Green tea and green tea extracts

Dan Larry BobM

 

Yes I agree with both of you. There are questions that we don’t yet have answers to and other questions that we are getting better and better answers to.

 

Like which supplement should be taken permanently to occupy a receptor or to acting on a target enzyme? And which supplement or medications should be taken intermittently, this to avoid overstimulation/oversuppressing our systems (like mTor might be), or to avoid downsides like upregulation of compensatory systems in our bodies that in the long run pose a risk for nullifying the aimed for benefits.

 

And sometimes we have to rely on  our fabulous organism to normalize and simply just rebuild itself after having faced a stressor/stimuli.  Exercise is a great example of this approach. 

 

When taking medicines and supplements There are often unintended consequences So, a good strategy is to try and restrain oneself and not use to many supplements (which can be hard) at least not take a lot of supplements all of the time.   

 

A big question is to find synergies and substances that function as agonists and avoid antagonists. As when pharmaceutical industry analyze negative and positive interactions. What to take, when to take it and with what frequency should we take it? How to combine them?

 

Which supplement to take in the morning on empty stomach? Which supplements to take with food? And which to take at evenings or before bedtime? Which can be taken together without not interfering negatively with each other and which should be taken together to receive hoped for synergies?

 

Therefore, I take green tea capsules with real green tea in the morning and quercetin at the same time. Aiming for synergies. I might add myricetin and curcumin BCM 95. (Well knowing that this is not the optimal timing for curcumin which should be taken with food).  This morning I tried out LEF’s new bioavailable green tea extract together with a cup of real Japanese green tea and with one capsule quercetin from Thorne and one Capsule Curcumin BCM 95 from LEF.  This was the first time I tried out this combo. Theoretically the synergies are there. Even though I know that curcumin should be taken with a fatty meal.

 

This is a shot at finding synergies not a focus at optmizing every individual supplement. Trying to see the whole picture or at least a picture that is larger than every single supplement that is said to be beneficial. . 

 

One member here has a name "are we there yet" and that name makes me think of the wright brothers.  The Wright brothers – Orville and Wilbur - are credited for creating the first flying airplane. They did so in competition with financial big corporations and against people with scientific status. But the Wright brother managed to pull it off (the ground). Now, referring back to those entrepreneurs it makes me ask “Are we flying yet”. “We” that aim for prolonging human life and it’s healthspan? Well, I think we at least are off the ground. We might not be very high up, But we are off the ground.

Dan Thank you for sharing your thoughts, principles for health and sharing your regim. I post my own thinking and regim here.  I just need some time to write it down. 

Dan Larry BobM

Like most people my routine is evolving. If I Should mention the basic components it should be as follows.

 

Exercise:

The first thing I do when I wake (3-4 times a week) up is physical exercise.  Mostly some kind of running. Sometimes 1 hour for an endurance effect, other mornings I do interval training with 2 – 4 intervals 4- 6 minutes long at max speed and some morning the intervals can be 30 – 90 seconds long maximal bursts and other mornings I might focus on 10 - 30 seconds maximum bursts of sprinting. After running I sometimes do some muscle strengthening. I try to stay away from a fixed routine that my body easily adapt to. This kind of free regime makes it more fun for me and it also put different stress-signals to the body. I usually have a cup of coffee before running and some quick acting creatine. Otherwise exercise is done on an empty stomach.  Sometimes I let my body rest and rebuild for 3-4 days.

 

Morning supplements:

On empty stomach (or on empty stomach after my running), I take green tea, green tea capsules, quercetin. Based on nothing but my own experience of personal wellbeing I also take vitamin B6 in the morning. (If I don’t run, then I don’t have coffee). Since a few days I am experimenting with curcumin an hour after the green tea and quercetin. I know that curcumin should be taken with a fatty meal but if not focusing solely on absorption of the curcumin but on creating a greater synergy I might move my daily curcumin from lunch/dinner to mornings. Placebo or not, so far I have had an increased feeling of wellbeing when I take curcumin after my green tea + quercetin. Later I will experiment with myricetin.

 

I don’t eat breakfast; lunch is my first meal of the day. I try to have at least 14 - 16 hours between the last meal of the evening and the first meal the day. But I don’t do this diet pattern 7 days a week. At least one day a week I indulge myself in proper breakfast and I might also add some whey protein. On those days I feel the anabolic system kick in. Since I have coffee tea and creatine this is not a pure fast.

 

Lunch:

With my lunch I take vitamin D + Vitamins K2mk7 + Curcumin in the form of BCM 95 + grapeseed extract and a tocotrienol blend. (As previously said, I might move the curcumin to mornings). On most days during lunch or dinner I have dried Broccoli sprouts.  

 

Dinner:

At dinnertime I have cruciferous extracts and LEFs omega 3 with astaxanthin and  olive oil components. And I often add one multivitamin capsule “Two per day from LEF”. And periodically I take extra B12 at dinner. I have made my own reishi extract (double extraction) which I take after dinner. (on intermittent basis).

 

Before bedtime:

At night before bedtime I take folic acid and magnesium + (And intermittently I take 1500 mg Taurine aiming at improved sleep and to support neurogenesis).  Note, I know that magnesium threonate is not for me. I have tried that kind of magnesium a few times and I have a suspicion that it might be correlated in giving me an unpleasant irritability. As person I am otherwise relaxed, and I usually don’t loose my temper. During the time(s) I used magnesium threonate I also took Q10 which in some cases also can elicit irritability. So, the “jury is out” when it comes to those two supplements (or the combination of them) and my experience of out of character irritability.

 

I have tried melatonin a couple of times and in different doses and with different formulas (extended release etc ) but unfortunately it has not worked well for me. In the future I will try to make melatonin work for me, this since it seems to have other beneficial effects besides supporting good nights sleep. The issues I have had with melatonin is that I have slept very deep but woken up after 3-5 hours and then being wide awake and not been able to go back to sleep again. In cases that melatonin did give me a full nights sleep I have been tired the next day.  But right now I have other substances I prioritize to add to my regime.

 

When it comes AMPK I think that I so far have done well with exercise but now when I age (soon 57) I am considering Berberine, Gynostemma, metformin. Right now I am doing an “AMPK stimulating” test. Two months on life extensions AMPK activator which has worked well with my intermittent fasting. I lost 3 kg from that intervention. Now I am on a 2 months berberine trial.  My other regime is about the same as under my gynostemma period and so far, I’d say gynostemma is the better choice for me. At least I got results as well as a “feeling” that it acted more in synergy with my intermittent fasting. But its to early to say. I probably end up with metformin or gynostemma product ( or the gynostemma tea which I also have tried with similar success). When it comes to gynostemma tea my experience is that it makes me sleepy so I had it in the evenings. Since my wife is fluent in Chinese she has told me that on TCM sites in China they often recommend to drink gynostemma tea in the morning. This I have to explore further.

 

I do senolytic therapy based on Fisetin in combination with other senolytic agents. I will do D + Q When I can get Dasatinib from India.

 

Future changes or experiments (hopefully improvements):

- twice a week I will do more heavy resistance training. Primarily not to build muscles but to build health. When muscles are forced to work at their maximum they elicit an anabolic response that the whole body can benefit from and that kind of strong muscles might might send other rejuvenating signals to the rest of the body. This hypothesis need scientific support. (It might be seen as something similar to what Larry mentioned but of course being a weaker approach to recalibrate your blood).

- I consider adding a low dose fisetin daily or on most days (150 – 300 mg). Not aiming at a senolytic effects but as a gero-neuroprotecting agent.

- Myircetin will be tried as a part of my morning regime with green tea and quercetin.

- Pterostilbene + NAD? I have very little experience. But of course they are interesting for me.  

- When it comes to piperlongumines and senolytic therapy, I have made my own extract from piper longum frutis and will try this as a part of future senolytic treatment.

 

Is this all?

No but this is my basic regime. I am not vegetarian. Most weekdays I have only a sallad for lunch and plenty of vegetables for dinner with fish and meat. I am very curious to see what science will say about C60 and human life extension.