#286 REVERSE AGING 8 YEARS IN 7 MONTHS? - Alpha Ketoglutarate Longevity Study

Siim Land (0:00)

Hey, welcome back to the channel, my name is Siim Land, and in this video, we're going to talk about can this compound called alpha ketoglutarate extend your lifespan? So in 2021, there was this kind of very famous study or very known study where the alpha ketoglutarate supplementation reduced the biological age of humans by eight years on average by just using that supplement for seven to eight months. What? So in this video, we're going to talk about, you know, what does it mean? Is it actually true? And how does this alpha ketoglutarate work? And is it worth taking it? Make sure you click like and subscribe as well for future videos about optimizing your health and performance.

So this is the study published in November 2021 So quite a recent one. Rejuvant potential life extending compound formulation with alpha ketoglutarate and vitamins conferred an average eight year reduction in biological aging after an average of seven months of use in the true age DNA methylation test. So what they basically did was give people this alpha ketoglutarate. It is a disclaimer initially that this company is selling this product with alpha ketoglutarate. But regardless, the study was still done. It's a conflict of interest. But anyway, there was also previous studies in the past have found that alpha ketoglutarate supplementation extended the lifespan of mice by up to 12% and health span by 41%. So this one study was 2020 So there is potential for alpha ketoglutarate to have life extension effects or at least like longevity benefits in terms of increasing your health span.

But anyway, we'll talk about the study. So they did the, they start giving people the supplement and they also did DNA methylation test to assess their biological age. And if you don't know, then the DNA methylation test is based upon the Horvath clock that is like an epigenetic clock test that looks at the biological age and the DNA methylation patterns of your organs and different tissues in the body.

And there is some association between higher DNA methylation age and actual aging and different kinds of comorbidities and aging. So there is some potential with these kinds of methylation clocks as well in terms of assessing your actual biological age and not your chronological age. And the main difference probably is going to be, or at least like in my opinion, it's not going to be, you know, it doesn't mean that you can die, like you can still die. It means that it will tell you an assessment on your health of your tissues and health of your body, so to say, like how healthy is your body in a given moment? And it reflects in this DNA methylation test. And obviously, you can probably change it if it takes only seven months to change your DNA methylation age by eight years or reduce it by eight years. Then, yeah, it's quite, you know, fast. Obviously, it doesn't mean that they were literally eight years younger biologically. But their DNA methylation test was younger, which means that they were healthier. They were eight years healthier than they actually were. That's how I interpret these biological age tests. They're not 100% accurate. They're very sensitive to your lifestyle. But they do at least tell you what kind of direction your health is heading in.

So this is the study. Total participants are 42, 14 females, 28 males. The female's chronological age on average was 64

And the male's chronological age was about 62

The biological age, the DNA methylation age at the baseline was 62 for females and 61 for males. In the end, it was 65 for females and 53 for males. So they did see quite a seven to eight year reduction in their biological age after using the supplement for seven months. So what was in the supplement in the supplement? There was calcium alpha keto glutorate, 1000 milligrams for both men and female.

And the females got or the males got vitamin A, 900 milligrams and calcium, 190 milligrams.

And the females got vitamin D, 25 milligrams and calcium, 190 milligrams. I don't know if there is any biological difference between needing either vitamin A or vitamin D. They probably just gave the females vitamin D instead of vitamin A to just see whether or not the effects of the longevity or the reduction would come from the alpha keto glutorate or what not. But regardless, this is supplement 1000 milligrams of calcium alpha keto glutorate. So what is alpha keto glutorate? Basically, alpha keto glutorate is like an intermediate or a metabolite in the Krebs cycle, which is kind of describes the metabolic cycle, just producing energy and everything. And it's involved in there. It's a very important molecule for the metabolism. And you do see a reduction in your alpha keto glutorate levels as you get older. So your body can't really produce it and you can't get from diet either. There is no dietary source of alpha keto glutorate.