I still like telomere lengths as a decent health marker. Had mine checked at Church’s Harvard genetic lab when I turned 60. It gives you an idea of how your lengths compare with different age groups and also tells you the percentage of dangerous critically short telomeres.
Wonder if wheat germ suffices?
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Naked mole rats (a huge and unique Spermidine proteome signal), have well preserved telomeres. They just don’t age…they just Reach end of life and keel over.
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I have read that Spermidine enhances autophagy. Rapamycin turns off MTORC1 so that the AMPK cycle can take over which essentially starts autophagy. It seems that an additive benefit should be seen by taking the two together. Worst case scenario is you wasted money on Spermidine. So, I have bought a bunch of Spermidine from DoNotAge.org to try it out. Any signs I can look for to determine if I have kicked autophagy up to 11?
I guess I should be hoping for bad breath, weight loss and fatigue…
I can live with that.
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Not really - nothing with any accuracy. We’re still in early days when it comes to measuring autophagy, sadly.
Some good overviews here - labs are now able to test it, but years before that makes it to clinics:
See Here: What’s autophagy? It’s the ultimate detox that doesn’t yet live up to the hype
And Here: Measuring Autophagy in Body and Brain, Comparing Autophagy Activators
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Compare the following:
366 capsules of 8 mg Spermidine (Wheat germ) for $290 USD = $10 USD / gram
The ingredients on my pot literally say Wheat germ + zinc
VS
340 g of Wheat germ for $5 USD = $0.035 USD / gram
https://hk.iherb.com/pr/bob-s-red-mill-wheat-germ-12-oz-340-g/103996
As pointed out be RapaAdmin, you need to eat 50 g of wheat germ to get the same amount as processed Spermidine. So, maybe it does have a purpose. Do both?
I agree, but its hard sometimes to eat 40grams of regular wheat germ every day. Its much easier to take a capsule/tablet. I think the price of synthetic spermidine is a small fraction of the cost of natural spermidine, and the researchers tell me they are functionally equivalent.
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OK. For each capsule is 8 mg of synthetic wheat germ, you need to eat 50 g of regular wheat germ to be equivalent.
That is a lot of wheat germ. Maybe the supplement isn’t as bad as I originally thought. Thanks.
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I know nothing about whether the DoNotAge spermidine is natural or synthetic (Spermidine Trihydrochloride) - but you can find a lot cheaper versions than DoNotAge on Amazon, so I’d encourage people to look around.
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I am going to go the wheat germ route. I’ll add it to my morning breakfast. I’ll add parsley to my lunch. And I’ll add years to my life. 
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Enjoy a little wheat agglutinin with that:
It’s not just for people with Celiac, we can all suffer loose junctions!
Lustgarten lists the top ten foods with spermidine in mg/100 calories
Green pepper 36.3
Maitake Mushroom 34.2
Shiitake Mushroom 29.6
Cauliflower(cooked) 11.3
Soybean (green) 10.8
Wheat Germ 9.9
Green Peas (cooked) 8.3
Broccoli (cooked) 7.7
Dill 6.8
Mustard 5.7
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I used to sprout wheat - very cheap way to get access to wheat germ/spermidine. But this has also been my concern, and there are by now quite some studies that have discussed the potential effects of gluten on intestinal barrier function. So just in case my diet is gluten-free. (Not in the least since I already dealt with autoimmune issues).
I added amaranth sprouts, since I thought they are supposedly also highish in Spermidine, but I now can’t find any numbers anymore. I do eat peas every day.
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Lustgarten says the , or at least one of the , most important functions of Spermadine is to tighten the loose junctions. He quotes a paper where they used DMFO to stop the production of proteins that tighten the junctions, when they used it in conjunction with Spermadine, the junctions stayed tight.
Wheat agglutinin is so good at opening the junctions, they talk about using it with drugs that are too big to be well absorbed as a way of getting them in.
I’m just saying if you’re using Spermadine, you should be avoiding Wheat agglutinin.
I don’t know if they take out the agglutinin when they put the wheat derived spermadine in a pill. Probably.
To me it looks like the best food to eat for spermadine is Shittake mushroom freeze dried or powdered. Shittake is an amazingly healthy mushroom. It contains a high molecular weight polysaccharide that is used in Asia as an anti cancer drug. Lentinan.
It is also a good source of ergothioneine and so many other chemicals that are good for your heart and avoiding cancer that it would take too much space here.
These are freeze dried:
My daughter got me a bunch for Christmas and they are so addictive. I ate them too fast and got a gut ache.
Probably cheaper to just buy the powder:
I need to spend some time calculating how much is in these. I’m not very good at this part, I’ll get back if I figure it out.
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If you are referring to this Lustgarten video, the values are in mg/100g, not mg/100 calories.
The values in minute 10:37 are:
Wheat germ 35.4
Natto 8.7 - 15.4
Green pepper 3.6 - 10.8
Mushroom (white button) 7.1 - 7.2
Chicken liver 5.7
Green peas (froze) 4.7
Broccoli (cooked) 2.7
Blue cheese 2.0 - 2.4
Pasely 2.3
Soybean (dried) 1.3 - 2.1
Grilled chicken 1.7
Whole grain cereal 1.4
This article has a more comprehensive table.
Second highest scorer is aged (for one year) cheddar at 199 mg per kg. Costco has cheap Vermont three year aged cheddar, which really tastes good. Highest is dried soybean, at 207. Mushrooms (unspecified) are at 88.
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You can view only the table below:
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Table is reproduced in the article below. But there is a table of spermidine per portion of food.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49768924_Polyamines_in_foods_Development_of_a_food_database
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Thanks Juan, that is a little easier way to figure out how much you’re getting, but that is not where I got it. I got it from his ebook and it really is written as I copied it and it’s in mg/cal.
Who cares about calories? I’d be much more concerned about the lectins in the peppers and the wheat.
Now that you found that table for me I’ll sit down and see if I can figure it out.
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The numbers are all over the place.
Another paper I won’t bother to link to has mushrooms from Europe. Shiitake goes from 522 in one lab on one paper to 56.3 to 81.9 to 100 to 132. These labs used multiple samples, but I have no idea why they gave us the value to the tenth. I suppose with shiitake it could be the tree it grew from or the stress in the mycelium, who knows.
Lean beef goes from 19.0 down to 2.6 using 4 labs at different times on different continents. Ground beef is 71.7, but before you get out your grinder, oops next lab finds ground beef at 3. That’s more like it.
Deer were a disappointment.
Cheddar cheese is the winner for me. Cheap and 50 grams gets you about 10mg SD.
Mushrooms appear to have a lot, but it’s a crap shoot. You can’t test, you can’t know.
There is a lot not known about the polyamines. Spermadine should not be consumed by people who have cancer. Cancer loves it. They have a way to tie it up and use that to fight some types of cancer.
Getting late for me,
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One more, before I try to accomplish something today.
Natto:
http://www.thesneeze.com/2004/steve-dont-eat-it-vol-6.php
About 2 decades ago, my daughter studying biochemistry and I’m interested in Vitamin K, I learn about Natto. Great source of Vitamin K, I didn’t realize it was Mk7 and that’s the wrong one, but never mind. I grow soybeans for a living, among other things. I’m also milking goats. I order natto and make a batch in the oven (Natto likes it very warm). In the morning when I get up the whole house stinks of ammonia. Stir and eat, I managed to get some down.
The legend is that a guy was carrying soybeans on his horse in a bag made of some grass, I forget which one carries the organism that makes the Natto. It got wet and as he threw it away the horse started to eat it and he decided maybe he should too. These guys must have been hungry.
I decided to feed it to my goats and was hoping since vitamin K is passed along in the milk, maybe this would give us a more nutritious milk. The goats wouldn’t touch it.
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A new research paper on Spermidine:
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