I was standing on the dock in Ketchikan, Alaska, looking at a chalkboard menu, and the number didn't compute.

One hundred dollars. Per leg.

Not per pound. Not per platter. Per leg.

I'm 71 years old and I've been buying seafood since before some of you were born, and I stood there doing the math twice because I assumed I'd misread it. I hadn't.

I bought one anyway.

Here's the thing about being on a longevity project: you spend a lot of time optimizing, tracking, and saying no to things. Somewhere in there you have to remember that a life worth extending is a life worth enjoying. I was on an Alaska cruise I’d booked as a longevity protocol, standing in the king crab capital of the world. I was not going to walk past it to go find a sandwich.

It was outstanding. Sweet, firm, faintly briny, nothing like the watery stuff that shows up in a grocery-store steam tray. I ate it slowly, which at that price is less discipline than arithmetic.

And then, because this is what I do now, I went back and looked up exactly what I'd just eaten.

What's actually in it

Here's the profile for a 3-ounce serving of cooked king crab leg meat — roughly a modest portion, and considerably less than what I put away in Ketchikan:

Read that top section again. Sixteen grams of protein for eighty-two calories.

That is one of the best protein-to-calorie ratios in the entire food supply. Better than chicken breast. Far better than steak. You would have to eat roughly twice the calories in salmon to get the same protein.

Why this matters more after 60 than it did at 40

Protein density fights the thing that actually takes people down. Not heart disease, not cancer — frailty. Sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass, is the single strongest modifiable predictor of whether you stay independent in your eighties. Older adults also absorb and use dietary protein less efficiently than young adults, which means the requirement goes up right when appetite goes down. A food that delivers maximum protein per calorie is solving exactly that problem.

Selenium runs your antioxidant machinery. It's not an antioxidant itself — it's the cofactor for glutathione peroxidase and the thioredoxin reductase system, which are the enzymes your cells use to handle oxidative damage. It's also required to convert T4 into active T3 thyroid hormone. One serving covers roughly two-thirds of the daily requirement.

B12 at 370% isn't overkill — it's insurance. Stomach acid production and intrinsic factor both decline with age, so B12 absorption gets worse exactly when you need it. Adequate B12 supports homocysteine clearance, and elevated homocysteine tracks with both cardiovascular events and cognitive decline. Density matters here in a way it simply doesn't at 30.

Zinc and copper arrive together, in balance. Zinc supports thymic function and immune competence, both of which fall off a cliff with age. But here's the part most people miss: zinc supplements taken alone can drive copper deficiency, because the two compete for absorption. Crab delivers both in roughly the ratio your body wants. This is the argument for food over pills in miniature.

Low mercury. Crab sits at the low end of the marine spectrum. Unlike tuna or swordfish, there's no accumulation ceiling forcing you to limit how often you eat it. (The price will handle that for you.)

The honest caveats

I'm not going to sell you crab legs as a superfood without the fine print.

• Sodium is the real limiting factor. That 900 mg per 3 oz is not a small number, and a full leg cluster can push 1,500–2,000 mg. King crab is brine-cooked at sea, and the salt is in the meat. If you track blood pressure — and at our age you should — rinse the meat and go easy on the butter. Skip the salted butter entirely.
• Purines are moderate-to-high. If you have any gout history or an elevated uric acid on your bloodwork, this is a food to enjoy occasionally rather than build a habit around.
• Cadmium concentrates in the hepatopancreas — the yellow-brown “mustard” in the body cavity. It does not meaningfully accumulate in the leg meat. Eat the legs. Skip the paste. This is a real distinction, not a squeamishness thing.
• Cholesterol runs about 45 mg per 3 oz, which for the large majority of people is nutritionally irrelevant. If you're one of the minority who are genuine dietary cholesterol hyper-absorbers, you already know it from your panel.

Crab versus salmon: not a fair fight, in both directions

Crab wins decisively on protein-per-calorie and on mineral density — the selenium, zinc, copper, and B12 numbers are hard to beat.

Crab loses badly on omega-3s. That 350–400 mg of EPA+DHA is roughly a quarter of what you'd get from an equivalent serving of wild salmon.

So it's a complement, not a substitute. If you're eating king crab instead of fatty fish, you're trading away the omega-3s that do the anti-inflammatory and cognitive work. Eat both. Just not both at $100 a leg.

Was it worth a hundred dollars?

Nutritionally? No. I can hit every one of those numbers for eight dollars with a can of sardines and a handful of oysters, and I frequently do.

But that's not what I bought. I bought a king crab leg pulled out of Alaskan water, eaten in Ketchikan, on a trip I'll remember. The nutrition was a bonus I looked up afterward.

Longevity isn't just about the number of years. If you optimize every single input and never once eat the ridiculous thing in the beautiful place, you're not extending your life — you're just extending the spreadsheet.

Buy the crab leg. Rinse off some of the salt. Skip the mustard.

If you want to see the rest of what I’m doing, it’s all public: my protocols, my fitness routine, and my test results.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

I'm not a physician and nothing here is medical advice. Talk to your doctor before making changes to your diet, especially if you have hypertension, gout, or kidney concerns.

The post Alaskan King Crab Nutrition: What a $100 Leg Actually Does for Your Body at 71 appeared first on Gary Leland.

Ask most people whether it's bad to sleep with a phone by their head and they'll say yes. Ask why, and you'll hear “radiation.”

The answer is yes, it's doing something to you. But almost nobody gets the mechanism right, and the real one is less exotic and a lot more consequential.

The Radiation Question

Your phone emits radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). The critical word is non-ionizing — not enough energy per photon to knock electrons loose from atoms, which is how X-rays damage DNA. Whatever a phone is doing, it is not doing that.

In 2024 the WHO commissioned a systematic review: 5,000+ studies screened, 63 included, 1994-2022, covering glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, salivary gland tumors. Conclusion: no significant increase in brain tumor risk. Wireless use exploded over two decades; brain cancer rates did not follow.

That didn't settle it. EMF researchers published a formal rebuttal arguing the review understated risk — underweighting the most exposed groups, the most exposed side of the head, and the longest latency periods. And a separate WHO-commissioned review of animal studies in 2025 reported evidence that RF exposure increased cancer in lab animals, strongest for heart schwannomas and gliomas.

Honest state of play: human epidemiology is reassuring, animal data isn't fully clean, credentialed researchers are still fighting. Keeping the phone off your pillow on precautionary grounds is defensible.

But if that's your only worry, you're guarding the wrong door.

What Actually Happens in Your Brain

Multiple randomized, double-blind lab studies exposed people to RF fields mimicking a handset for 30-45 min before sleep, then recorded EEG overnight. Consistently: increased power in the sleep spindle frequency range during stage 2 non-REM sleep, in the first few hours.

Sleep spindles are bursts of brain oscillation around 11-16 Hz, tied to memory consolidation and staying asleep through disturbances. So there is a measurable brain signature.

The part left out of headlines: nobody knows if it's bad. Researchers say it's unclear whether the change indicates any adverse effect. It's a signal, not a verdict.

And when they looked for real-world consequences, they didn't find them. A cohort of 955 adults, phone data pulled from the operators rather than self-reported, plus a subgroup with measured bedroom RF levels and two weeks of actigraphy: no association with sleep disturbance or daytime sleepiness.

Measurable in the lab. Invisible in your life.

The Mechanism Actually Costing You Sleep

A meta-analysis of 125,198 children found sleep disturbance and daytime sleepiness were significantly more common when a device was in the bedroom — even when the child didn't use it at night.

Read that twice. Not using it. Just there.

Nothing to do with radiation. The mechanisms are mundane:

• Light. Screens near bedtime suppress melatonin and push circadian timing later.
• Arousal. Every notification, vibration, screen flash is a micro-awakening. You won’t remember them. Your sleep architecture will.
• Anticipation. Knowing it’s there and could go off keeps part of your attention on standby. That’s low-grade vigilance, incompatible with deep sleep.
• The bedtime scroll. Ten minutes becomes forty. Off the front of your sleep window, every night.

Why This Matters More After 60

Sleep architecture degrades with age anyway — less slow-wave sleep, more fragmentation, lighter sleep that's easier to interrupt. You start from a thinner margin, so each micro-arousal costs proportionally more.

And deep sleep is when glymphatic clearance runs, flushing metabolic waste out of brain tissue. Not a system to compromise casually at 71.

If you're going to be strict about one sleep variable, pick this one. Free, thirty seconds, beats most of what people spend money on.

What I Do

Phone out of the bedroom entirely. Not across the room — out. A cheap alarm clock replaced the phone alarm years ago, and that one swap removes the excuse that keeps the device on the nightstand.

If you can't (spouse on call, aging parent, medical situation — those are real), in descending order:

1. Across the room, face down, on a dresser. Far enough you have to stand up.
2. Airplane mode — eliminates the RF question entirely, costs nothing.
3. Do Not Disturb with emergency bypass.
4. Charge it outside the room, alarm clock inside.

Any of those beats what you're doing now.

Bottom Line

Yes, but not for the reason you've been told. The radiation story is unresolved and probably small. The behavioral story is settled and large. Your phone degrades your sleep through light, interruption, and standby attention, and that evidence is far stronger than anything in the RF literature.

The fix handles both. Move the phone out of the room.

If you want to see the rest of what I’m doing, it’s all public: my protocols, my fitness routine, and my test results.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

Not a physician, not medical advice. Just a guy running a long experiment on himself and showing his work.

The post Is Sleeping With Your Phone Next to Your Head Bad for You? appeared first on Gary Leland.

Most people book a cruise to escape their life. I’m booking one because of mine.

At 71, everything I do gets filtered through one question: does this add years, or spend them? Red light panel, vibration plate, grip trainer, creatine, cold showers — all of it gets measured. So when Kathy and I started looking at Alaska, I didn’t ask “is this a nice trip?” I asked what the data says about what a trip like this actually does to a body my age.

The answer surprised me. An Alaska cruise, done right, hits four longevity levers harder than most of the gadgets in my house. Done wrong, it’s ten days of buffet, bar, and deck chair — and I’ll get to that part too, because I’m not here to sell you a fantasy.

Lever 1: Cold, on Purpose

Southeast Alaska in summer runs 50-65°F on deck, colder on the water and colder still standing in front of a glacier. That’s not a polar plunge, but it’s sustained, unheated, real-world cold exposure — hours of it a day, for days on end.

Cold exposure drives norepinephrine, activates brown adipose tissue, and improves metabolic flexibility. The research on deliberate cold is still young and the effect sizes are modest — anyone promising you a decade off your biological age from an ice bath is selling something. But the direction is consistent, and unlike my cold shower at home, this version doesn’t require willpower. The cold is just there, all day, while I’m doing something I want to do anyway.

That’s the whole trick with longevity habits. The ones that stick are the ones the environment does for you.

Lever 2: Steps I’d Never Take at Home

A port day in Juneau, Ketchikan, or Skagway is 12,000 to 20,000 steps of uneven terrain — docks, ramps, gangways, gravel trails, hills. Not treadmill steps. Balance-taxing, ankle-taxing, glute-taxing steps.

I’ve written before about grip strength and balance being two of the best functional predictors we have of how the next decade goes. Walking a rainforest trail on wet rock is a balance protocol disguised as a shore excursion.

The mistake is booking the bus tours. Book the ones where you walk whenever possible.

Lever 3: Awe

This is the one I didn’t expect to take seriously.

There’s a real and growing body of research on awe — the feeling you get standing in front of something enormous — and its effect on inflammatory markers. People who report more frequent awe experiences tend to show lower inflammatory signaling, independent of general good mood. Awe also reliably shrinks the sense of self-importance and rumination, which is the mental loop that keeps cortisol elevated in a lot of men my age.

A 200-foot wall of blue ice calving into the water is about as pure an awe delivery mechanism as exists on this planet. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on interventions with weaker evidence behind them than “go stand in front of something enormous on a regular basis.”

Lever 4: Connection — The One That Actually Moves the Mortality Needle

If I’m honest about the hierarchy, this is the biggest one, and it isn’t close.

Social connection is one of the most robust predictors of all-cause mortality in the literature — comparable in magnitude to well-known risk factors like smoking, and stronger than most things people buy supplements for. Loneliness in your seventies isn’t a mood problem. It’s a mortality risk factor.

Two weeks of shared meals, long conversations with Kathy without a phone signal, and a dining table with the same six people every night is a dose of exactly that. I’ve never seen a supplement stack with data behind it like the data behind having people to talk to.

Now the Honest Part: How a Cruise Wrecks You

A cruise is also, structurally, a machine for shortening your life. Twenty-four-hour food, free-flowing alcohol, ten hours a day sitting, and norovirus risk. I’m not going to pretend that away.

There’s also a specific Alaska problem nobody warns you about: the light. In June and July, southeast Alaska gets 17-19 hours of daylight, and it never gets truly dark. Melatonin onset gets pushed late, sleep gets short and fragmented, and everything downstream of sleep — glucose control, recovery, cognition, mood — degrades with it. Two weeks of bad sleep will cost you more than the glaciers gave you.

My Actual Protocol for the Trip

• Blue light blockers on early. My TrueDark glasses go on when the sun is still high, because in Alaska it always is. Sleep mask every night, and I’ll tape the cabin curtains shut if I have to.
• Watch out for buffets. The buffet is the single highest-leverage thing to eliminate — it converts “I ate” into “I grazed for two weeks.”
• Protein first, every meal. Salmon, halibut, eggs. At 71, muscle is the organ I’m least willing to lose, and cruise food is engineered to be carb-forward.
• Stairs whenever possible. On a ship that’s 40-60 flights a day without trying.
• Walking port excursions. Feet on gravel.
• Alcohol: zero drinks. The drink package is a longevity tax, not a bargain.
• Ring stays on, tracking sleep, HRV, and steps the whole trip.
• Deck time in the cold every single day, minimum 30 minutes, jacket open.

Why This Is a 200-Year-Life Move

The core thesis of this project has never been that you live longer by suffering more. It’s that you build a life where the healthy thing is also the thing you actually want to do — because willpower is a depleting asset and environment isn’t.

A trip that puts me in cold air, on my feet, in front of something enormous, next to my wife, with no cell signal and no calendar, is not a break from the protocol. For two weeks, it is the protocol. The buffet is the only enemy on board, and the buffet is beatable.

If you want to see what I’m doing the other fifty weeks of the year, it’s all public: my protocols, my fitness routine, and my test results.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

Gary Leland is not a physician. Nothing here is medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, supplement, or cold exposure practices — especially if you have cardiovascular conditions, where cold exposure carries real risk.

The post I’m Taking an Alaska Cruise — And Why It Counts as a Longevity Protocol appeared first on Gary Leland.

Everyone gets cancer every single day.

According to longevity researcher Dr. Bill Andrews, the reason most of us never know is that our immune system quietly destroys these abnormal cells before they ever become dangerous. But what happens to that defense system as we age?

That's where this conversation starts — and it might be the most important hour I've recorded since I started this project.

Dr. Bill Andrews is one of the world's leading experts on telomeres and the founder of Sierra Sciences. In this episode of The 200 Year Life Project, he explains why aging may begin with telomere shortening, how immune senescence weakens our natural defenses, why cancer risk rises with age, and what researchers are doing to slow — or potentially reverse — the process.

What makes Bill special is that he can take biology most people find impenetrable and make it click. Along the way he breaks down complex longevity science using simple analogies — ride tickets, brick walls, tug-of-war, and the famous “Betty White Test” for true age reversal.

Who Is Dr. Bill Andrews?

Bill has been trying to cure aging since he was ten years old, when his father asked him whether he'd be interested in solving it. He's almost 75 now and still in the lab every single day.

He runs Sierra Sciences, holds more than 50 patents, and was a key inventor on drugs that are in hospitals right now — human growth hormone, tissue plasminogen activator, Betaseron, and erythropoietin. He was named National Inventor of the Year for his cancer research. He co-starred in the documentary The Immortalists, which made the Academy's top ten for documentary in 2014.

He also once held the world speed record for barefoot water skiing and the record for the most hundred-mile ultramarathons run in a single year. I'm 71, and I felt lazy sitting across from him.

If you want to understand aging at the mechanical level — not the supplement-influencer level, the actual biology — he is arguably the best explainer alive.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Why everyone develops cancer cells every day — and why, for most of us, they never become cancer.
• What telomeres actually do, and why the shoelace analogy everybody repeats gets it wrong.
• The Hayflick Limit, explained simply.
• The “ride ticket” math — how many cell divisions you start with, and what happens as you spend them.
• Why aging weakens the immune system (immune senescence) and why that drives rising cancer risk with age.
• How Bill believes aging could eventually be reversed — telomerase, gene therapy, and the science behind it.
• The “Betty White Test” for what would truly count as age reversal.
• Longevity Escape Velocity — the moment science extends life faster than we age.
• His take on Liz Parrish's work and the future of extending healthy human lifespan.
• Bill's personal longevity routine.

Whether you're interested in longevity, anti-aging research, telomeres, cancer prevention, or the future of regenerative medicine, this is one of the clearest explanations you'll ever hear. Grab a coffee, block out the hour, and watch the whole thing.

Go Deeper

Bill was introduced to me by a previous guest, Elizabeth Parrish of BioViva — if you haven't seen that conversation on gene therapy and longevity yet, it's a perfect companion to this one.

Everything I learn on this journey goes public at GaryLeland.com — my protocols, my data, and conversations like this one. If you're chasing a longer, healthier life, come do it with us.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy,

Gary

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice. This is a conversation about cutting-edge science, much of which is still being researched — always check with your physician before making decisions about your health.

The post This Scientist Says You Can’t Live Past 125 (Until Now) | Dr. Bill Andrews appeared first on Gary Leland.

Age reversal has mostly been a dream we point at — a someday. This month, it got a little less someday.

A team backed by Google's longevity company just did something scientists have been calling impossible since the 1980s: they took a specific kind of aging damage that was considered permanent and reversed it in human tissue. Not slowed it. Not prevented it. Reversed it.

Now — I want to be the guy who tells you the truth about this, not the guy who oversells it. The headlines are already getting breathless, and some of what's circulating isn't quite right. So let me give you exactly what happened, why it genuinely matters, and why I think it's a bigger deal than it looks.

What They Actually Did

The company is Revel Pharmaceuticals, working with Calico (that's Alphabet's — Google's — longevity company) and the University of Colorado. Their study was published in Nature Communications on July 14, 2026.

They built an engineered enzyme called CMLase. Its job is to target one specific villain in the aging story: a type of damage called CML (carboxymethyl-lysine), which is an advanced glycation end product, or “AGE.”

Here's the simple version: glycation is what happens when sugar reacts with the proteins in your body — the same browning reaction that turns bread into toast, except it's happening slowly, inside you, over your entire life. It stiffens your arteries, ages your skin, clouds the lens of your eye. And the worst part? Once this particular damage was done, science believed it was there for good. Forever.

Revel's enzyme said otherwise.

The Results That Made the Researchers “Floored”

They tested CMLase on real human tissue from donors aged 20 to 75 — artery, skin, and eye lens. Here's what happened:

• In the artery of a 75-year-old donor, it removed over 70% of the CML damage.
• In aged skin, it removed more than 55% of the CML — bringing that specific marker below the level you'd normally see in a 31-year-old.
• In eye lens proteins, it cleared 45–78%.

The lead researcher said they were “pretty floored” — they'd expected maybe a 20% reduction and blew way past it.

Read that skin result again, because it's the one that stops people: a specific chemical marker of aging, in the skin of an elderly donor, rolled back to younger-than-a-31-year-old levels.

Now Let Me Be Honest About the Limits

Here's where I part ways with the hype, because your trust matters more to me than a flashy headline.

This is not a fountain of youth, and it's not even close yet. Three things you need to know:

1. It fixed one marker, not “the skin.” The enzyme cleared CML — one specific type of glycation damage. It did not erase wrinkles, rebuild collagen, or turn old skin into young skin. If you see a headline claiming “scientists reversed skin to age 35,” that's an overstatement. One molecular marker went back in time. The rest of the skin did not.
2. It was done in a lab dish, not in a living person. This was donated tissue, treated outside the body (scientists call it ex vivo). Nobody's living skin got younger. Big questions remain — can you deliver this enzyme into a living body, will the immune system reject it, will it reach the right tissues.
3. The researchers themselves stopped short of calling it age reversal. And I respect them for it.

So Why Am I Still Excited?

Because of the direction.

For forty years, this kind of damage sat in the “permanent, deal-with-it” column. It was considered a fixed cost of being alive. And a group of serious scientists — funded by Google — just moved it out of that column and into a new one: an engineering problem to be solved.

That shift is everything. The whole story of human progress is taking things labeled “impossible” and reclassifying them as “not solved yet.” Flight. Vaccines. Sequencing a genome. Every one of them was permanent and impossible right up until it wasn't.

This is one enzyme, clearing one type of damage, in a dish. It is a small step. But it's a real step — proof of principle that a wall we assumed was solid actually has a door in it. And here's what I've learned watching this field: one step doesn't stay one step. It attracts money, talent, and the next ten experiments. Progress compounds, the same way health habits do.

I plan to be around to see where this goes. That's the whole point of what I'm doing.

What This Means for You and Me Right Now

We can't get this enzyme yet — it's years and a lot of science away from being anything you or I could use. So what do we do today?

We fight glycation the way we already can: keep blood sugar stable, go easy on the sugar and ultra-processed foods, don't char your food to a crisp, and stack the daily habits that keep AGEs from piling up in the first place. Slowing the damage is still the game we can actually play right now.

But it's a good day when the thing you've been trying to slow turns out to be something science might one day undo.

The 200 Year Life was always a bet that the tools would arrive in time. This week, one more tool just showed up at the edge of the lab bench.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy,

Gary

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice — this was early-stage laboratory research on donated tissue, not a treatment you can get, and not a claim that aging has been reversed in people. I'm sharing it because the direction excites me. Always check with your physician before changing anything in your routine.

The post Age Reversal Breakthrough: Scientists Reversed “Permanent” Aging Damage in Human Tissue appeared first on Gary Leland.

If you're like me, you're always on the lookout for those small, everyday tweaks that can stack up to big wins in health and longevity. We talk a lot about nutrition, exercise, and mindset, but sometimes the real game-changers are hiding in your bathroom cabinet. Today, let's dive into something I recently switched up in my routine: making the switch to aluminum-free deodorant. Why? Because emerging concerns about aluminum's potential health impacts could be quietly chipping away at our long-term vitality. I'll break down the science, the risks, and the perks of going aluminum-free—all with an eye on how this fits into living a longer, healthier life.

What's Aluminum Doing in Your Deodorant Anyway?

First off, a quick primer. Most traditional antiperspirants (not just deodorants, which mainly mask odor) use aluminum compounds like aluminum chlorohydrate or aluminum zirconium to block sweat glands. They form a temporary plug in your pores, stopping sweat from reaching the skin's surface. Sounds handy for staying dry, right? But here's the thing: sweating is a natural process. It's how your body regulates temperature, detoxifies, and maintains balance. For those of us chasing longevity, anything that interferes with our body's innate functions deserves a second look.

Aluminum isn't just in antiperspirants—it's everywhere, from cookware to food additives—but the underarm area is particularly absorbent, especially after shaving. Studies show that while absorption is low (around 0.012% in some tests), repeated daily exposure adds up over decades. That's a lifetime of potential buildup, and in the context of the 200 Year Life, we can't afford to ignore cumulative effects.

Why Aluminum Might Be Sabotaging Your Health Span

Now, let's get to the heart of it: why is aluminum potentially bad news? The science isn't black-and-white—some reviews conclude it's safe in small amounts —but there's enough smoke to suggest a fire, especially for longevity enthusiasts who prioritize precaution over waiting for absolute proof.

One big concern is aluminum's possible link to breast cancer. Aluminum can mimic estrogen, a hormone that promotes cell growth, including in breast tissue. Some researchers theorize that aluminum absorbed through the skin near the breasts could alter estrogen receptors, potentially increasing cancer risk. While large reviews like one from 2014 found no definitive correlation, other studies highlight higher aluminum levels in breast tissue and suggest gene changes or oxidative stress from long-term exposure. A 2023 systematic review on daily aluminum exposure (including from antiperspirants) called for applying the precautionary principle, advising avoidance until more data is in.

Then there's the brain health angle, crucial for longevity. Aluminum has been implicated in neurotoxicity, with some studies linking it to Alzheimer's disease through oxidative stress and protein buildup in the brain.

While not proven causative, elevated aluminum levels have been found in Alzheimer's patients, and animal studies show it can cross barriers and accumulate over time. For those aiming for a sharp mind into our 100s and beyond, why risk it? Chronic low-level exposure could contribute to inflammation and cognitive decline, eroding the very years we're working to extend.

Other red flags include hormone disruption (as a “metalloestrogen”), skin irritation, and even potential ties to other conditions like Crohn's disease through bacterial-metal interactions. People with kidney issues are especially vulnerable, as they can't clear aluminum efficiently.

And on a simpler level, antiperspirants work by blocking sweat — and sweating is a natural process your body uses to regulate temperature. It's worth noting that sweat is mostly water and electrolytes (your liver and kidneys do the real detoxification work, not your sweat glands), so I'd be skeptical of anyone claiming deodorant “traps toxins.” For me the appeal is simpler: I'd rather not interfere with a normal bodily function every single day if I don't have to.

In the longevity game, it's about minimizing risks. Even if the evidence is mixed, with some bodies like the European Commission's SCCS deeming it safe at certain levels, the precautionary approach wins. Why gamble when alternatives exist?

The Longevity-Boosting Benefits of Going Aluminum-Free

Switching to aluminum-free deodorant isn't just about avoiding risks—it's about embracing benefits that align with a longer, vibrant life. Here's what I've noticed since making the change, backed by what the experts say:

1. Lets Your Body Sweat Normally: Without aluminum plugging your pores, your body can sweat freely and do its main job — regulating your temperature. I'm not going to tell you sweat “flushes out toxins” (that's mostly a myth — sweat is largely water and salt), but I do like the idea of not chemically shutting down a normal function day after day.

2. Gentler on Your Skin, Reducing Irritation and Inflammation: Aluminum can cause contact dermatitis or irritation, especially in sensitive folks. Natural alternatives often use ingredients like baking soda, arrowroot, coconut oil, or essential oils that soothe rather than inflame. Less chronic irritation means less systemic inflammation, a major driver of aging and diseases like heart issues or diabetes.

3. Hormonal Harmony and Overall Wellness: By sidestepping potential endocrine disruptors, you're supporting balanced hormones, which play a huge role in metabolism, energy, and aging.
Many aluminum-free options incorporate probiotics or botanicals that combat odor-causing bacteria naturally, promoting a healthier microbiome—another longevity key.

4. No More Yellow Stains or Harsh Chemicals: Practical perks matter too. Aluminum reacts with sweat to stain clothes, and free versions often skip parabens and synthetic fragrances, reducing overall chemical load. Plus, they're often eco-friendly, aligning with sustainable living that indirectly boosts health through a cleaner planet.

5. Long-Lasting Protection Without Compromise: Modern aluminum-free deodorants provide 6-12 hours of odor control under normal conditions, using natural absorbers and antimicrobials.
I've found them effective even during workouts, and the peace of mind? Priceless for long-term health.

In essence, going aluminum-free is a low-effort hack that could reduce your toxic burden, enhance detox, and minimize inflammation—cornerstones of extending your health span.

Making the Switch: Tips for Longevity Seekers

If you're convinced, start simple. Look for labels saying “aluminum-free” or “natural deodorant.” There are plenty of good options out there, from established natural brands to DIY mixes with baking soda and essential oils. There might be a “detox” phase where you sweat more as your body adjusts—hang in there; it passes in a week or two. Pair it with other longevity habits: stay hydrated to support sweating, eat antioxidant-rich foods to combat any oxidative stress, and get regular check-ups.

Remember, the 200 Year Life isn't about perfection—it's about informed choices that compound over time. Ditching aluminum is one more step toward that goal. Have you made the switch?

Drop your experiences in the comments—I'd love to hear how it's boosted your routine.

Stay strong, stay curious, and here's to many more years,

Gary Leland

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice — the science on aluminum is genuinely mixed, and I'm sharing a precautionary choice I made for myself, not a diagnosis or a prescription. Check with your own doctor before changing anything in your routine.

The post The Case for Aluminum-Free Deodorant appeared first on Gary Leland.

Last week I sat down with Dr. Bill Andrews, and I think it might be the most important hour I've recorded since starting this project.

The full video is coming soon. Here's who he is and what we covered, so you know why you should block out the time.

Who Is Dr. Bill Andrews?

Bill Andrews has been trying to cure aging since he was ten years old, when his father asked him whether he'd be interested in solving it. He's almost 75 now and still in the lab every day.

He runs Sierra Sciences. He holds more than 50 patents, and he was a key inventor on human growth hormone, tissue plasminogen activator, Betaseron and erythropoietin — drugs that are in hospitals right now. He was National Inventor of the Year for his cancer research. He co-starred in the documentary The Immortalist, which made the Academy's top ten for documentary in 2014.

He also held the world speed record for barefoot water skiing, and the record for the most hundred-mile ultramarathons run in a single year. I'm 71 and I felt lazy sitting across from him.

If you want to understand aging at the mechanical level — not the supplement-influencer level, the actual biology — he is arguably the best explainer alive.

What We Talked About

A preview of what's in the interview:

• Why telomeres actually shorten — and why the shoelace analogy everybody repeats is wrong. His bricklayer explanation finally made it click for me.
• The ride ticket math. You get 100 tickets as a single-cell embryo. Bill told me how many you have left by the time you're born, and the number genuinely stopped me cold on camera.
• The hard ceiling. There's a maximum human lifespan you cannot exceed no matter how perfect your protocol is. He says what it is and why.
• How to spot a fake telomere product. This is the most useful thing in the whole hour. There's one question you can ask any company selling telomere support — and Bill says if they can't answer it, their product may be accelerating your aging. I'd never have known to ask.
• Telomerase and cancer. Everybody assumes lengthening telomeres causes cancer. Bill argues the exact opposite, and his reasoning is airtight.
• What Bill Andrews takes himself — his actual daily stack, including one thing he says most people are wasting their money on.
• The price tag on curing aging. He named a dollar figure and a timeline. Both are smaller than you'd think.
• Liz Parrish, gene therapy, and the fight to let dying people try treatments that haven't cleared the FDA.

Why This One Matters to Me

I'm 71. My whole bet is that I can stay sharp and functional long enough to reach the wave — the point where science starts adding years back faster than I lose them. Aubrey de Grey calls it longevity escape velocity. Dr. Terry Grossman puts it better: live long enough to live forever.

Bill Andrews is one of the handful of people on earth actually working on the thing that decides whether that bet pays off. And he gives nearly all of it away for free.

Thanks to Liz Parrish for putting us together. If you haven't watched her episode yet, start here.

The Video Is Coming Soon

Keep an eye out — I'll post the full interview here and on my YouTube channel shortly. Subscribe so you don't miss it.

Everything I track is public and free at GaryLeland.com.

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice. Check with your doctor before you copy anything I do.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

The post I Interviewed Dr. Bill Andrews, the Man Trying to Cure Aging appeared first on Gary Leland.

I get on a scale once a week. Most people do it to check one number. I do it to check about a dozen.

This is my Hume scale review after using it daily in my 200 Year Life Project. The Hume Body Pod is a smart scale that runs a bioelectrical impedance scan every time I step on it — weight, body fat percentage, lean mass by body segment, visceral fat, hydration, and the number everybody asks me about: metabolic age.

My Hume scale says my metabolic age is 53.

I'm 71 years old.

Wait — Didn't Your Blood Test Say 56?

Sharp eye. If you read my CardioSmile review, you saw that my Function Health blood work puts my biological age at 56. Now the scale says 53. So which is it?

Honest answer: both, and neither. They're measuring completely different things.

Function Health draws my blood twice a year and runs it through more than 100 biomarkers — lipids, hormones, inflammation, kidney and liver function. Their biological age number comes from what's happening inside my body chemistry.

The Hume scale never touches my blood. It sends a tiny electrical signal through my body and calculates metabolic age from body composition — how much of me is muscle, how much is fat, and where it sits. A 71-year-old carrying the lean mass and fat percentage of a 53-year-old gets a 53.

Two different rulers. Two different numbers. One direction: down. That's the only part I actually care about. Every number I track is public on my Blood Test Results page.

What the Hume Scale Tracks

This morning it read 184.0 pounds. But the weight is the least interesting part. The app breaks my body into segments — arms, legs, trunk — and shows fat and lean mass for each one. My trunk carries 78.4 pounds of lean mass. My right arm is 10.2% fat. I know these numbers the way I used to know batting averages.

Why does that matter at 71? Because muscle is the retirement account of aging. Sarcopenia — age-related muscle loss — is one of the biggest predictors of frailty, falls, and decline. I can't fight what I can't measure. The Hume scale turns “I think I'm getting stronger” into a chart.

How I Use It

Same time in the morning once a week. After the bathroom, before coffee, minimal clothing. Consistency matters more than precision with any bioimpedance scale — hydration swings the readings, so I control everything I can and watch the trend line, not the daily number.

Thirty seconds on the scale, and the app has already synced before I'm done brushing my teeth (with this, naturally).

The Bottom Line

Is a $200-class smart scale as accurate as a DEXA scan? No. Is it 1,000 times more useful than a dumb scale? Yes.

I'm 71 chronologically, 56 by my blood, and 53 by my body composition. Every one of those numbers is heading the right way, and this scale is how I catch it when they're not.

Get yours here: GaryLeland.com/Hume — that's my affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. It helps keep this project going. There's an exclusive discount for 200 Year Life Project readers.

Everything I do is public and free at GaryLeland.com.

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice. Check with your doctor before you copy anything I do.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

The post The Hume Scale Says I’m 53. My Blood Says 56. I’m 71. appeared first on Gary Leland.

Gum bacteria has been found in people's arterial plaque — and in their brains. Let that sink in. What's living in your mouth doesn't stay in your mouth.

Gum disease raises your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. The mechanism is inflammation, and inflammation drives aging at the cellular level. It also turns out that people with 20 or more teeth at age 70 are significantly more likely to live longer. Your teeth are a scoreboard for how well your body's been maintained.

Here's the part that surprised me most: antiseptic mouthwash can cut your body's nitric oxide production by up to 90%. Nitric oxide relaxes your blood vessels and protects your heart — so the “healthy” habit may be working against you. I switched to a fluoride-free, nitric oxide boosting toothpaste instead, and I floss or waterpik every single day.

At 71, I'm treating my mouth as longevity infrastructure, not vanity. You can find the toothpaste I use at GaryLeland.com/toothpaste.

The post The Bacteria in Your Mouth Ends Up in Your Brain appeared first on Gary Leland.

Twice a year I get my Function Health results back — more than 100 biomarkers pulled from my blood and analyzed. It's the single most important thing I do in my 200 Year Life Project, because it's the one place I can't lie to myself. The scale can be fooled. The mirror can be fooled. Blood doesn't care how I feel — it just tells me what's true.

In June 2026 I got my latest Function Health results back. My biological age came in at 56.

In January 2026, that same blood test said 58.

I'm 71 years old, and in six months my body got two years younger.

What Is a “Biological Age” From Blood?

Your chronological age is just the calendar — how many birthdays you've had. Your biological age is how old your body actually behaves, and the two can be wildly different. Two 71-year-olds can be a decade apart on the inside depending on inflammation, metabolic health, organ function, and dozens of other markers.

Function Health draws my blood and runs it through more than 100 biomarkers — cholesterol and lipid particles, blood sugar and insulin, inflammation markers, kidney and liver function, thyroid, hormones, vitamins, heavy metals, and more. It then models a biological age from that whole picture. It's not one number pulled from thin air; it's the sum of what's happening in my chemistry.

That's why I trust it more than anything else I track. You can find every one of these numbers, updated as I test, on my Blood Test Results page. Everything is public.

Is It Worth It?

58 in January, 56 in June

Here's the part I'm proud of. When I tested in January 2026, the blood said 58 — already younger than my calendar age, but I wasn't satisfied. Over the next six months I stayed relentless with the protocol: sleep, nutrition, movement, targeted supplements, sunlight, grounding, and everything else I document on this site.

When the June blood came back at 56, that wasn't a fluke or a good night's sleep before the draw. Biological age from blood work moves slowly, because it reflects real changes across your whole system. Dropping two years in six months means the inputs are working. The trend line is pointing exactly where I want it: down.

For context, this is the same 56 you'll see referenced in my CardioSmile review. Different tools measure different things — the Hume scale reads my body composition and says 53, the blood reads my chemistry and says 56 — but they're all telling the same story from different angles.

Why I Test Twice a Year Instead of Guessing

Most people my age get a basic panel once a year at their physical, if that — maybe a dozen markers, a quick glance, and “see you next year.” That's flying blind. You can't manage what you don't measure, and you certainly can't catch a problem early if you only look once a year at a handful of numbers.

Testing more than 100 markers twice a year does three things for me:

First, it catches problems while they're small. A marker drifting the wrong way shows up as a trend long before it becomes a diagnosis. Second, it tells me what's actually working. When I add or change something in my protocol, the next round of blood tells me whether it earned its place. Third, it keeps me honest and motivated. It's a lot harder to skip the hard stuff when you know the blood is going to grade you in a few months.

How I Moved the Number

I'm not going to pretend one magic pill did this. It's the whole stack, compounding. The pillars that I believe moved my biological age the most between January and June:

Sleep. I treat sleep as the number one longevity weapon, and I protect it obsessively. Nutrition. Real food, heavy on the anti-aging inputs, and I take some of it on the road so I never have an excuse. Movement. Consistent activity, resistance work, and staying on my feet. Targeted supplements. Only the ones I can justify, tracked against the blood. Light and grounding. Morning sun, blocking junk light at night, and staying connected to the earth.

None of it is exotic. All of it is consistent. Consistency is the whole game.

Get Your Own Blood Tested

If you're serious about your own longevity, this is where I'd tell you to start. Not another supplement, not another gadget — get your blood tested properly so you actually know where you stand. You can't build a 200-year life on guesses.

Start here: GaryLeland.com/Function — that's my affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. It helps keep this project going. Use my link to get their best current offer on the full biomarker panel.

Everything I do is public and free at GaryLeland.com.

A note from Gary: I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice. Blood work should be reviewed with a qualified physician, and you should check with your doctor before you copy anything I do.

Stay sovereign, stay healthy.

The post My Blood Just Got Two Years Younger: Function Health Results at 71 appeared first on Gary Leland.