Can supplements really rescue your energy levels?

Late nights, summer socialising and disrupted sleep can leave energy levels depleted. The supplement industry has an increasingly sophisticated answer, but what can these products realistically do, and when does the science justify taking them?

There comes a point in a busy summer when tiredness begins to feel less like the consequence of one late night and more like a permanent condition.

Weddings, holidays, festivals, warmer nights and an overfilled social calendar can all interfere with the routines that ordinarily keep sleep and energy reasonably predictable. The temptation to find something capable of restoring that lost vitality is understandable, and it has helped create a substantial market for supplements promising to support everything from sleep and concentration to metabolism and healthy ageing.

But energy is also an area in which marketing language can easily run ahead of evidence.

DoNotAge.org, a health research, longevity and supplement company, has identified three products from its range that it says can support different aspects of energy, from sleep quality to cellular metabolism.

The first is SIRT6Activator®, priced at £69.30 for 60 capsules. The company describes the product as an activator of Sirtuin 6, or SIRT6, a protein associated with a number of cellular processes, and says activation can support mitochondrial function and energy production.

It is the sort of claim that illustrates how dramatically the language of supplements has changed. Where previous generations might have reached for a multivitamin, the contemporary longevity market increasingly talks about mitochondria, cellular pathways and proteins associated with ageing.

That sophistication makes scrutiny more important, not less.

DoNotAge.org also recommends SureSleep®, priced at £43 for a one month supply. Its formulation includes magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate, L Theanine and tart cherry, with the product intended to support sleep and, consequently, energy and focus the following day.

Of the three approaches, improving sleep is perhaps the easiest to understand intuitively. No supplement can compensate indefinitely for insufficient rest, and consistently feeling exhausted despite adequate sleep can warrant looking beyond the supplement cupboard altogether.

The third product is Ca AKG®, costing £39 for 60 capsules. Calcium Alpha Ketoglutarate is related to alpha ketoglutarate, a compound involved in cellular metabolism. DoNotAge.org positions the supplement around metabolic function, cellular energy generation and healthy ageing pathways.

The growing interest in compounds such as these forms part of a much larger shift in the wellness industry. Consumers are no longer being sold products merely on the promise of filling a nutritional deficiency. Increasingly, the proposition is optimisation: better sleep, greater focus, improved metabolic function and potentially healthier ageing.

That creates an obvious question. How much of what sounds impressive at a cellular level translates into a meaningful difference to an otherwise healthy person going about an ordinary day?

We asked the expert Hinton asked Alan Graves, Clinical Research Advisor and founder of DoNotAge.org, to explain why someone should consider taking SIRT6Activator®, SureSleep® & Ca-AKG supplement, what evidence supports their use and what consumers should realistically expect from them.

Alan Graves: SIRT6Activator®, SureSleep® and Ca-AKG target different aspects of healthy ageing, from cellular stress responses to sleep and metabolic health.

SIRT6Activator® is used in human clinical trials, it works mostly by reducing inflammation and reversing frailty in the body. It is currently a finalist in the XPRIZE competition (to prove reversing human ageing by 10 years).

SureSleep® introduces real dosages of magnesium and other very important ingredients for sleep, alongside tart cherry, which has been shown to improve sleep drastically in humans. SureSleep® was tested independently in real customers, and after only 3 weeks, 94% of those taking SureSleep® had more energy the next day after sleep.

Ca-AKG has been shown to reverse biological age (how old you are on the inside), and is an important part of the KREBS cycle.

The science is promising, but consumers should expect gradual support for health and function rather than dramatic immediate effects. Taking longevity supplements is a lifestyle change that compounds over time with daily use.

We also asked whether people should have any particular nutritional deficiencies or health factors assessed before beginning supplements intended to increase energy.

Alan Graves: Energy is a subjective measure so it can be different amongst different people, however everyone sees a dip in their NAD+ levels with age, and this is one of the key fuels for your body. NAD+ is vital to create ATP, which is the primary energy-carrying molecule found in the cells of all living things.

By the time you are 30 your energy levels will be naturally lower than they were at 20, and by 40 you are in a serious deficit. At 50 and beyond the story just continues to get worse, falling off a cliff.

The best advice is to eat whole foods (processed food will damage you), move your body everyday (moving your body tells your body to give you more energy), and take Pure NMN (this is the best way to increase your NAD+ back to youthful levels).

And perhaps most importantly, how can consumers distinguish between a genuine physiological benefit and the increasingly ambitious claims surrounding the longevity industry?

Alan Graves: Look for human clinical evidence, transparent dosing and realistic claims. A credible company should be able to explain what was measured, in whom, and how large the effect actually was. If a product promises to reverse ageing or dramatically extend lifespan based only on animal or laboratory research, consumers should be very sceptical.

Human clinical evidence is the key, however I have even more bad news. Even that is often flawed. 99% of supplements don’t have any human clinical trials to see if they work, mostly because they know that they don’t work, and it’s expensive to do clinical trials.

Then of the 1% that do have human clinical trials, 99% of those are carried out by researchers that are being paid to get a result, which is not real science. So for example a supplement company will say to a CRO (company that runs clinical trials) we want to be able to say that this supplement is good for your joints, then the CRO will change how the trial is run to ensure that the outcome is positive, for example changing wording of questionnaires and changing what is and is not measured.

This is why DoNotAge.org gives 100% of its profits back to longevity research, and gives the independent researchers free reign on the study designs. When you do a clinical trial, you want to find out what something actually does to the human body, and this should be without bias.

Those answers matter because persistent fatigue has many possible causes. Lifestyle and disrupted sleep may be obvious explanations, but tiredness can also have nutritional, medical or psychological causes. Supplements should not become a means of masking symptoms that deserve proper investigation.

For otherwise healthy adults looking at the category, the sensible starting point remains considerably less glamorous than the language of cellular optimisation: adequate sleep, a balanced diet, hydration, regular movement and sensible management of alcohol and late nights.

Supplements may sit alongside those foundations. They should not be expected to replace them.

The longevity industry is attempting to take supplementation into considerably more complex scientific territory. That makes it interesting, but it also raises the standard of evidence consumers should expect.

After all, the important question is not simply whether a compound does something inside a cell.

It is whether taking it meaningfully improves your life.