214 replies to this topic

[neogenic]

The latest update I found on this is here

http://www.mfoundati...hread.php?t=715

I'm still taking it. Still no noticeable effects, etc.

Good to see this thread come back around. I really was interested in this supplement and its potential. It sounds a bit disappointing feedback-wise though. Still if there are any other members out there that have played with it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Forever21]

I started taking it.

[curious_sle]

Hm, not much news on this lately... and it still is fairly expensive at arround 48us$ per month... anyone got a cheaper price somewhere?

[tintinet]

Hm, not much news on this lately... and it still is fairly expensive at arround 48us$ per month... anyone got a cheaper price somewhere?

Cureself works out to about $42 U.S./month- 'bout the cheapest I've found.

Edited by tintinet, 20 August 2008 - 01:22 AM.

[neogenic]

Any more updates on this? Anyone ever dose higher than 1 cap?

[Forever21]

I stopped taking this.

In fact, I stopped taking supplements.

[pycnogenol]

In fact, I stopped taking supplements.

Hi,

I'm curious. Why did you stop taking supplements?

[tintinet]

I stopped taking it too, albeit accidentally. I just forgot to re-order it. But I'm also frequently tempted to stop taking any supplements.

Reasons why:

1. It's a chore.

2. It's expensive.

3. Frequently, the benefits are speculative at best.

4. Intermittently, I people inquire about why I take 'em and I feel compelled to explain my reasoning (another chore.)

[pycnogenol]

I stopped taking it too, albeit accidentally. I just forgot to re-order it. But I'm also frequently tempted to stop taking any supplements.

Reasons why:

1. It's a chore.

2. It's expensive.

3. Frequently, the benefits are speculative at best.

4. Intermittently, people inquire about why I take 'em and I feel compelled to explain my reasoning (another chore.)

Totally understand. I can especially relate to reasons 1 and 2.

Edited by pycnogenol, 19 February 2009 - 02:00 AM.

[tlm884]

So basically we can just take 100mg of malic acid and 100mg of vitamin C and get the EXACT same effect that we would expect from BenaGene?

EDIT: Sorry, Malic acid forms 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid in vivo. So it would probably take more then 100mg of malic acid to form 100mg of 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid. But it would be the same principle

Edited by tlm884, 19 February 2009 - 02:38 AM.

[AgeVivo]

NIA begins Aging "Intervention" testing with benaGene
http://www.nia.nih.g...tingProgram.htm (...)Let's see what comes from it.

When should we have results? Benagene is also under consideration for the MPrize @ home

[curious_sle]

So basically we can just take 100mg of malic acid and 100mg of vitamin C and get the EXACT same effect that we would expect from BenaGene?

EDIT: Sorry, Malic acid forms 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid in vivo. So it would probably take more then 100mg of malic acid to form 100mg of 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid. But it would be the same principle

just in case it has gone unnoticed... AOR has a new Benagene based product that is alot more affordable and combines a lot more punch. I have noticed it just recently at my regular AOR provider... :-) (may i mention it's name? um its Relentless Improvement)

Edited by curious_sle, 03 May 2009 - 02:25 PM.

[nameless]

So basically we can just take 100mg of malic acid and 100mg of vitamin C and get the EXACT same effect that we would expect from BenaGene?

EDIT: Sorry, Malic acid forms 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid in vivo. So it would probably take more then 100mg of malic acid to form 100mg of 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid. But it would be the same principle

One or two apples + 100mg C (from diet or supplement) would be equivalent, wouldn't it?

[Gerald W. Gaston]

So basically we can just take 100mg of malic acid and 100mg of vitamin C and get the EXACT same effect that we would expect from BenaGene?

EDIT: Sorry, Malic acid forms 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid in vivo. So it would probably take more then 100mg of malic acid to form 100mg of 3-carboxy-3-oxopropanoic acid. But it would be the same principle

For early morning lat muscle pain I have been taking Swanson's Malic Acid Complex, plus 500mg Vitamin C, and one cap of their Ultra COX-2 Combo. It would be nice if some of the supposed benefits of Benegene were had in the process too...

But check out Edward and Alan's comments in a Imminst post here 2 years ago:

Malic Acid?, Cheap Benagene Alternative?

[AgeVivo]

just in case it has gone unnoticed... AOR has a new Benagene based product that is alot more affordable

what is the name/content and is it stable in water? has it been tested on lifespans?

[Gerald W. Gaston]

what is the name/content ...

I'm sure curious_sle will reply with which AOR product he was referring to... but just to point out AOR products I know about with benaGene:

AOR benaGene
AOR Ortho Glucose II

and possibly the one he was referring to... though it isn't cheaper as even though there are 180 caps per bottle, you would need 6 of them for equiv dose of benaGene:

AOR Mito-Charger (writeup at RI as I don't see it on AOR's site)

Edited by frankbuzin, 03 May 2009 - 08:27 PM.

[curious_sle]

AOR Mito-Charger (writeup at RI as I don't see it on AOR's site)

Mito-Charger it is. Shure it is notless expensive but it has lots of other ingredients for the same prize.

R(+)-Lipoic Acid 150 mg
Co-Enzyme Q10 100 mg
Rhodiola Rosea (min 3% rosavins, 1% salidroside) 150 mg
Benfotiamine 150 mg
Oxaloacetic acid (Benagene ®)100 mg
D-Uridine 50 mg
Gymnostemma Pentaphyllum Extract 100 mg
Acetyl-L-Carnitine 1500 mg

sounds a lot nicer for the same prize then 100mg benagene with 100mg vitamin c, no? Maybe my math is off though :-).

[kilgoretrout]

The latest update I found on this is here

http://www.mfoundati...hread.php?t=715

I'm still taking it. Still no noticeable effects, etc.

Gee I wonder why? Obviously this tool acar is just a huckster out of the marketing department, whose job is to push their worthless $60/month ripoff powder to as many wide-eyed rubes as he possibly can. His entire discussion with this group is nothing more than a marketing strategy. Look, if they can cleverly convince 10 or 20 thousand extra people in various groups around the web to start buying this snake oil, times $60, times 12 months a year.. that is enough extra yearly corporate revenue to buy that new boat the president had had his eye on.

Vendors ought to NEVER be allowed to participate in discussions in the same areas & forums as real regular members in groups like this. It ALWAYS ALWAYS leads to SHILLING.

Criminey.

[Gerald W. Gaston]

...sounds a lot nicer for the same prize then 100mg benagene with 100mg vitamin c, no? Maybe my math is off though :-)

As I reviewed the PDF before posting the link... I knew the contents. I simply stated it wasn't cheaper for the amount of benaGene in it... the rest of the contents may be nice or synergistic but that was not the issue. As you stated:

...AOR has a new Benagene based product that is alot more affordable

It is only more affordable if you were already taking, or planning to take, those other ingredients.


Of course no big deal and I'm not trying to knit-pick really, just wanted to make sure people didn't think there was now some insanely cheap benaGene product.

If I was going to try it again, I would likely do the Mito-Charger or the Ortho Glucose II... but then those would leave you wondering what (if anything) benaGene was bringing to the product.

Edited by frankbuzin, 05 May 2009 - 10:26 PM.

[VespeneGas]

Gee I wonder why? Obviously this tool acar is just a huckster out of the marketing department, whose job is to push their worthless $60/month ripoff powder to as many wide-eyed rubes as he possibly can. His entire discussion with this group is nothing more than a marketing strategy. Look, if they can cleverly convince 10 or 20 thousand extra people in various groups around the web to start buying this snake oil, times $60, times 12 months a year.. that is enough extra yearly corporate revenue to buy that new boat the president had had his eye on.

Vendors ought to NEVER be allowed to participate in discussions in the same areas & forums as real regular members in groups like this. It ALWAYS ALWAYS leads to SHILLING.

Criminey.

People on these boards are generally well informed, and if they care about their health, they will independently investigate the claims vendors make on these boards. If people take a supplement or drug without doing their homework, they are solely accountable for the consequences. A fool and their money are soon parted, as they saying goes. Furthermore, do you have some proof that Benagene doesn't do what it purports to do? If not, I fear your argument lacks any semblance of a foundation.

Anthony has been a positive presence on these boards for some time, working with members to bring quality products to the market. There's no reason this isn't possible for any vendor. Of course I don't like dishonest viral marketing and lies, but if the vendor is honest about who they are and honest about their product, I see no problem.

[AgeVivo]

NIA begins Aging "Intervention" testing with benaGene
http://www.nia.nih.g...tingProgram.htm (...)Let's see what comes from it.

When should we have results? Benagene is also under consideration for the MPrize @ home

We discussed with Alan Cash, if we want to test it that Terra Biological LLC may agree to provide the OOA chow and control chow for Mprize @ home. Nice, isn t it?
The ITP is currently testing OOA, we might want to wait for typically a year to test benaGene

[TianZi]

So the vendors who disguise their identities are better then, eh? For all you know, I am a vendor. This guy clearly stated his identity, and presented the pro's and con's of his product honestly. His posts were more useful than the non-vendor OP's breathless original.

That said, I'm waiting for the published 3rd party peer reviewed studies.

[acash]

Hello,

I have an update on this topic based on research out of UCLA and UCSD. We are publishing some of our work entitled "Oxaloacetate supplementation increases lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans through an AMPK/FOXO-dependent pathway" in the Journal "Aging Cell". The nutritional supplement "benaGene" is composed of thermally stabilized oxaloacetic acid (oxaloacetate in water) and Vitamin C.

The manuscript has been through peer-review and accepted, but has not yet been formatted for publication, so is currently in "manuscript" form.

The paper documents a 25% increase in lifespan with oxaloacetate supplementation, and strongly suggests that longevity due to oxaloacetate is caused by similar molecular pathways as are required for calorie restriction.

We will be having two other papers published in the next month or so that expands more on this research, I will post the links to the papers when they are available on-line.

Thank you for your interest in benaGene, and your patience while we worked through the molecular activation pathways.

Alan Cash

[AgeVivo]

Hello,

I have an update on this topic based on research out of UCLA and UCSD. We are publishing some of our work entitled "Oxaloacetate supplementation increases lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans through an AMPK/FOXO-dependent pathway" in the Journal "Aging Cell". The nutritional supplement "benaGene" is composed of thermally stabilized oxaloacetic acid (oxaloacetate in water) and Vitamin C.

The manuscript has been through peer-review and accepted, but has not yet been formatted for publication, so is currently in "manuscript" form.

The paper documents a 25% increase in lifespan with oxaloacetate supplementation, and strongly suggests that longevity due to oxaloacetate is caused by similar molecular pathways as are required for calorie restriction.

We will be having two other papers published in the next month or so that expands more on this research, I will post the links to the papers when they are available on-line.

Thank you for your interest in benaGene, and your patience while we worked through the molecular activation pathways.

Alan Cash

I haven't read it yet but bravo for the good work! I wish there was an army of labs to test benagene in mice and lots of other compounds right now. Testing whether things *do* extend lifespan is the right way to go.

[acash]

Hi,

An additional update on benaGene. We have another paper that was just published in "Open Longevity Science". One of the nice things about open journals is that you can all access the articles on-line for free. It's one of the reasons we chose this publication for our work.

The article is "Oxaloacetic Acid Supplementation as a Mimic of Calorie Restriction." In the article, we review not only our previously published work, but also the work of many other researchers that document oxaloacetate supplementation to reduce fasting glucose levels, it's action as a powerful antioxidant, protection of mitochondrial DNA (a big plus), and protection of eye, brain and pancreas tissues. There is also in-vitro evidence that very small amounts of oxaloacetate builds intracellular "junk" within human lung cancer cells which prevents them from reproducing, even after the oxaloacetate is removed from the cells. Normal cells continue to divide normally with oxaloacetate. We further provide a case study of a 73 year old diabetic woman who reduced and stabilized her glucose levels by taking oxaloacetic acid. In 75 days she reduced her fasting glucose levels by 24%, reduced her insulin resistance by 34%, and reduced the amplitude of her glucose "swings" by 55%. Persons with normal glucose functioning will see an increase in glucose uptake by the muscle tissue, and only a small drop in fasting glucose levels (fyi, mine was about 8%). Fasting glucose levels tend to stabilize even in persons with normal glucose functioning. The information all points to the use of oxaloacetic acid as a calorie restriction mimetic.

Enjoy the read. You can down-load this journal article by going to http://www.bentham.o...openaccess2.htm and clicking on "Hot Topic: Calorie Restriction Mimetics. You may want to read all the articles in this special issue, our article can be downloaded on this page.

Thank you for your continued interest in benaGene and oxaloacetic acid supplementation.

Sincerely,

Alan Cash
www.benaGene.org

[tunt01]

from Dec. edition of Aging Cell.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19793063

Oxaloacetate supplementation increases lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans through an AMPK/FOXO-dependent pathway.
Williams DS, Cash A, Hamadani L, Diemer T.

Departments of Pharmacology and Neurosciences, UCSD School of Medicine, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92130, USA. dswilliams@ucla.edu
Reduced dietary intake increases lifespan in a wide variety of organisms. It also retards disease progression. We tested whether dietary supplementation of citric acid cycle metabolites could mimic this lifespan effect. We report that oxaloacetate supplementation increased lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans. The increase was dependent on the transcription factor, FOXO/DAF-16, and the energy sensor, AMP-activated protein kinase, indicating involvement of a pathway that is also required for lifespan extension through dietary restriction. These results demonstrate that supplementation of the citric acid cycle metabolite, oxaloacetate, influences a longevity pathway, and suggest a tractable means of introducing the health-related benefits of dietary restriction.


nothing specific, but maybe Alan will drop by and enlighten us more.

[aikikai]

I drink apple cider vinegar daily to get malic acid, which is a far cheaper alternative than BenaGene

[acash]

I drink apple cider vinegar daily to get malic acid, which is a far cheaper alternative than BenaGene

While vinegar is less expensive, and has been shown to have many benefits, the key is not malate, but the conversion of oxaloacetate into malate. This is because during the reaction, NADH turns into NAD+, thereby increasing the critical NAD+/NADH ratio.

Oxaloacetate + NADH = Malate + NAD+ The reaction is highly favorable to the right. Increasing the NAD+/NADH ratio is the signaling event to turn on the genes associated with DNA repair and cellular repair. This has been shown in several studies now, where increasing precursors to NAD or the NAD salvage pathway increases cellular and animal lifespan. Essentially your body has a choice: A) when energy is apparently abundant (NADH levels high), genes are turned on to help create and store fatty acids (just in case there is a shortage later), or B) when energy is low (NAD+ is High, such as in the calorie restricted state, or in the mimicked state), the genes are turned on to increase longevity, so as to get to the otherside of the food shortage . The sensor for the NAD+/NADH ratio level is AMPK. Animals that can get to the other side of a food shortage and reproduce are still here, whereas the animals that did not have this ability are extinct...... We can take advantage of this evolutionary response to the food supply variations to upregulate these same repair mechanisms, rather than storing more fat (I have stored enough, thank you very much). See the cartoon below:

Edited by acash, 02 December 2009 - 02:48 PM.

[neogenic]

I drink apple cider vinegar daily to get malic acid, which is a far cheaper alternative than BenaGene

While vinegar is less expensive, and has been shown to have many benefits, the key is not malate, but the conversion of oxaloacetate into malate. This is because during the reaction, NADH turns into NAD+, thereby increasing the critical NAD+/NADH ratio.

Oxaloacetate + NADH = Malate + NAD+ The reaction is highly favorable to the right. Increasing the NAD+/NADH ratio is the signaling event to turn on the genes associated with DNA repair and cellular repair. This has been shown in several studies now, where increasing precursors to NAD or the NAD salvage pathway increases cellular and animal lifespan. Essentially your body has a choice: A) when energy is apparently abundant (NADH levels high), genes are turned on to help create and store fatty acids (just in case there is a shortage later), or B) when energy is low (NAD+ is High, such as in the calorie restricted state, or in the mimicked state), the genes are turned on to increase longevity, so as to get to the otherside of the food shortage . The sensor for the NAD+/NADH ratio level is AMPK. Animals that can get to the other side of a food shortage and reproduce are still here, whereas the animals that did not have this ability are extinct...... We can take advantage of this evolutionary response to the food supply variations to upregulate these same repair mechanisms, rather than storing more fat (I have stored enough, thank you very much). See the cartoon below:

If that's the case, taking malic acid would reduce conversion due to substrate (MA) being increased exogenously, unless you outpace it with OA exogenously...I would assume.

[acash]

Dr. Stephen Spindler (University of California Riverside) presents preliminary information on compounds that mimic calorie restriction and result in increases in Lifespan in Mice. OAA (oxaloacetic acid, benaGene ^TM) was one of the leading compounds to increase lifespan. We shall continue to follow Dr. Spindler's work to see if his initial results continue. See his presentation on calorie restriction mimetics at the Manhattan Beach Project Longevity Conference in Miami in November 2009:



There are some other great videos you may want to watch as part of the conference also.