How I tried longevity supplements and noticed nothing

Marc Smeehuijzen

I’ve had the good fortune of being healthy and fit for most of my life, so I never felt the need for supplements like vitamins and minerals. I believed that with a varied diet, you probably get all the nutrients and building blocks your body needs.

Similarly, with drugs. On the rare occasions that I was sick, I seldom took any medicine, trusting that my body would heal itself. This way, I avoided possible unwanted side-effects and I didn’t suppress potential useful signals my body was trying to send me like “hey mister, take it easy for a while”.

In short, supplements and drugs were never my thing.

In my forties, when I noticed the subtle decline of my aging body, this initially didn’t change. Begrudgingly I accepted my graying hair, decreased athletic performance and longer healing times after injuries as life’s natural course.

Sure, over the years I had seen advertisements for anti-aging creams, rejuvenation supplements and other dodgy therapies, but I always considered these to be snake oil, which most of them probably were.

Discovery of David Sinclair

Then in 2020, I read the book Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To by Harvard geneticist David Sinclair. He described impressive advancements in the science on aging. There appeared to be promising animal data on how to slow down the aging process and possibly even rejuvenate organisms.

Now, I believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so I was skeptical at first. Sinclair’s work, however, seemed to be based on proper science and his findings were published in respectable scientific journals like Nature and Cell.

The most impressive anti-aging approach he described was called epigenetic reprogramming. It seemed possible to reset a cell to a younger version of itself by treating it with certain proteins (called Yamanaka Factors after Shinya Yamanaka, who go the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 2012). Sinclair admitted, however, that this process was not yet fully understood, could potentially cause cancer and hadn’t been tested in humans yet.

Fortunately, Sinclair wrote, there are other things you can already do today to increase your healthy lifespan, and he was doing them himself too. They included a healthy lifestyle (proper diet, enough exercise, no smoking, etc.) and taking some supplements, including these:

Sinclair, 51 years old when I read his book, looked at least 10 years younger in interviews, so his longevity protocol seemed to be working for him.

I found the research convincing. Since I was already leading a healthy lifestyle doing sports almost everyday, I decided to add some supplements to my strategy. I was still skeptical about their effectiveness, but they were proven safe for human consumption and had some studies supporting their benefits. Also, I knew that if you do nothing, no matter how healthy your lifestyle, eventually your body would break down with age, so it’s not bad to try things out.

First experiment: NR

After more online research, I decided to start with a supplement, not on Sinclair’s list, called NR (Nicotinamide Riboside). This was another NAD+ booster and I read that it had even more supporting evidence than NMN, so it was a good first candidate.

In July 2020, I bought some NR online (brand name Niagen) and took 300 mg daily for a week, then 600 mg daily for 3 weeks and finally 900 mg daily for 6 weeks (recommended dosages). I kept a simple daily logbook in Excel to note any effects I might experience. I had read on online forums that some NR users experienced more energy, better sleep and less inflammation, but my notebook remained surprisingly empty. After taking NR for over two months, I had noticed nothing.

To be fair, in general, I feel healthy and fit. At the time, the only physical problems that were bothering me were some chronic sports-related issues like a calf muscle that hurt when running long distances and a stiff left hip that was sensitive doing certain movements. Unfortunately, NR didn’t improve these conditions nor did it have any other noticeable effects it seemed.

Second experiment: NMN and Resveratrol

After NR, I decided to try NMN and Resveratrol from Sinclair’s list. (His third supplement, Metformin, is only available on doctor’s prescription, so I didn’t take that one).

For two months I took 1.000 mg NMN and 1.000 mg Resveratrol daily. Again, no noticeable effects. I had read online that NMN could reduce tiredness and improve physical performance with some people, and Resveratrol might help with joint pain, but apparently not in my case.

Then it was time for a testing break.

Dr. Brad Stanfield‘s recommendations

Some time later I discovered the online work of Dr. Brad Stanfield, a primary care physician from New Zealand with a passion for longevity. What I liked about his YouTube videos was his thorough evaluation of supplements based on the underlying scientific papers.

There was definitely overlap between Stanfield’s and Sinclair’s longevity recommendations, like the importance of a healthy lifestyle, but also differences when it comes to supplements. Based on Stanfields reviews, I decided in 2023 to give some more supplements a try, including these:

I took the Collagen peptides daily for one month, and the other six supplement daily for two months. (For the precise dosages, see the table below). Again, alas, I didn’t notice any effects. One of the effects for example that I had hoped for, were some fewer wrinkles in my skin which recently had appeared. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any visible changes.

Final attempt: MicroVitamin

For a last attempt, in 2024, I tried MicroVitamin, Stanfield’s custom-made mix of 24 supplements. It included the aforementioned supplements Hyaluronic acid, Vitamin D and K, Magnesium, and Niacin, and some others, not typically associated with longevity. I took the 5 prescribed MicroVitamin pills daily for two months and, maybe unsurprisingly by now, again I noticed nothing.

Conclusion

After testing 11 longevity supplements in the last 4 years (total cost € 736), I had experienced exactly nothing.

My 11 longevity supplements between 2020 and 2024:

The lack of results was disappointing. It’s possible, of course, that there is simply nothing to notice when you’re reasonably healthy and fit. Maybe only the old and frail will notice the benefits of these supplements. And whether you will actually live longer with these compounds can only be determined at the end of your life.

To be frank, spectacular results from the supplements would have surprised me. The human body is an incredible complicated machine and the aging process is not yet fully understood. It would be amazing to me if taking a simple supplement would make much of a difference.

Am I done experimenting with supplements now? Yes, for the time being. However, I might make an exception for Rapamycin. This is a drug currently used in kidney transplant patients to prevent organ rejection, but there is promising animal data that it could also have positive effects on muscle and joint health and lifespan. Unfortunately you can’t buy Rapamycin without a doctor’s prescription in The Netherlands where I live and ordering it online from abroad isn’t that reliable, so I’ll wait for now.

It seems that the only reliable way to increase a healthy lifespan for now is having a healthy lifestyle (diet, exercise, sleep, etc.). A 2020 study found that no less than 10 extra healthy years could be gained that way.

I’m convinced there will be effective longevity interventions beyond this in the future. Promising research at the moment I think is the aforementioned epigenetic reprogramming, senolytics (drugs that remove “senescent” or dysfunctioning cells from the body), or the regeneration of body parts using bioelectricity. (For more on these technologies, see my 2022 post Healthy aging technology is coming and that’s a good thing).

Let’s hope we make quick scientific progress in this area because the clock is ticking for everyone.

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