by Dave Asprey
Some physicians recommend between 100 and 250 mcg once or twice per day, orally or via injection.
SARMS
The last ten years have given rise to an exciting new class of compounds called selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs). The limited research on SARMs looks promising. They appear to build muscle and burn fat at a level comparable to steroids, but without the ball-shrinking, rage-inducing, liver-destroying, unsightly body-hair-growing effects. SARMs act on your hormones, but in a very targeted way, and they can help you rapidly build muscle and shed fat.
Like with most peptides, many of the studies that have so far been conducted on SARMs have used rats, and there haven’t yet been any long-term human experiments looking at the safety of SARMs. There could be side effects we don’t know about, and I acknowledge that playing with your hormones is risky. At the very least, though, SARMs are interesting compounds that merit discussion and consideration if you really want to go all in on anti-aging.
Keep in mind that SARMs are on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances for athletic competition. If you’re a competitive athlete, you shouldn’t take these. Of course, the fact that they’ve been banned by most global sporting organizations means they actually work. Is this cheating? It’s not for me to say. We live in a morally ambiguous world. On the one hand, we want athletes to perform at their very best possible levels. To do this, we’re willing to let them wear special aerodynamic clothing and undergo bizarre training regimens that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if these athletes want to gain control of their biology by increasing levels of a peptide that will help them recover more quickly, we consider it cheating and make it illegal.
Personally, I think withholding an intervention that can help anyone live better is cruel. Years of competing take a toll on an athlete’s biology. I have spoken with at least a dozen of the biggest names in sports—living legends who are suffering from the damage they did to their bodies while competing. Athletes know they are either one injury or a few years of aging away from involuntarily ending their careers. We have the technology available to keep them young, healthy, recovering, and even competing. They want to use it. But if they do, they will be punished.
In my opinion, there is no moral or ethical reason to ban these substances. We tell ourselves these rules protect athletes who might harm themselves by taking a risky drug. But we know that excessive exercise will also shorten your life, not to mention the long-term damage that accrues from recurring head injuries or crashing into a barrier at high speeds in a race. So why not let these people take something that will actually help them recover? It should be a basic human right to do whatever you want with your biology as long as you’re up front about it and do it under the care of a knowledgeable physician. Then we can all learn from the world’s best.
Bottom line: If you’re not a professional athlete but rather a curious self-experimenter looking to upgrade your physical performance, SARMs may be worth considering. I repeat—these are not the same as synthetic steroids. Using underground steroids to boost your hormones is like trying to tweak a microchip with a sledgehammer. Synthetic steroids put on muscle, which makes them anabolic. Unfortunately, synthesized anabolic steroids negatively interact with your liver, your prostate, your heart, your sex organs (which leads to testicular shrinkage in men and clitoral enlargement in women), and your secondary sex characteristics (voice depth, body hair growth, man boobs, acne, etc.).
All these bad symptoms fall under the androgenic effects of steroids. The issue with steroids is that they have an anabolic-to-androgenic ratio of 1:1. This means they are just as likely to shrink your balls or enlarge your clitoris as they are to build muscle. What if you could turn on muscle building without the other androgen problems?
This is where SARMs innovate. They’re far more selective than steroids, with anabolic-to-androgenic ratios starting at 3:1 and going as high as 90:1. You can still get muscle growth and fat loss, but SARMs won’t give you man boobs or turn you into the bearded lady. SARMs are also legal as long as you buy them “for research purposes only.” You’ll notice SARMs retailers include disclaimers like “for lab research purposes only” and “not for human consumption.” They do this because the substances aren’t approved for human use, and they don’t want to get sued. There are about a dozen SARMs in either clinical (human) trials or preclinical (animal) trials. Be careful. It’s hard to find reliable suppliers, and there are many people online selling poor quality imitation SARMs. It can be difficult to source exactly what you want.
All of that said, the results I got from trying a short course of SARMs as research for this book were nothing short of unbelievable. Within six weeks I gained twenty-nine pounds of muscle without changing my workout or my diet. It happened so fast that when I was in my hotel room getting ready to go onstage at a Tony Robbins event I couldn’t button a shirt that had fit just a few weeks earlier. Lots of people would probably love these results, and though I did enjoy the look for a little while, I also know that the best way to age quickly is to be either too muscular or not muscular enough. When The New York Times referred to me a few years prior as “almost muscular,” I high-fived myself. That’s actually exactly what I want to be.
Your goals might be different. If you want to be a solid wall of chiseled muscle, my hat’s off to you. And if you want to join the Calorie Restriction Society (that’s a real thing—it’s now called the CR Society International), that’s also your right. I won’t judge you. Biohacking is about gaining full control of your own biology. But my goals are different, so my decisions will be different. My goal when taking the SARMs was not to build muscle, but rather to promote systemic healing and mitochondrial biogenesis. I want younger, more plentiful power plants in my cells so I can have more energy to fuel my brain and Super Human level regeneration. The SARMs I took gave me those results, and then some.
These substances can help you put on muscle very quickly, which can be lifesaving if you’re seventy and suffering from muscle wasting. But if you’re younger, it’s possible to put on muscle faster than your body can strengthen your ligaments to support the new muscle. If you push your new muscles to the max, you have a higher chance of damaging a ligament. It’s important to limit your max until your ligaments catch up to your muscles! The good news is that if you do injure yourself, some of the compounds here can give you Super Human levels of tissue regeneration.
Here is a rundown of the SARMs I’ve tried with mixed but powerful results:
MK-2866
With multiple published human trials under its belt, MK-2866, also known as the drug Ostarine, is one of the best-studied SARMs. Though it is weaker than many others on this list, it still has been shown to offer powerful results. In studies, Ostarine has few meaningful side effects and is very effective at building muscle. Healthy elderly men and women who took Ostarine for twelve weeks saw significant increases in lean body mass and a decrease in fat mass, and were better able to climb stairs.8 Interestingly, these men and women also had an average decline of 11 percent in fasting blood glucose, a 17 percent reduction in insulin levels, and a 27 percent reduction in insulin resistance. This suggests that SARMs might be able to impact type 2 diabetes.
The study noted no side effects, but some people have reported short-term testosterone suppression when they take high doses of Ostarine. In these cases, testosterone rebounded to normal levels within a couple of weeks after stopping the drug. The dosage I took is far below the level that would affect testosterone levels. But there’s still a risk of short-term testosterone suppression, and of course there may be other long-term side effects that we don’t know about yet.
Because they’re so new, dose recommendations for SARMs vary. Online communities report results when taking 15 to 20 mg of Ostarine daily for four weeks. The time of day doesn’t matter. To be cautious, experienced users advise taking at least four weeks off after completing a four-week dose so your system balances out b
efore you start another cycle. Some do a mild “post-cycle therapy” of testosterone-boosting herbs such as ashwagandha or tribulus terrestris.
LGD-4033—MUSCLE UP
Also known as Ligandrol or Anabolicum, this is another one of the better-studied SARMs. It’s been through multiple human trials with interesting results. In one study, healthy men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty were broken into two groups. One group took LGD-4033 for twenty-one days, and the other took a placebo. The men who received LGD-4033 did experience a dose-dependent suppression of total testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. These decreases were all slight—none of the men’s testosterone levels fell below the normal range. And they did see a significant increase in lean body mass without a decrease in fat mass. Their hormone levels and lipids returned to baseline after the muscles grew and the treatment was discontinued.
Whether you’re a man or woman, if your testosterone is already on the low side, you don’t want to suppress it further. It’s not worth it to potentially push your levels below the normal range. However, if you’re already on bioidentical testosterone replacement, testosterone levels won’t drop. Users report success taking 2 to 5 mg of LGD-4033 in a single daily oral dose for four weeks to build muscle. The higher the dose, the more muscle can develop, but the more your testosterone will dip. Many users compensate by using Clomid, a prescription drug that is normally marketed as a fertility drug for women, which helps your body recover testosterone levels faster. Once the four weeks are up, users usually wait at least a month before starting another cycle.
GW501516—EXERCISE IN A BOTTLE
GW501516 (Cardarine) isn’t actually a SARM because it doesn’t impact your hormone receptors, but it’s often mistakenly classified as one. There have been no published human studies on this drug, but in rodents it has shown great promise as an exercise mimetic, meaning it lights up many of the same longevity-promoting genes you’d activate by exercising.9 That alone doesn’t seem to be enough to get great results, but when researchers gave mice GW501516 and had them exercise consistently, the results went through the roof. This combination led the mice to increase their running times by 68 percent and their distance by 70 percent while doubling their overall muscular endurance—in just five weeks. That’s a Super Human (or Super Mouse?) level of performance … for about $50.
Another study on rodents showed that GW501516 plus exercise led to a roughly 50 percent increase in mitochondrial growth.10 It was this study that made me want to use this compound at low doses for anti-aging purposes. A 50 percent increase in mitochondria would obviously enhance every part of my body, including the brain. The idea of having a bigger power supply for everything I do is exciting.
Of course there’s a caveat. Shortly after it was classified as a performance-enhancing drug, a report came out saying that GW501516 caused cancer in lab rats. As with most substances, the devil is in the dosing. One study showed that GW501516 promoted cancer when rats took the human equivalent of 2,400 mg a day for two years straight.11 That’s about 240 times a normal dose taken every day for 104 weeks. No studies have found evidence that GW501516 causes cancer at a dose you would actually use or even at doses considerably higher than that. Plus, having better-functioning mitochondria is known to reduce cancer risk. Other rat studies report no side effects, and people in the online SARMs community report few, including no testosterone suppression.
Of course this doesn’t mean there aren’t side effects. We may just not know about them yet. Proceed with caution. Users report that GW501516 works best if you split it into two daily doses: 5 mg in the morning and another 5 mg in the afternoon, for a total of 10 mg a day.
SR9009
Like GW501516, SR9009 (Stenabolic) has been praised as “exercise in a pill,” and in many ways it seems like the perfect supplement. In mice, it increases endurance and fat burning, decreases inflammation, and stimulates the growth of new mitochondria in muscle cells.12 When researchers injected obese rats with SR9009, the rats lost 60 percent more weight than rats injected with a placebo, without changes to diet or exercise.
Assuming SR9009 works in humans, too, that sounds great. But the fact that the rats were injected turns out to be key. Taking SR9009 orally is pretty much useless. It has about 2 percent oral bioavailability, and your system clears that 2 percent almost immediately. This is too bad, especially because most SARMs manufacturers sell SR9009 as an oral supplement that’s not suitable for injection. Unless you find injection-grade SR9009 and are willing to stick yourself a couple of times a day, you’re better off spending your money on another SARM on this list.
ADDITIONAL SUPER HUMAN COMPOUNDS
Peptides are far from the only type of controversial anti-aging substance I’ve experimented with. Here are a few more of the most promising yet unknown anti-aging treatments out there.
HEROIN (OKAY, LOW-DOSE NALTREXONE)
Naltrexone is an opioid receptor antagonist, meaning it fits into an opiate receptor and blocks the effects of opioids. At full strength, it is used as a medication to treat alcohol and opioid drug addiction, but it has a slew of anti-aging benefits at low doses.
The first human study on low-dose Naltrexone (LDN) took place in 2007 with patients suffering from Crohn’s disease. After twelve weeks of treatment, 89 percent of patients experienced a significant reduction in symptoms and 67 percent achieved full remission!13 The researchers concluded that LDN was a “novel anti-inflammatory agent in the central nervous system.”14
Since then, low-dose Naltrexone has been studied as a treatment option for many autoimmune diseases, particularly fibromyalgia. In two separate studies, low-dose Naltrexone significantly reduced fibromyalgia pain in approximately 60 percent of participants.15 It also seems that low-dose Naltrexone can help you avoid the Four Killers. In one study, it helped suppress tumor growth in patients with ovarian cancer.16 And there are numerous anecdotal reports that low-dose Naltrexone suppresses tumor cell growth in B-cell lymphoma, pancreatic cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, and colon cancer.17
This information may seem new, but the idea of messing with your opioid receptors for anti-aging effects has been around since at least the Victorian era, when it was well known that heroin users lived longer and looked younger than nonusers. When Dr. Lana worked as a drug and alcohol addiction emergency room doctor in Stockholm, Sweden, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company there manufactured medical-grade heroin and sold it to a few members of the city’s elite.
These people were not getting high or addicted. They used low doses once or twice a week for anti-aging purposes for more than a decade. And it’s pretty telling that over twenty years, none of them tried to up their dose. All of them had visible anti-aging benefits, possibly because heroin (and many other opiates) raises levels of human growth hormone. When people found out, it led to a huge scandal with legal implications. But this was a “crime” in which there were no victims—perhaps other than the grim reaper, who was temporarily deprived because some forward-thinking people stayed young and avoided the Four Killers.
To be clear, I am not advocating for heroin use or the use of pharmaceutical opiates. Abusing heroin (and likely other opiates) actually shortens telomeres, especially in the brain,18 and opiates are as addictive as all hell. Given that they are illegal, we have little control over what contaminants are in street drugs. I have tremendous empathy for the people whose lives have been ruined by all forms of addiction, especially the synthetic opiates on the market today that are a thousand times more active than natural opiates. We’ve created this situation by systematically preventing people from treating real physical pain with the most effective painkillers while simultaneously failing to treat the trauma and emotional pain behind all addiction. Chronic pain will make you age more quickly and destroy your quality of life. So will addiction.
Most of us won’t be using low-dose heroin for anti-aging any time soon, but it looks like you c
an get an affordable anti-aging benefit from a prescription for a microdose of Naltrexone. Physicians normally prescribe 4.5 mg LDN capsules for inflammation or aging, and it has zero addiction or abuse potential. The case for using it as you age is compelling.
CARBON 60 FOR A 90 PERCENT LONGER LIFE
Another interesting compound is carbon 60, which was discovered in the 1980s when scientists realized they could form strange structures of sixty carbon atoms. These structures were incredibly stable and resembled the geodesic dome shape containing linked pentagons and hexagons originally designed by architect Buckminster Fuller. The three lead scientists later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. They named the shape buckminsterfullerene in honor of Fuller, but it is more commonly known as carbon 60.
Carbon 60 is a superconductor, which may be why in studies it helps your mitochondria efficiently complete the chemical process it uses to produce energy. It also has a powerful antioxidant effect on the fats in your body.19 It even inactivates some viruses.20 Because it can cross the lipid bilayer membranes of cells, carbon 60 causes antioxidants to scavenge for and destroy free radicals inside of your cells, leading to powerful anti-aging effects.21
How powerful? In a 2012 study on rats, carbon 60 led to a 90 percent life-span increase. With the average human life-span at seventy-nine, carbon 60 could theoretically help the average person get to a hundred and fifty. Even if the life-span increase in humans isn’t exactly the same as in rats, that’s a pretty amazing statistic. The researchers conducting the study concluded that this dramatic effect on life-span was mainly due to the attenuation of age-associated increases in oxidative stress.22
Because of my anti-aging nonprofit work, I heard about carbon 60 in the early 2000s, before many of these studies were conducted. I ordered some from the only supplier at the time and received an unlabeled bottle in a white box. Carbon 60 always comes dissolved in oil. This one tasted like slightly rancid olive oil. But every time I took it I felt more inflamed, not less, so I threw the rest of the bottle away. I figured that this was simply one anti-aging hack that wasn’t for me.