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It -Is- Possible To Go Too Extreme, Especially With Liquid Supplements:
Sometimes without knowing it, we can live in a world of unintended-consequences.
Even something as silly as the lame chemistry class jokes about how little water it takes to kill you try to hint at it.
Some of those problems can hide right inside the food we eat, the beverages we drink,
Or the things we think are safe because they sell them in a store.
Well watch out, extreme sports fans, neuro-hackers, and coffee-achieving gym-bros!
Because a team from UGA & Hong Kong is finding out that if you try to burn too hot, there might be consequences…
The Short Answer:
- Sometimes weird ingredients can show up in hidden places.
- Like all the stuff they put in energy drinks besides caffeine.
- American & Chinese teams studied 720k+ men from the UK Biobank.
- Men who consumed tyrosine regularly tended to live shorter lives.
- The reduction right now looks like 1 year less.
- The main source tends to be a) Energy drinks, and b) Protein.
- A few of the drinks have tyrosine but many also do not.
- Men also tend to get more protein in their diets.
- The researchers also speculated that diet could be an issue because protein is a precursor for tyrosine.
- Dopamine is the main downstream product, but so are forms of adrenaline.
- We know that high or prolonged Stress tends to age people faster and reduce their lifespans as well.
- The researchers don’t know for sure, but the adrenaline that comes from tyrosine could be the culprit, since it’s implicated in some parts of Stress.
- It may also be helpful to check your protein intake vs. general recommendations and make adjustments if necessary.
Read on to find out the details…
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Accelerating Through Experimentation Is Kinda What We Do:
But who could blame them?
Humanity has been aiming upward and looking to accelerate since the beginning of time.
Experimental biochemistry is just something we do, right? Like knowing, “That kind of mushroom is the one that killed Dave.”
And mushrooms aren’t the only chemistry-sets that will.
The Study Results Say, “Slow Your Roll There, Speed Racer!”:
In a study of just over 270,000 subjects from the UK Biobank, American & Chinese researchers looked into spooky aminos.
And their results on phenylalanine & tyrosine are nothing to sniff-at.
So after filtering them for all kinds of conflicts, the results showed that increased tyrosine levels were correlated with a shorter lifespan for men.
Even though it can come up in similar chemistry, the other amino was not.
So far, that reduction in lifespan is looking like at-least one year.
It’s All The Fault Of, “Starbucks For People Who Own Dirt Bikes”!:
The reason that’s significant is that tyrosine is a popular energy & focus supplement.
Not only that, but most people who take it get it in the form of energy-drinks.
The stealthy part of that is The Presentation and Branding!
Because it’s not quite as clinical and numbers-based as grabbing a bottle of pills and popping some.
It’s like just drinking a fancy soda with a cool “team” to belong to.
And “brand cliques” all appeal to mindsets much different than, “What are the long-term effects of this stuff besides the bit that’s like a coffee?”
Some Drinks Have Tyrosine, Many Others Do Not:
And on that note, here’s a resource.
A few of the main energy-drink brands that do have tyrosine in them are:
1) Gorilla Mind Energy
2) Life Pro Stamina
3) 5-Hour Energy
4) EHPlabs OxyShred
And a few of the ones that don’t:
5) RedBull
6) AlaniNu
7) Reign
8) Ghost
9) Monster
10) Celsius
(That being said, the ones that don’t have tyrosine probably have enough caffeine and b-vitamins to jump-start a P-51 Mustang in December.)
What Happens When You Enter “The Biochemistry Casino”?:
Still further-out from this is the general theme.
The “Biochemistry Casino” of vitamins & supplements.
For example:
400 IU of Vitamin E/day was correlated with a 19% increased risk for prostate cancer.
Excessive Vitamin D intake is associated with an increased risk of cataracts.
Supplementing with Vitamins A, C, E, & Beta-Carotene are associated with worse outcomes for the GI tract.
So if something as apparently-innocuous as a vitamin can be correlated with bad results,
What are supplements doing to you?
Maybe the clever doctors I know who tell you to just get all your vitamins and minerals from your food aren’t that wrong?
The Problem Could Come From A Side-Effect, Not The Main One:
And that’s where this study gets even weirder.
Because the researchers say they don’t know the exact mechanism or pathway that it takes for tyrosine to be associated with a shortened lifespan.
But they did hazard a few guesses.
Because it’s not only a precursor to the “Go Go!”-hormone, dopamine,
But also the, “Run like hell!” hormone adrenaline,
The researchers theorize that not only could it be implicated in insulin-resistance and the health-destroying visceral fat that it brings along,
But the adrenaline and noradrenaline that it increases could also be raising Stress levels for longer periods than normal.
And from the Stress Superpost, we know that it can really accelerate aging.
Protein’s Strange Role In Men’s Excessive Tyrosine:
The other angle they came up with is that protein is a big source of neurotransmitters.
And generally, men tend to get more protein on average.
They even recommended being more mindful of what your protein intake is, just in-case you might be a little bit on the high-side for your age range.
Just FYI, the USDA RDAs for most people (ie: minimum level so you don’t get sick) are:
1) Average sedentary person: 0.8g/kg of body-weight/day.
2) Moderate activity person: 1.3g/kg
3) Intense physical activity person: 1.6g/kg
Calibrating Your Intake And Protein’s Association With Lifespan:
But weirdly, people in early life and later life are often advised to get higher amounts than people in the middle of life.
And 1g/lb of body weight or more has been the rule-of-thumb for weightlifters and bodybuilders for awhile.
So maybe some fine-tuning is in order for some of us?
Because another weird citation the authors make is that strangely, some kind of protein reduction is also associated with a longer lifespan!
So I guess we all have a lot to be careful of out there.
The candle that burns twice as bright may not burn half as long, but some things we take for granted may come with a cost!
References & Links:
• Source: EurekAlert
• Source Study: Aging – The role of phenylalanine and tyrosine in longevity: a cohort and Mendelian randomization study
