How to effectively build your longevity supplement ‘stack’
Hello! I’m Nick, Founder at A Longer Life. Let’s talk about your supplement stack!
Stop and think about this for a minute.
As far as your time, energy and sanity are concerned, there are far too many supplement options available for you to ever review them all. There are effectively endless options. The type of supplement, the ingredients of each supplement, the brand of each supplement and the quality/purity of supplement - all of these factors (and more) are meant to be factored into your decision making process to know which ones you should add to your stack.
The task is actually quite impossible when you approach it this way. You cannot actually fully evaluate and wisely choose from all of the available options.
In order to effectively build your own longevity supplement stack, you need to approach the topic in a way that drastically simplifies the seemingly endless optionality.
I want to offer you my approach to simplifying this overly complex problem.
And it starts with identifying your end goal.
Here at A Longer Life, we believe that end goal is living your longest, healthiest life.
Start with the end in mind: Longevity
I’ve founded A Longer Life to guide you on your longevity journey. Be sure to check out our free longevity mindset course!
Our team is here to help guide you on your longevity journey.
We are here to guide because this space is simply overwhelming. When you start to get excited about the possibility of extending your healthy lifespan well beyond what you ever thought possible, you of course want to take action.
Our four part framework.
Starting with the right supplements is one way to take action, and it is often where people like to start. However, doing so does not solve the overwhelm problem - where you are stuck with a limited budget (time, energy, money) and an unbounded problem (too many options/choices) and information overload.
Our role as your guide is to simplify this process, and we have done that by creating a four part framework to guide you on your journey.
This website is setup as a progressive system, where you start with 1) longevity mindset, advance to creating 2) a longevity strategy, before then moving onto optimizing your 3) lifestyle factors and then finally engaging with 4) longevity technologies.
The Challenge with Supplements
The challenge with building your supplement stack, is that it really sits across #2, #3 and #4 parts of the framework, so you need to consider each of these as you execute on the process.
Our guidance to you: start with #2 - Longevity Strategy.
Why is this case? Because you want to start the creation of your supplement stack by beginning with the end in mind. Namely, which of the diseases of aging are you most likely to develop? You then build the foundation of your supplement stack with choices that can reduce your long-term risk.
#2 Starting with longevity strategy: a personal example
Let me give you an example from my own supplement stack and my personal longevity strategy.
Nick’s genetic analysis for longevity risk. Note the age-related macular degeneration risk at top right. Read more here.
You see, by reviewing my family health history, I was able to identify that I have genetic (familial) risk for retinal health. Furthermore, by analyzing my personal genetic risk by using a high quality genetic test, I was able to identify that I have risk for age-related macular degeneration.
The response? I now take an eye health supplement daily. Full of carotenoids and eye health specific antioxidants, which reduce my risk for age related eye health issues.
You can listen to me discuss this with Longevity Medicine expert Dr Sandra Kaufmann here.
Allow me to also present you with a second example from my family health history.
My grandfather died from an aggressive form of prostate cancer. My father has also been identified to be at elevated risk for prostate health issues. This means I likely share the same age-related risks.
My response in my supplement stack? I take 25mg of lycopene daily, which has solid scientific evidence for reducing prostate cancer risk.
Your first step in building an effective long-term supplement stack is to identify your individual risk factors through completing a family health history (and supplementing that information with a genetic test, if you so choose).
The good news is that this is free to do and we’ve provide a step-by-step process for you here.
Identify your risk and select supplements which will reduce your risk. This forms the foundation of your longevity supplement stack.
#3 Longevity lifestyle factors
Moving on from the foundational step of assessing your unique risk, we move into the lifestyle factors of longevity, specifically nutrition.
Once you’ve identified ways to reduce your risk, you are then tasked with adding further supplements to your stack based on optimising your nutrition. The first goal here is to supplement what you are missing nutritionally. The second goal is to support your biology with supplements that help correct any imbalances you are uniquely prone to. Please allow us to explain this further.
Ensure you are getting the micronutrients you need
The first goal is about ensuring you are receiving all of the micronutrients that you require. These are defined as the essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs to perform optimally.
To start on this part of the journey, you can do so for free by starting to track your dietary intake of micronutrients. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a micronutrient test like I did. Instead you can download a free app called Cronometer and start tracking the micronutrient content of what you’re eating. This will then allow you to identify what micronutrients you are missing.
I learned that I needed to supplement L-Glutamine, Chromium and Vitamin K2. And those now are a part of my supplement stack, as my body clearly needs more of these.
The answer for you will of course be different, but by starting to track your micronutrients you can identify what you need to supplement.
Support your biology through analysing your bloodwork
This next step is slightly more advanced, but you don’t need to undertake this work until you’ve done the steps above.
Here, you need to order some bloodwork to identify opportunities for further optimisation. Fortunately, these types of tests are becoming much more accessible.
At home test kits for nutritional status are becoming more widely available. This Omega 3/Vitamin D kit from DoNotAge is one such example. Using the code ‘longevityblog’ will save you 10%.
As one example, you can test your Omega 3 and Vitamin D levels using a simple finger prick using this kit. Another is ordering your own bloodwork using a company like HealthLabs (USA) or i-screen (Australia) . We will be adding more options to this list in the near future to support you in this work.
There is also the option to work with your GP/Primary Care Physician to order a basic blood test that could be covered by Medicare / Insurance. You’ll need to pay for an appointment, but often you can get some basic testing done for free.
With these blood testing data in hand, you can choose supplements that support your individual biological needs.
Here, we provide a few examples:
By identifying that your Omega 6:3 ratio is optimal. If it is too high, you should supplement with a high quality fish oil
Through a Vitamin D check, you may find you need to supplement with Vitamin D (but be sure to re-check over time so that your levels don’t get too high with this fat soluble vitamin)
Bloodwork reveals that your white blood cell count is low and that your immune system needs support, so you supplement with whole food vitamin C, zinc and perhaps even with beef thymus
Your iron/ferritin levels are too low, so you supplement with iron and vitamin C to boost them.
The examples here could be quite numerous, and your exact situation may not appear. But your bloodwork is meant to guide you, and will help you effectively take action on what supplements you need to support your biology.
#4 Engaging with longevity technologies
The fourth and arguably most exciting part of building your longevity supplement stack is engaging with longevity supplements.
You should really only begin investing in these after you’ve completed the above steps and adopted all of the lifestyle factor changes we present to you at A Longer Life. Without first doing these, you’re skipping some very important steps. We understand this part is exciting and many people want to start with this step. But as your guide, we hope you’ll start back at the top of this list!
Longevity supplements are numerous, rapidly emerging molecules/compounds which have early to mid-stage evidence of extending healthspan and/or lifespan. Most often the data available are for worms or in rodent models, but increasingly there is human data emerging.
Some examples include NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) for boosting NAD+ levels, Calcium Alpha-ketoglutarate (Ca-AKG), GlyNAC (Glycine N-Acetyl Cysteine) and Urolithin A.
You can follow the above links to learn more about these longevity supplements, and trust that we will continue to cover them on A Longer Life as more options come to the market.
Here is an example of how to run a self-experiment with a supplement. In this longevity technology article, Nick reveals how supplementing with Ca-AKG improved his biological age.
With longevity supplements, it is important to ensure that you directly measure their benefits. As they are early-stage and often unproven, you need to know that they work for you. Many of these supplements have had profound health improvements for many people, but they may not do the same for you.
For these, you need to run a self-experiement to determine their efficacy.
Once again, we provide you with an example. I was able to improve my biological age by three years (over three different biological age tests) by supplementing 2 grams/day of Ca-AKG over a twelve month period.
I did this by measuring my biological age before and after and by only changing one thing at a time in my supplement stack. By doing this, I know that I should continue to take Ca-AKG because it is worth my hard-earned money to do so.
I’ve laid out all the steps in the linked posts here to show you how to do this.
Closing remarks: go slowly, build up from the foundation
So there you have it, a progressive framework for building a longevity supplement stack that will work for you.
As you embark on this journey, remember that A Longer Life is here to guide you, to reduce overwhelm and help you take effective action. You do this by:
Starting with risk and identifying supplements that can reduce your risk
Tracking your nutrition and supplementing what you’re missing
Backing up your stack with bloodwork to fill in any gaps
Engaging with longevity supplements in a disciplined way (self-experimenting)
Thank you for reading and be sure to subscribe to our content updates below to get notified when we post new content (just like this article) and to receive my free 1 page summary on how to live your longest life.
Live Long,
Nick