Tag: Biohacking

Serum Albumin Decreases During Aging: Can Diet Help?

Levels of serum albumin peak at about 20 years old (~4.6 g/dL for males, ~4.4 g/dL for females), then decrease during aging, as shown for the 1,079,193 adults of Weaving et al. (2016):

Screen Shot 2018-07-04 at 1.19.29 PM.png

Similar age-related decreases for serum albumin albumin have also been reported in smaller studies: Gom et al. 2007 (62,854 subjects); Dong et al. 2010 (2,364 subjects); Le Couteur et al. 2010 (1,673 subjects); Dong et al. 2012 (1,489 subjects).

Why is it important that serum levels of albumin decrease during aging? Reduced levels of albumin are associated with an increased risk of death from all causes. For example, in the 1,704,566 adults of Fulks et al. 2010, serum albumin levels > 4.4 g/dL and 4.5 g/dL for females and males, respectively, were associated with maximally reduced risk of death from all causes, regardless of age (younger than 50y, 50-69y, or 70y+):

albumin mort.png

The association between reduced levels of serum albumin with an increased risk of death from all causes have also been found in smaller studies. In a ~9 year study of 7,735 men (age range, 40-59y), when serum albumin was less than 4 g/dL, the mortality rate was 23/1000/per year, compared with 4/1000/per year for subjects with values greater than 4.8 g/dL (Phillips et al. 1989):

albumin 3 mort

Similarly, in older adults (average age, ~80y, 672 subjects), serum albumin levels  greater than 4.5 g/dL (equivalent to 45 g/L) were associated with significantly reduced all-cause mortality risk, when compared with compared with < 4.1 g/dL (equivalent to 41 g/L, Takata et al. 2010):

albumin 2 mort

Decreased levels of serum albumin (less than 4 g/dL) being associated with an increased all-cause mortality risk was also identified in a 12-year study of 287 older adults (average age, ~75y, Sahyoun et al. 1996).

Can the age-related decrease in serum albumin be minimized, or prevented? Shown below is my data for serum albumin since 2005, when I was 32y:

alb

First, note the period from when I was 32y until 40y. No age-related decrease! My average albumin value over 7 measurements was 4.74 g/dL. Unfortunately, I didn’t track my dietary info during that time.

Also note the period from 43y to 45y. First, my albumin levels are significantly higher than the first period, 4.92 g/dL (p=0.027)! Second, again note the absence of an age-related decrease. Based on the data of Weaving et al. (2016), my albumin levels should be around 4.4 g/dL, but I’ve got them going in the opposite direction! How have I been able to do that?

Since April 2015, with use of a food scale, I’ve been tracking my daily dietary intake, including macro and micronutrients (54 variables). For each orange data point in the second period, I have an average dietary intake for each of the 54 variables that I can use to correlate with serum albumin. Based on that data, I can make an educated guess at what could potentially increase, or decrease it.

Of the 54 dietary variables that I track, only 3 were significantly correlated with albumin: positive associations for alpha-carotene (r = 0.66, p = 0.027), beta-carotene (r = 0.75, p =0.007), and a negative association for Vitamin K (r = -0.64, p = 0.03). Shown below is the strongest correlation of the three, beta-carotene, vs. serum albumin.

bcarot alb.png

The majority of my alpha and beta-carotene intake comes from carrots, with a smaller amount coming from butternut squash. Interestingly, beta-cryptoxanthin, a Vitamin A metabolite that is abundant in butternut squash, was not significantly associated with serum albumin. Butternut squash is also a good source of alpha- and beta-carotene, so if  butternut squash was driving the correlation between the carotenes with albumin, I’d expect beta-crypoxanthin to also be significantly associated with it. However, since it’s not, carrots are the most likely source driving the association. Also note that the my average intake of Vitamin K is dramatically higher (1410 mcg; range, 1080-2203 mcg) than the RDA or AI, which are ~100-120 mcg/day. The negative association between my Vitamin K intake with albumin suggests that I should keep it closer to 1100 mcg/day to potentially keep my albumin levels high.

 

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!

 

References

Dong MH, Bettencourt R, Barrett-Connor E, Loomba R. Alanine aminotransferase decreases with age: the Rancho Bernardo Study. PLoS One. 2010 Dec 8;5(12):e14254.

Dong MH, Bettencourt R, Brenner DA, Barrett-Connor E, Loomba R. Serum levels of alanine aminotransferase decrease with age in longitudinal analysis. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2012 Mar;10(3):285-90.e1.

Gom I, Fukushima H, Shiraki M, Miwa Y, Ando T, Takai K, Moriwaki H. Relationship between serum albumin level and aging in community-dwelling self-supported elderly population. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2007 Feb;53(1):37-42.

Dong MH, Bettencourt R, Barrett-Connor E, Loomba R. Alanine aminotransferase decreases with age: the Rancho Bernardo Study. PLoS One. 2010 Dec 8;5(12):e14254.

Fulks M, Stout RL, Dolan VF. Albumin and all-cause mortality risk in insurance applicants. J Insur Med. 2010;42(1):11-7.

Le Couteur DG, Blyth FM, Creasey HM, Handelsman DJ, Naganathan V, Sambrook PN, Seibel MJ, Waite LM, Cumming RG. The association of alanine transaminase with aging, frailty, and mortality. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2010 Jul;65(7):712-7.

Phillips A, Shaper AG, Whincup PH. Association between serum albumin and mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other causes. Lancet. 1989 Dec 16;2(8677):1434-6.

Sahyoun NR, Jacques PF, Dallal G, Russell RM. Use of albumin as a predictor of mortality in community dwelling and institutionalized elderly populations. J Clin Epidemiol. 1996 Sep;49(9):981-8.

Takata Y, Ansai T, Soh I, Awano S, Sonoki K, Akifusa S, Kagiyama S, Hamasaki T, Torisu T, Yoshida A, Nakamichi I, Takehara T. Serum albumin levels as an independent predictor of 4-year mortality in a community-dwelling 80-year-old population. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2010 Feb;22(1):31-5.

Weaving G, Batstone GF, Jones RG. Age and sex variation in serum albumin concentration: an observational study. Ann Clin Biochem. 2016 Jan;53(Pt 1):106-11.

Reducing Homocysteine? Updates.

In an earlier post I wrote about the association between elevated circulating levels of homocysteine with an increased risk of death from all causes (https://michaellustgarten.com/2017/11/22/homocysteine-and-all-cause-mortality-risk/). I started to post updates in that link, but I’ve decided to move them to here.

As of 6/2018, I now have tracked dietary data (I weigh all my food and record the values in cronometer.com) that corresponds to 7 homocysteine measurements:
Picture1

12/5/2017: Despite 42 days of 800 micrograms of supplemental folic acid, bringing my average daily folate intake to 2026 micrograms/day, my plasma homocysteine was essentially unchanged at 11.7 uMoL, when compared with my baseline value of 11.8 uMol.What’s next on the list to reduce it? Trimethylglycine, also known as betaine. I’m a proponent of using diet as a first strategy,  and to increase my dietary betaine levels, I’ll eat beets and quinoa, bringing my daily betaine levels to ~500 mg/day. Let’s see how it turns out on my next blood test!

1/2/2018: ~500 mg/day of betaine from beets and quinoa did absolutely nothing to my homecysteine levels. In fact, it got worse (15.3 uMoL)! To test the hypothesis that it wasn’t enough betaine, next I tried 4 grams/day of betaine (also known as trimethylglycine, TMG).

2/20/18: Supplemental TMG did absolutely nothing in terms of reducing my homocysteine to values below baseline! Also note that there is evidence that TMG increases blood lipids, including LDL and triglycerides (TG; Olthof et al. 2005), and that’s exactly what it did to me. My average LDL and TG values since 2015 (11 measurements) are 77 and 50 mg/dL, respectively. On TMG, these values increased to 92 and 72 mg/dL, respectively, making them my highest values over 11 individual blood tests (with the exception of 1 day with an LDL of 93 mg/dL). Next, I tried a stack that included 50 mg of B6, 1000 mcg of B12, and 400 mcg of methylfolate, as supplementation with these B-vitamins has been shown to lower homocystine (Lewerin et al. 2003).

3/20/18: Finally, some progress! My homocysteine levels were reduced during the B-vitamin supplementation period. I’ve written it like that because I’m not sure if it was the B-vitamins that caused it. For example, in the image below, we see the correlation between my dietary B6 intake with homocysteine. The trendline is down, which I would expect if B6 supplementation actually is playing a role in reducing my homocysteine levels. However, note that the correlation between my dietary B6 levels with homocysteine is not very strong (r = .48), resulting in a moderate R2 of 0.23 (similar data was obtained for B12 and folate). With 5 blood test measurements corresponding to 5 dietary periods, if B6 is playing a role, I would expect a stronger correlation. Nonetheless, with more data, the correlation may strengthen, so stay tuned for that!

b6hcy.png

5/14/2018: I changed B6-B12-methylfolate supplements so that I’d only have to take pills from 1 bottle instead of from 3. That supplement, however, had 1.5 mg of B6 instead of the 50 mg that was in my original supplement. Less B6 didn’t result in a higher homocysteine value-in fact, it went down (slightly), from 10.8 to 10.6. If an increased amount of B6 was causing lower levels of homocysteine, I would’ve expected higher, not (barely) lower homocysteine levels. This suggests that maybe my B6 intake has nothing to do with my homocysteine levels.

6/4/2018: Despite no changes to my supplements, my homocysteine came down a little more, to 10.2. Interestingly, the correlation (r) between homocysteine with my total dietary (diet + supplements) intake of B6, B12, and methylfolate is 0.39, 0.68, 0.29, respectively. The correlation between my B12 intake with homocysteine looks moderately strong, whereas the correlations for B6 and folate are weak. Based on this data, it’s possible I had a mild B12 deficiency that was causing elevated homocysteine. Note that my average B12 intake, without supplements is ~8 mcg/day, which is more than 3-fold higher than the RDA.

In looking at the association between my dietary data with homocysteine, a stronger correlation (r = 0.91; R2 = 0.83) has emerged…for my protein intake! In other words, a higher protein intake is more strongly correlated with lower homocysteine than B12:

Picture2

7/11/2018: To explore the strong association between my protein intake with homocysteine, I increased my protein intake from an average value of 104 g/day for the period that preceded my June measurement (5/15/2018 – 6/4/2018) to 136 g/day for the period up to my 7/11/2018 measurement (6/5/2018 – 7/10/2018). The result? Lower homocysteine, to 8.2 uMol/L! Interestingly, the correlation between my dietary protein intake with homocysteine remained strong (r = 0.86, R2 = 0.73, n = 7 measurements).

What about my B6, methyl-B12, methyl-folate stack? I’m still taking it, although it looks like methyl-B12 may be the only factor that is associated with my homocysteine levels. In support of that, the correlation between each with homocysteine is r = 0.02, 0.73, 0.36, respectively.

Because I now have my homocysteine < 9 umol/L, it may be time to optimize other variables (in addition to the metabolic panel and CBC). Stay tuned!

 

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book:

 

References

Lewerin C, Nilsson-Ehle H, Matousek M, Lindstedt G, Steen B. Reduction of plasma homocysteine and serum methylmalonate concentrations in apparently healthy elderly subjects after treatment with folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6: a randomised trial.vEur J Clin Nutr. 2003 Nov;57(11):1426-36.

Olthof MR, van Vliet T, Verhoef P, Zock PL, Katan MB. Effect of homocysteine-lowering nutrients on blood lipids: results from four randomised, placebo-controlled studies in healthy humans. PLoS Med. 2005 May;2(5):e135.