10 replies to this topic

[labrat70]

TL;DR Supplement lowered telomere age by 14 years?!

Hi,

Last year was my first experiment with trying to lengthen telomeres and I ended up with a result that's a head-scratcher.  So don't laugh, but I tried the "DNA Force" supplement.  (No I'm not selling anything nor do I have any association with... that show).  Anyway it's a cocktail of astragalus, trans-resveratrol, BioPQQ, and a bunch of other stuff.  I had even emailed the company that makes it to ask if its telomerase activation would be similar to TA-65 and they non-commitally said it might be in the same ballpark.  So I figured I'd try this supplement first, then if poor results, switch to TA-65 the next year.

In an attempt to be a good experimenter, I took the TeloYears test ahead of time.  It said my starting condition was 1.02x normal, giving an age of 34, compared to my actual age of 46.  I have aged well and look younger than my age, so I figured this was plausible.

After a year of taking the supplement (details below) I got my teloyears re-test back and it said I'm at 1.25x normal, giving an age of 20.  Now I'm all for magic pills, but I have a hard time believing this is accurate.

So does that mean the teloyears test is off by that much?  Was it all measurement error, or was there some actual improvement?  I intentionally chose something that could be measured, but now I'm wondering if it's meaningful.

Dosing strategy

I used a 2 week on, 2 week off dosing cycle.  The off weeks consisted of my normal stack:

8000 IU D3
500mg Magnesium
2x Life Extension K/K2 Complex
1000-2000mg C
3.25mg Iodoral
1000mg Fish/Krill oil
A (up to 10000 iu)
200mcg Selenium (Natural Factors Selenium Yeast)
B12

The on weeks consisted of
DNA Force (4x per day, per instructions)
K/K2 Complex
Selenium

Basically I dropped all the other supplements during the on weeks, except the 2 I felt were too important.  K for anti-heart disease and Selenium for anti-cancer.

So, there you have it.  I don't know what to make of it but that's what happened.

This year I am moving on to C60oo and probably NR the next year.  What I will do, is take a telomere test and a DNA methylation age test every year and see how those trend.

Next up:  labrat70 on the C60 juice!
 

[Believer]

There is much controversy about telomere testing and some fraud cases.

I would advice you to retest with different companies and don't tell them your real age, they have no reason to know. Lie about your age, say you are older than you are.

 

Did you notice any lasting effects on your skin?

[QuestforLife]

Firstly, congratulations on doing the right thing and actually taking a test before and afterwards. I think one year is a reasonable time to get a change. In terms of the limitations of the test, even if it is a reliable company they all only look at leukocyte telomere lengths and these vary A LOT. So you'd probably want to take 3 or 4 tests to get any kind of idea of a baseline. That is annoying and expensive, as you'd have to take one say, every 3 months, for a year. Having said all that your result is quite big, so it looks like the supplement is doing something.

I took a Horvath methylation test last summer, and I'm going to take one ever summer. You could try that too as they are accurate to around +/-3 years. Unfortunately i dont think lengthening telomeres would necessarily help with decreasing epigenetic age as measured by Horvath, because of the growth factor effects of telomerase - but that's another story.

I'd like to take a telomere test or tests too, but can't seem to find anything in the UK. If anyone knows of one, please let me know.

ALSO, good luck with your C60oo experiment; I'd have thought that woukd stack well with a telomerase activator because of the possible Strong ROS suppression of C60oo.

[Turnbuckle]

Come on. A product sold on an Alex Jones site? Pricey as hell--$150 for 120 caps (2 per dose)--and no mention of ingredients other than it contains trans-resveratrol and other things. They don't say how much, but trans-resveratrol is not particularly expensive. Sounds like a marketing scam.

[labrat70]

Come on. A product sold on an Alex Jones site?

 

Yeah I know.  For better or worse, it's what I tried.

 

It's been a process to get from "Dr. says take a multivitamin once a day" to where I am today.  I didn't even know about C60, NR, or longecity.org a few months ago, so don't shoot the stumbling noob please.

[HaplogroupW]

Come on. A product sold on an Alex Jones site? Pricey as hell--$150 for 120 caps (2 per dose)--and no mention of ingredients other than it contains trans-resveratrol and other things. They don't say how much, but trans-resveratrol is not particularly expensive. Sounds like a marketing scam.

 

Amazon lists ingredients:

 

Astragalus Root, Na R-Lipoic acid, P40p, BioPQQ, CoQ10, Tibetan Rhodiola, VeganZyme

 

 

[QuestforLife]

For reference a product called 'Telomere Plus' has some evidence of respectable telomerase activation, atleast in vitro (IMR90 cells), and has the following ingredients: astralagus root, rhodiola, Vit D and broccoli extract.They identified this combination as being synergistic, and the ingredients are bioavailable, unlike cycloastragenol (T-65).

https://www.ncbi.nlm...ubmed/27433836/

Study was funded by the supplement manufacturer however.

[Turnbuckle]

This infowars product is similar if not identical to CELL FUZION, sold here.

 

Cell Fuzion has 29 ingredients, but primarily the ones in DNA Force. It was designed by a chiropractor, Dr. Edward F. Group III.

 

Group and Jones are pals, and Group appears frequently on Infowars--

 

The Group/Jones relationship might be the best nexus we have for understanding how conspiracy theorism and and alternative health claims are intertwined. For some conspiracy-minded people, vitamins and supplements are a literal manifestation of a desire to protect oneself from outside influence, corruption, and the taint of the larger world. No one has said it better than Jones himself, in fact, in his passionate 2013 introduction to Group and his works.

https://jezebel.com/...re-t-1794383993

 

 

The bottom line: If you're going to buy this, you will be paying a premium for the Jones label, and there is already a big premium on the listed ingredients in Cell Fuzion. Do you need all of them? Seems unlikely. PQQ is the most important for mitochondria. I found it to be amazing when I first took it years ago, but ultimately the effect faded. PQQ might stimulate the production of new mitochondria, but that can only go so far, and does nothing to remove defective mtDNA. 

Edited by Turnbuckle, 02 February 2018 - 11:55 AM.

[Turnbuckle]

For reference a product called 'Telomere Plus' has some evidence of respectable telomerase activation, atleast in vitro (IMR90 cells), and has the following ingredients: astralagus root, rhodiola, Vit D and broccoli extract.They identified this combination as being synergistic, and the ingredients are bioavailable, unlike cycloastragenol (T-65).

https://www.ncbi.nlm...ubmed/27433836/

Study was funded by the supplement manufacturer however.

 

 

The full paper says--

 

Enzymedica currently markets BL-3 as Telomere Plus

 

and BL-3 contains--

 

Astragalus extract,  SGS  broccoli  seed  extract,  rhodiola  PE  3%/1%,  and vitamin  D3

 

See Figure 4 for the BL-3 results at various population doublings--2, 8 and 15 doublings--of cells in vitro, which is slightly better than T-65 in Fig. 1.

 

 

Edited by Turnbuckle, 02 February 2018 - 01:33 PM.

[QuestforLife]

I've taken Telomere Plus (BL3) for 4 months as I was sufficiently impressed by the results in comparison to TA-65 in this paper. As i dont have access to a telomere length test at the moment there is no way of knowing if it's done me any good (plus all the limitations of telomere tests as already discussed). It is quite expensive and it strikes me follow up studies may well find better combinations. Strange that Sierra Sciences always sought a single magic compound; I asked Bill Andrews about this once and he did say they had a synergy project to look at just that - never heard of anything since though. Of course the weakness of this approach (for the supplier) is that we can just make our own stack using the identified compounds and prevent a large mark up. I may do this to replace 'Telomere Plus'.

[labrat70]

For subsequent test results, see my main thread:

 

labrat70 annual experimental results