So, then it is probably the iodine activating the Sirts through thyroid stimulation. However, that could lead to weight gain… Were the mice chubby?
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DoNotAge’s products are so expensive because they are in bed with literally every supplement shill “influencer” on youtube.
Their entire business model is based upon sponsoring youtube infomercial content where the solution of the subject matter is, unsurprisingly, a donotage product which you can buy with a generous 10% discount code if you click on their affiliate link in description.
I understand companies need to market their products, but donotage is uncomfortably aggressive with “influencers” whose only qualification is their follower count.
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I will say that I do think DoNotAge’s products are higher quality than the supplements I bought from other vendors. I think their NMN and Resveratrol are superior to others I have tried for the same price. Same with TMG.
However, I would try to find cheaper natural sources like dried parsley instead of an Apigenin supplement.
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ARticle declares otherwise.
In this study, extracts generated from five brown algae (Fucus dichitus , Fucus vesiculosus (Linnaeus), Cytoseira tamariscofolia , Cytoseira nodacaulis , Alaria esculenta ) were tested for their ability to activate SIRT6 resulting in H3K9 deacetylation. Three of the five macroalgal extracts caused a significant increase of H3K9 deacetylation, and the effect was most pronounced for F. dichitus .
The compound responsible for this in vitro activity was identified by mass spectrometry as fucoidan.
Anyone figure out how to get bulk natural Asta cheaply?
The pricing on this compound is still insane… called AstaReal and they quote the wholesale/bulk price as:
$10K per 1kg of Astaxanthin 10% oil
$18K per 1kg of Astraxanthin 4% powder
Its ridiculous pricing… if we were to take the 3g to 4g / day (which I see no physiological problems with, the only side effect seems to be pink poop, and the potential for pinker skin than you already have) it will be an annual total of 900 to 1200grams or so (so, 1kg or so). Who wants to spend $10K to $18K per year on natural Astaxanthin for perhaps 10% to 12% median lifespan improvement? I think this is a hard sell. I think the natural Astaxanthin manufacturers are making outrageous margins on this product. See manufacturing cost paper I found, at Bottom of this post.
But the story gets even more complex with regard to the NIA ITP program. The product they’re using in the NIA ITP mouse longevity trials is the AstaSana synthetic Astaxanthin. So, its the synthetic Astaxanthin being fed to mice in this clinical trial that is having the good lifespan improvement results, not the natural Astaxanthin. And chemically, they are slightly different. There are studies that show that the synthetic Astaxanthin is more bioavailable than the natural Astaxanthin… so I wonder, would the natural Astaxanthin show the same level of benefit as the synthetic version? We just don’t know.
I’ve not been able to find out pricing yet on the synthetic Astaxanthin, but it has to be a lot cheaper.
But it seems there is at least some uncertainty on the human safety of the synthetic Astaxanthin (or at least the natural astaxanthin manufacturers seem to be doing a pretty good job of creating fear and doubt in the market around synthetic Astaxanthin, as would be a reasonable business strategy if you’re facing the prospect of a competitor with a huge price advantage (synthetic is much cheaper to manufacture than natural Astaxanthin from algae).
Here is a safety review done in 2019, where they question the human safety of synthetic Astaxanthin:
Here is the Consumerlab summary of the issue:
Astaxanthin_ A Comparative Case of Synthetic VS. Natural Product.pdf (765.2 KB)
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Crazy! So it seems like we are going to be stuck in the 10-40 mg daily range. Will that be enough to move the needle?
For Synthetic Asta, I got this quote.
Astaxanthin 2%, Minimum Order Quantity - 20 kg. Courier door to door $96.9/kg This quote is from Hunan Huakang Biotech. Much cheaper, but Chinese manufacturer… And when I got this quote, I thought it was expensive!!!
Whatsapp: +8615802557637
I suspect not. Richard miller says they plan to do a lower dose study, 400ppm/day instead of 4000ppm, but its going to be years before we see any results. Still, 400ppm translates to 300+mg/day in humans…
Yes - I really wouldn’t trust them. You’d have to spend a few thousand dollars doing a comprehensive chemical analysis on the supplies to look at contaminants, etc.
I’ll try to check on some European and / or American synthetic suppliers.
I think it is a bit rich to say that DoNotAge are better without a paper slammed on the desk proving it. NMN is sourced from the same factory by basically all supplement companies. (science labs buy highly purified NMN from Japan.) Effepharm in Shanghai is basically providing to all supplement companies. DoNotAge, Prohealth, Double Wood and so on. There is not one that can claim to be better than the other as it is the same thing with different packaging. Resveratrol, Apigenin etc is the same story.
So why would you choose DoNotAge when they sell for twice the price as the others? Purity testing is another issue, DoNotAge only certifies their NMN and Resveratrol I belive, the rest of their stuff is not so much.
Companies like Lifeextention, Now and Doctor’s Best have thoroughly testing for all their hundreds of products. They even have their own lab’s.
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I buy the DoNotAge NMN powder and Resveratrol which is as cheap or cheaper than what I was buying before and from the reputable brands I have researched. The big price difference is that I am buying the DoNotAge powders and not the capsules so they are half as expensive as the capsules I had been buying. I also buy their TMG which was just as expensive as the other brands that I could find. Of course, if you could share links to better, higher quality, and less expensive supplements, I have no qualms about switching. It’s just they are the best I could find at this moment.
I get most of my other supplements from NOW. I only buy NMN, Resveratrol, Apigenin, Spermidine and Fisetin from DoNotAge. I use Doctor’s Best for Quercetin. Doublewood for Hyaluronic Acid. The rest are NOW brands.
NOW and Doctors Best’s is always better priced mg per product. Lifeextention is not far behind.
The interesting thing is that prices vary wildly from location to location. For instance, Bladderwrack supplements on Amazon are 2x the cost of iHerb to Hong Kong for the exact same thing! If I try to order Trehalose, I only have one option on Amazon and have to overpay for it. So, after doing cost and quality analysis, DoNotAge actually is competitive for Hong Kong for some supplements. I think based on your geographic location, options available to you and cost of shipping, different supplements from different suppliers will be more or less cost effective for each individual. For me, quality trumps cost and I will only buy supplements from trusted suppliers like NOW, Doctor’s Best, Nature’s Way, Doublewood, Life Extension, and DoNotAge. Of course, there are more good brands other than those, but those are my go to brands.
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Full Open Access Research Paper:
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That’s excellent news for men. Why wouldn’t this affect women? I would assume their gut microbiome would be affected as well?
This may help close the gap between male and female life expectancies.
One concerning thing is the increase in cholesterol for one strain of mice taking Astaxanthin. There was a jump in both LDL and HDL cholesterol. Maybe that cancels each other out???
I’m not a fan of do not age but I sprung for a year’s supply of their SIRT6 activator. Just for fun.
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What I find really interesting is that Richard Miller at the ITP mentioned that Astaxanthin’s 12% lifespan improvement (from incomplete data) was only for the male mice, the females saw no statistically significant benefit (it seems).
So - perhaps these two factors are related…
Discussion
The anti-aging effects of astaxanthin have been attributed to its antioxidant property and the modulation of key genes in the IIS signaling and TOR pathway [6,7]; however, the exact mechanisms are still unclear. In this study, we examined the alterations of mRNA and miRNA in C. elegans treated with astaxanthin using RNA-seq. A total of 190 mRNAs and 6 microRNAs (miRNAs) were significantly changed by astaxanthin treatment in C. elegans.
As expected, the results showed that astaxanthin significantly up-regulated pathways related to longevity regulation. The enrichment analyses of GO terms and KEGG pathways demonstrated that the most prominent function of the genes altered by astaxanthin treatment was related to innate immunity, lipid metabolism, heat shock response, cytochrome P450 family and UGTs (Figure 3). It is well known that stress, immunity and aging are inter-related [39]. In fact, the most dramatic transcriptional changes that occur during aging are associated with immunity [40]. Heat-shock response, which declines in potency over the lifetime, not only has a significant relationship with longevity but also mediates pathogenic resistance against bacterial infection [41]. Genes encoding small heat shock proteins, which are transcriptionally activated by DAF-16 and HSF-1, make a substantial contribution to lifespan extension [42]. To cope with toxic stress, C. elegans utilize a series of enzymes for detoxification. Cytochrome P450s are the principle phase 1 enzymes for xenobiotic metabolism, catalyzing the oxidation of environmental chemicals as well as endogenous compounds, such as steroids and fatty acids, facilitating their degradation or elimination [43]. UGTs are the major effectors of phase 2 metabolism, which catalyze conjugative reactions, increasing the solubility and excretion of toxic compounds. The efficacy of the detoxification system is closely linked to the aging process and longevity [21]. Hence, astaxanthin may extend the lifespan of C. elegans by improving their capability to cope with environment insults and endogenous stress conditions.
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Goes through the entire article, with a picture of the molecule at the top and never says whether they are identical. Apparently they make one chemically out of a petroleum product and another is made by genetically engineered yeast.
He also doesn’t mention the cost.