The supplement used in the study is branded as Rejuvant and is marketed by Ponce de Leon Health. Its main ingredient is a patent pending timed-release from of CaAKG, a calcium salt that is used to deliver AKG. AKG is an endogenous intermediary metabolite in the Krebs cycle. Levels of this molecule decline with age, contributing to the body’s progressive dysfunction as this molecule is involved in multiple metabolic and cellular pathways. Those functions include as a signaling molecule, an energy donor, and a regulator of epigenetic processes.
Ponce de Leon Health, based in Fernandina, FL, has developed two anti aging supplements based on CaAKG, one for men that includes vitamin A and another for women that includes vitamin D.
Long term open label trial verifies hypothesis
According chief medical officer Dr Francis Palmer, MD, the theory was that boosting the body’s AKG reservers could cut an individual’s ‘biological age.’ To test the idea, the company set up a long term open label trial. The research design places it somewhere between a short term proof-of-concept pilot trial and a headline-grabbing placebo controlled result.
The trial was conducted by Ponce de Leon personnel as well as researchers associated with medical institutes in Singapore. The company TruMe Inc. also participated in the research. TruMe markets a saliva-based test branded as TruAge that measures DNA methylation as a marker of biological age.
The researchers recruited 42 participants (28 men and 14 women) who took the supplements for four to 10 months. The median age of the female participants was about 64, with a range of 43 to 72 years old. Their ‘biological age,’ as measured in a baseline TruAge test, was a median of about 62 with a range of 46 to 73.