#421 Supplements That HARM Your Heart - Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

All right, first question. Your last Q&A about supplements that damage the kidneys was eye-opening. Are there any supplements that are bad for the heart? So my point in the previous Q&A was that, whether or not some supplement is bad for your kidneys or any food is bad for your kidneys depends on your kidney markers and your actual kidney health. So it all comes down to how something affects your body, and the way you know that is, technically you could also assess it based on how you feel, but looking at certain biomarkers is where it's all about. Essentially, we're talking about kidney health. With heart health, it's a bit more tricky because there's no specific biomarker for heart health, whereas we have it with kidneys. But with heart health, okay, let's talk about the risk of heart disease primarily. So the two supplements that appear to have some evidence and associations with heart disease are iron and calcium. So excess iron intake can be increasing the risk of atherosclerosis. It can increase inflammation, oxidative stress in the body and damage the blood vessels. So excess iron in of itself, like blood iron levels, too high blood iron levels, no matter the source, they are also considered like a risk factor for heart disease. Now the same is the same applies to low iron levels, low iron levels, anemia. Those things are also risk factors for heart disease. So obviously the answer is somewhere in the middle, having normal iron levels. And supplementing iron, if you don't have any reason for that, you know, could increase inflammation and oxidative stress in your body. So I wouldn't say that everyone should be afraid of taking iron supplements. You know, women, if they're suffering from iron deficiency, anemia might benefit from iron supplements. But if you're like a regular guy or a regular person, then it's one of those supplements that you would definitely need to be more careful with. The same applies to calcium. So excess calcium levels in the blood can cause this hypercalcemia, which appears to increase the risk of myocardial infarction and also not atherosclerosis essentially, but like calcification. So this doesn't apply to dietary calcium, fortunately. So dietary calcium appears to be kind of more neutral, but excess calcium supplementation, so causing hypercalcemia in the blood appears to promote that. So again, if you don't have any calcium deficiency, you are consuming calcium from the diet, then it's certainly something that or you wouldn't want to necessarily supplement with calcium. If you are postmenopausal woman, or you're on a very low calcium diet, or your blood calcium levels are low, then it's kind of a different scenario. In that kind of case, it might be okay to do. So monitoring your blood markers, monitoring your iron levels, your calcium levels, they are also kind of handy in this scenario. Now, there are certain supplements that also contain calcium, not as a main ingredient, but they can still potentially cause hypercalcemia. One of the first ones is calcium alpha-ketoglutarate, which many people are using as a longevity supplement, but it does contain calcium as well. It says in the name calcium alpha-ketoglutarate. You can also use alpha-ketoglutarate as arginine alpha-ketoglutarate, so that wouldn't have the calcium, but calcium alpha-ketoglutarate is one of the more popular versions of AKG. And like 1,000 milligrams of calcium AKG is something like 400 milligrams of calcium. So yeah, you need to be more careful with that as well. So I'm not a big proponent of taking calcium AKG over the long term all the time. You could swap it out for arginine AKG or something like that, unless you are, again, on a low-calcium diet. The second version or seppan supplement that also falls into this category is HMB. So HMB is a supplement that has evidence that it can protect against muscle catabolism and sarcopenia, especially in elderly people. So this is a kind of a useful supplement, but only if you're more at a higher risk of frailty and sarcopenia to prevent excessive muscle loss. And HMB can also be combined with calcium, HMB, or HMB-free acid. So the calcium HMB is kind of unfortunately or fortunately more effective than the free acid version. So if you are taking HMB, then the calcium HMB is definitely more potent or more effective. And it's kind of similar that, okay, three grams of HMB calcium is going to contain something like 400 milligrams of calcium. So you need to be aware of that and adjust your dietary calcium intake accordingly, or just monitor your blood calcium levels based on that. So these will be additional calcium examples or calcium supplement examples. I'm sure there might be a few more. Another supplement that might be harmful for the heart is high dose omega threes. And I'm talking specifically about the risk of atrial fibrillation. So I've made a video about it as well in the past, how omega threes generally have been found to have benefits for cardiovascular disease and reducing the risk of certain adverse outcomes from cardiovascular disease. But kind of the dose is more important here. Excessive omega-3 intake of over 3 grams a day appears to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, but it's a higher risk in people who already have some risk of atrial fibrillation or they already have it. So if you're an otherwise healthy person, you don't have heart disease, you're taking 3 grams of omega-3s, then chances are you'll be fine. But again, you need to monitor your own heart health and pay attention to atrial fibrillation in this example. So usually 1.5 grams of omega-3s are safe, less than 3 grams, something like 2.5 grams, also appear to be safe. If it goes over 3 grams, then that's what the research finds, that it appears to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation slightly, and more specifically in people with already existing atrial fibrillation or already existing heart disease. So it kind of depends on which person are we talking about. Speaking of atrial fibrillation, or heart health in general, then excess caffeine could also contribute to that. Now, it's very hard to consume too much caffeine if you're drinking coffee or something like that, unless you're drinking like 5, 6, 10 cups a day. But it's very easy to overdose caffeine if you're relying on pre-workouts or energy drinks or something like that. And a lot of the pre-workouts on the market, in my opinion, are too high in caffeine. They might have 200 milligrams of caffeine per serving, which is the equivalent of like 2 to 3 cups of coffee. And there's genetic differences between people and how they metabolize caffeine. If you're a fast metabolizer of caffeine, then you could drink coffee and fall asleep fine, and you don't really see adverse effects on heart health because of that, because you clear the caffeine quite fast. If you're a slow metabolizer of caffeine, then these people appear to get all the negative side effects from caffeine. They get insomnia, they get anxiety, they get irregular heartbeat, those kind of things. So yeah, if you're a slow metabolizer of caffeine, then you would definitely want to be very careful with caffeine intake and lean more towards the lower intake of caffeine, like less than 200 milligrams, ideally like 100 milligrams. If you're a fast metabolizer, then 400 milligrams, in my opinion, is already too high, like although that's considered like a safe dose per day. But for my own preference, I tend to stick somewhere like 100, 150 milligrams of caffeine per day, which is like a pretty low dose, like one to two cups of coffee is what you'll, is where you can get it from. So yeah, caffeine in very large doses obviously can be lethal. Like if you just take powdered caffeine, then many people have a diet to that. It's very easy to overdose on powdered caffeine. And yeah, it can also be harmful to for your heart health if it increases your heart rate too much, if you take like 400, 500, 600 milligrams of caffeine. And lastly, there are certain supplements that can also interfere with medications like blood thinners and certain lipid lowering drugs. You know, if you take something like a garlic supplement or arginine, for example, they can have like negative adverse reactions with these blood thinners like aspirin or something else like that. So yeah, you want to be mindful of that as well. Kind of read the package and make sure that it doesn't interact with certain of the supplements that you might take. Next question. Do you think we will see people live to more than 125 in this generation? So it depends a lot on what you mean by this generation. Do you mean that the generation that is born right now or do you mean that, okay, is someone right now currently in this generation going to exceed the age of 125? So currently the oldest living person right now is 116 years of age and she's a woman from Japan. So that gives you nine more years to reach the 125 mark. So I think it depends on where do you draw the line. When does the next generation begin? So I'll say that I don't think it's feasible that someone right now will exceed over the age of 125 because we haven't made any real breakthroughs in life extension or life expectancy for many decades. And the oldest living person ever in history, Jean Clement, she made it to 122 The second longest living person was a Japanese woman. She lived 119 So there was already a three year gap between those people and no one has ever reached over 125 So far, and there's nine years for the current oldest living person to reach 125 So it's too big of a leap. We would see someone already having broken the 120 year mark after Jean. So yeah, currently, I would say we won't be seeing anyone living to 125 or above for the next, I would say, for a few decades at least. And when we're speaking of people who are born right now, so people who are somewhere in their teenage years, maybe in their early 20s, then it is feasible that those people will make it to over 120 and possibly up to 125 So the mathematical models, Bayesian models, they have kind of predicted that someone will break John Coleman's record in this century. So before the year 2100, someone will have reached the age of like 130 So I think that is possible because of just improvements in health care, people staying healthier for longer, advancements in some like basic medicines that reduce the risk of these chronic diseases. So even just by that, it's possible to reach 130 within this century. But beyond that, you know, we don't have any, currently, we don't have any like massive breakthroughs in life extension or longevity. Like we, you know, gene therapy is very new. Currently, there's no evidence that it's going to really do anything. And like regenerative therapies, et cetera, they're also very new. There's not a lot of evidence that they would extend maximum lifespan. They would probably extend healthspan so people live like in better health for slightly longer. But yeah, we don't have any like massive breakthroughs that actually mean we're going to live 150, 200 years of age, unfortunately. But for sure, someone will reach 130 within this century based on just the current improvements in health care. This episode is brought to you by Bon Charge, my favorite company for blue blocking glasses, red light therapy devices and red light light bulbs. These items are essential for keeping your sleep wake on the cycles aligned in a world that tries to mess them up. Instead of looking at your phone before bed and letting the blue light disrupt your melatonin production, why not wear blue blockers instead that prevent that from happening? Instead of having your bedroom lit up with bright lights, use the more sleep friendly alternative by opting for flicker free red light light bulbs that don't disrupt your sleep. Bon Charge also has amazing infrared sauna blankets that can give you the same health benefits as the traditional sauna. You also get the unique benefits of infrared light that improves joint and skin health. Head over to boncharge.com for the Seem Land and use the code Seem. Siim for a 15% discount. Next question, how do you feel about the protein powder additive maltodextrin? Some protein powders have up to 15 grams of carbs for maltodextrin. So I'm not a big fan of maltodextrin myself. I think it's kind of unnecessary. You know, my favorite protein powder would be just just the protein powder with minimal additives, like you don't need the maltodextrin and a lot of these mass gainers, they're just essentially pure sugar added to their maltodextrin or dextrose, whatever it is. So these mass gainers are kind of a scam. You could just take a regular clean protein powder that just has the protein. And when you're looking at the macros, what I like to look at is that, OK, one scoop of protein powder, it should have, you know, anything, somewhere like at least 25 to 30 grams of protein per scoop, less than five grams of fat. And usually it's going to something like two grams of carbs from the powder. So if it's like whey powder or something like that, it's going to contain a little bit of carbohydrates. So that's the ideal protein powder that you would want to look at. If it has like 15 grams of carbs in there, then it's just added there for like no particular reason. Next question, what are the thoughts on hyaluronic acid supplementation fueling cancer growth? So this is a common question I get asked when I ever mention hyaluronic acid. So the idea that hyaluronic acid would promote cancer is not really backed up even by animal studies because there are studies on mice that already have cancer that hyaluronic acid supplementation doesn't promote their cancer more or it doesn't increase cancer. So yeah, I mean, there's no real reason to think that hyaluronic acid would, let's say, promote cancer, especially if we don't even have cancer. So because the mice who already had cancer, they didn't see increase in cancer from hyaluronic acid. So it's a lot of this like mechanistic evidence that, okay, hyaluronic acid is found to be expressed by cancer cells, but, you know, cancer cells, they express a lot of things, and certain pathways are involved in cancer, not because they promote the cancer, but because cancer uses the body to survive. So it just hijacks certain resources or certain pathways to its own benefit. So like, you know, different examples would be autophagy. In certain cases, autophagy expression promotes cancer. In other cases, it reduces and prevents against it. So yeah, you would have to actually have more like, you know, experimental studies on animals to kind of prove that hyaluronic acid supplementation would promote cancer. But like I said, the studies on mice who already have cancer haven't shown that. Next question, creatine versus cardio. I personally weigh around two kilograms more with creatine, and it makes cardio and training for Viotimax more difficult. Would you still recommend it all year round? So, yes, there have been meta-analyses showing that creatine supplementation reduces Viotimax slightly, and it makes sense because if you're heavier, even though it might be lean tissue, it's going to be harder for you to produce more or have a higher Viotimax. So your cardio will be worse if you're heavier, even if it's muscle. So that's why none of the marathon runners, they don't have a ton of muscle. They want to minimize their weight so that they would run faster and they would have a greater endurance. So with that being said, creatine has its own benefits for muscle growth, for the brain, etc.