In the bustling halls of a medical school, a young doctor named Joseph Antoun had an epiphany that would set him on a 25-year odyssey. His realization? We might be eating ourselves to death.

Join Bora Celik as he chats with Dr. Joseph Antoun, the CEO of L-Nutra/Prolon.

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The Hunger Games: One Doctor's Quest to Hack Human Longevity

"Food is the only product we consume every day of our life, three to five times," Dr. Antoun mused. "So how come we haven't put enough science behind it to turn nutrition into an asset for longevity?"

This question nagged at him, pulling him away from traditional medicine and into the uncharted waters of nutritional science. Little did he know, his journey would lead him to challenge one of our most basic instincts: the need to eat.

The Fasting Paradox

As Dr. Antoun delved deeper into his research, he stumbled upon a paradox. Many of the world's longest-lived people practiced periods of fasting. Yet in our modern world, we're constantly bombarded with messages to eat more, snack often, and never let ourselves feel hungry.

"Our ancestors never ate all the time," Dr. Antoun explained. "They were eating and not eating. And this is why we're living in this craze of diabetes and overweight."

But there was a problem. While occasional fasting seemed beneficial, prolonged fasting could be dangerous. How could they harness the benefits of fasting without the risks?

The $48 Million Experiment

With this question in mind, Dr. Antoun and his team embarked on an ambitious project. Over the next 13 years, they would invest $48 million and countless hours into cracking the fasting code.

Their goal? To create a diet that could mimic the effects of fasting while still allowing people to eat. It was a task many deemed impossible.

"A lot of people initially thought we were scammers," Dr. Antoun chuckled. "They'd say, 'What do you mean, fast with food? You're bluffing!'"

But Dr. Antoun and his team pressed on. They studied the intricate pathways of cellular nutrition, conducted trial after trial, and slowly pieced together the puzzle.

The Birth of Prolon

Finally, after years of research and refinement, they had their breakthrough. They called it Prolon - short for "promoting longevity." It was a five-day meal program designed to trick the body into thinking it was fasting, even while consuming carefully calculated nutrients.

"When you cross day three of fasting," Dr. Antoun explained, his eyes lighting up, "the body's in a crisis. It says, 'Hey, I depleted my reserve. I'm in a big crisis.' And it asks the cells to rejuvenate."

This cellular rejuvenation, they discovered, was the key to Prolon's potential benefits. Early results were promising, showing improvements in weight management, skin health, and even hints at reversing biological age.

The Uphill Battle

But creating the product was only half the battle. Now, Dr. Antoun faced a new challenge: convincing the world that periodic "fasting with food" could be the key to longer, healthier lives.

"When we launched eight years ago," he recalled, "fasting was only in religious books. Doctors would ask, 'Why do you want me to starve my patients?'"

Slowly but surely, however, the tide began to turn. As more research emerged supporting the benefits of fasting, people became more open to the concept. Celebrity endorsements didn't hurt either, though Dr. Antoun is quick to point out they never paid for those shout-outs.

The Road Ahead

Today, with over a million users and 15,000 clinics recommending Prolon, Dr. Antoun's "crazy" idea doesn't seem so crazy anymore. But he's not resting on his laurels.

"Every night when I sleep, I have two problems," he confessed. "How can I tell the hundreds of millions and the billions around the world that there's a way to fast that is healthy and can change your life? And how can we tell the millions of diabetics and pre-diabetics that they might be able to reverse their condition?"

As our conversation wound down, I couldn't help but be struck by the passion still evident in Dr. Antoun's voice. What started as a simple question in a medical school hallway had turned into a life's mission - a mission to change our relationship with food and potentially extend the human lifespan.

Whether Prolon turns out to be the longevity hack of the century or just another chapter in our eternal quest to outsmart aging, one thing is clear: Dr. Antoun's journey is a testament to the power of questioning our assumptions and the potential for science to transform our lives, one meal (or non-meal) at a time.

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