Curation for Longevity 🧬🛍 12 - Intermittent fasting, Microbiome testing, Celebrity Protocols

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We are the team behind MYKIGAI; our mission is to make longevity accessible as a lifestyle and truly disrupt aging. 🧬🚀

In Curation for Longevity 🧬🛍 , we look at what could help make preventive and regenerative health the next direct-to-consumer lifestyle category, as well as the market and societal trends influencing this. Researched and distilled by Laura Minquini.

Our Longevity ToolKit is where we store our educational libraries of health checklists and easy-to-implement recommendations for longevity. Researched and distilled by Girish Harinath.

At MYKIGAI.COM we put theory and practice together. We provide curation and access to DTC (Direct-to-consumer) brands and startups with products and services in longevity (preventive and regenerative health). The how-to with the tools to do it with. More importantly, our members get exclusive offers to all of our curated brands.

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This week:

• Longevity Drop #7: VIOME

• Le Biological Age Test and the conundrum of being a longevity founder

• A guide to intermittent fasting for longevity [Part 1] [2+3 for paid subscribers only]

• Bonus: Our How-to-NMN Supplement Checklist

Announcements 📣

Longevity Drop #7 🧬💧 - VIOME

We kick off our month looking at the microbiome with our first product feature and offer from VIOME, one of the more established companies in at-home-diagnostics testing various biomarkers of health. Look out for our microbiome report and some other amazing companies on our next posts!

In the meantime, remember to check out our extensive Gut Health Report

And here’s a must read recent article on the connection between Depression and the Microbiome.

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Le Biological Age Test 🧬🕰

Watch the IG Live with long-time fashion bestie Calla, and new longevity bestie CEO and co-founder of GlycanAge, Nikolina Lauc. We discuss the benefits of testing the state of your immune system and body inflammation. Biological age tests are controversial with hardcore longevity scientists as they are relatively new tools, and by all means, there is no unifying theory of how to properly measure aging, however as I mentioned on my Longevity Trends for 2022, they are going to only get more popular this year.

Thanks to my first IG live I learned: always use a filter, turn on the ring light, and maybe just maybe you need to start le botox, like a famous longevity expert I won’t mention.

The irony of running a startup in longevity and looking tired does not escape me. Time to ramp up my own protocols!

Bonus: This week (February 5 - 12) you can get 15% on your GlycanAge test with the code MYKGAI (Disclaimer: this is not a Longevity Drop, but we thought you’d like a code after watching our live stream).

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Celebrity Protocols

Has anyone else noticed the obsession from tabloids and techies with the burgeoning physique of Amazon’s billionaire founder? Bezos recently invested in the new well funded biotech Altos Labs, focused on cellular rejuvenation with a team of Nobel Prize winners and a 3 billion coffer, even the scientists are talking. And so are we, so we are taking our “Do you think it is human growth hormone, or testosterone?” chat live. Join HERE this Wednesday at 12pm ET, or lookout for the recording next week.

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Intermittent Fasting Guide - Part 1

Fasting is mainstream. We would need more than one newsletter post to highlight everything about this practice - I mean, there are so many books dedicated to it. It’s being actively promoted by a lot of longevity scientists and equally dispelled by others. The science is evolving.

I personally practice this because I agree with the notion that in the western world we consume too much food; particularly in North America. Having lived in Europe, where regular walking is normal and food portions are smaller, one realizes the huge difference.

Now, fasting as a practice has gone mass-market in various forms. Some use it as a “diet”, which we don’t recommend. However, some fast for the health benefits, which we agree with based on current scientific evidence. To share our findings, here’s an introduction on how to intermittent fast for longevity. We will be doing other focused sections in later newsletters.

Introduction:

A Holistic Approach To Intermittent Fasting

Fasting is an extremely powerful tool that can be used to slow down the aging process and maximize our healthspan - the portion of our lives spent in peak physical and mental health with minimal suffering. In fact, fasting is the most supported and well-researched longevity intervention within scientific literature.

Intermittent fasting (IF) is one modality of fasting where one abstains from eating for a defined period of time. Time-restricted eating is a form of IF in which an individual fasts for a window of time during a single day. Typically, the minimum fasting windows required to begin reaping profound physiological health benefits is 12 hours. Several research studies demonstrate that 16 hours of fasting for women and 18 hours for men is optimal, but studies also show that up to 20 hours within a day can boost autophagy (cellular trash cleaning), reduce chronic inflammation, and help repair leaky gut.

Despite the promise of IF as a longevity tool, it can be stressful on the body if not done correctly. Fasting can produce conflicting outcomes on one’s health, as shown within scientific research and on an individual level. To avoid this, the ideal IF strategy involves thinking about more than just how long you fast, but also what and how much you eat when you’re not fasting, as well as the state of your mind and body when you are eating.

Of course, there are several other variables to consider when optimizing your fasting regimen. These include your genetics, activity level, supplements, and how you challenge your body and mind on a daily basis (what David Sinclair calls “adversity mimetics”). Stay tuned for these insights in future posts.

Clearly, there’s a host of different variables to consider when constructing an intermittent fasting regimen. With them in mind, this checklist will help you maximize the benefits and reduce the risks of your IF routine.

For immediate access to Part 2 & 3 subscribers can go to our Longevity ToolKit Library otherwise we will be dropping them at a later date!

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BONUS: Last week’s How-to-NMN checklist!

How-To-NMN

When choosing a reliable company to purchase from, look for:

1. A larger company that’s been around for a while

2. A company with leading longevity scientists on their advisory board (check their publication record)

3. A company with a customer service contact number

4. A company that makes third-party testing easily available

5. When analyzing an NMN supplement product, verify the following have been recently updated:

6. Certificate of GMP (good manufacturing practice) Certificate of purity (>98% pure)

7. - Heavy metals (arsenic, lead, etc.), toxins, microbes in the product should be minimally present if at all

8. Proof of stability certificate (at claimed temperatures/conditions) Product reviews

9. Supporting scientific literature for the product (ideally clinical trials) to weed out questionable NMN products

Drug delivery options to consider:

Powder → cheapest, tried and tested in most animal studies

Capsule → enhanced absorption, protects NMN from stomach acid

Tablet → sustained release for longer lasting effects

Lozenge → enhanced delivery, NMN enters directly into bloodstream and avoids undesirable processing from stomach and liver

NMN is unstable in suboptimal conditions and can degrade into toxic byproducts.

When storing your supplements, aim to use:

1. A cool temperature

2. An airtight container

3. No direct light exposure

NMN dosage depends on age, weight, and fitness level. Consider the following:

1. Typically people of heavier weight and greater age require a larger dose

2. Start with a lower dose (100-250 mg/day) and gradually increase over the span of weeks/months as needed

3. 500mg/day is the dosage supported by human studies

4. 1g/day (David Sinclair dose) is supported by a large body of animal studies. Many suggest that this higher dosage provides greater benefits.

In all studies, no side effects have been observed with long term drug administration, but more research is still needed.

General regimen recommendations:

1. Take NMN on an empty stomach in the morning, when NAD+ levels in the body are highest.

2. Boost NAD levels in the body (and supplement efficacy) through exercise, sauna sessions, cryotherapy, and other “hormesis” stimulating activities in the morning. Get plenty of rest and sleep.

3. Other supplements that can enhance the efficacy of NMN supplements:

4. TMG [trimethylglycine] → 2.5g/day, at least 2 hours after eating Apigenin → incorporate dried parsley into your diet

5. Resveratrol → 0.5-1g/day

Part 2: How To Fast

Part 3: How To Cultivate A Healthy Mindset When Fasting

In subscriber library