22 replies to this topic

[ameldedic2]

http://www.lef.org/m...kurzweil_01.htm

Yep. [:o]

[leer]

What is right (or wrong) with that routine?

As far as I can tell, Kurzweil has covered the basics.

[caston]

Does Kurzweil use these forums?

[Matt]

I wouldn't be suprised if hes been on here a few times...

[the big b]

I did not see Kurzweil's regimen, but rather basic recommendations he makes for others. It states that he takes over 250 supplements daily, and there were not that many supplements listed.

[jdog]

I did not see Kurzweil's regimen, but rather basic recommendations he makes for others. It states that he takes over 250 supplements daily, and there were not that many supplements listed.

I'm sure many of the unlisted supplements are taken solely due to his genetic composition. I read his book and he talked about genomics testing (if my memory serves me right, it runs upwards of $5k), which can show ones genetic predisposition to disease, etc.

If anyone was interested, he's got site that he sells his own supps here
Think I'm going to throw down on a few of his Total Daily Care Formula after I get enough cash next month. I like the idea of not having to open 30 different bottles at least once a day to take my supps.

[leer]

Is it possible the 250 supplements are individual components? A single tablet type for example can contain dozens. And most supplements are a multi-ingredient mixture.

To put it mildly, he is a smart man which lends credibility to the research he has done to have come up with his recommendations cited in that LEF article and in more detail in his book. So why not use it as the foundation of one's own routine with personal some alterations if needed. I haven't read his book but reading the LEF article, his overall suppblementation strategy seems pretty reasonable to me except maybe the alkiline water bit.

Just because he's smart doesn't mean one has to follow him blindly in every respect. I'm of the opinion that the body will regulate its own pH to a homestatic set point. Thus consuming more alkiline material will only make the body produce more acid to compensate. I dunno, maybe he knows something I don't.

[jdog]

For what it's worth, perhaps to give his claims a bit more credence, he works closely with an M.D., Terry Grossman

[Pablo M]

Kurzweil's got an interesting regimen, but he suffers from the same kind of kick ass and chew bubblegum gonzo megasupplement approach that some others here are afflicted with. In the rush to achieve something the obvious can get overlooked. For example, the "alkalized water" he apparently recommends and apparently drinks is out-and-out quackery. A good critique can be found here.

[VP.]

the "alkalized water" he apparently recommends and apparently drinks is out-and-out quackery

I agree 100%. This is not science folks. This is fairytale land. I have little respect for Dr. Grossman. I guess he decided peddling pseudoscience medical cures was much more lucrative than delivering babies (can't blame him for going for the money).
http://www.fmiclinic...ry_grossman.php

Dr. Grossman has undertaken study of homeopathy and naturopathy and is licensed as a homeopathic medical doctor as well as a naturopathic medical doctor.

As medical director of Frontier Medical Institute, he devotes most of his professional time to running a busy nutritional medicine practice with emphasis on intravenous therapies such as chelation therapy, vitamin and nutritional IV's as well as anti-aging medicine.

Chelation therapy? Homeopathy and naturopathy? Hey, it beats catching babies but handing out placebos is not science.

[tradewinds]

You guys are funny. If you want quackery look no further than your doctors office.

[dave111]

Is alkanized water really quackery? I'm considering switching to the Kurzweil regimen, but intelligent critiques of aspects of it are welcome. Right now my regimen is just a diverse diet of healthy foods. But considering switching to things like organic, vegetarian, vegan, vitamins, supplements, and other things if the best information indicates it'll be an improvement over a moderate, diverse diet.

[krillin]

Is alkanized water really quackery? I'm considering switching to the Kurzweil regimen, but intelligent critiques of aspects of it are welcome. Right now my regimen is just a diverse diet of healthy foods. But considering switching to things like organic, vegetarian, vegan, vitamins, supplements, and other things if the best information indicates it'll be an improvement over a moderate, diverse diet.

See this thread. I'm not going to buy the claims of stable dissolved atomic hydrogen until they get around to providing proper spectroscopic evidence. A google search reveals that Kyushu University has an ESR that that group could have used. One can only speculate as to why they chose not to.

Kurzweil's company's multi makes the usual mistakes. I'd rather have that git Elixxir as my guru.

[TianZi]

The thing about Kurzweil is that over time his predictions and recommendations tend to be proven correct far more often than not.

In Kurzweil's book "Fantastic Voyage", the chapter discussing the benefits of alkaline water is the shortest out of 23. Nonethless, he cites fairly impressive and eminently reputable sources for his claims, including a comprehensive 2001 review comparing alkanizing diets to acidic diets reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which concluded that alkanizing diets improve bone density, nitrogen balance, and serum growth hormone concentrations, whereas the low-grade acidosis resulting from acidic diets contributes to bone loss, osteporosis, and loss of muscle.

In Japan, mainstream medical and scientific opinion supports many of the claims made by Kurzweil in his book regarding the value of drinking alkaline water. This is largely due to the fact much of the cutting edge research in this area has been conducted in Japan (with the results published, of course, in Japanese, making them somewhat inacessible in the short term). One of those Japanese studies (translated into English) was quoted extensively in the thread linked above, and the information therein caused even Niner to recant his prior position that claims regarding the benefits of alkaline water were "quackery".

So it's not fair to simply dismiss these claims as "quackery". Those "internet MD's" who do so don't even address the scientific evidence supporting claims by Kurzweil and others as to the health benefits of alkaline water; it seems apparent they haven't reviewed the relevant literature comprehensively.

As we all should be aware, mainstream medical opinion in the US isn't the final arbiter of scientific truth. (As an example, even with the wealth of evidence we now have that the benefits of limited daily unprotected sun exposure without burning greatly outweigh the risks--something recommended by Kurzweil-- still mainstream opinion in the US medical community is that all unprotected sun exposure should be avoided. This is precisely the opposite of what the health authorities in low light countries like Sweden are recommending, not to mention even subtropical ones like Taiwan, where the health authority recently recommended that its citizens seek daily unprotected exposure to sunlight.)

Edited by TianZi, 23 April 2008 - 08:12 AM.

[krillin]

In Kurzweil's book "Fantastic Voyage", the chapter discussing the benefits of alkaline water is the shortest out of 23. Nonethless, he cites fairly impressive and eminently reputable sources for his claims, including a comprehensive 2001 review comparing alkanizing diets to acidic diets reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which concluded that alkanizing diets improve bone density, nitrogen balance, and serum growth hormone concentrations, whereas the low-grade acidosis resulting from acidic diets contributes to bone loss, osteporosis, and loss of muscle.

It's sloppy thinking like this that led certain scientists to think that beta carotene supplements would give the same benefits as eating your vegies. Alkaline water != the foods that make up an alkalinizing diet.

[niner]

Is alkanized water really quackery? I'm considering switching to the Kurzweil regimen, but intelligent critiques of aspects of it are welcome. Right now my regimen is just a diverse diet of healthy foods. But considering switching to things like organic, vegetarian, vegan, vitamins, supplements, and other things if the best information indicates it'll be an improvement over a moderate, diverse diet.

See this thread. I'm not going to buy the claims of stable dissolved atomic hydrogen until they get around to providing proper spectroscopic evidence. A google search reveals that Kyushu University has an ESR that that group could have used. One can only speculate as to why they chose not to.

I would also encourage you to check the thread that krillin linked. A big problem with "alkalized" water is the name alkalized. This causes people to think that it's just water with a slightly raised pH, but that isn't what it's all about. The Shirahata paper from Kyushu did find some very interesting SOD-like chemical properties from electrolyzed-reduced water. I think that is probably pretty solid data, although their interpretation of it being due to dissolved atomic H is a bit more speculative. Some ESR evidence would have been nice there. The work was 11-12 years ago; maybe they didn't even have an ESR at the time... It's unfortunate that the quack community has really embraced 'alkalized' water, and seem to largely misunderstand it as strictly a pH phenomenon.

[krillin]

I've found some funny information. First, I estimated how much alkalinizing Kurzweil is doing.

Kool-Aid Drinking Guide

Drink one-half fluid ounce per pound of body weight of alkaline water (pH between 9.5 and 10) each day. A 140-pound person should drink about nine 8-ounce cups per day.

pH 10 has [OH-] = 10^(-4) mol/l

Let's see how this compares to magnesium carbonate, which neutralizes two equivalents of acid per mole.

72 ounces * l/33.8 ounces * 10^(-4) mol OH-/l * 1 mol acid neutralized/mol OH- * 0.5 mol MgCO3/ mol acid neutralized * 84.3 g/mol
= 9 mg MgCo3

That's homeopathic!

Funny bit number two. These alkalized water research groups didn't even get together to decide on what insane mechanism they were going to pretend to see. The group we were discussing earlier said the water could scavenge superoxide. But this other group says that it has no antioxidant effect by itself. But it supposedly enhances the action of vitamin C because the process raises the autoionization constant of water (Kw). Outside of Bizarro World, Kw is a function of temperature, pressure, and electric field. But when the field is removed, Kw goes back to normal.

http://www.sanum-per...alkaline-15.pdf

[TianZi]

Is alkanized water really quackery? I'm considering switching to the Kurzweil regimen, but intelligent critiques of aspects of it are welcome. Right now my regimen is just a diverse diet of healthy foods. But considering switching to things like organic, vegetarian, vegan, vitamins, supplements, and other things if the best information indicates it'll be an improvement over a moderate, diverse diet.

See this thread. I'm not going to buy the claims of stable dissolved atomic hydrogen until they get around to providing proper spectroscopic evidence. A google search reveals that Kyushu University has an ESR that that group could have used. One can only speculate as to why they chose not to.

I would also encourage you to check the thread that krillin linked. A big problem with "alkalized" water is the name alkalized. This causes people to think that it's just water with a slightly raised pH, but that isn't what it's all about. The Shirahata paper from Kyushu did find some very interesting SOD-like chemical properties from electrolyzed-reduced water. I think that is probably pretty solid data, although their interpretation of it being due to dissolved atomic H is a bit more speculative. Some ESR evidence would have been nice there. The work was 11-12 years ago; maybe they didn't even have an ESR at the time... It's unfortunate that the quack community has really embraced 'alkalized' water, and seem to largely misunderstand it as strictly a pH phenomenon.

Kurzweil doesn't simply recommend drinking bottled water advertised as "alkaline". Specifically, he recommends using an alkaline water machine that uses an "electrical ionization system" to split water into its acidic and alkaline portions.

Whether this is what was done in the Kyushu study is unclear to me. Kurzweil cites a 2002 study published in the journal Pharmacological Research that used "bicarbonate-alkaline mineral water" and concluded it improved dyspeptic symptoms.

I'd like to also point out that Kurzweil spends at least as much time discussing highly acidic beverages to avoid, such as colas, as he does discussing the merits of an alkaline diet. So even if he is wrong regarding the merits of drinking alkaline water, it seems sensible to avoid colas, etc. for the reasons he gives (kidney stones, calcium deposits, bone loss, maybe elevated risk for cancer, decreased serum growth hormone levels, decreased muscle mass, chronic metabolic acidosis, etc.).

And he seems to recognize the potential benefits of drinking alkaline water are modest, even minimal--according to Kurzweil, it would take 3,200 glasses of alkaline water with a pH of 8, or 32 glasses of pH 10 water, to neutralize the acidic content of a single glass of cola.

Edited by TianZi, 26 April 2008 - 04:18 PM.

[TianZi]

In Kurzweil's book "Fantastic Voyage", the chapter discussing the benefits of alkaline water is the shortest out of 23. Nonethless, he cites fairly impressive and eminently reputable sources for his claims, including a comprehensive 2001 review comparing alkanizing diets to acidic diets reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which concluded that alkanizing diets improve bone density, nitrogen balance, and serum growth hormone concentrations, whereas the low-grade acidosis resulting from acidic diets contributes to bone loss, osteporosis, and loss of muscle.

It's sloppy thinking like this that led certain scientists to think that beta carotene supplements would give the same benefits as eating your vegies. Alkaline water != the foods that make up an alkalinizing diet.

It's a bit odd to conclude that an "alkalinizing diet" necessarily refers only to foods, and not consummed liquids such as alkaline water.

What's significant is the pH level of the individual foods and beverages you ingest, and how that effects the body's pH level. I'm not sure if in this post, and your other post, you are trying to poke holes in the hypothesis that a more acidic body pH level is generally harmful over time, a hypothesis which seems to me to have significant evidentiary support.

Comments about "bizarro world" aside, do you disagree with said hypothesis, and if so, where's the research supporting your counter-argument?

Edited by TianZi, 26 April 2008 - 04:32 PM.

[Heliotrope]

Will Kurzweil make it to be immortal?

i wish i can see the day when Kurzweil celerates hi 1,000 th Bday

[krillin]

It's a bit odd to conclude that an "alkalinizing diet" necessarily refers only to foods, and not consummed liquids such as alkaline water.

It's not odd at all. The diets they looked at didn't include those of gullible fools with electrolysis machines. There are too many confounding variables to conclude that the benefits of an alkaline diet come only from alkalinity. As Health Nutty said, "The PH diet is funny. Replace ACIDIC with UNHEALTHY and ALKALINE with HEALTHY and it is actually not far off."

And furthermore, I did the math. See above. No matter how hard you try, alkaline beverages will never make a difference in the alkalinity of your diet. If you want to go alkaline, take cheap antacid tablets.

[s123]

By electrolyzing your water you are simply making sodium hydroxide.
So, why would you pay 1000 dollar for a machine that only creates sodium hydroxide (one of the cheapest chemicals).

[Alpha-Frequency]

What I would like to know is who is practicing a transhuman-longevity regime far beyond Kurzweil?