Supplements promise a lot: mitochondrial support, better brain health, healthier gut function, anti-ageing benefits and more.

But how much of that is real science, and how much is simply clever wording on a label?

In this episode of Beyond Longevity, Dr Luke Bucci, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at Juvenon, brings both a scientist’s eye and decades of experience in the supplement industry to one of the most confusing areas of longevity.

Dr Luke explains the difference between a product being described as “science-backed” and one that is supported by meaningful human clinical evidence. He also discusses why the dose, form and standardisation of an ingredient matter, and why “fairy-dusting” fashionable ingredients into a formula can make a product sound far more proven than it really is.

We talk about bioavailability, absorption, the gut microbiome, and why feeling stimulated is not the same as supporting mitochondrial health. Dr Luke also explains why creatine has moved beyond the gym, why blood flow and nitric oxide matter as we age, and how nutrients such as magnesium, vitamin D3, omega-3s, polyphenols and CoQ10 fit into a more thoughtful approach to supplementation.

This is a practical and refreshingly honest conversation about how to read beyond the label, ask better questions, and think more clearly about what supplements can, and cannot, do.

Links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juvenonwellness

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Juvenon/

Website: https://juvenon.com/

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:53 Dr Bucci Origin Story

03:26 Science vs Marketing Today

04:44 Science Backed vs Clinical

09:14 Fairy Dusting Exposed

11:05 Bioavailability Reality Check

14:15 Standardisation and Sourcing

22:03 Gut Microbiome Benefits

24:30 Testing and Trial Periods

27:33 Longevity Trend Explained

30:35 Mitochondria 101

34:14 Stimulants vs Real Energy

40:47 Stimulant Band Aid Trap

41:51 Creatine Beyond The Gym

45:08 Creatine Dosing And Safety

47:11 Creatine For Brain Ageing

50:53 Why Blood Flow Declines

53:42 Nitric Oxide Basics

57:44 Arginine Silicate Explained

01:04:45 Polyphenols And Nitrates

01:06:53 My Essential Supplements

01:11:36 Rapid Fire Wisdom

01:13:49 Episode Takeaways

Foreign.

Welcome to Beyond Longevity, the podcast that explores not just how we age, but how we can build a longer, healthier future for ourselves.

Today on Beyond Longevity, I am joined by Dr. Luke Bucci, a nutritional biochemist with decades of experience in the supplement industry.

Supplements are everywhere in longevity right now.

They promise everything from mitochondrial support and better brain health to anti aging and healthier gut function.

But what does any of that actually mean?

What counts as real evidence?

When is a dose high enough to matter?

And how do we tell the difference between a supplement that genuinely supports the body and in one that simply makes us feel as though it does?

Dr. Luke knows this field from both sides.

He understands the science behind the ingredients, but also how products are made, how claims are worded, and where consumers can easily be misled.

In this episode, we talk about science backed versus clinically studied.

Why fairy dusting ingredients can make a product sound more proven than it really is, why feeling stimulated is not the same as supporting mitochondrial health, and why blood flow, nitric oxide, creatine, Magnesium, vitamin D, omega 3s and polyphenols all matter in different ways as we age.

This is a practical and refreshingly honest conversation about supplements, longevity, and how to think more clearly before believing the label.

Hi, Dr. Bucci.

Thank you so much for joining me today on Beyond Longevity.

Before we really dive deep into supplements, nutrition and everything else, I'd love to start with your own background.

You've spent decades in the nutritional and supplement industry.

How did that world first become your focus?

Wow.

That was something I did not see coming.

But you go through grad school, you become a PhD, you do postdocs, you do all this high and mighty science, and then you realize that I don't want to stay in a lab all the time.

I want to actually do things.

Because my dad being a pathologist, I worked in the clinical lab.

So I had a. I want a work ethic.

And lo and behold, a dietary supplement company in Houston, Texas, where I was, had an opening for a scientist.

And I said, well, why not?

We all have to eat.

There's gotta be something to these nutritional supplements.

After all, even though the whole industry was being attacked all the time, I thought, hey, that's a good place to make a difference.

And by golly, it has been.

So it's been a bunch of fun, actually.

But most of the fun has been in learning, learning about our bodies, how we work, why we're eating a lot of the wrong things and what's right.

So that's where the supplements come in.

They supplement the Diet, make it a little better so that you're healthier.

And that's the whole long and short of it.

Supplements tend to divide a lot of people.

Some swear by them, others think the whole industry is just hype.

When you look at the longevity supplement market today, where do you sit and how much you know is real science versus just clever marketing?

Well, I always think there's too much clever marketing, but that's just the way it is with everything.

But the science is so much better now.

It's almost too much to sift through and handle.

And I love it because being a scientist, that's what I do.

Before I used to have two or three studies per nutrient that was really showing us that this nutrient can do things.

Now I have two or three dozen studies.

Human studies, well designed, with good effects mean statistically significant improvements in whatever health measures they're they're looking at.

That's a big difference than before.

It's really overwhelming.

And the naysayers tend to forget about all that science that all of our society's been paying for all these decades.

So yeah, it's well backed in science.

It's just that you have a lot of people with blinders on their eyes going, oh, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Kind of.

Well, they do speak evil.

Anyway, enough of that.

You've mentioned the science behind all the supplements and to get right to an important point of this whole conversation is science backed is a term that's been used really often and sometimes misused.

What should that actually mean?

And also, how is science backed differently from clinically proven?

I know these are all words that being thrown around and are often very confusing to the consumer.

And maybe on purpose, you know, maybe they are supposed to confuse the consumer.

Yes, science backed is kind of the start.

You have to have science to make any inroads in what something is and does and then have how you can recite what you have in the product to consumers.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg and it doesn't mean much at all to me.

I mean it can be science back and all on amoebas and that has no relationships to humans and it's still science back.

So science back to me is kind of like forget about it.

Clinically studied is really a lot more important and obviously it needs to be human clinical studies.

I've gotten to the point where I just don't even look at the in vitro, which is the test tube or petri dish, studies cells and also don't look much at animal studies because we're not mice, we're people.

I notice a lot of claims that other companies are using is based on the animal research.

Now animal research is not the same because you can just pump an animal full of anything and get a response that you can say is statistically significant and trumpet that as your claim.

And no.

And our Federal Trade Commission in the United States oversees consumers claims made to consumers and they are extremely strict and there are guidelines and they're all out there.

We should all know about them and follow them and the better companies do where you have to have at least two randomized double blind, placebo controlled human clinical studies with the effects that you are claiming about.

Now, that's a low bar to cross.

Normally there are more than two human clinical studies with good results that are designed well, have enough people doing the right measurements.

So I've been run through that ringer before and the FTC has never beat me yet because I stand behind the right science.

So clinically proven is a very important phrasing.

But what exactly should have been proven?

Is it the ingredient of the finished product or the dose?

The outcome?

All of it.

Those are excellent questions.

And ideally clinically proven is something that the definition keeps changing.

It's right now two well designed human clinical studies with positive results.

There's a move to make that more.

But that's been working very well so far if people stick to it.

But clinically studied is 100% accurate.

It doesn't tell you which way the study went, was it successful or not.

But that is very accurate.

And obviously if you're making claims that compound X makes your hair grow faster, which is something I should look into, then that means it's clinically studied.

It's not clinically proven.

Nothing is proven.

Actually, if you listen to the FTC and I agree because we're all different.

Even though you have positive results in a human clinical study, a hundred percent of the people may not respond.

You might get half, two thirds, three fourths, 90%, 99%.

There is always an outlier.

So that way proven is a term that people want to hear and they see it a lot.

And I don't like that claim because it's scientifically a little hard to define first of all and then to meet.

But clinically studied means that, you know, by and large you got a good chance it's going to do something good for you.

That's the bottom line.

I definitely want to come back to how supplements react differently in different people because I think that's A really important point.

We'll come back to that a bit.

I just want to still continue on that point with clinically proven or clinically tested, however that is being phrased.

Do you think the industry probably at large is using a trick that I would call, you know, sprinkling fairy dust?

They take some ingredient that is fashionable, that is well researched, and they use a tiny dose, adding it to a formula of lots of other ingredients, and then letting the research around that ingredient make the whole product sound proven.

Oh, yeah, the old fairy dusting window dressing trick.

I hate that.

I still see a lot of it.

There's not as much, but it's still going on.

Especially if something hits the news like compound X will cure warts.

And then you have a little bit of the compound X and you have a bunch of other stuff that doesn't have any effect.

But that dose you use is not effective.

But they borrow the studies from the successful studies and say clinically studied, which is accurate, but what's not accurate is the daily dose, and you have to match the studies.

And that's what the FTC looks at.

And that's what companies that know what they're doing and understand the science do.

And that usually means that those kind of companies have a product that is more expensive.

So if you see something for $10, when everybody.

A lot of other companies are having $30 per bottle, let's say I'd buy a $30 per bottle of product, because odds are they know the science, they don't want to get into any trouble.

They're good people.

In other words, they're doing the right thing and you'll get the benefits.

If it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.

You've mentioned the research and how things impact different people differently.

Can that become dangerous in marketing?

Can a substance look exciting in a petri dish or animal model?

But then when it comes to people using it, there's always the issue of digestion absorption reaching the right tissues and really having a real effect in people.

And sort of moving on from that, from evidence to formulation, sometimes feels that's a whole different conversation.

And is it correct to say that a compound may work well in a lab setting, even recreating human absorption and all that, but once it's put into a capsule and swallowed, it has to dissolve, survive the digestive system, be absorbed through the gut, passing through the liver before it reaches the bloodstream.

How big is this gap really between the best intention of something working in research and it Actually reaching the right place in the human being.

Ooh, that's a really good observation and one that scientists like me really pay attention to, and companies without scientists really don't pay attention to.

It revolves around, first of all, what the studies are telling us.

And number two, it revolves what the nutrient is.

And because there's so many settings, if you have somebody that's 20 and somebody that's 80, they may respond differently.

So your messaging or claims need to match what the science or data or studies tell you.

So that's the first thing that's doing pretty well, I think.

For example, vitamin C can shorten duration of colds.

Well, first of all, supplements being a food, not a drug, cannot discuss diseases or prevention of diseases, except for a few widely agreed upon settings.

So, in other words, there's a lot of clamps on the dietary supplement market.

And I think that is a problem because it makes people say really strange things to dance around like, this is going to make your arthritic knee feel better.

You can't say that.

You can say, oh, joint comfort.

So the population in the United States has figured out the wink nudge, okay?

Joint comfort means it'll prevent my joints from hurting, which may or may not be a disease condition.

So it's that kind of dance that you have to play with the regulations which are really constrictive and I think are holding back the goodness that is found in diet and supplementation and is way tilted to making the drugs become how to be healthier.

And I think we're all realizing that's not the best answer.

Yes, we need drugs.

A lot of them are good, but you still have to eat.

You still have to eat, right?

And if you don't, supplements are in there to help what you need to do the most.

Do you find that a lot of supplements that are proven to work in an effective way and they do deliver results, do you think that the supplement industry still produces them in a way that they actually do not have an effect in the human body?

I think that's less of a problem because it all depends on the supply side.

In other words, what.

Where are these nutrients coming from?

Who's making them?

How are they obtained?

There is a big supply industry, and they usually have the biggest conventions for the.

For the whole supplement world several times a year.

And that's where you really go to find out, okay, I want to use Ashwagandha, for example.

And then you go to these shows, you see about 20 companies that are selling you Ashwagandha, and it Goes everywhere from, you know, dirty powdered ashwagandha roots.

They didn't brush all the dirt off to a very refined extract with the most important compounds in a known amount.

And that's what you look for.

You look for something that is going to be the same thing every time you order it and buy it and put it in your product.

And if there's studies on that particular compound or that amount of the active agents, then you have very well supported claims and you can predict mostly how much is going to help people.

So you can say, okay, it makes your hair grow 20% faster, for example, or 50% faster.

And then you have the people with the dirty root powder saying, yeah, ours does too, because it's ashwagandha.

They had no clue.

Or if they do, that's not good.

But you should have any clue that their ashwagandha is not the same thing.

Well, ashwagandha is ashwagandha.

No.

So there is that, that issue.

And I think that's where the supplement industry is heading toward a lot more than it used to be.

After many years in this industry, I was just sickened by all the people putting their dirty root powders and then saying it's the same thing as the most important ingredient part of that root.

That's called standardization.

You standardize it to compound X.

Okay, if it has this much compound X per serving or per pill, then you see those studies, you can use those results for your claims, you know, like the, you know, 20% stronger hair growth or faster, whatever.

So that's what good companies do.

And that's where I think the majority, the big majority of the United States supplement industry is at.

Because those companies eventually do better economically because the people will take the product and go, hey, look, my hair's growing better.

Doesn't matter if it's 5, 10, 15, 20, 50% better.

It's fulfilling the promise.

And that's what we're trying to do.

We want to fulfill the promise of health.

We want to, whatever it is, whether it's nitric oxide production or whether it's your joint health or your headaches, anything that you can talk about, we're trying to put the right material in the pillar at a reasonable price.

And that's, I think, still a little bit of a scrum, if I can use that term now.

But it's getting better, enormously better than it used to be.

I would say right now about, about two thirds, three fourths of the dietary supplements in the market are actually effective.

A lot better than maybe One out of two or three.

Wow, that's actually quite impressive because I really wanted to ask you about that.

How many of the supplements on the market at the moment really are effective?

And not necessarily because they want to trick the consumer, but merely because the delivery system isn't quite as it should be.

Hyaluronic acid was always thought to be wonderful for the body, and we know it is.

But previously the molecules were just too big to be absorbed.

Now the industry just didn't know that.

And now we know.

Now it's been made smaller, so absorption is actually possible.

And I'm also aware that there are a lot of supplements that get destroyed when they reach the gut.

And then if they don't necessarily get destroyed in the gut, they often get metabolized in the liver.

Because it's a foreign product.

Where is the industry at?

Because it's quite technical, quite scientific.

Are they aware of it and is there anything that the industry takes precautions to prevent that?

Oh, absolutely, yes.

In fact, I was the first person to show that large, high molecular weight hadiranin is what I like to call is absorbed and goes to skin and joints.

And this was in animals, performed in a wonderful laboratory in Hungary, a big consortium of people.

So my name is way down the list of it.

But it was my idea because you have to look at how the body works first.

And I think that's where a lot of things come off the rails.

People are just looking at a human study, seeing the results and go, okay, this is what we do.

No, I like to dig deeper.

You have to go and see, okay, what is hyaluronin?

What does it do and what happens when we eat it?

You're right.

The absorption and the uptake bioavailability is super important.

You can get in the bloodstream, but if it doesn't get into cells, who cares?

It's not going to work.

But that all comes out in the wash. With the human clinical studies.

If you give X amount of compound Y, you get a good result or no results or an adverse result.

And that's the bottom line.

If you have good results, you can say, hey, yeah, 50% better with whatever we're looking at.

Then everything else takes care of itself.

These supplements are nutrients.

They're in our diets all the time.

Every time you chew in a piece of jerky, you're getting some hyaluronic.

And every time you're, you're eating an apple, for example, you're getting polyphenols.

So after studying the curcumin absorption, I'M really riled about that.

But again, you have to look at what the body's really doing.

And sometimes everybody goes down rabbit holes like, oh, we have to get it into the bloodstream or else we can't say it works.

No, if it goes to the gut microbiome, you can have a lot of beneficial effects with pretty much no absorption into the bloodstream.

And with a lot of the polyphenols, that's what we're seeing.

And everybody's trying to, well, you know, let's put this, mix it with this and that so it gets into the bloodstream faster, bigger, better.

Well, you're just speeding up the process of it getting out of the bloodstream.

But you go with the clinical studies, you see these things, even if they're not well absorbed, they still have benefits, they still have good results, especially things like curcumin and other polyphenols, quercetin, for example.

So really you're barking up the wrong tree.

We like to say if the human studies show benefits, something good is happening.

You may not find it right away, or it might be a combination of things.

Maybe it is a little in the blood and a lot more to the gut microbiome for certain things, but.

And every nutrient's different.

The essential vitamins and minerals, they're pretty well standardized now that we know how they get absorbed, we know which forms are best.

And I see a big trend to use the better absorbed and better bioavailable forms of nutrients.

Now I think that's wonderful because that's where you get the results.

What do you think matters most in a formulation or do you think that's sort of irrelevant?

Is it the dose, the chemical form, the delivery system?

I don't know, the combination of ingredients, the timing, the person taking it?

I think the timing is the least important.

The body, it sorts things out over a day, usually sometimes longer for fiber, for example.

So that's the least important thing.

There are few nutrients that are better, a little bit better if you take them on an empty stomach or take them with a meal.

Fat soluble nutrients do better with a meal, with fat than just taking it with the glass of water, for example.

But really the body still absorbs it.

It might have a different absorption curve, like less in the beginning, more later.

Or you might want it to get to the gut microbiome in the large intestine or colon.

And that's where all the goodies come out and get reabsorbed.

That has been a big epiphany in their supplement industry.

Is that you don't really need to get it into the bloodstream.

We need to get to the gut microbiome.

Your gut microbiome is a huge factory.

It can do convert all sorts of things into things that your body wants.

Because the gut microbiome is kind of like a living being.

It wants to live.

So if it's going to make you healthier and happier and live longer, it will too.

It doesn't have a brain like we do, but it has common sense from nature, I guess, is how to look at it.

So I look at those kinds of things too.

It's not just, okay, we put compound X at 100 milligrams and we get X percent into the bloodstream.

Yeah.

Yes.

If I put compound X in a product and it makes your hair grow 50% faster, but we don't see it in the bloodstream, I don't care.

It worked.

That's the bottom line and that's why you ended up just following the human clinical studies.

But it helps to know all of what's going on underneath that you just talked about and asked about to know if it's really going to work or not.

And that's what I like to do.

I'd like to say, okay, we're going to use this form from this supplier company because it has the best chance of getting the result we want it to because it was the exact form clinically studied or it's like vitamin C. Vitamin C is vitamin C. There's not really much you can do to make it work any better.

So does that make sense?

Oh, absolutely.

And that actually leads me to the next question.

Should people test before they supplement and possibly after to see what they might be deficient in and then also to see if it works for them?

Or do you think that's unrealistic and unnecessary for most people?

Yeah.

After many years of dealing with this question, should we see if it works?

Test do blood levels?

No, I don't think so.

The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.

If you trying to grow hair and you take the supplement and your hair grows better, you can tell.

Yeah, that's your.

That's your test.

It's a therapeutic trial is the fancy way to say it.

Just try it, give it a shot, give it the right amount of time, take the right amount and hopefully the right kind of form, the nutrient is in and the industry is getting much better at that too.

Then you're the judge, you be the guide.

Because all of us are different.

Sometimes something that works in 90% of the people won't work in you, and it's just, okay, didn't work.

There's always other things to try that will probably work.

Then if something else didn't.

But most of the time these supplements do make a difference.

And I think the biggest issue people have is time.

You have to work with the body.

This is not a drug that's going to take over and tell your body what to do, or else no nutrients will work with your body.

So your body can change itself to make itself healthier.

And if you look at the turnover time of cells and all these other things, like, okay, it takes about three to four months if you're really going to see if something works.

The caffeine, you notice really fast, but that's like a drug, it makes some immediate changes in what your brain feels.

But most nutrients, if you're trying to fix something, especially the body, has to tear down and put it back.

And that kind of process, you have to wait a good three months or so for most supplements nowadays to see if it really works.

For example, let's take the common cold and you just dump a bunch of vitamin C in you.

What you do with vitamin C is boosting the immune system, making it meaner, tougher, stronger.

And that doesn't happen overnight or immediately.

And that doesn't happen when you already have a cold.

Yeah, it does actually reduce the time and duration and the symptoms of a cold, but it's even better if you're preventing them in the first place.

And it takes time for the body to build up what it needs to do with vitamin C to make your immune system stronger, better, badder.

So I like to tell people, yeah, give it the whole bottle's worth, or two or three bottles worth, and then judge.

I think that's the important part.

Don't expect immediate results.

These are not drugs.

For example, if you're trying to gain weight or lose weight, you can't do it in an hour.

Yes.

Or even in a day or a week.

Unfortunately, the word longevity is a really hype term at the moment.

We're seeing it a lot in the supplement industry.

Do you think it's simply marketing language around old products or are there real new longevity supplements around?

Oh, yes and yes, that's a funny answer.

But yes, longevity is becoming a thing because there are more longer lived people right now, and I'm one of them, thankfully.

So it's a trend.

It's just the grain of our society and it's a trend.

Before it was, let's get Beefed up and muscular and all that kind of stuff.

Now it's like, let's live longer.

There's more of us people trying to live longer and we have the means to do it.

So naturally we're going to look at anything that says good for your longevity.

And it's kind of a coincidence that where I work now, Juvenon is kind of an anti aging longevity company from a long time ago.

And that's what it made it attractive to me because I'm trying to be long lived.

I'm still working full time and all my friends are retired and falling apart.

I shouldn't say falling apart.

They probably beat me up.

But I have much better health, let's say, because I've taken supplements for a very long time and trying them out.

Like I said, let's give it a therapeutic trial, three, four months, see if it does what it's supposed to do.

And your body will let you know.

And there's things I've tried and not used anymore.

And there's things I still keep taking to this very day for dozens of years.

So I think that longevity trend and fad is a mega trend.

And I'm actually thinking it is very helpful because by the time people are over 60 or 50, even the body's crapping out if the body's having trouble.

And that's what attracted me to juvenile because I didn't realize until I was checking them out.

Okay, why are you so hung up on blood flow?

Because, you know, heartbeats, you have blood going everywhere.

So yeah, you get clogged arteries and stuff that's different.

So why is blood flow so important?

And when I realized how important important it was and how it goes down with aging no matter what, and how you can slow that decline.

That's what youth is, that's what longevity is.

So that's what really made me jump on board and having a great time with it.

So yeah, that's.

It is a big megatrend.

There are many things now that will slow aging and keep people more active in all the different ways.

You know, body, brain, soul in mind.

And don't worry about your friends of your age beating you up.

They don't take supplements.

You can run faster than them, so they'll never catch you.

Mitochondria have become one of the biggest buzzwords in longevity, but many people still do not really understand what they're being sold.

Before we get into, you know, other claims and other topics, can you explain simply what does mitochondrial health actually mean and why is it what relevant to aging and longevity?

I have a little story that it still freaks me out to this day about mitochondria.

In grad school, I had to go see these boring lectures from these big names in science and medicine.

And this guy was a mitochondria expert.

And I thought, yeah, they're the energy powerhouses of the cell.

We all know that.

So, you know, what else is there to know?

So this is way back.

And he had a black and white movie picture of cells, live cells, which was kind of hard to do, but it was black and white, no color yet.

And he said, okay, here's your cell.

And see those little things zooming around?

He was going, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip.

I said, we can't see them.

They're moving too fast.

He goes, those are your mitochondria.

And I was.

My jaw dropped.

It's like, you mean they're not just stuck in the cytoplasmic goo like you see in the books?

Pictures of cells?

We have that little cross section.

Everything's kind of stuck in jello of the cell?

No, they are moving around.

They have an agenda.

They are going to where that part of the cell needs energy, which is ATP mostly.

So that hit me really hard, and it stayed to me to this day that, gosh, these mitochondria are kind of important.

Let's.

Let's work on them.

And the first supplement company I worked for was big with coenzyme Q10.

And now it's morphed into ubiquinol, which is the same thing, and I think slightly better, but the CoQ still works very well.

And that is what is the key nutrient for mitochondria.

It is that last step in that whole process of breaking down food into ATP energy.

It's that last spark that makes ATP itself out of adp, so that you can run everything you need to do, everything you need to do in a cell.

So coq is something I've been taking for a very long time, and I think it's more important than a multivitamin mineral.

Feed the mitochondria, that's important.

And also what was really very interesting to me for Juvedon is that their first product was developed by Dr. Bruce Ames, a Nobel Prize winner for the mutagenesis assay, which has nothing to really do with supplements.

But he did.

But after he got older, he thought, hey, you know, I studied all these things that are killing us.

I want to try to be healthier.

So he developed acetyl L, carnitine and Alpha lipoic acid to guess what?

Feed the mitochondria and protect the mitochondria, because he knew that was the key to aging, is keep your mitochondria healthy.

They are remnants of some very archaic protobacteria that has been synergistically tied and wedded to our cells.

And all cells that have their own DNA, for example, they divide and they make more of their own DNA to divide.

And then they give us energy.

So we feed them food, they give us ATP, and they get to divide and zoom around and have a great time.

They don't have a brain, but they know exactly what to do.

I want to ask you something quite specific now where I think consumers can be misled.

Some products give people a noticeable energy boost by adding stimulants, sort of like caffeine or green tea or something like that.

And the consumer thinks, oh, I can really feel it working.

And this has really given me support in the way my mitochondria work or has given me a lot of cellular energy.

But the fact is very different, isn't it?

We cannot really feel a boost of mitochondrial energy.

You're right, you don't feel it.

Stimulants are for your brain.

That's where you're feeling it is.

They're affecting your brain and your feelings, feelings of energy.

If you stuck a little energy meter in your arm or something like that, you probably wouldn't see anything because it's your brain talking.

And that's what we feel, energy.

It's the brain saying, hey, you have energy, you can do this, you can do that, and a placebo can do that.

You can talk yourself into energy.

Like this is supposed to give me energy.

So by golly, I feel energetic, I have more energy, I can run faster, farther for a while.

Yeah, but it's short lived.

So the real metabolic energy, things that work with your mitochondria, the more mitochondria you have, the more energy you have.

A big part of aging is less and less mitochondria.

You can't fix that without making more mitochondria.

You can in fact squeeze a little more ATP out of the mitochondria you have, for example, and that'll help.

But you're already in a bad state and you're getting a little better.

What we're trying to do is keep everything 100%, keep things as good as possible, so that your feelings of energy turn into something not stim.

Not like, oh boy, I'm all jazzed up.

I can do things right now.

Is that you look back after that first bottle of something and go, wait a minute, I stayed up late and I woke up early and I feel fine.

It's that kind of inner strength that you're looking for, for energy.

You're doing more than you did before or you're happier.

For example, I think mood is a huge indicator of energy.

If you're energetic, you do things and you hopefully do things right.

So you feel good about that.

I feel energetic, I can do this, I can do that.

So, so that energy term is I think hijacked by caffeine and other stems.

Where I worked before in sports nutrition.

Caffeine is huge because it has more than just the mental stem.

It does make your mitochondria more active, but it's short lived and your body gets better at getting more rid of it.

And there are different genetics with people that some people don't do well with caffeine at all and they don't drink coffee every day or if they do, they feel like garbage.

So your genetics come into play too.

But overall, yeah, the stems are okay if you want to do something better, faster, stronger, harder.

Right now, if you keep doing that all the time, your body says, okay, we're tired of this, your ruining us, you're beating us up.

So we're not going to absorb this anymore, we're going to get rid of it faster so that it doesn't bother us.

Or your brain says, you know, I'm tired of that.

You're telling me that you're whipping a dead horse here.

It's not going to move.

So your body adapts.

And if your body adapts to things that it wants and that it can actually use, things like CoQ10, for example, wow, that, that's where you feel that energy.

It's not, I feel energy an hour after of taking a pill, it's the next week, the next month, the next year, the next 10 years more.

All your buddies that aren't taking this stuff and going, you know, I don't feel like doing anything anymore.

It's like, oh, what's wrong with you?

And they go, oh, it must be something to the supplements.

Yeah, yeah, I think you really explained it very well what the difference is between feeling stimulated and actually supporting cellular energy.

But I do want to push you on the one point.

If you think that the supplement industry is actively misleading people by adding those stimulants and letting the general consumer, I don't even want to say the uneducated consumer, but the general consumer believe that that feeling of immediate energy means that they are actually getting mitochondrial support or energy, which you've just very well explained, you know, are two very different things.

I wouldn't call it trickery.

I think it's just following the herd that people want to be jazzed up right away.

So you're going to give the people what they want and you're going to play it up.

So I really don't think it's tricking, it's just giving people what they want.

It may not be what they really need, but it will have effects.

I mean, caffeine works for the majority of people, especially in exercise.

You know, when absolutely, positively has to get killed overnight.

Our military runs on it, for example.

Everybody's military does.

So these stems do have their place and they can make a difference in how people feel very quickly.

So of course the industry is going to go, let's do more of this because it sells.

So is it trickery?

Well, it's not the whole story, definitely not the whole story.

But people, their eyes glaze over when you start talking about mitochondria and coenzyme Q10 and ATP and they just go, give me another cup of coffee.

There's more Starbucks than supplement stores, let's put it that way.

I think it's just following the herd, giving people what they want rather than what they really need.

Do you not think that that's tricking the consumer?

Because the consumer believes they're supporting the mitochondria, whereas drinking coffee does not support the mitochondria, it is a stimulant.

Well, coffee is the number one source of polyphenols in the US diet anyway.

So that in that respect it really does have those other effects, which really, that's why I have a hard time saying yes or no to your question, because it's deeper than that.

But I do think there's too much emphasis on getting people stemmed up.

And you see caffeine or other stimulants end products to make people feel better and thus they keep taking it.

I don't like doing that.

But if you don't, you're going to not have the same amount of sales.

So you're going to either go bankrupt or never grow.

So there is that fine line.

So is it trickery?

Not really, because it is working.

It is giving people energy, at least that's how they feel.

So it is fulfilling its promise.

What the trickery is is that it's a short term band aid rather than making you fully healthier and having more energy without needing a Stimulant.

I think that's where the problem is.

So, yeah, I think the industry is trying to.

It's like an easy crutch to just give people a stem so they.

Oh, boy.

They feel it right away.

They feel good.

And there you go.

You've spoken about the ATP in the mitochondria before.

And to move on to a slightly different topic that's, you know, been in everybody's mouth at the moment.

Creatine.

Creatine has long been used in sports because it helps to recycle the ATP, which is central to short bursts of energy.

And its role in muscle is better established than its role in cognition, I think, these days.

But the brain health research is really becoming very interesting.

I think we.

With that in mind, why has creatine moved from being seen as sort of a gym supplement to being discussed in healthy aging and in the longevity field?

Oh, wow.

Now, now you hit something that I really like to talk about.

And by the way, Juvedon does not sell creatine.

So what I'm saying is, you know, pure science and experience.

I did work for Weider nutrition for a long time and.

And at one time were the world's biggest seller of creatine when it first started to hit in the bodybuilding community.

So I know a lot more about creatine than I look.

I think it is the best supplement you could take for building strength and muscle mass.

And it really, first of all, when you start taking it, it helps your body hold water.

Water, which sounds like, ooh, that's not right.

Yeah, it's right.

That's how your muscles work.

Okay, here's my analogy.

You want to have strength, right?

So you're in a water balloon fight.

So you fill balloon with water and you throw it and you get somebody all drenched.

Well, you have to fill up your balloon just right.

You have it.

Have it be taut, full of water, so when it hits somebody, it explodes.

If you have a poorly inflated balloon with water, you could throw it and it'll just flop and bounce off.

That's what creatine does.

It transmits the forces when your muscle contracts, and that reinforces the contraction so that you're stronger.

At first, you don't even have more muscle, you know, the myosin and actin proteins.

You just have more water, and that alone can make you stronger than.

But that stimulates your muscle to compensate.

Go, hey, look, we're being asked to do all this contracting, so let's make more muscle.

So you do make more muscle, and that Takes a little bit longer so you can actually start feeling creatine in a few days and stuff.

And I learned this myself because I was a pencil net geek.

When I went to Weider and have all the big guys in marketing and stuff were, you know, gym heads, they just fiends, they'd get up at six in the morning and work out like a fiend.

So here I'm in pencil net geek and it's like, okay, we're throwing you in the gym and beefing you up.

And I go, no.

And it worked.

I gained like 20 some odd pounds and lost body fat.

And I was thinking, you know, if I keep doing this, I'm going to have to shave my hair and get in a bodybuilding contest.

And I'm not going to do that.

I don't have the time.

So yeah, it works for muscles, no question about it.

Three to five grams a day at least, long term is fine.

It doesn't have any real downsides unless you just take too much at once.

Another pencil net geek at Weider decided, I'm going to take it.

I'm going to take the 20 grams a day.

He took 20 grams at once and he blew himself off the toilet, which so don't take too much at once.

Anything that is a salt will do that to you.

20 Grams of salt will blow you off the toilet.

So it's not the creatine to the brain.

Look at creatine, look at where it is, what it does.

It is a backup for, guess what?

ATP.

So creatine by itself doesn't have any ATP on it.

Your body uses it as a little battery storage for ATP energy, because ATP just blows up by itself in seconds.

That's why you're constantly making it with the mitochondria every second of every day, all the time, until you're dead.

And that means you don't make more ATP.

It's usually the biggest cause of death is no ATP.

But anyway, nothing to that.

It's what cyanide does.

You can put ATP and creatine and it holds it for a while, you know, minutes, hours, something like that.

So that means that when you're working out and you're using up your ATP faster than your mitochondria can make it, in comes the creatine ATP, you get another boost of energy.

You can make more reps or more stronger reps than you did before without it.

That means you just get more of the muscle growth, follow up to the exercise you do.

So that's why you get bigger Stronger, faster, with muscles that works very well.

It's now pretty much de rigueur and I think it's a shame, shame that these sports governing bodies are preventing younger people from using it.

They think it's bad, they ban it.

And I think that's completely wrong because more muscle means more strength, it means more resistance to injuries.

And then it gets into the TBI traumatic brain injury issue, which you're talking about.

So brain.

I use my brain for work, so it's important to me.

I'm now an old pencil net geek.

So I got back on the creatine and went back to the gym and started gaining muscle mass and losing body fat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was hoping it would help my brain and I was like, I'm not smarter or I don't feel like my brain is any better.

So I started looking at the literature and it's in its infancy for the brain.

It will help prevent traumatic brain injury destruction if you have it in your brain to start with and you have to take the amount you use to get bigger muscles.

And that gives the brain enough creatine to help resist any traumatic injuries, because you need ATP to heal injuries anywhere, including the brain.

So anyway, that's a different topic.

But okay, so cognition, that's what I really want.

I want to be smarter and keep going longer so I can stay up all night and read more science, all that kind of good stuff.

I wasn't getting it.

And lo and behold, the latest research in creatine in the brain, now that everyone's focused on it, thankfully, is that, you know, especially when you're older, you need to take even more creatine than I was taking.

You need to take about 10 grams a day instead of three to five because it just is harder to get it into the brain.

And the brain is not as much as.

It's not as hungry as the muscles for.

For it.

Creatine's in the brain for the same reason of muscles.

It's a backup battery pack for ATP when you're really using your brain, which is thinking or getting excited, that sort of thing.

So I wasn't taking enough.

I haven't upped my dose yet because I'm cheap mostly, but.

But I think what you need to do is keep taking a good amount of creatine for a while, like most of your lifetime, and then your brain will have a bigger stockpile of it to begin with and you get the benefits that way.

So you don't have to take massive doses starting from zero to a Hundred, so to speak.

That's where I'm going with this.

So it's not as easy on boosting cognition in older people.

It seems to work much better in younger people.

And we're talking any younger people, anything.

Babies up to maybe 50 or so after 50 need to start taking a little more now.

Now that, that kind of gets into eating a lot of meat in a diet.

You can get some creatine that way.

A pretty decent dose, really.

About the low end of what has been shown in clinical studies to be successful.

So this mantra of all these bodybuilders just eating red meat, red meat, red meat.

That's why they did it.

That's why they got that big even before the drugs, is because there was a lot of creatine, not enough creatine to have an effect.

So, yeah, I really think creatine is one of those supplements that really does work.

Again, give it good 3 months, you can really see some muscle strength gains in a few weeks at minimum.

If not up the dose a little bit, your body will tell you if you're taking too much, you'll get some diarrhea or something like that.

That's where I sit in creatine.

Yeah, it works for muscle.

It's.

It's now becoming everywhere.

And I think that's a good thing, being a pioneer in that field.

It's about time that it got its due for cognition.

It's still on the fence, and I think it's going to be a dose response issue that older people need to take more creatine than you do just for making muscle.

You touched upon blood flow, and when we talk about blood flow, we have to talk about nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide is a molecule the body uses to help blood vessels relax and widen, which means it matters for circulation, oxygen delivery, and general vascular function.

Before we talk more about nitric oxide supplements, can you just explain why blood flow becomes so important as we age and why someone interested in longevity should really care about it?

Yeah.

When you're younger, you don't even think about blood flow because you have pretty good blood flow.

What I didn't know, and nobody really knows, and this has been out for decades now, is that even healthy people, their blood flow starts dropping about age 30.

And when you're 50 years old, you're still about 2/3 of your max of your, of your ideal blood flow.

Okay, that's not too bad.

But by the time you're 70, you're at 40%, and that's the best kind of situation.

So you have less than half of your blood flow when you're 70.

Now you take people that are obese or unhealthy and they don't eat right, they don't exercise, or they're indolent, which is a nice way to say lazy.

And their blood flow starts going down immediately after 10 years of age, it goes down.

So by the time you're 50, it's at 20% of what it should be.

That's terrible.

And then the curve drops down to 10% about age 55, and then it flattens out.

What does that tell you?

Those are when people are starting to die.

That's how important blood flow is.

If you have low blood flow, you're doomed to die and be indolent and lazy.

And what that does is that tilts the whole curve to be at 20%.

And at age 60, when, if you're healthy, it's still up around 50, 60%.

So hopefully that makes sense to people.

The idea is blood flow is super important, super important, and is all about the nitric oxide.

It's going to go down with age.

So if you're age 70 and trying to run a marathon, you're not going to do a personal best, for example, compared to when you're doing it at age 30 or 40 or even 20, 50.

But you're still going to do a lot better than somebody that's been a couch potato and not running a marathon.

So in other words, the blood flow is what's important.

And nitric oxide is what makes your blood flow when you want it to flow.

I had no idea it was that important.

I had no idea it was that elegant.

And once you look at it, it's like, wow, nature's smart.

Holy cow.

Okay, let's look at it this way.

We all need oxygen.

If you don't have oxygen, you die in minutes.

You can go weeks without water, months without food, but if you don't have oxygen, you're a goner really, really quick.

So oxygen is really important.

And circulation is what gives oxygen to all those little mitochondria in all of your cells all the time so you can stay alive and thrive.

So oxygen is important, but we don't realize that oxygen is a double free radical.

I won't get into the technicalities, but it's a double free radical.

It's poisonous too.

That's why you don't breathe 100% oxygen in a scuba diving, for example, because it'll destroy you.

We can't live with it, can't live without it.

So we have ways to keep it under control.

But it's still eating at us slowly but surely, because it is a free radical and it is everywhere.

That's why we make new red blood cells.

They only last three months at most.

We're constantly making new red blood cells because they're having a ton of oxygen on their hemoglobin and that's pickling them without fail.

So, yeah, we body's taking care of it.

Okay.

As best it can now.

So oxygen is a diradical.

Now let's look at nitric oxide.

It's a nitrogen and an oxygen.

No, nitric oxide.

It is a free radical because it has that one oxygen sticking out there and that has a free radical.

So oxygen is double free radical.

Nitric oxide is a single free radical.

So it's a very reactive compound.

It's also very unstable.

Your body uses nitric oxide primarily to control blood flow with an enzyme called, guess what?

Nitric oxide synthase or it makes nitric oxide out of the nitrogen in the amino acid arginine, which is always, plenty of it in the bloodstream.

So, okay, we'll just get more arginine.

We'll get more nitric oxide.

Not really.

You'd have to take a big handful of arginine to get a little more nitric oxide.

Okay, well, let's see.

Let's kind of perturb the system.

We'll use another amino acid called citrulline.

You get it in watermelons, for example, and that turns into arginine.

Well, it helps a little bit, but look at those studies, and they're hit and miss.

Arginine is kind of a failure.

If you don't take like 7, 8 grams, you don't get any extra nitric oxide.

With citrulline, you could take a few grams and you get a.

Sometimes you get a little bit more nitric oxide.

So it's kind of a, you know, real life bust.

It'll work, but not routinely.

Okay, what the heck do we do to make our nitric oxide go up?

Or do we.

Can we.

Well, yeah, you can make it go up, but because what it does is open your blood vessels and it's very well controlled because nitric oxide destroys itself in a couple of seconds.

Poof, it's there, it's gone.

So your brain and your nervous system tells your blood vessels where and when it wants to mess with the muscles to make them relax and open up by making nitric oxide.

So you have to have intent.

Like you're starting exercise, you're running it's also completely autonomic.

Means your body's doing this because you stand up and if you didn't have nitric oxide, you'd fall over because the blood wouldn't go to the brain fast enough to keep your balance.

I didn't know that.

That's like really cool.

So if you block nitric oxide and try to stand up, you're going to fall over, which is what old people do, right, because they have less nitric oxide.

Everything connects.

So in other words, it's an elegant, elegant, finely tuned system to make nitric oxide exactly where and when your body wants more blood flow to do whatever it's trying to do without you thinking about it.

And that's, that's also what attracted me to juvenile because there is something that everybody can get called nitrosigene, which is an arginine with silicate bound to it.

And we don't realize this, but a lot of old school nutritionists know that silicon is good for your blood vessels or silicates really, which is dirt.

Mostly there is soluble dirt and this is what is coating her blood vessels.

So the enzymes on your blood vessel wall just sitting there, waiting for the, the little zap from your nervous system to make nitric oxide.

As soon as they get that zap from your nervous system, this happens super fast.

Then it says, oh, okay, grab that Argentine.

Okay, tear that nitrogen off.

Here's oxygen all over the place in the bloodstream anyway, make nitric oxide.

Boom.

Send it into the blood vessel.

Blood vessel goes, ah, I'm relaxed.

You can have more, so more blood flows.

And then two seconds later it goes, okay, we're not relaxing anymore.

So if you want to keep doing something, you have to keep making nitric oxide at that point.

Now this affects blood flow everywhere, all the time.

So we don't notice it's happening.

If it didn't work, you'd be a little floppy jellyfish.

Where you do notice it is an older men with erectile dysfunction, for example.

So that's where a nitric oxide has gotten a lot of attention, and rightly so.

And that's what those drugs do to make it happen is they are like a super nitric oxide without having nitric oxide.

They kind of gum up the works so that you can't stop the nitric oxide.

So it just piles up.

That's different.

But you want to have nitric oxide when and where you want it, not just you're going to do it no matter what.

And that's what helps blood flow to the brain.

And I think that's the most important thing about nitric oxide boosting kind of products is they keep blood supply going into the brain.

Now, remember this, nitric oxide lasts a very short time and it blows up into peroxy nitrite, big word.

That's a free radical, too, and it's a nasty one.

But the good thing about nitric oxide is it works in teeny amounts.

And that's why it took so much, so long to discover.

And it got the Nobel Prize for its discovery, because its importance was realized and that is still important to this day.

It's perfect.

It gets formed immediately, when and where needed, and poof, disappears.

It's not enough of a free radical breakdown product that your body cannot handle normally.

Tell the listeners that don't know that much about nitric oxide, what amounts should they take, and anything else that is beneficial.

You can't, like, breathe in nitric oxide.

It's a gas, so you really can't do that.

What you have to do is get your body's whole system fed with an arginine that is going to stick to the enzyme or be right next to the enzyme.

This is the tricky part that I don't think anybody's noticed, but that's what I do.

I dig deep.

We have silicate coating our blood vessels.

It's kind of like Teflon for your blood vessels, so the blood will keep flowing smoothly and you won't get red cells, you know, scraping themselves and blowing up and spewing oxygen all over the place, which is bad.

So we don't notice that silicate.

And it's a very complicated chemistry.

So the scientists run away screaming.

So we don't know a lot about it, but it's there.

So if you have an arginine silicate, that arginine comes with the silicate.

It just sticks to the blood vessel wall so that it's right there where that NOS enzyme is to make nitric oxide.

So it's like, okay, it's like spoon feeding the enzyme.

Instead of just enzyme having to reach out and grab an arginine.

It's just right there.

It just goes, okay.

It's like sitting down at the dinner table and shoveling food from your plate into your mouth.

Rather than, okay, I have to go up, open up the refrigerator, go put, you know, cook this, and then I can sit down and eat.

No, it's boom.

Feeding your enzymes to make nitric oxide on demand.

And you don't need a whole lot of it because it's targeted arginine.

And that's the kind of concept that's not being understood yet, let's say.

But that's my job, is to understand.

I'm the kid that keeps asking, why?

Okay, why it does this, why?

So that's what really intrigued me.

And you look at the human clinical studies on this arginine silicate, and it started off with exercise and physical performance.

And it does have.

Has some benefits.

So, yeah, it does help your blood flow when you're exercising, so you exercise better.

Then they went to the metal part, they go, okay, let's give it to video gamers.

I mean, if you're going to stress the brain, you know, video game, wild and crazy video game is probably the ultimate way to make your brain, brain work.

So by golly, it does make a difference.

Your reaction times are microseconds faster, but in a video game, that's when versus getting killed off in the first minute, for example.

Cognition is also improved.

So it's like, okay, I'm taking this stuff.

So basically we should all take the amino acids.

Arginine.

No, not arginine itself.

You have to take the arginine silicate.

That's the secret.

And that is a branded ingredient called nitrosigene.

So there's lots of companies with it.

And you don't really feel it.

It's not like you're zipped up or jazzed up like caffeine.

No, you notice it by, if you're older, your hands are warmer most of the time.

So it is making a difference on the blood flow for sure.

And mentally, I think it does make a difference too.

So I played around with that.

I'm still in the playing around mode myself, but I like to do things myself.

If I feel it, then I know it can work.

And I know how long it takes to work, I know how much to take, et cetera.

So, yeah, the studies have been good.

They've been done by people I've actually done studies with in the past.

So I know that they're doing them right.

And it's kind of something that just is out of the blue.

You have to connect a lot of dots to even think it's going to work.

And by golly, it does.

But it's subtle.

It's not a stem.

You just get Blood flow where and when you need it.

If you're sitting there like a bump in a log, you're not going to make any more nitric oxide.

So if you have just people sitting there and you test their blood, you're not making nitric oxide.

This stuff doesn't work.

Oh, you're not doing anything.

You have to do something.

You have to need blood flow.

None of it is a magic bullet.

Arginine silicate will help you make more nitric oxide because you have to have the arginine in the right place at the right time and enough and you don't need a lot.

So that's good.

What really is the icing on the cake are polyphenols, the products that have polyphenols.

With this arginine silicate, not just ours, but others too, they can really make a lot more nitric oxide.

And, and these polyphenols, even by themselves are helping blood flow also.

So that's the secret.

These polyphenols are actually making the nitric oxide work better.

And it's a long complicated thing.

But the polyphenols themselves work.

So when you look at beetroot, which has a ton of nitrate that gets converted into nitrite, and green leafy vegetables have tons of nitrites and nitrates.

So how come we're not just, you know, every slugging beet, brute juice now and beet juice and things.

But that's a different nitric oxide system than the Enos enzyme on your blood vessels.

It'll, it'll bump into that and help it somewhat.

But it's also really making nitric oxide to kill bugs, because that's the dark side of nitric oxide is that your immune system has nitric oxide fire hose generating capacity.

So if it wants to kill bugs and kill them right now, or destroy something, including some of your own cells that are wacky like cancer, it will turn on the nitric oxide button and it uses the, the nitrates and nitrites to just hose something with nitric oxide, even though it only lasts a couple seconds.

It's like pouring acid on something.

As long as you're pouring acid on something, you're going to melt it.

That's inflammation.

Inflammation is producing this immune nitric oxide.

It's called Inos, but let that go.

So anyways, now you're, now you're getting into crazy land.

Not crazy land, but it opens up so many more questions I have for you.

We could go on forever and ever saying that we are coming to the end of the episode.

Now, I normally end with rapid fire questions.

I will ask you those in a moment.

But I would be remiss not to ask you what supplements are you taking?

Okay.

Vitamin D3, quadruple digits, you know, thousand, two thousand, four thousand IUs per day.

I'm still, I use instead of micrograms, it's like 100.

Okay.

Vitamin D3, Omega 3s.

Super important.

We're never getting enough normally.

But I prefer the krill oil, which I have a long experience with, because half of the krill oil is exactly the same molecule that goes into your membranes to make good eicosanoids and prostaglandins that are anti inflammatory and that turn things on properly.

So fish oil takes 25 steps to form that phospholipid in your membranes.

In the meantime, your body does not store Omega 3s.

It breaks them down fast.

They have a lot of double bonds, which means they attract free radicals.

So you take more to get more effect.

You're pickling yourself at the same time.

Which is why all the very high dose omega 3 drugs are not working as well as they thought for lowering triglycerides.

They should have seen that coming.

So krill oil, just one small pill and boom, you're good.

You want Omega 3s to go into the membrane.

You don't want them anywhere else.

The body doesn't want em anywhere else.

Listen to the body.

So I like krill oil.

Omega 3 fish oil is okay, but it has limits.

And krill, you just one small pill is so much easier.

And you don't burp up dead cod fish now too.

And then the other one is magnesium, which is a big thing right now in the supplement industry, and rightly so.

It's been terribly deficient because we've all been taught take more calcium for your bones, especially if you're older.

And what you're doing is you're suppressing your magnesium.

So take magnesium.

Forget the calcium.

If you, if you eat dairy, you're, you're good.

If you don't eat dairy and you have green leafy vegetables, you still get enough calcium.

So I don't like calcium supplements, but bone derived calcium is good because it is natural.

We're supposed to be eating gnawing bones from caveman days.

So it's three things.

D3 magnesium, omega 3s, preferably krill.

You do that, I think you're getting, you know, two thirds, three fourths of the way to being really healthy.

Longer after that.

It's, it's a free for all polyphenols are very important.

So not any single one and not in a large dose.

Like a good healthy diet, a plant based diet, it's loaded with all kinds of polyphenols.

So if you can't eat a plant based diet, just try different kinds of polyphenols which you can find mixtures of them.

Polyphenols are exploding.

People don't understand what they are.

But that's the goodness of a plant based diet is the polyphenols.

So there's many of them.

The more the merrier.

So I've changed our diets to big salads, big salads for dinner so that we don't have a lot of empty, mindless calories.

We have a lot of polyphenols but if you take any polyphenol it goes to the gut microbiome and that takes care of a lot of things.

I don't, the body doesn't want to absorb them.

They, they will ruin your metabolism because they're very potent.

So you let the gut microbiomes change them to polyphenols that we do like and they get reabsorbed.

So in other words that's, that's I think the bottom line there.

D3 Omega 3s, magnesium, that's very good.

And then polyphenols, preferably diet but you can spend money and get em there.

So a lot of successful popular products, I mean beetroots work by the polyphenols, not the nitrates and nitrites as much.

There, I said it.

I have to say it's really very refreshing to hear from someone who's been involved in the supplements markets and research for decades that we only really need three supplements as essentials.

And all the rest I guess are icing on the cake.

I do take Coenzyme Q10 regularly and have, and I think that is super important too.

Ubiquinol is a little better absorbed, it's more expensive, but it's a wash. You take ubiquinone, coenzyme Q10 synonyms, your body converts it to ubiquinol every time it makes ATP.

So as long as you're eating and making energy, Ubiquinone gets turned to ubiquinol in the body.

I think they both work.

Ubiquinol's a little more efficient but it's more expensive so it's a wash.

I think that is if you're older, over 30, over 50.

Yeah.

I would add in the coenzyme Q10 ubiquinol thing.

Now as promised, the rapid fire questions.

What's the single best piece of advice you would give your younger self.

Oh, gosh, that's a toughie.

Best piece of advice?

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Meaning dig deep, keep looking.

Don't trust the first thing you see or find.

Just dig deeper.

Wait for it.

Name one habit everyone should adopt for a longer, healthier life.

Taking supplements.

Not too many, though.

Not too many.

Yes.

If you weren't in longevity science, what career would you have chosen?

Some kind of science?

I think it might be astronomy, actually.

I've always been intrigued by that, and astronomy's been a lot of fun lately.

What microdose habits, five minute routine or small daily action yields outsized longevity benefit.

Petting my dogs, no question.

And what's the craziest longevity myth you've encountered?

And is there any truth to it?

Yeah, anything that goes overboard on one thing.

Maybe even like drinking hydrogen peroxide or something, because that's so easy to goof up and oxidize yourself instead of make your body's antioxidants get boosted.

It's a fine line.

So something like that take, in other words, taking some kind of something that's poisonous or detrimental and hoping it makes you stronger.

Fine ly to making you stronger and making you bad.

So no truth to it, it's really.

Getting into moderation and longevity of taking.

Don't just take something like one pill or one week or one bottle and go, this stuff doesn't work.

I'm throwing it away.

I didn't feel anything.

No, no, no, no.

With nutrients, you didn't grow in one day or a week.

Week.

It took you years to grow.

It took your brain years to make all those connections.

It takes a lifetime to train your immune system to kill germs and not kill yourself.

So it takes time.

Just, just again, like the first thing you ask to wait for it.

Give it time.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Dr. Bucci.

This was fantastic.

That was my conversation with Dr. Luc Bucci on supplements, longevity, and how to separate useful science from clever marketing.

What made this conversation so helpful was the balance.

Dr. Luke clearly believes supplements can be valuable.

But he's not saying we need to take everything, chase every new ingredient, or believe every claim on a label.

He made a very important point.

A product can sound scientific without being especially convincing.

It is not enough for an ingredient to have been studied somewhere in some form, at some dose.

What matters is whether it has been studied in humans at a meaningful dose in a form the body can actually use, and with an outcome that matters.

We also talked about why Feeling something quickly does not always mean a supplement is doing something useful.

A stimulant can make you feel more awake.

That is not the same as supporting mitochondrial health.

And some of the things that may actually help the body over time may not feel dramatic at all.

They may simply support the systems we rely on every energy, blood flow, muscle, brain function, inflammation and recovery.

The bigger message from this episode is do not just ask whether something sounds exciting.

Ask what the evidence actually shows.

Ask whether the dose makes sense, ask whether the form matters, and then, as Dr. Luke said, give it enough time.

His advice was simple.

Simple and probably applies far beyond supplements.

Dig deeper.

Do not trust the first claim you see, and wait for it.

If you've enjoyed this episode of Beyond Longevity, please leave a review.

Thank you.