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Up One cuts through the noise of health and wellness trends. Hosted by Sawyer Stone and longevity scientist Dr. Bill Andrews, each episode unpacks peer-reviewed research on supplements, therapies, and diagnostics - no fluff, just facts. If you're serious about the science of aging and human performance, it's time to take it Up One.
Sawyer Stone: [00:00:00] Welcome to Up one, the podcast where we take a deep dive into the science behind supplements, therapies, and diagnostics. I'm Sawyer Stone, your Guide through the Maze of Health Claims. Here to ask the big questions.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And I'm Dr. Bill Andrews With decades of experience in medical research, I've dedicated my career to uncovering.
The real science behind disease, aging, and human health. On this podcast, we don't just skim the surface of scientific studies. We conduct a critical meta-analysis separating credible research from misleading conclusions.
Sawyer Stone: There's a lot of noise out there, conflicting studies, bold claims, and endless marketing up.
One is here to cut through it all and bring you science backed insights that you can actually trust.
Dr. Bill Andrews: We're talking prevention, diagnostics, treatments, and the big questions shaping the future of health.
Sawyer Stone: If you're [00:01:00] serious about understanding the science of health and longevity without the fluff, let's take it up one.
All right, Dr. Bill, how are you today?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I'm doing great. How are you?
Sawyer Stone: I'm doing well. It's, uh, getting to the point where it's hot, hot, hot here in North Carolina, so the second you step outside, you're like cutting through some humidity and starting to sweat immediately, but I'm sure it's even hotter where you are.
Dr. Bill Andrews: No, actually I'm, I'm almost at a mile altitude, so it's. Usually cooler here than the rest of the thing. In fact, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt today because, uh, when I went out to walk my dog, it was cold, so,
Sawyer Stone: wow. I'm jealous of your altitude then. Well, Dr. Ba, the last time we talked about telomeres was our first episode.
And we talked about telomeres and antiaging, and I just kind of wanted to go back and pick your brain a little bit and what we can do practically to increase our longevity and live fuller and healthier [00:02:00] lives. I think maybe, you know, just a hair on that subject.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yes, I am. It's my specialty. Yes. I can tell you, I can answer a lot of stuff about that.
Um, but tel telomeres always become, the telomeres always become. The, the bottom line.
Sawyer Stone: Can you tell the story really quick about what you told your dad when you were nine?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, when I was 10.
Sawyer Stone: 10, sorry. Uh,
Dr. Bill Andrews: yeah, I, I, and it was, my teachers sent me home with a note pinned to my shirt, uh, and my father and mother opened up the note and it said, your son's very interested in science and medicine.
You should nurture this. Now my, my parents already knew that I was interested in things like astronomy and stuff like that because I had the previous Christmas had wanted a telescope for Christmas and they got me a, what I would call a toy telescope, and I cried. I was not a good enough [00:03:00] telescope. So on Christmas day or the day after Christmas, we went out for a drive use, uh, at uh, house sales or garage sales.
And found a nice eight inch reflector telescope, which was, you know, almost as big as I was. Yeah. And that was the best thing that ever happened. So I'm out on the front lawn, uh, looking at Saturn and Jupiter and all kinds of stuff with this telescope, and I'm just addicted to it. And my father comes out to the lawn and says, bill, when you grow up, you should become a doctor.
And find the cure for aging. Then he says, I don't know why nobody's done that yet. Uh, and, uh, I, I, I was hooked on it since that moment because I thought, oh my God, this is, this is something boy I'd really like to do. And I've been obsessed with it ever since then. So I could spend an hour talking about everything that ensued from there.
But that's, that answers the question about what my father [00:04:00] said to me.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. No, I think it's a good perspective for all of our listeners to have about how dedicated you are to this specific subject. It's, it's good. Yeah. Alright, so along those lines about a big passion that you've had and you've had for like a decent amount of time, you've been running ultra marathons and big, huge races that are, you know, at high altitudes or in extreme temperatures for a good amount of time in your life.
Do you, do you think that you wouldn't be able to do that at your age if you hadn't like really regulated and been pretty regimented on what you were putting in your body or what you were putting your body through?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Absolutely. I mean, I, I've been running my entire life. I mean, it's like I was the kid that was always yelled at for running along the pool, but my parents never, never did the yelling.
They encouraged it. Uh, and then in high school I was at a, uh, all boys boarding school called Kate School, [00:05:00] and every time there was meals I would run from my dorm room to the. Cafeteria and back and forth, and everybody used to make fun of the fact that I, I never walked, I always ran. Um, so, but it was like when I was 10 years old, my father entered me into a one mile race because I was running all the time.
And I ended up, uh, lapping second place twice. Uh, so it was like, I, I knew I was into an endurance running, but I, I never actually focused on. My diet for running. I mean there, there were some things I'll come back to, but. I was, I was always saying to myself, don't smoke, don't drink a lot, don't do a lot of different things that, that are toxic to cells.
'cause I didn't know at the time that they were toxic to cells. I just knew that smokers and things like that were not as good at athletes as, as non-smokers. So, [00:06:00] but I, I, I decided I really like this running. I, in fact, what I liked most about it was the adventure of running. Uh, because I, most of my running was on trails, and it's oftentimes off trail.
I, I, I'm addicted to the idea of just. Running through a forest with no trail, uh, and then figuring out how to get out of there one way or another. I, I'm, I'm, I'm really good. I've been in ultra marathons where everybody got lost and I was the one that found our way home, that kind of thing. But, uh, uh, I, uh, so I, I was mostly doing, like running on my own.
I remember we lived in Lake Arrowhead. Uh, California, and one day my brother and I decided to run around Lake Arrowhead for fun. And everybody thought we were crazy, but it was fun. And that's, that's so Ru Running's always been fun. The, the main things that I did besides real diet was I always made a point of having good physical therapists.
I [00:07:00] was always conscientious about. What I eat and do while running. Okay. Uh, like, like, uh, carbs, electrolytes, uh, I, I guess I learned that in high school. Um, but I was, you know, I listened to my coaches and, and even when I wasn't competing in high school, because I, I competed in high school and college track and cross country.
Um, and, uh, but I just believed everything they told me. And the, the, I would say the first time I ever started really worrying about diet was when I was realizing that sometimes I get sick during races. And was it because of something I ate? So I did a big study on myself to find out what, what can I eat that doesn't cause me to get sick during a race?
And, and I came up with fish and rice. Okay. So, mm-hmm. This was long before I was a vegan. Um, but, uh, I, um, I, I started making a point of always the night before a race, having fish [00:08:00] in rice. And I never got sick at races, but everybody's different. Okay. You know, uh, I really didn't start, uh. Really focusing on diet and stuff like that until I turned that magical year of 65 years old.
You know, that's, that's the day everybody's supposed to retire. And I didn't feel like I was ready to retire. Uh, and, uh, uh, in fact, I, I just felt like I was just beginning in my endeavors. I, I ended up even breaking some world records, uh, after I turned 65. But I started really focusing on diet, uh, and I decided that, uh.
The most important thing was to be vegan. Mm-hmm. And I also cut out my oils. Okay. I, I did a lot of studying and reading on, uh, you know, p and scientifically peer reviewed studies, not just press releases and things like that, but I became a big fan of, like Dr. Caldwell Selten, who had published a lot on [00:09:00] the fact that oils even olive oil, uh, causes your, uh, collateral arteries to collapse.
We don't want that. So I, I took oils outta my diet. Uh, and then I started realizing that, you know, there's a lot of inflammatory things in. Meats and fish and fowl and dairy. And, uh, so I decided to switch to plants to do that. And then, but I, I got even more, I, so like when I turned 65, I started taking what are called alcat tests, A-L-C-A-T.
Mm-hmm. And that's where I test my sensitivity to foods. And again, everybody's different. So, uh, I had to find out what am I sensitive to?
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And uh, so I started taking Alcat tests and I quit eating the foods that I was sensitive to. Uh, but that one of the things I found out from the Alcat test was that I was very sensitive to a arachidonic acid, uh, which is found in [00:10:00] meats and fish and foul and dairy, but not in plants.
Uh, and so one of the things I did was. Became vegan for that reason. Inflammation Nation is a good book that talks about the arachidonic acid. And so I read that and it wasn't a, it wasn't peer reviewed, but it had a lot of peer reviewed studies that I, that I was referred to in the book. I'm addicted to running because of the adventure and I wanted to make certain I could always do it.
So I started really focusing on diet and stuff like that to make certain I could continue to run as long as I could.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Okay. Well then I just, we gotta go back, okay. To the Guinness World Records or to the world records that were broken, because I just think that our listeners are gonna be like, hello?
Can you tell us what those are?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, first of all, I, I used to hold the world speed record for Barefoot Water Scheme at 74.9, 74.93 miles per hour. But I remember how. That
Sawyer Stone: had to
Dr. Bill Andrews: hurt me. Your feet. Yeah. No, it, well, [00:11:00] that was actually a big problem. In fact, I think I still hold the world record for that because, uh, when I went to break my own world record, I did get very bad damage to my feet.
And, uh, yeah. The American Water Ski Association in the American Drag Boat Association changed the rules that you're not allowed to actually do it on your bare feet anymore. You had to wear wetsuit, booties.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So right away the world record went up to like a hundred miles per hour, uh, because the wetsuit booties made it a lot easier.
I think I might be the last person that actually did it really barefoot, barefooted. But, uh, the thing that I was most shocked at when I think about those days, 'cause it was always quarter mile drags, there'd be two, two boats with, uh, skiers behind and. We'd all be escorted out to the starting line in a, uh, some other kind of small boat, and I was always surprised that all my competitors [00:12:00] smoked.
Ugh. Yeah. And it was like we'd be going out and they'd be smoking a cigarette trying to finish a cigarette before the actual race. And I, I thought that was so crazy. I mean, but you know, I, I ended up lasting a lot longer than they did. Uh, and, uh, but, uh, yeah, so, so that was one world record, but that, that really had nothing to do with diet.
The other world records were,
Sawyer Stone: wait, wait, how old were you when that happened?
Dr. Bill Andrews: That was, I, God, I think I was 20, so that was, I was still doing Okay. Okay. The, uh, uh, that was 1971. The other world record was. Uh, there's more than one, but was, I ran more 100 mile races in one year than anybody. And that was what, and yeah, it was.
I, I think I ran, I ran 11 100 mile races in one year, but it wasn't, I had no idea that there was any records or anything like that. It was just fun. I just, I got so addicted to running a hundred mile races because I have this strategy about running, [00:13:00] uh, and that's. Keep it fun. You know, don't, yeah, don't worry about winning.
If it's not fun, don't do
Sawyer Stone: it.
Dr. Bill Andrews: It's the, not the destination, it's the adventure. I, I would, I would love ultra marathons because I would go in the wilderness where nobody was there and oftentimes. They would have food drops and water drops by helicopter. And that was the only way you could get things. And there, I, my favorite races were the ones that nobody finished, you know?
Right. There's one race called the Barclays Marathon, which is a hundred mile race, uh, that, uh, something like only five people have ever finished. Uh, but I, I tried that three times. I never, I didn't, I never finished. But I had fun. You guys had, I had fun trying it. Um, the, um, but yeah, so, so. I just decided one year that I was gonna, you know, sign up for every a hundred mile race I could.
And when I got done that year, uh, somebody told me I had broken the world record for, for that. Uh, [00:14:00] so, but, uh, but I never thought anything except it was fun. I also got several awards called the, um, uh, grand Slam of Ultra Marathon Running and the, uh. What was the other word called? The Greatest Race on Earth, uh, which is, uh, where I competed in c certain marathons and, uh, ultra marathons.
And I didn't even know those awards existed, but it was just, it was just fun. I, I always, what I always say when I speak at conferences that deal with endurance sports. Keep it fun. And then when it quits being fun, quit and save it for another day. Uh, and that goes not just for running, but bicycling, kayaking, uh, soccer, you know, anything has to do with pickleball.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Definitely I feel like I ran, like I'm not a runner. I wanna like run after a ball in a soccer field. I don't wanna like just go running. But in 2019 I ran 13 five [00:15:00] Ks and I was like af at the end of 2019. I was like, I don't need to do this ever again. Just like wore myself out on it.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Sprinting, like five Ks is really a sprint. Those things for you Yeah. Of us are
Sawyer Stone: struggling.
Dr. Bill Andrews: No. Yeah. No, I, I, I go as fast as I can when I run a 5K, but they're, they're, they're just not as fun as, as, there's no adventure in typically typical five Ks, and, and so you, you get burned out really fast. I, I've never been burned out from running ultra marathons.
Uh, and I, I keep looking for bigger and bigger adventures and, and I'm not sure, you know, my wife is also big into ultra marathons, and she is. Mm-hmm. She, she's this like-minded with me. She just, she just, uh, did the, uh, uh, uh, what is it called? The World Marathon Challenge, which is. Running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
Insane. And that included her first one was [00:16:00] Antarctica. Yeah, I'm jealous. 'cause I've still never run an Antarctica and I never run in Africa. I've run in every other country, but not, not an Africa or Antarctica. And, uh, now, now she's training to run next month in the, on the North Pole. They're gonna take a ice cutter from Norway.
And, uh, uh, spend a week cutting through the ice to get to the North Pole. Then everybody's gonna get off the boat and run a marathon.
Sawyer Stone: Does she have to run with like, snow shoes on? Like snow spikes?
Dr. Bill Andrews: No. No. Uh, well, she might be running with, excuse me, might be running with spikes, but, um, it's, it's kind of like hard packed stuff.
Okay. The thing was, is that she has to run with a life preserver on. Because there's places where people can cave through, uh, into the cold water. And then there's also, uh, people out with rifles to prevent runners from being attacked by polar bears. So, oh God. I mean, [00:17:00] that kind of stuff just makes me and my wife Molly.
More anxious to do the race than ever because of the adventure kind of thing. It's like, yeah, it sounds like fun. I, I, uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah, I would do it for the polar bears. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, yeah, the, uh, there, there's also some polar plunge that every runner is supposed to do. That's where they tie a rope around you and then you jump into the water and swim under the ice, and then they pull you back out again.
And I, I think that's a little crazy. Uh, Molly says there's no way she's not gonna do it. Uh, just 'cause it adds to the adventure.
Sawyer Stone: God tell her to put on a wetsuit. I feel like I need a full wetsuit to get in my cold plunge, which is like 55 degrees. So get her a wetsuit.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I I touch my toe to cold water and I Yes.
Freak out. No way.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Okay. Well if we're talking about diet and nutrients in, in conjunction with longevity and telomeres, are there any known dietary components or specific micronutrients that [00:18:00] have a direct measurable effect on how telomere activity or telomere length in human cells, is there any way, and is there anything dietary that we can do to affect that?
I think if we give a refresher to our listeners, the telomeres are the ride tickets. You have a hundred when you're born, and then over time, or actually you have a hundred when you're born or you have a hundred when you start, and then by the time you're born, you have 50,
Dr. Bill Andrews: you have a hundred when you're conceived.
Sawyer Stone: Conceived. And then 50 when you're born,
Dr. Bill Andrews: you, you have 50 when you're born. And when you get down to zero, you're, you're dead. I mean, it's essentially, yeah. You, you, your cells lose the ability to function and you die. Yeah. And, and these ride tickets are found at the very tips of our chromosomes and we can measure them.
Yeah. There's a lot of things that can accelerate. The use of those ride tickets or telium are shortening. They pretty much come outta the heading of any antioxidant or any, any free radical or any inflammatory. Thing. Anything that causes, [00:19:00] uh, oxidative stress or inflammation will accelerate the rate of telomere shortening and, uh, accelerate the rate of aging.
So, and, and that includes smoking. Smoking is both, uh, oxidative causes, oxidative stress and inflammation. And, and I, I pick on smoking because it's one of the worst things people can do. You can always tell. Uh, when you're like meeting with high school buddies and things like that, that high school friends that are 65 plus, you can tell who's been smoking their life and who hasn't, just 'cause of the accelerated aging that occurred so recently.
Recently. There's ways of lengthening telomeres. Okay. And, uh, that's, uh, like especially this new product that, uh, just got launched that I invented called Telo Vital from Touchstone Essentials. Uh, that, that contains turmeric, uh, and in fact, turmeric is the most active ingredient. But what we discovered is that, you know, the [00:20:00] most, the active component in turmeric is co co curcumin.
Uh, and it turns out curcumin is an inhibitor of telomerase activity. Telomerase is an enzyme that lengthens, telomere, and telomerase isn't found in any cells of our body except our reproductive cells. So, uh, there's nothing anybody can do to, uh. Harm their telomerase because telomerase isn't even produced in their cells.
It's only in their prim It's called primordial germ cells that, that, uh, produce their children. And if they, if, if they affected that telomerase, there's a chance that their children could be born with shorter telomere than they have, so it wouldn't affect them, but it would affect their children. Those telo vital contains turmeric.
Without curcumin. Uh oh. And so what I always tell people is if you take Telo Vital, try to try to wait four hours before or after, uh, you take Telo Vital before you take your curcumin. [00:21:00] Curcumin's actually. A very good anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. And it's unfortunate that it also inhibits telomerase.
'cause it would've been nice to be able to leave curcumin in turmeric. Uh, but, uh, yeah, yeah. So, and that, yeah. You mentioned pomegranates too, there. Pomegranates. So we, we tested close to 20,000 different plant extracts with our, what's called crazy proprietary, high throughput robotic. It telomerase mRNA, PCR assay, which is probably a mouthful, but uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah, that is a lot of words.
Dr. Bill Andrews: That assay, we can test like 4,000 different plant extracts a day, and out of close to 20,000 we have found like 40, that 40 plant extracts that actually do induce the production of telomerase and uh, that's great. Top ones are combined into Telo Vital. That just [00:22:00] got launched, uh, a few weeks ago. I actually spoke at a conference in Austin, Texas.
Yeah, that, that, that right there. I
Sawyer Stone: was like, the camera will pick it up maybe.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: There
Dr. Bill Andrews: it goes. And I, I, uh, I religiously take that every day, and I believe it's one of the best things I could be doing for myself. But here's, here's the thing. It is like, there's not, it's not the only product on the market that promotes itself, no.
Is lengthening telomeres. But it's the only product that actually demonstrates is it show. We show that we induce the production of telomerase, which is really the only way to lengthen telomeres and all the other products that are claiming to lengthen telomeres. They're not actually lengthening telomeres.
They're, they're actually just. Changing the population of cells in the blood, which is where you usually measure your telomeres or your saliva, the change in the population so that the population now is [00:23:00] made up of cells with longer telomeres, but there was no lengthening. Okay. I, the analogy that I really like when I explain this is.
If you have a company and you fire all the dumbest people in your company, the average IQ of your company goes up, but nobody got any smarter. Okay? Yeah. Same thing is same thing's true. If you hired a bunch of geniuses, the average IQ of your company goes up, but nobody got any smarter, okay? Right. So in in our blood, our blood, our cells in our blood are constantly changing.
Okay? And so if you take. A product that actually is at all toxic to cells. Okay? The cells in your blood that have short telomeres are gonna be preferentially killed off, okay? 'cause when your telomeres get really short, your cells become more sensitive to toxicity. So if you're, if the treatment that you're doing, uh, is, or the supplement you're [00:24:00] taking is at all toxic to cells.
Your average telomere length is gonna be higher because you kill it off the cells with short telomeres, and therefore, the average telomere length of the cells that are remaining is longer, just like the average. Sure. IQ of your company increased by getting rid of the dumbest people. But the same thing is true in the opposite spectrum is that if you, uh.
Uh, if your product or treatment is immunogenic at all, or lets induces some type of immune response or like, let's say inflammation. Uh, you're gonna have cells in your bone marrow and the cells in your bone marrow that, that are like stem cells for your immune system. They have long T nerves, even when you're really, really old.
Okay? Yeah. They have long telomeres because they haven't gone through very many cell divisions to be where they're at. But now all of a sudden, an inflammatory response is inducing some of them to divide. And you, uh uh, they divide and [00:25:00] just a few times and. Populate the blood, and as a result, that's the same as hiring geniuses in your company.
You're now put tel cells with long telomeres now. So I always, I ask, I always ask these companies that provide these supplements and treatments, well, did you ever demonstrate telomeric expression? They say, well, yeah, lengthening telomeres shows that I, I say, no, it doesn't. There's other ways to lengthen telomeres besides length, there other ways to.
Have longer tels without lengthening, and they say, well, no we didn't. And I say, well, why not? It's easy. It's really easy to check for thous activity and uh uh, they still say, oh, well we didn't do it. But I read that as well. They did do it. They did check for thous activity, but they couldn't get any detectable activity
Sawyer Stone: and they
Dr. Bill Andrews: didn't know why.
But they thought, well, we, we got, we lengthened telomeres, so let's just go with that. Uh, but the fact is, is that, that it's, it is telling me in [00:26:00] all these other cases that their products are toxic or inflammatory, not, they're not lengthened telomeres. And in both cases, when you kill off the cells with short telomeres.
Other cells are gonna have to divide to replace those blood cells, which is gonna cause telomere shortening so elsewhere in the body. Like the bone marrow? Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Or when you induce an immune immune reaction, even though those stem cells in your bone marrow are have long telomeres, they get shorter.
Okay. Yeah. And as a result, so. These products aren't making you younger, they're making you older. And that's why, that's why I like Telo vital is it, it's the only nutraceutical on the planet right now that actually does induce expression of telomerase. And, uh, that's, that means that, that it is affecting our tel lengths.
Sawyer Stone: Hmm. So is the Telo vital? Adding ride tickets or just prolonging the [00:27:00] ride tickets that exist?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, it's adding ride tickets, but at the same time, ride tickets are also being removed. Okay. Because
Sawyer Stone: So like the defective ride tickets are being removed and the ride tickets that are working are being more supported?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, there's no defective ride tickets. Okay. So when the cell divides the T risk, get shorter. Because it takes off a ride ticket. And then, uh, I see a telomerase inducer, like Telo Vital will add ride tickets back. But I, I'd like to think of it like a tug of war. Okay, so you have shortening and lengthening going on at the same time?
Well. So without taking a telomeric, inducer you, it's a one-sided tug of war. You have people in the tug of war pull in to shorten your telomeres, and that's what we all are, we're we, and through our whole life. This telomere analogy, this, this tug of war analogy works for just about everything. We're, we're all [00:28:00] declining as a, as a tug of war.
But in the case of telomeres, if we induce Mies, we do add people to the other side of the tug of war. Hmm, but they don't necessarily win the tug of war, but they do decrease the rate that the people pulling to shorten your telomeres. Shorten the telomeres. Okay, so, so the, yes. Okay. The shortening, the rate of shortening decreases.
So now there is no nutraceutical or even pharmaceutical on the planet right now. That will lengthen telomeres, uh, have a net result of lengthening telomeres. Okay? Because if there were, we'd be seeing people get younger and that hasn't happened. There's biomarkers of aging, but nobody's ever shown that reversing those biomarkers, reverse aging.
I always, when I speak at conferences, I talk about the Betty White test. Yeah. Where we all know what aging is. We can look at photos of Betty White when she was 25 and [00:29:00] 95, and we know which photo was taken first. Uh, there's no question about it, but we don't know exactly why. We know that. Okay? Mm-hmm. And maybe we'll never know why, but we know it.
That's the PO point. So I always say if somebody reverses a biomarker of aging, but they didn't pass what I call the Betty White Test, they, they didn't get. Obviously younger feeling, looking, feeling or behaving younger. Uh, then there was no age reversal. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: right. And, uh,
Dr. Bill Andrews: so, but, uh, uh, yeah, the, uh, so, so nothing, nothing actually lengthens the telomeres.
The point that aging gets reversed. But that's my goal. I am, I'm planning on it, um, continuing my research to find something where it does put more people on the side of the tug of war to lengthen telomeres and shorten, but that doesn't exist yet. But we are definitely putting some people on the other side, which is slowing the rate of aging down [00:30:00] and given telomere shortening without having a ERs inducer.
I can do the math and I can tell you that it's impossible to live longer than 125 years and nobody has ever lived to be 125 years because none of us have the perfect lifestyle and perfect genetic. And so we are doing accelerated telomere shortening. But if we didn't have accelerated tel shorting are, we still are limited to 125 years.
Uh, but I believe that anything you do to. Induced telomerase to add anybody to that other side of the tug of war is gonna add extra years to your life. So you could possibly end up living longer than 125 years. And maybe in 50 years we'll know. We'll see that for a fact.
Sawyer Stone: I wanna be 125. Dr. Bill, can I ask you about how telomeres specifically function in different types of cells like.
Such as neurons or muscle cells, which have vastly different rates of division [00:31:00] compared to like a skin cell. How is a telomere interacting with that science?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, lemme talk about the neuron first. Uh, neurons don't divide. I mean, they, they had divisions before they became. Terminally differentiated into neurons, but the neurons are one of the most, um, T cells in our body.
Uh, neurons can far outlive a human. Um, and so there's never any fear of, uh. Uh, decline of neurons. Unless, unless there's something like some toxic toxin or genetic dis uh, predis predisposition that, that affects neurons. But neurons, one of the reasons why neurons are so healthy is so, so neurons don't have telomere shortening because they don't have cell division.
Unless, unless you use some really harsh, uh, uh, free radicals or [00:32:00] something that causes oxidative stress, but neurons have what I, what I often call. Caregiver cells and bodyguard cells. Okay. Uhhuh that cells that I see really nurse them, take care of them. Okay. And those, those are called oligodendrocytes, which pr, uh, and schwan cells, both of which provide myelin to, to wrap around the neurons to protect them from things, and then other cells like astrocytes.
Which, uh, are really immune type cells that really protect neurons from any kind of like immune reactions, stuff like that. Um, now these obviously fail sometimes because people get dementia and other kind of things, but typically, typically they're, they're pretty good, but so, so they don't really have.
Neurons don't have telomere shortenings, but the oligodendrocytes, the swan cells and the uh, astrocytes, they do have telomere shortening. So we have to maintain [00:33:00] their telomeres because if they suddenly get really short telomeres and go into a phase called senescence. The neurons lose their bodyguard cells and their um, uh, uh, caregiver cells, and then they can die too.
And that's, that's often what causes a lot of diseases like multiple sclerosis and CIDP and, uh, various forms of dementia. Okay. So on the subject of muscle cells versus skin cells, um, okay. We have to focus on the stem cells. Okay. And okay. You mentioned that skin cells divide more often than, than, uh, uh, muscle cells do, but that's actually not the case.
Okay. So when you look at stem cells, they both, and stem cells are both skin and muscle. They both divide on average once a year. Okay. Uh, okay. And that's, they divide to replace damaged cells. [00:34:00] That are damaged because of the normal wear and tear of normal bodily functions, uh, that you know are the frontline cells of that particular organ or tissue.
Okay? So, so the reason why people think that skin cells divide so often is because once the stem cell divides. Those daughter cells, then they divide and then those daughter cells divide. So you've got the 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 phenomena of making a tremendous amount of cells. But really all that matters is what?
What the. Linx in those stem cells were, because those other cells, they divide and divide. They sse, but you, they, they die off and then you still have your stem cell that has really only gone through one division. In the case of the muscle cell, they divide and they differentiate right away into muscle.
There's not a lot of cell division, so. You don't see a lot of that happen, but the stem cells I see still divided the same number of times. Uh, and and so [00:35:00] now, so bodybuilding, body buil, so, so you build muscle by damaging muscle cells and then having cell division come along to fill in the spaces that get that result from the damage.
That's how your muscles get bigger. So bodybuilding does cause accelerated telomere shorting.
Sawyer Stone: I see. Oh, not good. Now
Dr. Bill Andrews: on that subject, so does Microderm abrasion and immune boosters, because they all induce cell division and cell division causes telomere shortening. But given that, I always say, what's the point of living a long time if you're not living?
Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And I can tell you having more muscles than not having muscles makes living better. Okay. Yeah. For a lot of various reasons. Yeah. And, and doing microdermabrasion, I mean, on your skin. I mean, that, that really works. I mean, so it, it, [00:36:00] unfortunately, it's, it makes you look younger because of the, an increased cell, because microdermabrasion kills skin cells.
And then that induces stem cells to divide, to replace those cells and for a short period of time that looks younger, but actually they're older. Okay, because of the telomere shortening. And then immune boosters are actually gonna help you. Uh, survive diseases, so that that's something good too. But it's like, I always say, you know, have faith in the fact that I'm gonna come up with a MOUs inducer that's gonna re lengthen all your telomeres.
Sawyer Stone: Uh, I see.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Just, uh, and so whatever you're doing now, I say keep doing it. If it makes you feel good, because I'll fix it later. It's just like,
Sawyer Stone: okay, okay.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I just got a little more research to do. Teal Vital is the best you can do right now, but it's gonna get better and I, I have every intention of Touchstone Essentials being the company that's gonna, uh, market any, any [00:37:00] new discoveries that I make.
Sawyer Stone: Well then lucky them. Can I ask you, since we're talking about like bodybuilding specifically and you know, there's lots of protein involved in bodybuilding or building muscle in general, I would say every time I go to the gym, after I leave like a weight class, my instructor's like, make sure you have protein, make sure you have protein, lots of water.
Um, I know that you are vegan. And so you prefer a plant-based protein, but how does the body affect or react differently to a plant-based protein or a whey protein?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Uh, well, really should not be any effect at all if the proteins Okay. So, so let, lemme say that plant proteins. Like if you were to take rice protein, okay?
Mm-hmm. Rice protein is almost a hundred percent deficient of thianine, which is an amino acid. [00:38:00] It's one of the essential amino acids. So rice protein, all by itself is a terrible thing for you because you're missing a, an essential amino acid. Um, but. And there's, there's several published, uh, papers that have been published on this.
And so critical meta-analysis of peer reviewed studies is something I've looked at. And there there's ways of mixing different plants. To become a, to develop an amino acid composition that's identical to whey protein. Uh, whey protein is considered the standard. Uh, yeah. And, uh, so, but the problem with whey protein is it's often contaminated with a arachidonic acid.
Okay. And so that's why I prefer. Plant proteins, uh, and, but plant protein, proteins, protein one, it's, there's 20 amino acids. It doesn't matter where it came from. Once you have a solution of protein. If, if all the amino acids are there and they're all in the right [00:39:00] proportions, uh, it's just as good no matter what the source is.
So, so, but the advantage of plant proteins is that you don't have the inflammatory components such as a arachidonic acid,
Sawyer Stone: which is not causing oxidative stress in the body, which therefore makes you live longer.
Dr. Bill Andrews: The only protein that really troubles me is, um. Uh, collagen. Okay. So collagen's become really popular lately.
Okay. I, I, I take collagen every day. Okay. Um, but it's not really, did you
Sawyer Stone: a vegan collagen? No. There is no collagen as made from,
Dr. Bill Andrews: there's no such thing as a vegan collagen, and that's, that's the problem. Okay. Okay. So, uh. But collagen, you can get collagen from marine organisms or you can get collagen from a whole bunch of other sources that are mostly animal.
Um, but, so in all cases when somebody drinks or a shake or something like that, that's got collagen and that's not really intact [00:40:00] collagen, okay. It's, it's really a, a, uh, hydrolysis of collagen. So where the collagen has been broken down into. Small amino acids and peptides that, you know, like, like tripeptides.
And there's one tripeptide in particular that's, that's actually made up of three amino acids, which are glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. So it's a, uh, glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, tripeptide, three amino acids in a row, and that gets absorbed. Into your blood re very readily. And then that gets, that, that binds the receptors on your fibroblast cells that cause your fibroblasts to start producing collagen and, uh, elastin.
Sawyer Stone: Hmm. And
Dr. Bill Andrews: unfortunately, one of the most important amino acids there is the hydroxyproline. Is a pre, pretty much not found in plants. Uh, and so I, [00:41:00] even though I'm vegan, I have to resort to my collagen coming from, um, uh, I, I go with the marine collagen. And, uh, uh, but, but that's, but it's, it's still, I'm, I'm reducing my arachidonic acid as much as possible, but I, I think sometimes the pros outweigh the cons.
And so I, I take the collagen from marine organisms, uh, and I, it would be nice if we could figure out a way to find, or at least find a plant that produces hydroxyproline and then, but it would have to not just be hydroxyproline 'cause hydroxyproline. It doesn't actually in integrate into collagen. So if you, if you consume hydroxyproline, it would get degraded but not used to produce collagen.
It won't be, it won't become one of the amino acids in collagen. Proline will, proline will get incorporated into the collagen. Then after it's incorporated into the, [00:42:00] uh, collagen, then the body modifies it to make it into hydroxyproline. And, uh, so, so that, that's another big problem. We, we plants don't have the tripeptide that would induce, uh, your body to start producing collagen.
And I would love to find ways of doing research to figure that out. And I am working with. Somebody in New Zealand right now, uh, Christian Chase, who I think you know, uh, to work on ways of in inventing a plant-based collagen inducer. And actually most of the work is on his part. He's come up with some ingenious ideas and I look forward to.
That becoming, uh, finished product. 'cause that's be number one on my list of, of things to start taking. And I hope, uh, like Touchstone Essentials will then be marketing it too.
Sawyer Stone: I'll put in a good word for you. Um, [00:43:00] okay. So. Uh, going back a little bit to our environmental elements and things like that, that we can affect on longevity.
I'm trying to think. Like, I guess I started, you know, as a woman, you get marketed early for anti-aging or skincare or like, you know, you gotta look young for, you know, your rest of your life kind of thing. And so. If we're thinking about affecting longevity in our teens or in our twenties, like what, what environmental elements are gonna help with that?
Like diet should, should teens be taking Telo vital? Like what is it that's, I know exercise, but how do we keep everybody young?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Okay. So definitely. Everybody should be taking Telo vital. Okay. There, there's gonna be FDA regulations saying that, uh, you have to be over like 18, I guess, and you, if you're pregnant, you shouldn't be taking it.
But that's just, those are just plain it safe. Okay. [00:44:00] Uh, because, you know, the FDA doesn't really understand the products as well as, uh, other people do. Especially they don't understand telomere biology as well as I do. But, um, I, I personally think. There's never a time when you shouldn't be doing whatever you can to protect your telomeres or lengthen your telomeres.
Um, now in your teens, the you, you wanna, you the, the main things. You don't wanna smoke, you don't wanna drink excessively, you don't wanna do these things because they accelerate aging. Uh, there's a lot of YouTube videos of me talking about how we age and, uh, uh, anybody can google those and find those.
But I talk about how, you know, our frontline cells, I used that term before our frontline cells. Every organ or tissue has. Cells that are called the frontline cells that are actually where all the action is. They're the ones doing all the work to form the function. There's also reserve cells that [00:45:00] are just sitting dormant inside that organ or tissue.
Um, but the frontline cells, just through the normal operations, more normal bodily operations of the body, uh, they're, they're suffering, wear and tear, and they typically have a lifespan of only one year. Okay, well, you can accelerate that. Especially by something like smoking or drinking. Let me use drinking as an example.
'cause I already talked about smoking. Drinking actually kills liver cells. Okay. Everybody knows that actually. But it doesn't affect you when you're young because when you kill your liver cells, you have other cells, the reserve cells or stem cells. The reserve, the reserve cells are, are, are, um, progenitor cells and stem cells, not just stem cells, but those cells will divide to replace the killed frontline cell.
Okay. And that, so you're fine. Okay. But unfortunately, as we know from [00:46:00] telomere biology, our cells have a limited number of times that they can divide a limited number of ride tickets. And as a result. When you turned like 45, 50 years old because of the accelerated TMR shortening your, your cells, your reserve cells are already suffering from.
Telomere that are so short, they can no longer divide. And so your killed frontline cells sit there, they don't get pushed out of the way and they act collect. And that's what liver ciro cirrhosis is. Okay? And so you get a lot of these dead cells in your liver and stuff, and because there's no longer any cells to kick them outta the way and replace 'em, so, so.
I wish more 20 year olds knew about that. Yeah, because, because it's not, it's not fixable yet. I mean, I'll, I'll fix it. I'll make, I'll make it so everybody can drink as much as they want and never have to worry about it, [00:47:00] but I'm not there yet. Okay. Yeah, it's still quite a lot of research and a, you know, expensive research too.
Um, yeah. It'll, it'll come because that's my life's mission. Uh, and, uh, but, uh, yeah, so, and again, anything that, any toxins of any kind that kills cells in your body are gonna accelerate aging simply because. Other cells are gonna have to divide to replace those killed cells. And that causes telomere shortening, which you don't observe until way, way longer.
And lemme just use one more example of a genetic perspective. Uh, some people have muscle cells that divide a lot more rapidly than normal because their cell, the muscle cells die more frequently. And so they have to replace those muscle cells by having. Uh, reserve cells divide to replace 'em. And that's muscular dystrophy.
That's what muscular dystrophy is. So people that [00:48:00] have the mutation to the di dystrophin gene, they're gonna suffer from, uh, uh, weakened muscles and, and die from it too because of the accelerated cel shorten. And that is by far one of the top things on my list. Uh, to fix with length lining telomere. I'm, I'm hoping that someday anybody that has muscular dystrophy can live a normal life because they'll constantly be able to replace their killed cells.
Their cells will still die. Yeah, but so what? Okay. As long as to replace them. Uh, and there's, there's a ton of diseases like chronic kidney disease, uh, CIDP, mu, uh, multiple sclerosis. All those things come under the same head, including Alzheimer's. Uh, I have a clinical study trying to get underway right now for treating Alzheimer's by lengthening telomeres.
Uh, but, uh, yeah, so, so yeah, when you're young, be aware of the fact that someday you're gonna be old and [00:49:00] again. Keep life fun. You don't need to smoke to have fun. You don't need to drink to have fun. I, I've, I've, I love living. I, I, I've had a very fun life. I've loved every minute of it, but I, I never smoked and I never drank.
Uh, yeah, I, I, I never drank excessively. In fact, I, yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I found a day when I decided drinking was not my thing, and even though I never was an alcoholic, I quit drinking over 25 years ago and never missed it whatsoever.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Okay, well while we're talking about the insides of our body, how come all of the stuff is marketed to anti-aging wise towards what our skin looks like and not at all?
What's going on in the inside? I mean, I can't tell you how many ads I get to like deal with macro crow's feet or my under bags or my wrinkles or all my things
Dr. Bill Andrews: because, 'cause that's the biggest market, uh, and more people,
Sawyer Stone: vanity
Dr. Bill Andrews: are more concerned about their [00:50:00] appearance. To attract the opposite sex. Uh, or sometimes the same sex.
Yeah. Or the
Sawyer Stone: same sex. Yeah. I was gonna
Dr. Bill Andrews: say, yeah, that's what I said. And, uh, uh, but it's, it's all comes down to that. And so whether your lifespan is gonna be shortened from other things, other parts of your body, having aging, uh, becomes irrelevant. To most people until they actually get to that point where they're actually suffering from age related illnesses and stuff like that.
But, but you see, but since aging is a constantly changing thing, okay, yeah. And I have YouTube videos where I explain how Talmar length actually controls that. Um, and, uh, but it's, it's the Vayner. So I, I can't tell you how many times I've gone to places like, especially South Korea. Okay. Um. And I walk down the street and I see like, it seems like 20% of everybody is got bandages on their [00:51:00] face because of plastic surgery and stuff like that.
They, oh my goodness. They trying to make themselves look younger.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: but they probably drink and smoke and all that kind of stuff because they don't care about that kind of stuff. Uh, or they, or they're, they're dealing with the accelerated aging in their skin. 'cause smoking definitely accelerates the aging of your skin.
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, they, they're probably. Dealing with that by plastic surgery instead of quitting smoking.
Sawyer Stone: Alright, well, I've got, I've got two questions for you. I've got a bonus one that I am selfishly wanting to know the answer for, but before we get to that, what are the challenges in accurately measuring telomere length in a clinical setting, and how reliable are the commercially available telomere lengthening tests for predicting individual longevity?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I'm a, you know, I, I am a very strong believer in the fact that telomere length affects aging, but the technique and I, but so, so, you know, I'm either an [00:52:00] inventor or co-inventor of almost every telomere length measurement protocol there is, and also every method of measuring for telomerase activity that there is.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: But the ones that really work. Super, super expensive. I mean, we do tel length measurements here in my company here, but it essentially costs us like $10,000 to do one tel length measurement.
Sawyer Stone: That's so lot. The
Dr. Bill Andrews: ones that are commercially available are the ones that are inexpensive and inconsistent and don't work.
Uh, I would say the best thing anybody could do is measure the percent of telomeres that are short. And there's only one company I know of that does that, and that's life length. A company called Life Length in Spain because it's easier to measure the shortest, critically shortest telomeres, and it's easier to get a consistent result by doing that.
And it turns out the critically short telomeres are the most important ones to, to deal with anyway. Um, because at least, [00:53:00] so I was, I when I was measuring that, talking about that tug of war earlier about how you put people on the opposite side of the, uh. Uh, tug of war to actually lengthen telomeres. What I didn't mention was that the shorter telomeres get the fewer numbers there are of people on the side pulling to shorten.
It's like in my books and some videos I talk about how when you're in the tug of war, the pull people pulling to shorten are falling off a cliff. Yeah. So the numbers of people pulling are shortening, so, so you can actually get the critically shortest tel and mirrors. To lengthen the net result of lengthening being not just, uh, winning, not just slowing down the tug of war.
You could actually win the tug of war in the shortest te nerves, and that will show signs of age reversal. Um,
Sawyer Stone: mm-hmm. And
Dr. Bill Andrews: so even, uh, yeah, so, so something like Telo Vital has the, we, we don't have any studies, clinical studies showing that specifically [00:54:00] with TLO Vital, but we do have studies showing that low levels of telomerase.
Will win the tug of war when, when seal owners are short and you have a bonus
Sawyer Stone: question. All right, I have a bonus question. It's a very silly, very selfish question.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Can I give my cats telo vital and will they live forever?
Dr. Bill Andrews: All right. Well that's a really good question. Somebody is gonna ask
Sawyer Stone: this question.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. No, no. A lot of people, in fact, I am working on. A, uh, Aerus inducer for pets.
Sawyer Stone: Listen, stop working for the humans. Let's get the animals going. Let's forget about us.
Dr. Bill Andrews: People spend more, more money on their pets than they do on themselves. Exactly. The help of their pets.
Sawyer Stone: That is the market.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I believe that's the biggest market of all, and.
Um, you know, I hope Touchstone Essentials actually becomes interested in marketing such a product. Uh, but, uh, we, we did a lot of studies in collaboration with our, uh, scientific board [00:55:00] members at University of Texas Southwestern, uh, to look at the animals and what animals age by telomere shortening and what don't.
And it turned out surprisingly that there's very few animals that actually age by telomere shortening. Aging is actually a relat recent, uh, relatively recent evolutionary event. And, uh, so different animals have evolved different ways of aging. But the weird thing is that, that, that our domesticated animals, uh, are the ones that are aging by Tel Maori.
So we have shown, and well, and then some non domesticated, we, the only animals that we have shown that age by telomere shortening are. Humans and some non-human primates,
Sawyer Stone: Uhhuh, dogs,
Dr. Bill Andrews: cats, horses, sheep, pig, and deer. Those are the only ones. Fascinating. So three of those dogs, cats, and horses are our favorite pets.
Okay. [00:56:00] Yeah. So I, I, and fact, you know, in the horse world, I think, boy, think of somebody who's got this. Prize stud. That is making them a lot of money. Yeah. Well it takes years before people recognize 'em as a prize stud and then only a few years later they're too old to breed anymore. Well, imagine if we could lengthen the telomeres and those are at least have 'em, the tug of war.
Slow down the aging process. How many more times that they could breed those animals. Okay, but, but I'm more interested in my dog. Uh, and they, my dog, dash is his name. Uh, and I actually talk about a product that I would like to get developed, which is like a salt shaker that you sprinkle on top of your dog food.
And I call it Telo Dash. Okay. And, uh, I've been talking about that for, I, I would say close to 10 years now. Um, and, uh, so we, we, we still have to develop that. Uh, [00:57:00] and that's something that is high on my list and I even have a project leader here. Who's 100% dedicated to that. Uh, and, uh, uh, she's actually, uh, working her butt off trying to, uh, get this all.
The biggest problem right now is finding. Somebody who's wants to market it. Okay. And because, because I think we can develop it quite easily. Okay. Yeah, it definitely has some. So, I, I, I strongly believe that a pet product would be fantastic and I, I, my dog turns 10 in September, so we and his breed, he's a mini Labradoodle, his breed has an average lifespan of 13.
Oh. So we gotta get this available pretty soon.
Sawyer Stone: Soon. Well, my family dog is a, is a Labradoodle and he'll, I think he just turned 15, so he's outliving.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Okay. We need, we need to do it faster than I thought we did. Faster.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So let's,
Sawyer Stone: alright, well Dr. Bill, thanks [00:58:00] for hanging out with me today and for chatting with me about tele race and longevity and living forever and all the things.
And I will, uh, talk to you next time.
Dr. Bill Andrews: All right. Well this was fun. I am, I enjoyed all the, all these podcasts so far. Alright, nice talking with you and see you next time.
Sawyer Stone: See you next time. Thanks for joining us on Up One. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who's curious about the real science behind health.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Have a topic you want us to break down. Send us your questions. We're here to help you separate fact from fiction.
Sawyer Stone: Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and let's keep taking it up one.