#391 Supplements That Lower Biological Age, How to Track Zone 2 Cardio, and More - Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

Are there any supplements you can take to reverse aging? Now, there are a lot of controversial opinions about this topic, and there are a lot of supplements that you could take, but there aren't many supplements that have actual data showing that they have reversed some aspects of the hallmarks of aging, or actually reversing the epigenetic age as measured by epigenetic age tests. But there are a few supplements out there that indeed have some evidence backing that up. So in this Q&A episode, we're gonna cover this question and many others. If you want to ask me a question, then make sure you follow me on Instagram at SiimLand.

So the first question is, are there any supplements that can actually reverse aging? So far, there's no evidence that actual age reversal is possible, so that you can't really go from an older adult into a younger adult. Like yes, you can improve your biomarkers, you can lose weight, you can become fitter, you can increase your VO2 max, you can go from a VO2 max of a 60-year-old to a VO2 max of a 20- or 30-year-old, whatever. But there is no actual evidence that you can literally reverse the aging process and become phenotypically a younger individual. Of course, there's a lot of different opinions about that, and some people think it is possible. Some people think that it is already proven. And there are some cell studies, even by David Sinclair, that he's done the cellular reprogramming recently, where they have reversed the biological age of these cells using the Yamanaka factors, which are these transcription factors that can affect epigenetics and longevity. So I don't agree that there are literal supplements that can make you younger in terms of turning back the clock, literally. But I do think that there are supplements shown to improve many hallmarks of aging, like reverse the signs, visible signs of aging, reverse the decline in function that happens with aging, such as your cognition and other vital markers, etc. And this is what I'll be covering right now. So my premise is that you can't like directly reverse aging, but you can reverse or like reduce the age-related decline that happens with age. The first study is from 2019, and they looked at a collection of supplements for trying to regenerate the thymus. The thymus is an organ located in the chest that's important for the immune system. The supplements they used were low dose of human growth hormone, metformin, DHEA, which is a testosterone precursor, and vitamin D3. The participants saw a reduction in their inflammation levels, as well as improvement in kidney function. After one year of using the protocol, they saw a 1.5 year reduction in their epigenetic age.

And by the end of the study, it was minus 2.5 years compared to the control group. First of all, a very interesting study, and I think that targeting one specific organ is a very smart way of going about it, because, or at least, you know, it's actually, you can see that, okay, this will affect one specific organ. You can't really take like broader conclusions from just this one organ, because aging is a multi-organ phenomenon. Like you have to actually look at the entire body. The epigenetic age tests or the clocks themselves obviously are also controversial. Many people think that they're nonsense. Other people think that they are at least giving some insight into aging. I personally think that they can be very useful for sure. And what matters more is like the actual outcome of, you know, does the person's immune system actually improve? Does the other vital markers related to the immune system, et cetera, improve? Which in this case was true. About the supplements, then, obviously, some of the easier ones like metformin, DHEA, and vitamin D3, we have talked about quite often on this channel. Metformin is obviously something that younger individuals probably wouldn't benefit from, or if they don't have diabetes, if you're someone who has diabetes, then metformin is very beneficial. If you're younger, then taking metformin probably has like net negative effects, because it reduces your VO2 max, it might reduce your testosterone, it might reduce your muscle growth capacity, et cetera. So for younger non-diabetic individuals, it's a net negative. Someone who has diabetes obviously will have a lot of benefits. DHEA is another like interesting one. Testosterone precursor, you know, it certainly will improve quality of life. It can increase your testosterone levels if your testosterone levels are low. Again, for younger individuals, it probably has little to no effect. But for someone who has low testosterone or who is older and they're experiencing age-related decline in testosterone, then for them, DHEA might bring them back up to more youthful levels.