Longevity Supplements, Pills of Promise? - Longevity Basics Edition
Welcome to the inaugural post of my 'Health 3.0 - Longevity Basics' series. Periodically, I'll offer actionable and practical guidance on aligning our daily routines with the principles of longevity and optimal health, grounded in current scientific understanding.
Today, we delve into the vast realm of supplements. While the world of supplements can be overwhelming, a new category has recently emerged, specifically targeting longevity. There isn’t one magic anti-aging compound (or even several), but a limited but growing number of studies suggest that certain supplements might help to “reverse” epigenetic aging, or preserve the 12 biological processes associated with aging, referred to as the 12 Hallmarks of Aging.
In this article, I'll share insights I gathered from looking at recommendations by industry leaders and experts in longevity and functional health. Additionally, I'll delve into the science backing these 'longevity supplements' – ones that I personally incorporate into my daily routine. I hope you find this helpful.
The Players
Since people have been practicing medicine, the holy grail for human health has been to slow or stop aging. So it probably comes as no surprise that influential players in the health space have shared recommendations on the longevity supplements I’ll explore below.
The Longevity Experts
David Sinclair, Ph.D., is a professor of genetics at Harvard University, where he studies why we age and how to slow its effects, and the author of Lifespan: Why We Age, and Why We Don’t Have To. He is also the founder of several biotech companies, including longevity startup Tally Health.
Peter Attia, M.D., is a former surgeon who studied cancer therapies at the National Institutes of Health before launching Early Medical, a medical practice with the goal of lengthening patients’ lifespan and improving their healthspan. He’s the author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D., is a biomedical researcher and educator who has studied aging, cancer, and nutrition—in particular, supplementation and aging. She is the CEO and co-founder of the longevity website FoundMyFitness.
Mark Hyman, M.D., is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center and the founder of the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine. He has written several books on nutrition and longevity, including Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life.
Bryan Johnson is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author, and the founder and CEO of Kernel, a company making devices that monitor and record brain activity. He’s perhaps best known for Blueprint, an anti-aging regimen he’s developing to reduce biological age.
The Supplement Makers
A few companies have launched their own multi-ingredient longevity supplements, including:
Elysium Health is a pioneer in the longevity space that offers several types of supplements targeting cellular aging, brain aging, metabolic aging, and immune aging, along with a biological age test. The company’s founder and chief scientist, Leonard Guarente, Ph.D., has led MIT’s Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging Research since 2008.
Tally Health, a startup recently launched by David Sinclair, offers tests that promise to read your biological age alongside a personalized longevity and lifespan plan and a multi-ingredient general longevity supplement.
Novos Labs offers supplements touted to promote longevity, appearance, cognition, and energy, as well as a biological age test. The scientific advisory board touts Harvard Medical School and MIT professor George Church, PhD, a pioneer in personal genomics and synthetic biology.
The Supplements
It’s hard to study the true impact of specific nutrients and supplements on our health and risk of age-related diseases. That’s because it’s challenging to separate out what a study participant eats/ingests from the many other factors that play a role in health (stress, sleep, and exercise habits, to name a few!). Still, longevity experts think there’s good reason to think some supplements might give you an edge when it comes to aging.
Omega 3
Used by: Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Mark Hyman, Elysium Health
Why it might work: Omega 3 fatty acids including DHA and EPA are a relatively well-studied nutrient that help form the structures of cell membranes, especially in the retina, brain and sperm. They’re also used to form eicosanoids, or signaling molecules involved in the functioning of the cardiovascular, pulmonary, immune, and endocrine systems. You can get omega 3s by eating certain foods, such as flaxseed and salmon, as well as by taking fish oil supplements.
Perhaps the most promising potential benefit of omega 3s is boosting brain health with age. DHA is an essential component in the brain that researchers think could maintain neuronal function and cell membrane structures, possibly reducing the risk of cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia.
Because populations of people who frequently eat fish have consistently lower risk of heart disease, there’s been a lot of research into omega 3s and heart health. Omega 3s may promote heart health and lower the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular events—although benefits of supplementation are greater for people with preexisting heart conditions.
Omega 3s also have an anti-inflammatory effect that could, in theory, reduce the risk of certain cancers, including breast, colorectal, prostate, and possibly skin cancer. While there’s been quite a bit of research in this area, it’s limited and mixed.
Vitamin D
Used by: David Sinclair, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Mark Hyman, Bryan Johnson
Why it might work: Another widely-studied nutrient, vitamin D is produced by your skin when it’s exposed to the sun. Otherwise, aside from fish, few foods naturally contain vitamin D; most people get it from foods like fortified milk and orange juice. Vitamin D notably helps your body to absorb calcium, promoting strong bones and possibly reducing the risk of osteoporosis with age. It’s also involved in the development and growth of muscle fibers, so it may support muscle strength and function with age.
Vitamin D could also have an impact on age-related diseases. It may reduce the risk of cancer, as it helps to reduce inflammation in the body and supports immune function. It’s involved in cell growth and affects genes involved in cell turnover, which could help to suppress tumor growth and metastasis (the spread of cancer from the initial tumor to other parts of the body).
Because vitamin D is anti-inflammatory and helps the body to regulate blood pressure and cell growth in the heart, it has been linked to heart health. And vitamin D plays a role in glucose metabolism and insulin secretion, so it may impact the odds of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Magnesium
Used by: Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Mark Hyman, Elysium Health, Novos Labs
Why it might work: This mineral has also gotten quite a bit of scientific attention. It’s involved in lots of critical functions in your body, including protein creation, muscle and nerve function (including normal heart rhythm), blood glucose control, blood pressure regulation, energy production, and bone formation. For these reasons, magnesium might help lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis. Because it’s also involved in the synthesis of DNA and RNA, some longevity experts believe it could reduce DNA damage and “stabilize” the genome (your entire set of DNA). Combined with its anti-inflammatory effects, this could reduce the risk of epigenetic changes.[CDB4]
Magnesium is found widely in fiber-rich foods, such as leafy green veggies, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, as well as in fortified cereal. While most of us can get the amount of most recommended daily minimum vitamins and minerals from our diet, that’s not always the case with magnesium. People with certain medical conditions, including GI diseases like IBS and Crohns, type 2 diabetes, and alcohol dependence, as well as older adults, are more likely to have magnesium deficiencies.
NAD+ boosters, including NMN and NR
Used by: David Sinclair, Mark Hyman, Bryan Johnson, Elysium Health, Novos Labs
Why it might work: Unlike omega 3s and vitamin D, NAD+ boosters haven’t been as thoroughly studied, but longevity experts believe they have a lot of promise in promoting healthy aging. Nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) are molecules that are naturally found in your body as well as in certain foods, like veggies, fruit, milk, and meat. They help your body to produce nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+. This coenzyme is involved in lots of cellular functions related to healthy aging, including the use (metabolism) of energy, the repair of DNA, and immune cell function.
As we get older, levels of NAD+ naturally go down. A decline in NAD+ with age has been linked to age-related diseases including arthritis, high blood pressure, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, and cancer—so, the thinking goes, NMM and NR supplements could help boost your body’s ultimate supply of NAD+.
There are a number of other supplements frequently mentioned by longevity experts, such as fisetin (an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties), glycine (an anti-inflammatory micronutrient that may improve insulin response), CA-aKG (a special form of calcium with anti-inflammatory and anti-aging properties that’s mostly been studied in animals), hyaluronic acid (a molecule that helps the skin retain water to promote skin health), and resveratrol (a bioactive compound found in plant foods like grapes with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immune-modulating effects; its use as a longevity supplement is controversial has been pushed by Sinclair).
Prescription drugs have also been studied for longevity. Some researchers believe that the diabetes drug metformin might delay aging and protect against age-related diseases, partly through its potential impact on epigenetic changes and telomere attrition (the loss of the protective caps on our chromosomes).And the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, an immunosuppressant drug used to treat certain types of cancer, is thought to possibly have an effect on lifespan, heart disease, and the functioning of the central nervous system and immune system.
Of course, I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice (you should never start a new supplement without getting the green light from your doctor first). But if you’re curious about longevity, I encourage you to read up on all of these potentially powerful supplements!
Disclaimer: I am an investor in Novos Labs.