17 replies to this topic

[soulprogrammer]

Is low IGF-1 better for aging or vice versa?

 

I read many research papers, it seems like it has conflicting results regarding IGF-1 correlation with aging. 

 

Fasting indeed reduce IGF-1, but does that mean it is good?

 

Should we increase our IGF-1 to boost lean mass or reduce our IGF-1 to slow down aging?

 

Any thought?

[MikeDC]

Faster cell devide probably make you age faster.

[PeaceAndProsperity]

Have a look here http://www.longecity...elerates-aging/

Lower igf-1 is better for prevention of dna damage and ultimately cancer. But for repair of the body's tissue higher igf-1 is better. For longevity, living the longest, lower igf-1 is better.

[Rocket]

What is better for quality of life and health-span? IGF-1 and more muscle mass and better healing, or low IGF-1 and lower muscle mass and not as good healing?

[MikeDC]

Natural high IGF-1 is fine. Just don't inject it.

[Rocket]

Natural high IGF-1 is fine. Just don't inject it.

This I agree with. I wasted about $100 on IGF-1lr3. A GH secretogogue like cjc1295 is better.

[soulprogrammer]

What is better for quality of life and health-span? IGF-1 and more muscle mass and better healing, or low IGF-1 and lower muscle mass and not as good healing?

 

 

I think the IGF-1 alone cannot be used to measure aging. Fasting does indeed lower your IGF-1 significantly, and almost all research papers agreed fasting is good for your health. But lowering IGF-1 alone does not give you the health benefit as fasting, because fasting also lower your insulin and glucose level, same as metformin. 

 

So, if your IGF-1 is lower say 20%, and your insulin and blood glucose also lower with similar percentage, that means you are actually slowly aging in a healthy manner. Lowering only IGF-1 alone while insulin and blood glucose remain the same will make you weak and sick, perhaps, just my theory.

 

So, the goal of slowing down aging is to lower IGF-1 AND insulin level .

 

Wondering if my IGF-1 AND insulin level both reduces 20%, does that means I have slow down my aging 20% also?

[Rocket]

 

What is better for quality of life and health-span? IGF-1 and more muscle mass and better healing, or low IGF-1 and lower muscle mass and not as good healing?

 

 

I think the IGF-1 alone cannot be used to measure aging. Fasting does indeed lower your IGF-1 significantly, and almost all research papers agreed fasting is good for your health. But lowering IGF-1 alone does not give you the health benefit as fasting, because fasting also lower your insulin and glucose level, same as metformin. 

 

So, if your IGF-1 is lower say 20%, and your insulin and blood glucose also lower with similar percentage, that means you are actually slowly aging in a healthy manner. Lowering only IGF-1 alone while insulin and blood glucose remain the same will make you weak and sick, perhaps, just my theory.

 

So, the goal of slowing down aging is to lower IGF-1 AND insulin level .

 

Wondering if my IGF-1 AND insulin level both reduces 20%, does that means I have slow down my aging 20% also?

 

 

Again, which is better: more muscle and better healing capabilities, or less muscle (when you're old and dealing with sarcopenia) and less healing abilities? Which is better for quality of life and quality of health-span?

 

Keep in mind that GH has been found to restore the thymus gland and the immune system. Do you want a weaker or stronger immune system as you age?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Rocket, 11 April 2017 - 04:40 PM.

[PeaceAndProsperity]

It seems melatonin is capable of doing what gh is capable of for the immune system, so use that instead.

[sthira]

What is better for quality of life and health-span? IGF-1 and more muscle mass and better healing, or low IGF-1 and lower muscle mass and not as good healing?

I think the IGF-1 alone cannot be used to measure aging. Fasting does indeed lower your IGF-1 significantly, and almost all research papers agreed fasting is good for your health. But lowering IGF-1 alone does not give you the health benefit as fasting, because fasting also lower your insulin and glucose level, same as metformin.

So, if your IGF-1 is lower say 20%, and your insulin and blood glucose also lower with similar percentage, that means you are actually slowly aging in a healthy manner. Lowering only IGF-1 alone while insulin and blood glucose remain the same will make you weak and sick, perhaps, just my theory.

So, the goal of slowing down aging is to lower IGF-1 AND insulin level .

Wondering if my IGF-1 AND insulin level both reduces 20%, does that means I have slow down my aging 20% also?

After more than a decade of extremely disciplined, almost ascetic, monk-like behavior of +/-20% CR (with "optimal nutrition" as defined as daily, obsessive documentation of food intake on Cronometer and attempting to hit daily 100% RDAs) combined with many, many consecutive short-, medium-, and prolonged-fasts (93 days of fasting in 2016; 72 days in 2015; 53 days of fasting in 2014...) I n=1 report that I'm aging right on schedule along with everyone else.

I may not be fat (BMI is 18.5ish) and I may be "fit" (still making a tentative, fragile living as a professional ballet dancer) but I'm aging just like the people around me who don't care. That is, despite my best, most conscious efforts to "do everything right" in terms of long-distance lifestyle habits, nope. Not working. Nothing I do is slowing or halting the relentless aging I see in my body. Reversal of aging still remains a distant dream of humanity.

Oh, my GH/IGF-1 axis and TOR -S6K pathway may be inhibited by all this fasting and CR dedication, and my sirtuin proteins may be on target (however that's defined, which remains uncertain), and my body wide inflammation and blood glucose, and blood pressure may be low; but I'm not kidding myself. I'm not reporting that once per month prolonged fasting combined with calorie restriction is doing anything for beyond keeping me mildly healthier. Not that I'm dissing good aging health -- the alternative is much worse -- but no one is looking at me and commenting hey you look so much younger for your age. Aging within me progresses right on schedule despite trying to keep up with latest trends.

So, in my case, I really don't believe the effort is slowing down my own aging by 20% (even if we could establish objective biomarkers for such a thing).

Prolonged fasting and CR are healthy, I believe, but the retardation of intrinsic and extrinsic aging must be an insiders' job. Meaning, solutions will come from clinical trials, and until then we'll remain hopeful for more speed, while meanwhile spinning our wheels with healthy lifestyle behaviors. Just my opinion, of course, but to advance this shit we need to help fund SENS and any other targeted, specific interventions.

[YOLF]

Ah, so here's my hypothesis:

Around 30% of the population in humans (and there is variance in rodents too) make more Klotho factor than the rest of us. IGF1, D3, and lots of other things raise klotho. However, you also have to preserve klotho which gets more difficult as you age. For that you need tocotrienols. So imo, you needn't refrain from or commit to lowering your IGF1, you just need to make sure you're preserving it. The mechanisms of higher klotho suggest that it will result in longer lifespans, healthspan and lower incidence of all cause disease. However, I wouldn't expect to live longer... most people are already living longer b/c they're taking drugs to make them live longer. With modern medicine, klotho just lets you live healthier longer and look younger longer.

 

Perhaps CR with supplemental IGF1 and tocotrienols could leverage the benefits of both?

[aconita]

I am not so sure fasting reduces IGF1, in facts raises HGH which in turn raises IGF1 since the two are tightly correlated.

 

Anyway if you aren't involved in a car crash, get a heart attack or cancer chances are you'll fall while safely inside your home, break the femur, get hospitalized, catch a nasty bacteria while there and goodbye... 

 

That's how it goes for most... therefore, in practice, an healthy IGF1 level is likely your best beat in order to live longer.

 

Take 100 people of the same age, lets say 60 years old, now look at them, do all look the same (age wise)?

 

Of course not, some will look younger while others will look older.

 

If we try to find a reason why likely we fail, yes, maybe on much bigger numbers we'll find statistics telling certain lifestyles are kind of predominant but there will be always a good number that don't fit in the equation but still look much younger (or much older).

 

So what?

 

Well, obviously there are factors going beyond lifestyle, epigenetics play a big role but genetics does too... and possibly there is more than just those two.

 

You don't know how you would have aged following a different lifestyle, maybe you feel what you have done played an awesome role in keeping you looking much younger than your actual age but maybe it is totally irrelevant since a whole different lifestyle would have yielded the same results, it is just that you age that way, period.

 

Or maybe you feel like in despite of all your efforts you are aging as everybody else but maybe if you didn't take care of yourself now you'll look much worst since your predisposition to graceful aging is poor and your efforts actually did make a difference.

 

It is quite impossible to tell, really.

 

My take is do the best you can which you feel comfortable with, at worst you'll have no regrets to worry about. 

 

[sthira]

My take is do the best you can which you feel comfortable with, at worst you'll have no regrets to worry about.

All of your post is good, not just the select piece I've singled out. Much of what we superficially call aging is in the skin's degradation, our bones shifting, changes in hair color and texture, and motion. We're tightly evolved to figure out pretty damned precisely how old we are to each other, and god knows aging is a obsession here in the west. Everyone seems focused on who is how old and how well they're aging in comparison. Social media has certainly amped up the pressure to stay forever fresh and bright with youthful promise.

Real solutions to aging are inevitable for us -- the science is now pretty far into it and there's no turning back. We will all grow younger, I'm optimistic. And it'll start out as a rich person's luxury, but as the societal financial burden of aging intensifies, solutions will come. I just think it's fucking hard to solve the diseases of aging -- we've all seen De Gray's metabolic complexity charts and heard his voice over and over: "...and this metabolic complexity is just a small subset of what we only vaguely understand..."

Therefore, it exacerbates me when people pop up and say metabolic tinkering (fasting, calorie restriction, telomere lengthening, resveratrol, NAD+/NAD ratios, whatever's hot) will do much to slow, stop and reverse aging. Even if FDA dropped all regulations and brightly announced that aging is a disease that me must cure -- a moonshot -- it'll still be very, very difficult to find answers. And I don't think that that's conspiratorial -- I think that's because we're incredibly complex and think only Artificial Intelligence, which will become vastly superior to our own intelligence, will play a pivotal role.

Meanwhile, everyone looks cross eyed to me with regard to aging retardation advances.

[MikeDC]

As we age CR and exercise become less effective since our NAD+ gets lower. Nicotinamide Riboside really works, many people are getting younger. Reversing aging is extremely difficult. If NR can reverse aging for some people, it must be very effective to slow down aging for most people. Having a 50 year old body at 80 is possible with NR.

[YOLF]

I am not so sure fasting reduces IGF1, in facts raises HGH which in turn raises IGF1 since the two are tightly correlated.

 

I think it depends on the type of fasting. CR and Intermittent fasting are different beasts. The former lowers growth hormone output iirc while the later raises it. Exogenous HGH apparently takes it's toll on the kidneys where exogenous IGF1 does not. So assuming that endogenous HGH does the same thing, then intermittent fasting may accelerate aging in respect to kidney aging or just shape aging differently for us. CR on the other hand simplifies all equations and creates less burden on internal systems... though it also lowers sex drive. To me, CR w/ TRT and IGF1 therapies represent a better balance to the equation. But you might not even need the IGF1... there just isn't a TRT protocol for people on CR tmk. Instead, CR w/ TRT and a lower dose of tocotrienols could be best.

[YOLF]

 

My take is do the best you can which you feel comfortable with, at worst you'll have no regrets to worry about.

...

Therefore, it exacerbates me when people pop up and say metabolic tinkering (fasting, calorie restriction, telomere lengthening, resveratrol, NAD+/NAD ratios, whatever's hot) will do much to slow, stop and reverse aging. Even if FDA dropped all regulations and brightly announced that aging is a disease that me must cure -- a moonshot -- it'll still be very, very difficult to find answers. And I don't think that that's conspiratorial -- I think that's because we're incredibly complex and think only Artificial Intelligence, which will become vastly superior to our own intelligence, will play a pivotal role.

Meanwhile, everyone looks cross eyed to me with regard to aging retardation advances.

 

 

Well, I don't think it will require AGI to figure out. A good team of database engineers, biochemists, statisticians, and pharmacologists could get it started, or at least figure out the first optimized method for success, test it in a variety of species concurrently and learn new things by applying the best tissue and fluid analytics possible. It's definitely not impossible and definitely not that complex of a problem. We've been cherry picking a few good things here and a few good things there, and it could help us somewhat, but you're right. It's not the answer we're truly after.

[motorcitykid]

Ah, so here's my hypothesis:

Around 30% of the population in humans (and there is variance in rodents too) make more Klotho factor than the rest of us. IGF1, D3, and lots of other things raise klotho. However, you also have to preserve klotho which gets more difficult as you age. For that you need tocotrienols. So imo, you needn't refrain from or commit to lowering your IGF1, you just need to make sure you're preserving it. The mechanisms of higher klotho suggest that it will result in longer lifespans, healthspan and lower incidence of all cause disease. However, I wouldn't expect to live longer... most people are already living longer b/c they're taking drugs to make them live longer. With modern medicine, klotho just lets you live healthier longer and look younger longer.

 

Perhaps CR with supplemental IGF1 and tocotrienols could leverage the benefits of both?

 

Physical exercise increases Klotho:

https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/24322608

 

Astragalus increases Klotho:
http://en.cnki.com.c...KX201408027.htm

 

Resveratrol increases Klotho:

https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/24911970

 

Activated Vitamin D increases Klotho:

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3511664/

 

 IIRC Cordyceps, Vitamin D, and Statins also increase Klotho.

[normalizing]

statins have some of the worst negative effects, how convincing is that they actually do anything positive?