The longevity molecule you can’t get from food

Let’s play a quick game: name every ingredient in your HOP Box. 1, 2, 3… Go!

You got spermidine. Probably NR. Definitely the vitamin D and K2, because we will not stop talking about those two.

I'll bet almost nobody said alpha-ketoglutarate.

Which is a shame, because AKG might be the most quietly interesting molecule in the whole box. It's also the hardest to say. Al-fa key-toe-GLOO-ta-rate. 

Your body makes AKG in every single cell, all day long, and you cannot get a meaningful amount of it from food. There is no AKG superfood. No AKG smoothie bowl. Kale cannot help you here. If your levels fall, your only options are to make more or take more.

And they do fall. A review of the research reports human blood AKG dropping roughly ten-fold between ages 40 and 80.

What AKG actually does

Think of AKG as the multi-tool on your cell's belt.

It runs the energy line. 

AKG sits right in the middle of the Krebs cycle, the loop your mitochondria run all day to make energy. When people say a molecule is "central to metabolism," this is the kind of thing they mean, and for once it's literal.

It hands out the epigenetic permits. 

A whole family of enzymes that add and erase the marks on your DNA and its packaging cannot do their job without AKG. Translation? The system that decides which of your genes are switched on needs this molecule sitting in the passenger seat.

It holds the ladder for collagen. 

The enzymes that stabilize collagen as it's built are AKG-dependent too. No AKG, no scaffolding. That matters for skin, and it matters even more for bone, which is mostly collagen with minerals packed onto it.

One molecule, three jobs your midlife body cares about deeply.

What the human research says

My favorite study for us is an old one, and it's about bone.

In a randomized, double-blind, six-month trial, 76 postmenopausal women with osteopenia received either calcium alpha-ketoglutarate or an equal amount of calcium alone. In the AKG group, CTX (a marker of how quickly bone is being broken down) decreased by 37% after 24 weeks, a statistically significant difference compared with the calcium-only group. 

Translation? A real signal on the bone-breakdown side, in exactly our demographic, using the exact form we use.

Then, there's the study everyone quotes. Forty-two people took a sustained-release calcium AKG formula and gave saliva samples about seven months apart. Their methylation-based biological age came back an average of eight years lower. Eye-popping number. Also a small group, no placebo, and it was run by the company selling the formula. I file this one under fascinating, not settled.

Why AKG is in your HOP Box

Because AKG sits upstream of almost everything we care about at midlife: mitochondria, bone, collagen. Because dinner can't give it to you. And because it keeps good company in our purple Hourglass Tipper pill, alongside:

• Nicotinamide riboside. Supports the NAD+ your mitochondria run on.
• Hyaluronic acid. Keeps skin hydrated from the inside out.
• Spermidine. Nudges your cells' cleanup crew back into gear.
• Magnesium glycinate. Boosts muscle function, relaxation, and healthy sleep.

The bottom line

The molecules that get famous are usually the ones with the best marketing. AKG has terrible marketing and excellent biochemistry.

That's a trade I'll take every time.

Now, HOP to it!

Dr. Amy Killen & the HOP Team