#425 I Ranked the Best Supplements - 200k Subscriber Livestream

Siim Land (0:00)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. Today, I'm playing a replay of my livestream on YouTube to celebrate 200,000 subscribers. In this episode, I'm ranking longevity supplements based on their evidence and cost-effectiveness. The show starts a few minutes in after I had ranked Ashwagandha, and the show ends a bit early because I had a fire alarm go off in my apartment. Oh, you should see it now. Sorry. Yeah, sorry, like I said, it's been a long time since I used the streaming software, so it's kind of new. All right, Ashwagandha is in the A tier. Nanokinase, I'm also gonna put it in the A tier because of that reason.

And I do think that it's pretty good. Okay, now it's there. Sorry. Next supplement, Taurine. So this one has gotten a lot of, let's say positive press, positive news recently over the last year. And it kind of started with this mice study that showed it extended lifespan in mice. And I do think that Taurine has quite a lot of clinical evidence as well, mostly for metabolic syndrome. So there are quite a lot of studies that Taurine supplementation improves metabolic syndrome in quite larger doses, three to six grams per day. And it also has some exercise benefits in those quantities. So athletes tend to use Taurine, so I'm going to put it in the S-tier, which is the number one tier.

SPEAKER_2 (1:35)

Yeah, that's better. All right.

Siim Land (1:42)

Next up, hyaluronic acid. So this one can be useful for skin hydration, skin anti-aging, and the research about hyaluronic acid is mostly based on a few of these clinical trials that show that it helped with skin moisturization and hydration and reduction in wrinkles. So it's not like a massive amount of studies, but I've used hyaluronic acid, and I do think that it works great. Now, there is some of these concerns about that it promotes cancer or something, but animal studies don't support that argument. So even in mice who have cancer, like aggressive cancer, hyaluronic acid didn't increase or promote their cancer any further. So it's kind of safe in that regard. So I wouldn't be afraid of using hyaluronic acid because of the fear of cancer, because even in animal studies, they don't find that effect. So it's like found to be safe in humans, and it's also found to support this skin hydration aspect, which I think, you know, depends, yeah, like how do you grade these tiers? Is it, it's not going to obviously extend your lifespan, hyaluronic acid, but it does have like the skin anti-aging effects and it's relatively safe. So in that sense, it could be in the S-tier, but because, you know, it's kind of, you know, just one effect mostly that you see currently in the studies that I've seen is that the skin hydration aspects, I would put it just in the A-tier because of that reason. So it's not like super miraculous, it's not going to extend your lifespan or anything like that. But if skin anti-aging is your concern, then yeah, that is certainly a good supplement to take. Only hearing you in the left channel, nothing in the right. Is that correct? Should be from both or not? Let me see.

It should be from both. Just here left, okay. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_2 (4:18)

Da, da, da, da, da.

Siim Land (4:33)

Well, it works from here.

SPEAKER_2 (4:37)

What about now? No.

Siim Land (4:40)

I guess we need to run with it right now.

Yeah, sorry about that. That's kind of the issue with live streams.

Next up, vitamin C. So, I guess vitamin C is generally like a very safe supplement. It does have some research, but yeah, the problem is again, it's not miraculous. And yeah, like large amounts of vitamin C aren't really shown to like provide any like significant, let's say, preventive effects against a lot of these chronic diseases. So yeah, if you're like sick or something, then you can use vitamin C. But regular use of vitamin C hasn't been found to really like reduce the risk of heart disease or something like that, and metabolic syndrome, et cetera. So that's why, you know, yeah, it's kind of safe, and it has some benefits mostly if you're like sick, but not a lot beyond that. Next, aspirin is kind of not a supplement, obviously, but it has like a long track record of use for decades. And when it comes to like cardiovascular disease, then they don't find it effective for primary prevention, which means that it's not going to prevent the development or like the onset of heart disease. But secondary prevention apparently is recommended by the American Heart Association, so it can have some benefits there. The problem is that if you are at a risk of like bleeding or something like that, then it can be an issue because, yeah, aspirin can increase the risk of bleeding. So, you know, if you're going to fall while taking aspirin, you might have worse outcomes. So it does have a risk. So that's why they don't recommend it for people who are at a risk of bleeding. But for secondary prevention in heart disease, that's what they do recommend it for. So I'm going to put it in the C tier. There are like some animal studies as well that it can extend. Actually, yeah, the ITP study, they found that aspirin did extend mice or mouse lifespan as well. But, yeah, I wouldn't think that it's worthwhile to take a lot of aspirin all the time because of the risk of a bleeding for most people. Omega-3s, you know, old but gold, old but gold supplement. And, you know, omega-3s, in my opinion, are the gold tier because there's so much data that higher omega-3 index is associated with lower rates of heart disease, Alzheimer's, and all-cause mortality. And, like, it's also like a biomarker that you can measure. So you don't know when it comes to taurine or nanokinase, you don't have a taurine biomarker, generally speaking. But you do have it with omega-3s. So that's why it's kind of a very great one to, like, use in terms of that. So you have a marker that you can track the effectiveness over time. And, yeah, just the idea of having a higher omega-3 index is something that we should generally, like, try to aspire towards. 8% is kind of the sweet spot, 8% and above. Fisetin, so the senolylic, that helps with the clearing out the senescent cells. The problem with the senolylics is that you don't have a lot of human data yet. There are some animal studies, but the senolylics haven't been shown to extend lifespan, so fisetin was one of the ones that failed in the ITP trials quite recently. I did find a study today, which I'm gonna actually talk about next week on the channel, where some of the senolylics, like quercetin and fisetin, were found to lower epigenetic age, so lowers the biological age. But the problem with these clocks is that they have some issues when it comes to accuracy and the confounding variables, so I would put fisetin into the C tier because of the lack of data currently, and it doesn't really extend lifespan in animals either. Quercetin, the same, I would put it, it's just not gonna be worth it because of that same reason. Maybe in a few years, we'll have more, like I say, studies on the senolytics, but the problem is that you don't necessarily want to inhibit all the senolytic cells either. Senolytic cells are, or senescent cells are important for wound healing as well, for example. Calcem alpha-ketoglutarate, so one popular longevity supplement that people use, and I guess the idea is that it's been found to lower biological age in humans in a clinical trial. But the issue is that the company made their own study with their calcium alpha-ketoglutarate, so you would need to take it with a bit of a grain of salt, the results. And they are doing another study, not the same company, but another group of scientists are doing a study with calcium alpha-ketoglutarate, which would probably come out in like next year or something. And we'll see what the results say at that point. So I'm going to put it currently in the C tier because of that reason. NMN, kind of same, I'll put it in the C tier because there are quite a lot of human trials right now with NMN, but so far, almost all of them have been quite unimpressive. That NMN specifically does like improve insulin sensitivity, apparently, they find that it increases like gait speed, etc. But I wouldn't say that it's very convincing at the moment. NR, the same, I would put it in the C tier because of that reason. There are some clinical trials in humans, and the biggest effect from NR is seen to be anti-inflammatory effects. And both of them do raise NAD levels very dose-specifically. So higher doses of NMN and NR both increase the NAD levels in humans. But what do you do with that information? We don't necessarily know yet. Because NAD levels do appear to decline with age, not in all tissues, but that's the general trend, and not in all people. But, yeah, we don't know necessarily if NAD, like, regeneration or increasing NAD would have any actual effects on lifespan. Now, Niacinamide is one of the NAD boosters that I do like. And the reason is because it works through a different pathway. So Niacinamide goes to the NAD salvage pathway, which is different from the NMN and NR. So NMN and NR go directly to NAD, whereas Niacinamide supports the recycling pathway of NAD. And...