Peter Attia: Our conversation about his hit book OUTLIVE, Medicine 3.0, promoting healthspan, GLP-1 drugs and more
· 43 min
Episode Peter Attia: Our conversation about his hit book OUTLIVE, Medicine 3.0, promoting healthspan, GLP-1 drugs and more
In July, I reviewed Peter’s Outlive book here in Ground Truths and hoped I’d be able to interview him about my concerns. Here’s that conversation, recorded October 16th. I hope you’ll find it informative and stimulating!
The AI generated transcript (unedited) below with links to the audio recording
Eric Topol (00:01):
Peter, it's really great to see you. I haven't been chance to visit since early 2020, and you introduced me to Topo Chico as a great way to get carbonated water. Are you still into those?
Peter Attia (00:15):
Very much so, yeah. Although I have a different drink today because, well, I don't know why I grabbed for different drinks.
Eric Topol (00:22):
Yeah, well it's kind of amazing. Distinct from the rest of the waters, fizzy waters. At any rate, since that time, that memorable visit we had, you published an incredible book Outlive, and I think it sold more than a million, well over a million copies, which is amazing. So congratulations.
Peter Attia (00:41):
Thank you so much.
Eric Topol (00:42):
It's a great book. And you may have written my review, which I really thought it offers just a great information resource and it must've taken so many years to put it all together.
Peter Attia (00:54):
Yeah, I think it probably took seven years in total.
Eric Topol (00:57):
Well, I think it was well worth, and I think it's helping a lot of people. And in fact, I first became aware of it just because these patients were coming into me and saying, well, that's not what Dr. Attia says, or What do you think of Dr. Attia’s book ? So that's prompted me to give it a really close read, and I learned a lot from all your work. I thought what we'd start off with, I think you framed it really well with this Medicine, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and the shift to the right. So maybe you could explain the concept on that. Sure.
Peter Attia (01:34):
So Medicine 1.0 is kind of a placeholder for a time before there really was medicine, or at least before, there was sort of a scientific method and an understanding of science and the natural world around us. But of course, from a timescale perspective, it's what dominated all of our civilization. So humans have been around for 250,000 years and until very, very, very recently on that timescale, we didn't really have the tools intellectually to understand science. So we couldn't understand cause and effect. We didn't have a scientific method, let alone capacity to do experiments. And so most of what we did as far as medicine was based on things that we look back at today and think are completely ridiculous. Illness was brought on by the gods or bad humors or things like that. And really then when we start to think about medicine in the way we think about it today, we're really thinking about Medicine 2.0.
(02:33):
And this is something that was obviously a many, many year transition. Technically I would argue it took place over hundreds of years, beginning with Francis Bacon in the late 17th century or the mid 17th century, but really accelerating in the latter part of the 19th century with germ theory. So we can think about lister, I wrote a little bit about them, and ultimately really a more concrete set of tools including physical tools such as the light microscope, ssid, Muer G writes very elegantly about the importance of the light microscope in the understanding of the cell. And of course a big part of understanding the cell was understanding bacteria, their role in disease. And then we have the advent of antimicrobial agents. So it's this sort of collective set of tools that allow us to basically double without exaggeration human lifespan in a matter of three generations.
(03:31):
So this is kind of a remarkable trajectory. I think it would be surprising for most people to learn, however, that in this doubling of human lifespan about, well, I would say virtually all of it has come through the reduction of and or elimination of infectious diseases and communicable diseases.…
Links in the notes 16
- https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-review-of-outlive
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/ktl8S_KDa4FzxZ8qIe-Nkjy6cuRx-SD2FvmWOrMsVf01C9OpJrM5B8N-mJTAnfvHOGivcAGxr3fU9xQhgcn2m6fOnq8?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=1.26
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/6vavWR_3xIPuT2aDYzCJ-EOz7FUHn8MnIPjeqoFDh5ywpjkhIJj3lz5DcY_WOdsI1G4k01hqic1xs5X-UldBZyTxq64?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=15.51
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/ZLCaxML-3uOp_iJLu_bjCv4-bJ2J3S4gQyJKNjSE-O1yEqJ6s_JJ1OP0oFYYs4hJ6bJUWeauW_PnrmVJiGUKMy6ii-4?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=22.5
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/uhLDeL6YUOPebkRy7Aq6EpTHGalOx1gUPf_oh1WpBOSpQTgZN-4J0VydMYRKIN_TSlYKSkvBpLjqdg7RYAiBotCNZ3g?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=41.97
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/nIIJLjysQs_IJPiRuE-qbGWCxme_2OqjgDx529c13hLAeGpKuDsk7bwGxoI-Ox8IjitJ-JHK9bg6SX46XQ2dIQ_YKlE?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=42.96
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/Vu7d-Cx-XkRlBXjtc852OyFhj5jxwcwVFWIxNXTxhOkbG4XKN5dZgIn9mZbLbP4MRYJa2tvhQhBCoSVCcuIyaj5GcIk?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=54.24
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/YSdrjPTlXxhFhXEpXrMcLKa602mVEZ2X8Eo1PUuq8LuvBQh9-2yMG_iyRu3YYJRu7E1ztOF1m5e3HsCogf4o1GBsCG8?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=57.09
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/0Jp0E4eWXS9Obdzyk1Li5skDU-TA6i1LfiI3--ubDW843rpHLnMBl6Qm3faO3zpAz3OH8z94L2B9ibMjE2tXJfGIxNg?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=94.38
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/_iLXZgIzHWjV22OBwNfSgOs5MCCoko8UlkpvMPh65LkH5PvPC_3eWvHzDEjDNRGX-Loi84iwRDly8iruqyCq-irQzYk?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=153.21
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/9vBpy2wCboTlpnWiJzzxusKPuk_o179AjBXlzkeSFIVnGZahEHs5Gl8AmiSIjzHVnCyyhH6VuX60yoTeGqcQlL2TZ24?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=211.72
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/6gPIba0BF2EyCDpVMGXPyHO2N1OO-50j2vVIWJai6pAyrp2yE3QfgHu2W7lXl_HQrMSxG-g44e7Vn19y9QSpl39px8Y?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=279.1
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/0gUKjdbzVEY1np_7fsYH3gqo9YmrIuOVDBRPFYqhL1E3bbGd3T8HWNflI-SgqRVvER9tlfKB8ExHMsKdV2g8t_wDSNI?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=370.94
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/1mCUQx_xpaX0qT6_FzYaHowPllqcyho7Nw9UrZlvzgLmhusMadF7l4lJ_VAZ3Lm3Bt5CMyl-XSuIxJuK91KQ-KRXSWI?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=411.53
- https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/FWI_4rLOM98TroweWX_4CTxjRc0bpE1zS2YBwa52foIGQ_UBSLNGgI6CRmD6sVO5-SXkUw5mIuqAggIMD8yVjtyzg9k?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=487.19
- https://erictopol.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4
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