Top Anti-Aging Habits from a Danish Longevity Doctor

Highlights

• Morten Scheibye-Knudsen drinks four to five cups of coffee a day, believing in coffee’s potential to ward off age-related diseases.
• He also bicycles to and from work, a total of over six miles daily, to preserve his muscle and bone mass as he gets older.
• Scheibye-Knudsen schedules plenty of time for friends and family and relays that data suggests having a strong social life can add four years to your life expectancy.

During his childhood, at age 10, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen (who is now 46) watched as his father succumbed to the effects of Parkinson’s disease. Following that tragic circumstance, he watched his grandmother develop Alzheimer’s disease so that she could no longer recognize him.

“In my youthful naivety, I remember feeling powerless and thinking it seems weird that we can’t do anything about this,” he said in an article published in The Telegraph. “Why do we all have to wither away like that?”

A Decision to Research Why and How We Age

Following these harrowing events, Scheibye-Knudsen decided to devote his life’s work to reaching an understanding of why and how we age. As such, he trained as a medical doctor at the University of Copenhagen and worked as a physician before moving into the aging research field.

Impressively, Scheibye-Knudsen worked for the National Institute of Aging in the US during an eight-year stint, and for the past 12 years has worked in his Copenhagen laboratory. His research has encompassed investigating the cells and cellular components that keep us alive, often testing aging interventions on himself in attempts to slow his pace of aging.

“It may sound crazy – this whole idea of experimenting on myself – but my aim is to still be around and healthy for when my three children have their own children,” he explained.

Scheibye-Knudsen’s motivation for pursuing aging research comes from events that have taken place in his life, which have had deeply personal effects on him. For example, history repeated itself in his family when his father passed away from Parkinson’s disease five years ago, and his mother died last year of Alzheimer’s disease.

“I don’t think my own children can remember my parents without disease. If I can be in my grandchildren’s lives and still be healthy, all of this will be worth it,” he says.

Denmark’s Commitment to Public Health

Scheibye-Knudsen’s mission to counteract aging, in some ways, has been supported by the country he lives in—Denmark. In this regard, Denmark can be seen as getting many things right when it comes to preserving life without debilitating age-related diseases (a concept known as healthspan). The country promotes itself as fostering an optimal work-life balance for its citizens and also encourages optimal nutrition and well-being. Many people in the country also engage in regular physical activity, including bicycling.

Along those lines, recent data suggest that Danish men, like Scheibye-Knudsen, will outlive most of their American counterparts by around four years. Perhaps more importantly, more of Scheibye-Knudsen’s life will likely be spent in good health. Moreover, the Danish obesity rates are better than in the US, too, aided by the Danish government’s commitment and investment in public health.

Taking all of this into account, a closer look at Scheibye-Knudsen’s aging intervention experiments and all he does to stay fit and optimize his healthspan as a Danish man can give a better idea of what people can do to optimize longevity.

Danish People Tend to Consume Less Ultra-Processed and Sugary Foods

In the US, the consumption of sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods (foods containing a long list of additives, designed for a long shelf life) is a cause of concern. For example, data show that ultra-processed foods make up about 55% of daily energy intake for US adults and about 62% for adolescents. In contrast, ultra-processed foods make up a substantially lower proportion of the average Danish person’s diet, at around 25%.

Interestingly, while Scheibye-Knudsen admits that Danes are not perfect when it comes to their diet, there are things people in other parts of the world can learn from them. Moreover, there are things people can apply relating to the Nordic diet more generally. As such, the Danes focus on eating whole grains and dietary fibers, as well as beneficial fats from oily fish.

Also, Danish people tend to consume ample amounts of coffee and dark chocolate. In that regard, Scheibye-Knudsen has found that consuming coffee and dark chocolate may confer beneficial, pro-longevity effects.

For example, research has tied drinking coffee to a reduction in most age-related diseases. What is important to note, according to Scheibye-Knudsen, is that coffee’s benefits increase the more one drinks.

Along these lines, Scheibye-Knudsen tries to drink four to five cups of coffee each day. He opts for drinking black coffee but also occasionally treats himself to a cup of creamy coffee, since some evidence suggests that adding a splash of milk can increase the absorption of beneficial compounds in coffee, like polyphenols.

Furthermore, dark chocolate contains molecules that may also promote longevity. Scheibye-Knudsen also emphasizes that if someone consuming chocolate wants to reap benefits from its potential longevity-promoting properties, the chocolate needs to be dark, as milk and white chocolates are high in sugar.

Morten Scheibye-Knudsen Goes Cycling Regularly for Physical Fitness

Many Danes engage in bicycling because cars are terribly expensive in Denmark. Moreover, the Danes have a safe and extensive cycling infrastructure, which makes bicycling an accessible activity. As such, the average Dane bicycles 1.4 km (a little under a mile) each day, and nine out of 10 people in the Danish city of Copenhagen own a bicycle. This contrasts with about 53% of Americans who own a bicycle.

“I cycle 10 km each day to and from work, although I know I need to do more strength training to optimise my health,” says Scheibye-Knudsen. “Currently, carrying around my young children is the extent of it!”

As far as Scheibye-Knudsen’s bicycling goes, he uses this activity to stay physically fit, crucial for longevity, and bicycles about 10 km (6.21 miles) per day.

“As we age, we tend to lose muscle and bone mass (which makes us more susceptible to falls, fractures, and frailty). Getting the pulse racing with a mixture of building up strength and cardio each week is key,” he says.

Danes Are Committed to a Healthy Work-Life Balance and Stress Management

In addition to bicycling for physical fitness, most Danes have an appreciation for stress management.

“We have very strong unions in Denmark that make sure we work a maximum of 40 hours per week, and we also have five to six weeks of vacation each year,” says Scheibye-Knudsen. “These types of breaks are very healthy for us – as is taking breaks throughout the day to unwind and de-stress.”

The effects of differing perspectives on work-life balance, contrasting with the US, are evident, as only 26% of workers in Denmark feel stressed, compared to over 80% in the US.

“Chronic stress is incredibly bad for us,” says Scheibye-Knudsen. Moreover, research suggests chronic stress contributes to accelerated aging, inflammation, cardiovascular dysfunction, and cancer.

Scheibye-Knudsen also tries to make time for friends and family, no matter how busy he is, as a way to keep his stress levels low.

“Data suggests having a strong social life can add maybe four years to your life expectancy. So you can actually put a number on these things and see how important they are,” he says.

The Aging Intervention Compounds that Morten Scheibye-Knudsen Uses

While optimizing his diet, physical fitness routine, and stress management strategies, Scheibye-Knudsen has also incorporated a few other aging intervention tactics into his daily regimen. Along these lines, he takes a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) precursor, nicotinamide riboside (NR), daily. He says that as we age, our cellular levels of NAD+ decline, and because NAD+ is crucial for DNA repair and cellular metabolism, he takes NR daily to raise his NAD+. Some evidence from human trials suggests taking NR may help manage Parkinson’s disease as well.

“We don’t know what the side effects [of taking NR] are yet, but I’m willing to take that chance and experiment on myself,” says Scheibye-Knudsen. “However, as a doctor, I don’t recommend that other people do this because we don’t know what the side effects will be in five or 10 years time.”

Scheibye-Knudsen also relays that NR’s effects are subtle and that it is not a “miracle drug.” However, he believes that he sleeps better and has more vivid dreams since he began his daily NR use (although he points out that this may come from a placebo effect). He also adds that others have told him that NR has improved their exercise capacity and overall fitness.

Intriguingly, Scheibye-Knudsen’s biological age, an age measurement based on cell and tissue function, is roughly 36, a whole decade younger than his chronological age. Thus, it remains possible that taking NR has had positive effects in preserving various aspects of Scheibye-Knudsen’s physiological function and lowering his biological age.

Morten Scheibye-Knudsen also takes the diabetes medication metformin to control his blood sugar.

“This is an FDA-approved drug, but once again, I’m taking it at homein a very experimental setting (as a physician who doesn’t have diabetes or any other diseases), so I wouldn’t recommend anyone else do this as we don’t know the long-term effects for healthy people,” he warns.

When Scheibye-Knudsen takes metformin, the drug stimulates a cellular process called autophagy, a mechanism by which cells dispose of waste and also recycle cellular components. Autophagy can help to rejuvenate cellular function, and high blood sugar can impair this process.

Scheibye-Knudsen also says that he has a sweet tooth and consumes a sugary snack every once in a while. In that regard, despite trying to restrict his sugar intake, he believes he still consumes far too much sugar.

“Metformin is a much stronger drug, whilst NR is a supplement, so it has a bigger impact on the body,” Says Scheibye-Knudsen. “It definitely impacts my hunger levels and, because of the effect it has on my cells, I’ve found it can sometimes cause muscle fatigue similar to that felt during strenuous exercise.”

Regarding metformin, in 2013, Scheibye-Knudsen helped to conduct a study in the US, which found that metformin extended lifespan and improved other physiological parameters related to aging in mice.

“We know that blood sugar is a very strong risk – for example – for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” says Scheibye-Knudsen. “Because I have a family history of these diseases, I want to make sure my blood sugar is very well controlled, so I’m more than willing to experiment on myself,” he relays. “We’ll see in 30 years, when I’m in my seventies, if my methods worked.”