CEO Chris Mirabile, serial entrepreneur and biohacking expert hosted a supplement webinar. He discussed longevity, general health, skin & hair care supplements, and much more.
Full Transcript
Grace: Welcome everyone! My name is Grace De Leon, associate brand manager at NOVOS. I’ll be your host for today’s event. As we all enter, I would love to know what part of the world you’re calling in from. Feel free to type in the chat box where you’re currently located. Awesome. We have a global audience today. I see people calling in from Houston, the United Kingdom, upstate New York. I myself am calling in from Nevada. All right, we’re going to let a few more people join in and then we’ll get started. All right. Thank you all for joining us. Before I introduce our speaker, I have a few housekeeping items to go over. First off, I want to thank those of you who have submitted questions already. During the event, you could submit more questions in the Q&A box.
Grace: If you see a question you like, you can upvote it and at the end of the presentation we will begin the Q&A. We will record and share this event, barring technical difficulties. Okay, everyone it’s time to get started. I’m delighted to introduce you to NOVOS’ chief scientific officer, Dr. Verburgh. He will be our presenter for today. Dr. Verburgh is a longevity of biotechnology specialist and pioneer of Nutrigerontology. He ponders questions about aging, evolution and the nature of humanity on a regular basis. As a medical doctor, author of four books, singularity faculty member and partner at 100 million dollar longevity vision fund, Dr. Verburgh has invested his life into looking for answers to improve health and slow down aging. Dr. Verburgh and our CEO, Kris created NOVOS, a nutraceutical company, with some of the world’s top longevity scientists and medical doctors that helped people take control of their health spans and lifespans. All right. Welcome, Dr. Verburgh.
Dr. Kris: Great, thank you for great introduction and everyone, thank you for being here for this other seminar. We had a great time during our previous seminar when we were talking about ways to live longer and we had great questions. So, I very much look forward to your questions at the end of this short introduction, about 40 minutes, about how to take supplements properly. And before we start, very quickly a disclaimer, this is not medical advice. So, always consult first with a health expert that knows your specific situation and that ideally is well versed in the science of supplements, nutrition, and prevention. So, to start, a few words about supplements, first of all, supplements, their importance is often underestimated, which is very important because we believe that supplements are very important for health and their longevity, but they are often underestimated by the general public and by medical doctors for example.
Dr. Kris: Regarding medical doctors, often they do underestimate the importance of supplements because it’s not really taught at most medical schools. So, often it’s just a very tiny part in your curriculum. And sometimes it’s not even mentioned whatsoever, and that’s a big problem, because the supplement has been unknown or the science around them being unknown makes them unbeloved, unfortunately. So, that’s a big problem. And that’s also why a lot of patients are on their own when the amount to pick the best supplements and the best ways to take them. And actually it should be taught more at medical schools, because supplement science is very complex. If you want to do it good, if you want to do it properly, and you have to take a lot of different things into account. And I will explain the most important ones during this call, during this lecture, but it’s a very complex science, if you want to do it properly. Another issue or aspect about supplements is that there are a lot of mixed studies about them.
Dr. Kris: And that’s also one of the reasons why quite a lot of medical doctors that are often not well versed in the science of supplements have some, let’s say, reservations about supplements because they will quote some studies that don’t show any effect of supplements. There are of course studies that do show very interesting effects of supplements on health and so on, but there are a lot of mixed studies. And some studies show no effect whatsoever, especially with multivitamins. And that should not actually come as a surprise, because a lot of studies are actually not properly conducted. So, they are not long enough. They are too late. You give the supplement too late. You give the supplement not in the right combination, not in the right form and so on. So, that’s a big problem. For example, take Alzheimer’s disease. And there are some trials giving people B vitamins for Alzheimer’s disease, but you give it already when people have Alzheimer’s disease, but actually the disease starts often decades before you get the first conspicuous symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Kris: So, when you are 70, you get the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Often the disease already started when you were in your 50s. So, like 10, 15, 20 years earlier. So, if you give supplements at the end of the disease process, it’s of course not going to make a big impact. And then also they give people these supplements for three months or five months. And then also you don’t see an effect, of course not because it’s way too little or way to late. So, be very skeptical about those studies. Luckily there are better conduct studies, but they are unfortunately very rare, because as I mentioned, supplement science is quite complex. Then we have the government recommendations and that’s also a big problem in the sense that a lot of the government advice is outdated and based on very crude scientific methods, to see how the minimum amount you need is often not an optimal amount for optimal long term health.
Dr. Kris: So, that’s another issue. And finally, there’s a whole debate there between healthy foods versus supplements. A lot of people say or believe, and as one of the misunderstandings we will discuss during this presentation about supplements is that if you eat healthy, you don’t need supplements, but we think that’s a big, let’s say underestimation of, or underestimate of the importance of supplements. So, we will come back to that later and we will try to demonstrate why we believe it’s more complicated than that. So, before we further continue. Very quickly, some definitions. First of all, I will talk a lot about micronutrients. Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals or other substances that the body needs to function properly. So, it’s things like magnesium, zinc, omega-3, vitamin A, vitamin C. These are all micronutrients. Macronutrients are things that provide energy, that provide calories. These are things like amino acids or proteins, fats and carbs.
Dr. Kris: So, these are macronutrients and then the micronutrients are the vitamins minerals and so on. And then finally a very important definition is the difference between health supplements and longevity supplements. So, health supplements actually are supplements that don’t really extend life spend if you take extra of them, but they do shorten life span if you don’t have enough of them. So, these are most well known supplements like vitamin K, omega-3 fatty acids, iodine, calcium. So, if you give extra of those settlements to animals, they don’t really live longer, but if you’re deficient in them, it can shorten life span and significantly risk of aging related diseases. So, they’re very important nonetheless. And then you have longevity supplements. These are supplements that can extend lifespan because they work on fundamental aging mechanisms. These are things like Alpha-ketoglutarate, Fisetin, Glycine, pterostilbene and so on. So, during the presentation, the first part will be mostly about health supplements.
Dr. Kris: And then in the final part of the presentation, we will go more in depth into what are the most interesting longevity supplements. So, let me first start with some common misconceptions or misunderstandings about supplements. And the first one is a lot of people believe that they don’t need supplements because they eat a healthy diet or something you have very often here. It’s also what a lot of governments say. If you eat healthy, you don’t need supplements. But we think it’s much more complicated than that. First of all, nature didn’t make humans to properly absorb all nutrients for a long, healthy life. So, that’s a very important insight or nuance. Actually the human body is not very well designed to properly absorb nutrients. It’s a big problem, but for thousands of years, we actually have suffered with iron deficiency, because our bodies are not very good in absorbing iron.
Dr. Kris: If you compare it to a lot of other species or fish or plants, they are much better able to absorb iron from the environment. Iodine deficiency has been a problem for thousands and thousands of years. Actually until very recently still until governments decided to add iodine to bread and salt, which is not enough as we will explain, but it mitigated the most worst symptoms or diseases caused by iodine deficiency like children born with severe mental retardation because the mother was iodine deficient, but that doesn’t mean that the amounts that the government currently recommends are enough. So, we’ll talk about that later. So, just know that our body is not very well made to absorb all these nutrients, also because evolution and nature cannot think in the long term. So, it just wants it develops our bodies to stick around for a few decades to hunt and find food and reproduce.
Dr. Kris: But it doesn’t think in the long term, like what would be needed for optimal longevity and health, because in prehistoric times, people actually didn’t get the chance to become very old. So, that’s one of the reasons why our bodies are not very well designed to absorb all nutrients properly. A secondary reason is that our food today is very different compared to prehistoric times. So, it is our micronutrients for calorie rich Frankenstein foods. And they lack a lot of micronutrients. They lack a lot of vitamins and minerals. So, actually some things in prehistoric times, people did better. Like potassium intake was much higher than today and also intake probably of some other ingredients or micronutrients. But today our foods are often very micronutrient poor, and that’s another reason why supplementation is more important than ever. Also, we have a different lifestyle compared to prehistoric times in the sense that in prehistoric times there was much less stress.
Dr. Kris: Today we have much more stress. We live much more indoor, so we need more vitamin D. We smoke. We have allergies which need more B vitamins and magnesium. So, our current lifestyles there necessitate actually more micronutrients. Also, big problem is novel methods of agriculture lead to foods that contain much less micronutrients like the amounts of copper and magnesium in foods is much lower than even 50 years ago. So, that’s also a reason why supplementation is interesting. Another big problem is that official recommendations that most governments hand out, you need that amount of vitamin or that mineral per day. There are many cases too low. So, because the studies are based on are often outdated, old studies done in the 1960s or 50s, and they use very crude biomarkers to assess the minimum amount you would need of these micronutrient, not to become ill, but you need to measure that.
Dr. Kris: And it’s all often measured in a very crude way. So, these amounts that governments spread out or recommend are the minimum amount you would need not to become sick very quickly after a few weeks or a few months, but they don’t tell us a lot about the minimum amount you need for a very long healthy life. Take for example, vitamin B12, a lot of governments say you need 2.4 micrograms or four micrograms, depending on which country you live in as the minimum amount or the recommended amount you need for vitamin B12, four micrograms. But then we see in studies that you actually would need at least 20 micrograms per day to prevent double stem breaks much better of the DNA. And some people, for example, scientist study university of Oregon, especially if you get older, they speculate that people would need at least 50 micrograms of vitamin B12 per day for optimal health. Also, because when you get older, you absorb much less.
Dr. Kris: And that’s also something governments don’t take into account sufficiently. So, be skeptical about these recommendations because medical science is very young. It’s still very crude. And a lot of people think that all these values are written in stone and written in the stars and are perfectly calculated, but there is a lot that we cannot calculate very well in the medicine. So, be skeptical. And finally for the official recommendations, they also don’t look at what’s optimal for a long life for longevity. So, sometimes for longevity, you would need even higher amount. So, that was the first misconception. That if you eat healthy, you don’t need supplements. We don’t think so. Secondly, a lot of people say, I don’t need supplements because my blood test says I’m healthy. Well, we also have reservations about blood tests. We do a lot of blood tests ourselves to track our health and so on.
Dr. Kris: But we do think that blood tests have a lot of shortcomings in the sense they are not very good in measuring micronutrient deficiencies like vitamins, minerals, blood tests are very bad at that, actually. So, the tests are not very specific and sensitive, especially for measuring minerals in your blood. So, magnesium in your blood or potassium. It doesn’t tell a lot about intracellular amounts. Even if you measure it in the red blood cells, it doesn’t tell you a lot about the amounts you have intercellular spread throughout your cells in your whole body. So, that’s one big problem. Another problem is that a lot of these values are actually based on an already sick, deficient population. So, our governments or recommendations, they say you need that minimum amount. Why? Because that’s what everyone has in their blood, or that’s the average.
Dr. Kris: But if you have a population that’s vitamin D deficient already because people sit inside so often, the amounts of vitamin dally perhaps are not optimal. And we actually see that we see studies that if vitamin D levels are three times higher than what would be normal, according to your blood test, we see much better protection of cardiovascular disease and so on. Or that’s the amount of vitamin D we see in longevity zones or in zones where it’s much more sunlight and so on. And so another problem is that a lot of these blood values can fluctuate. So, if you measure TSH, for example, thyroid stimulating hormone, to assess your iodine deficiency or thyroid health, the problem is with TSH, it fluctuates a lot. So, in the morning can be much lower or higher than the evening. And also there’s a discussion actually, the TSH levels and they say it’s higher than four you have slow thyroid glands, but some scientists actually a lot of endocrinologists, they think it should be lower.
Dr. Kris: Should not be four, should be 2.4 or ideally even lower than two. So, much lower than what your blood test would consider as normal or optimal in this sense. So, just saying there is result of discussion and we think that these values only your blood test be skeptical also about them. Because as a medical doctor, I can say they are far from perfect. And all too often I hear people saying my blood test is normal. So, don’t I supplements. So, I’m healthy while they look unhealthy and they have increased risk of all kinds of diseases, despite having a perfectly normal blood test. So, we have to be also careful about those interpretations. So, what would be actually a solution for this? Well, a solution would be just to take all the micronutrients you need continuously to just make sure you’re not deficient. And that’s actually the best method. Just take all the micronutrients, eat a healthy diet, take on top of that supplements. And that’s the only real way to be certain you’re not micronutrient deficient.
Dr. Kris: And that leads us to a third misconception. A lot of people think that their supplements will actually work, but often it’s not really the case, unfortunately, because most food supplements are inadequate. Even for basic health. There are a lot of shortcomings with supplements and multivitamins, especially for example, the doses are way too low. A lot of multivitamins contain 50 milligrams of potassium or 80 milligrams, but you need 2,000 milligrams. Actually you need 4,700 milligrams of potassium per day. You can get some through your food, but even then, it’s not sufficient if you look at the average intake in Western societies. So, 50 milligrams, it’s almost nothing. Another big problem with most supplements is they use wrong forms of ingredients. They use magnesium oxide instead of magnesium malate or magnesium glycinate, which would be better forms. Magnesium oxide is actually a very bad form of magnesium or at least can be much better, because actually magnesium oxide was used as laxative.
Dr. Kris: So, it stays quite well in the gut that causes good irritation and so on. The same bit yeast, selenomethionine is often found in supplements to provide selenium. But actually we see that selenium yeast is probably better because selenium yeast contains multiple different forms of selenium than a selenomethionine. And because selenomethionine supplements only contain one form of selenium, which is selenomethionine. Another problem is that a lot of supplements contain synthetic vitamins. For example, for vitamin E they contain synthetic vitamin E or semi synthetic vitamin E, which is a problem, we’ll come back to that later. Vitamin E is a very complicated supplement actually, and they use wrong combinations. Like zinc and copper, they inhibit each other absorptions, so we have to dose them in the right proportions and the right amounts and most supplements don’t really do that. And a lot problem is that a lot of supplements only contain one form of a specific vitamin.
Dr. Kris: For vitamin E for example, we know in nature there exist eight different forms of vitamin E like alpha-tocopherol, Beta-tocopherol, Gamma-tocopherol, Alpha-tocopherol, et cetera. Most supplements only contain one form of vitamin E and is not ideal. And actually if you take these one form of vitamin E, you will inhibit absorption of the other forms of vitamin E that you would get through your food. So, anyway, so it’s, as you can see, supplementation is complicated and if you want to do it properly, it’s not easy. And that brings us to the fourth misconception and that’s that a lot of people think that taking a multi vitamin is easy, that it suffices. I just pop a multivitamin and I’m covered for the most basic micronutrients, but as we just discussed here, most multivitamins, the doses are too low, wrong form or wrong versions of vitamins and so on.
Dr. Kris: So, how can we mitigate this problem? Well, what we like to do is to use a multilayered approach. So, because it’s a three layered approach, actually, and the first layer would be to actually still take a multivitamin just to mainly cover your micronutrients, especially the nanonutrients, which are the ones you need in small amounts and of which of the doses in most supplements are okay. So, most supplements do contain sufficient amounts of manganese, molybdenum, chromium and so on. So, for that, you would take a multi vitamin and just to cover those micronutrients that are okay in the right doses found in supplements. But the problem as I highlighted with supplements is that most of them don’t contain high enough amounts or doses of different micronutrients. And for that you need a second layer. So, you need to take on top of your multivitamin, ideally individual bulk micronutrients that require much higher doses than found in multivitamins.
Dr. Kris: And these are things like magnesium, potassium as we just discussed there, but actually potion is layer three, as we will explain. Vitamin D. So, most supplements, vitamin D is way too low. It’s like 400 micrograms, but you need ideally 4,000 micrograms, or 5,000 micrograms. Magnesium is way too low in most supplements, 50 milligrams while we need hundreds of milligrams per day. Same for iodine, should ideally be much higher than found in most supplements. So, that’s a second layer. So, you would take these individual supplements separately on top of your multivitamin. And then there is a third layer. That means, yeah, you should ideally eat specific foods every day because to get some micronutrients that you can’t really find the supplements, at least not in the right form or dose and so on. So, in a classic example is vitamin E. As I explained, most supplements contain synthetic vitamin E and it’s just very difficult to find the proper vitamin E supplement.
Dr. Kris: So, just take it through food, through eating almonds and sunflower seats and so on. Same for potassium, it’s really impossible to put in higher enough doses in a multivitamin pill. So, take it through potassium salt. So, let’s, in the next slide, go a little bit deeper into all these layers. So, layer one, as I mentioned, it would be to take still a multivitamin, but knowing it’s far from perfect to just cover the basics, to cover your molybdenum, manganese and so on. And some good brands, this is not sponsored, but we get a lot of these questions from customers like, which are good multivitamin brands. You can find them on our website, but here things like Jarrow, Douglas Labs, NOW Foods, Doctor’s Best, these are good brands. And then always combine your multivitamin with separate bulk supplements.
Dr. Kris: And as second as layer two, as I explained. So, layer two, what are some examples of bulk micronutrients that are not found in high enough doses in a multi vitamin that you should take separately? Magnesium, very important for health, DNA repair, reducing DNA damage for metabolism, for heart health and so on, muscle health, you need 300 to 500 milligrams per day, ideally magnesium malate, or magnesium glycinate, not magnesium oxide. So, if you go to the pharmacist or to the drug store, most magnesium supplements besides being too low dosed, are magnesium oxide, which is the cheapest form of magnesium, but it’s not a good one. So, make sure you take magnesium malate or magnesium glycinate, because the malate and the glycinate also have shown to extend lifespan. And by the way, if you take NOVOS Core, then you don’t need to take extra magnesium malate, because it’s already insufficient amounts in NOVOS Core.
Dr. Kris: So, just if there are any people here taking Core, that they know this. Secondly, vitamin D, also very important for health and longevity, a lot of studies showing that higher vitamin D intakes and levels are associated with significant reduced mortality, but the problem is most multivitamins is way too low. And what governments recommend is also actually way too low. A lot of vitamin D experts say we need much more. And the one of the reasons why governments don’t recommend much more vitamin D intake is that everyone then would need to take vitamin D supplements. So, that’s one of their arguments like, yeah, that’s not good, because then everyone has to take these supplements. And, but yeah, I mean, that’s weird argument in my opinion, and actually a lot of endocrinologists and including the American Endocrinologist Society have been advocating for a very long time to consume much higher levels of vitamin D than what governments recommend.
Dr. Kris: Another important micronutrient you should take separately to have higher levels is vitamin K2. It’s very important for cardiovascular health to reduce calcification of the arteries for example, it also improves mitochondrial health. And it’s just very interesting nutrient. And ideally we take 180 to around 360 micrograms and so much higher than in most supplements. Then B vitamins also very important for metabolism, brain health and so on. There are a lot of studies showing that if you take different B vitamins, you have reduced brain shrinkage, but only on the condition you use at least enough B vitamins, not just one or two, because some studies just give vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 to study brain aging. And then it doesn’t work. Why? Of course, because you need many other B vitamins that work synergistically with those B vitamins. So, very weird that sometimes million dollar trials are run in such a bad way, but we do see in trials, if you use more B vitamins that we do see some reduced brain shrinkage and brain aging and so on.
Dr. Kris: So, that’s a B vitamin complex, which contains all B vitamins. Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, et cetera. And ideally you take it in amounts that’s a little bit higher, like a few times higher than what governments recommend. And recommended daily allowance, RDA. Phosphatidylcholine, it’s a bit of forgotten B vitamin, as I like to call it. It’s also very important for brain health, but also for longevity, for many reasons, it’s incorporated into the membranes in the brain. It’s needed for liver health too, metabolism. Actually we see a lot of fatty liver disease in the west. And one of the reasons is that we don’t consume enough choline or phosphatidylcholine. We seen a lot of studies that phosphatidylcholine can mitigate fatty liver disease significantly. Of course, we get fatty liver because of our unhealthy diet and that contains way too many carbs and animal proteins and unhealthy fats, but deficiency in Phosphatidylcholine could also play a role in the fat liver disease. And it’s also important for brain health and so on. So, it’s a very interesting often forgotten and ignored supplement or ingredient that you don’t find the most supplements unfortunately.
Dr. Kris: Then omega-3 fatty acids also very important. Recently was a study that showed significant reduction in cancer if people just did three simple things. We actually posted the study on our Instagram account, but one of the three things was consuming omega-3 fatty acids and other was consuming vitamin D and doing a little bit of exercise at home. And that led to significant reduction of cancer in elderly people about just doing these three simple things, but there are many other studies showing the importance of omega-3 fatty acids for our health. And ideally you take high enough dose like 1,500 milligrams. So, some studies use 300 milligrams of omega-3 and then they say, right, it doesn’t work. Yeah, of course not, because the dose is so low, you need at least 1,500 milligrams and the right form of omega-3. And that’s the next slide.
Dr. Kris: So, because it’s also complicated, omega-3 supplements, which form and so on. Then calcium often way to low dose, the supplements. So, ideally you take it separately. It’s very important you always combine calcium intake with vitamin D for absorption of calcium and vitamin K to make sure the calcium ends up in your bones and not in your blood vessel walls, where it could contribute to calcification. So, it’s very important to take high enough dose to take not too high dose of calcium, like 1,200 milligrams or more in one go, because then you have too high of a calcium peak in your blood, which can contribute to calcification. And to mitigate that, make sure you always take around 500 milligrams of calcium in one go, not 1,200 milligrams as has been some sometimes delivered in studies or given in studies. And combine it always with vitamin K, which is very important to make sure that the calcium ends up in your bones and your blood vessels, as I mentioned before.
Dr. Kris: Iodine also ingredient often and underestimated in supplements. It’s often not enough. So, ideally we see you need much higher doses of iodine to really feel an effect. So, we see that if people take eight times more iodine than what governments recommend, the iodine recommendation is 150 micrograms per day, but a lot of people take 150 micrograms per day, they don’t really feel an effect, but if they take around 1,000 micrograms of iodine per day, they feel a big effect. They have much more energy. They can think more clearly. They can remember their dreams much better. They have warm hands and warm feet finally after decades. So, we believe that the amount of iodine that governments recommend is too low. It’s just enough to prevent severe problems, as I mentioned before, like children born with cretinism and mental retardation or having other big problems, but is that high enough of a dose for an optimal long life?
Dr. Kris: And we believe the doses should be higher. And actually around 1,000 microgram per day is what we see in longevity zones like in Okinawa, they eat a lot of sea weed and the average intake is one, two milligram or 1,000 to 2,000 micrograms per day. So, it’s what some people eat regularly in Japan, for example. And then the other, let’s say table, these are things that often are still containing your supplement, but sometimes not. Like vitamin A, make sure it’s enough in your multivitamin that you don’t need to take it separately, like the other ones I just discussed. Copper, all the multivitamins do contain copper. So, probably you don’t have to take it extra, but make sure. Iron, some multivitamins do contain enough. If not take some extra, especially women who are much more prone or susceptible to iron deficiency. Sometimes it can help to take a little bit extra iron, like 50 milligrams extra on top of the other 50 milligrams, but don’t overdo iron, because too much iron can cause oxidation and so on, but too little is also not good.
Dr. Kris: And then finally zinc. Often multivitamins do contain zinc, if not, or not in high enough doses, do take it separately and make sure you always combine it with copper in the sense they need each other. Of course don’t combine it literally, because zinc can inhibit some of the absorption of copper and vice versa. But anyway, if you do it in the right ratio, then it’s quite okay. On average you need eight times more zinc than copper. So, this was the second layer. Now let’s quickly discuss one aspect of that. And then these are omega-3 fatty acid supplements. So, what we actually seen is that the omega-3 supplements it’s quite interesting science. So, we have two animal based forms of omega-3, DHA and APA. That’s what you probably all know, but there are also four important forms of omega-3 and that’s where it’s really gets interesting.
Dr. Kris: We have the triglycerides form of omega-3, which is often found in fish and in algae. So, it’s a triglycerides, as you can see below. So, it’s a triglycerol backbone with DHA, three DHA tails on it, for example. But then you have the ethyl-ester form, it’s more already processed omega-3 in the sense that it doesn’t have the triglycerol backbone, it has the individual, let’s say tails. And then you have the phospholipid form, which is found in Krill. And that’s also very interesting because the structure of that fat is a bit different and can also enable some additional health effects to its choline group and so on. And then you have the lysophosphatidylcholine forms of omega-3s. And they are mainly found in eggs of fish, like herring roe, lumpfish roe, salmon roe, caviar roe, or a little eggs of fish.
Dr. Kris: Everyone knows caviar of course, this is a roe from a specific fish called sturgeon, very expensive, but you have much cheaper caviar like fish eggs, like herring roe and lumpfish roe, you can buy them in most supermarkets. And they look like caviar, like herring roe or lumpfish roe. And they are very dense in lysophosphatidylcholine omega-3s. And these omega-3s can penetrate the brain much better. So, they have done studies in mice, for example, where they give triglyceride forms of DHA. And they don’t really see an improvement in brain health or cognition in these mice, but then they give the mice lysophosphatidylcholine form of omega-3s and they see that these omega-3s enter the brain of these mice brains much better. And these mice also perform cognitively much better compared to mice taking the triglyceride form of DHA.
Dr. Kris: So, it’s very interesting. And what I, actually to make a long story short, because I can talk for hours about omega-3s and design behind it. But to give you practical advice, ideally consume the triglyceride form of supplements, which is a more natural form. Based on discussion, triglyceride versus ethyl-ester, they don’t see a difference, but often it’s more nuanced. So, the triglyceride form, why do we recommend it? Because it’s a natural form. It’s as you eat it in fish. And perhaps the backbones are a bit interesting. In the end, if you absorb it, it’s processed in a way that you also create, you get rid of the backbones for … but anyway, we do think the triglyceride form is the most interesting one, ideally with also phospholipid omega-3s. And there are some brands that offered that. Again, this is not sponsored, but Nordic Naturals is one that offers triglyceride omega-3 and phospholipid omega-3 in one supplement, which is interesting.
Dr. Kris: Then combine this still with fish roe, because most supplements do not contain lysophosphatidylcholine. And ideally you take it with fish roe, because it contains so many other healthy substances. So, consume for breakfast four times per week, fish roe. You can put it on your toast or add it to other stuff. And it’s a great way to get those very brain penetrant omega-3s, which are very important for brain health, of course. And then still eat fatty fish four times per week. So, even despite taking supplements, do take two regularly consumed fatty fish, because in the fatty fish, there are also other substances like ferulic acids and so on, and many other healthy things. And fatty fish is a great alternative for meats and so on. So, still consume fatty fish regularly and combine it with fish roe and triglyceride from supplement based omega-3s.
Dr. Kris: So, we discussed layer two. Let’s quickly discuss layer three. So, it means specific foods, because to get specific ingredients, because so difficult to find all the micronutrients in sufficiently high doses in the proper form. So, vitamin E would main, as I mentioned, vitamin is often found in the synthetic form in supplements. It’s like tocopherol succinate, which is a very actually a proximate. So, it’s very weird that I use that form, but anyway, and so ideally try to get as much natural vitamin E as possible to eating sunflower seeds, which are very rich in vitamin E, hazelnuts and almonds. There are also vitamin E rich foods like avocado and green leafy vegetables, but still often they don’t do not contain enough vitamin E or you really have to a lot of them. Then, as I mentioned to get the lysophosphatidylcholine based omega-3s, consume fish roe.
Dr. Kris: And then finally, potassium also very important. Often underestimated as an electrolyte. We will soon publish an extensive blog post about potassium intake, but try to consume it through using potassium salt on top of your foods to get at least two grams of extra potassium per day, it’s very important for general health, nerve conduction. People who also taking more potassium often feel calmer. They have less ADD, et cetera. So, we think that potassium is very important. And we will publish a blog post, as I mentioned, soon about this. Alrighty, so there’s a lot of information, so you can find concrete advice, sorry, in this regard. So, I think, I don’t know whether you still can see my presentation or not.
Dr. Kris: I think it got lost, my presentation. So, let’s quickly delve it up again. So, I’m going to share my screen again. A moment please. Okay. So, okay. I’m going to just skip through our slides. My apologies. I just hit my mouse and a lot of things went wrong, but here is the slide we were at. So, to summarize this, and you can also find this on our website, this is a concrete example of how to take your supplements and how to combine them and to take those supplements on top of specific foods to increase your vitamin E intake on top of potassium chloride based salt and fish roe and so on. And combine these always with a healthy diet, a healthy longevity diets. As we explain also on our website, you can find a NOVOS longevity diet and you can also download a poster and it can explain to you in very quickly, it’s in one glance you can see how to replace unhealthy foods with healthier alternatives.
Dr. Kris: And then finally, very quickly to end the presentation, because we have to be mindful of our time, a quick word about lifespan supplements. So, longevity supplements. So, we just talked mainly about micronutrients, but actually giving extra micronutrients doesn’t really extend lifespan. If you’re deficient in them, can shorten lifespan. So, it’s still important to take longevity supplements on top of that. Longevity supplements very quickly some examples. These are things like alpha ketoglutarate. This is a molecule that occurs naturally in your body, but amounts declines during aging. And it’s important for all kinds of aspects for mitochondrial health, collagen production, epigenome maintenance and studies show that if you give animals AKG, they live longer in different species. It can also reduce hair graying, hair loss in mice and can improve epigenome mitochondrial health and so on.
Dr. Kris: And AKG is a very interesting longevity molecule with a lot of science behind it. For example, below you see two graphs, the one on your left is C elegans. So, little worms given AKG they live significantly longer. So, it’s are the red lines compared to the control group that doesn’t get AKG. And on the right, you see a graph in a study done in mice, for example, where mice when given AKG lived longer. And also interestingly, various held biomarkers also improve in these mics, especially for example, loss of fur color. We see in these mice that their fur stays black longer, so hair graying is reduced and boldness is also reduced. So, very interesting supplement. Another example is Fisetin, Fisetin has also shown to extent lifespan in multiple species in multiple studies. Can improve cognition and memory, and it impacts longevity or aging in various ways.
Dr. Kris: It can reduce cellular senescence, especially in higher doses. In lower doses, and we find that actually the most important aspects, not in senolytic activity, but in lower doses can reduce inflammation. And we see that Fisetin has interesting senotherapeutic activity in mice and the human tissues and that administration of Fisetin can restore tissue homeostasis, aging related pathology and extend both medium and very importantly, maximum lifespan. So, very interesting ingredient. So, found in strawberries and in nature, but in these studies, larger amounts are of course provided to enable these effects. Quick word about glycine. Another example of longevity supplement, can increase lifespan. Has various health benefits, including in humans. And has epigenetic effects among many others. So, they have done also clinical trials with glycine to improve blood sugar levels and so on. Very interesting substance. And it’s an interesting, let’s say amino acid. As I mentioned, it occur especially in our body too, but during aging, levels decline.
Dr. Kris: And actually we see that low glycine levels in the blood are correlated with higher risk of heart disease and mortality. And we see if you give animals glycine, they live a little bit longer, there are studies showing bigger effects than here, but we do know that glycine has various health benefits in animals and in humans, including improving epigenetics, especially on the mitochondrial DNA, for example. And then another example is a substance called glucosamine, which is very well known for improving joints, but not a lot of people know it can also extend lifespan and act on aging and via various ways. And then just providing healthy joints. So, it can improve mitochondrial biogenesis. So, more mitochondrial are created and can induce autophagy, which is the maintenance of the cells that digestion of cellular waste that otherwise accumulates during aging. And we see actually humans that one of the very little supplements associated with reduced mortality is glucosamine.
Dr. Kris: So, when scientists looked at dozens of supplements, the mainly found only glucosamine was one of the very few supplements that were strongly associated with reduction in mortality in humans, and also reduction in heart disease in humans. So, that’s very interesting and we know if you give it to animals, then we see that these animals live longer. For example, this is a study done in mice where mice are given glucosamine and we also see some lifespan effects. And it’s also a very well known supplement taking already for a very long time to improve joint health. But it’s much more interesting in many ways. So, a quick overview of those longevity supplements. We just touched on a few of them. All of them are contained in NOVOS Core. We don’t talk about these supplements because they are in NOVOS Core. We put them in NOVOS Core because they’re so interesting and they have so much science behind them. And we believe these are some of the most interesting longevity supplements with the most science behind them.
Dr. Kris: And by this, I will end, I will just one minute very quickly talk about supplements for skin health. It’s very easy actually, because a lot of supplements that are healthy for skin are also good for longevity like glucosamine sulfate. We just discussed this. Glycine, AKG. They do not only extend lifespan, but act on fundamental aging processes, but they are also interestingly, they can also improve skin health and reduce wrinkles and so on. You have hyaluronic acids, which also reduces wrinkles, even if you take it orally, as you can see the study below. You can see the wrinkle surface area. So, it declines when hyaluronic acid is given orally. And collagen also can reduce wrinkles when taken orally, because it’s broken down in individual pieces and these pieces still end up in the bloodstream. And make sure you take brands, or let’s say, if you take collagen to reduce wrinkles, make sure you use collagen that buys its collagen from a reputable manufacturer like VERISOL or Peptone, which are manufacturers of collagen that have done a lot of scientific studies.
Dr. Kris: And so that way that the collagen is very high quality and so on. And also besides this longevity supplements for skin health, there are also, let’s say other micronutrients, health supplements that are good for skin health, but all of them we discussed earlier. So, these are things you need to take anyway, but these are some examples of some supplements that are needed or that can really contribute for proper skin health. And by this, I would like to end this presentation. We unfortunately, due to a lack of time, we will skip the hair graying part, but there is a blog post or an extensive article on how to mitigate hair graying or slow it down on our blog. But very quickly conclusion. And ideally we take both supplements and for a healthy diet, it’s not one or the other.
Dr. Kris: Even if you eat healthy, you still need supplements, as we explained. Supplements are very complex. It’s not probably thought of medical school. So, most doctors are not very well versed in it. And people are on their own unfortunately. Government recommendation are often outdated and based on crude sites. So, they don’t really tell us much about ideal amounts for a long, healthy life. A multivitamin, as we have seen, does not really suffice. Doses are too low, wrong forms and so on. So, therefore a multi layered approach is ideal. And by this, I would like to end our presentation about health supplements and longevity supplements. And hopefully this was useful for you to see what are the best ways to take those two kinds of supplements for optimal health and longevity. Thank you for your patience and attention. And I hand it over to you. If you have any questions, we would be happy to answer them.
Grace: Wow. Thank you for that wonderful presentation. It was very insightful. I know I have a bunch of questions. We also have a bunch of questions in the chat. Before we get started on those, I wanted to remind everyone that you can up upvote your favorite questions, and that will help guide us in which questions to answer first. So, the first question that we have Dr. Verburgh, is, “Can you please address the lithium and magnesium levels? Is it safe to take every day?”
Dr. Kris: Yeah. Regarding magnesium, we need quite high amounts, ideally like 300, 400, 500 milligrams per day. It’s very difficult to get those amounts, even if you eat very healthy, you really have to eat a lot of nuts and green leafy vegetables and beans, et cetera, to really get so much magnesium. So, therefore eating a healthy diet containing, these foods I just described, and taking a supplement on top of that with extra magnesium is interesting. And there have been done a lot of trials showing that if people take extra magnesium also supplement on top of their food, they have less DNA damage. They have a better metabolism and so on. So, it’s very interesting mineral and most people in the west, some studies say 70% or 75% of people are deficient in magnesium intake. So, it’s very important. Then about lithium, we talk about microdose lithium. So, there are a lot of studies showing that microdose lithium can extend lifespan, slow down aging, has neuroprotective effects.
Dr. Kris: We see in regions where there is more lithium in the drinking water there is less mortality and less suicide and so on. Magnesium is used in medical practice in very high doses to mitigate bipolar disorder. But then we speak of doses that are 120 times higher than what we have in NOVOS. It’s called microdose lithium. And that’s a whole other, let’s say, thing than the lithium that’s provided in clinical trials. But even there, we also see that people taking these high doses of lithium in a medication setting do have less Alzheimer’s disease and so on, but even very interestingly too, low dose, the microdose of lithium can improve brain aging and slow down aging in general, there have been done clinical trials in humans with microdose lithium, and they do see that it can slow down progress of Alzheimer’s disease and so on. On condition, of course you take it long enough. So, six months, ideally longer. And then we see clinical trials effects on brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. So, I hope that explains that question a little bit.
Grace: Thanks for sharing. That was very insightful. We have a question in the chat that says Dr. Verburgh opened with this, “The study into nutrients to fight aging is very new, young and crude, yet he now advertises all these new micronutrients and additional intake of minerals. My question is how can you, Dr. Verburgh and NOVOS, be sure? If it works in mice and various species, how can we be sure it works in the long run for homo sapiens?”
Dr. Kris: Yeah, that was a great question. First about the health supplements like magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K, there are a lot of trials done in humans. They’re showing that vitamin D intake can mitigate the risk of specific diseases. And so on. Same for magnesium, as I just explained. We all know that vitamins and minerals when delivered in proper doses and forms can enable health effects. And that’s why governments recommend them, whether it’s in the right doses, that’s another thing, but they really recommend to make sure you take these vitamins and minerals sufficiently through healthy foods. And if that’s not possible through supplements, we think given foods are so the void of all these micronutrients or even if you eat healthy, you don’t get high enough amounts, as we just explained. And that’s why we would say that supplementation is very recommended. And then about longevity supplements.
Dr. Kris: Well, it’s just a lot of those supplements have already very interesting data behind them. And they’re also very safe. Like glucosamine has been taken already for many, many decades and we don’t see severe side effects. So, these are super safe ingredients or supplements. So, actually the trade off is very beneficial. You can take these specific health supplements with very little risk of side effects that are very safe and then have been tried and also been taken already for a long time in humans while you can have the benefit that it can extend your lifespan and so on. And we do see, for example, so we have actually a whole article on why we picked those ingredients and our scientific rationale behind them.
Dr. Kris: And so we look at ingredients that can extend lifespan in multiple species, that have been known to have health effects in humans, that are known to be taken for decades in humans like glucosamine or alpha ketoglutarate, glycine, these supplements all around for a very long time. So, we also know they are very safe and we also base ourselves on studies. They’re showing that they can mitigate hallmarks of aging or that they have been associated to be reduced mortality in humans. Like I mentioned, glucosamine, there have been done studies in us and in Europe showing that it’s one of the very little supplements associated with reduced mortality or cardiovascular diseases in humans. So, these are a few reasons why we believe that these are very promising and interesting ingredients for longevity and optimal health.
Grace: That was a great question paired with a great answer. Thank you, Dr. Verburgh. We have a question about hair. The question is, “I’m wondering if you have any updates with respect to supplements to combat hair loss, in particular, what do you make of these studies on pumpkin seed oil as a supplement or topical? Would simply eating pumpkin seeds be promoting, be a promising strategy? Thank you.”
Dr. Kris: No, for hair loss, I think we should do also a whole webinar about that, about hair loss and hair graying and so on. It’s very interesting. So, we saw by the way that in these mice studies that alpha ketoglutarate, calcium alpha ketoglutarate by the way it was used in the studies, not just a plain normal alpha ketoglutarate, because various reasons for that. But we saw in studies that calcium alpha ketoglutarate also reduce hair loss in mice and also hair graying mice. So, AKG could be an interesting supplement. We have also an article on hair loss on our blog. We do see that sometimes her loss is induced by two things, actually. So, if you eat a lot of animal protein that stimulates a lot of pro aging pathways like mTOR, EGF and I insulin pathways and so on, that you can accelerate hair loss.
Dr. Kris: And that’s often why we see that body builders or these people that follow paleo diets or diets with a lot of animal protein actually are bold. So, they have bald head. And it’s because they overstimulate these pro aging pathways that lead to stem cell decline in the follicles that generate hair growth. And also they have often more testosterone and so on, which also accelerates aging by the way, too much testosterone, but also leads to hair loss, especially the hetero testosterone. And the other group that often has to deal with hair loss are people that are deficient in micronutrients, especially vegetarians. So, I often see vegetarians that lose their hair because yeah, they are deficient in micronutrients that are needed for proper hair maintenance, like iron, omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, copper, et cetera. And they think, well, I take a vitamin B12 supplement, so I’m good as a vegetarian, but as we have seen, it’s very complicated and you really have to make sure you dose properly and then so on.
Dr. Kris: So, there’s a second group. And so it’s very funny because the people who eat a lot of meat, they say, yeah, you get bald because you’re a vegetarian and the vegetarians, they say, oh yeah, you get bald because you eat too much meat. And they’re both right. You know, so anyway. So, I think food is very important to follow longevity diets that doesn’t contain too much, but also not too little proteins that also delivers all the micronutrients you need. And that can slow down baldness. There is of course a genetic component. Sometimes they say it runs in the family, but perhaps also because of father eats unhealthy. So, he became bald very soon, very quickly. And then the son also, because the parents and you inherit your food pattern from your parents. So, that’s a lot of discussion, but I think longevity diet can be interesting and making sure you have all your micronutrients. And then there are simple things, like Minoxidil, it’s something you can put on your head that induces hair growth a little bit, but it’s quite expensive actually.
Dr. Kris: But we do see that caffeine, so solutions with caffeine on your hair can also improve follicle growth. But you have to do it regularly. Twice per day for at least six months to start to see an effect. So, a lot of people, they put a bit of Minoxidil or caffeine solution on their head and after a month or two, they don’t see any difference. Well, the follicle turnover is very slow, so you have to do it like at least six months to a year to start to see potential effect. But it’s also not magic bullets, but these are something that can mitigate, but let’s do also another webinar about this, including skin health and so on.
Grace: Great. Thanks for sharing. We’re just about to wrap up. I think we have time for two more questions, if that’s all right with Dr. Verburgh.
Dr. Kris: Definitely.
Grace: Great. The question is, “In your opinion, how does NOVOS and Boost stack up against Dr. David Sinclair’s updated longevity supplement routine? In addition, has Dr. David Sinclair recommended NOVOS or commented about NOVOS publicly?”
Dr. Kris: Yeah. Great question. So, David Sinclair is someone we follow closely. He’s a Harvard professor that’s very well known for research into aging, especially sirtuin NAD metabolism. We do follow a lot of other interesting aging and longevity professors, of course, but he’s very well known. He also has written a book called Lifespan, and it’s an interesting book. By the way, we have an article also on our website, listing the best longevity books and his book is one of those. But yeah, a lot of supplements that David Sinclair takes are also found in NOVOS. So far he takes Fisetin, at least if we go on his latest blog interviews, that’s something we put in NOVOS, but that’s also something he takes. So, then we discuss it during this presentation, that’s Fisetin, he recommends taking Resveratrol.
Dr. Kris: We use pterostilbene, which is very similar to Resveratrol, but we think that pterostilbene is more interesting than Resveratrol, because it’s better absorbed and it’s more stable in the body. And yeah, he also takes NMN, not NR by the way. So, whole discussion NMN versus NR, but he takes NMN. And we agree with that. We think also that NMN is more interesting than NR very likely because of the extra phosphate group on it. But yeah, a lot of ingredients in NOVOS are ingredients that David Sinclair also takes or would recommend in that regard. Regarding the last part of your question, has he public endorsed NOVOS, not to our knowledge, but he definitely has endorsed some ingredients in NOVOS, that’s for sure. And he takes them himself.
Grace: Great. Thank you for sharing. All right. For our last question, we have a question about fertility and it is, “Is there any information on the effectiveness of NMN and NOVOS in preserving female fertility or any other longevity intervention?”
Dr. Kris: Yeah. There are studies showing that NMN can improve fertility in animals. So, there was a study in cell, I believe, not too long ago that showed that NMN can improve fertility in old mice. They are also tested in other animals like horses, so old horses when they get NMN delivered orally, by the way, so not sublingually or intravenously or intracorporealy, but orally it also improved significantly the fertility in these old horses, because the NMN can epigenetically reprogram somewhat or stabilize the epigenome and the DNA. And it’s very interesting when we get older NAD levels decline and you need NMN to increase those NAD levels. And so there are definitely studies showing fertility effects in old animals, in different species, which very highly suggested also will work for humans. And actually there are some case studies, even professor David Sinclair wrote in his book that a woman who passed menopause, who started to take NMN started to ovulate again.
Dr. Kris: So, she became fertile again, which is actually quite remarkable. And very interesting because oversight, so the egg cells, they are very prone to aging, so they’re very fast aging tissues and they are very stem cell like by the way. They’re one oilcide when fertilized can create a whole human being consisting of 40,000 billion cells, which is absolutely amazing. So, the DNA and epigenome needs to be maintained very well. And it’s interesting that supplement like NMN can have these effects. So, there are definitely studies demonstrating an impact of NMN on fertility.
Grace: Great. Thanks for sharing. I’m going to quickly answer a question about the availability of this presentation. We are recording this webinar and it will be available at a later date to view. And that’s all we have time for today. Before we sign off I wanted to let you know that you can ask us questions anytime. We have a link in our Instagram bio called ask NOVOS anything. I’m actually going to drop the link in the chat here right now. And at this link you can ask us any longevity, biohacking, health, wellness, and fitness related questions. We’ll do our best to answer these questions during events like today across social media, email and more. So, if your question wasn’t answered today, it would be a great idea to go to that link and drop your question in there and we will try to get to it at a later date. I’m also going to add the link to our blog in the chat.
Dr. Kris: Great. Wonderful. So, everyone, thank you for your attention and thank you for the great questions. And we look definitely forwards to seeing you during another webinar. We really enjoy doing those and we are happy to spread the knowledge about longevity health. So, I just want to personally also thank you. And also many thanks for our great host.
Grace: Thank you very much. And I just added the blog in the chat. If you want to learn more about how to live younger for longer, we have over a hundred articles with scientific references, covering all topics of longevity. So, that is a great resource to look at. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to seeing you or having you at more events like this in the future. Bye.
