Dr. Valter Longo - The BIG 2025 interview

👋🏼 Want to show your support? Subscribe to our channel, hit the notification bell and/or send a Super Thanks! 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Want to show your support and get some extra perks? Become a member! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ2g_IsL0inKrkc6omolPdA/join 🚀 Special offer for our LEVITY audience: Join Vitalism today and receive a 30% discount on your membership using the code LEVITY at checkout. https://www.vitalism.io/membership 🚀 Show notes for this episode will be available soon after this airs. Sign up for the LEVITY newsletter to get them straight to your inbox: reachlevity.com IN THIS EPISODE There were two reasons why Dr. Valter Longo was featured so prominently in my longevity book Evigt Ung (2022). First, if you had to name a single scientific thread running through the history of longevity research, calorie restriction is hard to beat. And few have done more to modernize and translate that insight into real-world practice than Longo. Second, I hold Valter Longo in the highest regard. I've tried his Fasting-Mimicking Diet (FMD), I’ve followed his work on The Longevity Diet, and I find his scientific contributions both rigorous and unusually translational. He doesn’t just publish papers - he builds systems, tests interventions in clinical trials, and tries to implement science into healthcare. In this conversation, we cover the science, history, and application of fasting, nutrition, and longevity - including new work on cancer, metabolism, and organ regeneration. We also discuss the philosophical and political obstacles that stand in the way of real change. What you'll learn in this episode: ✅ The story of Longo’s early music career - and why he left it to study aging. ✅ How calorie restriction shaped modern longevity science. ✅ Why Biosphere 2 and Roy Walford's work was both inspiring and cautionary. ✅ The origins and mechanisms of the Fasting-Mimicking Diet. ✅ What Longo learned about autophagy, stem cells, and organ regeneration. ✅ Why protein intake before and after age 65 should be treated differently. ✅ What the media and doctors get wrong about obesity, food, and metabolism. ✅ The dangers of high-protein and ketogenic diets. ✅ Why Longo is deeply skeptical of TRT, growth hormone, and biohacking shortcuts. ✅ How fasting can enhance cancer treatment - and why Longo wrote his new book Fasting Cancer. ✅ Why we need a new kind of “digital school” for lifestyle medicine. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Valter Longo 02:44 From Music to Aging Biology 06:40 The Supposed Longevity Zones of Italy 09:04 Personal Experiences Shaping Research 12:04 The Path to Aging Biology 13:15 Calorie Restriction and Roy Walford 26:25 Transitioning to Fasting Mimicking Diet Research 34:56 The Eureka Moment 39:51 The Rationale For the 5-Day FMD 52:54 The Un-conspired Conspiracy 01:01:18 Conflicts of Interest 01:04:52 Protein Intake: Balancing Muscle Health and Longevity 01:14:30 Autophagy: The Body's Self-Repair Mechanism 01:21:12 The Power of Genetic Variants in Longevity 01:27:18 The Debate on Growth Hormone and Aging 01:36:18 Insights from Laron Syndrome and Longevity 01:40:10 Fasting Mimicking Diet: A Path to Health 01:46:06 Valter's New Book, Fasting Cancer