Faraz Khan’s Top 5 Anti-Aging Supplements

I get asked about my top anti-aging supplements, so I figured I would take the time to write down my top five.

My anti-aging strategy is to boost some of the top compounds that are required for your body and unfortunately decline as you age – precisely when your body needs them in greater quantities.

This causes a loss in homeostasis in your cells, leading to aging.

With that said, lets dive right into my top anti-aging supplements.

Faraz’s Top 5 Anti-Aging Supplements

1. Glucose Disposal Agent:

When you eat food, carbs get converted into glucose and released into your blood. Your cells absorb the glucose molecules from your bloodstream and use them to produce energy in the form of ATP.

Having lots of energy is great because it allows your cells to do their jobs well. This is the normal scenario.

Now consider when you eat a big burrito, donut or a whole pizza. Your body coverts the carbs and sugars into glucose and releases them into the blood as normal.

Your cells take up glucose normally, but there is still a lot of glucose remaining in your bloodstream because you eat a LOT of carbs.

Your muscles take some and your liver stores some, but there is still plenty left.

In response, your body releases more insulin to try to get the glucose out of your blood. This insulin tries to force the glucose into your cells.

After years of doing this – your cells start to become resistant to insulin, just like you need more and more alcohol to feel drunk (if you drink a lot).

This causes metabolic dysfunction and leads to diabetes. Diabetes is associated with all the major diseases such as heart disease, cancer and alzheimers.

So that is the first reason why you want to keep glucose levels at a normal range instead of causing huge spikes with these heavy carb or sugar meals.

Secondly, this excess glucose in your bloodstream attacks all kinds of molecules. It attaches to lipids/fats, proteins and DNA. In fact, once it attaches to some of these molecules like proteins, it renders them useless.

Proteins do most of the work inside your body so it’s essential that they get their job done. This protein loss leads to a breakdown in homeostasis and you start to age faster.

So those are two reasons to keep your glucose levels low. But it doesn’t mean you can’t eat pasta or carbs ever.

A few supplements will help you shuttle this glucose out of your bloodstream and improve insulin sensitivity. Some of my favorites are:

Berberine/Dihydroberberine: Berberine improves physiological stimulation of glucose via cascade reaction of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), thus inducing secretion of insulin in the body, reducing insulin resistance, and improving sensitivity of liver, muscle tissues and fat to insulin.

Metformin: Metformin exerts its glucose-lowering effect by suppressing gluconeogenesis in the liver and facilitating glucose uptake and use by peripheral tissues. It also acts on AMPK and its downstream target mTOR, but we are still learning about metformin.

Rock Lotus, Cinnamon, Apple Cider Vinegar: These are additional herbs that can help control glucose levels after a meal.

Faraz pick for glucose disposal agent: Berberine/Dihydroberberine.

Eat before a moderate/high carb meal.

2. Natural Anti-Inflammatory:

As you get older, slow chronic inflammation starts to build in your body (unbeknownst to you). Inflammation is also known as “InflammAging” because it causes you to age faster. Scientists believe that chronic, low-grade inflammation may be behind almost every disease in your body.

There are plenty of commercial NSAID’s that can reduce your inflammation, but they usually have side effects.

Fortunately, mother nature has natural compounds that can quench inflammation at the root.

Curcumin is an active compound found in the Indian spice turmeric. It has high anti-inflammatory properties. It’s action is so high that it can match many of the anti-inflammatory actions of drugs without the side effects.

It acts on top of the inflammatory chain on nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha). This means it can quench the inflammation right at the root.

It also supports your anti-aging pathways like AMPK. Curcumin helps slow down methylation and is a strong part of the epigenetic diet.

Faraz’s pick for natural anti-inflammatory: Curcumin.

Eat after your biggest daily meal.

3. High Quality Antioxidant:

If you live in a modern city, your body gets pummeled with oxidative stress everyday. Oxidative stress is caused by air and water pollution, pesticides in foods, chemicals in bath and beauty products, smoke, excess alcohol.

The oxidative stress causes free radicals that damage the cells of your body, causing harm to proteins, fat cells and even DNA. A high quality anti-oxidant can help your body neutralize the free radicals.

There are many good antioxidants such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, CoQ10, Quercetin, Astaxanthin and Glutathione.

Astaxanthin is made from a natural algae and boasts of strong anti-oxidant properties. What I love about astaxanthin is that is helps your body create more of its own anti-oxidants.

Faraz’s pick for a high quality antioxidant: Astaxanthin.

Eat before prolonged exposure to the sun, or after your biggest meal.

4 Maintain NAD Levels:

Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) is a key participant of electron exchange in the process of creating energy or ATP. As you know, energy is extremely important for maintaining cell homeostasis.

NAD is also a co-factor to the sirtuins genes. Sirtuin genes are a family of proteins that control responses to exercise and diet. They are closely associated with longevity.

The third important function of NAD is that is helps repair your damaged DNA. Surprisingly, your DNA takes a beating with multiple double helix breaks per cell per day and thousands of single helix breaks per day. NAD is broken down to repair your DNA.

So NAD is extremely important for slowing down your aging.

Faraz’s pick for NAD supplement: TruNiagen.

Eat after a meal.

5. Maintain Resveratrol/Pterostilbene Levels:

Resveratrol is a component of Japanese knotweed and has been used medicinally for thousands of years. It is a polyphenol and a phytoalexin, aka a substance produced by plants when they get stressed out. This helps a plant protect itself and is also useful for you.

Resveratrol activates the Sirtuin family of genes which is crucial to anti-aging. It also activates another longevity pathway called AMPK.

It also crosses the blood brain barrier and has been found to be neuroprotective in various studies on mammals.

Resveratrol also increases your own body’s production of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase.

It has a lesser known cousin called Pterostilbene which acts in similar ways, but may in fact be more bio-available in your body.

Faraz’s pick for resveratrol supplement: Life Extension Resveratrol

Eat after a meal.

How Often I Take My Anti-Aging Supplements

This is another question I get often. I take my supplements 5-days on and take the weekend off generally. This is to help my body out but gives it a break on the weekends.

Another reason I do this is because I don’t want my body to become dependent on these nutrients. Giving it a break helps it create what it needs on it’s own and balance my needs.

On the weekends I try to get out in nature, practice grounding and get plenty of sunlight on the weekends.

So there you go – those are my top anti-aging supplements.

To learn my top supplements for health, check out this post here..

To check out my other recommendations, go here.

Affiliate disclosure: if you use these links to buy these supplements, I may get a few cents for recommending these. This does not cost you anything extra.