#822

Would you recommend a specific brand or source?

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#823

I have used several different brands, NOW, Double Wood, etc.

The thing that is weird to me (N=1) is that the first one I tried worked almost immediately. I started to feel relief from the pain in my knee after only a few days. I used this brand exclusively until my knee pain went away. Then I added rapamycin, and my joint pains all disappeared after a few months of high-dose rapamycin.

I am not saying this brand is better than others, but it is the one that worked for me.

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https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Herbal+Secrets+Boswellia+Serrata+Extract+(65%25+Boswellic+Acids)+600+mg+120+Capsules+Supplement+-+Non-GMO+-+Gluten+Free&crid=1GXQ81QZ0IL15&sprefix=herbal+secrets+boswellia+serrata+extract+65%25+boswellic+acids+600+mg+120+capsules+supplement+-+non-gmo+-+gluten+free%2Caps%2C362&ref=nb_sb_noss

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#824

Maybe not fraud, but perhaps flawed? They used C57BL/6 mice, which are a weird inbred strain where the mice are essentially genetically identical to each other. ITP uses a far more representative mouse model. I agree that mice are different to humans, but B6 mice are also very different to normal mice.

Also, the study authors do indeed have a company now selling the product, so they have a very strong bias. Same goes with lots of these products where one group publishes papers showing benefits. The guy selling fisetin had 2 big papers showing it worked amazingly, he collaborated with the ITP and it totally failed. They couldn’t even find differences in senescent cell numbers.

I am totally supportive of these molecules being tested, and the academics starting companies to sell them and make them available to communities like us is great. That’s preferable to it being hidden away somewhere. However, I think it’s important to remind ourselves of the biases and the risks of getting carried away with hype. The Cell Metabolism paper is better than average - they have 182 mice in total - but it’s still a single site, it only worked in female mice, they only tested B6, and it was only barely statistically significant (p = 0.03). I think if you’re going to take any data from mice and relate it to humans, the ITP is the best you can ask for. 3 sites, large samples, totally unbiased.

He’s the co-corresponding author, so I sure hope he had a lot to do with the study, otherwise that’s a form of misconduct.

I’m not sure why iron or MgO2 are in the junk tier. MgO2 is great for keeping bowel movements soft and regular. I don’t think you get all that magnesium from it, but I take 250mg in the AM and PM, and it makes a very noticeable difference to my bathroom performance. It’s different to the bulk-forming fibre like husks.

And iron is something that a surprising amount of people are deficient in. Loads of people (particularly women) walking around out there with borderline low hemoglobin and RBC counts and small MCVs, feeling tired and crappy, all of which is fixed by simple iron supplementation.

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#825

If you have an iron deficiency, iron is beneficial. However if you are not deficient, iron is linked to shorter lifespans.

Magnesium Oxide is considered to be the worst form of magnesium due to poor bioavailability. If you want Magnesium that keeps you regular then use Magnesium Citrate. If you want Magnesium for your brain, use Threonate. Magnesium Glycinate is also a good choice. Magnesium Oxide is the junk Magnesium.

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#826

He’s the co-corresponding author, so I sure hope he had a lot to do with the study, otherwise that’s a form of misconduct.

Yes, and the last-named author was the other co-corresponding author. A corresponding author usually handles the correspondence with the journal (at least it does in my field, but biomedical science may be different), e.g. as the point-of-contact for whom to send the referee reports and galley proofs to; and they can e.g. be like an “elder statesman” that provides direction, reads over the paper, points out little errors, and does contribute some to the ideas, though maybe doesn’t do the hardest technical work or directly carry out the experiments.

What I wrote before was not quite accurate. They say in the paper:

B.K.K. participated in study design, manuscript composition and data analysis.

I vaguely recall (but my memory could be in error, and I’ll never find it, given how many interviews Kennedy has done) he said in a podcast interview something like that the people at TruAge had looked at the kinds of supplements that users of their test were taking, and they saw an outlier when it came to Rejuvant, that it seemed to result in a sizable shift in their TruAge score. So, they (the TruAge people) already knew this before contacting Kennedy (again, assuming my memory is correct). Then Kennedy, and I guess his group, helped do the data analysis and write the paper.

Addendum: Maybe the TruAge people knew the correlation with Rejuvant use, based on what they were seeing from users of their test, and then they contacted Kennedy and ran the test on those 42 individuals, with his help. So, there maybe were two pools of people, one without Kennedy’s help, the other with.

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#827

I’m afraid that’s not correct. The corresponding author is usually the one who led the study and they are the one who takes ultimate responsibility for the content. (FYI, I am a professor and do my own research, publish papers etc). I think the author participation statement there is reasonable - that he helped design the study, wrote and checked the manuscript etc. That’s pretty much what I do. I don’t get my hands dirty in the lab too often nowadays, hehe.

As for the podcast information, that’s definitely good to know. Thanks for sharing.

I recall that Attia’s advice is to supplement MgO2 up to the point where it gives you bowel problems (i.e. too poops too soft), and then use whatever other forms on top. I guess the main advantage is that it’s incredibly cheap. I’ve never used the citrate form, but I’ll look into it, thanks.

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#828

I am a professor, too (full professor), but not in biomedical science. I asked GPT-5-thinking about what you say, and it writes:

In many biomedical and lab sciences, the corresponding author is often the senior/last author (the PI) who directed the work and is seen as taking broad responsibility—even if they didn’t do bench work.

In other fields (math, physics, some social sciences), “corresponding” is mostly administrative; leadership is not inferred from it.

Good to know that distinction.

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#829

Ha, interesting! Yes I’m in biomedical science. I actually didn’t know that it’s different in other fields! In biomed the student/postdoc who did the work is usually the 1st author, and it’s like the badge of honour to be the corresponding author because it means it was your group that did the work. So yeah, thanks for sharing and educating me!

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#830

Dietary supplements are big business, with one recent estimate showing the industry is worth almost $64 billion in the United States alone. Take a casual scroll through your social media and you’ll find influencers hawking all kinds of supplements. But how effective are they? How are they regulated? And why are these “natural” remedies so appealing to millions of Americans?

To size up the science and culture of supplements, Host Flora Lichtman talks with supplement researcher Pieter Cohen, and Colleen Derkatch, author of Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture.

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#831

I really like this video because it aligns with my current thinking (and my confirmation bias) and the subjective results of using creatine. IMO, to reap maximum brain benefits, it takes about 20 grams of creatine daily.

One of his more controversial statements is using extra salt to replenish electrolytes.

A short executive summary of Dave Asprey’s video, “This Legal Focus Powder Beats Any Dopamine Detox.”

  • Core thesis

Focus problems are usually an energy (ATP) problem, not a dopamine problem. When brain energy—especially in the prefrontal cortex—runs low, attention and impulse control drop. Asprey argues you’ll often get farther by supporting cellular energy than by doing a trendy “dopamine detox.”

  • The “legal focus powder”

He’s talking about creatine (monohydrate). Framed as a simple, legal, inexpensive way to buffer ATP via the phosphocreatine system and improve mental stamina/focus. Mechanistically, creatine increases high-energy phosphate availability, which can support neurons under load.

  • Why he downplays “dopamine detox”

Asprey’s point: cutting stimulation may help habits, but it doesn’t “reset” dopamine; it also doesn’t fix low cellular energy. That critique aligns with independent commentary noting little scientific support for literal dopamine “detoxes” as a neurochemical reset.

What the science (outside the video) generally shows

Creatine ↔ brain energy/cognition: Human work using MRS shows brain creatine can increase with supplementation; trials/meta-analyses suggest modest cognitive benefits (memory/processing speed), with stronger effects under stress (e.g., sleep loss) or in populations with lower baseline creatine. Not a miracle, but plausible and condition-dependent.

*** Practical takeaways conveyed**

  • If your “focus” issue is largely energy (fatigue, short sleep, cognitively demanding work), raising the ATP buffer may help more than obsessing over dopamine.

Bottom line

Asprey’s message is “treat the power supply, not the neurotransmitter hype.” For many people, especially when tired or under heavy cognitive load, supporting brain energy (ATP)—with creatine as an accessible option—may yield more reliable focus than a dopamine “detox.” Independent evidence broadly supports creatine’s role in brain energy and suggests context-dependent cognitive benefits, particularly under sleep deprivation/energy stress; however, effects in young, well-rested, healthy adults are often small or variable.

Chapters

0:00 – Introduction

0:22 – Brain energy vs dopamine

0:49 – ATP shortage causes fatigue

1:53 – Prefrontal cortex and energy

3:08 – Why ATP fuels focus and mood

4:40 – Stress, sleep and mitochondria

6:00 – Biohacks for energy production

7:39 – Backup battery: phosphagen system

8:46 – Creatine for brain energy & focus

13:18 – Vegans, women and creatine needs

15:07 – Best practices for dosing creatine

17:53 – Daily creatine + electrolytes

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