Anyone taking calcium alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG)?

For sure, that powder is the cheapest. I just didn’t want to worry about encapsulating it since I’ll take it on an empty stomach and I have no idea how the powder tastes.

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is that the only reason you buy caps? in Alan Green’s note on supplementing NAC, he says only capsules will do. Not tablets, not powder, which is much cheaper. I thought there might be an absorption issue

I just throw it in my daily smoothie and its fine - didn’t really notice the taste.

My partner and I both tried alpha-ketoglutarate. We both had a noticeable increase in energy at first–we definitely had more energy during our long walks, for example–but it faded after a week or so and then we didn’t notice any difference so we stopped taking it after about a month.

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Did you take it on an empty stomach? What dose did you use?

An interesting and relevant discussion on this recent journal article / study on CA-AKG:

And a response to the former twitter thread:

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We each took 1 gram with food at breakfast.

Be careful taking AKG on an empty stomach I took it on empty stomach and had stomach pain for about the next 45 minutes.

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Strange, I take it on an empty stomach all the time and it doesn’t bother me.

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I suspect that the Levine Phenotypic age blood markers measure different manifestations of age from methylation age. My TruMe $99 methylation age was measured at 1 year older than my chronological age. My Levine Phenotypic age was about 14 years younger than my chronological age. (I’m going to do a different test that measures methylation at more CpG sites to see what it says.)

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James - very interesting. Thanks for posting this observation. I use the Levine phenotypic calculation because its cheap and easy. And, the epigenetic clocks - of which there are many - really don’t have any clinical lifespan studies to validate them (even in animals) - so while I find them interesting and potentially helpful in the future, right now I don’t think they provide a whole lot of value.

As discussed in the Peter Attia / Matt Kaeberlein podcast:

Aging biomarkers

  • What would biomarkers for aging look like?
    • When Peter had Eileen White on the podcast, she pointed out that we don’t even have biomarkers for something as important as autophagy
    • We don’t know how long a human should fast to generate a meaningful amount of autophagy (in mice it’s a day, and in humans 7 days is likely enough, but we don’t precisely know)
    • We can measure telomere length, but Peter does not think this is a helpful measurement for aging: “I think there’s plenty of data to suggest that while telomere length is a very important marker of cellular division, it really speaks very little about the organism’s state of aging”

Epigenetic clocks

  • Peter doesn’t think epigenetic clocks are useful either because they can easily be manipulated by short-term interventions that don’t seem biologically relevant
  • Can we develop epigenetic clocks that will, in a predictive way, tell you how old you are biologically?
    • Some companies are selling these tests right now
    • Human tests are based on markers in the blood, but it’s not clear whether the “biological age” of the blood reflects the biological age of the entire body
    • They are mostly looking at peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and maybe saliva tests, but Matt’s not sure how the commercial companies are doing it
  • Peter discounts clocks that use inputs like glucose or vitamin D level, because they vary widely from day to day and are easy to manipulate
  • Matt thinks the data and correlations of epigenetic clocks are strong
    • But he’s skeptical that there are so many data points in the epigenome that you can find a pattern that will fit pretty much anything you look for
    • It may not be a robust predictor of biological age, but they are telling us something

Details here:

I have never heard anyone talk about epigenetic clocks this way. But I think continuous or regular epigenetic clock monitoring can be quite useful compared to individual samples far apart! Just like how one monitors blood glucose on CGMs to ensure it is generally low as possible with minimal number of spikes, a strategy for continuous epigentic clocks could be to keep epigenetic age as high as possible in general with relatively few negative spikes.

I agree - monitoring them regularly over time and comparing results vis a vis different regimens may help you understand how things are changing biologically over time. I just use the Levine clock, but I can also see an epigenetic clock measure would be valuable. And the more data the better, if you can make sense of it.

FWIW…

I am planning on starting CaAKG.
Adding the additional compounds{Vitamin A and Ca for males] mentioned in the article.

https://www.aging-us.com/article/203736/

Anyone catch the incorrect printed amount of Vitamin A as retinyl palmitate.
The table on page 11 shows 900mg should be 900mcg

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I’ve also been using CaAKG for about 6 months.
I didn’t notice anything specifically, but I find Brian Kennedy’s data in mice impressive (reduced frailty).
My longevity protocol includes many other things (Valter Longo’s longevity diet & FMD, NMN, berberine, particular vitamins, Glynac, etc. - & I just started rapamycin and Metformin), so I can’t say for sure if CaAKG is helping, but the epigenetic clock test I did a month ago was encouraging (7.5 years less than chronological age - I’ll be 47 in October).

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I did this test for roughly $180.-: epiAge | Home english

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Alpha-Ketoglutarate, an Endogenous Metabolite, Extends Lifespan and Compresses Morbidity in Aging Mice

“Dietary-supplemented 2% CaAKG (w/w) increases survival”

“On the assumption that the average mouse weighs 30 gm and consumes 5 gm of food/day of food/day”

So 2% w/w on 5gm/day food = 0.1g/day CaAKG for mouse

Converting 0.1g/day consumption for a 30 g mouse to an equivalent consumption for a 70kg human = 0.1/30 * 70,000g = 233g/day of CaAKG

Someone please check, but is human supplementation ORDERS of magnitude lower?

Seems to me there is no efficacy in clinical translation at such low human doses.

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I admit I’m hoping the Rejuvant “trial” showing the reduction in epigenetic age has some merit. :smile:

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I’m back to taking Ca-AKG again. I’m starting to wonder if there may be any potential interactions with Rapa - that we know of?

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I’m not sure on specific interactions, but I have heard in a number of Brian Kennedy’s talks that they found no biological age reductions in people using AKG who were already healthy and had a biological age lower than their chronological age.

Also - AKG seems to ramp up energy and nutrient processing (I have not had a chance to research it in depth), but it seems like a reasonable risk that it operates counter to rapamycin, so at minimum I wouldn’t take it at the same time or same days as rapamycin… but again, we need to do more research on this entire area.

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