Peter Attia (born March 19, 1973) is a Canadian-American author and former researcher known for his work in longevity medicine. He is the author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
Early life and education Attia was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the child of Egyptian Christian immigrant parents. He graduated from Queen's University at Kingston in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics. He then attended Stanford University School of Medicine, graduating in 2001 with a Doctor of Medicine.
Career From 2001 to 2006, Attia began a residency in general surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He left his general surgery residency at Johns Hopkins in 2006 and spent two years as a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, studying immunotherapy for melanoma. After dropping out of his residency program, Attia joined the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in the Palo Alto office as a member of the Corporate Risk Practice and Healthcare Practice. In 2014, he founded a private clinic dedicated to longevity medicine. Attia also created the blog "The Eating Academy" (later "War on Insulin" and now peterattiamd.com) that mostly focuses on topics related to nutrition, physical activity, and longevity. Subsequently, he launched the podcast The Peter Attia Drive, in which he interviews experts each week, covering topics such as longevity, metabolic health, and medical research. In 2012, Attia co-founded the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) with Gary Taubes, with a primary focus on promoting nutrition research and tackling the growing health challenges linked to obesity, diabetes, and metabolic diseases. In 2013, Attia was a speaker at TEDMED, where he shared insights on longevity. Attia has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss's book Tools of Titans. He had a central role in Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, a six-part documentary for National Geographic and Disney+ starring Chris Hemsworth and directed by Darren Aronofsky. In episode 5, Attia told Hemsworth that he carried the high-risk APOE4 allele, which places him at elevated risk of neurodegenerative aging of the Alzheimer's type. In 2017, he posted on his YouTube Channel, with his first set of videos being instructional exercise videos. It now has more than a million subscribers and focuses on longevity content. Subsequently, in 2018, he launched the podcast The Peter Attia Drive. On March 28, 2023, Attia (with coauthor Bill Gifford) published his book Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity. According to The New York Times Magazine, the book "has been a runaway best seller since it was published this spring [of 2023]"; it was No. 3 on the Amazon Charts for nonfiction as of August 24, 2023. Attia was named in Time's 2024 list of influential people in health. By October 2025, CBS News reported that Outlive had sold nearly three million copies and that The Peter Attia Drive had been downloaded more than 100 million times. The Guardian called the book an "exhaustive, lucid exploration" of Attia's ideas while noting that the lifestyle changes it proposes could appear onerous and complicated. GQ described it as exhaustive and clear, while observing that it raised more questions than it answered. In October 2025, Attia appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes, where he discussed the role of structured exercise and preventative health strategies in extending health span. From January to February 2026, Attia was a contributor to CBS News. On February 3, 2026, David founder Peter Rahal announced that Attia had stepped down as the company's chief science officer, and Attia's name and image were removed from the company's website. Biograph, the testing startup Attia co-founded, declined to comment on his status.
Personal life Attia currently lives in the Austin, Texas, area with his wife and three children. In 2005, Attia swam across the channel between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles, the 120th person to achieve that feat. He trained for the crossing by swimming roughly 20 to 30 miles per week alongside a surgical residency that at times reached 100 hours per week, and drew on his undergraduate training in mechanical engineering to analyse the physics of his stroke. He said at the time that the swim was intended in part to draw attention to the Terry Fox Foundation's cancer-research work. He has since completed the channel in both directions. Attia has also boxed, cycled competitively and competes in archery.
Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein Attia was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 through Eva Andersson-Dubin. Epstein's appointment calendars, released in 2025, recorded meetings involving Attia through 2019. Emails released in connection with the Epstein files documented communications between Attia and Epstein concerning patient referrals, accommodation, a hiring decision at Attia's clinic, and health and longevity. In February 2026, following the release of information about his relationship with Epstein, Attia resigned as a contributor to CBS News and as chief science officer of the protein bar company David. Attia also publicly apologized for the content of some of his emails with Epstein.
References
External links
Media related to Peter Attia at Wikimedia Commons
Official website