LIFESPAN EXPANDER TELLS ALL… MIDLIFE SECRETS

Leslie Kenny  00:00

but the body is magic, right? If you think about it, how does it know how to repair itself? It has this innate wisdom. It is a miracle. We have to advocate for ourselves as well as stepping up to the plate and going to bat for ourselves, right? We have got to do the work to

Sarah Milken  00:23

Hey, peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago, like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife funk wondering, was this it for me? That day, I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just love coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, good peeps. This is the next episode of The flexible neurotic Podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic. Today I have a guest who might be our lifespan expander this guest is the founder of Oxford health span and a sub company called perimeter Dean. She's a fellow Southern California and a graduate of Berkeley and a Harvard Business School grad, and a graduate of the integrative Institute for nutrition and formerly a bulletproof health coach with Dave Asprey. She was known as the High Priestess of sex when she ran her matchmaking company in Hong Kong. Later she got diagnosed with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis in her late 30s. And solved both of them. I think I might have piqued your interest to her name is Leslie Kenny. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie Kenny  01:59

Hey, there. Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Milken  02:02

So the intention of this episode is to dig deep with our golden shit shovels to find out about a supplement that is showing incredible evidence for helping with sleep, hair fullness, reversing gray hair, helping to reverse aging, and so much more. This supplement has some scientists calling it the anti aging vitamin, hold on tight. This supplement has an interesting name. spermidine Yeah, spermidine. We're going to talk about why it's called that what it is and where we can find it, and how it can help us with our lifespan. Okay, so before we get into Leslie's life that sort of led her to spermidine. I want to take a quick minute, and then we're going to dive deep into it on like, What even is spermidine? Why is it called that? Because I know the listeners are like, What the fuck? And does it come from male sperm? Like, give us a little bit of a teaser before we get into your life story.

Leslie Kenny  03:05

Okay, so first of all, spermidine, in spite of the name with sperm in there, is actually produced by all of us all your grandmother makes this your daughter makes this. We women when we are pregnant, our breast milk is full of spermidine. It is that important and essential for human life to survive. It isn't all plants, it's in your dog and your cat, we make it naturally in our tissues, our gut biome is capable of manufacturing it. And when we eat plants, we also get a big dose of spermidine there. So it's a really high quantities and things like should Toki mushrooms, soy beans, anything, any seed with an endosperm. Again, that word sperm is ni

Sarah Milken  03:54

with the sperm. The sperm is

Leslie Kenny  03:57

everywhere. And that is again because the endosperm has all the DNA for the plant. And it needs to succeed in life by having a lot of spermidine to grow. So spermidine is basically there to grow. And I you know, I think that had a woman been the one to discover it. Maybe she would have called it something to do with breast because as I said it is in copious quantities in breast milk.

Sarah Milken  04:26

And it's also in semen. Yes, yes, it's in sperm.

Leslie Kenny  04:32

Because it's needed. There are two reasons why it's in sperm. One is that spermidine is an anti inflammatory and actually when men make sperm, it is a high reactive oxygen species event. So the spermidine is there to protect the sperm from this sort of fiery event of manufacturing the sperm. The second reason is that DNA is wrapped around spermidine. So let's think of spermidine seen as a magic pocket book that you can fit everything into, as opposed to taking a gigantic suitcase.

Sarah Milken  05:09

Wow. Okay, so is the issue that we make it, but we don't make enough of it. And when we start aging, the amounts of it that we naturally make start reducing?

Leslie Kenny  05:22

Absolutely. It's just like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. And you know, we women, as we go through menopause, we know what it feels like to lose the ability to manufacture some of those really important molecules. Melatonin is another one.

Sarah Milken  05:39

Got it? Now, I know there's a story behind the spur, you know, the actual name of spermidine with a certain scientist want to kind of give us the quick overview on that, and then we're gonna dive into the Leslie's story.

Leslie Kenny  05:53

Okay, so Antony, even living Hooke was a Dutch linen merchant in the 17th century. And he kept buying linen that had holes in it, because moths would get in there and eat his, you know, his fabric. So in order to better identify whether or not there were moss in there, he created innovated the microscope. So he is now not, he's no longer known as a Dutch linen merchant, but he's known as the father of modern biology because of this invention of the microscope. So he had this thing to magnify. You know, anything he put underneath it? And as any man would do, he decided, well, let's put hair under there, we'll put a fingernail under there. Oh, what about my bodily

06:43

fluids? Alright.

Leslie Kenny  06:48

So he put, of course, he put semen under there. And as he looked at, he had an on a slide. Over time, that began to dry and he could see that dried semen had crystals. And he didn't know what the crystals were, but he knew they were in sperm and so in semen with sperm, so he decided to call the crystal sperm mean, and then go forward a few 100 years, people see other identify other crystals. And they call those spermidine. So the dye was basically cast the instant he put that sperm underneath the microscope, it had to be called that. Do you see why say if a woman had founded first of all, we had the opportunity to call it I don't know, just something could have been something to do with our breast.

Sarah Milken  07:39

I know. And now you're like in this constant explanation of like, really? What's that name, but we're going to talk about how you commercialize it, change the name for your company, and we're gonna get into that. So here we go. Okay, so I want to get into your personal story and how you connected with researchers all over the world, and really started to commercialize this product. So you are a 57? Are you 57?

Leslie Kenny  08:09

I'll be 58 in June, okay.

Sarah Milken  08:11

58 in June, and that you were raised to think that you could do it all and have it all. You put lots of pressure on yourself. You were running 100 miles an hour, you were running a huge matchmaking company in Hong Kong. And then in 2002, you were 39 years old, you were undergoing fertility treatments. And you notice that you couldn't move your hands that well, you couldn't cut with a scissor. So tell us kind of what happened from there.

Leslie Kenny  08:40

So I decided I should see a doctor about it and went in and said I'm having trouble turning doorknobs, right? And faucets and it kind of feels like arthritis. So she ran a bunch of blood panels and didn't think anything of it. But I got a call from the office and the doctor's office. And surprisingly, she was on the other end of the phone and she said, Your results are back. And I said oh okay, so what are they? And she said, Can you come in? So we can discuss them? Which we all know is a bad sign. Right? So I went in to see her and she said, Well, you were right. Okay, so bonus points for being right that I had a problem and she said, it is in fact rheumatoid arthritis. And I said, Okay, well, you know, as Goldstar for that, what do I do about it? And she said, Well, you can take these immune suppressants to, you know, to kind of reduce the symptoms. That Okay, fine. So, you know, she shows me these syringes, they're very tiny, they're diabetic syringes. It's not going to be a problem. I just have to inject my tummy, you know, multiple times in the week at that point and Fine, but then she said, you also have something else called lupus. And I said, right, so where's the box of drugs for those and she said, unfortunately, there is no cure for that. And I said, this is really inconvenient because I'm doing my fifth IVF round. I've got donor eggs. I've been doing everything I can to make sure that donor is healthy. I'm doing like acupuncture treatments so that when the transfer is done, the placenta is really perfect to accept this. This is so inconvenient you you've got to figure out a solution. Like your world exploded basically imploded, us, imploded. It siloed I was not willing to accept it. Yeah, did not did not agree that one, there was a problem. And two, there was no solution if there was a problem. So I immediately said, Well, is it possible this is a false positive? And she said, No, unfortunately, your cytokines your tumor necrosis factor alpha, it's so high. But isn't that good? I said, Don't we want our immune system to be acting properly, like fighting and being strong? And she said, Well, no, actually not. Because your body isn't identifying itself. It's attacking itself. All right. I said, Can I take this test again, she agreed. I decided I was going to go away. And I was going to learn everything I could about this disease, and I was going to throw the kitchen sink at it. So I did everything. No stone was left unturned. I did you know, I changed my diet to Dr. Berry, series's zone, anti inflammatory diet. I remove gluten and wheat from my dairy and, and gluten from my diet. I meditated. I walked the Rockies every day I did my in uterine massage, like nothing was too crazy, or woowoo, I was going to do it all. I also discovered something called intravenous immunoglobulin or IV IVIG, which was showing promise in the research. I thought, well, you know, maybe there's a risk to it. But she had actually said to me when I said I want to do this is inconvenient. I've got an IVF run to do. She had said, you know, she advised me against the IVF when she said you have a good five years left. And you because of the fact that she had said five you are thinking, even if it's experimental, it's worth it, because there is no cure for this.

Sarah Milken  12:49

And what did you actually do?

Leslie Kenny  12:52

Well, this is the beauty of it. They rebalance the immune system. So there is a tactic where you can suppress the immune system. But I think all of us know after the last two years, suppression of the immune system just is not a good strategy. Right? What you want is for your immune system to be in perfect balance. So when we are healthy, the immune system is very good at identifying cancer and keeping it under control identifying himself and not attacking it. And identifying pathogens, viruses, bacteria, fungi that shouldn't be there and getting rid of them. When you have an autoimmune condition, your immune system is just shot. Basically, it has no idea what it's looking at. So there's all this friendly fire going around. And when I learned that it could rebalance it. Being half half Taiwanese, it just philosophically made more sense to me, right? Yeah. Don't we all want to be in balance?

Sarah Milken  13:54

The Yin and the Yang? Yeah,

Leslie Kenny  13:57

exactly. So I tried that. And when I went back to my doctor, several months later, it was within six months of my original diagnosis. I got my test results back, I did meet with her. And she said, Well, you don't have RA or lupus anymore. Oh, my God. And that's when the penny dropped. And I thought, Well, wait a second. Just a few months ago, you said I had this and I had like five years left. Right. Wow. And this is this is the thing is that if I had just rolled over and said, she's right, I have only five years left. I could have accepted it. And if you accept it, that in itself creates this chemical cascade in your body of negative hormones, right? Where you're just right, I give up. This is my destiny and you become a self fulfilling prophecy. So I'm so glad add that the rebel in me actually said, No, I disagree. Terribly inconvenient, just not possible right now for something else, and lo and behold, my body was able to heal itself. So that's the

Sarah Milken  15:17

way listeners are thing are listening to this. I mean, there's this whole idea of like toxic positivity, whatever. And they're like, but I have breast cancer, there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, I'm sure that there are diagnoses, that there are certain aspects of it that we really can't do anything about. But I think from what I hear from you, it's like, you can just accept it as a death sentence. You can maybe not cure it, but potentially, I don't know, help other things within your system to lessen the blow.

Leslie Kenny  15:50

Yeah, and this was my strategy. When I first set out I thought, I will throw the kitchen sink at this. And I will help my doctors do what they have to do with me. That was my goal. And I, any patient, meet your doctors halfway, right? Just anything you do, getting a little bit more sleep is going to be comparably better than not getting enough sleep. Removing triggers in your body that create some kind of histamine attack, which for me was definitely gluten and dairy. Removing that is going to be comparatively better than doing nothing at all. So

Sarah Milken  16:35

perfect. Yeah, on like a self advocacy, like, you're going to come to your doctor and not just lay over and be like, it's all your problem. It's your burden to fix me. We do have to, like I talk about this all the time with menopause. It's like so many of us go to doctors, and they're like, you're just getting older. Yeah, you should just deal with that. But if you say no, no, no, no, I'm gonna keep looking. There are other doctors with other solutions. But it's on us to to take it that far. And to do that, and sometimes we're tired, and we're annoyed. And we're like, Oh, my God, I just can't do this for one more minute. But we have to advocate for ourselves.

Leslie Kenny  17:16

We have to advocate for ourselves, as well as stepping up to the plate and going to bed for ourselves. Right? We have got to do the work, too. It wasn't easy or fun removing dairy and gluten from my diet. It was a real pain. I was making my own almond milk, right?

Sarah Milken  17:35

Oh my gosh, my daughter just did that yesterday, after school. She's like really into that she's 16. And I'm looking at her like, can you just buy three trees? It's in the fridge. Like, why are you making that? Okay, whatever.

Leslie Kenny  17:48

Yeah, and it's time consuming. But at the end of the day, when you do get diagnoses like this, it is up to you. And I was trying to remove all processed food from my diet. I can't even remember if almond milk was around then. Yeah, at that time. So, so I was doing I was putting a lot of effort into this and the online matchmaking company, you know, I was I had already sold that had moved on, was really just very focused on my health at that point in time.

Sarah Milken  18:21

And then at the same time, something equally miraculous happened after 10 years of trying to get pregnant already adopting your first child at age 43. You got pregnant naturally.

Leslie Kenny  18:34

Yeah, it happens. So when I was diagnosed with the RA and the lupus, what they didn't do was they didn't, they didn't find any thyroid antibodies, but I had clearly had something attack my thyroid at some point a long time ago. And when, you know, when I had moved from the US to the UK, and with my newly adopted daughter, and we suddenly I was exhausted and I couldn't understand why I was so tired when I saw it, you know how to live in health. And I just had one child I saw these women with like three, four children now live in hell. I didn't know how they had a little allotment a part time job around the scout troop and still kept the household running. And it was at that point that I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And I went to a wonderful doctor here in the UK. Bless him very Dr. Barry Pitfield Duran and he diagnosed me and I learned how to actually get thyroid hormone over the internet, desiccated thyroid hormone, which is what Hillary Clinton takes

Sarah Milken  19:50

levothyroxine that's that's different than Synthroid

Leslie Kenny  19:53

it is it is Synthroid and is levothyroxine. So that's

Sarah Milken  19:57

like I've been on Synthroid, since Probably I was 24.

Leslie Kenny  20:01

Okay, so that is synthetic T four and the body has got to convert it into T three. And our cells have all of our cells have receptors for T three, but not t four. And some people like me are really bad at making that conversion of T four to T three. First of all you need cofactors like selenium in your diet, which is like why Dr. Andrew Weil always says take three Brazil nuts a day to get your Selenium. But here in the United Kingdom, we have no selenium in our soil. So anybody who buys local who eats locally, you know, harvested need or grown crops, there is no selenium. And I was not getting any in my diet. I was not making the conversion, I was really tired. And once I got the thyroid hormone, you know, Bob's your uncle, I was pregnant very quickly, and I couldn't believe it. It's one of those things where I did like 26 Different P stick tests, because I was like, really not this is not possible. And and I did probably far too many ultrasounds because I just couldn't believe it, but have not believe it. How

Sarah Milken  21:17

was his testing different than all the prior testing? Like, why did he provide jumping? Like, that's so annoying to me? Yeah,

Leslie Kenny  21:27

absolutely. And I had spent over 100,000 US dollars on these IVF tries not to mention the hardship, you know, the anguish and the heartache, right? I think that they were not looking, they were not looking for this conversion, this ability to convert T four and T three. And you can have technically a normal TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone number, you can have a normal T four number. But a lot of people don't check for something called reverse T three, which means that you're not getting the T three taken off into your cells. And this conversion, this genetic inability to convert T for entity three, they're not testing for it. They weren't looking with an ultrasound to see if my thyroid was shrivel, which was actually the problem I have about an eighth of a thyroid left. And so he also did a cortisol test. So my morning cortisol was really, really poor, it shouldn't be high, that allows you to stand up and sort of, you know, face the stresses of the day. And mine was rock bottom. And he said he was so shocked that I was even able to stay on never seen such bad cortisol levels. But of course, my cortisol levels had not been measured in the IVF clinic. It was just not something that was part of

Sarah Milken  22:54

my cortisol, my cortisol is off the charts are like, What is wrong with this jack?

Leslie Kenny  23:02

I need it, you can give it to me.

Sarah Milken  23:06

So So your advice for women who might be having thyroid issues? What are the few things that you would take to your doctor and be like, I heard on this podcast that I need x, y and z because I feel like there's so many women, especially midlife women who are in thyroid hell, or they don't know they're in thyroid hell, and they're just feeling like blobs, which is also there's an estrogen part of that too. Correct. But in terms of the hormone part, what are the things that we're asking for,

Leslie Kenny  23:36

I would definitely do five days of your basal body temperature. So that is you have a thermometer, put it under the tongue. Take it while you were still lying in bed before you even raise your head and and then take also your pulse in that same position. Note that down. And if you see that you have a ridiculously low body temperature or ridiculously low heart rate. That's a kind of warning sign that something is going on but the heart is not the thyroid governs the heart among other things. And it is not the heart is simply not able to pump blood around and you know, you can gather your symptoms. I think around a third a third of doctors in the United States will offer you the option of having natural desiccated thyroid like armor or Urfa. The other two thirds will probably try you on levothyroxine. They they synthetic T four. But if you if you tell them, you know all of your symptoms, maybe your hair's falling out, maybe you've got premature gray hair, your hair, your skin and your nails are dry. You find again that you don't have a lot of energy. Cold hands cold feet sluggish. Assuming you've got weight gain, you can't shift. These are all signs of low thyroid function. Again, they could be of low hormonal status as well. But take those and say specifically that you want to do this genetic test that shows that you might not be a good converter of t for two to three, just so that you have the option because I've met so many women who went on levothyroxine. Instead, it just didn't help. And then the doctors increase that. And it still doesn't help. And you know, they're lying on the floor, and they can shift the weight. And the doctor says, Have you tried to exercise and these are women who are dragging themselves to the gym, and they're doing everything they can, and it's simply not working?

Sarah Milken  25:44

That's such a great information. I love these little nuggets, because those are the things that a lot of the listeners will go to the their doctors and be like, I heard this and can you test for that. And that's part of what we're talking about in terms of like self advocacy is not being a Google master, like Oh, my God, I found this esoteric random thing. It's like finding information from a qualified source like yourself that says, Hey, can you do these tests? For me? I know, it may not be something you normally do. And I might have to pay extra for it. But like this is happening.

Leslie Kenny  26:20

For a peace of mind. I think it's yes, knowledge is power, right? And we do need to go into those. Those medical appointments armed with knowledge rather than having it spoon fed to us because oh my god, my

Sarah Milken  26:32

doctors are like, Oh my God, this pitches back. Like, the pediatrician was like, Oh, my God, like she's coming back with all this information. I'm like, Okay, let's talk about vaccine. Let's talk about the MMR. And he's like, Oh, my God, too much information. But I don't want to be told everything. I want to be able to comment on it too. And I'm not a doctor. But I can read,

Leslie Kenny  26:58

you can read, you're highly educated, you know, and you care, right? Anyone who cares is going to take the trouble to dig out the information. I mean, this is not rocket science.

Sarah Milken  27:09

I know. Totally. Okay, so let's talk about you're in the UK. You're an ox. Wait, you're at Oxford, like in that sort of university community with a super smart, kind of esoteric into really cool research topics. Some of us haven't even like understood or heard of. And you're on the playground with all of these geniuses. And all of these people who kind of are doing interesting things and your path collides with some others. Tell us what happens from there because I feel like this is the point in which you're, I don't know, I like to call it the midlife remix. It's sort of like when your path and midlife maybe takes a different turn. Or there's like a personal rebrand or a business get started. And I feel like your experience with you know, sort of, quote, curing your sicknesses. Plus, having met these really amazing people and created these connections kind of took you towards your midlife. freemax Am I right? Absolutely.

Leslie Kenny  28:13

Absolutely. You you, you really put a spot on. So I was meeting these amazing scientist and two scientists that I met in different forums. One was Professor conscious Simon who's an immunologist. So she was working on some mouse experiments with a molecule called spermidine. And AI, she was getting amazing results with it. First of all, she had done work on it in 2014, she published some papers on how if you gave older mice spermidine, together with a vaccine, it would actually potentiate the impact of the vaccine, such that the older mice had a better ability to fight infection than the younger mice. Wow. In other words, you can get better with age the immune system got better. It's probably because they had seen so many pathogens, their library of pathogens and known viruses was just larger, so she was one person. At the same time, I was at a cocktail party, and met this wonderful cardiovascular physiologist named Dennis noble. And he had been working on some 1000 year old scrolls that were in the Imperial Household archive in Japan. These were 30 scrolls written by the court physician to the emperor in the 10th century. And they were all about how to keep the Emperor healthy and promote long and healthy life. And he began to talk to me about the these scrolls, and one of them had to do with sexual activity and longevity. And I said, Oh, it must be the ancient Taoist principles, it probably has to do with non ejaculation. And he was sort of Oxford is mostly a buttoned up place, Britain tends to be more buttoned up than other places. He sort of looked around and he said, How do you know about that? And I said, well, a long time ago, in a different life, I was the High Priestess of sex in China. And I worked with the Chinese government to get sex education out to the masses on the internet and on mobile phones. So I necessarily met some of these Taoist priest and these sexologist who told me all about this. So yes, there is this theory that if men don't ejaculate, that they have a kind of internal orgasm, that they have actually raised up their production, their production of these precious fluids, but they don't lose them. So I mentioned this to him. And he said, Well, we'll have to get together and go through this, and the scrolls more carefully. So so we did. And he actually published a paper in an Australian Journal called eon last year, which was all about how this these instructions in I in these scrolls, in particular, in one scroll, which was just about how you can make love more intentionally to improve your health span. How that actually could be underpinned by modern science. And I think a lot of it has to do with this crazy molecule spermidine that the immunology Professor catches Simon was studying. And I sort of put two and two together and thought this is a really, this is an interesting molecule, people need to know about this. So that is really how I came to that product. And I like to think nothing is ever wasted. Somehow the the sexology work in China together with, you know, the business called work. And then this knowledge of my own health journey, and involving the immune system, which spermidine does greatly impact. All of that came together just beautifully. At age, I guess. 55

Sarah Milken  32:39

Wow. So let's go back to the sex thing for a second. So basically, men get aroused, but what happens if they do ejaculation? They've lost that spermidine They have there's not a host to ejaculate?

Leslie Kenny  32:54

If so the idea is that the old dosed text, say that unless you are ejaculating for procreation, this is a, this is a waste. And if you look carefully at the components of semen, there's, you know, there's vitamin C in there, there's glutathione in there, I think there's superoxide dismutase in there, there's zinc in there, and they're spermidine. So all of these resources, which are important, again, for the survival of the next generation, the survival of that sperm getting to the egg, and in, you know, fertilizing it and, and allowing it to grow. They're all in there. It's sort of like taking your best stuff, and then blowing it, so to speak. Wait,

Sarah Milken  33:42

so like, how often can you blow your wad? And like, spermidine? I don't understand, like, if I said to my husband, like, oh, yeah, you can a jacket. Anytime you have sags like like, what's the sort of number is there one, like, that's not reasonable.

Leslie Kenny  33:59

It's bio individual. And it depends on your age. And I would say that it depends even more on your biological age. So that number is, you know, it's going to vary for every person, but the older we get, the less frequent it should be. That's the idea. And I'm sure that there are plenty of men out there who masturbate and who don't think anything of it. But actually, there is there are a lot of nutrients that go into manufacturing that and it is it is a bit of a shame to lose it all to be honest talk. Then

Sarah Milken  34:40

you also talk about other research that I have later here in my notes that talks about how the couples who are having sex the most, even if they hate each other are healthier, but aren't they aren't they exchanging those fluids. So isn't that counterintuitive?

Leslie Kenny  34:59

Well, so it first of all, it depends on your definition of what sex is. So we don't know. We don't know. We don't know, for instance, how often the man is ejaculating inside the woman and by the way, there is a benefit to having spermidine in the vagina.

Sarah Milken  35:18

Okay, that's really messy too, though, and really annoying.

Leslie Kenny  35:23

But it actually, it's very, very good for the lining of the mucosa. And, you know, as we get older, that tends to thin so I just thought I would mention that, for a man's lost, it could be a woman's game, Carly. So there is that? Yes, that is true. The reason that study was actually done at UCSF by Alyssa, I believe it was by Alyssa apple. I hope I'm getting that right. And it was really, I think that part of it had to do with the fact that they were Yes, they were exchanging Elizabeth Blackburn, Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the telomerase enzyme, which lengthens telomeres.

Sarah Milken  36:13

Okay, so she's not part of the sex thing.

Leslie Kenny  36:16

I I'm not sure. Yeah, she I'm not sure if she is I couldn't be wrong. Okay, Eileen, my memory is a little hazy

Sarah Milken  36:23

here. Oh, my God, your memory is not hazy. You're like rattling off statistics, like you're like a neuroscientist. And I'm sitting here going, Wait, why, and I can't even remember what I wore yesterday.

Leslie Kenny  36:35

She's Elizabeth Apple is in the psychiatry department at UCSF, Elizabeth Blackburn is an amazing Australian American scientist. And they have they have worked together. And they have shown that there are states or I'll call them altered states that we can get into to actually increase the telomeres raise enzyme in our bodies, which makes our telomeres, which are the end caps of our chromosomes where I do

Sarah Milken  37:07

have a whole section on this coming Lastly, yeah.

Leslie Kenny  37:11

So so that can that can lengthen. And actually, as mothers, one of the coolest things is their research on breastfeeding mothers. So when mothers breastfeed, you know, we all kind of remember looking down lovingly at our babies and making one on you know, that eye contact that one on one eye contact, and you just begin to bliss out Ah, that is an altered state. And it is similar to the state when you orgasm. And this altered state with our babies not only increases oxytocin, which is the, you know, the happy hormone that makes us want to be with other humans, and that we get when we hug each other, but also, it increases telomerase. So we are actually helping our babies live longer when we breastfeed because their telomeres are getting longer. But we are also helping ourselves live longer. When we do that, which is such a beautiful story. And just to know,

Sarah Milken  38:15

for us, magical I it's like you can't even get your head around it.

Leslie Kenny  38:20

But the body is magic. Yeah. If you think about it, how does it know how to repair itself? It has this innate wisdom, it is a miracle, right? birth is a miracle. So yes, there are all of these things which scientists are only now beginning to uncover. I love the work of Elizabeth Blackburn and Alisa apple. I think it's amazing. And and yes, this study about couples that have sex does seem to indicate that there is a benefit even if they don't like each other and maybe it is, maybe it is you know, touch it is physical touch. Maybe it is primal, because if you are having sex that indicates that someone fancies you Right,

Sarah Milken  39:04

right. And then Lisa is pretending to or he's quite you I understand what you're saying you're having skin to skin contact. You've made your oxytocin. Yes. Yes, totally makes sense. Okay, let's talk a bit for one second about how the actual compound is called spermidine. You in commercializing are like, not sure people are going to be like, yeah, let me buy myself some spermidine. So you change the name for yourself for your own brand. And what is that called? Why did you call it that?

Leslie Kenny  39:38

Primatene I changed it to Primatene because I knew my mother would never get her mouth around that word. So I just thought we have to change it and I thought of many other names. It could be but I settled on Primatene because really what we're doing is putting you back into the prime of life. All we want when we get older is to be vital and vibrant, right? We want to live a life well lived. And we need that vitality and vibrancy and spermidine because it inhibits. Now, nine out of the 12 hallmarks, they added three more, and thank goodness spermidine inhibitors.

Sarah Milken  40:17

These are the hallmarks of aging,

Leslie Kenny  40:21

down which we age. Exactly. So scientists have so far identified these 12 discrete pathways down which we age. And there is a lot of crosstalk between these different hallmarks. So for instance, the three new hallmarks are autophagy, dysfunctional autophagy, and that is self renewal so our cells can renew and recycle themselves like a self cleaning oven. And that that process keeps us young, when we're older. But scientists now know that we actually age when a toffee G becomes dysfunctional. Well guess what? spermidine activates and induces autophagy.

Sarah Milken  41:01

But this was my question in researching for this. Like, a lot of people were talking about intermittent fasting and how when you intermittent fast, it sort of sparks this a toffee G process where your body goes in and cleans itself and how you describe it as sort of like Pac Man is going in and eating all the shit that it finds, right? Yes. But are you saying that those who don't fast can get maybe not equal to but maybe similar benefits of a toffee G from just taking the Primatene supplement, and fasting or

Leslie Kenny  41:40

fasting. You don't have to fast it's a fasting mimetic. And so this is why Professor Yoshi Morita Mazzo Yoshinori at Osaka University with whom we work, and he did all of the research for the mammalian research on a toffee G with Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the Nobel Prize for autophagy. In 2016. He actually said, Lesley, taking a supplement is so much better because compliance, right? How do you tell people to stop eating? Look at how we live today, food is everywhere. And there are so many temptations. It's not unusual, especially in a country like the United States for people to be snacking from 7am until midnight when they go to bed. So there's no fasting opportunity there. But getting more spermidine into your diet, either through plants, or through supplementation is, is helpful.

Sarah Milken  42:39

Yeah, but you have to eat less later on. Like, give me a pill, like how much wheat germ how much Misha Toki mushroom, I mean, how much are you eating in order to get to your capsules.

Leslie Kenny  42:54

So we're taking a kilo of, we're taking a kilo of Witcher two, break it down and turn it into, you know what you're getting in your in your one month supply, which is a lot, right. And if you wanted to get it from plants, I would always say provenance is important, organic is important the condition of the soil, the sunlight, the all of these things will increase the spermidine content. It will vary you know, you measure the spermidine content and should Toki mushrooms grown in say December it's going to be different.

Sarah Milken  43:33

Oh my God, it is time for that. Lastly, I know inherently even get a mushroom.

Leslie Kenny  43:38

So no one has time. And that's that's the problem. But plants are also miraculous. And in response to environmental stress. Some plants actually make more quantities of spermidine. So by selectively eating more of those things, we can actually increase the amount of spermidine we take in ourselves. So in Japan, they have a lot of soybean based dishes, and they will take soybeans and they will ferment them on the island of Okinawa. They will ferment soybeans for a year in limestone caves. So whereas in England and the cheddar gorge, we are putting our cheese wheels into these caves in Okinawa, it's soybeans

Sarah Milken  44:23

and that's why they live by these people live forever in the blue zone.

Leslie Kenny  44:28

Well, it has a lot to do with it because if you look at the other blue zones and Nicoya Peninsula and Costa Rica I you know the Koreans in Greece the Sardinians in Italy, the Okinawans and also the Seventh Day Adventist in your neck of the woods in Loma Linda, they are eating a ton of plants. And even cheese has some spermidine in it. And in Nicoya in the Nicoya Peninsula. Sardinia and in it Korea they're eating lot of sheep's milk cheese. Interestingly enough sheep and goats milk cheese, and these seem to not only have spermidine But they don't seem to mess with your cholesterol as much I have been told. I have been told I have no scientific citation for that at the moment, but I'm gonna look for it because it cheesemonger

Sarah Milken  45:19

you're gonna find that fine.

Leslie Kenny  45:23

So So cheese has sperm, it it has a lot of spermidine I know cheddar cheese has has a lot, the longer it's been matured, the better it is. But pecorino is great. And Parmesan is good, you could make yourself a, you know, a cauliflower risotto or cauliflower and arborio rice risotto with the talking mushrooms, and some Parmesan and you would get quite a lot of spermidine. And that we know with the animal studies that spermidine improves healthspan and lengthens lifespan. So now the studies are starting AI in humans. And here at the University of Oxford, there is a study that is happening right now it will be unblinded very shortly on spermidine and immunity, which is very exciting only in the elderly, or, you know, senior people, I

Sarah Milken  46:20

suppose considered elderly. Technically, I

Leslie Kenny  46:24

think it's around age 63. For that study, yeah. And the the T cells stop functioning as well around the age of 60. And that is when it's really important to be careful about the immune system. But the problem is that some of us, just as I was at age 39, some of us are biologically much older. Yeah. So you just

Sarah Milken  46:53

hit the nail on the head, because I was going to ask you that, in terms of this idea of chronological age versus biological age. So chronological age, like, I know that I'm 47, turning 48, but maybe, I know, but I'm saying thanks. It's all the filler. Just kidding. Um, it's one of those things where like, I could really be 73 on the inside, what are those tests that we can actually rely on to to figure out what that is, like, I see stuff all over Instagram, and I'm there to what's real, what's not and what information is, like, reliable,

Leslie Kenny  47:33

I would go with the Dunedin pace test, to be honest. Donna Dean, d u n, e di N, it's named after a city in New Zealand. And it is it tells you the pace at which you age. So if we think that the number one reflects a perfect one on one correspondence between our chronological and our biological age, then if we had 0.8, that would say that we are aging more slowly. Conversely, if we have a two it says we're aging really fast, or at one point to where we are aging that much faster than we ought to, that our chronological age. That particular test, I like is not as expensive as say the DNA methylation test or the telomere test. Those tests are still being refined, as far as I can tell. And I have looked a lot into this. They there's so much discordance with between the different telomere test, that I just don't find them reliable, to be honest. The DNA methylation test, I think will be fantastic once the refinements are in. But I have seen people who did these tests these DNA methylation test, and they're 50 years old, and they get the results back and it says they're 37. And they're, you know, jumping up in the air with excitement, and then they do the test again, having changed nothing, having adhered perfectly to an anti aging protocol. And the next test says that they're 57, and they've aged faster. So that is, I think, a problem that that requires a bit more refinement.

Sarah Milken  49:24

So with the original test, however you spelled it Dunedain that didn't test that one you have found has been the most reliable.

Leslie Kenny  49:34

Exactly, exactly. That is the one that I would definitely go with.

Sarah Milken  49:37

But I know in terms of reading about you, that there was sort of like this magical moment where you kind of listened to your inner voice that basically said how can I get my body into balance and find healing, while at the same time you found this article? That kind of dovetailed into what your inner voice was saying on the hallmarks of aging

Leslie Kenny  50:02

are the hallmarks of age. Yeah, I do love them.

Sarah Milken  50:05

Now, when I read that list Lastly, I was like what? Like, those are really complicated terms, really long words. No way I'm going through all of that was Lastly, so like, tell us like for the layperson, like a few samples of what they are because those things are long.

Leslie Kenny  50:23

Okay, well, let's, let's just let's break it down into some easy things to understand like the cells. So the cells are the building blocks of everything hair, skin, nails, organs, tissues, blood, we need healthy cells, and they need to have certain properties. So inside you have mitochondria, which produce energy or ATP. And there are proteins in there, which are very important for different functions inside the cell. And let's just imagine that your cell is beautiful and it is perfectly maintained. It is the Marie Kondo of sells perfect it sparks joy. And then you go into a frat boys sell, which looks like you know, there are Beer Kegs everywhere. There are T shirts line here, there are stinky shoes. That is a dysfunctional cell, which has stem cell dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired protein folding, those are some of the examples. And that also means that cell can't communicate well with other cells. And it also can't sense when there's food. So the frat boy cell is sensing food when it sees alcohol, whereas the Marie Kondo cell is seeing a plant and saying Yes, wonderful, that is proper food. So these are some of nutrient sensing is a hallmark of aging, protein folding, those are all hallmarks. Some other ones I've touched on, like telomeres. Right, right. So telomere shortening is a hallmark of aging. And the three new ones are fantastic, because I think most of us will understand those inflammation is one. So right now, right? So the muffin top, you know, especially guys who carry the muffin top, it's like having an ovary there, right. And that not only produces x, excess estrogen, which these guys probably don't want anyway, but it's inflammatory. So it's it's going to, you know, to be very aging for the rest of the body. Another one is gut dysbiosis. So when the microbiome is out of balance, that is one of the new hallmarks. And I think your listeners are probably very in tune with this know about the importance of the gut biome. Another, another one is impaired autophagy, that process of sparking joy in our cells, making them look like beautiful Marie Kondo cells, right. And that is the third new hallmark of aging. And happily spermidine inhibits,

Sarah Milken  53:07

has anyone ever compare the spermidine to the Metformin,

Leslie Kenny  53:13

Metformin doesn't inhibit as many hallmarks of aging as it does with that nutrient sensing hallmark is super good with that, right, obviously, but I think that we need human trials. And that is what what Professor Barzilai is doing so good on him for doing that. These things, we have got to have the safety trials on them. Now, when you give Metformin to someone who is diabetic, it's life saving. Yeah. And that's good, but healthy people who are not diabetic, should you be giving them a drug like that, right? Would you would you give, you know, would you give estradiol estradiol to, to a menopausal woman can be life changing? Yes. Should we one, give that to all women of all ages? And to give that to men as well?

Sarah Milken  54:10

Right? I understand. Yeah. I mean, you're messing it's complicated. Because once you start getting into the bio individuality, and you get into, like, are you taking this for blood? Like real blood sugar issues? Are you taking this for longevity? I feel like it's consulting with your doctor. And also like, knowing what you're talking about, of maybe bringing up a study and saying, Hey, have you seen this study?

Leslie Kenny  54:34

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you know, there are alternatives to you could use Berberine, for instance. Yeah. So there there are other things. So I think there is at least one study out of China on Berberine which says that you should take some breaks with it because yeah,

Sarah Milken  54:49

that's what I was just gonna say, I heard you can take it for an extended period of time.

Leslie Kenny  54:54

Exactly. Exactly. So you know, there are caveats like that, but It's, it's so everything is by individual. Everything requires a really good practitioner to guide you to work and collaborate with you

Sarah Milken  55:11

to find Lastly,

Leslie Kenny  55:12

oh my God, no, I know. I know I

Sarah Milken  55:15

really hard. I mean first, general practitioners, men of you know, menopause gynecology like there. It's also hard to find I just did an episode on the weight loss drugs. So something Yeah, ozempic and metabolic health, and it's just amazing how much information and misinformation is out there.

Leslie Kenny  55:38

Yeah, yeah, there is there is a lot of misinformation. Some of it has to do with marketing. Some of it has to do with urban myth. Yeah. And and that's the problem is sort of teasing out what the truth is. That's why people like you are so important for really calling, you know, BS on certain things, right?

Sarah Milken  55:56

Thank you. But I just I just want to present the information and not say take Metformin or don't take Metformin. It's like, Hey, I'm talking to these experts. Here's the information, take it or leave it. Yeah, you know, I'm not making any decisions. I'm not making any recommendations. It's like, Hey, I found this expert, and this is what they have to say. Okay, now, in terms of spermidine, slash pyrimidine. Why is it good for mid lifers? I mean, we're talking about how it impacts cholesterol, bone health, sleep, sex, graying hair, brain fog, immunity, let's go through each one of these quickly. So cholesterol, how does it help?

Leslie Kenny  56:39

Seems to lower seems to lower cholesterol, triglycerides as well. It probably has to do with you know, just the fact that it's, you know, it's, it's helping you get rid of some of those those bad, those bad lipids. And that could be part of the autophagy process. I'm not sure. I mean, to be honest, when it comes to cholesterol, I would not make that claim about cholesterol. This is something that certainly other people have talked about, and there will be massive studies that talk about it. There have not been human trials on cholesterol. So I'm very careful. We have certainly had even doctors write to a saying, Oh, my cholesterol is gone down. We had one doctor, it was a well known doctor here in Great Britain, who wrote to us to say he didn't want to go on statins, he took our product. And that worked. And he didn't have to go on the statin. So this was his alternative. But I could not recommend that for someone else. Because you know, that's not a controlled trial. We don't know what else he was doing. So those, you know, the, the animal studies have been done on cholesterol. And so not a human trial. I'm very careful about that. I don't want to get slapped by No.

Sarah Milken  58:02

But it could also just be an added thing. Like I take a statin for example. But it's not going to hurt me to take your product. No, no, right. It's only going to be an additive thing. Now what about bone health?

Leslie Kenny  58:14

So what's interesting is that when you when you have say osteoporosis, again, the body has an innate wisdom, and it will actually upregulate spermidine production in the bones to try to repair things, which is very, very interesting. So it does seem to have a bone protective aspect to it, which is fantastic for women, as we go through menopause and osteoporosis becomes more of an issue. So that is that's with bones. They've done that with. They've done that in, they've looked at humans, and they've looked at osteo pearlitic. Mice, poor mice have oh my gosh, they actually they actually took these poor mice and they gave them overreact dummies, which means they removed their ovaries. So they would go into menopause and then get osteoporosis or poor mice. And and then they could see that if they administered spermidine. The obviously they had to sacrifice the mice later and they could see that the mice that had been administered spermidine had better bone density than those who had not gotten it.

Sarah Milken  59:25

And those mice are not lifting weights.

Leslie Kenny  59:27

Those mice or excuse me, those mice are not lifting weights. No, they're not lifting weights, and they're just they've got their little wheel which is actually probably hurting their backs even more

Sarah Milken  59:39

totally. I have my own midlife version of the hamster wheel. Come on, Leslie I'm sure what is it peloton?

Leslie Kenny  59:44

No, I'm

Sarah Milken  59:46

just saying just the hamster wheel of monotony of life the same shit over and over again. I'm like I already have good in terms of sex. I know we talked about it for a few minutes but a while back But like, what's the deal with spermatid? And sack?

Leslie Kenny  1:00:03

Well, so this was something that I hadn't thought about when we first brought it out. We started getting reports from people about erectile dysfunction. Now, it's not going to be as dramatic in effect as say, Cialis or Viagra. But what it does, what we think the mechanism of action is, is that in order to make spermidine You have to have some l arginine, some l ornithine. Some Sammy as a cofactor. And that means you Arginine is really important for, for circulation and for, for heart health. And it also helps with erections. So if you are taking your L arginine, and you're using it to make spermidine, then you don't have enough for that erection. So if you can supplement with spermidine, through food or supplemental a supplement, like like Primatene, then you actually spare your own reserves of L arginine, right now. Sam E is very important for mood. Some people supplement with Sammy, so you've got better moods, you've got better erections. And I think that's a reinforcing virtuous circle.

Sarah Milken  1:01:25

Are you allowed to ejaculate? Is the question?

Leslie Kenny  1:01:27

Well, no, actually, you shouldn't? Then you shouldn't, then you shouldn't Oh my

Sarah Milken  1:01:34

gosh. Okay, what about it? Let's talk about hair. You have beautiful hair, it's super shiny. What's going on there? Yeah,

Leslie Kenny  1:01:44

so I've been very blessed. I, you know, I don't dye my hair. So I'm very lucky at this age not to have to dye it and not to really have to do too much to it. I do take my spermidine pretty religiously. And I noticed when I first started on our product, I was on a different product previously different spermidine product that was available in Europe, I noticed on ours in the mirror that my eyelashes got longer. And being half the time when he is I had never really had eyelashes, I think that my hooded eye just kind of, you know obscured them. Right, right. And suddenly I looked and I saw all these longer eyelashes and they have just continued to get longer actually, you won't probably won't be safe. But it is it is nice. And I'm very, very happy to have them at this age. And I then began to notice that I was getting new sort of and I still have some this baby hair growth. So that's something that people don't often get when they are older is they lose that baby hair, those baby hairs around their their forehead. And we have just had too many people come to us and say I went to the hairdresser. And they said What's with all the baby hair growth. So it's not just here it is, of course throughout the entire, you know the scalp. And the reason why we do have studies on this and we have done studies on Primatene. In Japan specifically, we know that it up regulates Primatene specifically, up regulates keratin production. So it's going to help with just that it also helps with your nails because keratin isn't nails, but it helps with the epithelial stem cells in the hair follicle. And it will actually take a hair follicle that is in the shedding or telogen effluvium stage and it will put it back into the growth stage. Now the older we get, the more of our scalp is in that telogen or shedding stage. And how do we know well because if your hair is in the telogen stage, there is no melanogenesis happening, no pigment is being produced. It is only when the hair is in the antigen or growth phase, that pigment is actually produced in that hair follicle. So that also explains why we then started getting people saying, hey, my hair, my gray hair is gray at the end and it's now coming in dark at the root. What is that? And that is actually melanogenesis happening again as that follicle is rescued from the telogen phase and put back into the antigen or growth phase.

Sarah Milken  1:04:35

So how long from starting to take the supplement to sort of seeing real changes have you seen anecdotally?

Leslie Kenny  1:04:42

Um, we have well with it kind of depends on the health status of the individual right? I can tell you that we had a 79 year old woman who her hair was completely white. And she wrote to us saying that her hair was now she had this it was her Written she said she had this Alice band of dark hair coming back. Yeah. And we were like that, congratulations. That's great. And she said, No, people are gonna think I dyed it. And we thought, well, who cares? It's just think I'm vain.

Sarah Milken  1:05:16

Oh my gosh,

Leslie Kenny  1:05:18

difference between aging in Britain and aging in America and America, we do not want to believe it. And in Britain, we have a stiff upper lip, and we want to just show how stiff that is, and embrace it. That's really interesting. Yeah. And we had a 91 year old, who was completely, he was almost completely bald on top, he had this little, I don't know, fryers, right, the band band around the head. And he was taking it because his wife was taking it. And he started to sprout all of these new hairs. Now, what I will say is that, you know, you do not go from bald to like, thick, glossy, right? Yeah, you're challenging. Yeah, it just doesn't happen. Like overnight. So he started to get, you know, this, this sort of fuzz, and he was, you know, he was sort of okay with it. But then the first started coming in, in some places like, Oh, my

Sarah Milken  1:06:14

God, like alfalfa sprouts. Yes.

Leslie Kenny  1:06:17

So that is that's kind of the problem, but it started getting dark, the hair. And so he's got these two spots where the hair is black again. But he's 91, which is, you know, thing. That's incredible. So it really just depends. I mean, I'm not everyone's results are going to vary what everyone says that right. But the fact that it can happen is incredible. And Dr. Stephanie aseema, she was actually saying, you know that she had it too, that she noticed that her great, hers, were now changing at the root, and she had the baby her growth as well. So I would say anywhere from six weeks to six months, you will see results, depending on your health status. And right. If you're really depleted, guess what? The body is not going to say, oh, right, you know, let's, if you say you have a home, and your plumbing is broken, and the foundations are wrong, and the paint is chipping, you do not say, Oh, great, I've got all this money, I'm going to paint the house. Now you've said let's work on the plumbing and the foundation, right. And unfortunately, that's what happens with spermidine. You take the spermidine in and your body says we are going to use this where it is most needed. And that is say with the the heart, for instance, or we're going to use it for the brain for cognition. And there have been human clinical trials there. And it is going to come to your hair, I'm afraid last got it. But it can help it's worth

Sarah Milken  1:07:50

a shot. But you do is that if you have PCOS, or like associated male pattern baldness that it doesn't help with that.

Leslie Kenny  1:08:01

Right. So so the thing was with male pattern baldness is that has to do with the five alpha reductase enzyme. And, you know, women can have high activity of that that actually changes testosterone in the body into something called dihydrotestosterone. And that actually miniaturize the hair follicles. So So you know, when people go bald, actually, the hair follicles are there. And that's probably why some of these people who had no hair there, follicles were waking up with the spermidine, right. But it just gets smaller and smaller, the hair follicle is still there, but you get these wisps of hair, that alfalfa sprouted thing you were talking about. And so for those people, you really need to inhibit that five alpha reductase activity in order to prevent that male pattern baldness. And there are things like you can take chemicals like finasteride or you could take Saw Palmetto that works and maybe 30% of the people to inhibit that. So those are those are some ideas spermidine is not going to help with that.

Sarah Milken  1:09:10

Got it and you also say that spermidine does not solve thyroid issues.

Leslie Kenny  1:09:15

No and that is another thing. We have had people who have said I tried this and it did not help with my hair at all and then I'll call them up and I'll say okay, let's do you mind if I if I put my health coach hat on and listen to what's going on in your life and then the symptoms they will describe. I will say I wonder if this could be thyroid. Have you ever spoken to your medical practitioner about this? And let's say Oh, well my mother hasn't my sister hasn't I'll say okay, Ding ding ding ding. You need to check this out. And that obviously, this is not going to bring fly right back online. No. Got it. It's not going to happen.

Sarah Milken  1:09:59

I just want to come clarify that for everyone.

Leslie Kenny  1:10:01

Now sleep,

Sarah Milken  1:10:02

let's talk about sleep. I've heard a million people talk about your product and sleep because it kind of gets you or allegedly gets you into a deeper sleep and changes your heart rate variability. What is the research showing around that?

Leslie Kenny  1:10:19

So with sleep it there, there needs to be more studies. However, because we had so many people say, Oh, this is magical for sleep. And I'll say it works. And about 70% of the people 30% of the people it doesn't work, it seems to make them more energetic, so take the product in the morning instead. But for those 70% of the people, they were just so insistent look at my aura ring scores, I'm getting 30 minutes, 60 minutes of extra deep sleep. This is Primatene I'm not taking anything else. I then began to do more research. And I discovered that spermidine in several studies, mostly out of Asia, showed that it would impact to have the clock gene. So we have identified eight genes that have they're called clock genes because they modulate something called the super key asthmatic nuclei deep in the brain. That's, I know, it's

Sarah Milken  1:11:22

these words that you're saying I'm like, Wait, why?

Leslie Kenny  1:11:28

So they so they just call it the Sen. Okay, and the Sen tells you when to go to bed and when to wake up. Right. And that's that's basically what it is. And the clock genes actually inform the SCN. So it's kind of a cascade effect. In order for your circadian rhythm to be right, it has to be hit by the SCN for the Sen to be hit, it needs these at least eight clock genes that we have identified so far. And another way that the SCN is normally impacted is from messages from the eyes. But I don't know if you know, research done here at Oxford, by Russell foster showed that there are photoreceptors in the eyes that have absolutely nothing to do with sight. They have everything to do with sensing light. And that's sort

Sarah Milken  1:12:27

of like the Andrew Huberman conversation about getting morning sunlight and yeah, rise. Yeah.

Leslie Kenny  1:12:33

100% Yeah. 100%. So we know that in soldiers who have come back from, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, and they have lost their eyes, not you know, it's not just soldiers who still have their eyes, but have lost their sight that's different, their circadian rhythm still works, because the photoreceptors are not always damaged. But those who have have physically lost their eyeballs. They don't have the photoreceptors. And guess what, although the rest of them is fine, in addition to the PTSD, they cannot sleep properly. So their their circadian rhythm is so out of balance. And there is actually research here at the University of Oxford looking into how can we create something to to assist these poor veterans, right. But one of the other ways you can do it potentially is by moving those clock genes by by impacting the clock genes and spermidine does have an impact on the clock, James. So that is that is really I think, the mechanism of action. Why it seems to lead to these, these aura ring and Fitbit and whoop scores on deep sleep. Yeah, yeah, just we have far too many case studies of this.

Sarah Milken  1:13:55

Okay, what about brain fog and midlife?

Leslie Kenny  1:13:59

Well, brain fog in midlife, if we're talking about women, then there is obviously a hormonal component, but there can also be an impaired autophagy component. So where are the the neurons are simply not as effective at communicating messages. And for those people where their brain fog is due to impaired autophagy

Sarah Milken  1:14:24

and they've already addressed their hormones,

Leslie Kenny  1:14:27

yes, through say HRT or something and, and also, you know, it's not just HRT thyroid. I always say to women going through perimenopause, don't forget to ask about the thyroid. You know, we forget about it. We think it's just estrogen progesterone and testosterone. It's actually the thyroid. So you have a few kids. You've given them all your thyroid hormone, or chat. It's like yeah, I did the business I was put on this planet to do I have nothing more to give you how to lay. So get your hormones checked. The thyroid and the sex hormones. And then if it's still a problem, then we look at imperative Takuji. And getting rid of that accumulated debris in the cells so that they can fire more properly. And spermidine can help with that. So those studies done on humans with subjective cognitive decline, there have been studies in Alzheimer's homes as well, where they put the spermidine into bread rolls, those studies were probably not controlled properly, but they do indicate an improvement in memory and behavior. So so that is that mechanism of action autophagy.

Sarah Milken  1:15:45

Okay, and our last one immunity. That's the biggest one I now but you'll do the highlight version, the highlight version

Leslie Kenny  1:15:53

is that the paper that got it doctor gotta also lay and doctor, Professor conscious Simon published in II life was about spermidine, rescuing and rejuvenating T cells in vitro. Now that's in a petri dish. So I want everybody to be clear. I'm not saying that this is in humans, but I think we're gonna get some interesting results soon. And I, there was a paper that was published in October of last year, by the 2018, Nobel Prize winner in medicine or physiology out of Japan, he was a, he shared that prize with James Allison of the University of Texas. He is a cancer expert. And he just published a paper on spermidine, allowing T cells to identify cancer cells, which is very interesting. So what is all of this about it is about bringing balance to the immune system, what we started talking about in the beginning, if the immune cells are not overactive, and not underactive, but in that Goldilocks zone of just right, surveying our environment and keeping us safe from pathogens, viruses, bacteria, and fungi, not attacking our joints, or our brain or our organs, as you have an auto immunity and protecting us from the development of cancer. That is exciting. So watch this space very carefully, because there's so much exciting news coming down the track on immunity. And I can't say more, I just get into trouble. But it's very, it's very, it's very exciting. But

Sarah Milken  1:17:53

are there any sites or researchers websites that we can kind of like keep track of what's going on?

Leslie Kenny  1:18:00

There is a website called about spermidine.com. Okay, and you could find some of the latest studies there. And with a synopsis. So that's, that's one place to look. And just trying to think if there are others, you could just do a Google search. So depending on what you are interested in, just do a search, the search string would be PubMed, spermidine, and whatever it is got it, then you can look, you can find the published research. You can read the abstract and look at the conclusion section. Everyone, please bear in mind, animal studies, in vitro studies do not equal human studies. So we don't want to get, you know, we want to hold on to our horses. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. But the studies on cognition are very interesting. We know about autophagy and its importance. We know that spermidine activates autophagy. And the animal studies are very impressive. But it's also a food. There's no downside to getting more of this into our daily diet. Because it's we make it in our bodies and it's in in food.

Sarah Milken  1:19:25

Got it? Okay, let's talk about dosing. Right? You're, you have a product called Primatene. And it has a you know, it says take this dose. So tell us what that dosing looks like and what the highest dosage is showing in the research and kind of where you sit in all of that.

Leslie Kenny  1:19:49

So I wanted to make sure that we had the minimum effective dose in our product and that is one milligram those are the that's the amount that was used and show improvement in cognition in humans. So very much wanted to use that exact dose, we use that in our gluten free version Primatene GF. And also in our wheat germ derived version, with a prebiotic. There are doses that can go up to as high as six milligrams, you can do that, according to the European Food Safety Authority. I suppose if you had greater need, you could definitely do it. And what I would always suggest is, check for your tolerance of it. Some people have undiagnosed SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and if they have say, Are we term derived version? That's a lectin, they might find that it's difficult for them. So then you try Primatene GF, which is gluten and soy free?

Sarah Milken  1:20:54

Isn't it? Like such a small amount of gluten in the regular version of yours?

Leslie Kenny  1:20:59

So it does sound like it's it does sound small, doesn't it? Yeah. And yet, we have these ridiculous results. People keep coming to us saying, look at all the new hair growth or, you know, my eyelashes, or my nails or my sleep. These are just the outward effects. So what's it doing on the inside? Again, the body prioritizes these resources for major organs, right for tissues for blood. This, these outward effects come after the fact. So clearly, it's doing something I mean, I was on chlorella for years, I don't ever remember talking to my girlfriends who said, Oh, yeah, I took chlorella and it actually, you know, my hair went from gray to black, or I took wheat term and my my hair turn color. I just don't remember those stripes. And I don't remember people saying, Yeah, eat lots of wheat shine before bed. Never never, ever heard that. And I but this is the dose that is effective in those clinical trials. And it's possibly because we can guarantee that amount, it may be that it crosses the intestinal lumen. Very well. We know that spermidine has high bioavailability when it goes through the digestive tract. Why is that? Because it actually tightens up the junctions of the gut. So the gut lining is only one cell thick. And when it gets an irritant it can open and these undigested proteins can go through. And what spermidine does is it makes it it brings back the integrity to the gut lining and kind of, you know, seems to smooth and smooth things out there. It's an anti inflammatory. So of course, that would make sense. Then, in the gut, it turns into other metabolites. We know that, you know, you can make spermidine from spermidine. And our product also has spermidine. Beautiful, great name, too. I know and you haven't heard this one putrescine, huh, yeah, that's hot. So it can also do that. And so these things are shapeshifters and can turn into other things in a kind of virtuous recycling loop. If the body needs more spermine for DNA methylation, it can turn spermidine into that. So there are all these things that happen through the gut biome, and that lead to these good effects. And it's possible that when we just have an in food, maybe it somehow doesn't have that action on on the gut biome. I, we don't know. Honestly, we need more research. That would be my hypothesis is it's something's happening with a gut biome.

Sarah Milken  1:24:01

Now, your bottle says start with one and work up to three. What is it? What does that mean? Like?

Leslie Kenny  1:24:08

titrate? Up So again, tolerance,

Sarah Milken  1:24:11

so it's all wrong. So how long am I taking one capsule for and what would the potential side effects be that I'm looking for in measuring tolerance?

Leslie Kenny  1:24:22

Great question. So some people don't realize that they are sensitive to gluten, they might not have ever tested if they have both of the celiac alleles, you know, you inherit one from your mom and one from your dad. So if you take one and you find, oh, I'm you know, it feels like your bloating. That's a sign it could also be a sign of SIBO right, this small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So then you would you would pull back or if you find out you have a gluten sensitivity or lectins sensitivity gluten As the most famous of lectins, you could then switch to the gluten free version. So that's, that's why we say that and even with the gluten free version, we say, you know, try one tablet. And then assuming you're okay with that, take the second one. Now we're ready to also explore with time of day.

Sarah Milken  1:25:20

Yeah, I was gonna say, is there a difference? Like, if I find out that I'm fine with it, either version? Am I just popping three at the same time? Or are you suggesting that I do a breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Leslie Kenny  1:25:34

I would do it all at once. I will do it all at once. Yeah. And we have people who, you know, double dose. So they take the gluten free version in the morning, and they take the Primatene original at night that has a prebiotic that selectively feeds two strains of bacteria in the gut, that can make your own spermidine. So we kind of bring that ability that is natural ability back online.

Sarah Milken  1:25:59

So how many would you take? So what you take? So but no, but I'm saying if you take the way you said take the gluten free one in the morning or at night, you

Leslie Kenny  1:26:10

can take the gluten free one in the morning and then take the original at night assuming that you have no problem with the with the wheat germ

Sarah Milken  1:26:20

extract, so you will be taking such a ban.

Leslie Kenny  1:26:24

So the dosage is different with the tablets because we were able to find a you know, a rare sub strain of chlorella that naturally produces more spermidine It actually has no iodine, which is kind of unusual for for chlorella. And we were able to pack in one that one milligram dose into to 500. milligram tablets. So it's just two tablets for the gluten free version. Oh, I see. But same dose, right. We've had to test the day. So we

Sarah Milken  1:26:57

take two. So if you are okay with all of it, you would take two in the morning of the gluten free and then you would take three of the regular at night. Perfect. Exactly. Got it. And if you felt like it was keeping you up at night, then how would you do it?

Leslie Kenny  1:27:13

Then you would take it in the morning and you could take you could take potentially one of them around dinnertime instead,

Sarah Milken  1:27:20

I see. And so it does matter which one you take first and the day

Leslie Kenny  1:27:25

doesn't doesn't really it doesn't really matter. The gluten free version has a little bit of vitamin D and K. It's nice that they come together because they help drive calcium to the bones because of the fact that vitamin D is synthesized in our skin during daylight I was worried that it might act as a circadian signaler. And And yet, it doesn't seem to be working that way. Because so many people use it right before bed. That's the problem. You know, you put instructions and people just think, Oh, I freshly taken that before 2pm I don't know 2am I'm going to take it and then they get fantastic. Or ring scores. To be honest, this happened to me I was going eastwards traveling east routes to do a lecture I didn't get into town until around midnight, went to bed at 2am realized I forgot to bring my Primatene original, but I had some samples of the Primatene gluten free and I thought everybody else is getting good results. I may as well try and I did and it worked. It was amazingly well. Yeah.

Sarah Milken  1:28:38

So what's your routine?

Leslie Kenny  1:28:40

Well, I generally take GF in the morning and original at night. But sometimes I mix it up and I might take one of the gluten free and three of the Primatene original tablets at night. Just to see you know I'm kind of experimenting I am a bit of a biohacker at heart. So what have you found so far? It definitely definitely helps with with deep sleep it definitely moves the scores up and in terms of HRV own

Sarah Milken  1:29:10

free one does or the other one. Now I'm confused. They both they both.

Leslie Kenny  1:29:15

They both do have spermidine It's again I think spermidine modulating the Sen the suprachiasmatic nuclei hitting the circadian rhythm. Yeah, they're they're both they're both good. They're both good for that, which is nice.

Sarah Milken  1:29:31

Amazing. Okay, so in terms of like, kids, teenagers, has there been any research on that? Or do you just assume it's fine because it's a plant.

Leslie Kenny  1:29:43

Oh, here's, here's my thing is that I always feel like if they don't need it, why, you know, do you need to give it to your kids. So it again has to do with biological aging. So that new hallmark of inflammation If a child has bad acne, well, that actually is a sign of inflammation and a sign of faster biological aging. They may be 16, but they're aging faster. And in the case of my of my eldest, she started taking it, she was getting results, because somebody sent us someone who was 21 or 23 sent us in pictures, they took it. And they sent us their before and after pictures, which are on our Instagram account. And that's the Primatene Instagram account. And just the change in the skin was incredible. It was like, not nice cystic acne, and then just, you know, smooth skin in two months, two months, three months, something like that. And so she took it, she's 16 and it helped her as well. Does she

Sarah Milken  1:30:51

take the glute did she take the gluten free one, so she's

Leslie Kenny  1:30:54

gluten free only she likes she likes the chlorella ones. And they have a little bit of iron in them. So for girls of reproductive age, who are losing iron with our monthly bleed, this is a nice is a nice combo. If they're studying for exams, there are some nice B vitamins in there, which are good for stress of vegans. You know, of course, every family has one I have I have a child who you know who, who, who is vegan. And, you know, that is that is definitely a personal choice and no judgment. But it does mean that she needs to be 12. And she needs iron. And so the primary GF has both, because chlorella naturally has both iron and B 12. So, so that can be nice for them. Generally, I say you don't need to if you're young enough ending good health.

Sarah Milken  1:31:50

Got it. Okay, so taking it back to your personal midlife journey? How is your life in your 50s different now? How do you feel? And how would you say your kind of midlife remix or personal journey after your health saga? Like what is it like how's it going?

Leslie Kenny  1:32:10

It's going great. I just feel so comfortable in my skin. In my 20s I felt I had to prove myself, you know, Harvard Business School who goes there? Right? It's like far Taipei people.

Sarah Milken  1:32:27

So like this, Sprint, the sprint couldn't do more who couldn't do better?

Leslie Kenny  1:32:31

Yeah. And at that time of life, you know, you think no, I'm not. I'm not acting out the script of my parents. But actually, sometimes we kind of are right, we want to show them we can or we know that this would make them proud. And so we do these things. And we really give it our all, but we don't have that inner confidence, and being comfortable in our skin. And then, you know, the whole fertility crisis. And I didn't want to tell anybody about these illnesses, because I felt they made me less than, and definitely I didn't want to say, oh, yeah, I'm the infertile one.

Sarah Milken  1:33:07

Right? When it's somehow your fault, or you're deficient, or why didn't you live up to the world?

Leslie Kenny  1:33:14

Exactly. And I was raised to think that yes, women could have it all right, there was that Charlie perfume commercial, you're probably too young to remember. But they said, The woman is holding, she's got her business suit on. She's holding a baby and a frying pan. And, you know, it's just the marketing of you can have it all and do it all. And so I tried, and I was not succeeding. And I didn't want to tell people, I couldn't have babies. And I didn't want to tell them my body was broken and was turning on itself. And then I sort of after, you know, I had the kids and was just that little bit older. Maybe it was frankly going through menopause. I just, I just didn't care anymore. about what other people thought I just wanted to do what I felt was right, but how did you

Sarah Milken  1:34:04

get to that place?

Leslie Kenny  1:34:10

That place of feeling like I was enough. I think you let go of a lot of things when you go through menopause, right? You let go of am I going to have another kid? No, I'm not. At this age. Am I going to have a corporate career? No, I'm not. Do I care? Not really. Am I enough? Yeah, I kind of am I have ovaries but they're not making eggs anymore. Is it? Okay? Yeah, I'm still standing. I still have things to give to society, things to contribute. And as a matter of fact, I think that comfort in our own skins allows us to give back so much more because we can be who we truly are. Again, we're not at Do not the script of our parents or society or our communities or our schools, but just that light that lives within us, that becomes stronger, brighter, and it feels us more. Right?

Sarah Milken  1:35:17

What advice do you have for women who are at that point where they're like either suffering from an illness or suffering for menopausal symptoms, and they're just feeling like, Ugh, I can't do this, this is too hard. And you just feel stuck and sinking?

Leslie Kenny  1:35:35

Well, there are two different things. So with the with the menopausal symptoms, I would say, find yourself a very good and sympathetic endocrinologist who can prescribe you or consider prescribing HRT for you. I say this, I know it can be controversial, but I've spoken to Dr. Dale Bredesen about this. And he says we women have twice the risk of Alzheimer's as men. And part of it starts in our midlife, when we lose progesterone and we are not sleeping well enough. And the glymphatic system cannot do its job and take away debris in the brain, we need deep sleep to make that happen. And progesterone helps. So I would go and find them. And if they say you know, oh, you have a history of breast cancer, look at at molecules like an acetyl cysteine, dem, calcium D glue, pray glutathione. These are all things that can detoxify the body of the variant of estrogen that can become cancerous, and then spend the money to get your bloods checked every three to six months, depending on your risk. I actually have that risk. But I have chosen to take HRT, interesting, and I do religiously take my bloods every six months.

Sarah Milken  1:37:00

So what are you checking when you do that bloodwork? For the

Leslie Kenny  1:37:03

for the cancerous version of estrogen, the one the the type of estrogen that that predisposes the body to, to cancer. So, you know, I take that very seriously. But I take my brain and my memory and my ability to interact with my kids when they're older, very seriously to I don't want to forget who they are. Right? And so I want to make sure I maintain my faculties and estrogen is very protective of that progesterone too. So do that. And then thyroid can make a world of difference. You and I both know, right?

Sarah Milken  1:37:45

Yeah, and you know, what's interesting is my prescription for that my thyroid, like literally didn't change for 20 years, like I got it tested all the time, all the time, all the time, it never changed, but it changed twice in the past year and a half.

Leslie Kenny  1:37:59

It does happen as we get older. Right? So that says to me that your thyroid is slowing down. Yeah, it probably was producing a little bit, but it's slowing down. So yes, it's very important women who have had children after they they have children. So you've had one or two could be you know, if you've got four, the more children you have, the higher the likelihood that fire rate is going to pack up and, you know, go to Hawaii on holiday and just sort of leave you high and dry. Right? I've done my job goodbye. Yeah, so do do check that out, because it has a lot to do with mood. energy levels. Remember, all our cells have those receptors for T three, the active variant of thyroid hormone, so I would start there, and then community right and and just getting that oxytocin, we've had been trapped for two years. And we're all starved of some love from our communities. See, those friends pick up the phone call them these are all practices from the Blue Zones. You know, in Okinawa, you are matched with someone at age five, and you're supposed to stay in touch with them in a movie, this group of four to five other people your age for the rest of your life. And they do

Sarah Milken  1:39:21

Oh amazing. So things things like that.

Leslie Kenny  1:39:25

Definitely, I would I would do and then remember that as you let go of these things like fertility and taking care of children, that you're making space for new things. And again, let those passions that you've always had, but maybe they were obscured by those scripts of other people. Now is the time to let them shine. Right? This is for that second half of life for what I like To call the new prime of life, let those passions, you know, come to the floor and really go for it.

Sarah Milken  1:40:09

I really loved that. And I think what's hard for some of midlife women, including myself is sometimes when you get that extra space, or you create that extra space, like, my kids are going off to college in the next two years, my son's going into the fall, and then my daughter will be you know, soon thereafter. That creates space, but the space can be scary. Yeah, it can be scary. Oh, so it's really kind of gearing up to take that space on with a certain mindset. Because sometimes women feel kind of pointless and irrelevant, and they don't have meaning because they have been so attached to that identity of being that mom. And now the identity and the role has shifted a little bit.

Leslie Kenny  1:40:54

Yeah. And that's why having that passion is so important, because there will be days when you will question it. But if you love something so much, and for me, it was always it was health, and advocacy. And when you have that energy to be able to dig deep on the hard days, then the rest is going to be easy. And I would say give your cut yourself some slack. Try a few things, you know, maybe you don't know what that single passion is. Try a few things, and then see what resonates most with you, right? And really have it be a gut feeling. At this point in time, you can actually afford to go with your gut. I think when we're young, we're very calculating, I need to do that in order to get this and to set up my career in order to have the babies in order to do X, Y and Zed.

Sarah Milken  1:41:49

You know, like doing you choosing you for you cracked, you said you know, okay, so as we wrap up, I know you're knee deep in like, all the cutting edge research on longevity, and, you know, nutrition and all the things. I know, we've talked about a bunch of things, but are Is there anything in addition to like sleep, food, water, supplements, whatever, that you'd be like, Oh my God, I want every woman to know about these few things. They're so cool.

Leslie Kenny  1:42:20

Are you talking molecules? Are you talking about? Just

Sarah Milken  1:42:25

Just anything like, you know, because you're so in it. And you know, you don't as sort of lay people, we don't always get to see the same research that you're seeing.

Leslie Kenny  1:42:36

True. True. Let me think, um, if we're talking supplement, then I let me think about what I'm taking. I love glutathione.

Sarah Milken  1:42:47

And how much do you take? And do you take the liquid or the pill?

Leslie Kenny  1:42:51

I take the liposomal version. And there's a company out of Japan called Satria. And they have a really good version, you can find it in in, you know, hundreds of brands. Yeah, it's an ingredient. So just look for that one Satria and N acetyl cysteine. Interesting because it's a precursor to glutathione some people need it more than others. But again, it's a detoxifier of that, that negative estrogen thyroid is so important. And because people are so badly I feel like like women, especially in Great Britain are so badly managed around the thyroid. We can't get desiccated thyroid in this country, and it's very hard to even get a diagnosis. For for British listeners, I would say thyroid is is the thing that I just feel you have got to get taken care of for good anti aging for Americans. Maybe I'll say a little testosterone on that little sweet spot. You know, right, right on the clitoris.

Sarah Milken  1:44:12

Yeah. Right. And what kind of testosterone are you using?

Leslie Kenny  1:44:17

Um, there's one that I got out of Australia. And it is the the brand name I think it's under a fam. And it you don't need very much and you don't want to use it every day. We're talking about you know, in the lead up to a big moment like Valentine's Day, maybe harsh, right, which is coming up and just a little dab. Do it for a few days beforehand. And that just really seems to sensitize things, because as we get older, you know the it gets harder to orgasm and they are less powerful and So if you do that, it's called scream cream for a reason. Right. So that that is my that's my hot tip for Valentine's Day. And it's something which I bet people have not, you know, have not heard about in terms of the research, well, spermidine just continues to, to sort of blow my mind honestly. And the papers are just so interesting. We've co evolved with a, you can get it from food. Everybody needs more of it as we get older.

Sarah Milken  1:45:42

And that's a midlife wrap. There you go. All right. So if listeners want to find you, where can they find you?

Leslie Kenny  1:45:50

I'm on Oxford health span.com. And I've got my own Instagram channel and most active there that's under Lesley's new Prime Leslie with an IE. And I actually I do have an old YouTube channel, which I probably should spend more time on. Questions about gray hair reversal. So there are some videos on the Lesley's new Prime YouTube apologies for the amateur look of them all. But I have to kind of do them home video style, you know, selfie style. And hopefully some of that gray hair reversal info will be of use to some people. It's not just about spermidine it's about a lot of other things.

Sarah Milken  1:46:34

Amazing. Okay, so I want everyone to think about what we can start doing today. One small step to reversing our aging process and living our prime and mid life. I want to thank you Leslie Kenney for saying yes and becoming a new friend of the flexible neurotic podcast.

Leslie Kenny  1:46:51

Thank you so much. It's

Sarah Milken  1:46:53

been such a pleasure. Oh, fun. Hey, peeps, it's me again. I listened to this episode with lifespan expander and founder of the Oxford healthspan sub company, Leslie Kenny, so I could summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start using today. I know that when I listened to a long episode, I'm like, oh my god, I love that. But then I can't even fucking remember the specifics. This is why I come back and do a golden nugget summary. In this episode we discuss Leslie's midlife health diagnosis and self healing journey, which led to her research recovery and company called Primatene. A supplement for a naturally occurring compound in the body called spermidine. Golden Nugget number one how lupus diagnosis changed Leslie's life for the better. After attempting to get pregnant and undergoing fertility treatment, Leslie found herself unable to move her hands. She went to the doctor and was diagnosed with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Leslie was shocked when the doctor told her there was no cure and gave her a five year life expectancy. Leslie used all of her time and energy on everything she could do to heal, learn and balance her immune system to fight off disease. After several months of hard work, research and self healing, she tested again and there were no traces of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis in her system, she cured herself. She credits the refusal to accept her five year fate as the catalyst to her health and healing. But the miracle didn't stop there. And at 43 Leslie finally got pregnant naturally. Golden Nugget number two, what is spermidine? And why is it important? sperma. What, despite what you might be thinking spermidine is something that is essential for human life to survive. Everyone produces it naturally. Yes, you heard that right. This isn't just something that comes from men. Leslie and other researchers found that as we get older our bodies aren't making enough of it. When we increase spermidine levels the active ingredient of Primatene we are helping our bodies combat hallmarks of aging, fighting disease and increasing our quality of life. Leslie even urges that we can get better with age and it's proven Golden Nugget number three brain fog in mid life. Oh my god, I'm the fucking queen of that. Brain fog for midlife women is strongly tied to two things. One is hormonal changes that we are experiencing from menopause and perimenopause. And two is it that our neurons are not as effective at communicating messages due to a topology, which is the process where cells break down, destroy and remove damaged parts. So take out that list of 400 midlife questions that you are supposed to be asking your doctors and make sure to ask about hormone solutions because that's half the battle. If you're still experiencing brain fog then address the autophagy because once you clear through the junk accumulated in your cells, they can fire off stronger and work smarter. are not harder for you. There are solutions. Golden Nugget number four. Taking Back Your power in midlife. Leslie said that in her 20s It was all about proving herself and making her parents proud. She said that midlife is different because it's all about caring about yourself and less about what other people think. Leslie says that midlife was when she finally felt comfortable in her own skin. And the questions that she faced were minimized. She knew the path that she was going down and she was confident in those decisions. So remember, midlife is about being who you truly are without worrying about what others think about our decisions. This is how we become stronger, brighter and more ourselves. The gold is dripping off these nuggets, grab it, use it, there are three things you can do. First, subscribe to the podcasts. Second, share with some friends who might like midlife shit, and third, write an apple review. writing reviews is kind of annoying, it's an extra step. But guess what? It really helps the podcast grow. You think your little review won't matter? But it does. If you went to a show and everyone said my clap doesn't matter. Then there will be no clapping. You all matter. DM me, you know I always respond. Oh, and of course follow my instagram at the flexible neurotic da love you talk soon.