Fountain of Youth 2022

This is my journal of the incredible events I experienced starting 1st Oct 2021. Read about what happened, a theory possibly explaining how and why it happened and how this may be replicated by others.

Above: Before = 8XL shirt, 116KG. After = 87KG, "M" shirt now fits but wearing 4XL shirt here. Before buying a new wardrobe I'm waiting until my weight stabilizes.

Something happened to me starting 1st Oct 2021 and although 21st March 2022 seemed to mark the end of a phase, I'm still feeling the effects now. To some it may look like a miracle. I provide one possible explanation of how this event happened and invite discourse. The last documented "Fountain of Youth" event took place in early 1500s. The concept of "pH" or "potential of hydrogen" wasn't introduced until 1909 by the Danish chemist Soren Peder Lauritz Sorensen at the Carlsberg Laboratory. And so I believe that those that experienced this effect in the 1500s, simply did their best to describe its wonders with the knowledge and language of the day. Obviously, that wasn't sufficient for others to replicate ongoing. Today in 2022 it's a different matter. And so I present full details of my recent experience and leave it up to others to attempt replication as well as further exploring the science behind this phenomenon. This time, it doesn't rely on a natural body of water that ultimately changes or dries up. Mine was man made. While I can easily describe the changes both physical and mental that I have been through, detailing what has been happening inside me I'll leave up to medical experts armed with modern medical imaging equipment etc. If I were to hazard a guess, I would suggest that it's something to do with removal of arterial plaque. Let's just see if this turns out to be true.

One concern that I do have is that my low kidney function actually has been an enabler, that others with "normal" kidney function may not be able to experience the effects I describe below. Again, time will tell.

What is required? A combination of warm alkaline water exposure to the skin plus the existence of particular nutrients in the blood. What worked for me involved bathing in body temperature water at PH 8.4 to 8.8 range, after absorbing large amounts of citric acid in the form of AMLA powder, BHB (beta-hydroxybutyrate), copious garlic, tumeric and a bunch of other foods many of which are generally recognised as being "good for health". There may be other requirements that I happen to satisfy, all that I can say is that I'll mention all the things that I consider may have been involved and leave it up to others to include or not in their own replication attempts. Intermittent fasting 20/4: fast for 20 hours, feed for 4. Repeat daily. Diet is strictly WFPB (Whole Food Plant Based) raw no oil, 1000mcg of B12 daily, one drop of iodine daily (I add to my AMLA/BHB as my drinking water). If you crave fish, have a small tin of salmon, but no more than one daily. Have walnuts and/or Flaxseed daily for the Omega-3. Intense exercise is essential. So is avoidance of smoking, drinking, drugs etc. It also seems to be critical to maintain low stress levels as well as regular changes of spa water, be that partial or full changes.

I'm 63yo, been disabled from 2007 with full time live in carer for last five years. That said, the only disabilities lingering now seem to be my missing kidney hasn't come back yet (tic), I still get some meniere's disease symptoms and I still have presbyopia and astigmatism. Organs enlarged by ADPKD (kidney, liver) have shrunk back seemingly to normal size, although this needs verifying via scans. In any case I am no longer in pain due to enlarged organs. Because of the existence of a 6cm RCC in my right kidney, the right kidney had to be removed in Oct 2020. Because of my ADPKD, my kidney function dropped to levels approaching that in the "prepare for dialysis" range (eGFR=24). When first diagnosed with ADPKD decades ago, I was told I should live to 65. That was when I still had two kidneys. I was desperate to live longer than this.

I watched the above video from Dr Thomas Weimbs (Santa Barbara Nutrients) in mid 2020 about how ADPKD may be reversed through diet. He eventually got to sell a "food medicine" based on his discovery that in rats reversed ADPKD quite effectively. This happened as recent as Nov 2021. His product wasn't available at the time in Australia, so I sourced the ingredients from those locally available. AMLA and BHB powder. It still required a lifestyle that tended to lift blood pH and I recall Dr Weimbs suggesting 6.5 is great (for urine PH). Well, I got a spa (hot tub) going 1st October 2021 and for some unknown reason, instead of setting up water PH to 7.4 like the documentation said, I added alkalinity increaser to get it up to PH 8.4 and proceeded to use it daily (often multiple times) and usually for an hour at a time. Because I was already exercising regularly and usually followed by spa sessions, all the things necessary for this biological process to take place happened.

Right from the very first day of spa use, I noticed that my recovery time from intensive exercise was greatly reduced. It went way, way beyond anything I had heard of, experienced or expected. At that time, I was able to maintain a routine of cycling 4.8KM every second or third day. I could and did go further some days, it just wasn't sustainable without incurring injury. After just a week or two, instead of feeling ready for another 4.8KM ride after 2.5 days, it would be just 2 days. Then I'd occasionally ride two days in a row (no rest day). Then I had longer rides. Faster rides. My average speed increased from around 20kph, and hardly a day would go by without me setting some sort of personal record, and in the early days, there would often be multiple. I'm currently riding up to three sessions daily, each 19.7KM at average 28.5kph, although my record is over 30kph for that distance. I even added lights and regularly go for a night ride around 7PM. But the effects I got went beyond just fast recovery from exercise. My resting heart rate dropped, hitting lows in Jan 2022 of 33 bpm measured over 2 minutes, and 28 bpm instant. I once tried my original ride loop of 4.8KM, but this time keeping speeds down to 13kph. My average heart rate base-to-base this time was 59 bpm, even with a total of something like 80 metres climbed. These were totally not expected. I never get an injury or feel even the slightest pain from these activities now. I believe that if I stopped using the spa, that would no longer be the case.

Above: My favourite bike (I now have a spare), this one purchased Sep 2018.

At 63yo, if I was reasonably healthy and fit, my max heart rate is supposedly 220-63 = 157. But I'm now doing 162 bpm easily just breathing through my nose (mouth closed). On 7th April 2022 I found I was able to maintain 135 bpm just breathing through my left nostril, holding right nostril and mouth closed. I've read that whatever heart rate you can handle while nose only breathing, should be approx 70 percent of your true (biological) maximum. So going by that, mine would be 162/0.7=231. But wait, max heart rate is supposed to be 220 minus your age, so that would mean my age is MINUS eleven years?? Hours after this particular ride, my heartrate was back down under 38 bpm.

Okay next things get even more freaky. I was enjoying riding much more. I really started feeling younger again. I mean seriously younger. I would put everything I had into accelerating from a traffic light, just as I used to do when a young teenager. I had passion again. This wasn't coming from huge muscles, it was coming from adrenalin, which seems to flow so much easier now. I've had a problem with my high frequency hearing since 1979 when I started working at RAAF Base Amberley. I got my high frequency hearing back in early March, and I can now hear clearly and I can tell what direction sounds are coming from, even with eyes closed. I seem to remember everything. I think clearly and I learn much faster. I think much, much faster and I'm ahead of people, even the checkout people at Aldi lol. Previously, I couldn't tie my own shoelaces or even put shoes on. I simply wasn't flexible enough and my enlarged organs meant bending over was very painful. I had a shoehorn with long handle which I needed every time I needed to put shoes on. No more. I couldn't trim my toenails, I would always ask my carer to attend to these. Certain bathroom duties I couldn't perform but now I can. I'm flexible, vibrant, love life which takes me to one truly amazing finding. I LOVE people! Young or old, male or female if I sense the love/trust in them the love just happens. If I sense mistrust, I'm okay with simply moving on rather than confront. I know how this sounds, but I swear it is true.

One of the tools that assisted in accelerating this process was a pH meter. I used it to test my urine, every time I peed. The goal was to increase urine pH as much as possible. I was already off to a good start with my WFPB lifestyle. But using the pH meter, I lifted my urine pH eventually to a little over pH 8.1, very rarely dipping under 7.5. Before I fine tuned my diet/lifestyle by using pH meter, it was between pH 6.5 and 7.0, occasionally dipping to 5.2. I've recently gone through a period of high stress, and during this my urine pH was in range 6.0 to 7.0. As of 23rd April 2022 it's getting up around 7.2 to 7.3 at times and I know that I have a lot more stress to get out of my life still. I believe that I will eventually return to the 7.5 to 8.1 pH range (the sooner the better).

I got to seeing what made it decrease and what made it increase. Of all the things in my life that changed my urine pH, sessions in the spa easily had the most positive effect, although this was at a time that I was not experiencing high stress levels. It appears that stress levels have an even stronger (inverse) effect on urine pH meaning that with higher stress levels comes lower (more acidic) urine pH levels. And so what followed was a journey of discovery that then on 15th March 2022 lead to working out that what I had experienced was remarkably close to that described as "Fountain of Youth".

As I've come to understand through research, as pH in fluids (eg blood) change, so does the bond intensity of calcium to other molecules/elements. What we are doing is setting up the conditions under which calcium releases its current bond (in the case of reversing ADPKD, it would be mostly calcium oxalates) and instead bonds to citric acid in the kidneys, allowing it to be urinated out. This was already done by Thomas Weimbs of Santa Barbara, California and the process described in his videos, but the target in his research was kidney cysts. By exposing all of my body to alkaline water in the spa, I believe that the effect meant to happen in polycystic kidneys, happened in other areas of my body as well. This is theory, not a claim.

The above youtube video helped me in further understanding how a combination of high pH exposure and citric acid in blood could remove some calcium compound formations, in this case stones from the kidneys. Again, the key difference is that I exposed my entire body to high levels of alkalinity in idyllic conditions and over extended periods of time.

Above is a scientific journal that I found useful in exploring the effects of pH on various calcium compounds.

Above provides a summary of the PKD work of Dr. George Tanner, who was one of the first to observe the connection between use of citrates and the slowing down or reversal of renal cysts.

Above is my weight chart over last 12 months. The sharp drop from 115KG happened 1st October 2021, the day I started using my new spa. See the next sharp drop, around mid March 2022? That's when I did a "dose dependency" test. My weight had pretty much levelled off at 92.2KG, so I then further increased spa water pH to around 8.9. A week later, my weight was 88.8. I bottomed out at 86.4KG in early/mid April but then high stress took hold and I'm back up to 89.7 as at 23rd April 2022. I expect (and hope) stress levels to decrease however the important thing here is the connections between weight and the things that tend to affect it. It's a well known fact that it's harder to keep the weight off as one grows older. And so if aging can be reversed, is the opposite true, does weight just fall off?

Above is where my resting heart rate bottomed out in Jan 2022. It rose to around 41 with high stress levels in early to mid April, but now as at 23rd April 2022 my RHR has decreased to 36. Once stress is further decreased (I'll have go get past this publishing stage first) I'll be quite interested to see just how low my RHR goes. I'm not sure yet whether I'll keep growing grey hair forever or whether I'll get color back. I do wonder now, what is the real reason that we get grey hair, and how is it that some people have hairs that have bands of grey, with color each end?? Is grey hair just normal hair with calcium added? If we clean out the excess calcium will that bring about nice dark hair again? Can't wait for the answer on that one.

Above is a screenshot taken in Feb 2022, of "intensity minutes" as measured in Garmin system and my Fenix 6 watch. Note the "Goal" is the Garmin default, 30 minutes of activity five times per week for a total of 150 minutes. During times of intense exercise (heart rate significantly raised) each minute counts as two. And so if one ran for 30 minutes five times a week, the total intensity minutes would be 300. Note the intensity increase from 1st Oct 2021. Virtually all of these activities in which intensity was measured (based largely on heart rate) were cycling activities and mostly around my local suburb (Leichhardt QLD Australia). I have a functioning dashcam on my bike, perhaps recorded footage may be useful at a later date.

Replication is needed. You'll need a spa/hot tub, preferably of the type that requires very little chlorine. If your spa has an ultra-violet water sanitizer that's likely to be the case. This should be mostly about the pH of the water, the temperature and lack of strong chlorine. I'm currently looking to get a replication attempt going in someone else, at my residence and using my spa. Anything I learn I'll probably log in a future article.

I'm so excited at having finally published all of this information and look forward with anticipation for others achieving similar results.

Testing it for yourself!

Just as with any test/experiment/study that involves humans, work with your health practitioner. You may be introducing your body to things that under certain health conditions may be dangerous or even fatal. In this regard your doctor will best know if this is okay for you to proceed. Also, note well that the pH values I mention are of still unknown accuracy. Although I have two pH meters and have calibrated both recently, they were not expensive. Caution advised!

First, you will need a spa / hot tub, however I do concede that a simple bath may suffice although the practicality of maintaining both the necessary pH and temperature of water over periods of hours at a time makes this a doubtful long term solution.

A pH meter is essential, you will be using it to measure your urine pH regularly. Your goal is to make lifestyle choices that result in raising your urine pH. I found that just a cheap Chinese made "5 in 1" meter worked quite well and so I bought a spare of similar. Get the kit that comes with calibration powders / fluids. Although I also have urine test strips in the photo, I find these are weren't really needed, at least for me. For getting the spa/bath water to the optimal alkalinity, you will likely need "sodium bicarbonate" (also called "buffer" at pool and spa shops) and perhaps some pool acid if you ever need to bring pH back down. pH levels of 8.4 to 8.8 has worked well for me. If the spa water starts looking cloudy even when filters are clean, it's time to refresh the water itself. Change all or just some.

What you eat and drink is about to come under a microscope. Fortunately, if and when you get it wrong will at most times be reflected in your urine pH and generally surprisingly quickly. I expect most people to have a urine pH in the range 4.2 to 7.5. You will be aiming to get that up to and maintain in range 7.4 to 8.0. I've gone over a bit at 8.1+ on two seperate days. I didn't notice any issues, but I don't recommend attempting to get any higher. Early on, you will likely find it quite a struggle to raise your urine pH and keep it alkaline. Fortunately, as you progress with tuning your lifestyle choices this will get easier. If you like your meat / dairy / alcohol / tobacco / social drugs, this may fall short of being practical for you. If on the other hand you are already living a relatively clean lifestyle (perhaps non-drinking, non-smoking vegetarian with regular walks) then this should be entirely possible for you. It will take time and dedication. I will remain available for Qs, and you have your pH meter for guidance as well. Listen to your body, shut off the TV and radio. Pay the youtube premium subscription and avoid the adverts.

Diet: Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB), optionally with a small portion of fish (tinned salmon I know is fine) if and when you have a craving for it. Do this a maximum once daily. Once you get the rest of your diet in order, these cravings should disappear. You may crave other forms of animal protein such as chicken/beef/dairy, my experience has been that consuming significant portions of these regularly makes achieving high urine pH a near impossible task. Achieving your goal isn't about the strongest link. It's about the strength of the weakest link. But you'll see that for yourself over time as you get feedback from your pH meter.

There are a few particular plant foods that I consider are essential for success. In order these are currently: Garlic, salsa, tumeric, possibly ginger, onion, other spicy foods including chilli, bell peppers, black pepper, mustard powder. I use a good dose of apple cider vinegar in my one daily meal. For protein I generally add beans and/or lentils. "Baked Beans" probably isn't the healthiest source of plant protein but it does work for me. I find that for good brain function I need at least two slices of grain bread daily for the carbs, however steel cut oats may be a better choice for many. If you stick close to Dr Michael Greger's suggestions at NutritionFacts.org, it will make this journey so much easier.

Above: ingredients diced, mixed and ready for microwave. My usual is to have this with 2 to 4 slices of grain toast. I have 2 to 3 pieces of fruit daily as well, trying to mix them up a bit. Apples, stone fruit, citrus mostly.

It's important to note that the ingredient in garlic that is of interest in this is "Allicin" which is destroyed as soon as it gets into your stomach, and also that it is available for only 16 hours after disrupting the cloves of the plant. As it seems so important, I both have a whole bulb freshly chopped in my daily meal, plus I eat a clove just before exercise and near spa times, making sure to spend considerable time chewing as this is when the allicin has the opportunity to be absorbed. Be careful as really fresh garlic can give you a strong burning sensation. Tiny bites at a time. I would recommend against using pre-ground garlic, although it may taste okay I doubt that you'll get reasonable efficacy going this route. Your tolerance for garlic will increase in time and you'll find that you can easily chew one or even two cloves fairly quickly without the burning sensation.

Drink: Water is okay to drink, but most of the time I have filtered water with a drop of iodine, a half teaspoon of AMLA powder and a half teaspoon of BHB. The particular "BHB" I have been using successfully is "Sierra Fit Keto BHB" as you can see above. The inclusion of regular AMLA consumption is critically important, or at least the citric acid is, but then AMLA is such a great source of this I really wouldn't bother with searching for alternatives. Eating fresh citrus fruit is nice and there is no harm in doing so, but you won't get sufficient citric acid going exclusively this route.

While no longer consuming animal products, you need to take very seriously, the need for supplementing B12. Omega-3 may be derived from Walnuts or Flax seed. I use both. For B12, I take two 1000 mcg tablets, one of methylcobalamin type and one of cyanocobalamin type. I do this because of my low kidney function. Others are probably quite okay with just the cyanocobalamin B12 1000 mcd/day. It is interesting to note that B12 requirements increase "with age". We'll be reversing age. Go high with this one, you'll pee out any you don't need.

Note, although it's obvious this is a "Soda Stream" bottle, I don't carbonise it (adding of CO2 gas under pressure). I had a few of these bottles unused and they work well for me for my regular drinking fluids.

Coffee, tea: I don't have a good handle on this yet. They may be quite okay. Green tea is likely the better choice but that's mostly coming from what I have learned at NutritionFacts.org.

Exercise: Again I must warn that you should consult your health practitioner before making any dramatic changes. The goal is to exercise to a point that makes you puffed (you can no longer breath just through your nose) and maintain that for a period or periods of time. If you get pain anywhere, head for the spa. In any case when you complete your exercise, time in the spa should quickly follow, but also ensure that you have at least some allicin in you still (less than 16 hours since you last absorbed from garlic, onions etc). This is also a time that you should increase your hydration using the AMLA/BHB/water mixture. I generally drink one litre of this mixture per hour in the spa. For every minute you spend doing intense exercise, you should spend one to two minutes in the spa combined with allicin/hydration suggested above. I realise that most spa companies suggest that you spend no more than twenty minutes in any session. My average spa session is 50 to 55 minutes, and since 1st Oct 2021 I've averaged perhaps two to three sessions per day and sometimes more. If you skip on anything, skip the exercise. Don't skip time in the spa, as this is where you recover and rejuvenate and where the age reversal itself happens. Everything else is setup. This is how you can avoid injuries through over exercising. This obviously potentially impacts on how many other things you may achieve in a day, from the time spent in spa alone. I purchased "Shokz OpenRun" bluetooth earbuds as they can handle exposure to spa water just fine. Listen to music, podcasts etc. Feeling good during your day is important. Like, critically important. It's tied in with evolution itself. As you achieve success, you will find that you need to keep taking your exercise up to "the next level". Again, if you are able to maintain nose-only breathing during your exercise, you need to take it up a notch. If you get the formula at least as good as I did, in roughly six months it will require a heart rate that previously would have been "over your limit" in order to "get puffed".

Spa water: Use sodium bicarbonate and acid to achieve the target pH, and have water temperature at something comfortable for you but ideally very close to human body temperature (~37 degrees Celsius). This has the effect of maximising the blood flow to near skin surface. The more intense your exercise and the closer in time that you can get exercise with time in spa will further increase the alkaline effect of the spa water on your blood. You will almost certainly want to go and urinate within an hour of entering the spa session. If you don't, it means that you have not consumed sufficient AMLA/BHB/water mixture, assuming your kidney function is not even more pathetic than mine. Always have a bottle of fluids to drink at hand during spa sessions. You may see white froth on top of your urine when you collect it for testing. I'd love to say now what I think it is, but probably best at moment to just wait for proper scientific analysis. I expect that you will see the froth and probably in the spa water around the edges as well. Note however that due to my very low kidney function, there could be another explanation. I am certainly interested in hearing observations from others trying this.

Update 12th April 2022: On 10th April 2022 I attempted successfully, to further increase my maximum heart rate during a ride. Last time I got it up to 162 while nose breathing. This time I did normal breathing and took heart rate up to 165. For the first time in quite a while, I was actually starting to breath rapidly. I was puffing! It didn't last long though, just a few seconds really and Garmin rated the ride as : Anaerobic: 1.1 out of 5, aerobic: 2.3 out of 5. 1.1 is more than double the highest anaerobic effort rating I've had during a ride for months. In fact, over 90 percent of the time anaerobic rating was 0.0 out of 5 in spite of getting heart rate into peak zone multiple times during the rides. I remember in 2021 when this figure was around 2 to 4 out of 5, but rapidly decreasing. 11th April 2022 I made a rest day, I plan to further increase max heart rate in todays ride. Unfortunately, the stress of publishing this information has greatly increased my stress load, ultimately resulting in my urine pH seldom rising above 7.0.

Update 23rd April 2022: Since around 20th April 2022 I have been exposing my open eyes to the high pH spa water for prolonged periods. The theory here is that doing this may reverse the effects of ageing on the eyes, and this for me includes both presbyopia and astigmatism. There seems to be some improvement already however what's needed are eye tests done regularly by professionals. I'm currently looking to satisfy this.

In the following series of images, I present stats from three rides, the first 12th Sep 2020 (left chart), the second 26th September 2021 (middle chart, just before commissioning the spa) and the second 20th April 2022 (right chart):

12th Sep 2020 26th Sep 2021 20th Apr 2022

12th Sep 2020 26th Sep 2021 20th Apr 2022

12th Sep 2020 26th Sep 2021 20th Apr 2022

12th Sep 2020 26th Sep 2021 20th Apr 2022

Apart from the obvious increase in general fitness, the thing that really stands out here is the anaerobic fitness gained from 1st Oct 2021. Time spent with heart rate 142 and upwards was 2 seconds for first ride, 29 seconds for second ride, and a whopping 16 minutes and 14 seconds for third! Note that for 20th Apr 2022 ride, Garmin has actually changed my heart rate zones, peak zone now starts at 158 and I'm guessing max is something above 173. I know I can push a lot harder with increasing my heart rate during activities but I'll wait until my stress levels get down a bit more before attempting that.

Witness accounts:

Many thanks to my first witness, Tina Harada!

“I’m Tina Harada, Glens full time live in carer from July 2017 to March 2022 and partner as well from Jan 2021.?Being with Glen 24/7 for last five years, I would be the #1 witness for the events that Glen describes.?As incredible as his story sounds, I can assure you that his description is accurate.?It has been my reality, daily.?I saw him go from near deaths door, to healthier and fitter than people half his age.?I was there for every weight measurement.?I monitored his bike rides live on the Garmin LiveTrack system, sometimes multiple times per day.?I watched as his resting heart rate dropped below 40s with regularity.?There are two reasons that I have just moved out.?Firstly, Glen no longer needs a carer.?Second, while our calendar ages are near identical, our biological ages are now decades apart and that’s all due to the changes in Glen.?I’m not sure where all this will lead, but I for one am very excited about the future.”

Tina Harada, 6th April 2022, Australia.