On a beautiful Indian summer evening in Sausalito, we brought together a special group of healthies & techies for the inaugural event of the LL&F Club.
If you wondered, LL&F stands for Live Long and Flourish. The Club is an invite-only community of curious folks on a mission to discover, research, and validate the most effective Health Hacks⁺ that will help us all flourish by living happier, healthier and longer lives.
Following the traditions of the Home-brew Computer Club and the Leather Apron Club, members of the LL&F Club get together regularly, in person and online, to learn and teach each other Health Hacks⁺, and motivate one another to persist with the best ones. Together, we’re creating a special database of Health Hacks⁺ — the ones we choose to try and validate, the ones that actually work, and for whom and when they work best.
We were very grateful to Dr. Dean Ornish for hosting us graciously at his Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) in Sausalito, where he told us about his inspiring work and research studies. These included his historic study successfully reversing heart conditions without medications or surgery, as well as his current study working to reverse Alzheimer’s disease with similar means.
It was a fun and fascinating evening geeking out Healthspan with a truly remarkable group of thinkers and doers (now LL&F Club members). The great conversation was humming with accomplished technologists and engineers like Harry Saal and Noam Ziv as well as distinguished doctors like Rajiv Doshi. We also heard some great insights from seasoned entrepreneurs like Andrew Lacy and Sean Mehra and from renowned academics and inventors like Utkan Demirci. The great contributions of big-hearted health & wellness enthusiasts like Isaac Weaver and fascinating philosophers like Damon Horowitz complemented the ones of smart investors like Jim O’Neill, Sebastian Caliri and Nicole Stanners and sharp mathematicians and AI folks like Daniel Ford.
The room was buzzing with this beautiful collection of minds and hearts. It truly was a special moment (should I dare say, historic) where technology and health came together to unveil what makes life happier, healthier and longer. We learned about new and exciting Health Hacks⁺ such as fatty-acids that don’t oxidize, thereby protecting cellular functions and energy production. We asked ourselves can this be the ultimate antioxidant (when for now it’s been showing promise by broadly treating multiple intractable diseases in which such oxidation has been implicated) but Harry corrected us and said that these are actually “blocksidants” that actually block oxidation!
Retrotope is working to establish stabilized lipids as Blocksidants
We also heard about a miniature CPAP Health Hack⁺ device that Rajiv invented that can help prevent snoring and treat sleep apnea as well. This Health Hack⁺ can be beneficial for both better sleep, as well as a better relationship with your spouse, by itself an important source of greater Healthspan :) We debated the merits and shortcomings of the Keto diet (and Sebastian told us about the “delights” of trying to carry bags of avocados/macadamia nuts to ensure compliance ;) and noodled on intermittent fasting and its advantages (and torments) for those of us who tried it. And as a Health Hack⁺ “dessert” we enjoyed a vivid demo of the Prenuvo full body MRI that can help with early detection of a multitude of risk factors and actual conditions that might hinder our Healthspan if we’re not attentive enough.
The inaugural event of the LL&F Club was not just about food for thought. We also prepared ourselves a bunch of delicious healthy chows at the state-of-the-art, fabulously equipped kitchen that’s normally used to prepare the special Ornish Diet meals for the participants in Dean’s studies.
We stuffed red, yellow and orange peppers with Quinoa and Amaranth, the ancient grain native to Peru and Bolivia that was popularized by the Aztecs in Mexico as a super-food for both men and gods. Amaranth is known for its health benefits and as such is now in the running to become an approved nutritional LL&F Health Hack⁺ too!). We also made a yummy vegan lasagna using Dean Ornishe’s special recipe with a healthy homemade marinara sauce we invented (made with Italian tomatoes from San Marzano).
We then enjoyed Greek-style stuffed grape leaves (also used in indigenous medicine to stop bleeding, as well as to reduce inflammation and lower pain levels — which would be fascinating to validate of just categorize as “folklore”), and chewed on crispy (baked) umami seaweed chips from Japan. The Israeli beetroot hummus, and the Moroccan tofu, as well as light date/coconut-based mini treats concluded a fabulously healthy/yummy tasting meal.
Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna from Dr. Ornish’s new book UnDo IT
Serving Size : 1 square (3x3 inches) | Calories: 275
Protein: 19g | Dietary Fiber: 11g | Sugar: 7g | Fat 5g | Saturated fat: 0g | Sodium: 475mg | Cholesterol: 0mg | Good source of: Fiber, vitamins: A, B₂, B₃,B₆,B₁₂,C, Iron, Folate, Calcium, Potassium, and Magnesium
Drinks were carefully curated as well, with GT’s Living-in-Gratitude Kombucha (good for mind, palate, and soul), homemade ginger/beetroot/lemon juice, and of course, turmeric and green teas. And yes, we did serve some fine wines too (as we’re still studying the topic and debating whether to vote favorably for moderate drinking of alcohol as a validated LL&F Health Hack⁺.) If you’d like to join the conversation and learn what other Club members think and add your opinion too — feel free to apply here.
After everyone enjoyed delicious and healthy foods and drinks we moved to the very-zen PMRI yoga-room to discuss together how to make the LL&F Club successful and how to better structure the Health Hacks⁺ Database, which will be open to all LL&F Club members for both reading and editing.
Ben Mathes who architected the Health Hacks⁺ Database introduced us to its ins-and-outs and to the main categories we chose to outline a 360 degrees healthspan:
Our goal is to curate the right Health Hack⁺ combinations from across these categories to compose the interventions and habits needed to address the underlying Hallmarks of Aging. Our rich discussion about these categories led to a few ideas we’re working to implement in the next version of the Health Hacks⁺ Database, one of which was to add Motivational Hacks⁺ that can help people adhere to Health Hacks⁺ once they adopted them. Another good idea was to add the ‘why’, which would be a good reason for people try and persist with a particular Health Hack⁺ and on the desired road to habit formation.
At the end of the evening, everyone was happy, thankful, and intrigued. Folks told me they felt bad for those who we unfortunately couldn’t accommodated for this first gathering since we were oversubscribed for the size of the venue. My sincere apology to everyone who couldn’t get in this time, but we now have new great opportunities that opened up after the success of the first event. So if you feel you can benefit from, and contribute to the LL&F Club going forward and/or if you’d like to join our future events, and/or if you know someone else who would — please let us know. More great events and vibrant online conversations are coming soon! And speaking of which, if you’d like to get involved in either producing/co-hosting/sponsoring future events, or facilitating the ongoing online conversation or making the Health Hacks⁺ Database as vibrant and valuable as it can be — please let us know. We’d love to have more mission driven folks as members of our LL&F Club, especially folks who are excited to uncover and share with the world Health Hacks⁺ that actually work, so everyone everywhere can live healthier happier longer lives!
Live Long and Flourish 🖖