Meet the Panda Skeleton Sea Squirt.
Really interesting/bizarre.
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Source: https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1775241373727457726?s=20
Source: https://x.com/BrackLab/status/1775352655709376685?s=20
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I reviewed this thread and my #1 takeaway is that common mussels, steamed, would be the smartest way to go about it. They’re delicious, highly nutritious anyway, dirt cheap, very low in mercury, and sure to contain the marine type of plasmalogen that’s purported to have these benefits. I’m lucky to live in a coastal region with excellent local seafood so I’m going to make an effort and eat them 2-3 times a week. It’s not really much of an effort anyway. The only reason I don’t eat them much is because I forget they exist (and take a bit of prep I’m not used to).
All this Korean sea squirt stuff is bullshit as the concentration of plasmalogens is only about 20-30% higher than in mussels but you can easily eat 20-30% more mussels than weirdass sea squirts. Price and convenience make it a no brainer. Think how many pounds of mussels you can buy for the same price as one of those bottles of fancy pills from Japan!
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Based on the presentation linked above, wouldn’t eating regular foods like beef and pork be even easier? Given that mussels are small, consuming a significant amount in grams is easier with these meats. I assume the goal here is to obtain ethanolamine plasmalogen (EPLAS).
Or does EPLAS have to come from seafood specifically for some reason?
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All the references I saw were to marine plasmalogens, so I assume that would be the SPLAS on the bar graph. Which paper did you pull that chart from again?
Actually I was wrong — reading the fine print right now. It’s definitely EPLAS we’re looking for but it’s even more complicated than that, as there are various “species” of it. Not sure if their distribution is vastly different across those food sources. Still reading….
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See the post by Joseph above or use this link:
Also, see the post above by MAC for a detailed breakdown of amounts.
I don’t know if any of these are more beneficial than others:
- 20:5 is EPA
- 22:6 is DHA
- 18:0 is stearic acid
- 18:1 is oleic acid
- 18:2 is linoleic acid
- 16:0 is palmitic acid
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Yes it looks like they got me on the pills. I took them all and it failed the @desertshores test (didn’t notice anything). I was hoping it would help my pitiful brain.
Looking at the very nice presentation, I mostly eat deer meat and my wife’s goat milk (which they gave no guidance on). Who eats brains? I don’t really know how. Suppose I could work on that since I’ve been wasting it all these years. We do test almost all the deer killed for wasting (prion) disease. Never had a positive yet, though they are getting closer.
I stumbled on Plasmogens a few years back when I watched a lecture by Dr. Goodenowe and thought it sounded really interesting and worth trying. But, the products are so expensive and again, it’s probably hard to measure any significant difference. I’d be interested to see what effect Bryan sees. At least he’s able to measure everything.
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There’s also cooking methods and what they might do to the compounds — mussels are steamed for 3-5 minutes or less, whereas “pork shoulder” etc. have to be properly cooked at high temps.
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Overall, from my understanding after doing a lot more reading, it seems that dietary sources just won’t cut it for getting at the therapeutic doses used in preliminary studies. That’s a major bummer really.
Granted the source is a bit biased (that’s a company developing a precursor) but the math checks out. And it seems like a lot is needed to make a dent.
Seems like it could be a huge help to folks like me with an apoE4 allele, basically a high blood serum of plasmalogens negates the effects of apoE4 in terms of likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s.
I hope this Canadian startup finds its sea legs. Not sure why they don’t just sell a friggin supplement since they’ve got the IP, and make some money and build some hype pending a regulatory breakthrough.
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The section called “Plasmalogen supplementation as therapeutic strategy” is pretty sobering. Apparently you CAN use pretty cheap precursor substances to increase plasmalogen levels in the blood but hardly any of it makes it past the BBB. There’s also feedback mechanisms designed to maintain homeostasis and external supplementation can depress endogenous biosynthesis. Spotty evidence that supplementation can do anything at all.
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He started “therapy”, see below.
Anyone test their levels?
https://twitter.com/bryan_johnson/status/1787519996400406880?s=46&t=zJMJ1xVdRJYEDYz-DHipTw
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