Peter Attia

Peter Attia (born March 19, 1973) is a Canadian-American author, physician, and researcher known for his work in longevity medicine.

Early life and education
Attia was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He is the child of Coptic Egyptian 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, but never completed his residency, nor completed a fellowship or became board certified. During this time, he also undertook research at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, focusing on cancer 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 various 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, 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.

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.

Personal life
Attia resides in the Austin, Texas, area with his wife and three children. He swam across the channel between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles. He is the 120th person to achieve this feat.