The third phase of reversing aging and immunosenescent trends

Here’s a 2025 interview with Dr. Greg Fahy:

“We found that we could statistically demonstrate thymic regeneration morphologically on single individuals at single time points. MRI changes really are detecting shifts from the fatty tissue infiltration state of the involuted thymus to the regenerated thymus with functional thymic epithelial cells.

When you go through puberty your thymus involutes so you don’t have much left even when you’re 40. Essentially the process consists of loss of functional thymic mass and replacement of that functional thymic mass with adipose tissue, that’s what thymic involution is. It continues throughout life, but you retain a small amount of functional thymic mass all the way out to the age of 107.

The function of the thymus is to essentially manufacture half of your immune system. You have precursor cells arise from the bone marrow. They either go into the meiotic lineage and turn into the innate immune system, or you have the lymphocytic cells for what turns into T cells that enter the thymus and are educated in the thymus to grow up into newborn T cells and they’re released into the bloodstream.

The thymus has two jobs. It manufactures these lovely T cells without which you die but it also has a secondary finishing school. In the thymus cortex you manufacture all these lovely T cells but in the thymus medulla the T cells go to the medulla and if they don’t pass the second examination that they have to pass before they release into the body they’re all killed off. That second examination is: Do you reject self? As we get older, the thymus weakens in both the functions of making the T cells and screening out the ones that attack self. It stands to reason as we get older and the thymus’ influence wanes, we’re going to get more autoimmune disorders.

It took people a while to catch on to the fact that this involution problem is really a significant issue because the T cells that you made when you were 12, and even 20 and 40, they’re probably lasting until you’re 60. But at some point they don’t get replaced as fast as they’re going out of existence, and then your immune system goes off the cliff. Between the ages of 62 and 78 you lose 98% of your ability to recognize foreign antigens, and you still have a lot of capacity left.

We had nine guys in the first trial. Second trial we had 18 men 6 women and 2 controls that happen to be contemporaneous with that group. We have some more controls now that are either finished or or nearing completion. The second population was older than the first population by about nine years, but based on the epigenetic clocks that we looked at, they were starting off biologically younger.

On this last data analysis for Triim XA we looked at 21 different aging clocks. One aspect of the noise that we’re talking about is that biological aging as measured by some of these clocks is circadian. If you measure your age at 4:00 a.m. versus 11:00 a.m. you’re going to get a different result. It’s dynamic and there’s a trend and over time you change in a certain direction, but over any short period of time you can bounce around a little bit. The clocks predict your probability of cognitive dysfunction, they predict your probability of having impairments in your daily life, and they also predict your mortality.

We’re pretty much wrapping up that second clinical trial and going into the third. As we look at more data we understand more and more things and we see more and more things that we previously were not aware of. We began to look at a phenomena that may be responsible for limiting the magnitude of responses that we’re seeing limiting the aging reversal.

Triim-XD which is the next flavor of Triim-X is going to be looking at shifting biochemical pathways in such a way that it optimizes effects of these three medications that we’re giving people [human growth hormone, DHEA, and metformin] and prevents contradictions between them and prevents side effects of each one of these things. That’s about all I can tell you right now.”


Charts regarding the discussed item of how long effects may last are covered in The next phase of reversing aging and immunosenescent trends which was the last time I curated this research effort.


Practice what you preach, or shut up

A 2025 review subject was sulforaphane and brain health. This paper was the latest in a sequence where the retired lead author self-aggrandized his career by citing previous research.

He apparently doesn’t personally do what these research findings suggest people do. The lead author is a few weeks older than I am, and has completely white hair per an interview (Week 34 comments). I’ve had dark hair growing in (last week a barber said my dark hair was 90%) since Week 8 of eating broccoli sprouts every day, which is a side effect of ameliorating system-wide inflammation and oxidative stress.

If the lead author followed up with what his research investigated, he’d have dark hair, too. Unpigmented white hair and colored hair are both results of epigenetics.

Contrast this lack of personal follow-through of research findings with Dr. Goodenowe’s protocol where he compared extremely detailed personal brain measurements at 17 months and again at 31 months. He believes enough in his research findings to personally act on them, and demonstrate to others how personal agency can enhance a person’s life.

It’s every human’s choice whether or not we take responsibility for our own one precious life. I’ve read and curated on this blog many of this paper’s references. Five years ago for example:

So do more with their information than just read.

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/8/1353 “Sulforaphane and Brain Health: From Pathways of Action to Effects on Specific Disorders”

Vitamin K2 and your brain

A 2025 review linked Vitamin K2‘s effects on vascular health with cognitive function:

“Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is negatively correlated with cognitive health. Arterial stiffness, in particular, appears to be a critical factor in the functional and structural brain changes associated with aging. We review the association between vitamin K and cerebral function, discussing novel developments regarding its therapeutic role in arterial stiffness and cognitive health.

Among the non-invasive measures of vascular stiffness, pulse wave velocity (PWV) is considered the gold standard. PWV measures arterial stiffness along the entire aortic pathway, providing a reliable, feasible, and accurate assessment of vascular health. Arterial stiffness, as measured by PWV, is negatively associated with total brain volume, brain atrophy, and cognitive function. Pathogenic mechanisms responsible for vascular stiffness recently shifted from collagen and elastin to the differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells to osteoblastic phenotype, which is triggered by oxidative stress and inflammation, membrane mechanotransduction, lipid metabolism, genetic factors, and epigenetics.

Vitamin K-dependent proteins (VKDPs) rely on vitamin K to undergo γ-glutamylcarboxylation, a modification essential for their biological activity. This family of proteins includes hepatic VKDPs such as prothrombin, FVII, FIX, and FX, protein S and protein C as well as extrahepatic VKDPs such as matrix Gla-protein (MGP), which is involved in inhibiting vascular calcification, and osteocalcin, which plays a role in bone mineralization.

Structural differences between K1 and K2 influence their bioavailability, absorption, bioactivity, and distribution within tissues. Compared to vitamin K1, the K2 subtype menaquinone-7 (MK-7) has a significantly longer half-life, accumulates more effectively in blood, and exhibits greater biological activity, particularly in facilitating the carboxylation of extrahepatic VKDPs. Circulating dephosphorylated, uncarboxylated Matrix Gla protein (dp-ucMGP), a marker of extrahepatic vitamin K deficiency, could represent a novel therapeutic target for mitigating both arterial stiffness and cognitive decline.

Vascular calcification and arterial stiffness may represent pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the onset and progression of cognitive decline. Vitamin K deficiency is a key determinant of arterial health and, by extension, may influence cognitive function in the elderly.

To elucidate potential therapeutic benefits of MK-7 supplementation on cognitive function, future randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are needed. These trials should focus on using optimal dosages (>500 μg/day), ensuring long follow-up periods, and utilizing the most bioactive form of vitamin K (MK-7).”

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2024.1527535/full “The role of vitamin K2 in cognitive impairment: linking vascular health to brain health”


A coauthor Dr. Katarzyna Maresz took time on her weekend to answer a few questions:

1. Regarding the second paper of Part 2 of Vitamin K2 – What can it do?:

Hello Dr. Maresz. Did this trial ever happen? “Effects of Combined Vitamin K2 and Vitamin D3 Supplementation on Na[18F]F PET/MRI in Patients with Carotid Artery Disease: The INTRICATE Rationale and Trial Design” I haven’t seen a followup mention of it since 2021.

“Hello. The study never started. The capsules were produced for the study, but the research center experienced delays. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it won’t proceed. Regarding studies on aortic stenosis and vitamin K2, BASIC II has been completed, and the data from this pilot study are currently under analysis. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29561783/). There is also published study with K1: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.116.027011

2. Thank you! In your recent review of cognitive function and K2 (above), what influenced the heuristic that a >500 mcg K2 dose should be pursued in future RCTs?

“The optimal vitamin K dosage depends on the target population. Research in kidney patients has shown that 460 mcg daily was insufficient, that is why have hypothesis that at least 500 mcg should be used. The ongoing VIKIPEDIA study is using 1,000 mcg daily in peritoneal dialysis patients. In healthy young individuals, 180-360 mcg was effective in improving vitamin K status (British Journal of Nutrition (2012), 108, 1652–1657) . However, a one-year clinical study found that 180 mcg daily was sufficient for women but not for men. Additionally, older adults and individuals with metabolic disorders may require higher doses for optimal benefits. So it is pretty complicated situation. We do not have good marker of extrahepatic K status. dp-ucMGP seems to be valuable from CV perspective.”

3. Regarding Fat-soluble vitamin competition:

Thank you again Dr. Maresz! Would any consideration be given to dosing K2 separately from dosing another fat-soluble vitamin? A 2015 in vitro study found that vitamins D, A, and E outcompeted K1 intake when simultaneously dosed. I inferred from the one capsule of D3-K2 produced for the canceled trial that isn’t that much of a problem with K2?

“You are right, the key findings suggest that vitamin D, E, and K share common absorption pathways, leading to competitive interactions during uptake. However, I’m afraid we do not have human data. The majority of studies have focused on vitamin K2 alone. Recent research combining K2 and D3 showed an improvement in vitamin K status. Example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35465686/ or increase in D level: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39861434/. We do not know if VKDP activation or absorption of D would be more effective if K2 were not supplemented with D3 at the same time. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone will fund such a study, as clinical trials are very expensive. In vitro data will always raise questions regarding their relevance to human physiology. In my opinion, for patients to fully benefit from optimal vitamin K status, vitamin D levels should also be optimized, as both have synergistic effects.”

Coffee compound effects

Three papers continue Polyphenol Nrf2 activators themes starting with a 2025 review of chlorogenic acid:

“Chlorogenic acid may comprise between 70 and 350 mg per cup of coffee. Chlorogenic acid can reduce reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels via the upregulation of antioxidant enzymes, decreasing oxidative stress/damage due to the action of adaptive hormetic mechanisms. There is also a substantial literature of hormetic dose responses for metabolites of chlorogenic acid, such as caffeic acid and ferulic acid.

Chlorogenic acid-induced hormetic biphasic dose responses in a spectrum of experimental designs:

  1. Responses to direct exposures in a range of cell types;
  2. Preconditioning experiments in which a prior dose of chlorogenic acid protected against a subsequent stressor agent;
  3. Studies that included direct exposure, showing hormesis dose responses and then selecting the optimal hormetic dosage as a preconditioning treatment to protect against a subsequent exposure to a toxic agent; and
  4. A mixed group of experiments in which preconditioning was conducted, including several neuronal cellular models, all showing protection against the subsequent exposure to the toxic agent.

However, in the context of translating experimental data to clinical relevance, the concentrations employed in the majority of the in vitro studies with chlorogenic acid far exceeded transitory peak levels, even in heavy coffee drinkers (i.e., approximately 3 μM). In addition to the use of unrealistically high chlorogenic acid concentrations, exposures were prolonged, ranging from 1 to 3 days. These studies are of limited relevance to humans, a similar concern raised by other researchers involved with polyphenol research.


The present paper has framed the hypothesis that key coffee constituents, such as chlorogenic acid, show hormetic effects in a range of cell types and endpoints. Chlorogenic acid may affect some of the health benefits of coffee drinking via its role in GI tract health and beneficial brain-gut interaction.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0009279724004897 “Do the hormetic effects of chlorogenic acid mediate some of the beneficial effects of coffee?” (not freely available) Thanks to Dr. Evgenios Agathokleous for providing copies of this and the following paper.


A 2024 review by the same research group was on hormetic effects of caffeic acid:

“Caffeic acid is a polyphenol present in numerous fruits and vegetables, especially in coffee. Diets contain about 5–10 to 50 milligrams per day of caffeic acid while coffee ingestion provides about another 250–600 milligrams per day. For the moderate to heavy coffee drinker this would result in an ingestion of about 600–1000 milligrams of caffeic acid from food and coffee consumption.

The present paper evaluates whether caffeic acid may act as an hormetic agent, mediating its chemoprotective effects as has been shown for related agents, such as rosmarinic acid, ferulic acid, and chlorogenic acid. Caffeic acid protective effects were mediated via the upregulation of a series of antioxidant enzymes related to activation of Nrf2.

Caffeic acid enhanced the lifespan of C. elegans along with similar observations for rosmarinic acid that can be hydrolyzed to caffeic acid. Several hundred plant-based agents can enhance lifespan in experimental models such as C. elegans, and there is a competition to find the most effective agents with potential commercial applications.

Hormetic effects typically show a 30 to 60% stimulation above control. This is far below the 2 to 3-fold greater than control detection limit for statistical significance based on human variability/bioplasticity and are often reported as false negatives.

A weight-of-evidence approach was proposed based on multiple in vivo and in vitro test results to derive a study design strategy to increase detection of hormetic effects within the clinical trial framework. Such research should explore hormetic based interactions linking protective catabolic-based adaptive responses with activation and regulation of anabolic mediated hormetic growth effects.”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19390211.2024.2410776 “Caffeic Acid: Numerous Chemoprotective Effects are Mediated via Hormesis” (not freely available)


A 2024 review provided an overall picture of coffee compounds’ cardiometabolic effects:

“This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of longitudinal observational and interventional studies on the cardiometabolic effects of coffee consumption.

  • Findings indicate that while coffee may cause short-term increases in blood pressure, it does not contribute to long-term hypertension risk.
  • There is limited evidence indicating that coffee intake might reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
  • Coffee consumption is consistently linked with reduced risks of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and chronic kidney disease (CKD), showing dose-response relationships.
  • The relationship between coffee and cardiovascular disease is complex, showing potential stroke prevention benefits but ambiguous effects on coronary heart disease.
  • Moderate coffee consumption, typically ranging from 1 to 5 cups per day, is linked to a reduced risk of heart failure, while its impact on atrial fibrillation remains inconclusive. Coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, following a U-shaped pattern, with the largest risk reduction observed at moderate consumption levels.
  • Except for T2D and CKD, Mendelian randomization studies do not robustly support a causal link between coffee consumption and adverse cardiometabolic outcomes.

Potential beneficial effects of coffee on cardiometabolic health are consistent across age, sex, geographical regions, and coffee subtypes and are multi-dimensional, involving antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, lipid-modulating, insulin-sensitizing, and thermogenic effects. Based on its beneficial effects on cardiometabolic health and fundamental biological processes involved in aging, moderate coffee consumption has the potential to contribute to extending healthspan and increasing longevity.”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11493900 “Coffee consumption and cardiometabolic health: a comprehensive review of the evidence”


A sulforaphane review

Here’s a 2025 review where the lead author is a retired researcher whose words readers might interpret as Science. As a reminder, unlike study researchers, reviewers are free to:

  • Express their beliefs as facts;
  • Over/under emphasize study limitations; and
  • Disregard and misrepresent evidence as they see fit.

Reviewers also aren’t obligated to make post-publication corrections for their errors and distortions. For examples:

1. After the 7. Conclusions section, there’s an 8. Afterword: I3C and DIM section. The phrase “As detailed in our earliest work on broccoli sprouts..” indicated a belief carried over from last century of the low importance of those research subjects.

Then, contrary to uncited clinical trials such as Our model clinical trial for Changing to a youthful phenotype with broccoli sprouts and Eat broccoli sprouts for DIM, “Broccoli sprouts had next to no indole glucosinolates.” And in the middle of downplaying I3C and DIM research, they stated: “There are 149 clinical studies on DIM and 11 on I3C listed on clinicaltrials.gov, suggesting a good safety profile. Potential efficacy and mode of action in humans are a subject of intense current investigation, though definitive answers will not come for some time.” 🧐

2. In the 3. Sulforaphane section, they asserted: “Glucosinolates such as glucoraphanin are ‘activated’ or converted to isothiocyanates such as sulforaphane by an enzyme called myrosinase, which is present in that same plant tissue (e.g., seed, sprout, broccoli head, or microgreen) and/or in bacteria that all humans possess in their gastrointestinal tracts.” and cited a 2016 book they coauthored that I can’t access.

The first 2021 paper of Broccoli sprout compounds and gut microbiota didn’t assert that “all humans” had certain gut microbiota that converted glucosinolates to isothiocyanates. That paper instead stated: “Human feeding trials have shown inter-individual variations in gut microbiome composition coincides with variations in ITC absorption and excretion, and some bacteria produce ITCs from glucosinolates.”

3. Nearly half of their cited references were in vitro cancer papers. I rarely curate those types of studies because of their undisclosed human-irrelevant factors. For example, from the second paper of Polyphenol Nrf2 activators:

Bioavailability studies reveal that maximum concentrations in plasma typically do not exceed 1 µM following consumption of 10–100 mg of a single phenolic compound, with the maximum concentration occurring typically less than 2 h after ingestion, then dropping quickly thereafter. In the case of the in vitro studies assessed herein, and with few exceptions, most of the studies employed concentrations >10 µM with some studies involving concentrations in the several hundred µM range, with the duration of exposure typically in the range of 24–72 h, far longer duration than the very short time interval of a few minutes to several hours in human in vivo situations.

applsci-15-00522-g001-550

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/2/522 “The Impact of Sulforaphane on Sex-Specific Conditions and Hormone Balance: A Comprehensive Review”

Too dangerous to investigate?

This blog’s 1100th curation is a clinical trial of ergothioneine’s effects on cognitive decline:

“We recruited participants aged between 60–90 years of age, from three study cohorts diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and provided them with ergothioneine (ET)  (25 mg capsules administered orally three times a week) or placebo in a double-blinded and randomized manner. Blood samples were collected at baseline and quarterly (visits 1, 4, 7, 10, 14) for clinical safety assessment and biomarker analyses). Neuro-cognitive assessments were conducted biannually (visits 7 and 14).

Following ET intake, an increase in Z-scores was observed in the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) (immediate and delayed recalls), which evaluates learning ability and memory.

ravlt

wbc

Participants in both ET and placebo groups recorded a lower total white blood cell count compared to baseline at visit 7, both of which recovered subsequently. The reasons for this anomaly are unclear but values were all still within the expected range for their age.”

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/13872877241291253 “Investigating the efficacy of ergothioneine to delay cognitive decline in mild cognitively impaired subjects: A pilot study”


I rated this study a waste of time and money for the researchers’ incurious lack of following where their data led. Significant WBC signals of both treatment and placebo subjects’ immune system responses were shrugged off with an “expected range” non-explanation.

What can’t white tea do?

An effusive 2024 review of white tea’s beneficial effects:

“This comprehensive examination contributes nuanced perspectives, paving the way for continued research, innovation, and integration of white tea into diverse consumer preferences. Overall, white tea emerges as a multifaceted beverage with far-reaching implications for health, wellness, and the future landscape of the tea industry.”

white tea

https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/FSHW.2024.9250424 “New insights into chemical compositions and health benefits of white tea and development of new products derived from white tea” (click pdf link)


I didn’t see a mention of white tea drinkers’ ability to levitate and fly the astral plane like the Red Bull commercials. Maybe it’s just obvious?

Polyphenol Nrf2 activators

Two 2024 reviews by the same group that published Sulforaphane in the Goldilocks zone investigated dietary polyphenols’ effects as “hormetic nutrients”:

“Polyphenols display biphasic dose–response effects by activating at a low dose the Nrf2 pathway resulting in the upregulation of antioxidant vitagenes [see diagram]. We aimed to discuss hormetic nutrients, including polyphenols and/or probiotics, targeting the Nrf2 pathway and vitagenes for the development of promising neuroprotective and therapeutic strategies to suppress oxidative stress, inflammation and microbiota deregulation, and consequently improve cognitive performance and brain health.

antioxidants-13-00484-g001

Hormetic nutrition through polyphenols and/or probiotics targeting the antioxidant Nrf2 pathway and stress resilient vitagenes to inhibit oxidative stress and inflammatory pathways, as well as ferroptosis, could represent an effective therapy to manipulate alterations in the gut microbiome leading to brain dysfunction in order to prevent or slow the onset of major cognitive disorders. Notably, hormetic nutrients can stimulate the vagus nerve as a means of directly modulating microbiota-brain interactions for therapeutic purposes to mitigate or reverse the pathophysiological process, restoring gut and brain homeostasis, as reported by extensive preclinical and clinical studies.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/13/4/484 “Hormetic Nutrition and Redox Regulation in Gut–Brain Axis Disorders”


I’m not onboard with this study’s probiotic assertions because most of the cited studies contained unacknowledged measurement errors. Measuring gut microbiota, Part 2 found:

“The fecal microbiome does not represent the overall composition of the gut microbiome. Despite significant roles of gut microbiome in various phenotypes and diseases of its host, causative microbes for such characteristics identified by one research fail to be reproduced in others.

Since fecal microbiome is a result of the gut microbiome rather than the representative microbiome of the GI tract of the host, there is a limitation in identifying causative intestinal microbes related to these phenotypes and diseases by studying fecal microbiome.”

These researchers also erroneously equated isothiocyanate sulforaphane’s Nrf2-activating mechanisms with polyphenols activating Nrf2.


This research group did better in clarifying polyphenols’ mechanisms in a review of hormetic dose-response effects of the polyphenol rosmarinic acid:

“This article evaluates whether rosmarinic acid may act as a hormetic agent, mediating its chemoprotective effects as has been shown for similar agents, such as caffeic acid, a derivative of rosmarinic acid.

Rosmarinic acid enhanced memory in institute of cancer research male mice in the Morris water maze (escape latency).

untitled

Of importance in the evaluation of rosmarinic acid are its bioavailability, metabolism, and tissue distribution (including the capacity to affect and/or cross the BBB and its distribution and half-life within the brain). In the case of polyphenols, including rosmarinic acid, they are typically delivered at low doses in the diet and, in most instances, they do not escape first-pass metabolism, with the prominent chemical forms being conjugates of glucuronides and sulfates, with or without methylation.

These conjugated metabolites are chemically distinct from the parent compound, showing considerable differences in size, polarity, and ionic form. Their biological actions are quite different from the parent compound.

Bioavailability studies reveal that maximum concentrations in plasma typically do not exceed 1 µM following consumption of 10–100 mg of a single phenolic compound, with the maximum concentration occurring typically less than 2 h after ingestion, then dropping quickly thereafter. In the case of the in vitro studies assessed herein, and with few exceptions, most of the studies employed concentrations >10 µM with some studies involving concentrations in the several hundred µM range, with the duration of exposure typically in the range of 24–72 h, far longer duration than the very short time interval of a few minutes to several hours in human in vivo situations.

We strongly recommend that all experiments using in vitro models to study biological responses to dietary polyphenols use only physiologically relevant flavonoids and their conjugates at appropriate concentrations, provide evidence to support their use, and justify any conclusions generated. When authors fail to do this, referees and editors must act to ensure that data obtained in vitro are relevant to what might occur in vivo.”

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/med-2024-1065/html “The chemoprotective hormetic effects of rosmarinic acid”

An elevator pitch for plasmalogen precursors

An excerpt from the latest video at Dr. Goodenowe’s Health Matters podcast, Episode 7 “The Truth about Parkinson’s”, starting at 50:30:

“What’s exciting about this community medicine focus that we’ve switched to which basically says: How do we develop technologies in a way that they can be incorporated into a community model versus a pharmaceutical drug model? People can actually do I would say self-experiment just the way you self-experiment with your own diet because these are fundamentally dietary nutrition molecules.

Could you give me an elevator pitch because there are probably people listening who are thinking what is this plasmalogen precursor and for sure how is it having this dramatic effect?

Plasmalogens are the most important nutrient that nobody knows about. Normally you don’t know about it because the body is usually pretty good at making them. What makes plasmalogens unique is that your body makes them kind of like cannon fodder, the first group of people that go into war. Your body throws them out for destruction. They absorb oxidative stress and get destroyed in the process.

They’re stored in your cell membranes. 50% of the membranes of your heart are these plasmalogen molecules. When your heart gets inflamed, what your heart does is it dumps these plasmalogens out of its membranes to douse the flame of inflammation. After inflammation is under control, your body naturally builds these things back up again.

But if you have an inability to make enough plasmalogens, these inflammation events knock you down and keep you down. So plasmalogen precursors are critical for maintaining high levels of plasmalogens across your body, not just in your brain (30% of the lipids in your brain) but in your heart, your lungs, your kidneys.”


PXL_20241117_185248742~2

Brain restoration with plasmalogens, Part 2

This September 2024 presentation adds data points and concepts to Part 1:

supplementation

  1. “Your brain is dynamically connected to and adaptively responsive to its environment.
  2. You are in control of this environment (nutrition, stimulation, adversity).
  3. Need to measure the environment (lab testing, physiology) and adaptive response to the environment (MRI) to optimize your environment (nutrition, lifestyle) to achieve optimal brain structure, function, health, and longevity.

neurovascular

From a global cortical volume and thickness perspective, 17 months of high dose plasmalogens reversed about 15 years of predicted brain deterioration. 31 months reversed almost 20 years. So you can get more out of life.”

https://drgoodenowe.com/immortal-neurology-building-maintaining-an-immortal-brain/


Dr. Goodenowe also added case studies of two patients:

1. A 50-year-old woman with MS who had been legally blind in one eye for 32 years who regained sight in that eye after eight months of supplementation.

“This is the adaptability of the human brain. Her eye is not actually impaired. What’s impaired is the ability, the adaptability of the brain to the signal of light, to actually start interpreting what that light signal is.”

2. A 61-year-old man with dementia from firefighting work for the U.S. Navy in a toxic environment with head injuries after nine months of supplementation.

“The brain can heal itself is the point of the story. His executive function skills in everyday life are getting better.”

Activate Nrf2 to reduce biological age

A 2024 primate study investigated effects of an off-patent drug on age-related changes:

“We evaluated geroprotective effects of metformin on adult male cynomolgus monkeys. The study encompassed a comprehensive suite of physiological, imaging, histological, and molecular evaluations, substantiating metformin’s influence on delaying age-related phenotypes at the organismal level.

monkey nrf2

Results highlighted a significant slowing of aging indicators, notably a roughly 6-year regression in brain aging. Metformin exerts a substantial neuroprotective effect, preserving brain structure and enhancing cognitive ability.

Geroprotective effects on primate neurons were partially mediated by activation of Nrf2, a transcription factor with anti-oxidative capabilities.”

https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(24)00914-0 “Metformin decelerates aging clock in male monkeys” (not freely available). Thanks to Dr. Pradeep Reddy for providing a copy.


From this study’s Nrf2 activation findings:

“Metformin treatment resulted in increased nuclear phosphorylated Nrf2, accompanied by up-regulation of Nrf2 target genes like HO-1, NQO-1, SOD3, GPX2, and GPX1, which were generally suppressed and typically down-regulated during human neuron senescence.

Genes pivotal for neuronal function, such as dendrite morphogenesis/extension and synapse assembly (e.g., GSK3B, GRID2, and NRG3), were down-regulated during aging in excitatory neurons (ExN), inhibitory neurons (InN), oligodendrocytes (OL), oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPC), microglia, and astrocyte but were restored by metformin treatment. By contrast, pathways that were up-regulated during aging, including activation of the immune response, complement activation, and regulation of the TGF-b receptor signaling pathway, were reset to lower levels by metformin treatment.

metformin neuronal gene pathways

We verified that markers associated with brain aging and progression of neurodegenerative diseases were restored by metformin treatment to levels similar to those observed in young monkeys. Additionally, we observed that reduced myelin sheath thickness, a characteristic of aged monkeys, was rebuilt to a younger state following metformin treatment.

These findings align with the levels of nuclear-localized phosphorylated Nrf2, suggesting that Nrf2 pathway activation is a key mechanism in metformin’s role in delaying human neuronal aging and, by extension, brain aging. Consistent with our in vitro findings, Nrf2 pathway activation was also detected across multiple tissues in metformin-treated monkeys, including frontal lobe neurons.


At last count, I’ve curated 250+ papers this decade on cruciferous vegetables, and many of these explored relationships with Nrf2 activation. Basically, eating a clinically-relevant daily dose of 3-day-old cruciferous sprouts and taking off-patent metformin both induce Nrf2 activation effects.

Don’t expect to see many researchers highlighting this equivalency. They’d rather wait another decade to nitpick other studies with not-enough-subjects / not-exactly replicated / other nitpicks before expressing opinions urging caution from their nursing home beds.

But even then, they won’t get their facts straight. For example, a contemporaneous opinion article https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02938-w “The brain aged more slowly in monkeys given a cheap diabetes drug” attempted to summarize this study, and flubbed two points:

1. The study said: “We conducted a proof-of-concept study involving male cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) aged between 13 and 16 years, roughly equivalent to approximately 40–50 years in humans. Monkeys adhered to this regimen for a period of 1,200 days, approximately 3.3 years, which corresponds to about 10 years in humans.”

The opinion claimed: “Animals took the drug for 40 months, which is equivalent to about 13 years for humans.”

2. The opinion quoted a New York City researcher involved in a separate metformin study and employed at a medical school for:

“Research into metformin and other anti-ageing candidates could one day mean that doctors will be able to focus more on keeping people healthy for as long as possible rather than on treating diseases.”

This statement is a big break from the realities of medical personnel daily actions at least so far this decade, which is when I started to pay close attention:

  • Doctors have very little diet and exercise training in medical school. There’s no way they can give health advice. There’s no way that a “keeping people healthy” paradigm will emerge from the current medical system.
  • Fixing a disease doesn’t restore a patient’s health. Dr. (PhD) Goodenowe cites several examples in his talks, such as a study that compared colorectal cancer therapy with post-operation patient health.
  • If you listen to yesterday’s two-hour-long podcast, the currently injured person in the first hour gave plenty of contrary evidence of doctors’ focuses: behaviors of trying to blame and gaslight the patient, thinly-disguised punitive actions, CYA etc., all of which they will be sued for one day. The doctor in the second hour provided an example of the quoted researcher in her explanation of how doctors higher in the hierarchy either can’t see or can’t admit realities of doctor/patient interactions, and what therapies have actually benefited or harmed a patient.

How to choose your medical professional

Two+ decades ago (before smart phones) I wrote a series of short books entitled How To Choose Your  Lawyer, ..Accountant, ..Financial Advisor. My customers were mainly public libraries.

This is a short post on choosing doctors, although I’ve fired all my doctors and don’t have one. Everything that’s happened this decade has made me wonder why I trusted doctors in the first place.

1. It takes certain behavioral quirks for doctors to assert they know better than you do about what is good for you. These behaviors usually have nothing to do with these doctors’ patients, but patients somehow believe doctors.

These behaviors are almost always doctors’ act-outs of early-life traumas of unfulfilled needs. Pain keeps people from feeling their actual histories, though, so we don’t deal with our real histories therapeutically until we absolutely have to.

If your doctor listens to you at all, it’s only because they are constantly vigilant for some way to fulfill their own unsatisfied needs. But that neither resolves anything for them, as an early need can’t be satisfied years later, nor has anything to do with what you need from a medical professional.

2. If you’ve read extensively about an area and have questions, a doctor may know less than you. That won’t keep them from gaslighting you due to 1. above, but it does keep you from getting what you need from them. Discussing facts you know with a medical professional who is intentionally ignorant about a medical subject gets you nowhere.

3. If your doctor has not publicly disclaimed their advocacy of this decade’s misguided genetic therapy, they are compromised and can’t be trusted. It doesn’t matter what else they said, because they weren’t honest about what they knew or should have known, as revealed by their actions or inactions.

For example, two studies published in June 2024 established that:

  • Neurologic issues (68% increase in depression, and a 44% increase in anxiety / dissociative / stress-related / somatoform disorders) followed COVID gene therapy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02627-0 “Psychiatric adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination: a population-based cohort study in Seoul, South Korea” (2,027,353 people)
  • COVID gene therapy increased the risk of mild cognitive impairment 138% and the risk of Alzheimer’s by 23%: https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/qjmed/hcae103/7684274 “A potential association between COVID-19 vaccination and development of Alzheimer’s disease” (558,017 people). These graphics showed rapidly increasing MCI and AD incidences. The study’s analysis showed incidence increases could not have happened by chance.

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A doctor’s only honest response to this malfeasance is to publicly apologize, and tell their trusting patients they will make it up to them by providing free healthcare to help mitigate results of their unprofessional conduct. If they tell you something else, it’s a distraction from consequences that are beyond words.

Maintaining your myelin, Part 2

Continuing Part 1 with three 2024 preprint studies, starting with an investigation of neuroinflammation in high school athletes:

“Axons are long fibers conducting nerve impulses from nerve cells to synaptic ends. Like electric wires, axons are insulated by the myelin sheath produced by oligodendrocytes (ODC) in the brain or Schwann cells in the periphery. The myelin sheath is vulnerable to mechanical stresses after head injuries, as well as targets for autoimmune attack in multiple sclerosis and degeneration in various white matter diseases.

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It is challenging to definitively validate axonal neuroinflammation, because axonal neuroinflammation is only diagnosed at post-mortem autopsy, or wait for more than a decade to potentially witness progression to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or white matter dementia. Advanced imaging analysis of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are not sensitive enough to identify such microscopic abnormalities.

We developed a sandwich immunoassay detecting dual signals of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) and interleukin 1B (IL1B) in human plasma, [IL1B on MOG]. MOG is a transmembrane protein specifically expressed in ODC and Schwann cells membranes, and doesn’t freely exist in plasma. We found that serum from capillary blood is acceptable, and we tested control and athlete samples using only 5 mL samples. When we tested 63 control plasma samples, values were widely distributed over 2 logs, so we focused on longitudinal studies.

Damaged neurons are not easily detectable using conventional physical examinations, because the brain’s inherent adaptability allows it to compensate for localized damage by finding alternate routes. While this adaptability is advantageous, it also means that these concealed lesions can go unnoticed, potentially leading to future complications.

Elevation of [IL1B on MOG] was seen in some athletes who did not show concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI). While the occurrence of concussion is relatively limited, potential prevalence of subconcussion or subconcussive condition is expected to be substantially higher.

If [IL1B on MOG] levels remain unchanged during this early post-concussion period (2-4 weeks), it may suggest that neuroinflammation has not been induced, potentially providing reassurance for the athletes to return to play. Conversely, if [IL1B on MOG] levels increase within this timeframe, it may indicate the need for intervention or closer monitoring. Thus, there is compelling potential for incorporating this test into concussion guidelines.”

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3997676/v1 “An approach for the analysis of axonal neuroinflammation by measuring dual biomarkers of oligodendrocytes and inflammatory cytokine in human plasma”


A rodent study investigated the immune system’s influence on oligodendrocyte lineage cells after TBI:

“White matter injury is thought to be a major contributor to long-term cognitive dysfunctions after TBI. This damage occurs partly due to apoptotic death of oligodendrocyte lineage cells (OLCs) after injury, triggered directly by the trauma or in response to degenerating axons.

Our data indicates that depletion of the gut microbiota after TBI impaired remyelination, reduced OLCs proliferation, and required the presence of T cells. This suggests that T cells are an important mechanistic link by which the gut microbiota modulate oligodendrocyte response and white matter recovery after TBI.

Our findings suggest that oligodendrocytes are not passive in the neuroinflammatory and degenerative environment caused by brain trauma, but instead could exert an active role in modulation of immune response.”

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-4289147/v1 “Gut Microbiota Shape Oligodendrocyte Response after Traumatic Brain Injury”


A rodent study investigated whether oligodendrocyte precursor cells had myelination-independent roles in brain aging:

“OPCs, the source cells of myelin-forming cells in the central nervous system, have been linked to brain aging by their compromised differentiation and regeneration capability. Our results demonstrate that macroautophagy influx declines in aged OPCs, which results in the accumulation of senescent OPCs in aged brains. Senescent OPCs impair neuronal plasticity and exacerbate neurodegeneration, eventually leading to cognitive decline.

Inactivation of autophagy in OPCs exhibits a limited effect on myelin thickness but a loss of myelin in middle-aged mice. The loss of myelin observed is an adaptational change to suppressed neuronal plasticity. However, neither the number of OLs nor oligodendrogenesis is altered by inactivation of autophagy in adult OPCs.

The present study indicates that the intervention of senescent OPCs is an additional promising therapeutic strategy for aging and aging-related cognitive deficits. Autophagy regulates senescence by impairing protein turnover, mitochondrial homeostasis, oxidative stress, and maintaining senescence-associated secretory phenotype. Further investigation remains on whether autophagy in OPCs shares the exact mechanism to promote senescence as that in other types of cells.

Considering autophagy declines with aging, our study brings a novel mechanism in brain aging. Declined autophagy causes senescence of OPCs, which impairs neuronal plasticity and exacerbates neurodegeneration via CCL3/5-CCR5 signaling.”

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3926942/v1 “Impaired Macroautophagy in Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells Exacerbates Aging-related Cognitive Deficits via a Senescence Associated Signaling”


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Maintaining your myelin, Part 1

Three papers on myelin and oligodendrocytes, starting with a 2023 review:

“Myelin is the spiral ensheathment of axons by a lipid and cholesterol-rich glial cell membrane that reduces capacitance and increases resistance of the axonal membrane. Axonal myelination speeds up nerve conduction velocity as a function of axon diameter.

While myelination proceeds rapidly after birth in the peripheral nervous system, central myelination is a spatially and temporally more regulated process. Ongoing myelination of the human brain has been documented at up to 40 years of age. This late myelination in the adult cortex is followed by exhaustion of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) with senescence and a gradual loss of myelin integrity in the aging brain.

The brain is well known for its high energy demands, specifically in gray matter areas. In white matter tracts, energy consumption is lower. Myelination poses a unique challenge for axonal energy generation where myelin sheaths cover more than 95% of the axonal surface areas.

Oligodendrocytes help support axonal integrity. Oligodendrocytes survive well in the absence of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, and without signs of myelin loss, cell death, neurodegeneration or secondary inflammation.

Glycolysis products of oligodendroglial origin are readily metabolized in axonal mitochondria. Oligodendroglial metabolic support is critical for larger and faster-spiking myelinated axons that also have a higher density of mitochondria. An essential requirement for the direct transfer of energy-rich metabolites from oligodendrocytes to the myelinated axonal compartment is ‘myelinic channels’ within the myelin sheath.

Interactions of oligodendrocytes and myelin with the underlying axon are complex and exceed the transfer of energy-rich metabolites. Continuous turnover of myelin membranes by lipid degradation and fatty acid beta-oxidation in mitochondria and peroxisomes leads to recycling of acetate residues by fatty acid synthesis and membrane biogenesis.

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In human multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein-experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (MOG-EAE), acute inflammatory demyelination is followed by axonal degeneration in lesion sites that is mechanistically not fully understood. It is widely thought that demyelination and the lack of an axon-protective myelin sheath in the presence of numerous inflammatory mediators are the main causes of axon loss.

But unprotected axons improve rather than worsen the overall clinical phenotype of EAE mice which exhibited the same degree of autoimmunity. Thus, ‘bad myelin is worse than no myelin’ because MS-relevant myelin injuries perturb the integrity of myelinic channels and metabolic support.

Dysfunctional or injured oligodendrocytes that do not allow for compensation by any other cell types turn the affected myelin ensheathment into a burden of the underlying axonal energy metabolism, which causes irreversible axon loss. Any loss of myelin integrity, as seen acutely in demyelinating disorders or more gradually in the aging brain, becomes a risk factor for irreversible neurodegeneration.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959438823001071 “Expanding the function of oligodendrocytes to brain energy metabolism”


A 2024 review focused on myelin and oligodendrocyte plasticity:

“This review summarizes our current understanding of how myelin is generated, how its function is dynamically regulated, and how oligodendrocytes support the long-term integrity of myelinated axons.

Apart from its unique ultrastructure, there are several other exceptional features of myelin. One is certainly its molecular composition. Another is its extraordinary stability. This was compellingly illustrated when 5000-year-old myelin with almost intact ultrastructure was dissected from a Tyrolean Ice Man.

Myelin is a stable system in contrast to most membranes. However, myelin is compartmentalized into structurally and biochemically distinct domains. Noncompacted regions are much more dynamic and metabolically active than tightly compacted regions that lack direct access to the membrane trafficking machinery of oligodendrocytes.

The underlying molecular basis for stability of myelin is likely its lipid composition with high levels of saturated, long chain fatty acids, together with an enrichment of glycosphingolipids (∼20% molar percentage of total lipids) and cholesterol (∼40% of molar percentage of total lipids). In addition, myelin comprises a high proportion of plasmalogens (ether lipids) with saturated long-chain fatty acids. In fact, ∼20% of the fatty acids in myelin have hydrocarbon chains longer than 18 carbon atoms (∼1% in the gray matter) and only ∼6% of the fatty acids are polyunsaturated (∼20% in gray matter).

With maturation of oligodendrocytes, the plasma membrane undergoes major transformations of its structure. Whereas OPCs are covered by a dense layer of large and negatively charged self-repulsive oligosaccharides, compacted myelin of fully matured oligodendrocytes lacks most of these glycoprotein and complex glycolipids.

Schematic depiction of an oligodendrocyte that takes up blood-derived glucose and delivers glycolysis products (pyruvate/lactate) via monocarboxylate transporters (MCT1 and MCT2) to myelinated axons. Oligodendrocytes and myelin membranes are also coupled by gap junctions to astrocytes, and thus indirectly to the blood–brain barrier.

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Adaptive myelination refers to dynamic events in oligodendroglia driven by extrinsic factors such as experience or neuronal activity, which subsequently induces changes in circuit structure and function. Understanding how these adaptive changes in neuron-oligodendroglia interactions impact brain function remains a pressing question for the field.

Transient social isolation during adulthood results in chromatin and myelin changes, but does not induce consequent behavioral alterations. When mice undergo a social isolation paradigm during early life development, they similarly exhibit deficits in prefrontal cortex function and myelination, but these deficiencies do not recover with social reintroduction. This implicates a critical period for social deprivation effects on myelin dynamics. Experience-dependent changes in myelin dynamics may depend on not only the age, brain region, and cell type studied, but also the specific myelin structural change assessed.

Local synaptic neurotransmitter release along an axon not only affects the number of OPCs and oligodendrocytes associated with that axon and local synthesis of myelin proteins, but also drives preferential selection of active axons for myelination over the ensheathment of electrically silenced neighboring axons. Neuronal activity–induced plasticity may preferentially impact brain regions that remain incompletely myelinated compared to more fully myelinated tracts.

Whereas the myelin sheath has been regarded for a long time as an inert insulating structure, it has now become clear that myelin is metabolically active with cytoplasmic-rich pathways, myelinic channels, for movement of macromolecules into the periaxonal space. The myelin sheath and its subjacent axon need to be regarded as one functional unit, which are not only morphological but also metabolically coupled.”

https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/early/2024/04/15/cshperspect.a041359 “Oligodendrocytes: Myelination, Plasticity, and Axonal Support” (not freely available) Thanks to Dr. Klaus-Armin Nave for providing a copy.


A 2024 rodent study investigated oligodendrocyte precursor cell transcriptional and epigenetic changes:

“We used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), single-cell ATAC sequencing (scATAC-seq), and single-cell spatial transcriptomics to characterize murine cortical OPCs throughout postnatal life. One group (active, or actOPCs) is metabolically active and enriched in white matter. The second (homeostatic, or hOPCs) is less active, enriched in gray matter, and predicted to derive from actOPCs. Relative to developing OPCs, both actOPCs and hOPCs are less active metabolically and have less open chromatin.

In adulthood, these two groups are transcriptionally but not epigenetically distinct, indicating that they may represent different states of the same OPC population. If that is the case, then one model is that the parenchymal environment maintains adult OPCs within an hOPC state, whereas those OPCs recruited into white matter or exposed to demyelinated axons may transition toward an actOPC state in preparation for making new oligodendrocytes. We do not yet know the functional ramifications of these differences, but this finding has clear implications for the development of therapeutic strategies for adult remyelination.

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Another finding is that developing but not adult actOPC chromatin is preferentially open for binding motifs associated with neural stem cells, transit-amplifying precursors, and neurogenesis. Although this may simply reflect their origin as the immediate progeny of neonatal neural precursor cells, it may also explain why developing but not adult OPCs have the capacity to make neurons in culture.

If we could, at least in part, reverse the global chromatin shutdown that occurs between development and adulthood, then perhaps adult OPCs may reacquire the ability to make neurons or become better able to generate new oligodendrocytes for remyelination.”

https://www.cell.com/stem-cell-reports/fulltext/S2213-6711(24)00077-8 “Single-cell approaches define two groups of mammalian oligodendrocyte precursor cells and their evolution over developmental time”

Continued in Part 2.


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Changing a cancerous phenotype

A 2024 Dr. Goodenowe presentation to a professional audience. He ended the presentation by using his 86-year-old father as a case study of treatment to create an inhospitable environment for cancer.

1. Get the body ready

slide 189

2. Starve the cancer and boost the immune system

slide 190

3. Characteristics

slide 191

4. 2019 sample biochemistry

slide 192

5. 2023 biochemistry (compare HDL (33 vs. 80), see off-the-chart hsCRP, Hcy 16)

slide 193

6. Treatment details #1

slide 197

7. Treatment details #2

slide 198

https://drgoodenowe.com/tfim-2024-recording-now-available/ “Breaking Cancer: The Biochemistry of Cancer Risk Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment—Real Knowledge That You Can Use In Your Practice”


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