My Biggest Health & Longevity Breakthroughs at 54

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

Dr. Matt Kaeberlein shares his biggest health and longevity breakthroughs as he turns 54, emphasizing the importance of aligning biological age with health practices. His key takeaways include the impact of managing hormone health, reducing alcohol intake, leaving academia for personal wellness, consistent resistance training, and a focus on whole nutrition with high protein and fiber. He also discusses the role of preventative diagnostics and quality personal relationships. Despite exploring various supplements and health strategies, he emphasizes that not all approaches work for everyone, and stresses the importance of taking charge of one's health journey to shape a better future.

Highlights

Dr. Kaeberlein's biggest health impact came from managing hormone health. 🙌
Reducing alcohol intake has significantly improved his health journey. 🍻➡️❌
Leaving academia was a unique but major positive change for his wellness. 🚪🎓
He emphasizes the importance of resistance training for body composition. 💪
Nutrition-wise, he transitioned to a diet rich in protein and fiber. 🥗
Experiments with supplements like creatine and continuous glucose monitoring provided mixed results. ⚗️
Maintaining strong personal relationships, especially with his wife, is a cornerstone of his health philosophy. 💑
Dr. Kaeberlein shares future plans involving new health protocols and diagnostic tests. 🔍
Encourages taking active steps in managing aging and personal health. 🕰️

Key Takeaways

Managing hormone health can significantly improve quality of life. 💪
Reducing alcohol consumption has multiple health benefits. 🍷🚫
Leaving a stressful environment, like academia, can improve mental and physical well-being. 🌱
Consistent resistance training helps maintain muscle mass and overall health. 🏋️‍♂️
Prioritizing whole foods, high in protein and fiber, is crucial for nutrition. 🥦🍗
Preventative diagnostics and finding a good doctor are essential for personalized health monitoring. 👨‍⚕️
Quality human relationships are vital for overall quality of life. 🤝
Not all supplements and health strategies will work for everyone—personalization is key. 🧩
Taking control of one's health journey can help optimize aging and future well-being. 🧓✨

Overview

Dr. Matt Kaeberlein, in his special birthday podcast episode, talks about how his perception of aging has changed as he turns 54, focusing on the notion that biological age can differ from chronological age. He feels better than a decade ago, attributing this largely to adopting the principles he once only studied. Key elements include managing hormone health, reducing daily alcohol intake, and making significant life changes like leaving academia.

One of Dr. Kaeberlein's most significant breakthroughs was consistent resistance training, which, aided by dietary adjustments, profoundly shaped his physical and mental health. He advocates for a diet that is heavy on protein and fiber, free of simple sugars, and includes comprehensive periodic health monitoring. Strong personal relationships, especially with his wife, are described as fundamentally important for well-being.

Despite a myriad of explored health supplements and protocols, Dr. Kaeberlein stresses that individual results vary. He plans to keep experimenting with emerging health strategies to optimize for the future, particularly interested in tests and protocols that can provide more insights into one’s health. His ultimate goal: to continually improve health over the decades, using a proactive approach to aging.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Birthday Reflection The host introduces a special birthday episode of the Optis Span podcast, celebrating their 54th birthday. They reflect on their feelings about aging, noting that while 54 might have seemed old in their 20s, it doesn't feel that way now. They highlight the difference between chronological and biological age, expressing confidence that their biological age is much younger.
00:30 - 01:00: The Journey to Better Health and Longevity The chapter, titled 'The Journey to Better Health and Longevity', reflects on the speaker's personal health improvements over 10 years. They attribute their enhanced health to not just studying, but actively practicing longevity principles. Gratitude is expressed for the circumstances and people who supported their journey towards better health. The speaker feels better now than they did a decade ago and shares this transformation as part of their overall health journey.
01:00 - 01:30: Key Health and Longevity Strategies In the chapter titled "Key Health and Longevity Strategies," the speaker discusses several practices and activities that have significantly improved their health in recent years. The speaker's intent is to share these strategies in hopes that they will resonate with and be useful to others who are looking to improve their own health and wellness trajectories. The approach is to categorize these health strategies into major groups based on their perceived impact, ranging from having the most significant effects to lesser observed influences.
01:30 - 03:00: Hormone Health The chapter begins by discussing the significant impact of hormones on health, highlighting it as a crucial aspect (referred to as 'level one') among several impactful changes. After nearly three years of effort, the speaker expresses substantial improvement in hormone management achieved about five months prior, emphasizing it as possibly the most effective health intervention they have implemented.
03:00 - 04:00: Reducing Alcohol Consumption The chapter discusses the importance of reducing alcohol consumption to improve overall quality of life and health. It emphasizes the significance of being mindful of hormone health and taking a correct approach towards it. The narrative suggests that many men receive hormone prescriptions without proper biomarker measurement or individualized adjustments, underscoring the need for a more informed and personalized approach to hormone and overall health management.
04:00 - 05:00: Leaving Academia In this chapter, the author discusses the issue of men ignoring their hormone health, emphasizing its importance for quality of life and health span. The author references an interview with Kevin White where they touch upon this topic. The chapter hints at a future detailed discussion on the author's personal experiences and mistakes in relation to hormone health, providing an opportunity for others to learn from them. This summary encapsulates the author's intention to reintegrate into academic dialogue, reflecting on personal health challenges and learnings.
05:00 - 07:00: Exercise and Resistance Training The chapter discusses the impact of reducing alcohol consumption on health. The author reflects on personal experience, noting a significant change in health by shifting from daily drinking to consuming alcohol once or twice a month. This reduction in alcohol intake is linked to various benefits, such as cutting down on empty calories and improving sleep quality.
07:00 - 08:30: Cardio and Personal Preferences The chapter discusses the speaker's personal decision to leave academia, highlighting its significant positive impact on their physical and mental well-being, as well as stress levels. This decision is acknowledged as being unique and not universally applicable. Additionally, the chapter touches on the importance of exercise, specifically in the context of personal preferences for maintaining health.
08:30 - 11:00: Nutrition and Diet Changes The individual has been engaged in consistent resistance training for about 5 years. Initially, there was a settling in period and learning phase where not everything was optimized. However, in the last 18 months, noticeable changes in body composition, personal feelings, and strength have occurred. This improvement is attributed to better management and changes in diet.
11:00 - 13:00: The Impact of Preventative Diagnostics and Good Doctors This chapter discusses the importance of preventative diagnostics and having skilled doctors. The speaker mentions the balance in their hormones and emphasizes the significance of consistent resistance training. While they engage in cardio exercises, they do so without a strict regimen, preferring outdoor activities like hiking and stair interval training with their spouse when weather permits. However, living in Seattle means adjusting activities due to the rainy season.
13:00 - 15:00: Exploration of Rapamycin and Other Supplements The chapter emphasizes the importance of consistent cardiovascular exercise, particularly during the winter months when activities are mostly indoor. The speaker mentions using an elliptical machine for half an hour four to five times a week. While acknowledging the potential benefits of being more intentional with the exercise routine, they feel satisfied with the current setup, as it works well for them personally. Additionally, there is a strong emphasis on prioritizing resistance training to build and maintain muscle mass, which is deemed essential for many individuals.
26:00 - 27:30: The Role of Relationship Health This chapter discusses the significant influence of relationship health on overall well-being for many adults. It touches upon factors such as diet and nutrition, specifying a personal journey in experimenting with dietary choices like low-carb and keto diets. The narrator reflects on the long-standing impact of these lifestyle changes, highlighting the positive felt during the keto phase.
28:00 - 31:30: Future Health Plans and Experiments The speaker reflects on previous restrictive dietary habits, noting that it was too limiting. They now prioritize cutting out simple sugars and focus on a diet rich in whole foods. They consume a high protein intake, approximately one gram per pound of body weight, and maintain a high fiber diet with over 40 grams per day.
33:00 - 35:00: Conclusion and Encouragement The author reflects on personal dietary changes over the years, emphasizing a newfound appreciation for salads and vegetables. They note a significant shift in their taste preferences, suggesting that cutting out highly processed foods and simple sugars can lead to a natural desire for healthier options. This change results in a more health-conscious approach when dining out.

My Biggest Health & Longevity Breakthroughs at 54 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 all right hey everyone welcome to a special birthday edition of the optis span podcast so it is true last week I celebrated my 54th birthday um I actually feel pretty good about that number I think like most people you know that would have seemed really old when I was in my 20s but now it doesn't seem very old at all and of course I know that chronological age does not equal biological age and I'm pretty confident that my biological age is actually much
00:30 - 01:00 less than uh my 54 years of chronological age um so mostly I'm just really happy with the fact that I'm in Better Health today than I was 10 years ago and I attribute that in large part to the fact that I stopped only studying longevity and actually started practicing longevity and I do feel truly grateful for the circumstances and people that really helped me get on this new trajectory um and health Journey that I've really been on for the last
01:00 - 01:30 few years so in that vein I thought um I would share with you all some of the things that I think have had the biggest positive impact on my health in the last few years and hopes that some of these May resonate and some of it may actually be um useful as you're sort of uh tackling your own health trajectory so kind of what I thought I'd do is put these into big buckets of the things that have had the biggest impacts I'm pretty sure have had an impact pretty sure haven't had an impact um and so to
01:30 - 02:00 start with the things that really have had the biggest impacts I would call these sort of level one um you know there are there are probably five or six there are three that I would really put um front and center I think one I haven't spent a lot of time talking about um is hormones so after about three years I feel like I finally got this dialed in about five months ago and oh my god um probably the single most effective thing that I've done in the
02:00 - 02:30 last couple of years to improve quality of life and I I definitely believe my sort of overall health status so I'll go more into that Journey because again I think especially you know for a lot of men um really being thoughtful about your Hormone Health and approaching it um from a a the right uh perspective I think is super important there are a lot of guys who get prescribed hormones who really haven't measured the biomarkers or tried to dial it in and then there
02:30 - 03:00 are a lot of guys who just you know ignore their Hormone Health and um just recently had an interview uh with Kevin White where we talk a bit about this as well but regardless super important thing to me personally for my uh quality of life my health span um and uh like I said I'll give a lot more detail on on sort of my experience I think there are some mistakes I made that people can learn from as well look for that in the next um couple of months uh another thing that I put in this this big bucket
03:00 - 03:30 is and I've talked about this before just reducing the amount of alcohol that I was consuming um it's kind of obvious uh why that would have an impact on health but I think for me personally you know going from drinking pretty much every day to you know maybe once or twice a month um has had a huge impact in a variety of ways um certainly the empty calories are part of it I think the Sleep Quality is probably part of it as well um and then the other thing I'd put right up there with those to is
03:30 - 04:00 leaving Academia and so for me personally obviously that's sort of a unique um uh situation not going to apply to everyone but for me personally that had a huge impact on my physical and and mental well-being and my stress level and um again I'm just so grateful that uh that I made that choice a couple of years ago now um and then in that same group of course I would also put exercise um and uh in particular
04:00 - 04:30 resistance training so it's really been going on about 5 years now of consistent resistance training for me um and I would say the first few years you know maybe a settling in Period a learning period I hadn't really dialed in some of the other things and so it was really only in the last you know 18 months I would say that I'm really feel like I've seen the big impact in terms of body composition and how I feel and and uh strength um and I think really that had a lot to do with getting diet and and
04:30 - 05:00 hormones dialed in um as well uh and again really prioritizing the resistance training being very consistent and sticking with that I do plenty of cardio but I'm not particularly intentional about the kind of cardio exercise that I do I really do what I want to do I get outside when it's not raining love to go hiking um sometimes I've talked about my wife and I will go do stair interval training Outdoors um but I live in Seattle we're in rainy season now and so
05:00 - 05:30 in the winter you know a lot of it's indoor I do elliptical uh you know maybe half an hour four or five times a week just to make sure I'm getting consistent cardio exercise could I be more intentional absolutely would I get more benefit from being more intentional probably but um I feel like it's working pretty well and again for me personally and I think this probably true for a lot of people uh prioritizing the resistance training building and maintaining muscle mass I think has an
05:30 - 06:00 outsized impact on health for a majority of of adults um and then you know the last thing I'd certainly put in this bucket is nutrition and again for me this has been a a pretty long journey um you know I I wouldn't say I ate a terrible diet but I certainly did not eat a healthy diet um you know 10 years ago um I'd say I really started playing around with low carb in late 2019 I tried keto in early 2020 maybe six months I did really well on keto I felt
06:00 - 06:30 pretty good but also that's that was pretty restrictive and and certainly too restrictive for me and so I kind of backed off you know stopped really paying attention to the amount of carbs that I was eating but really just focused on you know cutting out simple sugar so that's that's super important mostly Focus now on Whole Foods I eat a pretty high protein diet i' would say I'm you know somewhere around 190 grams per day so that's about a gram per pound of of body weight I eat a pretty high fiber diet I'd say I get over 40 grams
06:30 - 07:00 of fiber um pretty much every day um I've learned to absolutely love salads and vegetables and again I would have never thought that I would be that guy um 10 years ago but I do have to say I think you know it is true your your taste buds will change your preferences will change I think especially as you cut out a lot of the highly processed stuff and a lot of the simple sugars and honestly now I don't really want that kind of food and I and if when I go out to eat I typically gravitate towards
07:00 - 07:30 salmon salad sometimes a steak salad um and exploring variety of different types of uh healthy food so um and again I think you know there are some really simple sort of strategies to take that can be super effective I I mentioned the simple sugars that's got to be number one like just read the labels again I think this idea of shopping around the out outside edge of the grocery store really good rule of thumb um uh and then you know a couple things that I've found
07:30 - 08:00 and maybe maybe we'll learn there's something wrong with keto bread one of these days but uh it seems like a pretty good option if you like bread um I now eat keto bread you know four or five times a week uh uh for sandwiches sometimes I'll put tuna fish in there sometimes chicken sometimes Turkey um they got a lot of fiber and no added sugars um so it seems like a win if you like bread um and it's pretty easy and then I also you eat a fair amount of kind of high protein no added sugar
08:00 - 08:30 yogurts and there's a bunch of Brands out there um I right now have been enjoying I think it's Dan and Light and Fit there's a vanilla that has like 90 calories and 14 grams of protein or I like the coconut too but you can find you can find your own I think the point is to really move towards foods that uh don't add extra sugar and that can be really hard to find um but read the labels um and then I think you know protein bars I've sort of had an onoff
08:30 - 09:00 relationship with protein bars I'm I'm I now do have protein bars uh once in a while again I think they can be a useful tool to kind of fill you up um but you got to read the labels some of them actually still have a lot of added sugars and I would just say don't become too reliant on them I think you know we can fall into this pattern of like all processed food is bad never eat processed food obviously protein bars are are processed foods but I think you know somewhere in the middle use it sparingly but don't make that you know
09:00 - 09:30 the staple of your diet would be the way that I would think about it and I'm sure I will continue to learn and evolve um as time goes on um and then I guess maybe the last thing I'd put in this you know level one bucket the biggest impact things for me have been sort of this you exploration and Learning Journey around you know my own personal health and utilizing preventative Diagnostics biomarkers and then I would put in that same category finding a really good
09:30 - 10:00 doctor um and that can be tough I I recognize that but there are a lot of good doctors out there who really are evidence-based rigorous focused on preventative health care uh medicine 3.0 doctors as as Peter AA would say I think our docs at op topan you know fall in that category for sure and some of the protocols were developing um and then I personally I've had Dr Kevin White uh from Prime Health Associates based out of Oklahoma City on the show a few times Kevin's fantastic he's actually my
10:00 - 10:30 personal doc um uh and I think the kinds of things that we talk about on the podcast in terms of Diagnostics comprehensive blood work dexa ultrasound cancer screening really actionable things that can help you really figure out where you're at if you have a pre-existing condition that needs to be fixed um and then you know as you go along by monitoring biomarkers figure out whether what you're doing is is really working for you are you seeing body composition go in the right direction are you in the blood-based
10:30 - 11:00 biomarkers go in the the direction that you um you think they need to go and your doctor thinks they need to go so that's really what I would put in that top category and then kind of next level down would be things that that I think have a smaller impact but probably have still been important um and certainly I would put Romy in this in this bucket can I prove that rap ayon has improved my health I mean I I can't prove it um I'm pretty confident based on my experience with uh uh rapy improving my
11:00 - 11:30 frozen shoulder in a very rapid way I'm pretty confident that was due to the drug that had a big impact on my quality of life that was back in 2020 again I've talked about that on the podcast um that definitely had a big big impact and then since then I've cycled Rapa multiple times uh can I say with confidence that it's had you know big Health positive effects since then nope uh mostly just a perception that when every time I cycle Rapa M it knocks down the inflammation
11:30 - 12:00 knocks down the aches and pains I think it may have helped maintaining lean mass um but I can't prove that um I do believe it's having a positive impact and so i' certainly put it in the bucket of it's not as big as you know diet exercise hormones uh other stuff that I had in that top bucket but I'd kind of put it that next level down of important um at least for me personally um I'd also put creatine in this bucket I actually been off creatine for I don't know maybe six months months I plan to
12:00 - 12:30 start taking it again um uh when I first started taking it a few years ago I definitely felt like I noticed an increase in strength and exercise performance I think it's probably real but again really not to the same magnitude of effect or certainty that I have for for those things that I would put in that um that top bucket of of largest impact um I'd also put continuous glucose monitoring in this sort of second level down I I personally like many people have found this to be a very useful tool uh both for learning
12:30 - 13:00 you know how my body responds to different foods and then getting diet dialed in and I still periodically I don't know maybe once every six months come back and do a couple weeks of CGM every time I do it reinforces things or I learn new things um so I find that to be a a pretty useful tool um that I would say has contributed to certainly my um positive Health Journey um and then kind of next level down I guess I'd call is probably useful um and I there
13:00 - 13:30 may not be a lot of separation between level two and level three this is where I would put vitamin D and omega-3 which I do take most days uh as a supplement again I do that because I can measure it I know I was deficient I can supplement into what I believe is the optimal range and I can keep myself there and and I can't say with a high level of confidence that I've noticed you know big changes in how I feel or anything like that but we know that being deficient in either of those things is
13:30 - 14:00 associated with a whole bunch of bad stuff um and uh and it's pretty easy to get dialed in so obviously I'm going to keep doing it but I I can't say with confidence that you know it's having a huge impact on my health it just seemed like a pretty good insurance policy something um worth doing um and then I guess I would move on to the things that I personally again have found not to be particularly useful so doesn't mean that they can't have health benefits for some people or even that they couldn't have
14:00 - 14:30 health benefits for me but I've tried them and haven't really haven't really felt like they moved the needle for me at all so I'd put in this bucket uh uran a um I took uran a supplement for uh several months didn't notice anything again doesn't mean it didn't do anything I just didn't notice anything same thing with nicotinate riboside really no notable effect for me um I'd also put DHEA in there so DHEA is uh precursor of
14:30 - 15:00 steroid hormones um uh you know some people think that if you take DHA EA you can boost things like testosterone again I didn't really notice anything uh at least longterm with DHEA that seems to be the consensus maybe some women can get a boost in testosterone from DHEA I didn't I didn't notice anything and again I'll talk more about that when I talk about my personal hormone Journey um also took Boron for a while there's some literature it's not great some literature that Boron can reduce a
15:00 - 15:30 protein called sex hormone binding globulin This Is A protein that binds to testosterone and other sex hormones um my shbg was high and so I thought maybe taking Boron would help it didn't do anything um so it doesn't mean it couldn't work for some people but didn't work for me um and then also in this probably not useful category I would definitely put the epigenetic age tests in fact I would say those are definitely not useful um and and uh I'd put
15:30 - 16:00 microbiome tests in there as well I personally haven't found microbiome tests to give me any actionable or informative information so I think those are largely a waste of money um right now and uh you know I talked about biological age tests previously I'll certainly talk about them more on the podcast C don't recommend um those at all so then uh last thing is and I would this is probably the most important thing uh for my health um is uh person relationships I think you know without
16:00 - 16:30 quality Human Relationships I really don't believe that you can have a high quality of life I'm sure some people would disagree with that but I think for most people having Human Relationships is what makes life worth living and so um I you know I am amazed and grateful that the most important uh relationship in my life is the relationship I have with my wife this year 2025 will be our 25th wedding anniversary um so Tammy I love you uh
16:30 - 17:00 and I just feel so fortunate to be able to spend every day with my best friend I know not everybody has that but all of us should have these really important relationships and try to nurture those relationships so for me relationships in general and the relationship with my wife absolutely the most important factor um for my health so going forward I'm not really anticip ating any big changes in my routine at
17:00 - 17:30 least not right away but you never know it's going to come um I'll of course continue to evaluate new data pay attention to how I feel pay attention to my biomarkers tweak things uh as I go and I do have a few things I want to try out in the next six months to to to 12 months um I'm sort of intrigued by so one of these is the trim protocol the thymus regeneration imuno restoration and insulin mitigation protocol that was
17:30 - 18:00 developed by Greg fahe so um I was able to go and visit with Greg recently we have a podcast episode either out or coming out soon depending on the order that these things are released um with Greg where we do a really deep dive into trim and I learned a lot of really interesting stuff I was I was I was intrigued by trim before I had a chance to sit down with Greg and then after that conversation I'm I'm even more convinced that I want to give give it a try so I probably will do that I don't
18:00 - 18:30 know if I'll start in April or May or June and I'm hoping that I'll be able to do an MRI before and after to actually see structurally what happens to uh to the thymus and and so again Greg and I talked about this in detail but a couple of things should happen if there is actually thymic regeneration there should be a a change in the morphology so the volume of the thymus but even more importantly a change in the composition which you can see by MRI what I learned is that with thymic
18:30 - 19:00 involution there is an infiltration of fat into the thymus and that the trim protocol you actually see that fat um decrease um there are also some immune markers that we'll probably look at to see functionally whether it's having an effect on the immune system so anyways excited about that want to give that a try the other thing I'll probably try in the next couple of months is the um the clearly test so clearly is a a test that utilizes artificial intelligence Tools in combination with a coronary CT and
19:00 - 19:30 geography and this is done to evaluate plaque buildup in the arteries one of the cool things about clearly is it allows you to to measure both hard and soft plaques um I haven't done any tests to look at at a plaque burden so something I should do I kind of expect that I'll find some just based on family history and some of my prior lifestyle choices um so I'll probably have an upcoming episode on that and document the the whole process hoping to do that sometime um in April or May so probably
19:30 - 20:00 do both of those things and then we'll see what else uh 2025 brings um you know my goal honestly is to be in better shape at 64 than I am at 54 I feel like at 54 I'm in better shape than I was at 44 uh which is great um I know doing that 10 years from now is going to be a pretty heavy lift but I don't think it's impossible and I think if you don't go for it you're not going to you're not going to achieve it so I'm going to go for it um and I just you know try to try
20:00 - 20:30 to remember that aging doesn't have to be something that happens to us it can and should be something that we engage with we shape we try to optimize um again I don't know exactly what my health is going to look like when I'm 65 or 75 or 85 or 95 or 105 115 125 135 I don't know um but I do know that we all have a big say in it and uh and so I would want to encourage you like me to uh to take control of your
20:30 - 21:00 own health as best you can and make the most of the time that that we've got so that's it uh hope you have found this valuable and as always if you have any questions or comments please leave them below if you're not yet a subscriber hit the Subscribe button be sure to check out our newsletter it is awesome we've had two uh releases of the newsletter so far you can go to the website optis span. life and sign up for the newsletter there'll be some stuff in
21:00 - 21:30 there that we don't talk about on the podcast that you don't want to miss so be sure to check that out and I hope to see you next time on the podcast