On the topic of supplement safety:
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So you had pre diabetes (hopefully based on more than 1 measurement), and you started 3 diabetic medications? Was your regular doctor involved?
Absolutely not. I don’t think I’ve ever had a regular doctor. I thought SGLT2i +Acarbose +metformin + weekly RAPA extended life by more than 35%, then why would I need a doctor if I knew that LOL. And no, I was never prediabetic, the highest my fasted glucose ever was 104 and that was one instance where I actually didn’t even sleep well the night before. So, my normal FG was in high 90’s in last five years or so.
I actually self-medicate (as many in these boards do) and do it for preventative purposes only. I’m currently taking daily over 10 FDA approved drugs, in relatively small doses though and I have convinced myself that these drugs/measures I’m taking now will help me reach 100 years old and in relatively good shape and good health. I do recognize that others may think that what I’m doing is not a smart thing but hey we are all different. As an FYI I just added this week two more medications cryptopril and Selegiline even though my BP is always perfect. BTW, I’m about to receive a fresh order of modafinil and I think that should be it as far as drugs/medications go. So, all in all I’ll be taking about 12-13 FDA approved medication daily even though I’m 100% healthy, and all my markers are either optimal or normal.
It might sound a bit unusual (perhaps not even very smart) but the way I look at ageing and late life diseases is something like this:
You either wait until you become sick and then take shitloads of meds in high doses (with potential severe side effects) to stay (barely) alive or take these exact same meds that sick people are taking while you are still perfectly healthy but take them in small doses/quantities so that you avoid getting sick and since the dosing is low/minimal (in my case) the side effects have got to be minimal also (at least so far for me), in other words you take them preventatively. I’ve been doing this for about one year or so and I’m very happy with the progress and I’ve had no side effects that I can notice.
It would be interesting to know your thought with regards to taking these meds, most common ones (while healthy) in small doses for preventative purposes? I know conventional medicine does not approve of taking medications unless needed, but knowing what you know (and you definitely know way more than I do) what do you think of the idea?
I sympathize with your outlook. I believe in polypharmacy, in preventative medication, in taking your health into your own hands.
That said, strategies may diverge. I personally will not add a medication just because it may help or based on a study somewhere. It has to have a very clear purpose and a ton of validation in multiple studies and in subjects similar to my situation (f.ex. pre-diabetic). And it has to fit into the rest of my stack - this takes the longest time to research and the longer your stack the longer it takes to research all the interactions. As a result, my stack is pretty trimmed with FDA meds: telmisartan, bempedoic acid, ezetimibe, pitavastatin, empagliflozin, rapamycin. I’m in the second year of researching pioglitazone trying to see how I can fit it into the rest of my stack. Metformin is so fraught that despite reading a metric ton about it, I’m still staying away. I’m amazed at how easily folks spring for a prescritpion med based on barely anything. But that’s fine - we all have our own approaches. Best of luck!
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I don’t think Metformin is much use for people who don’t have diabetes.
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I agree with you and I also take the same ones as you, but I also take Finasteride, Cialis, LDN, Selegiline, captopril, and Maraviroc, so that is about 11 FDA approved drugs. IMO every man should take Finasteride and Cialis for prostate health (plus I have family history of prostate cancer), then LDN I take it against inflammation which does work for me and now Selegiline has become my favorite in having a calming effect. It is actually the only med that has literally fixed my sleep even though I take it first thing in the morning. First time in three years that I have slept 8 hours uninterrupted for four nights. I’m going to try modafinil also (probably not every day) to help with daily chores. If I like it I’ll stick with it. I take a small captopril pill mainly because I used to have always low BP 105/70 and last year or so it has moved up to 120/75 (perhaps because I drink 3-4 cups of coffee per day lately) which is still great, but I prefer it lower plus someone I know swears by BP medication. He literally keeps saying that the only reason he is still alive (87-88 but has a plenty of health issues dating back decades) it’s because of BP medication and he thinks it has helped him with other functions/organs and not just BP. I took Maraviroc to help with strength and muscle recovery after having been decimated by one-year GLP1 drugs (that I will NEVER touch no matter how heavy I might get) and It was Godsent. After losing hope I might never get my strength and energy back after doing Maraviroc for couple months I can happily say I’m back to normal. So, I am very comfortable with what I’m doing and every one of these drugs I take has a specific and special role to play.
I absolutely love my stack of FDA approved drugs. They are all doing amazing things for my health, I can tell the difference. And yes, I agree with @John_Hemming and others about metformin but honestly the reason I take it I had bought a big order of 1000 pills of 1000mg couple years ago (before discovering SGLt2’s) and now I take it about three days (on day of RAPA and couple days after) I don’t take it every day. When the stash is gone, I don’t think I’ll reorder. Empa and Acarbose should be good enough.
ps. and when you guys convince me about metformin not being necessarily useful, then there is @RapAdmin post on exemplary benefits of metformin LOL So now I take back my previous sentiment about metformin LOL
What’s the Deal with Renewed Interest in Metformin? - General - Rapamycin Longevity News
Everything that I’m taking, I literally love and take them specifically for healthspan and longevity. I did a lot of reading on here and other places before I set my mind that polymeds is the way to go, I emphasize in relatively small doses (since my markers are good and I’m very healthy)
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@Curtis_Hibbs What things did you eliminate. I feel the OP was channeling ME and I agree so Curtis there is a near 100% chance I’m taking what you eliminated. ;( 
To others, please post what you eliminated and why? The OP raised an important topic; taking too much and falling over the far side of the benefits curve.
tnx Curt
@Kelman Be careful with fanisteride. Since you’ve been taking you probably do not have the gene mutation to be suseptable for Fanisteride Syndrome, being stuck in near zero dopamine sensitivity. Its said to be like zombie existance and very difficult to reverse. So I do not reco fanisteride for any reason. Hair has other approaches.
Just my views. I like your other anti aging nutricals. Curt
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metformin
I used to take 500mg daily for 10 yr for anti aging. Then skipped about 10yr and recently tried 250mg AM, then 500mg Am then the experts (body building coaches like Hunter/Jay Campbel et al) said >>1000mg/day split AM/PM was necessary to get over the makes you feel tired symptom. I tried 1000mg split and still felt lithargic.
Then the other set of coaches the health coaches with a mitochondria focus kept saying metformin is a mitochonria poison (+/-) I just stopped. Sitting on a small batch of 250/500 that I will probablly never take since dihydro berberine + ALA seems to work for glucose, plus the other markers they help.
Re the OP’s original premise; There is too little out there re cumulitive impact, of many things we may take over lap, some need PM dosing but we don’t know it etc etc. I could use a thread on just using AI tools to analyze a spread sheet of nutricals??? Nice topic, tnx
Best to all, curt
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@curt504 Thank you for the heads up on Finasteride risks. I’ve been taking it for last 7-8 months and can’t say that I notice any effect good or bad other than my hair is visibly thicker and my hairline is a little better/improved. Actually, have a small birthmark on my forehead (right where my original hairline used to be) and it is easy for me to notice if my hairline has improved. I do however notice that it negatively effects the sexual function but that has been compensated by taking Cialis, and to some degree HCG (I take it couple days per week). Plus, lately I started low dose 1.25mg Selegiline and that one seems to have a positive effect on sexual health also, harder erections, and more often.
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@kelman, Excellent hair story and stats!!!
BTW where do you buy selegiline? I ran out from my batch way back from anti aging store.
Do you know/guess mechanism of action for seleginline re ED? I vaguely remember its a dopamine booster (blocking the destruction) if I vaguely remember.
I can add re ED helps; the peptide: melanitan 2 at 100mcg injected and can be used intra nasal spray, works as a spot treatment. 33hr half life. The so called big dog PT-141 half life at 2 hr and dose starts at 1mg spot dosing, on up, can cause nausia. Also injected and no stories of nasal use, but google for purchasable spray. IMHO if its purchasable it may be dead from be stored at room temp. IMHO both of these if tried nasally the spray should be stored in the fridge. Can be taken out for a day or 2 but should be put back.
Good luck,curt
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I don’t know exactly how it helps but I’m talking based on my experience more so than actual scientific/medical literature. I also read some reviews on reddit, and many were saying same thing. As to where to buy it I actually sourced it from India about one year or so ago, and don’t remember exactly from who but it must have been through usual ones r.e. Maulik or Jagdish
I was hesitant to take it but took the plunge about week ago and it absolutely amazing what it has done for calmness and the way it improved my sleep (nothing else has helped me at all with my sleep issue which i started having about 3 years ago). My layman’s explanation for helping with sleep is because the positive effects it has in preserving dopamine in the brain and I am by nature a bit impulsive and perhaps the impulsiveness might have been wreaking havoc on my brain dopamine levels, as such my sleeping issues. Since Seleginline protects dopamine from breaking down, it also seems to help with oxidative stress such process (dopamine breakdown) produces. so all in all for time being, I’m on cloud nine, I hope it will last (its positive impact on sleep) going forward because I’ve been a tortured soul for last three years or so (living on 5-6 hours of sleep) and nothing has helped not even remotely (from up to 100mg of melatonin, to 10’s of supposed helpful supplements, to many other things such as no screen time after 8pm etc., all in total 100% vain, except 1.25mg of Selegiline).
Difficult to classify this but I capture this “thought” as GPT was scrolling rapidly across the screen was analyzing a problem on well evidenced geroprotectives. I found the notion worth sharing:
“A preliminary pattern is already clear. The strongest human-outcome case is not with classic “longevity supplements,” but with a handful of cardiometabolic drug classes that repeatedly lower mortality and major age-related events; the supplement side is thinner and more heterogeneous.”
By the way, SGLT2-i’s came out on the top of this particular screen.
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LOL the timing of it. It’s been in last year or so that I had come to same exact conclusion.
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Yes. And, sans several pages of analysis, here is this screen’s bottom line:
My integrated ranking
If I combine the two axes you specified (strength of evidence supporting human impact and magnitude of impact distinguished from strength) and ask, “Which agents are currently most defensible as human geroprotective candidates?” my ordered list would be:
- SGLT2 inhibitors — strongest broad hard-outcome late-life signal
- GLP-1 receptor agonists — strong hard outcomes, phenotype-dependent
- Metformin — enduring but now clearly mixed
- ARBs — increasingly persuasive, especially for cognitive/vascular aging; telmisartan particularly interesting
- Rapalogs/TORC1 inhibitors — biologically elite, clinically not mature; could move up but more likely static or down the list
- Statins — powerful but narrower, mostly vascular geroprotection
- Spermidine — plausible, still modest
- Omega-3 / EPA — conditional and disease-weighted
- Glucosamine/chondroitin — observationally interesting, heavily confounded
- Taurine — promising but still preliminary in humans
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@kelman tnx for all that. Memory is returning re seleginline. Please google for yourself. I believe it wears off if taken daily continuously. I vaguely remember the Florida long time ago anti aging Dr (??) one trick pony re seleginline, suggested to pulse 1-5mg every few days. Thats all I recall. If you fine tune or find zero desensitizing please post back. I’ll add this to my search for drug list when I ask the suppliers next time.
tnx so much, curt
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I will update in few days’ time, but I do expect to get some desensitizing as it has actually happened (in varying degrees) with everything new I have ever tried. My hope is It will still help me with my sleep issue (staying asleep) as that has been my Achillies heel (for my health and longevity journey) in last 2-3 years (survived, barely lol on only 5-6 hours of sleep) and thankfully I’m back at getting 8 hours of good sleep every night ever since I started selegiline. Nothing else under the sun did anything even remotely to help. There were couple times I was able to get 1 or 2 nights of good sleep (when I might have tried something new) but then I’d go back to my usual of waking up at 3AM and not being able to get back to sleep. So while 4 nights is not long enough to proclaim my problem is solved, it’s at least the longest I’ve experienced. Keeping my fingers crossed it will continue.
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BTW seleginline vs dyprinile vs selgin all the same
https://www.alldaychemist.com/selgin-5-mg.html
Break the 5mg into quarters… +/-.
Good luck, curt
The price I got when I bought was 15 cents per pill. I bought 100 pills of 5mg for a quoted price of $15 + shipping but I had other meds with this shipment so the shipping cost would have to be prorated to come up with the correct price per pill. Btw mine is selgin.
I just played with the SuppCo app and was impressed by how fast and easy it is to use.
There are a couple of things that make me wonder if it’s suggestions are biased… I don’t know that they are, but I’m asking.
For one, I see Mark Hyman is involved and I frankly don’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth… it doesn’t mean it’s not trustworthy, but it’s my red flag to wonder if their most trusted brand recommendations are those that he/they are getting money from??? (If you followed his recommended stack in the app, you’d be taking resveratrol
It showed that my NOW supplements have trusted scores in the 7’s out of 10. This might be true, but I was turned onto using NOW from all of you who think highly of them. Thoughts?
And my second biggest red flag, after Hyman, is I know @CronosTempi is incredibly meticulous about sourcing everything, and he told me AOR is one of his favorite brands. I’m taking their magnesium malate. The app showed me the AOR malate has a trust score of 5.85 and is brining the quality of my entire stack down. Hmmm??
I really like how you can search for alternatives with the highest trust scores, but I’m sincerely wondering if I can trust them?? The brands they are recommending to me seem to largely be ‘professional’ brands… the ones often sold by practitioners. They might truly be the highest quality brands, but I have not heard this is true?
It is really neat how they calculate and share how much of x supplement you are taking (mine are in a spreadsheet so I already knew this, but this app takes away the need to figure anything out on your own). If you want to adjust your dosing (for example, you onky take something once per week) you would have to pay them.
The thing I hate is it showed me what I am spending and I just might throw up. I might rethink a few things!
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