From Anti-Aging Supplements to Over-the-Counter Healthspan Pharmacology: Evidence Domains, Functional Architecture, and Practical Boundaries

Elias Rubenstein

From Anti-Aging Supplements to Over-the-Counter Healthspan Pharmacology: Evidence Domains, Functional Architecture, and Practical Boundaries

Author(s)	Dr. Elias Rubenstein
Country	United States
Abstract	Over-the-counter (OTC) supplements are widely used in anti-aging, longevity, performance, and biohacking contexts, yet they are often discussed as isolated products, consumer trends, or unsystematic stacks. This creates conceptual confusion because non-prescription compounds may serve different biological roles: substrate optimization, muscle-brain energy support, redox modulation, metabolic flexibility, neuroendocrine regulation, structural support, gut-liver support, immune modulation, cognitive support, pain resilience, or advanced cellular signaling. This paper proposes a functional architecture of over-the-counter healthspan pharmacology. Its central claim is that anti-aging supplementation should be interpreted beyond minimum intake or deficiency prevention. Public-health reference intakes are useful for population-level sufficiency, whereas healthspan optimization concerns functional reserve within homeostatic limits. Functional reserve is operationalized here through measurable or observable domains such as muscle strength, lean mass, metabolic markers, cognitive performance, sleep quality, recovery capacity, inflammatory tone, gut-barrier function, pain resilience, immune resilience, and structural durability. The model organizes supplements into four layers: substrate optimization, functional performance support, cellular signaling support, and advanced optimization compounds. It further integrates intake architecture, dose architecture, medication-context alignment, interaction logic, food-context bioavailability, formulation quality, biomarker-guided use, phenotype-specific selection, cyclic strategies, and sequenced optimization. Representative compounds include creatine, omega-3 fatty acids, glycine plus N-acetylcysteine (GlyNAC), urolithin A, palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), allulose, L-glutamine, functional mushrooms, Astragalus membranaceus, and selected botanical or formulation-specific compounds. OTC supplements become scientifically meaningful when selected and organized according to biological role, evidence maturity, dose logic, timing, formulation, food context, medication context, biomarker response, phenotype, and functional goal. The central distinction is not supplement versus medication, but random accumulation versus organized biological optimization.
Keywords	over-the-counter supplements, healthspan optimization, nutraceuticals, anti-aging, dose architecture, supplement timing, creatine, glycine plus N-acetylcysteine, palmitoylethanolamide, allulose, functional mushrooms, gut barrier, biomarker monitoring
Field	Medical / Pharmacy
Published In	Volume 17, Issue 2, April-June 2026
Published On	2026-06-29

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From Anti-Aging Supplements to Over-the-Counter Healthspan Pharmacology: Evidence Domains, Functional Architecture, and Practical Boundaries

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