humanOS Radio

Perhaps you want to feel great about how you look at the beach. Maybe you play a sport in which it’s important to be powerful and strong relative to your weight. Or you might simply be interested in continuing to function well as years pass by. Whatever your goals are, you should be interested in the mass and quality of your muscle tissue. In this episode of humanOS Radio Dan speaks with Dr. Keith...

In this episode, Dan speaks with Dr. Mike West, CEO of AgeX Therapeutics. Here, we discuss a variety of important questions related to the science and potential of stem cells to positively influence human health including: The distinction between progenitor cells and stem cells; what goes wrong with stem cells during senescence; current clinical uses of stem cell therapies; what Dr. West’s team is...

We now know that the gut microbiome is intimately connected to our own health. You can even think of these gut bugs as though they are another organ. But while we know of the great importance of the gut microbiome in our metabolism, oxidative status, brain health, gut health, and more, knowing exactly how to intervene to promote health is a science in its infancy. In this episode, however, Dan cha...

If you value how you look and feel, you probably dedicate considerable time and effort to your physical fitness. But how often do you pause to ponder the state of your mental fitness? If you’re mentally fit, you’ll make better decisions and thereby enhance your ability to achieve goals, whatever they pertain to: physical performance, work, relationships, and the list goes on. In this episode of hu...

Most of us know that the majority of our cellular energy is manufactured within mitochondria which are organelles that dwell inside our cells. The problem is when we produce energy, a byproduct of that process creates reactive oxygen species (ROS). These ROS - or free radicals - can cause cellular damage and so for a long time a prevailing idea was that it's good to take antioxidants, like for exa...

In this episode of humanOS Radio, Dan hosts a discussion with Professor Antonio Nunez exploring the work and he and his colleagues are doing looking into how environmental light can lead to structural changes in the brain. For the great majority of us who aren't spending our days hunting and gathering, this could have important implications for our health and perhaps our productivity. The Environm...

Many other organisms have superhuman abilities, such as the capacity to ward off cancer, periodically reverse aging, regenerate limbs, and even regrow brains. Yet these non-human species share many genetic similarities with us. This naturally raises the question of whether we can learn from other animals in our quest to delay aging, reverse disease, and – dare I say it – return to life from the em...

The number of people with cardiovascular diseases is increasing at an alarming rate, and such disorders are now the leading cause of death worldwide. Because these diseases tend to cluster with pathologies like type-two diabetes, they are sometimes given the umbrella term “cardiometabolic diseases”. The number of people experiencing sleep problems has increased in lockstep with the growing prevale...

In this episode, Dan speaks with Bruce Hay, Professor of Biology at Caltech. Much of Professor Hay’s work focuses on the genetic and molecular mechanisms that regulate cell death, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. In brief, Professor Hay's research has shown that “we want to slow or stop… accumulation of the mutant genomes that inexorably occurs as we age”. Professor Hay and...

As the stage in which people dream each night, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep can bring euphoria, terror, and even genuine harm in some instances. On transition into REM sleep, your body enters a fascinating state. True to its name, REM sleep results in characteristic, swift, saccadic eye movements. But many other features of REM sleep are noteworthy. During REM sleep, activity in some brain regio...

If you are alive today, you've benefited greatly from humankind's ability to deftly handle infectious agents via antibiotic medications. In fact, probably the single greatest achievement of modern medicine remains our ability to thwart (many) deadly microorganisms.  But our high usage of antibiotics has put great pressure on these pathogenic bacteria to mutate for their own survival. As a result,...

You probably already know that ambient light regulates circadian rhythms by interacting with light-sensitive neurons in the eye. What hasn’t been clear is whether visible light has physiological effects on other tissues in the body outside of the retina...until now. In this episode of humanOS Radio, Dan talks to Peter Light. Dr. Light is a pharmacologist and a leader in the field of cellular elect...

Does a ketogenic diet cure diabetes? A new study set out to explore the efficacy of this diet in a diabetic population and it's been getting a lot of attention. The results, in fact, are impressive but claims are being made about what the study showed that are not entirely true. In this episode, I've brought on the multi-time guest, Stephan Guyenet, PhD - author of the book the Hungry Brain, and c...

Aging has long been characterized as a loss of complexity. The body loses the ability to adapt to various forms of stress, which gradually results in disease and loss of function. This is most evident in the muscles and bones, but neuroimaging has revealed that this occurs in the brain as well. The aging brain becomes less specialized than that of younger counterparts. We see increased secondary a...

In this episode of humanOS, Dan interviews Dr. Alon Keinan, Professor at the Department of Biological Statistics & Computational Biology at Cornell University. His lab investigates the evolutionary origin of genetic variation in human populations, and have been looking into what factors may have shaped human genetic propensity to convert long-chain fatty acids.   In his recent study in Nature, his...

We are in control of our decisions, right? Well, at least we all feel that way but the social science of behavioral economics demonstrates that we are really products of our environmental triggers and cultures. Still, we can act willfully but it's typical that environment will win out, for many behaviors, over time. One interesting line of work that has come from this field looks to understand how...

We need a better approach to healthcare and we just might have the solution in our hands now. In this episode, Dan interviews Chris Kresser about his new book, Unconventional Medicine. Who is the book for? All stakeholders in the healthcare system, which means you. In our chat, we discuss Chris's personal health journey and the experiences that lead to the development of his plan for a better heal...

So much of the discussion on nutrition is about the food itself. What's discussed far less regularly is the impact of food timing, fasting periods, and meal skipping on the same outcomes we're interested in when we talk about saturated fat, carbs, fiber, etc. It turns out, there is a whole lot to discuss here that matters for human health. In this episode, Dan speaks with two topic experts - both...

Why is that we tend to see many diseases of aging occur around the same time in life? One reason is that we accumulate senescent cells with age, and these cells promote the aging process. There is, however, exciting new research that shows how these cells can be cleared as we age. Some of the compounds are drugs but others are natural compounds that could have a meaningful effect. In this episode,...

Ketones are getting a lot of press these days. They are produced in the liver under the conditions of low carbohydrate intake and also low-calorie intake. They are of interests for many reasons, including potential anti-cancer properties, weight control properties, athletic and cognitive enhancement, and now as substances with longevity and health extention potential. In this interview with resear...

We know that as people age, they tend to get less sleep. But older people also seem to suffer less when subjected to sleep deprivation, compared to younger adults. This has led some to conclude that older people get less sleep simply because they do not need as much. However, recent brain studies have revealed that the aging brain changes in ways that makes sleep less restorative. This suggests th...

In this episode of humanOS Radio, Dan talks to Dr. Laura Fonken who is a post-doctoral fellow in Steven Maier’s lab in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado. Her research investigates how disruptions to circadian rhythms may affect physiological functions, and ultimately could make individuals more vulnerable to disease. This affects all of us, to varying degr...

“Man is not going to wait passively for millions of years before evolution offers him a better brain.” - Corneliu Giurgea In this episode of humanOS Radio, Dan speaks to Daniel Schmachtenberger. Daniel is a social engineer, an evolutionary philosopher, and he works with a group called Neurohacker Collective, who is dedicated to optimizing human performance. In this interview, we discuss current re...

"The main thing is that sauna frequency is inversely associated with the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, which means that the more you sauna, the lower your risk." In this interview with Jari Laukkanen, MD, Ph. D., Head of the Cardiology Department at the University of Eastern Finland, we explore his fascinating findings looking at the difference in brain health in men who frequently tak...

Modern technology is messing with our sleep. But what if someone could develop a device that actually helped us fall asleep faster? In this episode, Dan speaks with Kelly Roman who is the co-owner of Fisher Wallace Laboratories, a progressive medical device company that aspires to treat insomnia and depression in novel ways. Fisher Wallace is introducing a neurostimulation product called Kortex to...