Episode 43: Fasting Mimicking Diet: Beyond caloric restrictions with Dr. Valter Longo

Wow! What a great conversation with Dr. Valter Longo, director of
USC’s Longevity Institute. It’s always exciting to talk to someone
in the trenches of bench and clinical research, especially a
rock-star like Valter Longo! You can hear my nerves as we begin ,
yet there’s much to learn about Dr. Longo’s journey from a Blue
Zone upbringing in Italy to music major to biochemisty major to
leading expert in articulating the biochemical and genetic
underpinnings of the aging process. Dr. Longo was a post-doc under
Dr. Roy Walford – famous for his research on caloric restriction
and longevity. While Walford’s work – famously the 2-year Biosphere
study conducted on humans – yielded remarkable improvements in
chronic diseases, there were many side effects. The limitations of
the human Biosphere study prompted Dr. Longo to turn his attention
to longevity in single-celled organisms (S. Cervascie,
specifically), then animal studies, and most recently humans. Longo
designed his short term fasting mimicking diet (FMD), which does
away with the fallouts he observed in long term caloric
restriction. We cover a lot of great material in this conversation
– and Dr. Longo makes compelling points against the unfettered use
of MCT and exogenous ketones. Take a listen and let me know what
you think!