science reference page

I’m Dr Edouard Debonneuil, founder of London Longevity Clinic. After 25 years in ageing science, I distilled my favourite evidence-based nutrients into something joyful: LONDEVITY Chocolates, 4 a day-1 more day, no pills, no fuss. 

For those interested in science, details are below on the ingredients in these cocoa bites and the reported effects in scientific studies. You may order more at londevity.com Notice the “d”: a contraction of LonDon and LonGevity! 

I also invented Time Extension™, a biological-age test that checks grip strength, body composition and more. Want to know what is your biological age really is? Email customer@londevity.com for a free online bio-age check with me.

Here’s to tasting tomorrow—today.

Dr Edouard Debonneuil

Founder & CEO, London Longevity Clinic

LONDEVITY™ Chocolates – Nutrients backed by science

Four a day, one more day

STRUCTURE

• About one third is chocolates, 85% dark chocolate, specifically chosen to be higher in polyphenols and lower in heavy metals than most dark chocolates on the market.

◦ 85% means that 14.x% is sugar - but 99% chocolate felt too bitter to most, and in the powder we use ingredients that avoid the sugar spike. We tested it with blood glucometers, no sugar spike. Just taking a latte (coffee with milk) as an example creates a immediate sugar spike (milk contains lactose, which is a form of sugar)

◦ Note that the longest lived validated persons, Jeanne Calment (122 years, France) and Sarah Knauss (119 years, USA) were big chocolate eaters - indicating that chocolate is at least not bad for health.

• About two thirds is super food in the form of powder, described below. Why powder? Because it can stay years on the shelves without degrading.

• For texture, flavor and coloring, we add well-known little tricks from the food industry: a bit of potassium bicarbonate and citric acid for a mouthful contact, a bif of sunflower lecithin and silicon dioxide for a slightly creamy feeling, a bit of vanilla flavor for Hormones Harmony (this is a little sugar, really a little) and some food colorants dissolved in cocoa butter for the outside coloring.

◦ Good appetite!

SUPER FOOD - OUR ‘SECRET INGREDIENTS’ FOR LONGEVITY

• My favorites: glycine and cysteine. Part of what we call aging is likely in fact a lack of these two amino acids in the second half of life, and decades of studies (in diabetes and other chronic diseases and eventually aging and elderly homes) have shown that gradually restoring our reservoirs by oral supplementation reverses many aspects of aging that we thought were much more complex to address! : better mood, better immunity, better strength, better cognition, better balance. See Kumar et al, 2023. This is not well known yet in the media, because it is recent but having been in the field for 25 years, I can see we are here just a few years in advance of the trend.

• Vitamins, minerals and electrolytes. Electrolytes are a complex name for potassium and magnesium.

• Collagen

• Under the shell, amazing nutrients with respect to aging are in the shape of powder and lipid droplets, for a very long conservation. While longevity science is often associated with unknown molecules and gene therapies, these nutrients were chosen because they are impressive, as explained here after.

• To stabilize the powder and its adherence to the cocoa bite, avocado oil is used. This oil is high in oleic acid, the same heart-healthy fat found in olive oil, rich in vitamin E and antioxidants, blends well with chocolate, is well absorbed and does not melt too easily.

We offer two types of cocoa bites: one with strawberry notes 🍓, one with botanical notes 🌿.

Both have these common amazing ingredients: glycine, L-cysteine, taurine, tryptophan, natto powder, chia seeds, flax seeds, creatine monohydrate, bovine collagen, vitamin D, zinc, vitamins B-complex , magnesium carbonate. We explain hereafter why they are so amazing.

• Specific AMINO ACIDS (building blocks of proteins)

Amino acids are an important part of food, just like proteins are important. However, not all proteins are created equal and we here try to adjust protein types with the cocoa bites.

Glycine and taurine require a lot of energy to be produced, compared to other amino acids. This suggests that natural selection chose a tradeoff where we and animals do not make enough. Together with cysteine, these amino acids produce glutathione, the major antioxidant in our body. These are likely explanations of why eating about five times the typical intake of these ingredients was found to have profound elderly health and longevity benefits. We add tryptophan, known for mood, sleep, immune function. Some details are as follows.

Glycine alone has a small overall benefit:

As shown on the left, 8% of glycine in the diet of mice was shown to slightly increase their lifespan (Miller et al, 2029) and notably to reduce the incidence of some cancers. This, after it was shown to increase the lifespan of rats by 28% but on few animals (so, hard to say much) and improve many parameters (Brind et al, 2011).

 In people, multiple reports indicate that glycine in nutrition protects from diverse cancers and cardiovascular risks, improves sleep and mood (Razak, 2017). Also, genetic variations leading to produce more of less glycine naturally indicate that glycine is cardioprotective (Chang et al, 2021)

Cysteine unlocks the benefits of Glycine:

Also, as we see here, when transposing Sekhar’s protocol to mice, the mice lived 24% longer! (Kumar et al, 2022).

Cysteine and glycine are the main lacking ingredients for a strong production of glutathione (GSH), the main antioxidant in our body. From 2011 to today, Rajagopal Sekhar and colleagues reported that Glycine and Cysteine helped restore GSH levels in diabetes patients (Sekhar, 2011), then HIV patients (Nguyen, 2013), then elderly persons, with an impressive number of additional positive outcomes ranging from immune function, physical force, mood etc. (Kumar et al, 2023)

We hope to reach such benefits, reinforced with the benefits of other ingredients, with four chocolates a day.

Taurine and tryptophan:

Taurine is an intermediate from Glycine and Cysteine to glutathione. Taurine was believed to extend life in some studies, and to be neutral in other studies. The diverse results might come from the absence or not of glycine and cysteine (hard to say). In our case, a introduced a bit of taurine in the cocoa bites and a moderate intake of cysteine, to levels that match traditional food and permit a good taste (Cysteine is not particularly good in taste), while still a priori permitting to support glutathione function. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onkl2RDBP8c&t=620s

Tryptophan is good for mood. We added a bit of tryptophan (levels that are standard in food).

More to come – Write us for an updated version of this document! You really are a LONDEVITY pionneer! :)

• Natto

Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of cardiovascular issues, making it possibly our greatest enemy. The plaques are constitutive to human beings and can already start to be seen in arteries of children aged 5 or 10. Many things in food luckily help! - fibers, plant sterols and stanols, niacin, taurine, olive oil, omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants, minerals, methyl nutrients, soy (Torres, 2015) …and natto in particular! Natto is the name for fermented beans, a very popular dish in Japan, and contains nattokinase, an enzyme that has strong antiatherosclerotic and lipid-lowering effects (Chen, 2022).

Natto has benefits for multiple reasons, notably its vitamin K2 content, like any fermented food. Why is it good? This is described just after.

• Vitamins and minerals

We add vitamin D3 as most people lack it. Vitamin D3 goes together with vitamin K2 to facilitate that calcium goes to the bones and not the arteries. We add zinc, it goes well with vitamin D3 for the immune system (zinc helps the immune system almost immediately, vitamin D3 over longer periods). We add magnesium and vitamin Bs that most people lack. We add chia seeds and flax seeds as sources of omega 3 (ALA), their anti-inflammatory and appetite regulation properties.

More to come! Write us for an updated version of this document!

Precise proportions of certain ingredients are kept confidential due to formulation expertise.

🍓 Strawberry Notes – Ingredients

We add freeze-dried strawberry powder and cinnamon. High dose

🌿 Botanical Notes – Ingredients

We add fennel powder, curcuma, long pepper, fenugreek, shiitake, reishi, maitake, lion’s mane mushroom powders (fruiting body).

References

- Brind, J., Malloy, V., Augie, I., Caliendo, N., Vogelman, J. H., Zimmerman, J. A., & Orentreich, N. (2011). Dietary glycine supplementation mimics lifespan extension by dietary methionine restriction in Fisher 344 rats.

- Chang X, Wang L, Guan SP, Kennedy BK, Liu J, Khor CC, Low AF, Chan MY, Yuan JM, Koh WP, Friedlander Y, Dorajoo R, Heng CK. The association of genetically determined serum glycine with cardiovascular risk in East Asians. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2021 Jun 7;31(6):1840-1844. doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2021.03.010. Epub 2021 Apr 7. PMID: 33992511; PMCID: PMC10442847.

- Chen H, Chen J, Zhang F, Li Y, Wang R, Zheng Q, Zhang X, Zeng J, Xu F, Lin Y. Effective management of atherosclerosis progress and hyperlipidemia with nattokinase: A clinical study with 1,062 participants. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2022 Aug 22;9:964977. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2022.964977. Erratum in: Front Cardiovasc Med. 2022 Dec 05;9:1076420. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2022.1076420. PMID: 36072877; PMCID: PMC9441630.

- Kumar P, Osahon OW, Sekhar RV. GlyNAC (Glycine and N-Acetylcysteine) Supplementation in Mice Increases Length of Life by Correcting Glutathione Deficiency, Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Abnormalities in Mitophagy and Nutrient Sensing, and Genomic Damage. Nutrients. 2022 Mar 7;14(5):1114. doi: 10.3390/nu14051114. PMID: 35268089; PMCID: PMC8912885.

- Kumar P, Liu C, Suliburk J, Hsu JW, Muthupillai R, Jahoor F, Minard CG, Taffet GE, Sekhar RV. Supplementing Glycine and N-Acetylcysteine (GlyNAC) in Older Adults Improves Glutathione Deficiency, Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Inflammation, Physical Function, and Aging Hallmarks: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2023 Jan 26;78(1):75-89. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glac135. PMID: 35975308; PMCID: PMC9879756.

- Miller RA, Harrison DE, Astle CM, Bogue MA, Brind J, Fernandez E, Flurkey K, Javors M, Ladiges W, Leeuwenburgh C, Macchiarini F, Nelson J, Ryazanov AG, Snyder J, Stearns TM, Vaughan DE, Strong R. Glycine supplementation extends lifespan of male and female mice. Aging Cell. 2019 Jun;18(3):e12953. doi: 10.1111/acel.12953. Epub 2019 Mar 27. PMID: 30916479; PMCID: PMC6516426.

- Nguyen D, Hsu JW, Jahoor F, Sekhar RV. Effect of increasing glutathione with cysteine and glycine supplementation on mitochondrial fuel oxidation, insulin sensitivity, and body composition in older HIV-infected patients. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2014 Jan;99(1):169-77. doi: 10.1210/jc.2013-2376. Epub 2013 Dec 20. PMID: 24081740; PMCID: PMC3879663.

- Razak MA, Begum PS, Viswanath B, Rajagopal S. Multifarious Beneficial Effect of Nonessential Amino Acid, Glycine: A Review. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2017;2017:1716701. doi: 10.1155/2017/1716701. Epub 2017 Mar 1. Erratum in: Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2022 Feb 23;2022:9857645. doi: 10.1155/2022/9857645. PMID: 28337245; PMCID: PMC5350494.

- Sekhar RV, McKay SV, Patel SG, Guthikonda AP, Reddy VT, Balasubramanyam A, Jahoor F. Glutathione synthesis is diminished in patients with uncontrolled diabetes and restored by dietary supplementation with cysteine and glycine. Diabetes Care. 2011 Jan;34(1):162-7. doi: 10.2337/dc10-1006. Epub 2010 Oct 7. PMID: 20929994; PMCID: PMC3005481.

- Torres N, Guevara-Cruz M, Velázquez-Villegas LA, Tovar AR. Nutrition and Atherosclerosis. Arch Med Res. 2015 Jul;46(5):408-26. doi: 10.1016/j.arcmed.2015.05.010. Epub 2015 May 29. PMID: 26031780.