TA-65 versus other telomerase activators

I get a steady volume of email from people convinced that some other compound, usually an MLM product, is superior to TA-65 for telomerase activation. I welcome dissent in this field. I have publicly retracted my own positions when new data came in. Even Joe Mercola has, in the past, walked back his stance on cod liver oil. That is how the field is supposed to work.

What I do not welcome is competing claims with no supporting data. So when someone tells me that another compound is better than TA-65, here are the five questions I would want them to answer first.

One. Is there more than a TRAP assay behind the claim?

The TRAP assay measures telomerase enzymatic activity in a cell culture extract. It is a reasonable starting point for screening. It does not establish that the compound maintains or lengthens telomere length in living humans. Expression of telomerase in a dish is not the same as telomere maintenance in tissue. The Ouellette work and the larger literature have been clear on this point for over twenty years. If a competing product cites only a TRAP assay, it has cleared the first screen, not the last one.

Two. Was the assay run under realistic conditions?

Cell culture work is done with controlled concentrations of the compound delivered directly to the cells. That is fine for screening. It does not tell you what happens once the compound has to pass through the gut, the liver, and into circulation at meaningful concentrations.

Three. Has pharmacokinetics been studied?

Pharmacokinetics is the unglamorous discipline that asks whether a compound is actually absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted in patterns that allow it to do useful work. TA-65 has published pharmacokinetics data. Most competing compounds do not, because doing this work is expensive and the answer is sometimes inconvenient.

Four. What happens in real human beings over time?

The only endpoint that matters at the end of the chain is what the compound does in living people, measured over months and years. For TA-65, that endpoint has been studied with a reduction in the percentage of critically short telomeres, immune system profile changes, lower inflammatory markers, bone density measurements, and metabolic measures. The TA-65 human safety and efficacy data set is, to my knowledge, still the largest one in the category. The MLM compounds I have been asked to compare it to have, in most cases, no human safety data at all.

Five. What about combinations?

Most of the MLM telomerase products are combinations of pre-existing supplements. Each individual ingredient may have been studied for its own safety. The specific combination has not. Drug-drug and supplement-supplement interactions are real, and a stack that looks safe by parts can behave differently as a whole.

What the competing products may legitimately do

I am not saying these compounds are worthless. Many of them contain real antioxidants, real anti-inflammatory agents, and real polyphenols. They may well support telomere health in the same way the Telomere Edge Pack does, by reducing oxidative stress and inflammatory pressure on the cellular machinery. That is telomere support. It is not the same as telomerase activation in human tissue.

The most common claims I have been sent, and the honest answers

• Our product has 30 percent more of the astragalus extract used in TA-65. If that is literally true, the manufacturer is exposed to patent infringement claims. The specific molecule, cycloastragenol, is patent-protected for telomerase activation use. Better to check the chemistry before making this claim.
• Our product is 10 times more effective. Show me the human data. Without it, the claim is unsupported.
• Studies are coming. Give us a year. If you are making claims today, the data should support them today. Some companies have been promising forthcoming data for many years.
• Our product has bacopaside. Bacopa monnieri is a real plant with real antioxidant and possibly neurochemical effects. Its connection to telomere length is preliminary at best.

What I will commit to

When a competing product emerges with the same depth of human data as TA-65, I will test it, take it, and report on it. If it outperforms TA-65, I will say so. That day is not today. I have been asked to endorse several competing products and have declined for the reasons above.

Meanwhile, unless you are actually addressing your critically short telomeres, you are getting older at the cellular level. That is not marketing. That is the biology.

— Doc