How to eat your way to a longer life - Discovery 01.11

Hello, and welcome to Tomorrow Science. I'm your host, Jade Kim, and I have next to me, Anathena. Today we are going to be sitting down with Dr. Walter Longo of the USC Longevity Institute, and we are going to talk all about how you can literally regenerate your body through the power of diet and fasting mimicking. Stay tuned. There's a lot to be learned. Anathena, what else do we have? We're then going to look at your comments and questions from last month's show. This is Tomorrow Science Discovery 1.11. And hello again. Welcome to Tomorrow Science. We are going to go ahead and dive right into the interview. So Dr. Walter Longo, thank you so much for joining us today. And really quick, would you mind introducing yourself to our viewers? Yes. I'm Professor Longo. I'm a professor of gerontology and biological sciences at USC. I'm also a director of a lab in Milan on oncology and longevity. Wonderful. How exciting. And also I wanted to say really quickly, congrats on being named to Time Magazine's Healthcare 50, which is basically they named the 50 most influential people in healthcare. And Dr. Longo was actually on that list for 2018. So a huge congratulations to you. Thanks. Absolutely. So getting right into it, what first interested you in the fields of nutrition and longevity? And basically what led you down this path of all these amazing, all this amazing research that you do? I always, for some reason, I was always interested in aging and nutrition really started with the Walford Lab at UCLA, back in the early nineties, Walford, the Roy Walford was one of the pioneers on longevity and nutrition. And it was doing something called calorie restriction. And that was something that I was very interested in, but eventually I turned back to simple systems and genetics of aging to then return to the nutrition maybe a decade later in the early 2000s. And really our focus has been on connecting nutrients with genes and genes with aging. That's really what we've always focused on. Wow. So how did that lead into then creating the longevity diet and how does that tie in with fasting? I really want to talk about that. Yeah. So I think I learned a lot from Walford and Walford, this calorie restriction was essentially something very simple. What happens if you just eat about 30% less and the results were extraordinary, but they were also problematic, meaning that there was lots of benefits on diseases, but then the person would be made to look anorexic and that caused lots of problems. And so what we did in the next, let's say, 20 years was to, how can we get these extraordinary benefits of calorie restriction without the problems of calorie restriction? And I think now we succeeded in the longevity diet. The book was really about putting these 25 years of work that I've done, but not just my work, but really the work of many people that I personally collaborated with and put it in the book in a way that people can start utilizing it. Certainly I used it myself for decades and I just felt that it was time that everybody else at least had an opportunity to read it and decide whether that's something that they want to also do. That's really great. And I have a question though. So I'm assuming, did you do most of your research in America? Because obviously America's kind of well known for our obesity epidemic. So did you, basically two questions, did you mainly study folks in America? And then second question, did you do anything in comparison, for instance, from where you're from, Italy, where it's a lot healthier over there, in terms of statistically, it's a lot healthier over there and people are a lot, there's not as much obesity over there as there is over here. Yeah. So all of our, all my studies originally were in the United States. I mean, the U.S. has been really a leader in the longevity field that it took everybody else much, much longer to figure out how important this field was. But then we've done lots of studies, particularly in the last 10 years, also in Europe, in not just Italy, but also Holland, Germany and elsewhere. And yeah, obesity used to be a United States problem, is no longer a United States problem. In fact, if you look at Italy, some regions of the south of Italy have as much of a problem as the U.S. Oh, wow. And if you look at infant obesity and child obesity, it's very similar actually between Italy and the United States. So yeah, those days where it was just the U.S. are over, now you have lots of countries that have similar problems, whether it's Mexico, some countries of the Middle East, Southern Europe, et cetera. And pretty soon it's going to be health of the world. And yeah, so there's the bad habits that we've seen here for a while are now a big worldwide problem. With about 20 percent of the world population now having some form of metabolic syndrome. Wow. So for the studies that you did do, what were the steps specifically that you took for implementing the longevity diet on each of these people? I want to really know what it takes to actually do this diet. Well, I mean, I'm not sure if you're asking about the steps to get to the diet or the steps to do the diet. But to get to the diet, obviously it's decades of work and the genetics of aging were really important. You know, the identification of genes like TOR, assist kinase and PKA made by my lab, but also learning from the discoveries of others like Cynthia Canyon in Northern California and others. Yeah, so that was really the beginning and really also was about the focus on aging and not on disease. So the idea was treat aging. And if you treat aging and you implement healthy longevity, then the diseases are going to follow and you're going to be able to first prevent diseases and then eventually even treat diseases better. Then, of course, the implementation on people, it required its own science, meaning that we had to spend lots of time first with mice and then eventually with people to see what can we, particularly with this fasting-mimicking diet that I assume we're going to talk about later. about this fasting-mimicking diet. The fasting-mimicking diet is something that lasts about five days, is a low-calorie, low-protein, low-sugar, high-fat diet, and it was developed to, first of all, be safe for people but also be as effective as water-only fasting and also be something that is doable, meaning that we didn't want to come up with another diet that people will do for a couple of months and then not continue. It was important to do something that people could actually stick with for a long time. And so, yeah, that's where the fasting-mimicking diet comes from. Absolutely. So then let's go ahead and get right into it. You do promote the fasting-mimicking. So my question is, what's the difference between just your traditional fasting and your fasting-mimicking? If you can go ahead and explain that for us. Well, traditional fasting is, I always say it's a word that doesn't mean anything. It's like saying traditional eating. It just, there's a million different versions. And what happened in the past is that fasting came around every 50 years or so, and then it disappeared because eventually somebody gets hurt, and doctors will go against it, and this whole field goes away. So what we try to do is to figure out, like for eating, what is it about fasting that is helpful and it doesn't have any side effects? And that's where the fasting-mimicking diet comes from. It is about content and so nutrients and the understanding of what I call nutrient technology. So what is the connection, let's say, between amino acids contained in proteins and TOR signaling, IGF-1 signaling, so these genes that I referred to earlier, or sugars and PKA? So that was what we worked on, and that's where the fasting-mimicking diet comes from. Lots of understanding of these connections, but also understanding of, for example, what makes somebody full, or what protects someone from passing out, because maybe the salts in the diet are too low, or what could exacerbate somebody that may already be vitamin B12 deficient, and then you, let's say you put this person on a five-day or 10-day water-only fasting, and you bring them over the edge, right? So these are all things that we had to address to begin to now move this into mainstream medicine. I mean, it's not quite there yet, but it's certainly moving in that direction. And so now, for example, fasting, some type of fasting is the most used dietary intervention for people under the age of 34. Just to tell you how popular now it's getting in the U.S. and worldwide, but I think for this to stay around, we need to standardize it, and we need to really focus on the standard way that medicine has worked all these centuries, and not try to improvise, because improvisation is going to lead to another failure. Exactly. So you mentioned a lot about the aging process, and particularly how that intertwines with DNA, but we actually have a question in our chat room that asks, we hear a lot about the aging process, but what is actually happening at a basic level? What problem does our DNA have? And then I'm going to connect it back to you by saying, what problem does our DNA have, and then how specifically does the fasting-mimicking diet aim to alleviate or to perhaps, yeah, to basically help those issues? Yeah, our DNA doesn't have any problems. Our DNA is the result of billions of years of evolution, and it's fine. Now some people's DNA is worse than other people's DNA, meaning that you could have mutations, for example, BRCA1 mutation that Angelina Jolie has. These are the type of mutation that can give you cancer, basically, or they make it much, much more likely than everybody else to get breast cancer. So some people have that problem. Now if the question is about what problem does the DNA accumulate, that's a different question, meaning that, of course, during aging, everything in the human body gets somewhat damaged, and the DNA is one of the molecules that are damaged by this process, and eventually this DNA damage can affect the cellular function and the function of the organism. So the fasting-mimicking diet, the job of the fasting-mimicking diet is really about allowing the body to fix itself. And so I always say, if you cut yourself, the body is very much able to fix this problem. And a couple of weeks later, you don't really see any of the original wounds, right? And I always thought, is it really likely that after three billion years of evolution, we do not have a way to repair the inside of the body? We just have a very sophisticated way to repair the outside, but not the inside. So the fasting-mimicking diet, we believe, and lots of our evidence is that it is probably the most powerful way to do this self-repair, so activate the ability of the body to get rid of damaged DNA, get rid of damaged protein, get rid even of damaged cells and replace these damaged cells with functional new ones, functional ones, in part or in large part by activating stem cells, but not just by a stem cell-based mechanism. Wow. What is the most important age that you would have to say for someone to start doing this type of controlled-mimicking fasting in order to have maximum benefits throughout their life? Yeah, I can tell you we've been having meetings just to take it to the extreme. I just had another meeting yesterday with people from the Los Angeles Children's Hospital, and the discussions are about type 1 diabetes, but also type 2 diabetes and obesity. Can we intervene in children that are maybe very young with these fasting-mimicking diets to control obesity and reverse the course, right? So there's a study that came out recently showing that if children are overweight between the age 7 and 13, they had about a 40% increased chance of developing diabetes lifetime, and if they were overweight between the age 7 and 18, they had a fourfold increase in diabetes risk lifetime. We are now considering doing clinical trials with several children's hospitals, both in Europe and the United States, to use the fasting-mimicking diet. But of course, our focus is on adults, and so we think that probably somebody even 25 years old could do the fasting-mimicking diet a couple times a year. And then, really, the fasting-mimicking diet should be based on the need, meaning that if somebody is obese and they have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high fasting glucose level, they might have to do this once a month under some type of medical supervision. But if somebody is a 30-year-old athlete and they're perfectly healthy, they have a pescetarian ideal longevity everyday diet, again, maybe a couple times a year is sufficient. Perfect. And that actually was going to lead into my follow-up question was, how do you accommodate the fasting-mimicking diet for those who are quite active and do need more of a caloric need than, say, your average sedentary person? Yeah. So the big difference, I think, about what we're doing and what everybody else is doing is that we're telling people, you don't really need to change anything, meaning that half of the book tells you what the ideal lifestyle is, right? But the other half of the book says, I understand that some people are not going to change anything. And so if you're an athlete, you're going to keep doing what it is that you've always done. But so many times a year, you have to take a break and for those five days, do the fasting-mimicking diet and really take it easy, right? So if you're an athlete, you're very active, and you're burning 3,000 calories a day, and you have a diet that you don't want to change, that's fine. But let's say three times a year, now you do this prolonged fasting-mimicking diet. Don't exercise during those five days. There's no need to exercise all the time. This is, in fact, a great time to allow the body to fix itself, to repair itself. Give it those five days and maybe a couple of days later, after you finish the diet, this regeneration moment, this refeeding moment is really there to fix things. And so for a week around the fasting-mimicking diet, it's good to just focus on that. I mean, on that and whatever job that you do, there is no reason to stop doing what you normally do, but there is a reason to stop, let's say, exercising. In fact, you're likely to pass out, but you have big problems if you exercise during a fasting-mimicking diet period. Absolutely. Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned that too. For instance, I know, particularly in the realm of weight training, a lot of people report that when they do take a week off or when they do what's called a deload, which does involve heavy calorie restricting and then not exercising, when they come back, they often find that their strength increased. And I would imagine it would have to do with the fact that your body's regenerating and repairing itself. Would that be, does that sound accurate? Yes, absolutely. So we now know this for mice. We're doing a clinical trial in Verona, University of Verona, on this, on the strength. Soon enough, we'll have results and we'll maybe be able to have a formal answer to your question. Interesting. Well, speaking of actually regenerating the body, there's a really good question in the chat from Johnny Spacer, and he asks, could a person's skin cells or fat cells be extracted, made into stem cells and inject into the body to do similar work that fasting does? What do you think about that? Yeah, yeah. This is, I always, this is biohacking, right? So I mean, people always want to go to biohacking, you know, try to outsmart three billion years of evolution. And I always say, sure. I mean, we are also doing biohacking, the fasting, meaning that it is a biohacking system, but it's a respectful one, right? It's a biohacking system that works with evolution, works with tradition and history to make sure that we don't interfere with the normal process of repair and regeneration. Why is that? Because, you know, imagine three billion years, I call it three billion years of research and development, right? It's a long time, right? And now let's say you take cells from fat and you try to make it into stem cells and then repair a tissue. You can do that. I mean, this is actually done for joints. There is many clinics that are now doing this. And in some cases it can be effective, right? You can solve some limited problems. Let's say you have some degeneration in some cartilage or some area, specific areas, these stem cells taken from the fat cells, they can be effective. You know, I'm not familiar with all the studies in this field, but I know that they can be successful. But when you're looking at the entire body and let's say, you know, a system that includes the nervous system, the brain includes the heart, liver, et cetera. So there is many very sophisticated, complex systems. Now, if you take stem cells and you inject them and you try to biohack your way through it, you're probably going to do more damage than good in the overall system, right? And again, could work for certain specific purposes, but we're nowhere near trying to beat those 3 billion years of evolution. So now we have to sort of work with that and say, let's respect this incredible sophistication. Let's say, if you go back to the wound, think about cutting yourself and somebody says, well, can we have some stem cells that you can just inject and so you can repair this more quickly? Well, yeah, everything is possible, but you certainly don't want to interfere with this natural process that it's going to almost perfectly repair your wound, right? Eventually, yes, we'll be better than that. But again, that's probably like 50 years away. Oh, interesting. Wow. So there actually is a question here in the chat that Zepfen Zepfen asks. He says, have you done any randomized clinical trials of this? Because I really think that that might be an accurate way to sort of express what's happening with this. Yeah. So we've done multiple randomized clinical trials. We have several on cancer. Last year, we published one on 100 subjects on the fasting-mimicking diet called Prolon and showed lots of very potent results. For example, lowering cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides, fasting glucose, systemic inflammation, markers or risk factors for cancer, et cetera. So it works very well. Now we're collecting data from about 2,000 or 3,000 patients and hundreds of doctors to also look at the safety, how safe is this. But this has been done by, I think, tens of thousands of people and thus far there have been no safety concerns. And again, the clinical trials seem to show efficacy. We also have a clinical trial in collaboration with Charité Hospital that looked at multiple sclerosis patients and that also showed positive results. Yeah. So the first three or four trials that were published are all positive. Now we're doing larger trials with 300, 400, 500 patients and those are going to be very important to have conclusive data, particularly on the disease state, meaning that it's pretty clear now it's safe for people that are not sick and also it's pretty clear that it can be effective. But yeah, somebody has diabetes or cancer or autoimmunities, for those we still have to do the large trials to figure out if it works and also does it work in combination with specific therapies. In many cases we will be combining, let's say, fasting and immunotherapy or fasting and some of the standard of care for autoimmunities. That's fantastic. And I remember when I was kind of doing a little bit of research on your research, I did come across a few articles about combining the method with those who are undergoing chemotherapy or undergoing some sort of treatment that already takes a huge toll on the body, but some of those issues are kind of alleviated through that. So that's really awesome because it's great to have the average person get healthier, but when you can help somebody who's already going through something absolutely detrimental to their bodies and make it a little bit easier on them, you know, kudos to you, basically. And that kind of leads me into my next question. Can you talk to us about what the Valter Longo Foundation is and kind of what it does? Yeah, actually in the U.S. it's called Create Cures Foundation. Oh, okay. In Italy it's Valter Longo Foundation. But yeah, well, I mean, as they say in the book, I was always surprised that when patients came to me and they come still every day and they have, you know, usually advanced diseases, that there is not a system to take care of them. So they say you have cancer, you go to the oncologist, and then, you know, as the oncologists tell me, they have lots of questions about, for example, nutrition, what should they eat. And so there is really not a system, A, to advise them on that. But more so, there is not a system that involves, I say in the book that I believe that molecular biologists can have a major central place in medicine. What I mean by that, I mean that if you have an advanced disorder, somebody that has in-depth understanding of the molecular biology of that disorder, let's say cancer, can help the oncologist in working in a team, can have the oncologist strategize much more effectively against that particular disorder. And the oncologists that usually don't have lots of time, they see lots of patients. So having, let's say, a dietician, but also a molecular oncologist, and this team is so important and doesn't exist in the great majority of places. So this is what the foundation, the CREATE Cures Foundation, is focusing on. Can we start a clinic? We started one in Italy or started a center in Italy, and pretty soon we're going to open one in the U.S. that forms this team and can help people that have big problems trying to identify the best solution. And that's one thing. Then, of course, education. We're starting to go into the schools and educate children on eating healthy for life, not just eating healthy to grow, but as I mentioned earlier, your chances of developing diabetes could be already set by the time you turn to 18 to be four times higher than everybody else. It's just mistakes made before the age of 18. So that's another thing that the foundation is doing, educating in schools. And then, of course, funding research at USC and the EFOM Oncology Center in Italy, but funding many clinical trials or parts of clinical trials. So those are some of the major efforts of the foundation. Wow. I have a pretty, I guess, sort of personal question with this because I feel like it's obvious why this is important, right? It's not just about this interest of wanting to live longer, but also wanting to be healthy, wanting to try and fight against diseases. But I really want to know, like, what made you first interested in wanting to do something like this and try to really cause a shift for humanity and the way that we look at what we put into our body and how we can improve our health? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure, but I was 19 years old. I was at the University of North Texas. I was a jazz performance major, a guitar player. And you can see I still have the guitar player look. You know, I just thought I was extremely interested in music and I didn't think I was going to be able to do anything else. But I kept thinking about aging and also the role. I was thinking, why doesn't everybody talk about aging in addition to medicine, right? So all people that get sick are older. So why don't we, I mean, of course, it was a very naive question at the time, but certainly I just felt that this aging and medicine field was such an incredible opportunity that I didn't even see the competition with the music. And so, yes, since age 19, I was I was pretty sure that that's all I want to do. And, you know, that's all I've ever done. And then I think, you know, my grandfather, I saw him dying when I was five or six years old. And I mean, at the time, I didn't think anything of it. But I guess he's seen somebody dying at the age five or whatever. I'm imagining that stuck in my head that I always saw life is very uncertain. You know, maybe that's why when I was 19, just like, you know, 13 years later, maybe there was so powerful in my head that everything else didn't seem, you know, when when you see somebody die like that, everything else seems like not that important. Right. You sort of realize that you can make music very important. But if you're unhealthy, if you're sick, then then you're not going to be able to do that. And and so that's maybe what I mean, I don't know, but I always assume that that really shaped this interest in my head, starting at a very young age. Hey, that's that. Thank you for sharing that with us. That really does kind of put the human aspect to it. And so you mentioned that you started this, you know, fascination with medicine and longevity and just how people live their lives. So in the early stages of your research, were you ever at any point not discouraged, but maybe a little frustrated with the sheer amount of pseudoscience that exists in the realm of diets and fads and so-called like nutritional guidance? Yes. So, well, first of all, of course, as a scientist, if you want to try to change the way things are done, you're going to get to many points where you're thinking of quitting. You always get to points where you realize that nobody really cares about the research you're doing. And so that's certainly one one experience that you have to go through to change things, you know, because if you do what everybody else does, if you're looking for people to say you're right, then you have to follow what everybody else does and you really don't discover anything that is that new. And then so so there is that phase. But then, of course, the second phase is the the fad diets that you're describing. And, you know, that's still a problem no matter what, no matter what recognition you get and and how much, you know, Time magazine talks about you. You still have to fight a lot of ideas out there. But I really was impressed when I saw the survey this year that the official survey that came out, I forget of what institute. And and there were several things in there that really surprised me. You know, for example, fasting being the number one diet now used by people, but also something else. It was the protein. People were asked, well, what do you think about protein? And people answer. And this is just a thousand Americans picked from anywhere. And the answer, if high protein is bad for you or I forget what I think it was, high protein is bad for you. But if they're from plant based sources, then it's OK. Right. So I was very impressed with how people understood much more than we give them credit for. So even though there is all this noise and all these these these bad ideas out there, that people were listening, they were paying attention to lots of the things that we were doing and not just we and the others were doing. And so I this is why I wrote the book. And in the book, I talk about five pillars. And I say, you know, we come up with high protein, low protein. It's not just an opinion. We look at the mouse data. Then we look at the clinical trial. Then we look at the epidemiological trials, then studies. Then we look at centenarians and then we look at complex system. How does a car, a plane, the space shuttle. Right. I talk about the space shuttle a lot in my book. And so, yeah, so that's this is an approach that I think, lots of people from all over the world that read the book appreciate it. It wasn't just, oh, let me tell you, I'm the expert. I'm tell you what to do is more. It was more like, let me show you how I built this conclusion. And it starts from the very bottom. It starts with evolution, bacteria, yeast that are starving. And then I build it up all the way to mice and then from mice to the genetics of aging humans. You know, we following these people in Ecuador that almost never get diseases. Right. In the mice, they have the same mutation, have the same phenotype. This was really important in building it. And then people, I think once they heard the whole story, then they I think they appreciate it and they paid attention. And that survey, I think, is some evidence that they're paying much more attention that we give people credit for. Absolutely. And you know what? I think especially that aligns with our philosophy as a science channel ourselves. When you mentioned that we often don't give the general public a whole lot of credit when it comes to all of the noise out there. But, you know, then being able to discern what is good versus not good science. So, yeah, definitely a great sentiment worth echoing. So to conclude this interview, where can our viewers go to find out more about the longevity diet, fasting, mimicking and to potentially change their lives? Yeah, so the so Valter Longo.com is the site where we now have the English version, Italian version, lots of languages pretty soon. And that's where the foundations operate. And now we might have a different website for the foundation, but we're trying to figure it out. And then the Facebook Professor Valter Longo Facebook page, that's I have several nutritionists and dietitians and they go through the literature. We look for studies like the one I mentioned earlier about diabetes in children. So we read it, we screen, then we read it and then we decide that this is a good article. We post it and then also find late person articles, let's say, you know, the New York Times or maybe an article online that does a good job at explaining what the study showed. And then we post it. So, yeah, Professor Valter Longo Facebook page is a good way to follow us. And if you just like the page, then, you know, you're going to get all the new articles that we post and any announcements. For example, I'm not sure when you're going to show this, but November nine and November 19, Los Angeles, I'm organizing a conference on fasting and we're going to have a public series of lectures. We're going to have all the world or many of the world experts on fasting presenting. And so this is going to be at the Radisson near USC on November 9th, starting at four thirty p.m. Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for spending the time talking with us today. It was just utterly fascinating. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I can't wait for the follow up comments on this segment. So we are actually going to take a really good. Let me say one more thing. I forgot the prolon. The fasting making diet, I think, is prolonfmd.com and people can can go there and and then there is a network of doctors and nutritionists that can be assigned to the person if they need this assignment. Perfect. And I'm sure we'll have all the links listed, all the correct links listed right there in the bio or not the bio, but the description underneath. So, again, if you are interested in any of the above or any of the aforementioned, please definitely click and learn more. So we are going to go ahead and head on to a quick commercial break. But before we do that, we are going to go ahead and give a large thank you to our escape velocity citizens. Yes, these are folks that help make the show happen. They contribute ten dollars an episode on Patreon, as well as our orbital citizens. These lovely people contribute five dollars an episode on Patreon. They are literally the lifeblood of the show. And just as much as Dr. Longo promotes longevity in humans, the citizens promote longevity in tomorrow. So if you would like to become part of our immortality, go ahead and head on over to Patreon dot com slash t m r o. And we will see you in just a few seconds. So don't go anywhere. We've always looked to the stars. They guide us, give us comfort, help us find our way. We see ourselves out there. When we look up, it inspires us. We long for something we don't yet know. We yearn to go there. So we venture forth. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize a vision of this. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. That's one small step for man, the exploration of space will go ahead whether we join in it or not. Many think we stopped exploring, but we know our journey didn't end. We've only just begun. Ryan is functioning. Come with us and explore tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with us. So we're going to go right on into your comments and questions from last week's show. I'm really excited to go over this one. So we'll go right on into that first question. Oh, yes. And so this is actually from last week's shows was the black. I was like, how much are you going to like what was it? Oh, it was. Hello and thank you for sticking with us. So last week's show, we actually spoke with Paul Zaber about what we're learning from a greenhouse out in Antarctica. It's part of the Eden ISS project. Such a great show. And we got some really good comments that we're going to go right on into right now and chat about. So the first one actually comes right off of YouTube from Helios Works AV. And they say having worked with a similar but smaller hydroponics system in the city, it definitely does have a positive psychological benefit in otherwise biologically austere environments. Yeah. And I actually I thought this was a really good point. And I wish we would have brought it up when we spoke with him, because, yeah, I didn't even think about that. Like we were talking about, obviously, the nutritional benefits of having a fresh salad and garden accessible every day, but psychologically, too, because when you're in Antarctica, I bet it can get a little monotonous just looking at such kind of icy environment all the time. So I imagine the plants do have quite a nice psychological effect, like, hey, look, life, how nice is actually like. Yeah, I'm sure that that's that probably has a huge impact because it's all about, you know, trying to be as close to nature as possible when you're in such circumstances. I'm curious if you're actually watching live right now. Helio works. Where is it that you actually work as far as a hydroponic system in the city? I'm really curious which one that you're part of, because I bet that there'd be quite a lot of cool stuff to talk about when it comes to that. So the next comment also comes off of YouTube from Scott Jenner, and they say bacteria are capable of incredibly fast genetic mutation in order to adapt to changing environments and conditions. So I think it stands to reason that mutation could result in new bacterial threats. I'm certainly on board with the idea of removing the stigma of poop. It poses risks, and we can and do mitigate those risks. I personally eat in food grown in human, human, human. And I thought that was so clever. But yeah, so we we happened to talk about the possibilities of recycling human waste aboard, you know, different space missions, including the ISS. And I was one of the proponents of, hey, why not, you know, remove the stigma of the stinky stuff and really utilize it, because there's plenty of it. And you're going to have to find out something to do with it. But Scott brings up a really good point. And I personally don't know a whole lot about bacterial mutations or how that can affect humans, but definitely something to keep in mind. But what really interested me about this comment is that they've actually eaten food grown in human waste. And so I want them to tell us what did you eat? Did it taste different? What were the first bites like psychologically? Like, oh my gosh, I am literally eating something grown in human poop. I mean, is it as bad? But I mean, to be honest, though, is it any worse than eating something that was grown in cow poop? In cow poop? Yeah, exactly. I mean, let's be honest. It's all poop. I mean, any time, too. I used to go out into the country and out in Texas or different areas that are really rural, and you would smell cow manure. It just was sort of, I mean, I was a kid. And even though when you think about it, it's gross, you affiliate it with crops and you affiliate it with the harvest. So that's kind of how I always looked at it. So I mean, this again, psychologically, if it's human poop, I'm sure it's really gross. But yeah, I wonder, too. I wonder what would you guys think if you tried that? And actually, Johnny Spacer in the chat brings up a really good point. Cow manure is basically fibrous plant material, aka grass, whereas human waste isn't. And you know what? You could not be more correct, Johnny. Now that I think about especially Western diets and some of the processed things and some of the not as healthy things we put in our bodies, including alcohol and other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I get it. I get it. Yeah. OK. That's why I always say, too, like, you know, I mean, mentioning actually alcohol, whenever people are feeling weird about taking shots of wheatgrass or like ginger shots, I usually say, I'm like, well, if you can do a shot of tequila, I'm sure you can do a shot of wheatgrass, which is good for you. I mean, maybe that's totally why not use one as a chaser for the other. I mean, whichever order is something you prefer personally. Yeah. So I mean, I think with this, it's like valid, valid points. You know, if people are putting other, you know, mysterious things into the body, why not put something that came out of the body to anyway. So we're going to move on. This is getting weird. This is good. But anyway, so the next comment, last one comes off of YouTube. I like the name. It's Mr. Man, Mr. Man, Mr. Man. And he says, assuming it's a he missed the opportunity to grow Antarctica's favorite vegetable, the iceberg lettuce. Wow. You know, I actually really like iceberg lettuce. That's hilarious. That's kind of even though it's the least color. I mean, it's the least nutritionally dense of the lettuces. But that's cute. That was a very cute little joke. Get it. Iceberg iceberg because they're in Antarctica. Yeah. Actually, I thought it was really nice. And I did learn once about celery. Random fun fact. I learned it from Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're sitting and eating peanut butter. And he's saying he's like, you know, celery really is is just there's like no point to it. He's like, if you rip out the little strings on there, which is like the fibers, it pretty much is like negative two calories or something because it has no calories. But when you're chewing, you're burning calories. And I just remember that moment. I was like, OK, but if you guys know how many calories are actually in celery, let us know, because I'm actually curious now. Celery is just a fantastic vessel for condiments like ranch and blue cheese and for helping my mouth after a plate of spicy wings. Yeah. But anyway, so that was a great show. And I'm really excited for the next. So we're actually bringing on one of my really good friends. His name is Dr. Kirby Runyon. He's a planetary geologist from John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Guys, OK, I'm really excited for this because he's gonna be talking about numerous dwarf planets throughout the solar system and how dwarf planets are planets, too, unlike what the IAU claims. Plus, we talk science results from the New Horizons exploration. So I love the comments that are always going on during the show about Pluto. Love me some New Horizons. Yes. Yes. So definitely guys, get ready for that. Bring everything that you want to say about Pluto and dwarf planets and all other fun stuff. It's going to work. Oh, it's good. It's going to be good. It's going to be lit. All right. Anyways, on that note, my energy. All right. So that concludes today's show. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we officially say goodbye, we want to give one more healthy shout out to our escape velocity citizens. These generous folks contribute ten dollars an episode on Patreon. And of course, our orbital citizens who contribute five dollars an episode on Patreon. And you cannot forget our suborbital citizens. Two dollars and fifty cents per episode on Patreon. I will pause, try to, you know, let you find your name up there if it is. But you want to know what? It's going to be a lot easier to pick out your name from the because look at this ground support. Wow. Just kidding. It'd be a lot harder. It's I love tomorrow because it helps me talk to literally hundreds of what used to be strangers across the world about something I am insanely passionate about. I get to work with the greatest people on the planet. And to be honest, this is totally the dream gig. And I couldn't have imagined in a million years that you would say that I could do this every Saturday. That's what I get excited every morning, every single Saturday morning, literally. And I love after the show, I go on Twitter and I legit have like all these new like like just conversations started from you guys that were like on the show and are just like sight referencing things that were said during the show like that actually gets me so excited because in this conversation, like relays over into my Uber rides and all this other stuff. So it's awesome. But. Yeah, so. And you make that possible. I'm sorry, I'm a terrible lip reader. But anyways, thank you for staying with us. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below. Do not forget to subscribe. Hit that little bell that's down here somewhere. You know how to work the YouTube and we will see you next month. As Athena said, thanks for sticking around. Have yourselves a great rest of your month.