Tom Brady opens Eudēmonia in West Palm Beach on November 5th, and by Saturday you could hear Huberman, Gary Brecka and Rich Roll in person, without a podcast app in between.

It’s back for its third year, and I’ve already cleared my calendar for it.

It runs from Thursday, November 5th to Sunday the 8th, with 150+ speakers and 160+ brands spread across the city.

A schedule that big can swallow you whole if you show up without a plan, so this is roughly how I’d spend it.

Thursday is Brady’s opening talk, which kicks off 4 days of sessions on sleep, hormones, brain health and everything in between.

I’d spend the rest of that first day talking to strangers, because at events like this the people who flew in for the same reason you did tend to teach you as much as the stage does.

Friday starts with movement, with Daybreaker or a session with Kelly and Juliet Starrett.

After that comes the expo, where Function Health, Ultrahuman, Aescape and 160+ other brands let you try the biohacks you’ve been scrolling past for months, and at 3:30 PM Elle Macpherson closes the day in conversation with Lisa Miller, PhD.

Friday night has a 5K run through the city, then Sofi Tukker plays under the stars, with Mango & Ginger opening.

Saturday is when most of the headline names speak, and the expo stage alone runs 9+ talks a day on top of that.

Between sessions, Oliver English is doing a food demo, Dr. Natalie Crawford and Kristen Holmes are signing books, and ex-NFL player Julius Thomas hosts Coffee, Conversation & Men’s Mental Health on the expo stage.

The night ends with The Head and the Heart, with Wilderado opening, which after a full day of talks sounds like the right kind of tired.

Sunday ends on a high. Kelly Slater takes the stage, Andrew Zimmern does a live cooking demo and Jim Kwik signs books, then it’s one last lap of the expo before the flight home.

If you want to go, the link below gets you an extra 10% off Enhanced, Standard and expo passes. And if you know someone who’d love to come with you, send this to them:

https://eudemonia.net/lngvtnews (Code: lngvtnews )

Until next time,
The Longevity Team

As an affiliate, we may earn a commission from badges bought through this link. This email is for educational purposes only and isn’t medical advice. Concert tickets are included with premium Eudēmonia Summit badges. Other badgeholders can purchase tickets as add-ons. Anyone may attend the concerts with a standalone ticket—no Summit badge required. Please check the Eudēmonia’s official agenda and each ticket’s benefits before purchasing.

From what I've seen in myself and the people around me, they come down to how you handle the stuff, and a lot of it is avoidable once you build a few habits in from the start.

Here's what's worked for me and my circle, not medical advice, just what we've learned the hard way:

1. Stop buying sketchy peptides with no COA

Plenty of peptides ship with no certificate of analysis, a fake one, or one pulled from a completely different batch, so never take purity on faith.

Demand the COA every single time, and if you want to be sure, send a vial to a lab and test it yourself.

This is the one that protects you from everything downstream.

2. Reconstitute and store them right

Most peptides come as powder and need bacteriostatic water to mix.

Once they’re mixed, keep them in the fridge and use them within the window on the label, because heat and light break them down fast.

A mishandled vial does nothing, and you’ll blame the compound instead of your kitchen counter.

3. Rotate your injection sites

Hitting the same spot every time builds scar tissue that ruins absorption, and it can turn lumpy or get infected.

Move around, and give each spot time to recover before you come back to it.

4. Track every dose

Log the compound, the dose, the date, and the site every single time, on paper or in an app.

Your memory will not survive six months of daily shots, and without a record you can’t connect a side effect back to what you actually took.

Oh, and this isn't sponsored, but these guys interviewed 3,000 peptide users and built the number one peptide tracker in the US.

It logs your doses, side effects, and progress so you never miss one.

If you're getting into tracking and want to check it out, get early access here: AMINOAIAPP

5. Keep it sterile

Alcohol swab the vial and your skin, use a fresh needle every single time, and never share pins.

Infections are one of the few peptide problems that turn serious fast, and they’re almost entirely preventable.

6. Start low and slow

Almost every side effect, the nausea, the headaches, the water retention, comes from ramping the dose too fast.

Start at the low end, hold it there for a couple of weeks, then step up only once your body’s settled.

7. Get bloodwork before and during

A baseline panel before you start, plus follow-ups every few months, is how you catch a problem early, before you can feel it.

Flying blind on how you feel is how small issues become big ones.

8. Track how you feel and watch the red flags

Keep an eye on your resting heart rate, sleep, mood, and blood pressure.

If your resting heart rate climbs or you feel wired and run down at the same time, that’s your body telling you to back off.

9. Work with a doctor who knows peptides

Not every doctor does, but the ones who do can read your labs, adjust your dose, and stop you from making an expensive mistake with your health.

It’s the difference between guessing and actually knowing what you’re doing.

the bottom line

None of this makes peptides risk-free.

They’re research compounds, not candy, and this is personal experience, not medical advice.

Get bloodwork and a doctor who knows this stuff before you touch anything.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

During those years adults were limited to about 40g a day, and once the ration lifted, intake roughly doubled to around 80g. Babies born just before that date spent their first months in a low-sugar country, babies born just after did not, and most other things about their lives stayed the same.

Nutrition researchers rarely get an experiment that clean.

They’ve been mining it for a couple of years now. A 2024 study in Science found that people conceived during rationing were 35% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes and 20% less likely to develop high blood pressure, and the ones who did get those conditions got them about 4 and 2 years later.

This summer a new study in Nature Communications took it further.

It followed 64,809 UK Biobank participants born between October 1951 and March 1956, and those who went through rationing early in life had a 19% lower risk of dying from any cause and a 9% lower risk of age-related diseases.

On several biological age clocks (tests that estimate how old your body is from markers in your blood), they came out 1.0 to 1.2 years younger, with the biggest gaps in the lungs, heart and liver.

The authors are upfront about the limits.

Nobody recorded what each baby ate, UK Biobank volunteers skew white and healthier than average, and a 1-year gap on an aging clock is small. Even so, a lower death risk showing up 70 years after a policy change is a signal worth taking seriously.

If you have young kids or one on the way, this is one of the better reasons to keep added sugar low in the first 1,000 days (from conception to about age 2), the window these studies keep pointing back to.

This is honest science and personal experience, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor or pediatrician about your family’s diet.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

So it caught me off guard to see it showing up in obesity research, and the early data is strange enough to be worth your attention:

what the trial found

A Phase 2 trial put PT-141 (bremelanotide) together with tirzepatide in 113 people.

Everyone ran low-dose tirzepatide for four weeks first, then 96 of them got split into four groups for another four weeks, PT-141 plus tirzepatide, tirzepatide alone, PT-141 alone, and placebo.

The combination group lost 4.4% of their body weight over the eight weeks, against 1.6% for placebo.

That’s a solid signal for such a short, low-dose study - but the more interesting result wasn’t the raw number…

the interesting part

PT-141 stopped the weight regain that normally hits when you come off tirzepatide.

That rebound is one of the biggest problems with GLP-1 drugs, where people stop the shot and more than half the lost weight piles back on within a couple of weeks.

In the trial, the people who switched to low-dose PT-141 after their tirzepatide run held their weight steady with no significant regain.

On its own, PT-141 also matched tirzepatide on appetite suppression, though that came from a group of only 16 people, so hold it loosely.

why it works on both

The likely mechanism ties the two effects together neatly.

PT-141 acts on the MC4R receptor in the hypothalamus, and that same receptor helps control both sexual drive and appetite.

So the peptide people have been using for libido is hitting a switch that also governs hunger, which is why one drug ends up touching two things that seem unrelated.

the honest caveat

This was a small study run by the company developing the drug, and it hasn’t been peer-reviewed, so treat it as a promising early signal rather than settled science.

But the regain problem is the weak point of the entire GLP-1 category, and if a well-tolerated peptide can hold weight steady after the shot stops, that’s a genuinely useful piece of the puzzle.

We’re probably only scratching the surface of what PT-141 does beyond libido.

This is general information, not medical advice.

Tirzepatide is an approved prescription drug, while PT-141 is only being studied for weight loss and isn’t approved for it, so none of this is a recommendation to combine them on your own.

Until next time,

The Longevity team

They checked whether each man smoked, his weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, and then they kept following the group for decades.

By January 2025, 2,524 of those men had died, which makes this one of the rare studies that can show how midlife health played out all the way to the end.

The gap is hard to ignore. Among men who had all 5 numbers in a healthy range at 42, 41.9% lived to 90. Among men with none of them, only 6.8% did.

Every extra healthy factor moved the odds up, from 14.2% with one to 36.6% with four.

The men who made it also got there in better shape. At around 79, only 2.2% of the men with all 5 healthy factors were frail, compared with 24.5% of the men with none, and they scored higher on happiness and psychological wellbeing too.

The healthy ranges were modest.

They meant not smoking, a BMI under 25, a systolic blood pressure (the top number) under 140, total cholesterol under 6.0 mmol/L (about 232 mg/dL), and blood sugar under 9.0 mmol/L (about 162 mg/dL) one hour after a glucose drink.

This was an observational study of men only, so it shows a strong link and can’t prove that each factor added the years by itself.

Still, all 5 are things you can check within a week with a scale, a blood pressure cuff and a basic blood panel, and most of them respond to how you eat, move and sleep.

If you don’t know your numbers yet, that’s the place to start.

This is honest science and personal experience, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor about your own numbers.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

It’s called abaloparatide, sold as Tymlos, and it was never meant for height at all.

It was built for bone:

what it actually does

Abaloparatide is a 34-amino-acid peptide that stimulates osteoblasts, the cells that build new bone.

Most osteoporosis drugs work by slowing down how fast you lose bone. This one does the opposite, it actively tells your body to lay down new bone, which is a fundamentally different and more powerful approach.

The human data behind it is genuinely strong. In a Phase 3 trial of 2,463 women with osteoporosis, 18 months of abaloparatide cut new spinal fractures by 86%, raised bone density in the lumbar spine by about 11%, and lifted total-hip bone density by roughly 4%, all against placebo.

Those are serious numbers for a bone drug, which is exactly why it got approved.

why people think it makes you taller

Here’s where the internet took over. Because the drug builds bone so aggressively, it drifted into looksmaxxing forums, where people started using it hoping to add height.

The logic sounds tempting, if it builds bone, maybe it builds longer bone right?

The problem is that your long bones stop growing once your growth plates close, which happens in your late teens to early twenties.

Abaloparatide builds bone density, it makes existing bone stronger and thicker, but there’s no clinical evidence it makes an adult taller.

The height gains people chase in those forums aren’t backed by the science - It’s an actual drug being asked to do something it wasn’t designed for and hasn’t been shown to do.

so where does that leave you?

Abaloparatide is a legitimate, approved, well-studied peptide, which already makes it rare in this space.

For its actual purpose, building bone and preventing fractures, the evidence is solid. As a height hack, it’s forum optimism running ahead of the data.

Worth knowing it also carries a boxed cancer warning from animal studies showing increased osteosarcoma risk, which is another reason it belongs under a doctor’s care rather than a looksmaxxing thread.

Still, the bigger picture is the interesting part.

We keep finding that peptides built for one job turn out to do things nobody planned for, and some of those surprises will hold up while others won’t.

I think we eventually solve height. This particular peptide probably isn’t how, but the fact that people are even looking here tells you where the field is heading.

This is general information, not medical advice.

Abaloparatide is a prescription drug with actual risks, and using it off-label for height isn’t supported by evidence.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

The industry is barely regulated, nothing gets approved before it reaches you, and supplements are now a leading cause of drug-induced liver injury in the US, ahead of most prescription drugs.

Here are the 5 things almost nobody checks, in the order that matters.

1. Get bloodwork before you buy anything.

This comes first because it decides whether the rest is even worth doing. Most supplements do nothing unless they’re filling a genuine gap, so vitamin D transforms things if you’re deficient and does close to nothing if you aren’t.

More importantly, bloodwork catches the reverse problem, since being high on iron or vitamin A is genuinely dangerous and no bottle warns you.

Test, find the gaps, buy for those, and retest at 90 days to see what moved.

2. Add up the same ingredient across every product you take.

This is the one that catches almost everyone.

Your multivitamin has zinc, your immune formula has zinc, your greens powder has zinc, and each label looks reasonable on its own while the total quietly lands you in toxicity territory.

It happens most with fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K, which accumulate in your body rather than flushing out, and with minerals like iron and selenium that have narrow safe ranges.

Lay every label out on the table and add the columns. People are shocked at what they find.

3. Check what it does to your liver.

Green tea extract, high-dose turmeric, ashwagandha, and a long list of herbal blends all have documented case reports of liver injury, and the pattern is the same every time, someone takes a natural product for months, feels fine, then their liver enzymes are wrecked at a routine check.

Natural doesn’t mean gentle, since your liver processes these compounds exactly like it processes drugs.

If you run herbals long-term, check liver enzymes on your panel.

4. Check the interactions with anything prescribed.

This is where wasted money becomes a hospital visit. St. John’s wort strips the effect out of birth control and antidepressants.

Vitamin K works directly against blood thinners. Fish oil, ginkgo, and vitamin E all thin the blood, which compounds badly before surgery or alongside medication.

A pharmacist will check your entire list for free in 5 minutes, and almost nobody asks them to.

5. Check for heavy metals and third-party testing.

Independent testing keeps finding lead, arsenic, and cadmium in protein powders, greens blends, and herbal products, because the raw material is grown in soil nobody tested.

Nothing on the label tells you this.

The only protection you have is NSF Certified for Sport, USP Verified, or Informed Choice, and a brand that won’t pay for that testing is telling you something.

PS. The pattern behind all 5 is that this industry sells hope by default and safety by exception, and the burden of quality control lands entirely on you.

Test first, add up your totals, watch your liver, ask a pharmacist, and buy only what’s been verified by someone with no stake in selling it.

This is general information and not medical advice.

Talk to a doctor or pharmacist before starting anything new, especially if you take medication or have a health condition.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

No single thing here erases every symptom, but stacked together they take most of the misery out of it.

Here’s the protocol, ordered by how much it moves the needle:

>the lifestyle base, which carries most of the load

Strength training is the foundation, and it’s non-negotiable.

The estrogen drop accelerates muscle and bone loss, and lifting directly fights both, protecting the bone density that determines whether a fall at 70 becomes a life-altering fracture.

Two to four sessions a week of real resistance work does more for long-term outcomes than any supplement on this page, and newer data even ties a couple of hours of strength training a week to lower heart disease risk in women.

Protein comes next, because it’s what makes the training work and what holds onto muscle through the transition.

Most women eat too little of it, and bumping to roughly 1.6 to 2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight a day changes body composition, satiety, and recovery all at once.

Sleep is the third pillar, and menopause attacks it directly through night sweats, so protecting it with a cool dark room and a consistent schedule matters more now than it ever did.

Managing stress rounds out the base, since cortisol makes hot flashes and mood swings worse, and the breathwork and yoga side has real data behind it for exactly these symptoms.

>the diet lever for hot flashes

This one surprised me with how strong the data is.

A low-fat, plant-heavy diet with soy added ran in the WAVS trial and cut total hot flashes by 79%, which is in the same range as hormone therapy.

The active ingredient is the phytoestrogens in soy, plant compounds shaped enough like estrogen to gently fill part of the gap.

Half a cup of cooked soybeans a day was the protocol, and it’s about as low-risk as an intervention gets. If hot flashes are the main complaint, this is where I’d start before anything from a bottle.

>the supplements with actual evidence

Black cohosh has the most support for hot flashes and night sweats, likely working through temperature regulation and serotonin, and it’s the one botanical I’d actually consider.

Vitamin D and calcium matter for bone protection during the fastest loss phase, and magnesium at night helps both sleep and mood.

Omega-3s support mood and heart health through the transition.

What I’d skip is most of the rest, since evening primrose oil and a long list of blended “menopause formulas” have thin or no evidence behind them.

>the medical option worth knowing about

This isn’t something to buy, but it belongs in an honest protocol.

Hormone therapy is still the most effective treatment for hot flashes and night sweats by a wide margin, reducing them 75 to 85%, and the picture on it has shifted recently.

The FDA removed the old black box warnings from certain estrogen products in late 2025, and the current consensus is that for women who start it before 60 or within 10 years of menopause, the benefits generally outweigh the risks, with real bone protection on top.

There are also newer non-hormonal prescription options now for women who can’t or won’t take hormones. None of that is a decision to make from an email, but it’s a conversation worth having with a doctor who actually knows the current evidence rather than the fear from 20 years ago.

how I’d put it together

Strength train, eat the protein, protect the sleep, and add soy if hot flashes are the problem.

Layer in vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium for the bone and sleep support, consider black cohosh if the flashes persist, and have a real conversation about hormone therapy rather than dismissing it out of old fear.

The mistake most people make is reaching for a supplement first and ignoring the training and diet that do the heavy lifting.

This is general information, not medical advice, and menopause management is genuinely individual.

Get proper bloodwork and work with a menopause-informed doctor, because the right mix here depends on your own history and risk factors.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

Not a cliff, more a slow fade in drive and morning energy that I kept blaming on work until I couldn’t anymore.

So I looked into it properly, ran a protocol for a few months, and it worked well enough that it’s worth writing down.

This is what I did and why each piece earns its place:

the lifestyle base, which does most of the work

No supplement rescues bad fundamentals, so this comes first.

Sleep is the single biggest lever, since most of your testosterone is produced during deep sleep, and dropping from 8 hours to 5 can cut it 10 to 15% on its own.

I treat 7 to 9 hours as non-negotiable now. Strength training is second, because heavy compound lifts (squats, deadlifts, presses) drive an acute testosterone response that cardio doesn’t, so 3 to 4 lifting sessions a week beats hours on a treadmill for this.

Bodyfat is third, since fat tissue converts testosterone into estrogen through the aromatase enzyme, so carrying extra weight actively works against you, and leaning out reverses part of it.

And chronic stress is the quiet killer here, because cortisol and testosterone move against each other, so a permanently stressed, under-slept life keeps the tank low no matter what you swallow.

the supplements with actual evidence

Most testosterone boosters are underdosed junk in proprietary blends. Only a handful hold up in research, so this is the short honest list:

1. Tongkat ali. It works by lowering SHBG, the protein that binds up testosterone and takes it out of play, which frees more of it for use, and studies show meaningful increases in men who start low. I ran 200 to 400mg a day standardized for eurycomanone, and cycled it 8 weeks on, 2 off. This is the one I felt most.

2. Ashwagandha. KSM-66 at 600mg a day lowers cortisol, and since cortisol suppresses testosterone, dropping it lets your own production recover. It also directly improved testosterone and sperm quality in trials over about 90 days.

3. Vitamin D at 5,000 IU acts more like a hormone than a vitamin, and low levels are strongly tied to low testosterone. If you’re deficient, which most indoor people are, correcting it is one of the higher-yield moves here.

4. Zinc and magnesium. Both are used directly in testosterone production, both are commonly low, and topping them up matters most if you were deficient to begin with. Magnesium at night does double duty by improving sleep.

5. Boron. At 6 to 10mg a day it can lower SHBG and nudge free testosterone up, though the evidence is thinner than the rest, so I treat it as optional rather than core.

what to skip

Save your money on tribulus, maca, and fenugreek. Tribulus does nothing for testosterone in healthy men despite being in every “test booster” on the shelf, maca may help libido subjectively but doesn’t touch hormones, and fenugreek’s effect is marginal at best.

A lot of these improve libido feel without raising testosterone at all, which is worth knowing before you pay for them.

how I ran it

The whole thing was lifestyle first, then tongkat ali and ashwagandha as the two workhorses, with vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium filling the foundational gaps.

I got bloodwork before starting and again at 90 days, which is the part I’d insist on, because it tells you what’s actually moving instead of guessing.

Anything that didn’t move the numbers, I dropped.

This is my experience and my read of the research, not medical advice.

If your libido or energy has genuinely tanked, get bloodwork and see a doctor, because it can signal something worth catching rather than just age, and tongkat ali in particular should be monitored if you have liver concerns.

Until next time,

The Longevity Team

Then I read the research.

The gap between how it’s marketed and what it actually does turned out to be embarrassing, because most people file it under “muscle” and the muscle is the least interesting part.

The reason it does so much comes down to one thing. Creatine tops up the energy currency your cells run on, and your brain burns that same currency hard, so a lot of what it does shows up above the neck.

Here’s what the research actually shows, at 5g a day with no loading and no timing games:

1. Sharper memory as you age.

A 2023 meta-analysis found it measurably improves memory in healthy people, strongest in adults 66 to 76, the exact group that feels their memory slipping.

2. A rescue for a sleep-deprived brain.

A 2024 study found a single high dose sharpened thinking in people kept awake 21 hours, refilling the brain’s energy stores during the window sleep loss drains them.

3. Better results from antidepressants in women.

A 2012 trial added creatine to an SSRI in women with depression, and that group responded about twice as often as placebo, and faster.

4. Bone protection in older women.

A year-long trial in postmenopausal women paired creatine with resistance training and held onto hip bone density, the fracture that turns deadly in old age.

5. The biggest brain boost for vegetarians.

Meat is the main dietary source, so vegetarians run low, and supplementing bumped their working memory and reasoning scores in a 2003 study.

6. Support through menopause.

Women carry lower creatine stores than men and drop further with menopause, and the research points to gains in strength, mood, and bone when it’s paired with training.

7. Recovery after head trauma.

A pilot study gave kids and teens with brain injury creatine for six months, and the treated group had shorter ICU stays and better cognitive recovery.

8. Less mental fatigue on hard days.

In healthy adults it cut fatigue during demanding mental math and raised the brain’s oxygen use when the head was working overtime.

9. Muscle saved when you can’t train.

In a trial where one leg was casted for two weeks, the creatine group lost less muscle and rebuilt it faster in rehab.

10. Steadier blood sugar.

In a 12-week trial, type 2 diabetics who paired creatine with exercise dropped their HbA1c more than exercise alone and had gentler post-meal spikes, since creatine helps muscle pull sugar from the blood.

PS. This is my read of the research plus my own years of taking it, not medical advice, and the one caveat is that kidney issues or medication mean you should clear it with a doctor first.

Beyond that, it’s the closest thing to a free lunch I’ve found in this whole space, and I’d have paid attention a lot sooner if anyone had told me it was a brain supplement wearing a gym costume.

Until next time,
The Longevity Team

Not the gut, not the lungs where you’d shrug and expect it, but the heart.

They’ve since turned up in the brain, the placenta, the bloodstream, dozens of tissues that have no business housing shredded polyethylene.

Your body has no clean way to sweep most of it back out.

That sent me down a rabbit hole looking for anything that helps, and the honest answer up front is that this is early science, mostly mice and lab dishes, so treat all of it as promising rather than proven.

What I found interesting is how ordinary the mechanisms turned out to be. Most of it is fiber and fermentation doing what they've always done, grabbing things in your gut and carrying them out before they cross into you.

Here are the seven foods that keep coming up:

1. Raw kimchi.

A bacterium that blooms during natural fermentation seems to have surface proteins that latch onto nanoplastic particles and hold on through the acid of the gut, and in mice that meant more plastic left the body than in the controls.

The catch is it has to be raw and alive, since the pasteurized jars on the shelf are full of dead bacteria that can’t grab anything. The fridge section is where this actually lives.

2. Soluble fiber (psyllium, oats, beta-glucans).

Works on the simplest idea of all, turning to gel in your gut and trapping particles in the mesh before they touch your cells.

Getting somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day is a decent baseline for this, and it happens to be good for roughly everything else too.

3. Pectin (apples, citrus).

The soluble fiber that does the same trap-and-flush thing, gelling up and carrying plastic out in the stool, which animal studies back up.

It’s a big part of why an apple a day keeps earning its reputation.

4. Seaweed (kelp, wakame).

Brings alginates, which have a structure like a tiny egg carton, with pockets that lock onto plastic fragments and heavy metals at once.

Your body can’t digest the structure, so the whole toxic package leaves as solid waste.

5. Chlorella and spirulina.

The green algae bind particles right onto their surface and clump them into heavy flocs your body pushes out, grabbing heavy metals on the way.

A daily green powder doubles as a mop for both.

6. Chitosan (shellfish fiber).

The odd one, made from shrimp and crab shells and carrying a positive charge, so it clings to the negatively charged plastic particles like a magnet and clumps them together on the way out.

It works well in rats, but it’s the one I’d be careful with, because if you have a shellfish allergy it’s a genuinely bad idea.

7. Green tea.

This one works from a different angle.

Rather than grabbing plastic, it blunts the oxidative damage the particles do once they’re inside your cells, since the polyphenols mop up the stress they trigger.

PS. None of this is a detox in the influencer sense, and I’d be suspicious of anyone selling it that way.

What it amounts to is that a diet already heavy in fiber, fermented food, and greens gives your gut more to work with, and the plastic-clearing angle is a bonus on top of habits that were worth having anyway.

I’ve started keeping a jar of raw kimchi in the fridge and reaching for an apple instead of whatever’s easier, which is about as far as I’m willing to rearrange my life over research that’s still mostly running on mice.

If it holds up, I’m ahead. If it doesn’t, I ate more fiber and lost nothing.

That’s the kind of bet I’ll take every time.

Until next time,
The Longevity Team

Sunscreen matters, but what you eat and when you go outside change how your skin handles UV from the inside, and that’s the part nobody talks about.

Here's how I avoid burning, and why it works:

> the timing that does most of the work

UV is strongest between roughly 10am and 4pm, and it peaks hard around solar noon, so an hour at 1pm does far more damage than an hour at 9am or 5pm.

If you want sun without the burn, take it at the edges of the day.

The early morning and late afternoon light still gives you warmth, a tan, and vitamin D, with a fraction of the burn risk.

> why diet actually changes your burn threshold

Your skin’s resistance to UV isn’t fixed.

Certain nutrients build up in your skin and act like a weak internal filter, raising the dose of sun it takes before you burn (it won’t replace sunscreen, but it shifts the baseline)

The big players are the carotenoids, the orange and red pigments in food.

> Lycopene from cooked tomatoes is one of the strongest, and studies show people eating tomato paste daily for weeks burned measurably less under controlled UV.

> Beta-carotene from carrots, sweet potato, and squash does the same, and leafy greens carry lutein, which works similarly.

> Polyphenols help too. Green tea, dark berries, and dark chocolate are loaded with antioxidants that blunt the free-radical damage sunlight produces, which is a big part of what burns and ages skin.

> Omega-3 fats from oily fish lower the inflammatory response, so your skin reacts less to the UV it does absorb. Most sun damage is oxidative and inflammatory, and a diet heavy in colorful plants and good fats gives your skin more to fight back with.

The reverse is also true.

A diet high in processed seed oils and sugar raises your baseline inflammation and likely makes skin more reactive to sun.

Cleaning that up helps for the same reason the antioxidants do.

> the supplements worth considering

A few supplements stack on top of the food, and the logic is identical, more internal antioxidant defense.

>Astaxanthin is the standout. It’s a carotenoid far stronger than beta-carotene as an antioxidant, and several studies show it improves skin’s resistance to UV and reduces the visible damage over weeks of use.

>Nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, has the best evidence of the bunch, with trials showing it lowers the rate of new skin cancers in high-risk people, working by helping skin cells repair UV damage and keep their energy up.

>Vitamin C and E taken together work as a pair, since they regenerate each other and together cut UV oxidative stress more than either alone.

>Polypodium leucotomos, a fern extract, is the one sold specifically for this and has real if modest data behind raising the burn threshold.

how I actually put it together

The honest version is that no single thing here stops a burn on its own.

The timing avoids the worst of the UV, the colorful diet slowly raises the dose your skin can take, the supplements add a bit more margin, and sunscreen and shade cover the rest.

Built up over weeks, the diet and supplement side is why some people sit in the same sun and barely color while others are pink in twenty minutes.

Start with the timing because it’s free and immediate, get the carotenoids and antioxidants into your meals because that compounds over time, and treat the supplements as the finishing layer.

This is general information, not medical advice.

If you burn easily, have a history of skin cancer, or notice any mole changing, see a dermatologist rather than relying on any of this.

This time it's the equipment.

Over the last 8 years I’ve thrown more than $40k at longevity gear and tested over 20 different modalities.

Daily cold plunges for nine months straight, Finnish and infrared saunas, dozens of hours in hyperbaric chambers, full-body red light panels, PEMF mats, cryo, ozone, float tanks, the whole circus.

I tracked it with bloodwork, DEXA, VO2 max, HRV, a continuous glucose monitor, even a one-off telomere test.

Most of it gave a nice short-term glow that faded, and a handful earned a permanent place.

Here are the 5 that stayed:

1. Sauna (still the clear winner)

It has the strongest human data of any single thing here.

The Finnish Kuopio studies followed thousands of middle-aged men for over 20 years and found that 4 to 7 sessions a week lined up with roughly 40% lower all-cause mortality and around half the rate of fatal heart disease compared to once a week.

I’ve run 4 to 6 traditional dry sessions a week for 3+ years, 15 to 25 minutes each, usually after a workout or in the evening with aggressive hydration and electrolytes.

My systolic blood pressure came down 8 to 12 points long-term, my HRV climbed 15 to 25 points on the WHOOP, my recovery got dramatically better, and I get sick far less.

The infrared unit was convenient, but the traditional dry heat always felt stronger to me.

2. cold exposure and contrast

Cold earned its spot mostly as the partner to the sauna.

The mortality data isn’t as deep as sauna’s, but the mechanisms are solid, and the contrast of hot to cold amplifies the circulation and mood effects of both.

I plunge 3 to 5 times a week at around 10 to 15°C for 3 to 6 minutes, often straight after the sauna.

My CRP dropped, my glucose ran steadier on the monitor, and the mood lift is the part that genuinely surprised me, a clean 4 to 6 hour boost that feels close to a natural antidepressant.

The honest caveat is diminishing returns.

I overdid it in the early days, and I’ve since pulled back to a maintenance rhythm.

Skip it entirely if you have cardiovascular issues without a doctor’s clearance.

3. hyperbaric oxygen

HBOT is the most exciting of the advanced tools, with the most interesting early data.

The Israeli work around 2020 and 2021 had people doing 60 sessions at high pressure and showed telomere lengthening over 20% in some immune cells along with a real drop in senescent cells, plus better skin, cognition, and physical performance in older adults.

I’ve done 40 to 50 mild sessions plus a few harder chamber blocks, and I feel it as sharper energy, better skin tone, and faster recovery.

My one pre/post telomere test moved in the right direction, modestly.

It’s expensive and eats time, so I run it as maintenance now, mild chamber once or twice a week with occasional harder blocks.

4. red and near infrared light

Red and NIR light is the easiest daily habit on the list and the one with the cleanest day to day payoff.

The evidence points to better mitochondrial output, less oxidative stress, more collagen, and faster muscle recovery.

I do 10 to 20 minutes of full-body exposure at 660nm red and 850nm NIR, sitting 6 to 12 inches from the panels, either in the morning or after training.

My recovery and soreness improved, my skin tone evened out over 4 to 6 weeks, and an old shoulder problem calmed down. Consistency matters far more than cranking the intensity.

5. PEMF

The supportive data covers cellular repair, inflammation, sleep, and bone health, and it’s the kind of thing you can run while doing nothing else.

I lie on a full-body mat for 20 to 60 minutes most evenings, and my sleep depth and HRV both tick up when I use it at night, with fewer general aches.

It’s subtle but it’s reliable.

what I dropped

Plenty of things didn’t make the cut.

>Extreme daily cold plunges became too much stress once I pushed them too far.

>Ozone and IV therapies gave temporary perks for a lot of hassle and cost.

>Cryo chambers were a pricier, less controllable version of the plunge

>Regular multi-day fasts tanked my muscle and energy, though the occasional one is fine.

my current stack

My sustainable stack now is sauna 4 to 6 times a week with contrast cold 3 to 5 times, daily red light for 10 to 15 minutes, PEMF most evenings, and hyperbaric cycles once or twice a week, all layered on top of lifting, Zone 2 cardio, sleep, and protein.

The biggest lesson after all the money and gadgets is humbling.

Sauna plus movement give you 70 to 80% of the measurable benefit for a fraction of the cost, and everything else is an amplifier for when you can afford it.

Until the next one,

The Longevity Team

PS. This is my personal experience, not medical advice. I'm not a doctor, and what worked for my body won't necessarily be safe for yours. Some of these carry real risks. Cold exposure and hyperbaric oxygen in particular can be dangerous if you have heart or blood pressure conditions, so talk to a qualified healthcare professional before trying any of them, especially if you have an existing condition or take medication.

My cabinet got ridiculous at one point, $300 a month of powders and pills all promising the world.

After a lot of bloodwork and a lot of wasted money, the list shrank down to 7 that actually changed a number I could see:

1. vitamin D3 + K2

This one’s first because so many people are low on it, especially if you live somewhere grey or work indoors all day.

I take 5,000 IU of D3 with 100–200 mcg of MK-7, and over one winter it pulled my levels from the low 20s up to a solid 55–65 ng/mL.

My CRP, which tracks inflammation, dropped by a third or more, the seasonal slump that used to flatten me every January stopped showing up, and my recovery and HRV both moved in the right direction.

PS. The K2 matters because it sends calcium to your bones instead of your arteries, and I take it with a fatty meal so it actually absorbs.

2. omega-3

Omega-3 has the strongest evidence behind it for heart and brain.

I take 2–4g of combined EPA and DHA a day, leaning toward EPA, and over 6–12 months my triglycerides dropped around 40%, my resting heart rate came down, and the joint stiffness and dry skin I’d blamed on getting older eased off.

My omega-3 index went from a poor 4% to around 9–10%, which is the range you want.

The main risk is the oil going rancid, so I only buy brands with IFOS 5-star testing and take it with food.

3. creatine

Creatine is the cheapest thing on this list and one of the most studied supplements there is.

5g a day, mixed into my protein shake, no loading phase needed.

4 years in, my main lifts are up 15%, my lean mass even crept up while I was cutting fat, and the part that surprised me most was the brain side.

On bad sleep days my head is clearly less foggy, which matches the newer research on creatine and focus under stress.

4. magnesium

I take 300–400mg of elemental magnesium 1–2 hours before bed, switching between glycinate and threonate.

The glycinate is the one that relaxes me, and the threonate gives a quiet mental clarity the next day.

My Whoop sleep scores went up 8–15 points, the leg cramps and tension headaches faded, and my everyday anxiety dropped enough that I noticed it in how I handled stress.

Note: the cheap oxide form does almost nothing, so skip it.

5. taurine

Taurine is the newest one and the one I’m most curious about long-term, since the longevity research looks promising even though it’s still early.

At 4–5g a day, split into 2–3 doses, my resting blood pressure dropped, my workout endurance got better, and my energy stayed steadier through the afternoon without the usual crash.

It’s safe and cheap, and splitting the doses keeps your stomach happy.

6. protein powder

Protein powder barely counts as a supplement, and it’s the best bang for your buck on this whole list once you’re past 30.

An extra 20–40g a day is the easiest way I’ve found to hit 160–200g total without force-feeding myself chicken.

It keeps me full, kills cravings, and saved my muscle every time I cut calories.

7. CoQ10

CoQ10 rounds it out, the ubiquinol form at 100–200mg, because your body makes less of it as you age and even less if you’re on a statin.

For me it shows up as steadier energy through the day and cleaner heart markers, with less of that wiped-out feeling after hard training.

what I’d actually tell you

The whole stack costs me $60–80 a month now, down from over $300 in my hype days.

The most useful thing I did was get bloodwork before and after, vitamin D, omega-3 index, HbA1c, CRP, because most supplements do nothing until you find a deficiency or a habit worth fixing.

These 7 are the rare ones that earned their spot by changing a number I could point to.

Until the next one,

The Longevity Team

PS. This is my personal experience, not medical advice. I'm not a doctor, and what worked for my body and bloodwork won't necessarily be right or safe for yours. Doses that suit one person can interact with medications or existing conditions in another. Talk to a qualified healthcare professional before starting any supplement, especially CoQ10 if you're on a statin or blood pressure medication. Get your own bloodwork and make decisions from there.

I skipped the transplant and went all in on a non surgical stack. 14 months of daily consistency later, my hair is thicker than it’s been since my late 20s.

Here’s everything I did, and an honest ranking of what mattered most:

1. minoxidil

The single biggest lever was minoxidil, used both as a low dose oral and the 5% foam on top.

The oral version is the one that finally worked for me after topical alone never quite did.

It’s worth knowing it’s a prescription with real cardiovascular effects, so the dosing is a conversation for you and a doctor with bloodwork in hand rather than something to copy off me.

There’s an initial shedding phase in the first few weeks that scared me until I learned it’s normal, and at a low dose I got some extra body hair I could live with.

That phase passing was the first sign the whole thing was working.

2. microneedling

Microneedling was the second biggest lever, mostly because it makes everything else work better.

I roll a 0.5 to 1.0 mm dermaroller over my scalp once or twice a week, never on the same day as heavy peptides if my skin’s irritated.

The research is clear that it sharply boosts absorption of minoxidil and peptides while triggering its own growth factors.

It leaves the scalp a little red for a bit, nothing dramatic.

3. copper peptides

Copper peptides were my favorite discovery, a GHK-Cu and AHK-Cu serum I massage in for 90 to 120 seconds twice a day.

The lab data behind AHK-Cu is genuinely interesting, elongating human follicles and pushing dermal papilla cells to proliferate, while GHK-Cu helps collagen, blood flow, and follicle health.

My shedding dropped noticeably by week 6 to 8 and the strands got visibly thicker by month 3 to 4.

4. red light

Red light came next, a 660nm and 850nm cap for 15 to 20 minutes, 5 to 6 days a week.

The meta-analyses on this are solid for both density and thickness, working through mitochondrial stimulation and a longer growth phase, and I saw real density gains starting around week 8 to 10.

It’s the most passive thing in the routine, which makes it easy to stick with.

5. blood flow and the support stack

I take L-citrulline and L-arginine on an empty stomach to push nitric oxide and scalp circulation, the logic being that follicles getting more oxygen and nutrients grow better, and it seemed to speed up the visible results.

Underneath all of it sits a daily oral support stack with dinner, zinc balanced with copper, biotin, collagen with vitamin C, saw palmetto, vitamin D, and pumpkin seed oil for DHT support, plus a 2 to 3 times weekly ketoconazole shampoo to keep scalp DHT down.

Early on I also did a few PRP and exosome sessions spaced 4 to 6 weeks apart, which gave a strong initial kickstart.

my results at 36

After 14 months strict, my shedding was down 70 to 80% by month 3, the hairline filled in, the crown improved markedly, and the strands themselves got thicker and shinier.

Friends started commenting unprompted, which is the only proof I actually trust.

Same-lighting photos show the biggest jump between months 6 and 12, which matches how hair works.

Nothing here is overnight, and you won’t see real change before 3 to 6 months or full results before a year.

The monthly cost settled around $150 to $250 after the initial setup.

what moved the needle most

If I had to rank it, minoxidil came first, microneedling second because it makes everything else work better, copper peptides third for thickness, red light fourth for steady reliable gains, and the nitric oxide and early PRP filling out the rest.

Start with the basics, get bloodwork first, and let consistency do the compounding.

PS. This is my personal experience, not medical advice. I'm not a doctor, and what worked for my hair won't necessarily work or be safe for you. Oral minoxidil is a prescription medication with real cardiovascular effects and should only be taken under a doctor's supervision. Talk to a qualified healthcare professional and get bloodwork before starting anything here, especially if you have a health condition or take other medications.

At 36, 5’10”, two kids, and a streak of “I’ll start Monday,” I weighed in at 187.4 with a DEXA scan putting me at 28% body fat.

( + fasting insulin 14, A1c 5.7, inflammation mildly up)

I was soft in a way my favorite jeans had started narrating back to me every morning.

So I gave myself 45 days and treated it like an experiment.

Track everything, adjust every Sunday, never miss two days in a row.

Here are the results:

days 1–10 (foundation)

The first ten days were about locking in habits and dropping the early water weight.

I kept a 500–700 calorie deficit, ate around 1,950–2,100 a day with a ton of protein, walked about ten thousand steps, and lifted full-body three times that week.

The hunger that first week was brutal, and I got through it on a lot of water and herbal tea ( + black coffee with cinnamon to kill cravings)

days 11–30 (the fat loss ramp)

This stretch was where things actually moved.

I pulled calories down a touch to 1,850–2,050, added a HIIT session, and pushed the weights up every week.

The biggest lesson of the whole project landed right here.

Sleep eight hours, or your hunger hormones turn on you.

The one week I let sleep slip, my hunger went out of control and I almost wrecked the whole thing.

days 31–45 ( the final push)

The last stretch was about refinement.

I held calories steady unless the scale stalled, in which case I dropped to around 1,800–1,950, and I took one proper refeed day on day 35, adding 400 to 600 extra carbs from rice, fruit, and oats with no junk.

By then I’d stopped trusting the scale and started trusting photos and the tape measure at my navel.

the food

The food was the part that surprised me most, because I almost never felt like I was starving.

A typical 2,000-calorie day looked like this:

• Morning: Greek yogurt with whey, berries, and chia

• Mid-morning: cottage cheese with cucumber and everything-bagel seasoning

• Lunch: grilled chicken over greens with cherry tomatoes, half an avocado, and quinoa

• Afternoon: a spinach-banana protein shake

• Dinner: baked salmon with roasted broccoli and half a sweet potato

I rotated proteins through turkey, 93% beef, tofu, and shrimp so I wouldn't get bored, and I kept a relaxed Sunday meal of two slices of thin-crust pizza and a huge salad that still came in under 700 calories.

A few staples saved me along the way.

Blended frozen berries with protein and Greek yogurt made a passable “ice cream.”

Lazy sheet-pan chicken and veg at 425°F took zero effort.

A batch of egg-white veggie muffins prepped twelve at a time covered breakfasts for half the week.

the training

Training was a simple progressive-overload split:

>Push day was bench, overhead press, dips, lateral raises, and push-ups.

>Pull day was Romanian deadlifts, bent-over rows, pull-ups, face pulls, and curls.

>Legs and core was squats, lunges, leg press, planks, and hanging leg raises.

On top of the lifting, I walked ten thousand steps daily, did two incline treadmill walks a week, and ran one 20-minute HIIT session on Fridays at 30 seconds hard and 90 seconds easy. Rest days were a walk and some stretching, nothing heroic.

the mental side

The mental side did more work than any macro.

My craving script was simple.

This feeling is temporary, and I've survived 100% of the tough ones before.

I stacked habits so a protein shake came right after waking and a walk right after lunch. When work stress pushed me toward the kitchen, I swapped it for ten push-ups and a lap around the block.

Around week four I hit a plateau and nearly lost the plot, so I ran a 36-hour modified fast on black coffee, broth, and water, followed by a refeed, and dropped 2.5 lbs that week.

I also told three friends and posted anonymous progress in a Reddit group, purely so that quitting would be embarrassing.

the roadblocks

A few problems were predictable and easy to fix once I knew them:

• Constipation cleared up with 35g+ of fiber and magnesium at night.

• The low-energy slump around days 8–12 lifted with extra carbs and proper electrolytes.

• The loose-skin fear I managed with strength training, collagen, and staying hydrated.

• Whenever my motivation tanked, I leaned on two rules to get going again. One was 'never miss twice.' The other was rewarding myself with something that wasn't food, like the new workout shirt I bought at day 30

• Travel days I handled with airport protein packs, walking the terminals, and bodyweight circuits in the hotel room.

supplements

Supplements were minimal and cheap:

whey isolate, 5g creatine, fish oil, vitamin D in winter, and magnesium glycinate at night.

Nothing exotic.

the results

Final numbers at day 42:

174.1 lbs, down 13.3, waist down 3.25 inches, body fat around 22%, upper abs starting to show, face leaner, energy through the roof, and clothes fitting better than they had in five years.

I held about 90% of it for eight months afterward by bumping calories back to maintenance and continuing to lift heavy.

That maintenance phase is the part nobody photographs, and it’s the part that actually matters.

The whole thing cost under $120 a week in groceries and came down to consistency over a short, defined window.

Pick your 45 days, track honestly, and let the boring math do its work.

Until the next one,

The Longevity Team

PS.

This is my personal experience, not medical or fitness advice. I'm not a doctor or a trainer, and what worked for my body won't necessarily be safe or right for yours, especially given the bloodwork and supplement details here. Talk to a qualified healthcare professional before starting any diet, training, or supplement plan, particularly if you have existing health conditions.

Bloated after every single meal, a wall of exhaustion every afternoon that no amount of coffee could break through, a list of "safe" foods that kept shrinking, and flare ups that hit out of nowhere with no explanation I could find.

I'd learned to live around all of it, the way you learn to ignore a weird rattle in your car, telling yourself it's fine right up until the morning it dies on you in the middle of the road.

What finally broke me was realizing how much my life had shrunk around my gut.

Every meal was a gamble, every plan came with a backup excuse, and my world kept getting smaller.

One day I'd had enough, and I decided I wanted my old life back.

So here's the full protocol I used to put an end to my suffering:

phase one: get out of your own way

The first month was all subtraction.

I cut the obvious irritants (gluten, dairy, processed food, refined sugar, alcohol) and the sneakier ones like soy and corn doing a strict elimination for four to six weeks.

In their place I ate boringly well:

• bone broth

• cooked vegetables

• grass-fed meat

• wild fish

• fats (from avocado and olive oil)

• low-sugar fruit

The whole idea was to give an inflamed system a stretch of quiet where nothing new was setting it off, so it could start repairing instead of bracing.

The lifestyle side mattered more than I expected.

I walked daily, slept seven to nine hours like it was a job, got serious about stress, and stopped reaching for NSAIDs out of habit.

By week three my symptom journal showed the bloating dropping, and that was the first time I believed any of this might work.

phase two: actually digest the food

Around week two I started helping the mechanical side.

Digestive enzymes with meals, a splash of apple cider vinegar or bitters beforehand to wake up stomach acid, plenty of water, a short walk after eating.

The heavy, undigested brick feeling I’d lived with started to lift, and meals stopped being something I had to recover from.

phase three: rebuild the good bacteria

Once things calmed down I worked on repopulating.

Fermented foods daily – sauerkraut, kimchi, a bit of kefir when I tolerated it, coconut yogurt – plus a multi-strain probiotic heavy on Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, around 50 to 100 billion CFU.

I added prebiotic fiber from garlic, onions, and asparagus slowly, since rushing it just buys you a day of gas.

I set a goal of thirty-plus different plants a week, which sounds fussy until it becomes a game.

My energy steadied here and things got, let’s say, regular.

phase four: repair the lining

This was the long core, the part that ran for weeks and did the actual rebuilding.

>L-glutamine, five to ten grams a day, for the cells of the intestinal wall.

>Bone broth or collagen daily for the glycine and proline.

>Zinc carnosine for the barrier, bovine colostrum for immune support and lining integrity.

>Slippery elm, marshmallow root, and inner-leaf aloe when things felt raw, with turmeric and fish oil as the steady anti-inflammatory backbone.

My meals became a comforting rotation – avocado and fermented veg in the morning, grilled protein with cooked vegetables and a broth soup later.

I remember the week the bloating just wasn’t there anymore, and I kept poking at the absence like a missing tooth.

>adding peptides, later on

Around month two or three, with the basics solid, I added peptides for extra repair support, researching the sourcing carefully first.

I used BPC-157 for several weeks and my digestion got comfortable faster.

I stacked it with TB-500 for broader tissue repair, and had come across KPV and similar combos for gut-specific inflammation too.

I cycled them under guidance and paired them with the repair nutrients from the phase before.

For me it felt like it sped up the sealing.

phase five: reintroduce and hold the line

The last stretch was slow reintroduction – bringing foods back one at a time and watching for a reaction before clearing the next.

Some came back fine, a couple clearly didn’t, and that alone was worth the exercise.

These days I run an 80/20 whole-food diet, keep the fermented foods and probiotics going, and circle back to glutamine or colostrum when I need it.

By eight to twelve weeks the bloating was mostly gone, my sensitivities eased, my skin cleared, and my energy stopped falling off a cliff every afternoon.

The fuller benefits took four to six months of consistency, and the thing I learned hardest was that progress isn’t a straight line – a stressful week could set me back.

If you want data instead of vibes, a practitioner can run tests like zonulin or stool panels.

Healing my gut came down to stacking a lot of unexciting good decisions and waiting longer than I wanted to.

The day the bloating lifted for good I almost didn’t notice, which is how I knew it had worked.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, keep an eye out for the next one.

It’s on how to actually lose fat before midsummer, and no, we won’t have anything to sell you.

No programs, just our pure experience.

Until the next one,

The Longevity Team

PS. Everything you read here is my personal experience, not medical advice. What worked for me won't necessarily work for you, and nothing in this article is meant to diagnose, treat, or replace guidance from a qualified healthcare professional. Talk to your doctor before making changes to your diet, supplements, or routine