#461 Top Longevity Supplements Analyzed by PhD Experts - Dr Greg Potter and Dr Nicolas Verhoeven

Dr. Greg Potter (0:00)

Nick, Siim, nice to see you both.

Dr. Nicolas Verhoeven (0:04)

Likewise.

Siim Land (0:05)

Nice to see you all.

Dr. Greg Potter (0:07)

This is my first roundtable, so I'm honored to share it with you two, fellow Knights of the Roundtable. And the theme of today's discussion is dietary supplements for longevity. And I thought it might be fun to begin with a few lightning round questions.

If you were to imagine a situation in which resources are no issue, so you have all the time, all the money, and you get to give a body weight adjusted dose of up to two nutraceuticals and or drugs to every adult aged 30 or older, and you could choose the dose and the frequency if you want people to live longer and have as long a healthspan as possible, which would you pick? And I'm going to start with you, Nick, because alphabetically, you come first. Thanks.

Dr. Nicolas Verhoeven (1:07)

Two molecules that I can give people. It's not going to help necessarily with a lifespan, but it is going to help with healthspan, and I would argue creatine. I guess it doesn't really necessarily have to be weight-adjusted, but that would be one of them. The other one, again, off the top of my head, would be, let's say, something a little more potent, like rapamycin, which probably, at least based off of what I've seen, seems to have some pretty promising results in terms of longevity and healthspan. So those are my two choices.

Dr. Greg Potter (1:45)

What are you going for, Siim? That's giving you some time to think about it.

Siim Land (1:48)

There's obviously a difference between healthspan and lifespan. I think creatine is for sure one of the best healthspan supplements for brain performance and physical performance. Arguably, if you extend healthspan, you probably extend lifespan as well a little bit. Creatine is a safe bet that especially older people would benefit a lot from. Number two, I would say high-quality omega-3 supplement, mostly for cardiovascular benefits, brain benefits, helps with inflammation and immunity and all those other related metabolic benefits and higher blood. Omega-3 levels are associated with longevity, so there might be something there. If I were to add an actual lifespan pharmaceutical, then Grapple Mycin is quite interesting. And I would think that it has potential, maybe in the future we'll see, in the next few years, maybe there are some clinical trials on that. But I would, for the general population, I would think that actually something like Acarbose or Metformin would be also a relatively safe bet, because it's pretty safe, and most people just have slightly higher blood sugar and slightly worse blood markers than it should be for optimal longevity. The lifespan data about Metformin isn't that convincing. Acarbose might be more convincing than Metformin, but for just the idea of postponing metabolic disease and reducing the risk of diabetes, that would probably be one of the actual pharmaceuticals that could also have some effects.

Dr. Greg Potter (3:18)

I too would pick creatine monohydrate, and then my second choice would probably be a GLP-1 receptor agonist. If we're speaking about the general population, which I would choose, I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't be tizepatide. It would probably be semanglotype, because we know quite a lot about it at this point. It would be a relatively low dose, and I'm not saying that it's something that would benefit everyone. It probably wouldn't benefit any of the three of us, for instance. But if we're speaking about the gem pot, then I think it's a really strong choice, particularly when it comes to creatine. And interestingly, if you do consider the cost of distributing that to everyone, and you look at that relative to the potential healthcare savings, then right now, it wouldn't make financial sense, because semaglutide is really expensive. And there was recently an economic analysis looking at that and Tizepatide and a couple of other obesity medications. But cost isn't a factor in this hypothetical scenario. If cost were a factor, then would you modify your responses? For creatine, I don't think you would. So we can disregard that and instead focus on the other choices.

Dr. Nicolas Verhoeven (4:32)

Rappamycin is definitely coming down in cost. There's a few companies that sell it now that have it not super, super expensive, but it's definitely a price here. Metformin is much, much cheaper. So I might be convinced to go that route because I really like Siim's thought process on it, especially if you're talking about the general population. You know, especially as you get older, you might be getting into that pre-diabetic level. So potentially metformin would be a great benefit in that regard. So yeah, I could be swayed on that.