I have wondered about Urolithin A. How does it compare to Rapamycin? How much of an impact does it have? Hence I have planned for a while to do an experiment with a highish dose of UA and see if anything happens.
UA has been found in Rats to have no adverse affect at 5% of diet. However, I have decided to be cautious.
This should not upset my digestion and has had no negative effects so far - not that any should be expected. It tasted quite nice.
I implanted a CGM on Tuesday so I have some tracking records to compare against.
UA has a much shorter half life (17-20) than Rapamycin (60). If I don’t encounter any negative effects I may fininsh off the UA that I have along with breakfast. I will have my normal breakfast other than eating strawberry yoghurt.
If UA inhibits mTOR and I think we can assume it does this to some extent then it should cause some hepatic insulin resistance and I should see a temporary increase in blood glucose. That really is what I am looking for.
At the moment I still have the effects of a highish dose of MK7 which I took last Friday. It’s around equivalent to taking 1-2mg today. (I took 8mg - 12 ml on Friday and it has a half life of 75 hours).
I am otherwise doing my usual tracking with fitbit etc etc and have a blood draw scheduled for Monday.
So, at 9.30 i took another 10g of aeturnum and 5 sachets (mixed in youghurt) together with my usual supplements and an AMPK/Yang Qi boost and breakfast.
So to summarise I have taken 21g of Aeternum UA from a sachet that indicates a total of 30 was available (I took some much earlier than today) and 17 3g sachets of mitopure.
It appears that the 3g sachets (which do from the measurements appear to be 3g) each contain 0.5 of UA.
Hence in theory (and I have not measured purity or anything beyond the mass of the ingredients and that not particularly accurately) I have taken 29.5g of UA.
Mixed with Strawberry yoghurt it tasted quite nice.
In one sense importantly I have not noticed anything negative. However, at times negative things need to happen in order to get a long term benefit.
I will post the CGM readings, but it takes about 3 hours to upload. However, it does not at this stage appear that there is any hepatic insulin resistance. From my perspective that is bad news for UA as it would imply it is not having an immediately measureable effect on mTOR.
However it has a half lilfe of just under a day and will take a little time to spread around the body. Hence we may see some results.
On the other hand I intend going to a pub to meet people tomorrow. Hence any results may be overwhelmed by the ethanol pathways.
From my point of view I don’t mind. Firstly as far as I can tell it is an experiment with no risks other than to the bank balance. Hence I may repeat it some time in the future.
However, in the mean time UA fits into the category of molecules where it is GRAS (Generally Recognised As Safe) but if it moves the needle it does not move it far, it probably moves it in the right direction and is not a priority intervention.
However, I will give it a few days on this test. It was the nicest tasting experiment I have done, but that was probably not value for money.
So I have just had my breakfast. In the next couple of hours, therefore, I should see if there is any indication that yesterdays 29.5g of UA causes some comparable hepatic insulin resistance. The difference between yesterday’s breakfast and today’s is basically that I had the yoghurt and UA at various times.
It has a half life of just under a day so tomorrow should be 1/2 (ish) of today’s potency and then I have a blood draw on the next day. (as well as my standard breakfast).
So far all I can say is eating a lot with Strawberry Yoghurt tastes quite nice. I am avoiding other unusual interventions for a couple of days to see if there is anything that can be identified from this, but I do want to take another rapamycin dose soon. My WBC was a little low last week, but I have not got this week’s results yet.
I think its IC50 for mTOR is in the micromolar range whilst rapamycin is in the nanomolar range, but on the other hand people eat grams of UA comparing to milligrams of rapamycin.
ChatGPT came up with similar results on the IC50s for UA (10-50 microMolar) and Rapamycin (0.1-1 nM). It was also vague about whether UA really inhibits mTOR. That actually only the lower figures gives a ratio of 10mcM to 0.1nM viz 100,000. Ie to have the same effect as 1mg of Rapamycin you would need to eat 100g of UA.
ChatGPT, however, does say UA may act in a different way to directly inhibiting mTOR.
Cool experiment. Unless you find something I’ll stick with my assessment that urolithin a is just one of many metabolites of a healthy gut. I’ll keep working on a healthy gut. That sounds better than taking all the useful chemicals scientists find and marketers claim are good for health.
The only limited human trial data was done on unexercised individuals with some benefit in power.
That makes one automatically doubt any benefit in individuals that actually exercise… otherwise why would they exclude them ?
In any event the supplement from timeline is very expensive and with lack of adequate data - not worth IMO.
Using my calculations as above i would need to eat about 7.5kg of UA (to which would have to be added some material quantity of yoghurt) to have a similar effect to my rapamycin dose if bioavailability is similar.
I had, however, bought some aeternum and timeline and wanted to see if i could spot any effect. The jury will be out until i get my blood result, but ATM i don’t think i will buy any more.
Sheesh 1 packet is 3 grams? I’m taking the pills 2 a day and that just gives 500mg. It says take 4 if medical condition so thought of that but it’s so expensive. It’s doing nada for my fatigue after 3 months and energy/well being is all I’m looking for. Am amazed at the experimentation so many in this group do - it’s like a bunch of Bryan Johnsons!
Its ideal when a comment comes with the links to the studies, facts, at least details! I appologize!
I’ll link a talk by one of the best sports restoration “coaches” I’ve heard talk. In the very advanced sports, body building community the folks who are able to “advise” compounds straight out of the laboratory are unlicensed. As an one who’s spent too much on formal education I’m amazed at the towering intellects I find who somehow never found there way into education and commas after their name. Today, 2025 I now see why being unlicensed is freeing to get into compounds the AMA, the standards would never allow.
Urolithin-A as I’m using it and as I’ve been informed is a mitocondria booster/mito-scensient clearing agent. Spermidine is mentioned in the same sentence as a senolitic/mito-senolitic.
We bought a boat load of Neurogan+health Pro+urolithin A before they got the cease and desist. It might be findable still off other sites than amazon. 2 pills are 1gr.
I’m using Urolithin-A, 1gr/day AM, continuously, MOTSC (a mitocondria boosting peptide injectable) for 30 days, followed by cycling onto SS-31 (another mito peptide injectable ), cycling onto SLU-PP-332 (an oral peptide) for 30 days. Then repeat. The athlete restoration protocols use in the range of UA+SLU+LDN+Rapa+Prodrom plasmologins+semax/selank+TRT+celobrolysin+etc. Not age extending, but performance restoration. Kikel (below) mentions in other videos using low dose Rapa and or High dose Rapa + high/low dose naltrexone to bring the athletes intense inflammation / cytokine storm under control, then rebuilding the mitochondria / ATP etc. Crazy how burned out athletes can get themselves, complete type-II messes. They lament how those folks are shortening their lives by decades (IE tri-athletes, ultra-marathons).
Alex Kikel on youtube has a small foot print. He wants to not be that visible and mainly is a guest on the Hunter Williams/ Jay Cambell peptide / body building / performance channels
This is the best talk on SLU-PP-331 and is a gateway into the other mito peptides and compounds. Search youtube for Kikel peptides,
I buy most of my peptides at solutionpeptides.net . A new site by Hunter/Jay is up: biolongevitylabs.com . SLU/MOTSC/SS-31 is at one or the other.
Good luck to all, curt
“Urolithin A is primarily related to mitophagy, rather than directly affecting mTOR or general autophagy pathways. Mitophagy is a specific type of autophagy targeting damaged mitochondria for degradation and recycling. While mTOR is a central regulator of general cellular autophagy, Urolithin A’s role focuses on the selective enhancement of mitophagy. This targeted action supports improved mitochondrial health and function without the broader suppression of mTOR that could affect cell growth processes.”
In theory, that is correct - but when the patent holder is a large, litigious company like Nestle… smaller startups are wary of being litigated to death by larger companies with deep pockets… thus the lack of significant competition in the Urolithin A market.
Honestly, I tried Urolithin A and I’m not excited about it. I’d rather start retaking Spermidine instead of continuing Urolithin A based on a cost-benefit analysis.
There has been an explosion of offerings on Amazon US, but 99% of them are companies I’ve never heard of, and would not trust. We’ll see how this market develops; I’d like to see some of the other major supplement companies offering it at reasonable prices.
