Fabulous community, and a wealth of extremely valuable information - very happy to have found this site!
It seems there’s a very heterogenous group of folks here interested in life/health extension, quite diverse in age, background and health status. However, some themes appear to weave through pretty consistenty - in particular the search for interventions, pharma interventions that may assist in health/life extension.
In this spirit, I wonder if it makes sense to pin a post centered around one agent or class of agents to which one may make continuous contributions so that all info is gathered in one place.
As an example, SGLTi agents - most of the info is naturally found regarding individuals who have some kind of morbidity - such as DMT2, HF, obesity, metabolic syndrome etc. - that’s where most of the studies are focused on, given that it’s a medication that was developed to treat a condition and not for longevity purposes.
However, most - or at least many participants here - do not have such morbidities. So, the pinned post that’s gathering info, might focus on results in humans (or mammals) who are not obese/significantly overweight, diabetic, with heart failure. Results which pertain to those who have such conditions may not apply to those who are relatively healthy.
We know that canagliflozin extends lifespan in male mice in the ITP. Great. But we cannot assume that a result that works for someone with HF will have a beneficial effect for someone with a healthy CV system. There are many examples of results that don’t apply. In one of the studies (sorry, don’t remember which, there are so many in this thread!), for example, SGLT2i slightly lowered BP in nearly normotensive individuals - a good effect, seemingly, but strikingly, that reduction in BP didn’t translate into traditional benefits associated with appropriate size decline in stroke numbers. In other words, that positive biomarker change didn’t deliver the expected benefits the way it did when the lowering of BP was achieved with traditional drugs for that purpose. So we must be very careful in making sure that we don’t simply assume benefits from biomarkers, but focus on outcomes IN HEALTHY individuals.
Thus we could try to gather in one post/place all the research which shows a positive result in HEALTHY individuals - there won’t be that many studies, so it shouldn’t be too unwieldy. As to healthy, we can give it a bit of leeway - for example, we can include results for folks who are slightly overweight (say BMI above 25) or prediabetic (I am pre-diabetic, A1c anywhere from 5.6 to 5.9 over the years, and FBG as high as 115 in the morning). Having such info all in one place might make it easier for most of us to make a decision - or make a more informed decision - as to whether it makes sense to start taking such an agent. We could make such a post centered around any given agent - SGLTi, acarbose, rapa etc.
The advantage would be that it’s all in one place and all more relevant to most of us, rather than having threads with 1000+ posts, most of which deal with results in folks with profound morbidities with doubtful/uncertain relevance. Nothing wrong with having such posts, but just throwing in a suggestion of maybe having a central place for each agent, which is more compact and more relevant. Just a thought.
However, I want to emphasize yet again, what an amazing community this is and how much relevant info there is!
FWIW, to introduce my case: I am a white male, 66 years old, healthy, but for some key numbers going in the wrong direction for the past 5 years or so. My lifelong suboptimal lipids - high LDL and ApoB, very high Lp(a), but also high HDL, trigs low/normal. I’m on atorvastatin 10mg/day. My calcium score at age 65 was 0. My blood sugar not good: A1c as high as 5.9, fasting blood glucose 115 in the morning, though no very large excursions beyond 140 post prandial. My blood sugar seems to spike dramatically after exercise. Excellent diet (if I say so myself), Mediterranian, pescatarian, avoid red meat. Regular exercise aerobic & weights.
I’m interested in life/health extension. Right now I’m only on atorvastatin 10mg. Interested in going on bempedoic acid + zetia, acarbose + emagliflozin, rapamycin. My doctor is a nice guy but ultraconservative, so I can’t get anything prescribed beyond the most conservative SOC.
It is with that in mind that I am trying to absorb as much info as I can so I can make a decision as to which agents I should focus on (and then go the India online pharmacy route). I want to get on the train sometime this year and next, as at 66 my time is running out. Thank you for reading, and my apologies for the length!
