Peter Attia
peterattiamd.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2018
Physician Peter Attia writes and hosts a podcast on longevity, cholesterol, sleep, nutrition, and health policy.
What HN saysCommenters recommend his podcast and writing on aging, cholesterol, creatine, and uric acid, though one mentions a 'fall from grace' while still crediting his cholesterol series.
173HN people shared it
128linked it in comments
92stories submitted
976story points
4 months agolast shared
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Most-shared posts
- 1Podcast11 people · first shared 2020
- 2Introduction to My Longevity Tactics10 people · 4 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 3The Straight Dope on Cholesterol (Part I)9 people · 6 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Dangers of poor sleep, Alzheimer’s risk and mental health8 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 5Rickjohnson7 people · first shared 2020
- 6Outlive7 people · first shared 2023
- 7Widespread fraud in the generic drug industry4 people · 96 points · first shared 2019 · 20 comments on HN
- 8Why I’m for Covid vaccines, but against vaccine mandates4 people · 43 points · first shared 2022 · 65 comments on HN
- 9Fructose, processed food, NAFLD, and changing the food system4 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10Rickjohnson24 people · first shared 2022
- 11Is alternate-day fasting superior to calorie restriction in lean adults?3 people · 40 points · first shared 2021 · 65 comments on HN
- 12Are continuous glucose monitors a waste of time for people without diabetes?3 people · 20 points · first shared 2021 · 9 comments on HN
- 13Metformin and Exercise3 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 14Should we still be worried about MSG?3 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 15Covid Part 2: Masks, long Covid, boosters, mandates, treatments, and more3 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
oicu812 · 2022-10-03
Peter Attia [1] has a great podcast about many aging/healthspan issues. I listen to the free version but there is also a paid version of the podcast with more info.
The book Lifespan [2] from David Sinclair is also a fantastic source. Finally, if you can wade through some of the questionable statements and claims, the book The Longevity Paradox [3] from Steven Gundry does have some useful info.
[1] https://peterattiamd.com/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age_and-Dont-Have/dp/1501191977
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Longevity-Paradox-Young-Ripe-Plant/dp/006284339…
o_____________o · 2022-06-19
Yes, thank you!
I've gotten some directly from walmart.com in the past with no prescription.
There're a lot of other options lately, like agelessrx.com, levelshealth.com, Veri, Nutrisense, January.ai.
It may give you some life changing insights. Oversimplified, high glucose spikes = shorter life. And it's not a simple issue of carb intake. Your behavior, personal biology and dietary environment (fat? fiber? protein? stress? food sequence?) yield huge variation.
If you decide to learn more about this subject, Peter Attia is a great (if involved) start:
https://peterattiamd.com/?s=insulin
Within a couple days I learned things like I was hypoglycemic during sleep, and my daily oat milk lattes were like eating candy (maltose), whereas an outrageous French dinner left me totally level (fiber/fat).
eternauta3k · 2026-07-19
Peter Attia had a great series of blog posts on this before his fall from grace:
https://peterattiamd.com/the-straight-dope-on-cholesterol-part-i/
He also had a series of podcast interviews about this with Tom Dayspring.
I believe his explanations are all mainstream, except he favors treating LDL and LP(a) more aggressively than normal doctors
WaitWaitWha · 2026-05-31
His website https://peterattiamd.com returns several direct creatine articles, podcasts, and AMAs with him and others.
nradov · 2025-12-12
For anyone who wants a deep dive on uric acid metabolism this Peter Attia Drive podcast with Rick Johnson, M.D. is a great resource.
https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson2/
sleepyguy · 2025-03-09
Peter Attia has covered this at some length.
https://peterattiamd.com/what-are-the-side-effects-of-aspartame-stevia…
>While an excess of alcohol sugars can cause gastrointestinal distress (e.g., if you overdo it on these you can get diarrhea), in most people they do not cause secretion of insulin from the pancreas due to their distinct chemical structure (see figure of their structures, above).
The same is true for the first group of non-sugar substitute sweeteners I mentioned (e.g., aspartame, saccharin, sucralose), with respect to the lack of insulin response. In addition to studies confirming this, I’ve also documented this in myself for xylitol (my personal favorite), aspartame (Equal), and sucralose (Splenda).
timr · 2025-03-01
They might be branded that way, but that's not what they are. They have dramatic effects on the metabolic pathway and insulin response that need to be carefully considered if you're not actually diabetic.
I recommend that you listen to the most recent Peter Attia podcast, which is a 2+ hour interview with Ralph DeFronzo (diabetes expert) where he goes deep into the effects of GLP-1 agonists on insulin response and other metabolic pathways. I came away with the impression that we're being too casual with how these drugs are being used -- if you're overweight these impacts are probably all for the good, but if you're not, it's more questionable.
https://peterattiamd.com/ralphdefronzo/
whoaThanks · 2024-12-12
I found Peter Attia's The Drive episode 311 "Longevity 101:..", enlightening when it comes to longevity. I fear I won't be able to properly explain the key points from memory, but I recommend the listen.
https://peterattiamd.com/longevity101/
tomp · 2024-10-13
“Intermittent fasting and/or caloric restriction extends mice lifespan.” is quite old news.
The reason mice are used in labs isn’t because they’re a good model of humans, but because they’re easy to bread and have short lifespans.
Studies of caloric restriction in monkeys didn’t cause lifespan extension, casting doubt on its effect in humans.
Peter Attia (best source of longevity science) wrote about this 5 years ago.
https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey-studies/
tuukkah · 2024-07-10
"First erythritol, now xylitol. This research group followed the same flawed design and ended up with the same flawed conclusions." https://peterattiamd.com/xylitol-and-cvd/
liamwire · 2024-06-05
It’s worth highlighting that Peter starts every podcast by stating that his conflicts of interest can be found on his disclosures page: https://peterattiamd.com/disclosures/
He’s done so since the start of his podcast.
In checking, Dexcom is clearly listed as a company he advised during the period listed on Open Payments.
karanbhangui · 2024-02-07
highly recommend the book Outlive [0] by Dr Peter Attia. My dad's taken a lot of the advice to heart and is in much better shape than I am now!
[0] https://peterattiamd.com/outlive/
lnwlebjel · 2024-02-07
The podcast is also excellent: https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/
Why: He's a very skeptical, very good scientist, trained as a surgeon, and thinks like an engineer/mathematician, while also having been a life-long athlete (he swam from Catalina to Long Beach more than once).
blueyes · 2023-06-08
> Agreeableness changed only in old age.
Nir Barzilai, a researcher of aging, tells a great story about a very nice 100 year old man. When Nir comments on how nice the man is to his 80yo son, the son says: "well, he was a real jerk when he was my age."
https://peterattiamd.com/nirbarzilai2/
olegious · 2023-05-20
Just a heads up “weight loss” is a poor metric if it comes at the cost of lean muscle mass. It seems that 39% of weight loss associated with Ozempic comes from lean muscle mass which isn’t great.
https://peterattiamd.com/the-downside-of-glp-1-receptor-agonists/
LewisVerstappen · 2023-03-07
It's best to just read what actual researchers/doctors think rather than rely on bullshit corporate media like WaPo/CNN/etc.
You can read
- Peter Attia (Stanford MD) -> https://peterattiamd.com/more-hype-than-substance-erythritol-and-cardi…
- Layne Norton (Nutritional Sciences PhD) -> https://youtu.be/Ad8_scQtHFM
They both think the study is being sensationalized by the media for clicks (as usual)
blueridge · 2023-01-21
Peter Attia had a recent episode about neurodegenerative disease, they talk about dream enactment quite a bit, great discussion:
https://peterattiamd.com/kellyannniotis/
brookside · 2022-12-09
My point consistently been that protein needs are overestimated
Peter Attia disagrees:
"The more I research this topic, the more I find that the RDA (recommended daily allowance) of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is simply not sufficient"
https://peterattiamd.com/category/nutritional-biochemistry/protein/
johncearls · 2022-10-01
A fellow fan of Peter Attia I see. His latest podcast had a protein expert on that went into great depth about the virtues and drawbacks of different protein sources. Highly recommend to people who are interested in the topic.
https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/
andy_ppp · 2022-09-05
The classic problem with self reporting food questionnaires is recall of the correct information. If anyone here knows accurately how many cups of ribs they had in the last year, (unless zero) you might as well just invent a random number.
I have no idea how you would even follow someone's diet closely enough to be even 50% accurate and for how long? Until someone is dead. Nobody is doing accurate research on this because it would cost too much and consequently the "science" that is done is meaningless.
Peter Attia makes some interesting suggestions on how to improve things (from David Allison's work) here [1].
[1] https://peterattiamd.com/nutritional-epidemiology-abolition-vs-defendi…
lhl · 2022-05-20
While the US health care system as a whole is mess, I don't think it's intractable if you can attack it from the right directions. GoodRX did with pharmaceuticals, and Mark Cuban seems to be doing a good job with CostPlus Drugs. (Valisure is also pretty interesting, doing in-house validation of generics).
Marty Makary wrote a book a couple years back, The Price We Pay on the wicked knot of a problem that is US health care. For those mildly interested, there was a Peter Attia Podcast inteview a while back that covers the gist of it: https://peterattiamd.com/martymakary/
For those that want to get some color from some of the biggest problems from a clinician/practioner's perpective, I found some of these podcast episodes to be pretty great/eye opening: https://zdoggmd.com/podcasts/
V__ · 2022-04-23
> Berlin emergency services show a 30% increase for heart attack and stroke codes in 2021. No explanation. Many other such signs from around the world.
Sadly ,due to the pandemic a lot of preventive check-ups haven't been made. This could be just one reason.
You can't criticise someone for doing "propaganda" while not providing any sources and pulling stuff out of the air yourself.
If you want to actually read up on what the problems are and aren't. I recommend this podcast (which includes all sources): https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/
tejohnso · 2022-03-07
Peter Attia has some great podcasts on this. Here's one [1] about how fructose drives metabolic disease.
[1]: https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson2/
raspasov · 2022-02-11
>>> the way humans think is very varied
>>> It all depends on the person.
Based on what I've recently learned about neuroscience and optogenetics, I don't think there's much evidence to support this sort of relativism. On the contrary, many processes in mammalian brains have common mechanisms.
To explore more, this is a great podcast https://peterattiamd.com/karldeisseroth/
Disclaimer: I am a complete layman on the topic, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
hourislate · 2022-02-11
This has to be one of the best listens you could possibly hear today on Fructose, Essential hypertension, Uric acid, etc. They have come a long way since 2014.
Peter Attia and Rick Johnson
https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/
bumby · 2022-01-10
I found this discussion between 3 MDs to be one of the more enlightened ones on the subject:
https://peterattiamd.com/covid-19-current-state-omicron/
One of the big takeaways for me, personally, was that the push for boosters may be, in part, due to measuring the wrong thing, namely circulating antibodies as a measure of resistance to infection. Even when antibody levels dropped weeks/months later, it seems people still maintained B-cell and T-cell immunity.
From the link:
"A Johns Hopkins study in pre-print shows the importance of T-cell immunity in protection from COVID
-This is an under recognized part of the immune system and absent from much COVID discussion
-T cell immunity is solid against Omicron as it is for Delta"
P.S. - Here's my chance at one of my favorite dad jokes: Why have scientists been researching ants to battle COVID? Because they all have ant-y bodies... :-)
kuhewa · 2022-01-02
Taubes interview on Peter Attia's podcast is fascinating. He starts by laying out his career in journalism bringing light to scientific malpractice and otherwise very sharp minds totally deluding themselves when they get stuck on a pet hypothesis. The second half of the podcast was about his later career where he took on sugar. He then illustrates all of the self delusion and poor scientific thinking he had just described. It's kind of amazing.
https://peterattiamd.com/garytaubes/
patrickk · 2021-12-17
Excellent podcast with the author:
https://peterattiamd.com/patrickraddenkeefe/
dna_polymerase · 2021-07-07
Also worth checking out in the context: https://peterattiamd.com/the-mouse-trap-lost-in-translation/
_huayra_ · 2021-05-03
If you want a deep dive on this, Peter Attia's last two guests on his podcast were great
1. https://peterattiamd.com/peterhotez3/ Peter Hotez on the history of anti-vax
2. https://peterattiamd.com/pauloffit2/ Paul Offit on the outlook for the coronavirus based on the current data