Strawberries, Fisetin, Health, and Longevity

A few months ago I was talking to my friend Dan Pardi (founder of Human OS) at the 111 Minna 20th anniversary party. Despite the loud techno music, Dan and I got into a conversation about health, nutrition, and supplements (as we usually do). Dan told me about some interesting research on the compound fisetin (found in many foods, but especially high in strawberries). Just a few high doses of fistetin, fed to mice, improved health and significantly extended lifespan, even when given to older (middle-aged) animals.

Fisetin appears to be a senolytic compound, meaning that it prevents the replication of damaged DNA, thereby killing of damaged “zombie” cells that hang out in physical tissues, not doing their jobs but not dying either, instead sending out inflammatory chemicals that can injure nearby cells.

Fisetin also appears to bestow a number of other health benefits, including neuroprotection, and protection against various kinds of cancer.

Human studies, unfortunately, are lacking, and what works for mice and rats doesn’t always translate to humans. There is one small, high-quality human study currently underway with postmenopausal women. I’m curious to see the results.

Other Health Benefits of Strawberries

Berries of all kinds are widely acknowledged to be extremely healthful, and make frequent appearances in the diets of supercentenarians. Strawberries in particular may be helpful in the prevention of inflammation disorders and oxidative stress, reduction of obesity related disorders and heart disease risk, and protection against various types of cancer. Another study shows that strawberry powder reduced symptoms of IBD. While there are many health-promoting compounds in strawberries, including vitamin C and ellagic acid, fisetin is one of the more promising ones, and may be, as this article puts it, a “low-hanging fruit for aging.”

My Own Fisetin Self-Experiment

After reading several forums and blogs of intrepid life-extension seekers who were already doing or considering their own high-dose fisetin experiments, I decided to hop on the bandwagon. I purchased a bottle of Doctor’s Best Fisetin (30 x 100mg capsules) and took 500mg/day for three days. Kia decided to do the experiment along with me, so that was the whole bottle’s worth.

We didn’t really notice any effects.

I felt pretty good during those three days, but I didn’t notice any physiological changes. It’s possible that:

• the dose wasn’t high enough
• the fisetin wasn’t well absorbed
• the supplement wasn’t what it said on the bottle
• fisetin doesn’t work the same way in humans as it does in mice
• it “worked” by killing off senescent cells, but that didn’t correspond with any subjective experience

I’ll wait for human experimental data to come out before I try any additional self-experiments with fisetin. In the meantime, I’ll continue eating lots of strawberries — they’re delicious and there are many proven health benefits.

Instant Berry Sherbet

Here’s a yummy, high-antioxidant dessert I’ve made for my family recently:

Add the following to a food processor:
1C organic frozen strawberries
1/2C organic frozen blueberries
2T organic cream
2t maple syrup
1t vanilla
cinnamon to taste

Pulse/chop until thoroughly blended.

It’s a fairly flexible recipe — you could use stevia or a frozen banana instead of maple syrup, and vary the amounts of berries/cream/sweetener to taste. I’ve also tried adding a little bit of extra-virgin olive oil to give it a little bite, and if you didn’t want to use any dairy products I think 1T olive oil or coconut oil would substitute nicely (or no fats at all for a pure sorbet).