50 replies to this topic

[Robert Horley]

White willow bark in large doses has recently been shown to increase the life span of yeast by several hundred percent. Anybody trying it. I'm taking about 4g a day in divided doses of 800mg over the whole day. As far as I know, this degree of life extension has never been achieved with aspirin, so I don't believe it is just the salicylate.

Attached Files

•  Willow Bark Extract (salicylate) Extends Yeast Lifespan By Almost 400%.pdf   143.4KB   17 downloads

[Turnbuckle]

This was recently discussed on this forum here, with a link to the original paper here.

[normalizing]

it was discussed in that other thread, yes, started by me but i also wanted to concentrate on willow bark specifically so this thread is a good idea.

 

what else in willow bark adds its beneficial effects beside the isolate that makes aspirin?

 

i have to ask you robert, since you started taking the willow bark versus aspirin, do you notice any positive effect related to inflammation or its much more subtle and unnoticeable compared?

[aconita]

To isolate compounds is not necessarily a good idea since we really know very little about synergies, something nature is quite smart at.

 

 

[Robert Horley]

I feel the anti inflammatory effects without the side effects... no stomach upset and no ringing in the ears. My dose is equivalent to about 800mg to 1000mg of aspirin. I noticed in the attached article that 3.2 gm of aspirin a day will kill yeast, while willow bark in a dose less than the equivalent aspirin dose of 500mg had no life extension effects. It is very dose specific and must be in the equivalent range of 500mg to 1500mg of aspirin... a very unusual dose for long term aspirin use in humans. Though honestly I think it isn't just salicylic acid causing the effect.

[Robert Horley]

I think the effect may be subtle and I'll give it a few months.

Edited by Robert Horley, 14 April 2016 - 12:21 PM.

[Turnbuckle]

Any discussion should first recognize that the 400% figure is hype. Fig 3 shows that white willow extends the mean yeast lifespan dramatically in a 2% glucose nutrient medium, but less than a tenth of that in a calorie-restricted .5% medium. The high glucose medium reduced the lifespan of the controls over the low glucose controls, as presumably it increased the oxidative stress, and this is the thrust of the paper, that these 6 herbal extracts are decreasing oxidative stress and thus the mito membrane potential is higher. In the CR .5% medium, white willow is not the best. In that case, Valerian gives the highest mean lifespan and passionflower the highest maximum.

 

Though the long lifespan of the willow treated yeast combined with high glucose does need to be explained. If it were to translate to humans (unlikely) it would justify a gluttonous lifestyle.

 

 

 

Edited by Turnbuckle, 14 April 2016 - 01:15 PM.

[normalizing]

I think the effect may be subtle and I'll give it a few months.

 

you think the effects may be subtle? just earlier you mentioned you did notice antiinflammatory benefits, so what is it?

 

im kind of questioning if its really better than aspirin now, you have to boil and consume a lot of bark material versus just 1 big dose aspirin taking it with vitamin c wont cause stomach discomfort or damage

Any discussion should first recognize that the 400% figure is hype. Fig 3 shows that white willow extends the mean yeast lifespan dramatically in a 2% glucose nutrient medium, but less than a tenth of that in a calorie-restricted .5% medium. The high glucose medium reduced the lifespan of the controls over the low glucose controls, as presumably it increased the oxidative stress, and this is the thrust of the paper, that these 6 herbal extracts are decreasing oxidative stress and thus the mito membrane potential is higher. In the CR .5% medium, white willow is not the best. In that case, Valerian gives the highest mean lifespan and passionflower the highest maximum.

 

Though the long lifespan of the willow treated yeast combined with high glucose does need to be explained. If it were to translate to humans (unlikely) it would justify a gluttonous lifestyle.

 

from what i have seen, nothing really adds life extension benefit to an adopted CR lifestyle. most of the stuff that probably might work is always related to obesity and diabetes so very interesting indeed why even bother with most of those things when CR is free

[Turnbuckle]

 

Any discussion should first recognize that the 400% figure is hype. Fig 3 shows that white willow extends the mean yeast lifespan dramatically in a 2% glucose nutrient medium, but less than a tenth of that in a calorie-restricted .5% medium. The high glucose medium reduced the lifespan of the controls over the low glucose controls, as presumably it increased the oxidative stress, and this is the thrust of the paper, that these 6 herbal extracts are decreasing oxidative stress and thus the mito membrane potential is higher. In the CR .5% medium, white willow is not the best. In that case, Valerian gives the highest mean lifespan and passionflower the highest maximum.

 

Though the long lifespan of the willow treated yeast combined with high glucose does need to be explained. If it were to translate to humans (unlikely) it would justify a gluttonous lifestyle.

 

from what i have seen, nothing really adds life extension benefit to an adopted CR lifestyle. most of the stuff that probably might work is always related to obesity and diabetes so very interesting indeed why even bother with most of those things when CR is free

 

 

CR is very hard, so it doesn't matter if it's free. And if you are yeast, it doesn't get you the life extension that white willow gets you when combined with all you can eat. So imagine how fantastically that would market to humans if it worked in higher organisms--that you could take this cheap pill and eat all you wanted and live far longer than someone half starving himself. And even more amazing--you actually had to pig out or it wouldn't work!

Edited by Turnbuckle, 14 April 2016 - 06:11 PM.

[Castiel]

I think there was issue with the CR group, it seems to have lived for less than non CR if I'm not mistaken.

In any case resveratrol extends yeast lifespan as much as max CR. But that's still around 70%. Willow extends by 370% even more than max CR.

It is doubtful all of these compounds negate CR while extending life in non CR
, more likely procedural error.


Also in flies it was found rhodiola extends lifespan when combined with CR. Assuming reasonable dosing given conserved mechanisms it seems like it had a chance of doing the same to yeast.

Edited by Castiel, 14 April 2016 - 06:56 PM.

[Turnbuckle]

I think there was issue with the CR group, it seems to have lived for less than non CR if I'm not mistaken.
 

 

 

No, the CR group lived much longer than the piggy control group. And the white willow piggy group lived much longer than either control, and much longer than the white willow CR group.

 

 

Here is a link to the relevant bar chart where the black bar is control and PE21 is with white willow extract.

[Castiel]

I think there was issue with the CR group, it seems to have lived for less than non CR if I'm not mistaken.

No, the CR group lived much longer than the piggy control group. And the white willow piggy group lived much longer than either control, and much longer than the white willow CR group.


Here is a link to the relevant bar chart where the black bar is control and PE21 is with white willow extract.

It seems like most extracts show reduced or similar lifespan when comparing non CR to CR. Don't think that should be the case, also rhodiola as I said has a chance of increasing lifespan when combined with cr.

[Danail Bulgaria]

May I suggest one possible explanation of why the white willow bark increase the length of life?

 

Initially the aspirin has been isolated from white willow bark. In the last two decades it was shown, that low doses of aspirin makes the blood coagulate harder and thus protects from blood clots to form. And the blood clots are one of the reasons, that causes heart failure and ischemic brain attack. Currently the official drug, that is prescribed for prevention of the ischemic heart disease is Aspirin protect. It is cheap, low doses aspirin official drug.

 

If the white willow bark contains low doses of aspirin, then while you are taking it, it will work as if you are taking low doses of aspirin. Blood will coagulate harder. And your risk for heart failure and ischemic brain attack will become lower. 

 

Be happy

[Turnbuckle]

This work is in yeast, seivtcho, and the increased life appears to be correlated with the maintenance of mitochondrial membrane potential and reduced levels of age-related oxidative damage to cellular proteins.

 

Aspirin extends the life of higher animals such as crickets by 43%--

 

We examined the impacts of aspirin and metformin on the life history of the cricket Acheta domesticus (growth rate, maturation time, mature body size, survivorship, and maximal longevity). Both drugs significantly increased survivorship and maximal life span. Maximal longevity was 136 days for controls, 188 days (138 % of controls) for metformin, and 194 days (143 % of controls) for aspirin...

 

Unlike the reigning dietary restriction paradigm, low aspirin conformed to a paradigm of "eat more, live longer." In contrast, metformin-treated females were only ~67 % of the mass of controls. Our results suggest that hormetic agents like metformin may derive significant trade-offs with life extension, whereas health and longevity benefits may be obtained with less cost by agents like aspirin that regulate geroprotective pathways.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/25833406

 

 

 

The words in bold reinforce the finding for yeast, and suggest that CR is a mistake. As long as the effects of obesity are avoided, food and aspirin (or salicin) could be a winner.

Edited by Turnbuckle, 14 April 2016 - 08:24 PM.

[aconita]

All very interesting but even if crickets are undoubtedly higher animals than yeasts they are still a long way from humans.

 

Penicillin doesn't work at all on mice, which are already mammals therefore quite a big step closer to humans, luckily enough has been researched on rabbits otherwise a few more millions of humans would have died.

 

My point is that animal models have to be taken for what they are, just vague indications of maybe possibilities, usually reality in humans is quite a different story.   

[Turnbuckle]

All very interesting but even if crickets are undoubtedly higher animals than yeasts they are still a long way from humans.

 

Penicillin doesn't work at all on mice, which are already mammals therefore quite a big step closer to humans, luckily enough has been researched on rabbits otherwise a few more millions of humans would have died.

 

My point is that animal models have to be taken for what they are, just vague indications of maybe possibilities, usually reality in humans is quite a different story.   

 

Penicillin does indeed work on mice. It's where it's value was first demonstrated. And yes, these creatures are very different from humans, but they both have mitochondria, and they both appear to be reacting to it not only in the same way, but in a way that contradicts what people have thought about CR, and that makes it most interesting. 

[Robert Horley]

I also think we need to realise that these high doses of willow bark weren't given in one dose.  It was mixed with food at an amount of 0.1% of the daily food intake.  Thus it is probably better to take it spread out over the whole day rather than as one large dose.  I don't know how the conversion of doses from yeast to humans was done, but in the attachment attached to my original post, the head of the research team said that for humans it would be 41mg to 82 mg per kilo of weight.  I'm taking 50mg per kilo of weight spread over 5 doses throughout the day.  I've also completely stopped taking aspirin.  When I first trial something like this, I watch out for strange side effects for the first couple of weeks... there has been nothing I have noticed so far.  So even if it doesn't help with life extension, it's still a win for me by keeping my blood thin (according to 23and Me, I carry a gene allele that makes thrombosis the most probable way I'll depart this world).

[aconita]

Penicillin does indeed work on mice. It's where it's value was first demonstrated

 

You are right, memory just played its trick on me...penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs, not mice (for some reason I had rabbits as first research animals for it....)

 

Anyway the point is unaffected:

 

Acetaminophen, for example, is poisonous to cats, but is therapeutic in humans; penicillin is toxic in guinea pigs, but has been an invaluable tool in human medicine; morphine causes hyper-excitement in cats, but has a calming effect in human patients; and oral contraceptives prolong blood-clotting times in dogs, but increase a human’s risk of developing blood clots

http://aavs.org/anim...search/science/.

 

Mitochondria might be not enough to justify too much enthusiasm about animal research.

 

Sure enough willow bark is a much smarter choice than aspirin, especially for long term use, even if Bayer probably doesn't like it that much.

[normalizing]

a bit off topic but isnt the best idea if to experiment on animals to try apes or monkeys because of the closest relation to humans?

[aconita]

Well, in theory yes and often is what they do but lifespan is an issue since it requires much longer to get the results with animals that live much longer (and it cost much more too).

 

 

[joelcairo]

 

Penicillin does indeed work on mice. It's where it's value was first demonstrated

 

You are right, memory just played its trick on me...penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs, not mice (for some reason I had rabbits as first research animals for it....)

 

Anyway the point is unaffected:

 

Acetaminophen, for example, is poisonous to cats, but is therapeutic in humans; penicillin is toxic in guinea pigs, but has been an invaluable tool in human medicine; morphine causes hyper-excitement in cats, but has a calming effect in human patients; and oral contraceptives prolong blood-clotting times in dogs, but increase a human’s risk of developing blood clots

http://aavs.org/anim...search/science/.

 

Mitochondria might be not enough to justify too much enthusiasm about animal research.

 

Sure enough willow bark is a much smarter choice than aspirin, especially for long term use, even if Bayer probably doesn't like it that much.

 

 

Willow bark might well be a better choice for reduction of pain and inflammation. It seems about equally effective, and doesn't have as strong an effect on gastric tissue and blood clotting.

 

However if you're taking aspirin for cancer protection purposes or because you've had a previous heart attack, the evidence for aspirin on these fronts is quite strong because it has been extremely well studied in humans, whereas willow bark has not.

 

As for life extension, I have a feeling we're going to be debating that for a long time to come.

[Danail Bulgaria]

I also think we need to realise that these high doses of willow bark weren't given in one dose.  It was mixed with food at an amount of 0.1% of the daily food intake.  Thus it is probably better to take it spread out over the whole day rather than as one large dose.  I don't know how the conversion of doses from yeast to humans was done, but in the attachment attached to my original post, the head of the research team said that for humans it would be 41mg to 82 mg per kilo of weight.  I'm taking 50mg per kilo of weight spread over 5 doses throughout the day.  I've also completely stopped taking aspirin.  When I first trial something like this, I watch out for strange side effects for the first couple of weeks... there has been nothing I have noticed so far.  So even if it doesn't help with life extension, it's still a win for me by keeping my blood thin (according to 23and Me, I carry a gene allele that makes thrombosis the most probable way I'll depart this world).

 

If you are sure, that you are predisposed to clots formation, then you may take other official, already accepted drugs instead of low doses aspirin. Visit your JP, he will make you blood test for blood coagulation, thrombocites, INR, and others, that show your actual ability of the blood to coagulate and to make clots. Then probabbly he will send you to haematologist, who will prescribe you a stronger anticoagulant, with the appropriate dose, you need. Taking STRONG anticoagulant drugs by yourself is dangerous, because if you take them too strong, you will go to the other extreme, and you may receive dangerous haemorrhagies, including in the brain. 

[Robert Horley]

One thing that worries me is that I am also taking two 500mg tablets of Metformin a day. Would the CR mimicking effects of Metformin mess with the White Willow longevity effects. Nothing is simple.

[Turnbuckle]

 

Penicillin does indeed work on mice. It's where it's value was first demonstrated

 

You are right, memory just played its trick on me...penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs, not mice (for some reason I had rabbits as first research animals for it....)

 

Anyway the point is unaffected:

 

 

 

 

The point is, salacin is not toxic to humans or to yeast or to crickets, and they all have mitochondria where salacin appears to operate, thus its effect on these other animals is relevant, and that is why animals studies are done to begin with. You are arguing just to argue, it seems, as you aren't disagreeing, just saying it's a vague indication. But it's far more than that--two very different species that had the same longevity effect in the same way that contradicts what has been believed in the LE community. This is hardly vague.

[Danail Bulgaria]

@aconita is right. 

 

Whatever you claim, it has to be proven in people. Otherwise it is a theory. It may be a very plausable theory, but it is still a theory. 

 

Salacin sounds me familiar. I think there is such a drug, that become abandoned. 

 

 

[Danail Bulgaria]

One thing that worries me is that I am also taking two 500mg tablets of Metformin a day. Would the CR mimicking effects of Metformin mess with the White Willow longevity effects. Nothing is simple.

 

If it is only the aspirin there, you can take them without a problem: 

 

http://www.drugs.com...197-1573-0.html

[Turnbuckle]

@aconita is right. 

 

Whatever you claim, it has to be proven in people. Otherwise it is a theory. It may be a very plausable theory, but it is still a theory. 

 

Salacin sounds me familiar. I think there is such a drug, that become abandoned. 

 

 

LOL! By the time salicin for longevity is proven in people, many here will be dead. And as a drug, use of salicin use dates back to the ancient Greeks and is still in use today.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Unfortunately, testing a drug in people is not as easy as you want it to be.

It has to be proven not only for safety, but also for effectiveness (e.g. that really works for the thing you are taking it), side effects, how it combines with other drugs, etc. 

 

But noone stops you actually. 

 

If you believe, that it may help you, and you know its safe for you, then use it. 

[Turnbuckle]

Unfortunately, testing a drug in people is not as easy as you want it to be.

It has to be proven not only for safety, but also for effectiveness (e.g. that really works for the thing you are taking it), side effects, how it combines with other drugs, etc. 

 

But noone stops you actually. 

 

If you believe, that it may help you, and you know its safe for you, then use it. 

 

 

Exactly, and now you are beginning to understand this website.

[aconita]

I am not arguing just to argue, I am making my point that animal research has huge limits which calls for caution in jumping on the bandwagon with too much enthusiasm. .

 

There are already very different outcomes or reactions at the same compound between two humans, leave alone between different species.

 

Test mice for testosterone and they would respond amazingly well to almost anything, a very different story than with humans basically only responding to exogenous testosterone.

 

As you say aspirin is used by millions of people all over the world since quite a while and willow bark since at least 2400 years ago, if you like to know what I think is that it is unlikely that it will extent human life significantly or by now we should already noticed it.

 

As I wrote it is probably smarter and possibly more effective to take willow bark instead of aspirin but as a life extension drug I am not buying it yet.

 

About its toxicity:

 

"Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone." (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)

 

and

 

https://en.wikipedia...pirin_poisoning

 

...just as examples.