Spermidine For Anti-aging, Fasting Mimicking, Hair Skin and Nails.
- Lauren Bramley
- Sep 25, 2021
- 5 min read
Spermidine is nature's answer for cellular health. The molecule is a fascinating compound found in all plants and animals and in nearly every cell of your body.
Spermidine levels in our cells decline as we age, but can be supplemented as we get older. Researchers are only recently beginning to discover the wide benefits to maintaining high spermidine levels as we age.
Spermidine supports and triggers autophagy; our body's own process of cellular renewal. permidine into your daily diet can produce many of the same benefits as intermittent fasting by cleaning your cells of toxic waste material.Spermidine has been recognized in the EU (EFSA) as a Novel Food due to its unique and innovative character and is now available for the first time in the United States.
The Rinaldi Dermatologic Clinic in Milan, Italy recently conducted a study looking at the effect spermidine supplementation has on hair growth and hair health. The study specifically looked at the effect of spermidine supplementation on the anagen phase of the hair growth cycle. The results of the study demonstrate that a spermidine-based nutritional supplement can prolong the anagen phase in humans, and therefore might be beneficial for hair loss conditions.
Spermidine reduces inflammation factors, increases the formation of memory cells, and triggers the preventive removal of toxic protein aggregates in cells, which may be responsible for neurodegeneration, the cause of dementia and diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
What Is Spermidine? All You Need to Know
As we get older, many of us naturally begin to focus more on health and longevity. If you keep up with health trends, you may have heard of one particular molecule of interest-- spermidine. Increasing spermidine intake through your diet has been attributed to a longer and healthier life.
Spermidine is a fascinating compound. And not until recently have researchers been able to better understand it.
We now know that spermidine is a unique, naturally occurring molecule, part of a group of molecules known as polyamines. Polyamines interact with our cells to perform various critical metabolic functions.
Spermidine is found in all plants and animals and in nearly every cell of your body. In our bodies, it can come from ingested food—synthesized in the gut microbiome or synthesized in cells.
Why Is Spermidine So Important?
The human body is able to break down and recycle unnecessary or damaged cell components. This renewal process is called autophagy.
Autophagy keeps our cells young and protects us from many diseases. Many scientific studies show that autophagy stagnates as we age. It’s a development we can easily counteract, either by fasting or through spermidine supplementation. (Or both!)
Research discovered that increased spermidine intake has the fascinating ability to mimic fasting. However, since the spermidine content in our cells also decreases over time, we are dependent on spermidine supplementation and spermidine-rich foods with increasing age.
Research indicates that our own spermidine levels start to decrease from approximately 25-30 years of age.
However, a recent study conducted in one of the well-known "Blue-Zones" could show that the spermidine levels of 90 and 100-year-olds mirror that of a young person’s body.
Exciting, right?
Spermidine thus represents an alternative to fasting to activate autophagy.
What Does Spermidine Do?
Spermidine plays an essential role in organisms, like humans and even plants. One of spermidine's biggest and most profound functions, from which other functions stem from, is the ability to counteract aging and promote autophagy. As we age, our cells age as well. When these cells become old or damaged, it can cause build up of dead or toxic organelle matter in our bodies, potentially leading to age-related disease and injury. Spermidine in our cells optimizes autophagy and cellular renewal.
Spermidine is also known to regulate various cellular processes including:
DNA Stability
Cellular growth
Cellular differentiation
Apoptosis (Which is cellular death as a normal part of growth and development in organisms)
Research in treating aged mice with spermidine found that it led to a decrease in arterial stiffening, which is an aging-related condition correlated to the deterioration of autophagy.
When you hear that autophagy is basically cells cannibalizing one another, it’s easy to think that it sounds harmful to your body. However, autophagy is quite beneficial and something scientists believe you should be striving for on a regular basis. While it’s still unclear how exactly autophagy creates some of these benefits, here are some benefits of autophagy:
Removing toxic proteins from the cells that may be a cause of some age-related diseases
Recycling residual proteins
Providing energy and building blocks for cells
Promoting regeneration and healthy cells
Research on Spermidine Roughly 10 years ago, a research team at the University of Graz in Austria discovered spermidine’s ability to trigger autophagy. That team was led by Professor Dr. Frank Madeo. Since this revolutionary discovery, approximately 100 international research teams have been investigating this substance and its health benefits. The research is still in its early stage, in terms of scientific investigation. But there are few substances that are better and more intensively researched than spermidine.
Spermidine a naturally occurring polyamine in our bodies, plays an important role in many bodily functions that keep us healthy for the majority of our life. It, along with several other polyamines are essential for survival and help to regulate gene expression, protein synthesis and cellular renewal. Hair follicles are some of the most rapidly regenerating organs and are directly affected by polyamines - normal growth, function and cycling are all processes dependent on polyamines. New research has investigated the role that spermidine supplementation plays in helping to reverse the results of hair loss that some may experience as a result of medical conditions or environmental factors. Polyamines have been used to alter hair growth in humans, specifically reducing excess hair growth in women. However, the effect of spermidine on the anagen phase of the hair growth cycle had never been studied in humans prior to the studies conducted at the Rinaldi Dermatologic Clinic in Milan, Italy.
In a double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled experiment, 100 men and women were separated into two groups: a placebo group and a treatment group. Participants in the treatment group took an oral spermidine supplement after their main meal once a day. This study specifically looked at the anagen phase of the hair growth cycle - the phase in which hair growth occurs. Treatment (spermidine supplementation) was administered over a span of 90 days, with an initial evaluation of hair growth at T0 (beginning of the study), T1 (3 months after the beginning of the study) and lastly T2 (6 months after the beginning of the study). The study found that the number of anagen hair bulbs increased in the spermidine-group by more than 50%, whereas the placebo group saw a 20% decrease in anagen hair bulbs. Furthermore, the spermidine-group also saw an increase in proliferation levels. The increase in proliferation can be directly attributed to a reduction of apoptosis in the follicular cells.
The precise pathway in which spermidine displays it’s beneficial effects on hair growth is not fully understood, but it has been shown that the gene expression-modulation effects of spermidine combined with its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties help promote hair growth and health. Spermidine’s proven role in benefiting human longevity can also be seen within the hair follicles, promoting healthier hair growth for longer periods of time. Even though the study was only active for 90 days, the beneficial effects within the hair growth were seen for up to 3 months after.



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