Does TA-65 Work?

As a doctor I get asked this constantly. Honestly, does TA-65 work? It is a fair question, and you deserve a straight answer instead of a sales pitch. So let me give you one, the same way I would if you were sitting across from me in my office.

First, a word on the climate this question lives in. There are powerful people and organizations with a vested interest in discrediting anything to do with longevity or healthspan. So read this as information and education. No disease claims are made or inferred, and you alone are responsible for what you do with the information. With that said, let me tell you what I actually found.

I did not take this on faith. I took it to the lab.

I am a scientist at heart, so I did not settle for anecdotes. I took my own samples, my own blood, to the lab to answer the burning question for myself. I have written up my personal experience with TA-65 and the lab results that came with it. This was not a feeling. It was a measurement.

Then a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial on TA-65 was published in a peer reviewed medical journal, Rejuvenation Research. That is the gold standard study design, and it tested exactly the question on this page.

In a nutshell, does TA-65 work?

The trial showed what I had been telling people for years. TA-65 worked to lengthen telomeres. And it did something even more important than raising the average. It reduced the percentage of critically short telomeres, which may matter more than overall length. Critically short telomeres are the ones that flip a cell into senescence or self-destruction. Clearing those out is a bigger deal than nudging the average.

The people in this trial were CMV positive. CMV is a chronic virus that quietly chews up immune resources over a lifetime. The participants taking the activator saw a statistically significant increase in telomere length. The placebo group’s telomeres got shorter, without exception. That is the so called “natural” progression of cellular aging, and the activator appeared to push back against it.

The distinction almost everyone gets wrong

Here is the thing that separates people who understand this field from people who just write about it.

There is a huge difference between having longer telomeres and lengthening them. You can absolutely end up with longer telomeres than the average person your age if you eat right, exercise the right way, and manage your stress. But you are not lengthening them. You are slowing the loss. Big difference.

I see “experts” announce ways to “hack” longevity, and the word “hack” usually tells me everything I need to know about how seriously to take them. To genuinely lengthen telomeres you have to turn on telomerase. And to do that, you need a real telomerase activator. Not a polyphenol blend. Not wishful thinking. An actual activator with human data behind it.

So why do I no longer carry TA-65?

Because I stopped selling it. TA-65 was a landmark, and the research above still stands. It is still on the market from its maker, so if you want that specific product, it is out there. What I formulate, manufacture, and take myself today is Telokynase.

So if you came to this page wondering what I make and take now, that is your answer. Telokynase is my current-production cycloastragenol-based telomere-support formula, built in the same cycloastragenol family that made this category interesting in the first place. For the full daily telomere system, most people pair it with the Immortality Edge Packs.

What about the cancer question?

It comes up every single time, so let me address it head on. Short telomeres are associated with cancer, not the other way around. Telomerase does not cause cancer; cancer hijacks telomerase late in its development. The animal work on telomerase gene therapy from the Blasco lab extended healthy lifespan without raising cancer rates. I walk through all of this in Does TA-65 Cause Cancer, and it is worth your time if the worry is in the back of your mind.

If you want the wider context on where telomeres sit in the whole story of aging, start at the hub: Telomeres: The Crux of Aging. And if you are weighing activators against one another, read TA-65 vs Other Telomerase Activators.

Until the advent of telomerase activation, no human being on earth could expect their telomeres to lengthen as they got older. That sentence still gives me chills, because for the first time in the history of our species, it is no longer true. Let’s go long.

To your lasting energy and vitality, Doc

References

• A Natural Product Telomerase Activator Lengthens Telomeres in Humans: A Randomized, Double Blind, and Placebo Controlled Study (Rejuvenation Res, 2016)
• Effects of TA-65 on telomere length, functional outcomes, and inflammation: a systematic review and meta-analysis
• Telomerase gene therapy in adult and old mice delays aging and increases longevity without increasing cancer (Bernardes de Jesus & Blasco, EMBO Mol Med 2012; mouse study)

Keep reading

• Telomeres: The Crux of Aging
• Telokynase: The Telomere-Support Formula I Make Now
• Does TA-65 Cause Cancer? What the Research Shows
• TA-65 vs Other Telomerase Activators

— Doc