Right. It is complicated. And I am lazy. Just thinking out loud here. I have tended to default to the easiest tactical thinking: “why not … maybe it will help”. It is sensible, but then I leave the hard part to the future, and so far I haven’t done enough of what I need to do. So I’m just accumulating band-aids. Of course answer is to fix the lifestyle issues. Using supplements and meds for a bridge in the meantime makes sense, but I have instill the discipline to follow through to fix the underlying issue, and then stop the exogenous chemical. It also makes sense that sometimes the lifestyle fix won’t solve the problem. Some chemicals may be for life. But, fewer is better i think…fewer chemicals means fewer interactions, fewer side effects, less stress on my body dealing with all the extra chemicals. I’m working on this right now.
How do you know you aren’t going some place great and all of these band-aids are helping you get there? And that this is just doubt, going to make you fall back to square one?
I don’t know anything for certain about health, healthspan, and longevity. It’s all about managing the uncertainty… optimizing for higher rewards against lower risks. But since I don’t even know the rewards or the risks, I have to gauge my decisions on the best clues I have. When I listen to the longevity experts (Kaeberlein, Kennedy, etc.), they say they do not take many chemicals because they: (1) don’t believe the hype and (2) don’t want to damage themselves. They also say we should be careful in combining drugs. When I look in the NIH drug interaction database, I see a vast knowledge base of 1-to-1 drug to drug, drug to supplement, and food to drug interactions. No one has any idea of the impact of 30 chemicals all at the same time. To me, that says “back off”. Yes, maybe I will lose some benefit, but I am also definitely going to shed some risk. I have to start somewhere to find the few chemicals I cannot replace with lifestyle improvements. I’ll keep taking those. Rapamycin is a keeper, but I’m going to modify how I use it to get more benefit (recovery of my growth/autophagy cycle).
We do know for a fact that the “natural” solution is not working based on hundreds of thousends of years of human history.
Check the amount of chemicals in kale, or any other food you eat. By the same token you should only eat maltodextrin and purified BCAA’s and some canola oil if you want to avoid drug interactions because there are many active chemicals in food.
It is fine for you to do as you wish but don’t twist the facts to fit your desired outcome. Food is food. Pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals are not food. It is true that some supplements are in a gray area (powered dried food, for example) but that doesn’t change what I am saying.
I am not twisting the facts, I am saying them as they are. There are chemicals, phytochemicals in the food, what difference do those have in foods compared to in supplements? Whether you get them in a pill or in food doesn’t make any difference.