We’ve refined Protocol X: here’s what changed, and why

Protocol X®  V4 is the biggest reformulation we’ve made since launch – and the most considered. Some ingredients earned a higher dose, some earned their place for the first time, and some were removed. Our CEO and co-founder Shantanu Kumar explains the reason behind every change.

Why we’ve updated the formula

When we built Protocol X®, the goal was to cover as many dimensions of healthy aging as a single daily sachet could hold. Three years, a lot of new research, and thousands of customer conversations later, we went back to the blueprint.

Protocol X has been our flagship formula since launch. We built it with our Scientific Advisory Committee of independent and in-house longevity scientists, and promised to keep updating it as verified evidence comes in.

It’s also the anchor product our Biological Capital (BIOCAP™) framework is built around, and the one we’re best known for, so we don’t update it lightly. 

Every ingredient has to answer the same question: does the current clinical evidence support this ingredient at this dose, for the job we’re asking it to do? And is it the best ingredient for that job?

For this latest update (the fourth since we launched), some ingredients earned a higher dose, some earned a place for the first time, and some were removed. Not because they weren’t effective, but because the formula needed a sharper focus on the longevity and performance pillars that matter most.

We also listened to your feedback. The original formula was stabilizer-free – an approach we believed in, but one that gave us quality and consistency headaches with this many active ingredients.

This version fixes that: a tangy citrus flavor, better stability. Here’s the thinking behind those decisions.

Five pillars, not six

The old formula spread across six areas. The new one focuses on five, and every ingredient has a clear job, with some ingredients working on more than one.

Energy, Vitality and Endurance – your energy system. Mitochondria are the small structures inside your cells that turn food and oxygen into usable energy. This pillar keeps that system supplied and working, and supports physical performance: NMN (400 mg), creatine (3,000 mg), taurine (2,000 mg), calcium alpha-ketoglutarate (500 mg), CoQ10 (50 mg) and PQQ (10 mg).

Cellular repair – your maintenance crew. Cells constantly break down worn-out parts and rebuild them, a process called autophagy. That housekeeping slows with age. Glycine (1,000 mg), spermidine (5 mg), ergothioneine (5 mg) and urolithin A (200 mg) support it.

Immune resilience – your defenses. Vitamin D3 (1,000 IU) and vitamin C (400 mg) support the immune system’s day-to-day function. Both keep their previous doses. For vitamin C, a review of placebo-controlled trials found that taking it regularly shortens colds by around 8% in adults. It didn’t reduce how often most people catch one, though it roughly halved that rate in people under heavy physical stress or cold exposure.¹

Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protection – your shield. Quercetin (200 mg), fisetin (100 mg) and astaxanthin (4 mg) help limit the oxidative wear that accumulates from stress, pollution, UV and normal metabolism.

Metabolic and cardiovascular health – your internal balance. This pillar looks after how your body handles sugar and fats and how your circulation holds up over time. Four ingredients that also contribute elsewhere in the formula work here: taurine (2,000 mg), spermidine (5 mg), urolithin A (200 mg), and fisetin (100 mg).

What’s missing is deliberate. Cognitive support now lives in NEURO X, which is built entirely around it, and joints and structure are covered by Joint Recovery. Both matter enough to deserve a formula of their own, at full strength.

What we added

Four ingredients are new to Protocol X.

Urolithin A (200 mg)

Mitochondria wear out, and healthy cells recycle the damaged ones in a specialized kind of recycling called mitophagy, which slows with age. You don’t get urolithin A directly from food: gut bacteria make it from compounds in pomegranates, walnuts and berries, and not every gut does this efficiently. That’s part of why supplementing it has drawn so much research interest.

The human research is encouraging but early: small trials lasting weeks to months, at 250 to 1,000 mg a day, all above the 200 mg in Protocol X.

• Muscle strength. In a placebo-controlled trial in middle-aged adults, four months of urolithin A improved hamstring muscle strength by about 12%, though the trial’s main measure, peak power, did not change significantly.²

• Cell recycling. In older adults, four weeks shifted the activity of the genes muscle cells use to recycle and rebuild mitochondria.³

• Immune cells. In healthy middle-aged adults, four weeks showed only a small shift toward younger, less worn-down immune cells.⁴

• Where it started. In animals, urolithin A triggered this recycling, extended lifespan in worms and improved muscle function in rodents.⁵

So why include it at 200 mg? Not to recreate the trial results. Urolithin A is here for one job: supporting the recycling of worn-out mitochondria. It sits in the same pathway as glycine, spermidine and ergothioneine, each approaching cell repair in its own way, and the thinking is that they complement one another. That’s the logic behind the formula, not a result from a trial. We’ll keep refining it as the evidence grows. 

For the full evidence, read our companion post, Does Urolithin A Actually Work? What the Research Shows. 

PQQ (10 mg)

PQQ (pyrroloquinoline quinone) is a compound made by bacteria that reaches us in trace amounts through foods like natto, green tea, parsley and kiwi fruit. If urolithin A clears out worn mitochondria, PQQ helps with the other half of the job: building new ones. So far, the best evidence is from cells and animals, where PQQ switched on the signals a cell uses to make more mitochondria.⁶

The human studies are small. In ten healthy adults, three days of PQQ lowered two blood markers of inflammation,⁷ and in a 12-week placebo-controlled trial, healthy volunteers improved on leg strength, grip strength and walking tests.⁸ Both used about 20 mg, twice our dose. At 10 mg, PQQ plays a supporting role alongside NMN and urolithin A, so we judge it by the job it does in the formula, not by those results.

Fisetin (100 mg)

A plant flavonoid, found in strawberries and apples among other foods, that works as both an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory. It sits in the antioxidant pathway alongside quercetin and astaxanthin, each working in a different way, and it also contributes to the metabolic and cardiovascular health pillar. Our 100 mg matches the dose used in a small human trial of patients undergoing cancer treatment, where one inflammatory marker came out significantly lower than placebo.9

Astaxanthin (4 mg)

The red-orange pigment that gives salmon and krill their color. They get it from eating microalgae, and ours comes straight from the source: a microalga called Haematococcus pluvialis, not a marine animal. It is an antioxidant. At this dose, matching a 23-person trial exactly, it was associated with greater UV tolerance, less UV-related moisture loss and better self-rated skin texture.¹⁰

What we increased

Creatine: 2,000 mg to 3,000 mg. This is the biggest dose increase. The International Society of Sports Nutrition recognizes 3 to 5 g daily as the effective maintenance range for supporting muscle function, and recovery.¹¹

Taurine: 1,000 mg to 2,000 mg. A meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials found that taurine significantly lowered blood pressure, fasting glucose and triglycerides.¹² Those trials used 0.5 to 6 g a day, so 2,000 mg is well within that range.

Glycine: 500 mg to 1,000 mg and spermidine: 1 mg to 5 mg, both supporting the cellular repair pathway.

CoQ10: 30 mg to 50 mg and ergothioneine: 3 mg to 5 mg, supporting the energy and cellular repair pathways respectively.

What we removed, and why

Focusing the formula meant letting go of ingredients that sat outside the core longevity and performance pillars, or that could not be dosed effectively within a single sachet. The aim was not a smaller formula. It was a formula where every line on the label earns its place.

Cordyceps: Studies showing a benefit use 1,000 mg and up, and we had 400 mg. Raising it wasn’t workable in a sachet, and we’d rather remove an ingredient than carry it at a dose we can’t stand behind.

TMG / Betaine: Its main use, lowering homocysteine, needs 3,000 to 6,000 mg a day, which isn’t achievable in a multi-ingredient sachet.

Collagen VC-H1 and Hyaluronic Acid (both removed): These sat outside Protocol X’s longevity and performance focus. For joints and connective tissue, Joint Recovery is the more targeted option.

L-glutamine, phosphatidylcholine, sialic acid and the whole food complex came out as part of the same simplification.

Being straight about doses

Not every ingredient in Protocol X has the same weight of evidence, and you should know which is which.

Some are anchor ingredients, backed by human trials at or near the dose in the sachet. Others play complementary roles within their pillar, supported by mechanistic evidence or trials at higher doses. Here are the main ones in each group.

The anchors:

NMN (400 mg) sits within the 300 to 900 mg range tested in a 60-day randomized controlled trial, which found a significant, dose-dependent rise in blood NAD+ versus placebo, plus improved walking distance. It found gains leveled off from 600 mg and didn’t test 400 mg directly.¹³

Creatine (3,000 mg) sits within the 3 to 5 g daily range recognized by the ISSN as effective for supporting muscle function and physical performance.¹¹

Vitamin D3 (1,000 IU) sits at the top of the 400 to 1,000 IU daily range, where a large meta-analysis of respiratory infection trials saw protective effects. The overall benefit was modest, and the analysis could not confirm that dose made the difference.¹⁴

Fisetin (100 mg) and astaxanthin (4 mg) match their trial doses exactly, though both trials were small.⁹,¹⁰

The main supporting ingredients are: CoQ10, PQQ, ergothioneine, urolithin A and spermidine. They are in the formula for the role they play in their pathway. Where our dose sits below the one used in the research, we say so.

Spermidine (5 mg) sits between the 3.3 mg and 6 mg daily doses tested in two small human pilot studies.¹⁵,¹⁶ In one, a 12-person study with no placebo group, some biomarkers linked to healthy aging and autophagy (the cell’s recycling process) changed. In the other, a safety-focused pilot in 40 older adults, autophagy-related gene activity rose in one type of immune cell. Neither tested health outcomes, so spermidine’s place here rests mostly on mechanism, which is why we list it with the supporting ingredients

That distinction is not a disclaimer tucked into the small print. It is the standard we hold ourselves to.

What to look for in any longevity protocol

Whether you choose Protocol X or something else entirely, four questions do most of the work.

Check the dose, not just the ingredient list. An ingredient at a fraction of its studied dose is an unproven ingredient, however impressive the research at the full dose.

Look for pathway thinking, not ingredient counting. A formula built around how biological systems actually interact beats one built by stacking whatever is trending.

Ask whether it has ever changed. A formula that never moves is not keeping up with the research.

Expect honesty about the limits. No formula can do everything. A brand that tells you where its evidence is strongest, and where it is mechanistic rather than outcome-proven, respects your intelligence.

Protocol X as the foundational BIOCAP protocol

Protocol X is the broadest protocol in the XANDRO range. It is designed to cover the foundational biological systems that shape how you age, recover, and perform, in a single daily sachet.

It isn’t meant to replace targeted protocols. NEURO X addresses cognitive function. Sleep On supports sleep quality and the stress response. Joint Recovery covers connective tissue and joint health. Protocol X is the base layer those sit on top of.

Fifteen ingredients. Five pillars. One sachet. That’s the refined Protocol X.

Also in this series

→ Does Urolithin A actually work? What the research shows

→ Can you take Urolithin A and NMN together?

Frequently asked questions

What changed in the new Protocol X formula?

The formula is now built around five biological pillars instead of six. Four ingredients are new – urolithin A, PQQ, fisetin and astaxanthin. Creatine went from 2,000 mg to 3,000 mg, taurine from 1,000 mg to 2,000 mg, glycine from 500 mg to 1,000 mg, spermidine from 1 mg to 5 mg, CoQ10 from 30 mg to 50 mg and ergothioneine from 3 mg to 5 mg. Several ingredients were removed to sharpen the focus. The taste is now a tangy citrus, and stability has been improved.

Why was urolithin A added?

It supports mitophagy – the process cells use to clear out worn mitochondria and replace them. That process slows with age, and urolithin A has been shown to influence markers of it in people. It also complements what was already in the formula: PQQ has been linked to building new mitochondria in lab studies, and NMN helps fuel the ones you have.

Why were collagen and cordyceps removed?

Cordyceps could not be carried at a dose the research supports – effective studies use 1,000 mg and above, and we had 400 mg. Collagen and hyaluronic acid sat outside the longevity and performance focus of the new formula. For joints and connective tissue, Joint Recovery is the targeted option.

Can I take Protocol X with other XANDRO products?

Yes. Protocol X already contains 400 mg of NMN, so you usually don’t need a separate NMN product. It is designed to stack with targeted formulas like NEURO X, Sleep On, and Joint Recovery. If you take prescription medication, speak to your healthcare professional before combining supplements.

How long before I notice anything?

Some people report more energy within the first few weeks, though everyone is different. Exercise, diet, sleep and stress management still do the heavy lifting, and no supplement replaces them.

Will it taste different?

Yes: tangy citrus, zero sugar, sweetened with monk fruit. The color and consistency have changed too, thanks to the new ingredients and better stability and mixability.

Is Protocol X Halal, vegan, and gluten-free?

Protocol X is gluten-free and vegan – we use vegan-friendly vitamin D from lichen and astaxanthin from microalgae. It is Halal-friendly, not Halal-certified, at this time.

This article is for general educational purposes and is not intended as medical advice. This product is a health supplement and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Consult a qualified health professional if you’re pregnant, nursing, have a medical condition, or take medications.

References

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2. Singh A, et al. Urolithin A improves muscle strength, exercise performance, and biomarkers of mitochondrial health in a randomized trial in middle-aged adults. Cell Rep Med. 2022;3(5):100633. DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100633

3. Andreux PA, et al. The mitophagy activator urolithin A is safe and induces a molecular signature of improved mitochondrial and cellular health in humans. Nat Metab. 2019;1(6):595–603. DOI: 10.1038/s42255-019-0073-4

4. Denk D, et al. Effect of the mitophagy inducer urolithin A on age-related immune decline: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Nat Aging. 2025;5(11):2309–2322. DOI: 10.1038/s43587-025-00996-x

5. Ryu D, et al. Urolithin A induces mitophagy and prolongs lifespan in C. elegans and increases muscle function in rodents. Nat Med. 2016;22(8):879–888. DOI: 10.1038/nm.4132

6. Chowanadisai W, et al. Pyrroloquinoline quinone stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis through cAMP response element-binding protein phosphorylation and increased PGC-1alpha expression. J Biol Chem. 2010;285(1):142–152. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M109.030130

7. Harris CB, et al. Dietary pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) alters indicators of inflammation and mitochondrial-related metabolism in human subjects. J Nutr Biochem. 2013;24(12):2076–2084. DOI: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2013.07.008

8. Shiojima Y, et al. Efficacy and safety of a novel dietary pyrroloquinoline quinone disodium salt on muscle strength and physical function in healthy volunteers: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. J Funct Foods. 2024;113:106012. DOI: 10.1016/j.jff.2024.106012

9. Farsad-Naeimi A, et al. Effect of fisetin supplementation on inflammatory factors and matrix metalloproteinase enzymes in colorectal cancer patients. Food Funct. 2018;9(4):2025–2031. DOI: 10.1039/c7fo01898c

10. Ito N, et al. The protective role of astaxanthin for UV-induced skin deterioration in healthy people: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Nutrients. 2018;10(7):817. DOI: 10.3390/nu10070817

11. Kreider RB, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017;14:18. DOI: 10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z

12. Tzang CC, et al. Taurine reduces the risk for metabolic syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutr Diabetes. 2024;14(1):29. DOI: 10.1038/s41387-024-00289-z

13. Yi L, et al. The efficacy and safety of β-nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) supplementation in healthy middle-aged adults: a randomized, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, dose-dependent clinical trial. GeroScience. 2023;45(1):29–43. DOI: 10.1007/s11357-022-00705-1

14. Jolliffe DA, et al. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis of aggregate data from randomised controlled trials. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2021;9(5):276–292. DOI: 10.1016/S2213-8587(21)00051-6

15. Bruno G, La Monica M, Ziegenfuss TN. Effects of spermidine-rich rice germ extract supplement on biomarkers of healthy aging and autophagy: proof-of-concept pilot study. Altern Ther Health Med. 2025;31(6):9–13. PMID 40862848

16.  Alsaleh G, et al. Spermidine mitigates immune cell senescence and boosts vaccine responses in healthy older adults: a pilot study. Aging Cell. 2026;25(6):e70545. DOI: 10.1111/acel.70545