Recommended

There are innumerable products and services to choose from in the health and longevity space. Here are a few that I use myself and/or recommend as worthwhile.   (Please see here for my financial disclosures).

TESTING AND EVALUATION:

At Home Blood Test
One of the most common questions I get asked are which blood tests I routinely obtain for myself. There are several biomarkers that I check on a regular basis. The way I do it is from my home, with a simple finger stick, and then I just mail it in to the lab for processing.

The best deal I’ve found is a service with a package of 22 tests. It includes a couple that I wouldn’t normally test but if I order the entire package, it costs less than $15 per marker and I get the results right away. Includes: Cortisol, insulin, HbA1c, triglyceride, vitamin D, hs-CRP, LDL, HDL, testosterone, TSH, DHEA-S, ferritin, estradiol, homocysteine, ApoB, ApoA1, and more. Also included are recommendations for any abnormal values. Get it here.

Glycosylation Biological Clock
Biological clocks can be valuable to assess our biological age(organism age) vs our chronological age(passport age). There are many types of biological age clocks that range from using epigenetic DNA methylation to cardiac or brain markers. Perhaps the greatest driver of chronic disease and aging is inflammation. The one biological clock that targets chronic inflammation, specifically gycosylation, is the Glycanage Clock. This is the clock that I use when I specifically want to address the overall biological age based on the effects of inflammation on multiple systems. https://glycanage.com/ 

INTERVENTIONS

Fasting Mimicking Diet
Paired with daily intermittent fasting, occasional prolonged fasting, extending beyond 48-hours, offers an additional layer of physiological benefits. As we discussed earlier, fasting switches off mTOR, allowing autophagy – a cellular cleanup mechanism – to activate. But autophagy doesn’t switch on the moment you stop eating, rather your body needs to fast for enough time to trip the switch. Optimal autophagy benefits don’t truly manifest until after 2-3 days of water fasting. Yet, navigating water fasting beyond two days can be challenging and even dangerous without proper oversight. 

Enter the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), a groundbreaking solution pioneered by Dr. Valter Longo after decades of exhaustive research and a mission to find a solution to prolonged fasting that could be attainable for most people. The FMD offers a way to experience fasting while still enjoying – and nourishing with – food. Crafted from 30 years of meticulous research, with more than $48 million in R&D, including government funding from the NIH and the EU, the FMD establishes the precise amount and ratio of ingredients and macronutrients to consume. The goal? To provide the optimal amount of nutrients while staying below the radar’s of our body’s nutrient sensing pathways that switch you out of a fast, like mTOR. (20% off with this link): https://prolonlife.com/Lufkin

Fasting Mimicking Supplements
Thousands of studies have shown fasting to have a wide range of health benefits from helping to treat, prevent, or delay most major diseases to even extending lifespan. While most experts agree on the health benefits of fasting, it can be a very difficult lifestyle to maintain and unsafe for certain populations, limiting its clinical applications. But what if there was a way to get the same health and longevity benefits achieved during a fast without actually fasting? This is the question being tackled by Mimio Health, a nutritechnology company creating first-of-their kind biomimetic supplements designed to recreate the benefits of  our body’s natural regenerative states, like fasting.  

After years of human fasting research Mimio Health was able to crack the code. As it turns out, during a fast the body produces a unique set of compounds that, when isolated and given as a supplement, can recreate similar health and longevity benefits. Their product, Mimio, uses a patented combination of these “fasting metabolites” to activate the cellular benefits of fasting on demand with a simple daily pill. Mimio has even been shown to reduce biological age in humans and extend the lifespan of model organisms by up to 96%.

Today, Mimio is helping countless people across the country harness the transformative power of their own biology to enhance their healthspan and live at their peak. https://mimiohealth.com

Bone Health
In following a plan for overall health and longevity, one of the most overlooked areas is bone health. Lack of bone health can manifest as osteoporosis and other bone disease. A bone fracture for most people is an inconvenience but certainly not life threatening. In the elderly though it has been reported that 18 to 33 percent of all older adults who have suffered hip fractures will die within a year. Women are at increased risk for bone loss and osteoporosis.

Kevin Ellis, also known as The Bone Coach™, is an expert in bone health and is my go to trusted resource for people with osteoporosis interested in building stronger bones. He has put together a useful and effective program called the Stronger Bones Solution to help you understand your risk for osteoporosis and most of all, what you can do about it. Find out more at https://bonecoach.com/

External Vagal Nerve Stimulators

Autonomic dysregulation is a key driver of inflammation, insulin resistance, and the chronic diseases in this book. While there are many techniques for stress reduction, direct vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) is one of the most exciting areas in this exploding field.

We are evaluating several companies before we give a recommendation. They are some developing breakthrough interventions in this important field.  Watch this space for updates.