How to boost longevity hormone

How can I increase the longevity hormone FGF21?

In 2000, a new human hormone was discovered. It was called FGF21 because it was the 21st documented fibroblast growth factor. Since its discovery, FGF21 has become recognized as an important agent for promoting metabolic and artery health, weight loss, and longevity. When injected into obese monkeys, they lose weight without reducing their food intake. And not only will you lose some weight, but you’ll also lose 27% more body fat while eating the same amount. In mice, this increases lifespan by 30-40%, which is comparable to lifelong caloric restriction, and again, this can be achieved without reducing food intake. Researchers have concluded that FGF21 could be used as a hormonal therapy to extend the lifespan of mammals, making big pharmaceutical companies salivate and raising the question: “Can aging be ‘medicated’?”

That’s not all FGF21 can do. “The idea that one drug could treat obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia (such as high cholesterol), and high blood pressure all at once may have seemed impossible a few years ago, but it is now an attractive and exciting prospect.” The reason FGF21 cannot be given to people as is is because it is rapidly broken down in the body and must be injected every one to two hours for 24 hours. So pharmaceutical companies are seeking to patent a variety of long-acting FGF21 analogs. And in fact, when you give people a little bit of PF-05231023, they can lose about 10 pounds in 25 days and can also dramatically lower triglycerides and cholesterol, as you can see below and at 1 minute 48 seconds of my video “Life Extension with FGF21.”Then the side effects of these new drugs began to appear. So, what options do we have? What about packaging and injecting the FGF21 gene into a virus and sewing additional FGF21 genes into your DNA? Or just lace up your running shoes? Exercise increases FGF21 levels, which may be one reason why exercise is so good for us.

But which is more effective: aerobic exercise (8 weeks of running training) or resistance exercise (8 weeks of weight training)? The answer is both, but resistance exercise had an advantage over running, increasing FGF21 by 42% compared to 25% in the aerobic group. Okay, but what about the food? Yes, you could try engineering it and injecting it, but wouldn’t it be easier to stimulate our own natural endogenous production through diet? One way is to not diet at all. FGF21 is called the hunger hormone because it is induced by fasting, but it is not induced after just a day or two.

Physiologically, FGF21 expression increases markedly in response to fasting or starvation. However, unlike mice, which show an increase after just 6 hours of fasting, humans do not see a significant increase in FGF21 until after a week. Fasting can quadruple FGF21, but it requires a 10-day fast, which is the epitome of an unsustainable eating pattern. You can see the increase below and at 3:19 of my video.So how can we avoid starvation and reap the benefits? Can a ketogenic diet mimic fasting? No. Keto diet doesn’t work. In fact, if you do it for a few months, your levels can actually drop significantly. A high-fat diet can even interfere with the benefits you get from exercise, as evidenced by research on high-intensity interval training.