In recent time, there is an increasing research into human longevity, a prospect that aims at increasing the life and health span of man. One focal point of the coalition of these researchers is to make death an option, no more a finality. Well, with an exception: when it has to be involved with an accident. Spermidine supplement has since then gained an increasing acceptance and dominance among the populace, due to its anti-aging effects on living organisms.
What then is Spermidine?
Spermidine is a positively charged small organic molecule in the family of polyamines. Spermidine is composed of two or more primary amino groups. It derives its name from Sperm, from where it was first isolated. Since spermidine is positively charged, it reacts with negatively charged cellular constituents such as RNA, DNA, and proteins to modulate diverse cellular processes. Apart from spermidine, there are also other spermines which modulate cellular processes. Some of these spermines are putrescine, spermidine, spermine, and cadaverine.
Which foods contain spermidine?
There are several natural ways to increase your spermidine level. Some of these sources of spermidine are natural plant based products like dry soy bean, green peas, corn, mushroom and some vegetables like pumpkin. You can also increase your spermidine level by eating chick liver, shell fish, and blue cheese. In fact, most meat products such as sausages, pork, and turkey can help increase your spermidine level. However, among all these sources, dry soy bean and mushrooms seems to high spermidine sources.
Health benefits of spermidine
Spermidine is well known as an anti-aging natural supplement. As we age, several pathological changes in numerous cellular processes, including the shortening of telomere, disregulation of intracellular signaling pathway, and malfunctioning of the mitochondria, will begging to occur. It is at this time that we begin to witness organ failure and several health challenges, including the development of Alzheimer’s diseases and dementia.
Spermidine has been shown to possess anti-aging properties through the correction of all the cellular processes that result in aging and organ failures.
Spermidine promotes longevity by maintaining telomere length
In all the eukaryotic cells, telomere contain DNA repeats that caps the chromosomal ends. This DNA repeats get shortened on each mitotic cycle in all cells that are devoid of active telomerase because of problem involved in replication of the DNA repeats that caps the end of chromosomes. What spermidine does when taken, aside its other numerous functions, is to interfere with telomere attrition, thereby preventing the shortening of telomere. This results in longevity of the individual taking the supplement.
This claim has been hyposized and proved by scientific studies. This also may be related to the increasing demands and consumption of spermidine supplements, and food sources.
Spermidine improves your heart health
As we age, we are increasingly being exposed to cardiovascular related diseases, such as hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and cardiac arrest. Recent studies have however shown that increased dietary spermidine intake resulted in decreased systonic blood pressure, prevented cardiac hypertrophy. Spermidine can also reverse arterial stiffness and also restore arterial endothelial functions. It is also associated with the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the cardiocytes.
These studies show that if you increase the consumption of spermidine, or spermidine rich foods such as blue oyster mushroom, you would probably not suffer any heart related diseases.
Spermidine supplement causes weight loss
Obesity has been associated with impaired intestinal barrier function, and dysbiosis of the gut microbiota. Studies has shown that increased spermidine supplementation is inversely correlated with obesity. Spermidine causes significant loss of weight in both obese and normal person, and improves insulin resistance.
This improvement of obese condition is associated with the alleviation of metabolic endotoxemia, and enhancement of intestinal barrier function, which might be mediated through autophagy pathway and TLR4-mediated microbial signaling transduction.
Spermidine supplement improves Diabetes
Another health benefits of spermidine is with regards to diabetes. In both type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus, spermidine has shown to be an effective home remedy, and can work in synergy with other medications to fasten the healing of diabetes symptoms.
As an autoimmune medication, spermidine and, indeed other polyamines, such as spermines, improve autoimmune diseases through their autophagy inducement. Spermidine enhances the secretion of insulin from the beta cells of the pancreas, and also improves insulin sensitivity and tolerance. This probably results in enhanced utilization glucose.
Spermidine is a neuroprotective agent
Spermidine has been used to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. These diseases are usually caused by inflammatory responses and oxidative stress. They have also been reported to be associated with impairment or failure of protein degradation processes in the diseased cells.
Spermidine triggers neuroprotection through the activation of autophagy in those cells. Another study suggested that spermidine triggers autophagy and lengthens the lifespan through mTOR-independent pathway.
Spermidine supplement delays brain aging
As one ages, one’s brain also ages, accompanied with several degenerative disease due to oxidative stress and inflammation. Brain aging is characterized by cognitive dysfunction, neuronal loss and synapse loss. Spermidine improves cognition and learning. It also enhances the activities of superoxide dismutase enzyme, which provides primary defense against oxidation stress by scavenging free radicals.
Spermine has been proved to ameliorate age-induced neurodegeneration in an autophagy-dependent manner. Autophagy is a multistep process that includes initiation, membrane nucleation and phagophore formation, phagophore expansion, fusion with the lysosome and degradation.
Spermidine is beneficial for rheumatoid arthritis patients
Like other autoimmune diseases, Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can also be improved by spermidine supplementation. Rheumatoid arthritis is well characterized by chronic symmetrical synovitis and extra-articular disease. It can be caused by excessive proinflammatory mediators, which promotes RA pathogenesis.
In order to improve arthritic condition, spermidine can inhibit the activation of macrophages and exert anti-inflammatory effects through macrophages. In a study, Yang and colleagues demonstrated that spermidine can improve experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by regulating the infiltration of macrophages in the central nervous system, and by inducing the polarization of macrophages to the M2 phenotype.
Spermidine may alleviate joint swelling and synovitis inhibiting the polarization of macrophage to M1 phenotype, down-regulating the release of the pro-inflammatory factors IL-6, and IL-1beta.
Spermidine supplement improves fertility
Spermidine may improve fertility in both male and female through its activation of the production reproductive androgens. In women’s who are taking spermidine supplementation, it can improve their fertility by suppressing the effect of oxidative stress on egg production. Spermidine can also increase estrogen within required estrogen-progesterone ratio.
In men, spermidine has been found in semen, where it plays significant role in sperm generation. In infertile men, spermidine has been found to occur in tiny proportion, meaning that spermidine deficiency can impact negatively on male fertility. Spermidine supplementation may also result in condensed DNA in sperm due to its positive charge in the physiological condition.
Spermidine supplement for cancer
Spermidine has also been shown to be beneficial for treatment of cancer cells. It induces anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects on cancer cells through the activation of autophagy. In a study conducted on the effect of spermidine on cervical cancer, spermidine suppressed proliferation and promoted apoptosis of Hela cells. This effect was through the attenuation of LC3II/LC3I, Atg 5, Beclin, and BAX levels by the autophagy inhibitor 3-MA, which also enhanced the level of Bcl-2 in Hela cells treated with spermidine
These findings proved that spermidine supplements can be very helpful to cancer patients. However, in some other studies, spermidine supplements showed a contrasting effect on cancer cells. The studies showed that whereas spermidine exerts preventive effect on cancer cell development, it may promote cell proliferation and metastasis in developed cancer cells.
Spermidine promotes hair growth and prevent hair loss
Spermidine supplementation can help your hair grow long and remain healthy. It may also prevent hair fall and could be used in correcting alopecia and other hair disorders such as telogen effluvium. Spermidine promotes hair growth by stimulating hair shaft elongation and prolongs anagen.
Spermidine supplement promotes wound healing
When taken orally and topically applied on wounded areas of the skin, spermidine promotes would accelerate wound healing through the promotion of the uPA/uPAR pathway in wound sites. Topical application of spermidine also enhances the expression of IL-6 and TNF-alpha in wound sites, and also accelerates scratch closure and cell proliferation.
Spermidine supplementation promotes healthy skin
Spermidine supplements help you maintain a youthful, healthier skin structure, and improved barrier function. It promotes the production of collagen, elastin and lipids in older skin cells.
Spermidine may be behind older women have sex with younger men
There is this popular opinion among older women who prefer younger men; these women believes that the fresh and young blood of those younger men rejuvenates their life and makes them look youthful. This may could be explain with that fact that spermidine is highly found in semen. The concentration of spermidine declines as one ages, making the sperm of older men less likely to improve these women’s life as the younger fresh blood of the younger men would. As women reaches menopause, they prefer having fresh sperm for cellular refreshment rather than for reproduction.
Also, topical application of sperm on the face, as some women usually prefer, may improve facial skin health and youthful look.
How long does it take spermidine work?
Spermidine supplementation takes time to start working, as your body may probably take a longer time to adjust to increased levels of autophagy induced by your continued intake of spermidine supplements. If you are on a 1 mg per day supplementation, chances are that it may take at least a month to start seeing positive effects.
How many mg of spermidine per day?
In as much as spermidine possesses such numerous health benefits, it should not be abused, as this may result to several side effects. Therefore, 10 mg is an approved amount of spermidine you should take over day.
Does spermidine has side effects
When taking at the appropriate quantity, spermidine does not exhibit any known side effect. However, this does not mean you should abuse it. The best time to take spermidine is after dinner and about bed time. You may also take it in the morning before breakfast on an empty stomach.
References
Wang, I. F., Tsai, K. J., & Shen, C. K. (2015). Spermidine on neurodegenerative diseases. Cell cycle (Georgetown, Tex.), 14(5), 697–698.
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Atiya Ali, M., Poortvliet, E., Strömberg, R., & Yngve, A. (2011). Polyamines in foods: development of a food database. Food & nutrition research, 55, 10.3402/fnr.v55i0.5572. https://doi.org/10.3402/fnr.v55i0.5572
Sharma, Priyanka & Jaiswal, Rishi. (2021). SPERMIDINE MAINTAINS TELOMERE LENGTH AND DELAYS AGING. Central Asian Journal of Global Health. 2. 51. 10.47316/cajmhe.2021.2.1.08.
Ma L, Ni Y, Wang Z, Tu W, Ni L, Zhuge F, Zheng A, Hu L, Zhao Y, Zheng L, Fu Z. Spermidine improves gut barrier integrity and gut microbiota function in diet-induced obese mice. Gut Microbes. 2020 Nov 9;12(1):1-19.
Yang Q, Zheng C, Cao J, et al. Spermidine alleviates experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis through inducing inhibitory macrophages. Cell Death Differ. 2016;23:1850–1861.
Ramot, Y., Tiede, S., Bíró, T., Abu Bakar, M. H., Sugawara, K., Philpott, M. P., Harrison, W., Pietilä, M., & Paus, R. (2011). Spermidine promotes human hair growth and is a novel modulator of human epithelial stem cell functions. PloS one, 6(7), e22564. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022564.
Ito, D., Ito, H., Ideta, T. et al. Systemic and topical administration of spermidine accelerates skin wound healing. Cell Commun Signal 19, 36 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12964-021-00717-y
