Biohacking Weekly: Longevity for Pets, Natural Mimetics, the Carb-Insulin Model, Sugar, Starch & Food Myths Busted

In this post:

1. Longevity researchers are working to help your pets live longer too.
2. Anti-ageing with natural mimetics of metformin and rapamycin.
3. Obesity: Processed Carbs > Hormonal Changes > Metabolism Changes > Increased fat storage.
4. Food Myths busted: Dairy, Salt and Steak may be good for you.
5. Two vitamins found in meat may help treat Huntington's Disease.
6. Short-term ketone ester supplementation improves cerebral blood flow and cognition in obesity. 

 

1. They want to give you more time with your pet. And they've got $38 million in the bank to do it.

Image source: TechCrunch

It's not just us human biohackers pursuing longevity and healthspan. It occurred to someone that people living longer will want their dogs with them.

Startup Loyal is rethinking the concept of longevity and starting with man’s best friend.

The company just raised $38 million to pursue their vision. The company’s thesis is that by intending to improve the healthspan and lifespan in dogs, that research will uncover more about how to do the same in humans.

Founder, Halioua, explained that a dog’s lifespan is similar to a human’s due to proximity — dogs have shared environmental factors, sometimes share the same diet and can develop the same ageing diseases as humans like cardiac problems and cancer.

TechCrunch Article

 

2. Ageing is now at the forefront of major challenges faced globally, creating an immediate need for safe, wide-scale interventions to reduce the burden of chronic disease and extend human healthspan.

Image source: ResearchGate

The ageing of Australia's population as a result of sustained low fertility, combined with increasing life expectancy is likely to continue with the number of people aged 65 years increasing from 3.8 million people in 2017 to 6.5 million people in 2042.

Old age is a major risk factor for many of the most prevalent, costly, and devastating diseases of today, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Type II diabetes.

Metformin and rapamycin are two FDA‐approved mTOR inhibitors proposed for this purpose, exhibiting significant anti‐cancer and anti‐aging properties beyond their current clinical applications.

However, each faces issues with regulatory approval for off‐label, prophylactic use due to adverse effects.

Researchers have identified Allantoin and ginsenoside (Ginseng) as strong mimetics of metformin, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG, a green tea extract) and isoliquiritigenin (licorice extract) as strong mimetics of rapamycin and withaferin A (from Ashwagandha)  as a strong mimetic of both.   

 

3. OBESITY: A diet high in processed sugars and carbohydrates causes hormonal changes in the body that alter metabolism, leading to a rise in fat storage and, thus, weight gain.

Image source: YouTube / Sean Lucan

 

"Reducing consumption of the rapidly digestible carbohydrates that flooded the food supply during the low-fat diet era lessens the underlying drive to store body fat,"

- Dr. David Ludwig, endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital.

Consumption of food containing highly processed carbohydrates forces the body to produce more insulin, a substance used to digest sugar.

This, in turn, signals fat cells to store more calories, leaving fewer available to provide energy to muscles.

As a result, the brain thinks that the body is not getting enough energy and generates feelings of hunger.

Excessive consumption of foods high in sugar, or glycemic content, such as highly processed, rapidly digestible carbohydrates, causes weight gain.

The CARB-INSULIN MODEL

 

 

Image source: Oxford Academic 

 

4. Food myths busted: dairy, salt and steak may be good for you after all.

Image source: The Guardian

Over the past 70 years the public health establishment in Anglophone countries has issued a number of diet rules, their common thread being that the natural ingredients populations all around the world have eaten for millennia – meat, dairy, eggs and more – and certain components of these foods, notably saturated fat, are dangerous for human health. Government dietary guidelines continue to get dismantled because they were wrong.

Read The Guardian article

 

5. Two vitamins found in meat may help treat Huntington's Disease.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers discover people with Huntington’s disease don’t take up the nutrient thiamine from their diet into their brain cells. At the same time, this issue may present a new treatment strategy for a disease with no known treatment.

6. Short-term ketone ester supplementation improves cerebral blood flow and cognition in obesity.

Adults with obesity are at increased risk of neurocognitive impairments, partly as a result of reduced cerebral blood flow and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

Beta hydroxybutyrate (BHB) supplementation improved cognition in adults with obesity, which may be partly facilitated by improvements in cerebral blood flow.

The Journal of Physiology

---

Browse OptimOZ new products or see weekly special offers.

Create more balance, peace, compassion and presence with Heartmath Inner Balance trainer. Increases resilience, reduce anxiety and helps you learn to self-regulate.

Insomniac reports that he takes 10ml of this Ketone Ester before bed and sleeps like a rock through the night, no waking up and having trouble going back to sleep. Others use this Ketone Ester for clarity of mind, energy & hunger control.