Your Telomeres Are a Lie, Bats Beat Aging, Sleep Meds Ruin Mornings, CO's Silent Kill, and more...

Dave Asprey

Mar 13, 2026

Episode description

This week’s stories:

Smartphone App Catches What Sleep Trackers Miss

A 2026 trial found that suvorexant, a popular prescription sleep drug, improves sleep quality scores — but worsens morning alertness and cognitive function while improving afternoon and evening performance. The study used a smartphone app to pulse users throughout the day, revealing a split-time-of-day signal that traditional sleep scales miss entirely. Optimizing your sleep dashboard and optimizing your waking performance are not the same thing.

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Bats Are Breaking the Telomere Model

A 2026 bioRxiv preprint on the tropical bat species Molossus molossus found that these animals live unusually long lives with almost no telomere shortening — challenging the assumption that telomere erosion is a universal driver of mammalian aging. Instead, the bats maintain genome integrity through superior DNA repair and oxidative stress management driven by the metabolic demands of flight. Telomere length may be a symptom, not the cause — and the longevity industry has been measuring the wrong thing.

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The Fenugreek Hack That Cuts Glucose Spikes by Up to 20%

Soaking fenugreek seeds overnight and consuming them before meals has been shown across multiple small human trials to reduce fasting glucose and post-meal glucose spikes by 5 to 20 percent. The mechanism is dual — soluble galactomannan fibers slow carbohydrate absorption while bioactive compounds improve insulin receptor sensitivity in muscle and liver. It's a cheap, food-grade, CGM-trackable lever that most people have never tried.

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Mindsip insights from this episode:

Identify low-level carbon monoxide poisoning as hidden fatigue cause

Symptoms of low-level carbon monoxide poisoning, such as headache and fatigue, are often misattributed to bad sleep, stress, or diet.

#environment

#fatigue

Soak fenugreek seeds to reduce post-meal glucose spikes

Soaking a tablespoon of fenugreek seeds overnight and consuming them before a meal can cut post-meal glucose spikes by 5 to 20 percent.

#glucose

#nutrition

Utilize multi-ingredient supplements to reverse aging effects

A multi-ingredient longevity supplement improved arterial stiffness by an amount equivalent to reversing a decade of aging, outperforming common interventions like exercise or diet.

#longevity

#supplement

Combine fats and carbs around exercise to boost insulin sensitivity

Contrary to popular low-carb rules, eating fat with carbohydrates around an exercise session can actually improve insulin sensitivity and fat oxidation.

#exercise

#insulin

Recognize telomere length as symptom of aging, not cause

A tropical bat species with a long lifespan shows almost no telomere shortening, suggesting telomere length is a symptom of aging rather than the primary cause.