Super Human. Dave Asprey

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      You can think of amyloids like the gunk clogging a sink. When you’re young, you won’t notice the impact—a single hair slips easily down a drain. But eventually, as more and more gunk accumulates in the pipes, water dissipates more and more slowly. It’s that gradual process that slowly wears you down as you age.

      You’ve probably heard that patients with Alzheimer’s disease have a type of plaque (in this case called beta-amyloids, a type of protein aggregate) in their brains. But long before you develop Alzheimer’s, these same plaques can impair cognitive function. In the case of type 2 diabetes, one type of protein aggregate called islet amyloid inhibits insulin secretion. Protein aggregates also cause stiffening in the heart. This is called senile cardiac amyloidosis and is a major cause of heart failure.

      So what causes proteins to stick together in the first place? The problem with amyloids is that they build up in different tissues for different reasons, and we don’t know all the reasons yet. We do know that autoimmunity, when the immune system attacks its own healthy cells, makes it worse, and at least 30 percent of people have some form of autoimmune disease. And recent research on mice links low insulin levels to the formation of amyloids in your brain.²⁰ This is one reason you don’t want to be on an unending low-carb diet that keeps you in ketosis without pause. You’ll live longer if you sometimes eat low carbs, sometimes eat moderate carbs, and always avoid sugar and bad fats. Low insulin is worse than high insulin in this case, but neither will keep you running at your peak.

      Even if you don’t have full-blown autoimmunity, inflammation stemming from food sensitivities or even unending emotional stress can lead to amyloid buildup (in addition to AGEs). It appears that amyloids form during long periods of chronic inflammation from any cause. The smart strategy is to reduce your inflammation levels by avoiding foods you are sensitive to and learning how to chill out. If you’re eating food that’s not compatible with your biology, you’re going to end up inflamed, and that will age you in multiple ways. Same deal if you spend a lot of time in a state of stress.

      The good news is there are simple strategies you can use to partially break down or reduce the formation of these proteins that age you prematurely. One of the best things you can do is to boost autophagy, your body’s recycling program, by consuming more of the foods you will read about in the next chapter. This will help break down these proteins so they don’t end up forming harmful plaques. So will fasting.

      Gordon Lithgow, PhD, a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, has also found that vitamin D helps prevent proteins from losing their shape and sticking together. With vitamin D deficiency so widespread,²¹ this raises the question of whether Alzheimer’s rates are increasing in part because people do not have enough vitamin D to slow amyloid plaque formation.

      There is also a clear connection between toxic heavy metals and amyloids. A study from the Society for Neuroscience found that excess copper prevented the body from clearing protein aggregates on its own.²² You need copper for many functions in the body, but too much of it is toxic. Medical research shows that the blood vessels and brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease contain excess copper. Cadmium, another heavy metal, increases the formation of protein aggregates in the brain and appears in greater amounts in brain tissues of patients with Alzheimer’s disease than in healthy brains.²³ You’ll learn how to avoid and detox from these metals and others later in this book.

      In his lab, Lithgow has demonstrated that chelators, small molecules that bind with heavy metals and help you detox, protect mice from developing protein aggregates. You won’t be surprised to hear that chelating from heavy metals has been a priority of mine for years. You’ll read all about how to do this later. Heavy metal exposure has been on the rise for decades, and no matter where you live or how clean you eat, chances are that you still have higher than ideal levels of metals like lead and mercury. Approximately 6 million pounds of mercury is released into the environment each year, and lead, arsenic, and cadmium are present in detectable levels in our air, water, food, medicine, and industrial products. Even organic kale is high in one heavy metal.

      In addition to contributing to the buildup of amyloids, heavy metals also cause mitochondrial dysfunction.²⁴ A small amount of exposure to lead, mercury, nickel, uranium, arsenic, or cadmium for a short amount of time can impair mitochondrial energy production and increase mitochondrial death.²⁵ Even if you don’t realize it, the heavy metals already in your body are likely aging you right now. You’ll learn about how to detox them later.

      PILLAR 6—JUNK BUILDUP INSIDE CELLS

      Okay, so waste products can build up outside of your cells, but the good news is that nearly all the cells in your body have their own built-in waste disposal system called a lysosome. Your lysosomes incinerate unwanted materials of all kinds, keeping your cells free of junk and able to function optimally.

      You knew there was a but coming, right? When the lysosome can’t break down certain materials to incinerate them, the waste products end up just sitting there, clogging up the cell until it can no longer function. The name for this is intracellular aggregation. If this happens to too many of your cells, you end up with Pillar 1—loss of cells and tissue atrophy.

      There are two reasons this might happen. The first is if the lysosome itself is damaged and can’t function properly. Lysosomes rely on over sixty types of enzymes to break down waste products, and mutations in the genes for these enzymes can prevent the lysosome from doing its job. These organelles can also be damaged by an excess of reactive oxygen species—free radicals—which happens when your mitochondria aren’t working efficiently.

      But the more likely reason your cells fill up with junk is that you eat too many foods that your lysosomes are incapable of incinerating even if they are functioning perfectly. These are advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that you eat rather than the ones that are made by sugar inside your body. Remember when I said that when sugar and proteins link up inside your body, it is the same as caramelizing onions? Yeah, it also happens when you eat caramelized protein: aka charred meat (from grilling over an open flame, broiling, or cooking protein with sugars). The AGEs you consume get stuck inside your cells, and your lysosomes can’t clear them out.

      Over time, these materials build up, making more and more of your cells dysfunctional, and this affects your ability to control blood sugar levels²⁶ and increases your risk of cancer²⁷ and heart disease.²⁸ When it happens to neurons, it can contribute to Alzheimer’s.²⁹

      Fried, blackened, and charred meat all contain tons of AGEs that can overload your cellular waste system and leave your cells literally full of garbage. And this dramatically raises your risk of developing one or more of the Four Killers. A 2019 study published in BMJ looked at the dietary habits of over one hundred thousand women between the ages of fifty to seventy-nine over the course of several years. After taking into account potentially influential factors such as lifestyle, overall diet quality, education level, and income, the researchers found that regularly eating fried foods (which also contain AGEs, since frying produces a similar chemical process as charring meat) was associated with a heightened risk of death from any cause and, specifically, heart-related death. Those who ate just one or more servings of fried food a day had an 8 percent higher risk of death from heart disease than those who did not eat fried food. One or more servings of fried chicken a day specifically was linked to a 13 percent higher risk of death from any cause and a 12 percent higher risk of heart-related death than someone who ate no fried food.³⁰

      This one hurts, I understand. When I was in my twenties, I was the master of the grill. I loved charring meat over an open flame, but now I love my clean, highly efficient cells even more. It’s worth ordering grass-fed steak with no char.

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