139 replies to this topic

[PWAIN]

Niner, apart from C60 oo, what other antioxidants that target mitochondria do you recomend? It may be worthwhile to categorize various antioxidants by where they target. We could then set about creating a stack that is low on cytoplasm and DNA affecting antioxidants but high inn mitochondria affecting antioxidants.

[DePaw]

http://www.scientifi...y-of-aging-dead

[RJ100]

This article was originally published with the title The Myth of Antioxidants.

Interesting that they chose to change the title from a sensationalist statement to a highly suggestive "question".

[DePaw]

http://www.scientifi...y-of-aging-dead

[niner]

http://www.scientifi...y-of-aging-dead

Nope. Not dead at all. More alive than ever, I'd say. It is, however, not the ONLY cause of aging, but it's a big one. This was a worm experiment, and I think it's misleading. It's actually old work that SA has re-hashed. It's also been talked about here in a couple of threads. This post is a good counter-argument, as is the entire c60health forum, or the growing number of threads about the dangers of poorly liganded iron or copper, which cause free radical damage by mechanisms different than oxidative phosphorylation radical leakage.

[Mind]

Watson is now asking the same question the skeptical yet open-minded LongeCity community has been asking for years - this time in reference to cancer: Do anti-oxidants do more harm than good?

The fact that antioxidant dietary supplementation might lead to more not less cancer should come as no surprise to the world's better-informed cancer therapists, who know that ionising radiation treatment kills cancer cells largely through creation of oxidants called reactive oxygen species (ROS). And though it was generally believed that major chemotherapy drugs like paclitaxel kill each cancer through different means, there now is a growing consensus that they too are highly effective generators of the powerful oxidant superoxide, the hydrogen radical and hydrogen peroxide, the three major components of ROS.

This at last explains the long-disturbing findings that when a cancer becomes resistant to one form of chemotherapy, it simultaneously becomes resistant to all the other, better chemotherapy agents, as well as to further radiation therapies.

Recent research on pancreatic cancer has demonstrated that in cells of aggressive, resource-hungry tumours, antioxidant levels are greatly elevated. These endogenous antioxidants – synthesised by the body – arise to keep ROS from triggering sensors that initiate a process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. This raises an important possibility: if we can learn how to reduce antioxidant levels specifically in cancer cells, we may be able to successfully treat many types of late-stage cancers that are now incurable.

Read the full (registration required) article here: http://www.newscient...te-cancer.html?

Makes me feel ever more confident in only taking a low dose multi-vitamin.

[Kevnzworld]

Watson is now asking the same question the skeptical yet open-minded LongeCity community has been asking for years - this time in reference to cancer: Do anti-oxidants do more harm than good?

The fact that antioxidant dietary supplementation might lead to more not less cancer should come as no surprise to the world's better-informed cancer therapists, who know that ionising radiation treatment kills cancer cells largely through creation of oxidants called reactive oxygen species (ROS). And though it was generally believed that major chemotherapy drugs like paclitaxel kill each cancer through different means, there now is a growing consensus that they too are highly effective generators of the powerful oxidant superoxide, the hydrogen radical and hydrogen peroxide, the three major components of ROS.

This at last explains the long-disturbing findings that when a cancer becomes resistant to one form of chemotherapy, it simultaneously becomes resistant to all the other, better chemotherapy agents, as well as to further radiation therapies.

Recent research on pancreatic cancer has demonstrated that in cells of aggressive, resource-hungry tumours, antioxidant levels are greatly elevated. These endogenous antioxidants – synthesised by the body – arise to keep ROS from triggering sensors that initiate a process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. This raises an important possibility: if we can learn how to reduce antioxidant levels specifically in cancer cells, we may be able to successfully treat many types of late-stage cancers that are now incurable.

Read the full (registration required) article here: http://www.newscient...te-cancer.html?

Makes me feel ever more confident in only taking a low dose multi-vitamin.

Many vitamins / polyphenol antioxidants have been shown to promote apoptosis in cancer cells while not harming, and or protecting normal ones.
Quote: "
Green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate differentially modulates nuclear factor kappaB in cancer cells versus normal cells." This study suggests that EGCG-caused cell cycle deregulation and apoptosis of cancer cells may be mediated through NF-kappaB inhibition."
(PMID:10775421)
Blackberry, Black Raspberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, Red Raspberry, and Strawberry Extracts Inhibit Growth and Stimulate Apoptosis of Human Cancer Cells In Vitro
http://pubs.acs.org/....1021/jf061750g
" We report that α-tocopheryl succinate, a vitamin E analogue with pro-apoptotic properties, selectively kills cells with a malignant or transformed phenotype, i.e. multiple haematopoietic and carcinoma cell lines, while being non-toxic to normal, i.e. primary and non-transformed cells."
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2363620/

I do not believe in or advocate mega dosing vitamins or antioxidants. A good multivitamin should be designed to correct dietetic deficiencies, not provide any specific therapy. Less is often more when taking supplements.

[Mind]

Blackberry, Black Raspberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, Red Raspberry, and Strawberry Extracts Inhibit Growth and Stimulate Apoptosis of Human Cancer Cells In Vitro

These are awesome foods. I eat them a lot. I grow them. However, in vitro studies are not very good evidence. I would rather consume the whole-food rather than the extract.

[niner]

The antioxidant discussion gets muddled by the fact that there are a lot of compounds that fall into the technical category of "antioxidant", but they aren't terrifically good antioxidants in vivo, and/or their biological effects are dominated by receptor-mediated effects rather than an antioxidant effect. Resveratrol is a good example of this. Another axis of confusion is the the difference between chemoprevention, (preventing cells from transforming to a cancer cell) and treatment of existing cancer. Once you have cancer, potent antioxidants look like a bad idea. Prior to getting cancer, some compounds that range from potent to merely technical antioxidants appear to have very good epidemiology. (particularly if you're a rat) Other compounds that happen to be antioxidant, like some carotenoids, don't look so good either before or after the development of cancer.

[Kevnzworld]

Blackberry, Black Raspberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, Red Raspberry, and Strawberry Extracts Inhibit Growth and Stimulate Apoptosis of Human Cancer Cells In Vitro

These are awesome foods. I eat them a lot. I grow them. However, in vitro studies are not very good evidence. I would rather consume the whole-food rather than the extract.

It's "in vitro" studies that are used to develop the hypothesis that antioxidants may contribute to, or promote cancer development. So it's fair to use in vitro evidence to contradict those claims.
Otherwise one can look at the old beta carotene / vitamin A, E studies that many now considered flawed.
I agree with Niners post, but I wouldn't consider vitamin combo's in a multi as potent antioxidants.

[Mind]

From nootrophil, a summary of some aging stuff.

Caution is warranted regardingindiscriminately increasing one’s antioxidant capacities - Trying to re-engineer your oxidation/reduction pathways, by e.g. decreasing oxidation with large, diverse, and chronic antioxidant consumption is probably not a wise game to play. Oxidation in the body serves many important signaling roles embedded in very complex signaling networks. Trying to re-engineer this system better for health and longevity seems about as wise as tinkering with your hormones.
Maybe it makes sense to try to target normal youthful levels of antioxidant capabilities and hormone levels, but if you exit these bounds you are probably going to cause at least some undesirable ripple effects elsewhere in the network. Furthermore, antioxidant supplementation trials and epidemiology in humans by-and-large have returned null or even some deleterious findings for antioxidant supplementation and the endpoints of heart disease and total mortality [12]. Antioxidants can also block many of the beneficial adaptive changes caused by exercise, such as increased insulin sensitivity [11].

[Brainbox]

I would like to add to this discussion that the part of our ignorance that we do not acknowledge is quite dangerous.

Our strong motivation to engineer our lives to create our own destiny creates a strong (temporary) denial of all the facts "spoiling" it.

We can only engineer pills that contain substances we are aware of. Generalizing antioxidant effects does not help either.

Attempts to extend your life behaves like a U shaped curve. If you do nothing you have a reasonable chance to become 80. In case you take the wrong actions, you will drop down along the U curve. If you make the right choices you are able to utilize the other side of the U and even become immortal. Maybe.

Taking engineered alpha tocopherol that depletes the other tocopherol forms is a very good example. In the 80's 90's of the previous century we did not even know about the existence of gamma tocopherols and what not. Although not directly related to antioxidants, I think the current controversy of the benefit versus level discussion of D3 is also an example of the same kind of ignorance. Or better: incomplete knowledge. Why on earth do we assume that getting a healthy level of sun exposure can be equivalent to taking a D3 pill? We're measuring D3 levels as a marker, but that does not imply that the system of which this marker is only a small part can be reduced to taking D3 pills to reach a healthy level of this marker thinking we did improve the entire system.

Sorry for my antagonistic tendencies here... I AM a proponent of LE research and taking calculated risks myself, but I did and do know to not jump on any hyped bandwagon that drives by. I'm a big believer of boitechnology ala SENS, but unfortunately that doesn't help much in our current practical situation.

In stead of spending big money on the 95% of supplements of which we discover in ten years that it was a waste, we could invest this money in decent research like SENS. Who knows, we might even get real working therapies within 10 years if we did that!

The trick is to know which 95% of supplements we should dump! On the positive side (yes, I can be like that to) we are doing a good job on this forum to find that out!

Edited by Brainbox, 04 May 2013 - 12:01 AM.

[Methos000]

So, what you're saying is that even Kurzweil may be making some of the wrong choices out of ignorance? On the other hand, Aubrey de Grey is apparently trusting in SENS alone. He reportedly takes no supplements whatsoever.

[Mind]

Everyone has their own risk reward tolerance and money makes a difference as well. If I was as rich as Kurzweil, I would be using more supplements, most likely, but I would also be getting tested like crazy to make sure my health was remaining optimal.

[Singuhilarity]

This is indeed a very interesting discussion and as always very nuanced. I think these issues can commonly be mixed up by media hungry for easily digestible news and information, The idea of antioxidants is very simple and quick to make sense; I still see in the more laymen or average audience a big weighting on ORAC values, etc.

Edited by Singuhilarity, 08 May 2013 - 02:43 AM.

[Methos000]

Everyone has their own risk reward tolerance and money makes a difference as well. If I was as rich as Kurzweil, I would be using more supplements, most likely, but I would also be getting tested like crazy to make sure my health was remaining optimal.

So, which supplements would be at the top of your list to add given unlimited resources?

[Guardian4981]

Everyone has their own risk reward tolerance and money makes a difference as well. If I was as rich as Kurzweil, I would be using more supplements, most likely, but I would also be getting tested like crazy to make sure my health was remaining optimal.

So, which supplements would be at the top of your list to add given unlimited resources?

One that comes to mind is some of the advanced astragalus products are hundreds of dollars for a month supply.

As for antioxidants, I believe I read that any antioxidant has the potential to become a pro oxidant.

I also think people need to realize their is a subtle difference between longevity and aging.

I have known people who look awful and have health issues yet live to be very old. I have also known people who look great but then die younger.

I think alot of supplementation and longevity efforts likely may help someone look and feel healthier and perhaps even look younger but will they really extend lifespan at all?

As for multis, I think too many of them ride off the public stigma of high dose B vitamins and so forth. If they used reasonable doses they would not get as much sales.

I also think most of the public is ignorant of forms of nutrients, as an example P-5-P versus pyridoxine.

It used to be that it was by far better to try to get your nutrients from food. But food quality has went downhill, not to mention all of the fructose and digestive stress it takes to digest it all. So a good multi and key supplements really is wise.

I like LEF mix low dose, there are some issues I have with it but it seems better then alternatives.

Edited by Guardian4981, 08 May 2013 - 03:28 PM.

[Mind]

Everyone has their own risk reward tolerance and money makes a difference as well. If I was as rich as Kurzweil, I would be using more supplements, most likely, but I would also be getting tested like crazy to make sure my health was remaining optimal.

So, which supplements would be at the top of your list to add given unlimited resources?

Maybe a separate lithium tab. Bio-identical hormones are a possibility. I would have to do a lot of reading though and do a lot of testing to make sure there is some small evidence of efficacy.

[Mind]

Highly regarded mouse study does not find lifespan extension from some other supplements (other than the typical vitamins, but are popular with life-extensionists, resv, curcumin, GTE, MCTs)

And now a study IN MICE that shows combinations of supplements thought to increase health and lower mortality do not work, and most increase mortality. I am no fan of mouse studies, but if you use mouse studies to inform your supplement regimen, this should make you drop them pretty quick. You can use the money you save to fund more concrete anti-aging efforts such as those a Methuselah Foundation or SENS.

I still take a low dose multi (Ortho-core, usually 1 tab per day), D3, fish oil, low dose aspirin, and melatonin, but I am not under any illusion that these are super anti-aging substances, just that there is some minor health upside possible with very minimal downsides.

[Absent]

I personally have very noticable cognitive and overall mental wellbeing benefits gained from taking a multi, versus when I hadn't taken it. Whether or not it is causes additional stress to my body is debatable, but the benefits I derive from it are definitely worth it.