Luke O’Neill on Gastritis

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The Pat Kenny Show 6 min 2 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 2 months ago

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Pat Kenny 0:01

The Pat Kenny Show. With timber living log cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am on Newstalk. Conversation that counts. Now we're joined by Luke O'Neill, Professor of Biochemistry at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College in Dublin. Luke, good morning. Good morning. Do you want to live to be 160? No, do you?

Dr Luke O'Neill 0:20

I don't think so. No, it seems like a very long time, doesn't it?

Who is Dr. Luke O’Neill and why is he on the show?

Pat Kenny 0:23

You know that old song, it ain't necessarily so. Yeah. Who wants to live, what was it? Methuselah lived 900 years. Methuselah lived 900 years. But who'd call that living when no gal would give in to a man who lived 900 years? That's precisely it. We are talking about Brian Johnson.

Dr Luke O'Neill 0:40

Yeah, he wants to live to be 160. He's stated this. He wants to live to be 160 years of age. That'd be the year 2140. That's his ambition. And he's spending $2 million a year on this with all these regimens and treatments. And what ails him? Well, he's in the news. And I've followed this guy for a while, by the way. Now, some of the stuff he does, there is some science behind it, let's be honest. But he's in the news. He's announced he's got autoimmune gastritis, quite a nasty autoimmune disease. And he said, I'm going to beat this as well. Now, we love hearing this because I work on autoimmune diseases. What's he going to bring to the table? And he lists the things. He wants to find out more about it. So that's probably the more positive side.

Dr Luke O'Neill 1:18

He won't be doing this himself. He'd be paying people to do this research. Yeah, but he's been diagnosed with this autoimmune gastritis as he's in the news. The big question is, Pat, was his lifestyle changes driving this disease? Probably not. So we should separate those two out. He's unlucky to get this autoimmune disease. But because he's a tech bro, he thinks he can now put all his money behind trying to cure his own autoimmune disease is why he's in the news.

Pat Kenny 1:40

Common enough condition, I would imagine. So if he did manage to come up with a cure, it would be hugely beneficial.

Dr Luke O'Neill 1:45

Well, it's a funny one because I've come across this disease. It is common. Maybe 0.5% of people have it. It's not life-threatening as a disease. The main problem is your immune system begins to attack a cell in your stomach. They're called parietal cells, and you get this autoimmune reaction. And you need those cells for vitamin B12, to absorb vitamin B12. So the first thing it often presents is B12 deficiency, and that gives rise to anemia. And you can take vitamin B12 to treat that bit. The second one is iron. You can't absorb iron as much. And how he was diagnosed, Pat, was they noticed he had low iron. And they took samples from his stomach and they spot the autoimmune thing going on.

Pat Kenny 2:20

Well, can you just simply supplement iron and B12 on your gram?

What is autoimmune gastritis and how is it diagnosed?

Dr Luke O'Neill 2:23

Most people take B12 and iron. Now, they do have a bit of a disturbance. They can't absorb food as much. It's nasty enough. The big fear is you might develop cancer. A small number, all the inflammation turns into cancer. And to solve that, they regularly are checked with endoscopes to make sure they're not developing cancer. And that can be treated as well. So as one of the autoimmune diseases, it's nasty, but it's not one of the worst, you know. Now, he's been described as a biohacker. What's that? Yeah, that's the latest phrase. Can you hack your biology? These tech bros like hacking, don't they, I suppose. So what that means is using your own biology to achieve something. So, for example, taking supplements, changing your diet, exercising.

Dr Luke O'Neill 3:00

You're kind of using your own body either through taking things in or through sleep and stuff to hack the ageing process.

Pat Kenny 3:06

He wants to hack into ageing.

Dr Luke O'Neill 3:08

Using our own stem cells is, you know, the coming thing, shall we say. That's right. Now, he is famous for taking stem cells, injecting them into himself and rejuvenating his tissues. No evidence for that. He's most famous for taking his son's blood. Isn't that amazing? Because young blood can rejuvenate. There is evidence for this, by the way. There's something in young blood that can slow down ageing.