Anti-aging »

The most exciting news in life extension science’s short history is the discovery that fully dissolved C60 (Buckminsterfullerene) in extra virgin olive oil has very potent anti-aging properties. Less than a milligram per pound of body weight, administered only 24 times over roughly a ninth of the lifespan of the treated rat, will make some rats not only live up to nearly twice as long – all “Bucky”-rats became much older than all non-treated rats, and all C60-treated rats remained in good health throughout their lifes. Where it is normal that rats die of tumors or pneumonia in old age (the control group of genetically identical rats did so), the rats that had been given C60 (“buckyballs”) dissolved in olive oil died of the general effects of old age, instead of succumbing to the diseases typical for a rat’s final stage of life. C60 is a totally natural substance. Chimney soot and the ashes of a forest fire contains it.

The scientists mention in their study that no substance in medical literature – they were perhaps not aware of Spermidine – has such an extreme life-prolonging effect as Buckminsterfullerene: C60 dissolved in extra virgin olive oil. The oil by itself only added three months to their lifespan. Rats are the most popular animal as subjects for medical tests not only because they are easy to keep, small and cheap, but also, contrary to popular belief, if something works on a rat, it is a rule of thumb that it also works on a human. And if something is toxic to a rat, it usually is toxic to humans too. You can put a rat to sleep with “human” sleeping tablets, get it drunk with alcohol, sedate it with opium and poison it with cyanide, so rats are not at all unlike ourselves from a basic biological point of view. They need the same vitamins as we do and they suffer from the same old age ailments and aging effects as we do – telomere shortening, oxidative stress, glycation etc. It has been found that fullerenes increase the lifespan and enhance the growth of 4 classes of simpler organisms as well, so the effect appears to be universal for all life.

Fullerene C60 greatly increases the lifspan of rats, even though they were given a mere 24 doses, most with a long interval, starting when they were already ten months old, comparable to being around 25 years old in human terms. If we allow ourselves to extrapolate to humans, a person would need 1000 doses to achieve the same effect. It is of course highly questionable that a human being would benefit as much as a rat, rats having a much faster metabolism than we have. Although lab rats (and people) may live even longer when dosages are modified, or when the C60 fullerene is administered more often. And the rat study is not a fluke – a similar C60 study on mice reported not just an increased lifespan – also very greatly improved learning and memory. Very old mice (near end of life) performed as young mice (6 months old).

C60, when properly prepared, appears to be a true miracle drug – at least in rats so far. But also mice with familial ALS lived longer, when given a water-soluble derivative of Buckminsterfullerene. C60 protected mice against gamma radiation, by improving their damaged immune system and mitochondrial function. Whereas all mice in the control group died, 73% of the C60-mice were still alive after one month. As with many inventions of great benefit to mankind, this one came as a complete surprise. The purpose of the study was to establish an LD50 dose. Instead, they discovered that rats given C60 were all still alive when the entire control group had died of natural causes. C60 is a very extraordinary molecule. It is known as Buckminsterfullerene or “bucky balls” because it is nearly a perfect sphere, reminding of the geodesical structures which the genius Buckminster Fuller patented. Many soccer balls are accurate molecular models of C60. If you would place a carbon atom where the vertices meet eachother, you’d have C60.

C60 is an amazing molecule in many respects. As a crystal, it can be harder than diamond. It is a superconductor at temperatures substantially above absolute zero. It is a 271 times more powerful antioxidant than vitamin C, and it preserves salmon twice as long as vitamin E does. It is so liver-protective that rats, pre-treated with a high dose of C60 and then injected with a normally lethal hepatotoxic chemical, suffered no adverse effects and their livers looked normal, wheras the control group died rapidly due to massive liver failure. And perhaps the most mysterious property of C60: It behaves both as a wave and a particle. Even though there is yet relatively little known about the medicinal effects of Buckminsterfullerene, it is already known for its multi-faceted cardiovascular health effects.

If we were religious, we would be tempted, with the information we have about C60 dissolved in olive oil at this time, to call fullerene C60 a “miraculous elixir of life”. If we believed in voodoo, we would call it a “magic immortality potion”. But we are scientists, so we decided to manufacture and sell the exact same product: Highly purified C60, fully dissolved in extra virgin olive oil. Stirred for two weeks, centrifuged and filtered just like the solution in the original research. People are already buying C60 and dissolving it at home in olive oil and taking it (an unwise thing to do due to the nanoparticles that have to be removed with specialized equipment) and they’re already claiming beneficial effects.

We spent a lot of time researching possible toxicity issues and, finding none, decided to start selling the C60 life extension product soon. We are equipping our lab to produce the buckyballs-in-oil solution, with equipment such as a stirrer that can handle viscous solutions and stir them for weeks at a time, a centrifuge that can handle relatively large quantities of product and centrifuge it with 5000 g, a vacuum pump with filtration glassware and filters and a microscope to verify that there really are no nano-particles left in the end product, because C60 nanoparticles can be toxic. Contrary to C60 suspended in water, fully oil-dissolved C60 has no toxicity whatsoever – on the contrary, as twelve “Methuselah rats” testify to. A Japanese research team found that oil-dissolved C60 was non-toxic in any dose. The interesting aspect of their study is that the C60 they administered to the mice was polluted with nanoparticles (undissolved C60) and that did not have a negative effect on the mice: “All doses, even the lowest dose of 0.1 mg/ml, did not completely dissolve in corn oil, and included visible and invisible residues..“. The rats were given particle-contaminated C60, up to 1000 mg/kg with no ill effects. So the jury is still out on the toxicity of nanoparticles. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not, depending on many factors, such as their size and shape. Carbon nanotubes can damage DNA by piercing the cell nucleus (Pantarotto et al., 2004a; Singh et al., 2005; Lovat et al., 2005; Foley et al., 2002; Goho, 2004; Hoet et al., 2004; Lam et al., 2004), so it is important to use a source of C60 without CNT contamination.

The researchers said that their batch of C60-in-oil kept remarkably fresh for the entire duration of the experiment. They tested several bottles of the product monthly during all those years, to verify that the C60 remained in solution and did not precipitate nanoparticles into a suspension. This indeed did not take place, but neither did the oil get rancid, not even after having been kept for several years. The C60 prevented the peroxidation of the oil. A liter of olive oil can reportedly at most dissolve 909 mg of C60 at room temperature, but there are other oils that can take a larger amount. Clove oil holds the record with 3.8 g/l at room temperature (Russian study). Linolenic acid is also a better medium to dissolve C60 in, but we will remain true to the original rat study and not tamper with any parameters, because it is not even known whether the health benefits come purely from the C60, or whether the C60 merely acts as a vehicle to bring long chain fatty acids into the cells. Or whether there is a synergy at play. We will not go higher than 0.8 mg/ml because with saturated concentrations, when the temperature drops, the C60 will  precipitate and form nanoparticles. We filter the solution with a 0.22 nm filter to remove nanoparticle. This fine filtration also removes all bacteria from the product, because the two-week stirring stage, even though done in a capped, boiling-water sterilized, alu-foil wrapped erlenmeyer at low temperature, still holds a small risk of bacterial contamination.

It is not yet known why C60 prolongs life and prevents cancer and the diseases of old age – at least in rats. That this is a fact – at least in rats – is beyond doubt, as the statistical likelihood that this was all a strange coincidence is nigh impossible. When the last rat in the control group died, all rats in the C60 group were still alive – and they kep on living – for a very long time. None of them died of the tumors the control group died of. They maintained a body weight normal for rats in their prime. For all practical purposes, they simply stayed younger for longer. Even though there were only twelve rats getting C60 (6 orally and 6 peritoneally), the fact that all those got amazingly old can not be a coincidence. The study calculates the probability that a rat gains an extended lifespan on olive-oil-diluted C60 as 0.999, or a 99.9% likelihood.

The team considered four possible reasons why C60 has such a profoundly positive effect on life expectancy, and after rejecting three, they concluded that it was most likely that C60 protected against the damage done by free radicals. We are sceptical towards accepting this explanation, since there have been countless trials done with antioxidants on rats, none gave even a remotely comparable result as C60. There must be something else hitherto undiscovered about this unique sphere-shaped molecule. C60, when dissolved in olive oil and ingested orally, gets absorbed and the C60 mulecules become distributed – albeit in small concentrations – throughout the body and intracellularly, even beyond the blood-brain barrier in minute amounts. There could be myriads of modes of action that we have no idea of yet, because the origial study was merely a toxicological study, a LD50 study, so no investigations of any kind have yet been done to establish fullerene C60′s mode of action in prolonging mammalian life. All we have are wild guesses, and all we know is that this is so far the only substance known to man with an extreme negative toxicity. The rats in the study were only treated for seven months, so it appears likely that there is some kind of cumulative effect at work. Most of those seven months, they received only occasional doses, in the end only once every two weeks. A possible mode of action could be that C60 resets the mitochondria to a younger age.

Fullerene toxicity is a relatively new field of interest since fullerenes are been added to cosmetics, albeit in infitesimal amounts. More would be a costly affair because C60, the simplest and most “perfect” fullerene, is priced – retail in low quantities – roughly the same as gold, gram-for-gram. But then they can still legally put “Buckminsterfullerene” on their fancy labels, which cost sometimes more to produce than the product in the jar. Lawmakers wanted to know whether fullerenes could somehow be harmful to the environment. And the pharmaceutical industry is very interested in their potential use and toxicity as well. Plenty of toxicity trials have been done and it is now known that fullerenes C60 and C70 cause bad side effects and toxicity when they are ingested as nanoparticles only. This happens when they are suspended into water, as opposed to dissolved in oil. So it’s important to dissolve the buckyballs fully and filter out any stubbornly remaining nanoparticles. C60 does not dissolve in water, so all watery suspensions of C60 are toxic. Chemists have designed and created modified versions of the C60 molecule, with a skippy-ball like “handle”, so that that protruding “handle-molecule” with its hydrophillic end facilitates the solution of the C60. However, also these modified fullerenes are more or less toxic, so far. Medicines are usually more toxic than the natural substance they are based on.

Another problem with fullerene C60 is that solvents are used to dissolve, extract and purify them. Some of these solvents, such as Tetrahydrofurane, are highly toxic and some of them are not. An initial suspicion of fullerene toxicity was later deemed to be the result of this solvent, not the fullerene itself. Such solvents can remain locked (typically 1% to 3%) into the C60 crystal matrix and only sintering under a vacuum can remove most of it, so it is important to use non-toxic solvents, and/or properly remove them, in the production of C60 (products) for human use. Our C60 has been purified using Ethyl acetate – a low-toxicity solvent used in decaffeinating coffee, and naturally present in fruits and wine in very much higher concentrations than our C60, in which only molecular traces remain, after drying in a vacuum oven.

Big Pharma is working to patent a water-soluble designer-fullerene and sell it extremely expensively as a life-extension drug. They will have little trouble persuading the FDA, their enforcer, to ban all other natural fullerenes for being “toxic”, just like the FDA still claims natural Stevia is “toxic” but they allow synthetic Stevia to be sold as the Truvia brand. C60 is naturally produced by camphor flames so they can’t patent it. Camphor is widely used in Hindu religious ceremonies. Hindus worship a holy flame by burning camphor, which forms an important part of many religious ceremonies. Camphor is used in the Mahashivratri celebrations of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and (re)creation. As a natural pitch substance, it burns cool without leaving an ash residue, which symbolizes consciousness. Big Pharma “assumes” that only water-soluble Buckminsterfullerene will be bioavailable, but that’s a ruse to rake in the dough on a patented and trademarked, monopolized drug for the happy few. The cell walls are lipids and lipofullerene (C60 with adducts of the long-chain fatty acids of olive oil) therefore is readily absorbed by the cells and ends up where it is most needed – provenly in the mitochondrial bilayer membranes, where it will neutralize ROS (reactive oxygen species) like no other molecule, because C60 can function as an antioxidant in all perpetuity, it is not “used up” by performing its antioxidant action because it can capture high-energy electrons all the way up to Beta-radiation level, reduce their energy in the C60 matrix and drain them by electrical instead of chemical means.

Although Big Pharma benefits more by people being sick, instead of living a long life in extraordinary health. Big Pharma wants to embed medicines into fullerenes. They don’t seem to be interested in using fullerenes to keep people healthy. It would be the first time.

We’ll start selling 8 mg of 99.95% pure C60 in 10 ml of Turkish extra virgin olive oil for $9,-. For that price you get high purity, the absence of harmful solvents and guaranteed no nanoparticles. Cost of daily supplementation will be 30 dollars a month if one takes our recommended daily dose of 1 mg/day. Turkish olive oil has nearly the same high percentage of long chain fatty acids than Tunesian oil, and Italian oil is reported to be clandestinely cut with cheaper oils so we’ll give it a wide berth and use the best ecological Turkish oil. Mixing should be done in the dark, so we’ll use aluminium foil around the erlenmeyers. 8 mg would be sufficient for approximately a week of daily dosing for the average adult, if we use allometric scaling to the average adult human, and if that human takes a smaller daily dose, instead of taking two weeks in between, as eventually done with the rats. There is no data on what the optimal dose is, or the lowest sufficient dose. It may be much lower than the dose used in the rats. The researchers were trying to poison them to death with C60. If you’d want to take the rat-equivalent dose of the study, you’d need to take 3 mg/day every day, but we advise taking 1 mg because it is unlikely that the therapeutic dosage would be identical to the dosages used in a LD50 study. More importantly, is is unlikely that the large doses used in the LD50 trial would be fully absorbed. Better absorption happens when smaller dosages are taken more frequently. People are already experimenting with home-brewed C60 solutions and one chronically ill person took 2 mg for two days and reported a near-instant (four hours after ingestion), pronounced increase in energy and stamina:

As I’ve only been taking it a few days, I’m a bit reluctant to mention the results, but what the hell. Just take this with a saltshaker of salt. I’m just one person with a certain medical history, and these are essentially single data points…

Background. I’m 60 years old and fifteen to twenty pounds above my ideal weight. Ten years ago I could run three miles to the gym, work out for two hours, and run back. Then I made the mistake of taking statins for high cholesterol. After some months I realized I was being chemically poisoned, so I stopped. My recovery was slow and incomplete. Years later I still suffered from it, but PQQ was a big help. The effects were noticeable in two days, and reached a plateau in one week. Still, I couldn’t run more than 100 yards without feeling I’d run a marathon. I couldn’t get enough air. Residual mitochondrial damage, in my thinking.

Then, four hours after ingesting 2 mg of C60 in olive oil, I went running. And kept on running. My god, I could breathe! The next day was the same. I ran a mile and a half, and I hadn’t done that since before Crestor. The effects seemed too quick to be the result of mitochondrial biogenesis, but it must have something to do with the mitochondria.

This is the analysis report of our Buckminster fullerene (average the two channels’ purity results to obtain 99.947%):