utilize for myself and that I have recommended for patients as well. You know, one of them is this idea of Panchakarma. And so from an Ayurvedic perspective, they recommend these detox therapies called Panchakarma. Pancha means five karma means action. And so there’s five ways to get rid of these kind of the build up of disordered energy in the body. And so you basically do a preparatory diet. You go through these Panchakarma treatments, working with a trained practitioner, and then you implement a lot of Ayurvedic tools after. It’s very effective. You know, I lived in southern India for a good chunk of time and I worked in an ayurvedic panchakarma hospital where we had patients from all over the world that would come in from anywhere from a week to about 40 days for these panchakarma treatments. Incredible in terms of the results that it provides. You know, this this idea of adaptogens is now blowing up, especially in the States and adaptogens the idea of adaptogens as it is. They don’t really exist in Ayurveda and Ayurveda doesn’t talk about adaptogens. So even though ashwagandha is quote unquote an adaptogen Ayurveda doesn’t frame it that way. But they they look at these rejuvenative therapies and they have a whole branch of medicine called Rasāyana, which means the path of juice and in short these therapies are thought to inject juice or water or moisture or vitality into the body, which promotes longevity. And so I use the analogy of we all start out as this ripe grape, and over time we lose that juiciness, that water, that moisture, and eventually we become the shriveled raisin in the end. And so how do we shift that course from grape to raisin along the way? And Ayurveda again has a whole category of therapies that are rejuvenative and are geared at injecting that that juice as it is back into the body to give it more longevity to allow you to live longer. One simple tool would be something `called Abhyanga and Abhyanga is oil therapies that you do day in and day out. It’s a self massage. And so once you understand your body type, you find a body type appropriate massage oil to give yourself a massage every single day before or after you get out of the shower. And that really helps to just nourish all of the tissues, nourish the central nervous system, the nerves, the brains helps to ground you in your body. And again, to use an analogy, it’s it’s like adding oil to a piece of leather. You know, if you put a piece of leather without any oil on it out in the sun, eventually it’s just going to dry up and shrivel. But if you put oil on it day in and day out, that piece of leather will stand the test of time forever. And so Abhyanga is a fascinating area of science in and of itself, but it’s very simple. So just use a simple, unrefined or refined sesame oil and give yourself a body massage every day.

Peter Bowes: That’s really interesting. And in terms of with that 120 years in mind, do you have any other daily rituals? Just give me a snapshot of a day in the life of Nick Bitz and what you do first thing in the morning to nurture your longevity?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, you know, I, I veer from my meditation practice. I would love to say that I do meditation every single day, but I aspire to do more meditation again. I’ve had meditation in my practice for 20 plus years, easily. I practice vipassana meditation, and the recommendation from that school of philosophy is that you should meditate an hour in the morning and an hour at night. And given my schedule these days, I’m trying to get about 20 minutes in per day, which is still valuable and I get a lot of benefit. It really helps to just clear my mind and center me during the course of my day. And so meditation is definitely one tool. I’m a huge fan of Sun Salutations, which is a really foundational yogic practice, and so I do 12 Sun salutations every single day because it works every major muscle in the body, it works every major joint in the body. And that for me is my favorite form of exercise. And then I also do some breathing exercises. I’m a big fan of Dr. Andrew Weil’s… he calls it the four, seven, eight breathing exercise.

Peter Bowes: That’s great.

Nick Bitz: I also do boxed breathing and I do more vigorous pranayama yogic breathing to just to move Prana, to move energy through the body, to make sure that I’m not getting too stagnant. I definitely sit in front of a computer, a lot to work. And so I try to make sure that I’m countering that through energetic work.

Peter Bowes: And in terms of the reasons why any of us would want to live to a great age, it seems fairly obvious to me, but it isn’t necessarily obvious and it isn’t an aspiration of everyone. But from your perspective, what would the joy be in being 100, 110, 120 and hopefully in good health?

Nick Bitz: Yeah, that’s the key. I mean, I certainly don’t aspire for longevity just to live to 120. You know, it really is about healthspan How can you create health and live healthy later in life? And so from my standpoint, it’s just it’s about giving back. It’s about doing my part in the world. It’s about participating in my family. It’s about seeing my kids have kids. And I think there’s a lot of wisdom. The older you get, the wiser you become. And I think the older that you get, the more impactful you can become in your communities. And unfortunately, when you’re in your twenties, it’s not usually not a priority. But I think once you get later in life, you understand giving back and the value of giving back. And so I think that I think that’s that’s really the big promise. I think that citizens that can live to 100, 110, 120. I think that their output and their outcomes becomes much more incredible later in life.

Peter Bowes: And I think that’s a great point to end this. Nick, fascinating to talk to you. You’re based in Los Angeles, we’ll put details of how to do a deeper dive into your work, into the show notes for this episode. But if people do want to get in touch with you and follow you more closely, where should they go?

Nick Bitz: Yeah. Neurohacker.com that has all of the products that were creating presently. You can follow us on all the different social media outlets. That’s probably the best way.

Peter Bowes: Excellent. As I say, I’ll put the details so it’s clickable. Easy to get to you into the show notes for this episode. Nick, thank you very much indeed.

Nick Bitz: Thank you so much.

Peter Bowes: And you’ll find those show notes at the LLAMA podcast website. That’s LLAMApodcast.com. This has been a Healthspan Media production. I’m @PeterBowes. Love to hear your feedback to the conversations that we have. And in the meantime, do take care and thanks for listening.