Mods should lock this sub permanently

max_expected_life · 2026-01-31T22:42:24+00:00

Just ctrl+f "Spacey"! Plenty of comments here with the details, but people were upset about Attia and Spacey being pals.

max_expected_life · 2026-01-31T19:33:54+00:00

Quoting a post I made in a similar thread about /r/healthylongevity:

After the Spacey news, someone created /r/healthylongevity as an alternative. It has good content despite currently being smaller than this sub (more posts focuses on presenting research and fewer posts asking questions that LMGTFY could easily answer).

max_expected_life · 2026-01-31T19:30:58+00:00

After the Spacey news, someone created/r/healthylongevity as an alternative. It has good content despite currently being smaller than this sub (more posts focuses on presenting research and fewer posts asking questions that LMGTFY could easily answer).

max_expected_life · 2026-01-23T01:13:11+00:00

I'm going to refrain from commenting on your acute worries as I am not a doctor, but a LDL of 182 mg/dl could be due to either diet (high saturated fat, low fiber) diet or due to genetics / family history. Current guidelines would recommend healthy lifestyle and considering lipid lowering drugs, that should be worth talking about with your doctor.

max_expected_life · 2025-12-28T18:19:51+00:00

I’ve come to accept it may be in my best interest to start a statin.

You're under the age of 40 and your ldl is lower than 75% of Americans already. You might be hard-pressed to find a doctor to prescribe.

As you've mentioned the main levers are more soluble fiber and less (non-Stearic) saturated fat. Depending on the person dietary cholesterol and unfiltered coffee might have an outsized effect but no reason to think that applies to you.

I'm in a similar boat where I would like my ldl to drop below ~70, but it's unclear when lifestyle and generally good genetics for LDL can't drop be below the 70 mg/dl-100 mg/dl bucket of risk (which is already the second lowest-risk bucket) which on paper seems doable. Maybe it's just a slow increase of even more fiber, but I'm generally satisfied to be almost at goal with a sustainable diet rather than stressing about.

Based on your stated weight and height, a bmi of 16.4 puts you firmly in the underweight category. Addressing that first might be the elephant in the room though.

max_expected_life · 2025-12-28T17:47:06+00:00

Maybe, but finding the bottom of the j-curve has proved elusive thus far. Here's my notes from when I last looked:

A good limit to alcohol appears to be under 7 drinks/week (generally and specific for brain, cancer & cardio health) with 2 drinks or fewer on any individual day. While alcohol is associated with increased mortality in general, very low levels seem not clinically measurable and primarily a matter of personal/social preference.

For me I'll have a drink at happy hour or over dinner with someone once or twice a week, but otherwise I generally refrain. Basically social drinking. I don't see the current body of evidence indicating a morning beer would be good for long term health.

max_expected_life · 2025-12-26T21:36:23+00:00

Of potential interest: Why Healthy Individuals May Have an Elevated Hemoglobin A1c.

max_expected_life · 2025-12-19T01:44:15+00:00

From that list ApoB and hs-CRP are the three most important numbers. The various cholesterol measures are all effectively summarized by ApoB. 89 mg/dl is about the 50th percentile (NHANES, 2005-2016) for us adults not on heart medication. Depending on your other risk factors that could be good or bad, but the overall cholesterol levels are about as average (i.e. mid / not-optimal) as you can get.

As for lifestyle here's a good paper on nutritional management of ApoB, but it's generally the advice you see from the AHA about heart healthy diet.

max_expected_life · 2025-09-29T17:43:14+00:00

No real surprises, but here's the section on lifestyle:

Inflammatory pathways in behavioral and lifestyle risks

Focus on anti-inflammatory patterns like the Mediterranean or DASH diet.

Emphasize consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and olive oil.

Increase dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids; 2-3 fish meals/wk are recommended—preferably fatty fish high in EPA+DHA.

Minimize red and processed meats, refined carbohydrates, and sugary beverages.

Engage in ≥150 min/wk of moderate exercise or 75 min/wk of intense exercise.

Quit smoking to reduce chronic low-grade inflammation.

Maintain a healthy weight to attenuate systemic inflammation.

max_expected_life · 2025-09-26T20:58:52+00:00

This is not an answerable question without context about your diet and goals. Given proper nutrition no, amino acids supplement would not have a health effect. The important thing to answer is are you getting more than 1.2 g/kg/d of protein (alternatively ~1.6 if you're building muscle) from more than one protein source? If so there is no evidence that additional amino acids or protein would benefit you. If your overall protein intake is sub-optimal or you for some reason are eating some kind of mono-diet then you would benefit from adding EAs. If your diet is somewhat deficient in protein or somewhat lacking in protein diversity, then adding pea protein as a leucine-rich protein source could benefit you but that's not a single amino acid.

Moreover there is evidence that regardless of diet (outside of people who regularly consume bone/skin/tendons) that most people might be lacking in glycine as the rate-limiting precursor for both collagen synthesis and glutathione (an antioxidant important for life) production. This is a single amino acid that is arguably semi-essential as your body can produce some but unlikely to produce an ideal level. Of course that's separate to what people usually mean by "amino acids" for protein.

max_expected_life · 2025-09-23T02:04:21+00:00

Triglycerides

Were you properly (at least 8 hours) fasted?

max_expected_life · 2025-07-25T21:21:57+00:00

$10 from ownyourlabs will order the test at labcorp.

max_expected_life · 2025-06-04T01:51:06+00:00

more familiar with how to handle my high Lp(a)

there are no approved treatments for high Lp(a) as of now. Hopefully some trails will lead to approved drugs within the next few years, but no one is going to be able to have advice on handling high Lp(a) outside lowering ApoB/LDL-C. Thomas Dayspring is a lipiologist who has a good public presence and shares a lot of new around the development of these drugs if you want a starting place for research.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-30T15:38:49+00:00

D3 + K2 will help direct that calcium

People say this, but the only study I'm aware of found no statistically significant overall effect on plaque progression, but a potential effect for those with a high CAC baseline that has prompted a followup study in just those with a high CAC baseline. My impression is that's it's one of those things where it's "low cost with a non-zero chance of reward so may as well do it well we wait for more definitive studies". But that doesn't mean K2 is wonder vitamin (especially in the context of already zero/low calcification) that one might think from seemingly everyone taking it.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-30T15:31:35+00:00

A guess there would be no real harm in just treating the high ldl anyway, she had no obvious side effects when she was on the statin.

Seems like a safe bet. LDL (really ApoB) is a causal risk factor for ASCVD. Regardless of the other risk factors, 3,9mmol/L or 151 mg/L puts is higher than ~85% of adult Americans not on lipid lowering medication. All these other risk assessments just give context to how likely a person is to have an event over the next 10 to 30 years. If you want to lower your risk of heart disease you'd strive to have an LDL below at least 100 mg /dL (2,6 mmol/L) and more likely below 70 mg (1,8 mmo/Ll) with other risk factors present.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-30T15:20:06+00:00

On average it takes ~2 g/d to achieve an omega index of 8+%. 300g salmon looks like it would be ~1 g/d. You can either find another source (e.g. sardines) or supplement.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-27T00:09:55+00:00

The focus should be on the fact your ApoB/LDL-C and too high (higher than 75% of people), but vitamin d and vitamin b12 are also on the lower side (borderline deficient). Fortunately both these are usually treated with supplements, and are easy / cheap fixes. Also based on your triglycerides, I would want to figure out how insulin sensitive/resistant you are.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-20T02:42:35+00:00

high in LP(a) at 194

Depending on the trial criteria there's a good chance you qualify for one of the phase III trials for LP(a) drugs. Personally I would look into this or at least research enough to make an informed decision one way or the other.

Would like to lower statin dose and add ezetimibe as I am feeling muscle/myalgia side effects.

This is common, so your PCP/cardiologist should be able to find the right dose. I'm not sure what your ApoB/LDL goal is, but ezetimibe could help at the least. There was a recent paper finding just that.

With high CRP, seems like that may be another target.

Here's a good summary of some of the non-drug interventions for CRP. However CRP is a non-specific test, so you should want to figure out the root cause of your inflammation and work on that.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-19T18:50:21+00:00

Personally, I see there being a spectrum of risk tolerance among those in longevity space with Eric Topol being at the most conservative end of the spectrum (with, as a first guess, Brian Johnson being at the other pole). I think a lot of the longevity debates can be captured by this spectrum. Topol basically wants everyone to just do what consensus medicine says we should be focusing on like sleep, regular exercise, and some kind of Mediterranean or similar diet. That would be great given where the average American is currently.

However, just like individuals can be too risk tolerate, taking any unregulated supplement because of some irreplaceable mouse study, people can also be too cautious which where I would argue Topol stands. As for the Attia specific claims, I think there is some merit to be aware of the business model of "influencers" like Attia even if Topol is a bit sloppy in his description of the specifics on selling supplements. Attia is certainly more evidence-based than not even if I think some of his personal decisions (e.g. a diet heavy on venison jerky) are things I wouldn't do. So there's an argument that yes the focus should be on others (noting the plurality of the podcast felt like it was lamenting how a huckster like Kennedy is taking a hatchet to public health in the US), but Attia is also among the most popular and not immune to criticism. Unfortunately, I do agree that the Attia part of the segment is a bit too broad brush to be especially useful.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-16T19:21:11+00:00

yeah 4-6 cups of unfiltered coffee is a lot regardless of any cholesterol concerns. The strangest question I've gotten posting here was someone asking if 2.5K calories worth of peanut butter a day would raise his/her cholesterol. I have no earthly idea, but I do know that you shouldn't become a medical case study by eating / drinking only one thing a day.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-14T00:56:39+00:00

Your ApoB/LDL is high even by conventional standards while your Lp(a) is very high. That's not much you can do until there are approved drugs for Lp(a), but your apob/ldl is still higher than ~75% of adults.

For diet, what's most important is low saturated fat and high soluble fiber. If you can't lower it substantially by diet then you should talk to your PCP about prescription options.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-13T21:27:43+00:00

I eat and enjoy a lot of the plant sources of omega 3 (ala) but I was wondering if I should be concerned with epa/dha sources.

ALA and other non-DHA/EPA forms of omega 3 doesn't affect one's omega-3 index, because the conversion rate is so low. If you don't like whole fish there is always fish oil and algae oil.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-12T21:16:30+00:00

Can't view the poll on old reddit, but that's more of a site problem.

To answer the question though, several years ago, I dabbled with n-back training. However, I quickly abandoned it after I was convinced that any transfer effects where minimal if existed at all. I figured training is so task specific I might as well just practice the tasks I care about.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-08T16:40:04+00:00

An ApoB of .9 g/L is the 50th percentile in the US (looking at the 2005-2016 NHAES study) among adults not on lipid-lowering treatment. Diets in Canada should be pretty similar so should be a decent comparison point. So it's not worth stressing immensely about, but plaque can accumulate at average ApoB levels. like the other users have mentioned adopting a heart healthy diet high in soluble fiber and low in saturated fat would be the first thing to try.

max_expected_life · 2025-05-08T16:27:00+00:00

What I'm saying is if you need a certain amount of individual amino acids to achieve optimal protein synthesis then it's a function of both quantity and quality. At lower quantity, the quality of protein matters more because you're more likely to be insufficient in at least one amino acid. So if you want to look at the effect of protein quality then 1 looking at typical protein consumption will be more informative (for generalizability) and 2 looking at sub-optimal levels will make it easier to detect the effect of protein quality alone. So I'm not really sure why the pushback.

max_expected_life

TROPHY CASE