#416 Supplements That Damage Kidneys and Liver, mTOR and Longevity, How to Improve Skin Elasticity - Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

All right, first question. Are too many supplements bad for the organs like the kidneys? So this is a very common idea behind taking supplements, that if you take too many supplements, then it's going to harm your kidneys, it's going to harm your liver, et cetera. Now, my opinion about it is that you should just test it and see how does it affect your kidney markers. Because there's millions of people in the world who don't take any supplements, but they have kidney problems and they have liver problems. So taking supplements isn't exclusively responsible for kidney problems or liver problems. It all depends on the particular context, the individual, and what's the actual outcome. So there's always some amount of unexpectedness or randomness as well in this. So some people might react to certain supplements in a negative way that increases their liver enzymes or worsens their kidney function. So the most important thing is to just measure yourself and see. Because if you don't measure, then you don't know if a certain supplement has a negative effect on your kidneys. Now, theoretically, yes, certain supplements can negatively affect kidney function. And the most notorious ones usually are creatine, which the myth is that creatine causes kidney damage, which isn't the case. Creatine might worsen kidney function in people with already existing kidney dysfunction, but it's not inherently going to cause it. So again, you need to measure, and depends on the individual. There's also a lot of studies actually on specific herbal supplements, even things like ashwagandha, curcumin, some of the other herbal compounds. They have been also found to, first of all, increase liver enzymes, as well as actually cause like acute liver injury in certain individuals. Now, those are mostly case studies, so they're not like large populations of people getting kidney or liver problems from herbal supplements. It's mostly some individual case studies. And the problem is like a lot of herbal supplements aren't regulated. They might be contaminated with certain compounds. So a lot of the herbal supplement market is kind of like a wild west or a no man's land in terms of that. So you never know really what you're getting. So I don't really take a lot of herbal supplements because it's potentially dangerous and it might have negative effects on your liver specifically. But if you have third party tested and well trusted supplement brands, then theoretically, for most people, it's not going to like worsen kidney function. You just still have to measure, but based on the evidence right now, then you don't see that. And of course, there are some cases if you have maybe certain supplements interact with each other or if yes, if there are like hundreds of compounds, then maybe it can worsen kidney function. Now, I have found on Twitter actually a few people, even like doctors, like pretty renowned doctors saying that they've seen a lot of people taking a very popular supplement stack that is popular right now and that it worsens their kidney, their patients' kidney function. Now, they didn't mention what stack it is. They did say it's popular right now. So you can maybe think I'm not, I don't know exactly also what stack it is. I can predict which one it is maybe, but yeah, theoretically, too many supplements could worsen kidney function. And the most important thing is to just measure. I'm taking, you know, right now, less than 10 supplements a day. My kidney function is perfect. My liver function is also like very good. And even Joe Cohen, who takes 160 supplements per day, his liver and kidney function is also great. So he has no problems with that. So again, the most important thing is to measure. Next question, as of my genetic test, I'm a slow caffeine metabolizer. You've mentioned in one of your VRP tips that vitamin C helps to break down caffeine. What are other things that help break down caffeine? So yes, the unfortunate situation is that there are genetically fast metabolizers and slow metabolizers of caffeine. And I'm like a fast metabolizer, so I can drink coffee even like very late in the evening and I'll still sleep very good, whereas other people, yes, they drink coffee in the morning and even then they get insomnia or something like that. So yeah, caffeine, I think a lot of the negative effects that people have relating to caffeine intake has to do with their caffeine metabolism genes. So if you are the slow metabolizer, then you tend to get more anxiety, you tend to get more like heartbeat problems or hypertension effects from and insomnia effects as well from caffeine. Whereas if you're a fast metabolizer, then most of the fast metabolizers don't get any negative effects because they metabolize the caffeine very fast. And yeah, what are some ways to kind of burn through the caffeine faster? Then yes, vitamin C does that. So I mentioned that in my newsletter. And there's also things like the, let's say these are tubers, like carrots actually also do that. So what I like to do is like in the evenings, I'll eat like orange or something. I'll eat like an orange or kiwi that's high in vitamin C. And I don't drink usually caffeine very late in the day. I'll stop it at noontime typically. But just having the extra vitamin C in the evening, I feel that yeah, it's pretty kind of useful tip to have, especially if you're a slow metabolizer. Now other things as well that increase your sleep drive would be like exercise. So the higher your sleep drive, the bigger your desire to fall asleep is. So if you've exercised a lot, then that has been found to increase sleep quality and also reduces the time it takes to fall asleep. So and those studies even find that the more exercise you do, the better the sleep quality is. So even if you exercise several hours a day, then that gives you even greater benefits for sleep quality than exercising only 20 minutes per day. So the more exercise you do, the more tired you will be, and the better you will sleep. And the second thing is also sunlight exposure. So getting exposed to this infrared light from the sunlight increases melatonin production, also increases sleep drive, and has been found to improve sleep quality and reduce time it takes to fall asleep. And maybe the last tip would be to not eat too late before bed. So, and that includes these small caffeinated beverages. So like teas, they have very small amounts of caffeine, but if you're a slow metabolizer, then even drinking tea in the evening can disrupt your sleep. And chocolate, so milk chocolate has very little, or technically has no like legitimate amounts of cacao, but still a small amount of it can still keep you up if you are a slow metabolizer of caffeine. Next question, when and how do you think is longevity escape velocity going to begin? So the longevity escape velocity is this idea that as science and medicine progresses, then at a certain point, it's become so advanced that every chronological year that has passed the science and medical breakthroughs will enable you to live at least as much more alive and potentially even more. So it's like this exponential curve in your life expectancy. Over the last century, you've seen that life expectancy across the world has steadily increased. So right now in the world, it's like 73.2 years or 74 years across the entire world. And some of the longest living countries like Macau, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, they're like in the low 80s, 83, 82, 84 years, is the average life expectancy in those countries. Now, is it going to reach a point where the life expectancy is going to be 200, which is the longevity escape velocity that in the year 2200, you will live 400 years because every year that has passed, we learn more and more about medicine that it just keeps you alive. Now, when is it going to happen? Well, theoretically, it's possible. I'll say that, so I don't think there's anything that would say that it's impossible. The problem is, yeah, I think many people are overestimating how fast it would, or overestimating when we would reach that point. So there's Aubrey de Grey and others saying that it's going to happen in 2035, which is in 10 years. Others say it's 2040, 2045, so whatever it is, it doesn't matter.