The four best longevity interventions?

#142

PR studies are fraught with methodology issues. Even if assume that the effect is real, in mice studies, PR is far less important for lifespan than CR. Even then, CR is not guaranteed in humans, some could see shorter lifespans.

We also know in mice studies older mice taking higher protein were better on lifespan as well as human trials with older adults. Human epi studies generally tend towards pescatarians, not veganism. We do not know for sure. However, at some point, healthspan is more important to me than the tiny plausible increase in lifespan, if we generously extrapolate from mice and some other animal studies that have flaws. Note I’m not claiming one should take a huge amount of protein either.

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#143

Oh my!
English breakfast with baked beans and sausage - don’t worry about acarbose causing you to break wind. As I said, many people many diets.

I prefer a European style breakfast.

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#144

In the end, however, my biomarkers compare well to Bryan Johnson with his broccoli soup eg
CRP <0.16mg vs 0.46 or 4.6mg (potentially a worrying one for Bryan if he is actually using USA measurements).
HbA1c 4.18 vs 4.5
HRV 60 vs 54

CRP to me (and the minimum point is key) is a very important measurement as it indicates approximately the senescence burden of the body. This is one of the two feedback systems that stop long genes from functioning. (the other is mitochondrial efficiency)

I am picking the minimum HbA1c and HRV (from this morning - when I did not drink the night before, my HRV goes down if I go on a bender). HbA1c can be measured in two ways and I am using a measurement which excludes the labile HbA1c. Bryan’s website does not really explain the basis of the biomarker measurements.

To be fair to Bryan, however, I do during the night wear blue light blocking glasses. (plastic shades)

A lot of his protocol is quite good, but actually his organ health does not look that good. On the other hand he really puts the effort in in terms of exercise. I do 5 minutes of exercise a day (upper body resistance exercises) and I walk briskly.

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#145

I agree with you that healthspan is the key priority. Obviously an improvement in healthspan will create an improvement in lifespan. However, we really don’t want a lot of frail people suffering pain and waiting to die.

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#146

I agree, and like you try to reduce my supplement stack based on evidence. I took AAKG for some time and noticed no subjective or measurable effects. Maybe it’s just because I am old but I dropped it from my supplement list.

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#147

As I understand it, it is simple. Increased age, increased protein need. Because old people do not process protein intake as well as younger people.

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#148

Yep, that’s my conclusion with a lot of vegans who practice severe CR in some of the CR forums out there. I’ve even met 2 in person. Not particularly impressive health and you end up having to supplement a ton in meat-related factors to get only some but not all of their healthspan back - creatine, taurine, beta-alanine, etc on top of multiple micronutrients - B12, zinc, EPA/DHA etc which has their own drawbacks. A lot of the claimed basis is ideological veganism which sways data covertly/overtly. If the data were better, I’d switch to veganism in a heartbeat.

If one is interested in a deeper dive, I’d suggest exploring the long history and chronicling of ideological veganism here by Dr. Jarvis a former vegetarian who writes on well-reputed general quackery debunking website, not targeted at any specific type of group committing health fraud: Why I am Not a Vegetarian | Quackwatch

This doesn’t mean I’m particularly convinced about any specific diet btw, i.e. “carnivore diet”, but I can report the general medical community settles on the Mediterranean diet with moderate evidence for CVD prevention in one “gold standard” Cochrane review if one wishes to go only where most of the validated studies have been done in terms of all-cause mortality. It’s by no means a conclusive deal.

For public health promotional reasons, I’d prefer to split food groups into tiers and I generally give cost-effective examples to combine for complete nutrition mostly based on official guidelines with some minor mods - and with manageable targeted supplements that have USP grade options (most would take 1-3 targeted pills a day, depending on tradeoffs, some could cut it down to zero).

One is welcome to switch up their bets. I don’t endorse any diet because we can only pick and choose which data points that subtly point to where we should follow but keep an open mind to change.

I can only speak to what I do dietary betting wise, which is almost always not cost-effective and has no real strong evidence.

I personally go for mild CR + CR mimetics (acts slightly differently in terms of pathways) and started with 99 percentile bone density (from DEXA) at age 30 before mild CR to gamble away potentially slightly faster bone density loss in the long run until there is a better option with more human data. Seems like I haven’t really dropped on bone density so far.

Not considered protein restricted and will ramp up protein when older. If I had to describe it, ~95% pescatarian with very limited non-processed red meat intake and occasional “cheat meals” when it comes to social events. Can’t say for sure if CR will translate to humans or individually in the long run.

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#149

That looks tasty! Regarding the “can’t gain muscle if you’re losing weight” (and with the qualifier that I’m not arguing and I don’t want anyone to change their diet) but in the spirit of reporting results of our tests for life/health span data, I was on keto for almost two years and lost a lot of weight to. a BMI of 24.8, but not really muscle (very healthy, but no adding muscle without very painfully extensive exercise so what you said it’s correct in this case. But in the 2.5 weeks I’ve been doing this carnivore experiment I’m down to BMI of 23.9, and my lifting weights have noticeably increased in a short time. Oh: and I’m hungry all the time like a teenager. Placebo? — always a possibility, but thus far I’m happy.

I’m not a meat-head, nor a gym-rat: I’ve spent my life looking more like David Sinclair’s physique than a bodybuilder. But after watching my father’s sat open is, I thought I should probably get ahead of health’s pan as well. It took me a VERY long time to work up to this because I have only one kidney (my kidney function and eGFR is still great so that’s a relief), but we’ll see in a week from my blood panels if all is good.

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#150

Related to AKG:

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#151

Am taking plain AKG, without the arginine. I have not noticed any discernible effects, but it stands on solid theoretical grounds, so I am giving it time, before I quit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8508957/

The studies were done with calcium AKG, but I read somewhere, that plain AKG will do. Will have to hunt down the source material. Besides, the Ca-AKG is expensive, marketed by early producers of supplements based on recent studies (just like NMN, and fucoidan).

I do not lift the weighs. I take long walks, and do tai chi. Neither requires too much protein. Sarcopenia is not a concern, because i have no elder relative who had it.

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#152

Go the baked beans :drooling_face: @John_Hemming

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#153

AKG has a tiny effect on mice if we adjust the results carefully. I don’t take it because it’s just another pill without USP grade or equivalent for a tiny potential effect that might translate to humans while there are potential harms if the QC/QA is not done right. You’ll probably get extra AKG produced endogenously with acarbose+rapa.

NMN/NR supporters both don’t seem to ever address the NNMT part of the pathway.

Moral of the story 99% of the time is: don’t just read the title/abstract. Look at the methods and data carefully. Fully understand the subject and break down the references.

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#154

Agreed. Lifespan extension is negligible in male mice. But by theoretical ground, I meant the statement in the paper that says:

AKG is involved in various fundamental processes, including central metabolism, collagen synthesis (Myllyharju, 2003), epigenetic regulation (Tsukada et al., 2006), and stem cell proliferation (TeSlaa et al., 2016)

.

Will it result in longevity? Maybe not. But it is a harmless supplement. I am still on the fence with rapa and other drugs. As far as acarbose, I prefer white bean extract. The supplements I take are only theoretical equivalents of the drugs discussed here - kaempferol for everolimus, myricetin, for trametinib, and white bean extract for acarbose. But that is part of the experiment. If it fails, it comes from harmless dietary supplements.

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#155

My original take was rapa has some risks associated with it and the potential benefits seem to be okay, but can always discontinue for most risks appear to be reversible and short-term and mitigated with weekly dosing. Slow titration. I discontinued as soon as I had side effects that might be related.

The only issue I’ve had is not sure if after discontinuing if side effects are directly or indirectly rapa related and it may need several months to reverse. Not terrible in my situation to be frank. Nothing in bloodwork that looks like significant harm.

Can’t say for you. Just my experience. I might eventually go back to a lower dose if the side effects are completely gone with a bit more time.

Dietary supplements are not necessarily harmless. As an example, high-dose antioxidants such as beta carotene and vitamin E increased mortality. Quality control issues are a whole other problem.

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#156

@Ericross2, I’m new to rapamycin and a focus on longevity but I’m your age and have eaten mainly carnivore since 2019. I don’t talk about it much because I think diet is highly individual. It has been a very helpful and quite healing way of eating for me because of my unique history. I rebuilt muscle I’d lost due to menopause and definitely improved my body composition overall. One mistake I inadvertently made was eating too lean. Some people in the carnivore space seem to do okay eating leaner but others seem to thrive with more fat. It doesn’t seem as simple as just eat meat (or animal foods) only for everyone doing carnivore. I’m one who has to really be careful to get adequate fat or I start feeling bad. Just figured I’d chime in on the carnivore aspect since it took me months to figure out the protein:fat ratio that worked best for me. I wish I had known to be mindful of that early on.
The only real negative of carnivore for me is I feel I look younger when I include some carbs. I’m currently having some carbs that I tolerate on the weekends and so far it’s going well. All the best to you on your longevity journey.

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#157

I wonder if taking lithium orotate counts as supplementing with orotic acid.

#158

If orotate matters it would count as supplementation with orotate as would supplementation with orotic acid. However, without the hydrogen ion you are not supplementing with acid. I doubt; however, the merit of acid supplementation.

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#159

Thanks for that, @blsm . Yes, finding my fat balance is a real challenge (and doing so while transitioning through menopause was probably exacerbated this difficult process). I’m glad to hear of your great results, and that both muscle and bone density returned, and that you’ve been doing it for four years and has kept you healthy.

One thing you mention I wasn’t sure I understood was “ The only real negative of carnivore for me is I feel I look younger when I include some carbs.” — I’m hopefully not getting too personal but what did you mean?

Thanks again.

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#160

Not too personal at all! Carbohydrates help my skin plump up a bit because it’s easier for me to stay well hydrated by including a low amount in my diet. My weight tends to be a couple pounds higher (which I don’t consider an issue) when I include some carbs and I believe that is due to replenished glycogen stores. I’ve tried going back to an omnivore/mixed diet 3 times in the last 4 years and although I think I look a bit younger including carbs I gradually start feeling worse after a couple months and inevitably return to all animal foods. I guess the best I can describe it is for me I have less of a soft feminine look when I eat pure carnivore. I’m menopausal too and I’d prefer to retain my feminine features as long as possible. Right now my latest experiment is having some carbs on the weekend and keto animal foods during the week. I’m okay with staying carnivore though if being low carb on weekends doesn’t work out for me long term.

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#161

Just found the clinical reference for Asprey’s 15% increase…

It appears he needs 24% to keep up with global trends.

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