Spermidine: Does the “Anti-Aging” Nutritional Supplement Really Work?

It is found in mature cheddar cheese and mushrooms, in potatoes, lettuce, nuts, apples, pears and cream cheese, whole grain products and wheat germ: spermidine. We take in up to 15 mg per day, depending on what we eat. Perhaps the polyamine (molecules that cells need to survive and grow) would hardly be on our radar if it weren’t called spermidine, precisely because it was first detected in semen, of all things. And when it was shown in 2020 for the polyamine with the slippery name that it can stop the aging process in mice, it was a celebration for all those who dream of eternal youth: why peel, cook and eat potatoes when there is spermidine as a dietary supplement in the form of a pill or powder there?!

However, a new study is now spitting salt in the spermidine (nutritional supplement) soup: For this purpose, the Institute for Nutritional Medicine in Lübeck examined whether taking spermidine led to measurable changes in the blood and saliva and whether endogenous metabolites, i.e. chemical intermediate products, actually occur , are produced that work in the body. The examination was carried out in two intervals of five days each and a nine-day break. In one of the two phases, the subjects received 15 mg of spermidine for five days in a row, in the other a placebo. Over the course of these days, blood and saliva samples were taken and examined and analyzed for changes.

professor dr Martin Smollich is a specialist in nutritional medicine and heads the Pharmakonutrition working group at the University Hospital in Lübeck. In an interview with MDR WISSEN, he summed up the results of the student research in a nutshell: “You can take spermidine, but it doesn’t actually get into your body.” The blood and saliva evaluation of the study only showed that the spermine concentration in the plasma increased during the days on which 15 mg of spermidine were taken. spermine? Spermine is simply a waste product created when spermidine is broken down in the intestinal cells. Therefore, according to Smollich, the conclusion from the study is the hypothesis that the additional spermidine taken orally is already metabolized by the body before it can even have an effect in the body. Although the researchers in their paper do not rule out that the 15 mg dose of spermidine may be too low to actually leave traces in the saliva. But Professor Smollich also says: “The 15 mg dosage in the study was already very high compared to the dosage in food supplements. It’s usually only about 2 to 6 mg.”

But what about all the spermidine powders and capsules that promise anti-aging effects, hair loss relief, heart protection? Smollich’s answer is short and sweet: “That’s nonsense.” But many products explicitly point out that the body’s own spermidine production decreases with age, for example. “That’s correct in itself,” confirms the researcher, adding: “But with age, almost all bodily functions change, such as protein metabolism, hormone production and body composition.”

But what happens when the body produces less spermidine? Is there something like a spermidine undersupply or spermidine deficiency symptoms? No, says the scientist and explains: “Spermidine is not an essential vitamin that has to be ingested with food and for which a deficiency can be measured in the blood. Rather, our body can produce spermidine itself, and therefore there is no reference range and none Intake Recommendations.” But how did such promising but apparently ineffective products come about in the first place? “It’s just a typical business model,” says the researcher: “A substance is tested in the laboratory on cells or mice and shows some kind of effect there. This laboratory data is then used for marketing. But that doesn’t mean that it’s also in the laboratory Humans works because many test substances cannot be absorbed by the human body. Our spermidine data are a good example of this.”