Posted 21 December 2012 - 02:48 PM
The formulation was done with the Hippocratic principle in mine, "first, do no harm." Our resident gurus have made the point repeatedly, that unless one's diet is grossly inadequate, one does not need even the RDA for most vitamins in a supplement; rather we are assuming a fairly decent diet and most things in the supplement are to "top off your tank", and bring an average healthy-but-not-quite-adequate diet up to known healthy levels.
Part of the problem with such a formula, arrived at by group consensus, is that one size does not fit all. For instance the original Vimmortal formula contained choline, but some of our members have a sensitivity to choline (too stimulating) and it was removed. I would want to keep choline,I used the Cron-o-meter program and determined I need to supplement choline at about 200 mg most days if I don't eat eggs, for instance.. But it is easily added. Other examples: we include folate in the form of 5-MTHFR rather than folic acid; half the population cannot utilize folic acid and need the active form of the vitamin (increases cost) but around 10% of people require a higher dose of even 5-mthfr than is present in the formula. The amount and type of K-2 is another questionable item, as I do not think we really know at this point what is an optimum dose. Then too, supplementing with one substance might increase or decrease the need for another. They are often interlinked.
Perhaps the only way to do this right is a sort of Chinese menue approach, so much from column A, so much from column B....
I have a vision of selling a reduced price 23andme (or other genetic test) with membership, and combined with a Promethease program to analyze relevant SNPs for vitamin requirements, then an option to subscribe for monthly shipments of the appropriate combo pack of supplements. But we aren't there yet, if ever.
In the meantime, you might want to go over the threads Mind linked to above, and even comment (in a new topic, I think best) on some of the reasoning. Or you coulld post your idea of an ideal life-extension formula, and we can comment on it. We all might learn from this, and skip ahead to Vimmortal 3.