Enjoy Life Longer: Biohacking Key Hallmarks of Aging with Healthy Fats

The idea of slowing down the process of aging used to be considered science fiction. But thanks to scientific advances, researchers are better understanding precisely how our bodies age – and how we can target these hallmarks of aging to enjoy life longer.

Let’s start by understanding how we age.

How aging works

Our bodies build and build until we reach about 30 years old. Unfortunately, after that, we start degrading. Aging-related breakdown starts with our cells, and this process can be defined by key hallmarks of aging, like:

• Cellular senescence. Our cells become more fragile as we age, resulting in the premature loss of cells, also called cellular senescence. As we get older, we are caught in an increasingly difficult game of trying to compensate for these prematurely dying cells. The end result is the onset of chronic, aging-associated conditions.
• Mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells that generate the critical energy every cell needs to properly function.  When we get older, mitochondria do not work as well, which results in the breakdown of our organs' functions (think, heart, brain, and liver) with age.
• Altered intercellular communication. You know how frustrating it is when your Wi-Fi goes down? Well, our cells get equally frustrated when signaling goes down between our cells as we get older. And when cells are unable to communicate with each other, our metabolism, immunity, sleep, mood, and appetite can all be negatively impacted.

Other hallmarks of aging include genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, and stem cell exhaustion.

Now that the scientific world is understanding how we age, the next steps have been to identify what can slow or stop these hallmarks of aging to keep us healthier, longer.

How fatty15 targets the aging process

Our studies support that fatty15, containing a pure powder form of C15:0 (aka FA15^TM) specifically targets three hallmarks of aging.

C15:0 (also called pentadecanoic acid) is an odd-chain saturated fatty acid present in trace levels in butter and whole fat dairy products, as well as some fish and plants. A growing body of science supports that C15:0 is an essential fatty acid that we need to sustain health. Which means that without adequate C15:0 levels, we may not be able to maintain an optimal healthy state.*

Fatty15 can help fight against aging-related breakdown by:*

• Improving cellular resilience. As sturdy dietary fatty acid, C15:0 integrates into our cell membranes and serves as an armor for our cells to keep them healthy and protected.  Our studies support that daily supplementation with fatty15 can protect our cells against early death, including an 80% improvement in cellular stability, resulting in functioning cells that live longer. 
• Repairing mitochondrial function. Mitochondria can break down with age due to errors in Complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, preventing energy to be generated through the factory line of Complexes I, II, III and IV. Our studies have shown that fatty15 helps to rescue the respiratory chain to keep our powerhouses working, including a 45% improvement in mitochondrial function.
• Restoring cellular signaling to regulate metabolism, immunity, mood, sleep, and appetite. Fatty15 naturally binds to receptors, called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) α and δ, that are present throughout our body, including our brain. PPAR activation and subsequent cellular signaling can become impaired with aging, resulting in imbalanced metabolism, immunity, mood, sleep and appetite. By naturally activating PPARα and PPARδ, fatty15 helps to get your aging cells’ Wi-Fi back up and running. This explains why up to 88% of fatty15 consumers have reported improved mood, energy, sleep, and/or decreased snacking between meals.

I get that fatty15 can target aging processes. What are the data around longevity?

While our science has demonstrated how fatty15 can stem aging-related breakdown, there is also evidence of C15:0's potential evolutionary role in helping longer-lived animals live longer. Like what?

• First, higher dietary C15:0 intake has been linked to lower mortality.  A large-scale study involving over 14,000 individuals showed that people who had less C15:0 in their diets had a higher risk of mortality over a 14-year period.
• Second, fatty15 targets three hallmarks of aging. We covered the hallmarks of aging in the above section, but it is important to note that these hallmarks drive both health with aging and longevity. 
• Third, fatty15 supports a theory explaining why some animals live longer than others. A researcher named A.J. Hulbert found that longer-lived animals have cell membranes that contain more saturation of fatty acids compared to shorter-lived animals. He postulates in his Membrane Pacemaker Theory of Aging that increasing the saturation of fatty acids in cell membranes decreases an individual’s risk of oxidation, which enables that individual to live longer. In fact, a separate research group found that long-lived worms had significantly higher C15:0 compared to shorter-lived worms. By increasing the amount of fatty acid saturation in cell membranes, and tapping into an evolutionary trick that helps longer-live species live longer, fatty15 can help make your cells (and you) more resilient against the stressors of aging.

Okay, those are some pretty cool points about how fatty15 and aging. Anything else? One more interesting fact: It ends up that our C15:0 body levels decline as we age, which (given all the points above) may play a role in our aging-related degradation.*

By replenishing C15:0 body levels that can decline with aging, fatty15 can target key hallmarks of aging to help delay your aging-related breakdown, maintain your general health, and optimize how long-lived mammals live longer.* What you decide to do with that extra healthy time is up to you.

Read the science 

For a summary of peer-reviewed and published science on C15:0 (pentadecanoic acid), including our studies in Scientific Reports demonstrating how C15:0 targets hallmarks of aging, as well as related longevity research, please click here.