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People I (Mostly) Admire

8. Peter Attia: “I Definitely Lost a Lot of IQ Points That Day”

People I (Mostly) Admire

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.61.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

He’s been an engineer, a surgeon, a management consultant, and even a boxer. Now he’s a physician focused on the science of longevity. Peter Attia talks with Steve Levitt about the problem with immortality, what’s missing from our Covid response, and why nicotine is underrated.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If I'm proudest of anything I've done in my life, it's that every time I've made a change that has looked really stupid,

0:08.0

I've always been able to think that, you know, it's okay, because I'm going to be 60 one day day I might as well be 60 doing what it is I love at the time I'm 60 as

0:16.7

opposed to what I should be doing because I train for it for all these other times.

0:20.4

If I were really sick, Peter Etia is who I'd want for my doctor. I've known

0:29.4

Peter for 10 years. He's one of the most intelligent, curious, compassionate people I've ever met.

0:37.3

But I have to say, he's also completely, totally insane.

0:43.0

Welcome to people I mostly admire, with Steve Levitt.

0:48.0

The set of things he's done to his body over time in the spirit of self-expermentation are mind-blowing. I rarely have a conversation

0:56.4

with Peter in which he doesn't introduce me to something I've never thought about before.

1:01.9

He is willing to entertain any hypothesis. And I will say he's one of the few people

1:08.5

who when he tells me to do something, I just do it. It is such a pleasure to be talking today with my good friend, Peter Tia, physician, endurance athlete,

1:23.9

longevity expert, podcaster,

1:26.2

and honestly one of the least predictable

1:28.7

and most intelligent people I've ever met.

1:30.9

So I want to start with this story.

1:32.1

I don't know if you remember the first time we met, but we were at

1:34.4

dinner and it must have been just after your birthday because you were glowing and you said,

1:39.0

oh my God, I got the best birthday present ever for my wife and just to jog your memory she'd give me

1:45.5

some kind of equipment that allowed you to prick your finger and do blood tests you remember

1:51.0

I'm talking about yes it was a lactate meter that she got me to be able to prick my finger while riding my bike and swimming or running or whatever.

2:00.0

So the goal was that you wanted immediate feedback on what was going on inside your body as you did these extreme workouts that you were prone to do?

2:09.5

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

...

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