Astragalus, Cycloastragenol, TA65, Astragaloside IV and their supposed ability to increase telomere length

As you might have noticed, the old topic/discussion thread about Astragalus related compounds and their supposable ability to elongate telomeres have been closed. After some respectable 2.190 posts. The main reason seem to have been the size had made the thread rather unmanagable

I've kind of grown used to the old topic/discussion thread and have also published some of my own test results there. Due to the lack of other groups on the subject I therefore created this new topic/discussion thread.

During the last few years there have been a remarkable absence of hard data to either support or repudiate the claim that one or several Astragalus based compounds may increase telomere length.

I've myself tried to apply some basic "Test Experience" on the subject (yes, once upon a long time ago I got a certification, so I'm a certified "tester" :-) and will start with re-publishing some of my results from my 8:th "Test Run" to increase the length of my own telomeres. The results are positive in a conservative way. This in itself indicates that somewhere out there, there should be a "real" scientific report which either supports or repudiates the claim that Astragalus, Cycloastragenol, TA65 (basically the same as Cycloastragenol, but taken at 8 mg) or Astragaloside IV can increase the lengths of Telomeres.

Have anyone heard of a new report, which have not already been mentioned in the old discussion thread, with claims in either direction?

Edited by GreenPower, 24 May 2014 - 12:37 PM.

...and here's the repost of my 8:th Test Run.

Test run 8 - Cycloastragenol, 20mg + Standardized Astragalus for 5 + 3 months

I took Cykloastragenol (Revgenetics, Terraternal) and Standardized Astragalus Root Extract (Solgar) during two periods of 5 and 3 months respectively, with a two week off-period in between. I used Resveratrol (Revgenetics, micronized, 250 mg) together with training sessions (only). During the last four months I also took Huperzine A and Alpha GPC 300 before going to bed in order to increase brain health.

Pretest Period: None

• This Test Run commenced directly after Test Run 7. There was no "off time" between.

Period 1: 5 months

• During the first period I used "Astragalus Root Extract (0.5%  glucosides, 70% polysaccharides) 225 mg, Raw Astragalus Root Powder 250  mg)" from Solgar and Cycloastragenol, 5mg from Revgenetics. I took one (1) Astragalus and two (2) Cycloastragenol for a total of 10mg in the morning and the same in the afternoon.
• During this period I also completed several rounds of "Adidas miCoach miCoach 30 MINUTE WORKOUT FOR MEN - Level 5" for a total of 25 training sessions. I used it with 20 minutes cross training and 10 minutes of rowing machine. Then about 25 minutes of basic muscle training (4 sets á 5 reps).
• I practiced LCHF and could measure respectable amounts of ketones most of the time.
• I did NO meditation and used NO Gingko Biloba.

Please note that my Cycloastragenol had passed the "best before date" of 2012-July. I used up all of my old stock which I bought a few years earlier. I checked with Revgenetics and they said "Because with the years it does lose its potency, you should consider using a higher dosage". Which I did, taking 10 mg two times per day, for a total of 20 mg per day. The whole stash had been stored in a cool and dark environment the whole time.

During this period I did not work (the rules for parental leave are very good in most European countries) and slept and relaxed a lot. I did not have so much as a simple flu during this period.

Off Time between periods: 2 weeks

Period 2:  3 months

• During the first period I used "Astragalus Root Extract (0.5%  glucosides, 70% polysaccharides) 225 mg, Raw Astragalus Root Powder 250  mg)" from Solgar and Cycloastragenol, 10mg from Terraternal. I took one (1) Astragalus and two (1) Cycloastragenol in the morning and the same in the afternoon.
• During this period I also completed several rounds of "Adidas miCoach 30 MINUTE WORKOUT FOR MEN - Level 5" for a total of 10 training sessions. I used it with 20 minutes cross training and 10 minutes of rowing machine. Then about 25 minutes of basic muscle training (4 sets á 5 reps). The reason for less training during this period was repetitive cases of some nasty bugs.
• During the last four months I also took Huperzine A (Source Naturals) and Alpha GPC 300 (Jarrow) before going to bed. The first month every evening, then every second or third evening.
• I practiced LCHF and could measure respectable amounts of ketones most of the time.
• I did NO meditation and used NO Gingko Biloba.

Please note that the Cycloastragenol provided by Terraternal had NOT expired.

My son started preschool and I started working. The pace at work was acceptable the first month, but the two last months meant some measurable stress. Preschool also meant exposure to lots of different strains of flu and a really bad case of the "winter vomiting bug" (Norwalk virus).

Results

Test Run 8 meant the following telomere changes from the last test run.

Measurement       MTL(kb)   Difference(%)   Difference(kb)

Tel-Lymphocyte      7,4         7%               0,5

SD-Lymphocytes      0,2

Tel-Granulocytes    7,8         0%               0,0

SD-Granulocytes     0,0

Tel-Naïve T-Cells   7,9         3%               0,2

SD-Naïve T-Cells    0,3

Tel-Memory T-Cells  6,4         5%               0,3

SD-Memory T-Cells   0,1

Tel-B-Cells         8,6         4%               0,3

SD-B-Cells          0,1

Tel-NK Cells        5,1         2%               0,1

SD-NK Cells         0,1

MTL = Median Telomere Length

SD = Standard Deviation

Conclusion
Repeat Diagnostics have earlier stated that the fault limits of their tests are within 0.3 kb for lymphocytes, 0.5 kb for granulocytes and the error for the other subpopulations "is expected" to be in the same range, 0.3 - 0.5 kb. This ought to mean I have a verified extension of the telomeres of my lymphocytes. With some margin. The other measured values are more likely to be within the fault limit of the test.

A test population of n=1 is not exactly hard scientific evidence, but please take into consideration that this is the more expensive "non-standard version" of the "6-Panel Assay" test, which also includes the measurement of the Standard Deviation. I assume this test collects more gated events than the normal test and ought to have a relatively high degree of certainty.

I would therefore say the effect of the regimen used in Test Run 8 was "quite interesting in a positive way".

Of course it's not possible to say which part of the regimen was responsible for the positive numbers. I think the most likely suspects are:

• The total removal of stress for half a year.
• The combination of Standardized Astragalus with a quite high dose of Cycloastragenol.
• The combination of LCHF and training.

I suspect the numbers could have been even better if I hadn't got all of these cases of flu and a really nasty case of the winter vomiting bug. Especially the latter ought to have put some considerable strain on the immune system

Future tests
Not yet planned.

Edited by GreenPower, 24 May 2014 - 12:35 PM.

Thanks for posting your latest results, Greenpower.  Looks like the bulk of your measurements are trending to lengthening with no measured shortening.  The only other posted results similar to yours that I know of is the Harley/Andrews paper which mentioned 13 anecdotal cases comprised I believe of TA Sciences employees.  I think your records are better than theirs, however: they don't document individual dosages although they mention it ranged from 5 to 50 mg of cycloastraganol within the cases reported.  Curiously, however, your results seem to show an increase in mean telomere length while their theirs only showed a decrease in the percentage of critically short telomeres.  Perhaps including a standardized astragalus extract in your stack makes the difference.

Since my last post around 3 months ago my wife and I have been dosing similar to you.  We're still cycling a week on and switching to an antioxidant/resveratrol stack in the off week but now do 500 mg of a 70% standardized astragalus extract plus 10 mg of cycloastragenol twice daily in the on-week.  And give any soluble fiber supplements at least a 3 hour clearance window before and after dosing.

Howard

My theory is that the version of TA65 they used may have contained a substantial amount of Astragaloside IV. Both me and Anthony got substantially shorter telomeres when taking AIV (http://www.longecity...ndpost&p=664707).

It might also be that Cycloastragenol need one or several other compounds from the Astragalus plant in order to give positive results. Or that you need to remove all negative stress from your surroundings, which would bring down your cortisol levels. High cortisol levels are usually considered quite negative for telomere lengths. Or as Effros put it in 2008 (http://www.scienceda...80715152325.htm).

"When the body is under stress, it boosts production of cortisol to support a "fight or flight" response," explains Effros. "If the hormone remains elevated in the bloodstream for long periods of time, though, it wears down the immune system. We are testing therapeutic ways of enhancing telomerase levels to help the immune system ward off cortisol's effect. If we're successful, one day a pill may exist to strengthen the immune system's ability to weather chronic emotional stress."

I seem to remember Elisabeth Blackburn mentioning some positive results among test subjects just by letting them start meditating.

You don't by any chance do regular health checks or let anyone measure your telomere lengths? I love hard numbers :-)

By the way, it would seem the editor used in board has changed a bit since I last pasted references (years ago). Does anybody know how to paste a link to a word in a post instead of pasting the whole URL into a message? 

Edited by GreenPower, 25 May 2014 - 11:41 AM.

By the way, it would seem the editor used in board has changed a bit since I last pasted references (years ago). Does anybody know how to paste a link to a word in a post instead of pasting the whole URL into a message?

Thanks for the excellent recommendation! I registered as a member, and now I can do real links

You don't by any chance do regular health checks or let anyone measure your telomere lengths? I love hard numbers :-)

Not telomere length, just regular blood tests.  I was going to try TeloMe but held off when they started their collection service last summer out of concern for possible degradation of submitted saliva samples by mail in the warm weather season.  Just checked their web site and it looks like they might have had some problems in that regard. 

http://www.telome.com/process.php

 

We have made substantial progress in producing high-quality and reproducible initial data, but first-pass failure rate remains fairly high and more challenging samples can take significantly more attention and time to process into high-quality data. The reason for these failures is that saliva yields DNA of highly variable quality and quantity. Unlike other genetic & genomic analyses, telomere analysis requires non-degraded, intact DNA in sufficient quantity to yield a reliable result. Saliva contains a substantial amount of degraded human DNA, as well as non-human DNA (mostly microbial), and we have to separate these components out of every sample before we are able to proceed with telomere analysis. Some samples don’t contain enough of this high-quality DNA for us to generate high-quality results, and re-collection is required. We’ve written guidelines for sample collection to help ensure the best chances of success in our process.

I think the FDA might have pressured them out of offering consumer services since then.  Perhaps they'll partner with someone like Quest or C-Lab at some point.  But they're only 90 minutes from where I live so if I'm ever up that way maybe I'll drop in on them.

 
Howard

Edited by hav, 31 May 2014 - 08:20 PM.

 

You don't by any chance do regular health checks or let anyone measure your telomere lengths? I love hard numbers :-)

 

Not telomere length, just regular blood tests.  I was going to try TeloMe but held off when they started their collection service last summer out of concern for possible degradation of submitted saliva samples by mail in the warm weather season.  Just checked their web site and it looks like they might have had some problems in that regard. 

 

http://www.telome.com/process.php

 

We have made substantial progress in producing high-quality and reproducible initial data, but first-pass failure rate remains fairly high and more challenging samples can take significantly more attention and time to process into high-quality data. The reason for these failures is that saliva yields DNA of highly variable quality and quantity. Unlike other genetic & genomic analyses, telomere analysis requires non-degraded, intact DNA in sufficient quantity to yield a reliable result. Saliva contains a substantial amount of degraded human DNA, as well as non-human DNA (mostly microbial), and we have to separate these components out of every sample before we are able to proceed with telomere analysis. Some samples don’t contain enough of this high-quality DNA for us to generate high-quality results, and re-collection is required. We’ve written guidelines for sample collection to help ensure the best chances of success in our process.

 

I think the FDA might have pressured them out of offering consumer services since then.  Perhaps they'll partner with someone like Quest or C-Lab at some point.  But they're only 90 minutes from where I live so if I'm ever up that way maybe I'll drop in on them.

 
Howard

 

Interesting. I also found this statement on their site.

> TeloMe offers telomere testing and analytical services exclusively in research studies.

It sounds very much like they failed some kind of regulatory requirement in order to provide their tests for anything other than research studies. It would have been interesting to know if the reason was a high number of failed tests, the accuracy of the test in itself, some statement they couldn't corroborate, or something else entirely.

Have you noted any changes of interest in your regular blood tests?

I just found a blogger who's been taking Cycloastragenol and have done a telomere test: http://telomeraseact...on.blogspot.se/

He's planning a second test sometime this autumn. Unfortunately he seem to have been using TeloMe, so let's hope they can provide him with a test by then. Maybe he can claim it's for research purposes or join their research program...

Unfortunately he seem to have been using TeloMe, so let's hope they can provide him with a test by then

That would be RepeatDiagnostics. Some years back they were the only available option and once you've selected to use a lab you probably don't want to change to another lab. A general rule is that different labs might give you different results even if they claim to use the same methodologies for measurements. If you stick with the same lab, you can at least be fairly sure the differences in results between two tests are correct.

You could of course end a test period and make a final test with your current lab, then change to another lab and at the same time make a new baseline test. Most of the test providers (with the exception of TeloMe) are however fairly expensive and it's more cost effecient to always use the last test results as a baseline for the next test period.

Today I started my 9th Test Run. It will basically be the same as Test Run 8, but most likely with less sleep, less training and more work and stress (cortisol).

I guess a positive result would indicate some likelyhood to the regimen actually working. A negative result would likely mean that either:

1. The results from the last test run were incidental or at least non-conclusive, or that

2. Stress and too little sleep counteract any postive effect by the rest of the regimen.

I just found a blogger who's been taking Cycloastragenol and have done a telomere test: http://telomeraseact...on.blogspot.se/

 

He's planning a second test sometime this autumn. Unfortunately he seem to have been using TeloMe, so let's hope they can provide him with a test by then. Maybe he can claim it's for research purposes or join their research program...

OK, I might as well come clean... That blogger is me actually      

Yes, let's hope Telome can make an exception. I definitively feel a bit like a research subject

Edited by Telo, 14 June 2014 - 09:48 PM.

It's a small world, and this subject seem to make it smaller than most others

If they can't and you don't mind the additional cost and some extra paper work, you might consider the Canadian lab. A requirement though, is that you can get the sample to them within 48 hours. This mean you need to live nearby a suitable carrier. Personally I've been using FedEx and they have only messed up once, and then I got my money back. They haven't actually been able to manage 48 hours, but usually about 56 hours, but that's not been a problem. To verify if they have a suitable route you can verify the transit time here. Just enter where you live and the destination.

The destination would then be Canada and the postal code "v7m1a5". The package is defined as a Fedex (Clinical) Pak, it should be about 0.3kg and have a minimum value of 4 USD to get through customs in an orderly time. The product type is "Blood, Human, Non-Hazardous".

 

 

You don't by any chance do regular health checks or let anyone measure your telomere lengths? I love hard numbers :-)

 

... Not telomere length, just regular blood tests.

 

 

...

 

Have you noted any changes of interest in your regular blood tests?

 

Nothing really jumps out at me.  Just looked at blood counts going back to 1992 before I took any astragalus or antioxidant supplements and there's a little bouncing around but the range is fairly narrow.  The biggest variation I see is Hematocrit levels around 50 in 1992 but between 43 and 45 in recent years.  Curiously, back in '92 the normal range was listed as between 39 and 52 while recent tests list normal as between 42 and 52.  My last test was around the time I cut back on standardized astragalus extract from 1 gram 2x daily to 500 mg 2x daily and added 10 mg cycloastragenol 2x daily so maybe the next test in a few months might be more telling.

Howard
 

I have not included this kind of parameters until the last three test runs. Below are some partial results from them, but nothing seem to be out of the ordinary.

My theory is that the version of TA65 they used may have contained a substantial amount of Astragaloside IV. Both me and Anthony got substantially shorter telomeres when taking AIV (http://www.longecity...ndpost&p=664707).

I've always believed in a more holistic approach; I think we run the risk of losing benefit when we isolate individual molecules. That's why I insisted that my Cyclocell Telomere Support Formula contain both Astragaloside IV and Cycloastragenol in balanced combination.
...

Edited by blood, 21 August 2014 - 02:46 AM.

You all may be interested in HETA=OX which is said to be based on a superior strain of Astragalus plant.

I remember reading something about a certain bacteria being present in the soil of effective Astragalus plants, so maybe that's the secret.  Maybe the active ingredient is produced by the plant as a means of countering attack by said bacteria..?

The link below and posts after are about it:
http://www.longecity...ndpost&p=682354

Here are a couple links to PDFs of recent studies (summaries) of stress and Telomere Length that many appear to be referencing.

http://www.chc.ucsf....n_etal_2011.pdf

http://med.stanford....g/sdarticle.pdf

Using the search phrase "Epel Telomere" in Google Scholar will return a lot more of these kinds of studies...

Here's a great video lecture, by a key author of the studies above, that summarizes the science around stress and its impact on Telomere Length as of a couple years ago.

An interesting study by Elissa Epel and Elisabeth Blackburn among others. Here's the short newspaper summary.

They seem to have found an interesting correlation between not drinking "sugary soda" and longer telomere length. "Sugar" might be a little bit off-topic in this forum, but because I've included LCHF in my diet I think I might post the study anyway.

Epel and her team analyzed data from 5,309 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from about 14 years ago. They found that people who drank more sugary soda tended to have shorter telomeres. Drinking an 8-ounce daily serving of soda corresponded to 1.9 years of additional aging, and drinking a daily 20-ounce serving was linked to 4.6 more years of aging. The latter, the authors point out, is exactly the same association found between telomere length and smoking.

Or more specifically:

Extremely new study (May 2014 publication)

Cycloastragenol Is a Potent Telomerase Activator in Neuronal Cells: Implications for Depression Management

"In conclusion, CAG stimulates telomerase activity in human neonatal keratinocytes and rat neuronal cells, and induces CREB activation followed by tert and bcl2 expression."

also

" Interestingly, oral administration of CAG for 7 days attenuated depression-like behavior in experimental mice."

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/25095809

Edited by sensei, 11 January 2015 - 01:15 AM.

GreenPower, 

Thanks for the thread and keeping the topic current. Is there any brand of telomere length extention aids that you would recommend for a beginner -- and any that you wouldn't? Thanks. Do you plan that this thread is kept to the discussion of Astralagus or other compounds with related properties?

Kind regards,

tolerant

Not really, I've only tested a few brands which i stick with until I can either conclude that they work or that they do not work.

These things take an awful lot of time and at the end of the day I'm only one test subject - which at best might make my own measurements and observations an "hypothesis generating exercise". That's why it would be nice if more persons could contribute with data from their own regimens. If they in any way include Astragalus or components found in Astragalus (Cycloastragenol, AIV, "TA65", etc) I think this thread is a good one to write about them.

I plan to end my ninth test run in the beginning of 2016.

IMHO everyone here should be VERY interested in NF-kB, Telomere Length, Telomerase and Healthy Longevity:

http://www.longecity...lthy-longevity/

NB That it all seems to boil down to slowing, stopping and reversing AGEs..!

A combination of chelating therapies and selected herbal AGE breakers is in dire need of testing... IMHO.