Research-Based

Life Extension Review – Is This Company Worth Your Money?

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By Jack Cincotta, MS

Reviewed by Juliana Tamayo, MS, RDN - Last Updated

life extension review

With so many health problems on the rise, many individuals are looking towards vitamins and supplements to possibly improve their health and get rid of various problems.

And one of the most popular supplement companies out there that promises to improve your health is Life Extension. In fact, from an initial glance, we could tell that this company looks to serve dozens of different health issues. 

In this article, we’re reviewing the Life Extension brand as a whole to see what they offer and if this is a company ultimately worth buying from if you want to improve your wellness. 

Continue reading to learn about the Life Extension company and its history, products offered, pricing, safety, and all other important considerations!

About Life Extension

Life Extension is a health and wellness supplement company with a wide variety of products as well as other health services they offer. This company was founded back in 1980 by Saul Kent and William Faloon, so this company has been going for over 40 years strong. 

At Life Extension, their ultimate goal is to help you live a longer, healthier life. They’ve funded over $180 million towards anti-aging and disease research, with the motive of finding the best possible treatments out there. 

Life Extension also has a set of key values, which are:

  • Connection: Connecting with you on an individual level for personalized support
  • Science: Using only the most well-researched ingredients and dosages
  • Discovery: Always looking for new answers for optimal health and wellness
  • Tenacity: Aiming to push the boundaries of science and create healthy solutions for all

In addition to providing supplements, Life Extension also offers lab testing services, as well as a team of doctors, nurses, naturopaths, and other wellness experts who you can talk to with any health-related questions you have.

Types of Supplements Offered

Life Extension has hundreds of different supplements in many different categories. You can search by type or by your health goals.

life extension supplements

Below are some of the product types offered:

  • Amino Acids
  • Vitamins
  • Minerals
  • Pre/Probiotics
  • Fish Oil & Omegas
  • Digestive Enzymes

And these are some of the categories listed under Health Goal:

  • Anti-Aging and Longevity
  • Brain Health
  • Digestive Health
  • Heart Health
  • Mood Support
  • Sleep 
  • Weight Management

Essentially, Life Extension offers products for all different kinds of health needs and goals. 

In addition, they offer lab testing products such as:

  • Chemistry Panel and Complete Blood Count
  • Female Panel
  • Male Panel

There are also various skin and personal care products, such as moisturizers, cleansers, and hair & nail products.

We’ve also reviewed quite a few of Life Extension’s products, including:

Life Extension Formulas

Life Extension has a huge number of different formulas. They offer many single-ingredient products as well as tons of multi-ingredient supplements, so there is a wide variety.

Obviously, with so many products, we can’t say if the formulas for everyone are on point. But taking a look at some of their best sellers gives us an idea of how Life Extension generally goes about formulating their products.

Trademarked Ingredients

The first thing that initially stood out was their frequent use of trademarked ingredients. For example, here are just a few products where they included trademarked, clinically researched ingredients:

  • Arthromax Advanced:
    • ApresFlex Boswellia Extract
    • NT2 Collagen
  • Super Ubiquinol CoQ10:
    • Kaneka Ubiquinol
    • PrimaVie Shilajit
  • Optimized Saffron:
    • Satiereal Saffron Extract
  • NeuroMag Magnesium L-Threonate
  • FLORASSIST GI (blend of bacteriophages and probiotics)
  • MacuGuard Marigold Extract
  • Senolytic Activator
    • BioQuercetin Quercetin

Other Aspects of Ingredient Quality

In general, Life Extension seems to take the time to use higher-quality ingredients rather than just throwing in whatever form is cheapest.

For example, the vast majority of their herbs and botanicals are in extract form, many of which are trademarks. In general, these are more potent than simply using whole herb forms.

Take a look at just a few of these ingredients to see more specifically what we mean:

  • Sensoril Ashwagandha standardized to 10% withanolides
  • Gotu kola standardized to 10% asiaticosides
  • Bacognizine Bacopa standardized to 25% bacosides
  • Pumpkin seed oil standardized to 85% fatty acids
  • BioQuercetin provides 35% quercetin
  • Japanese Knotweed standardized for 18% trans-resveratrol

Other evidence of quality is that Life Extension uses bioactive forms of their B vitamins, and chelated forms for most minerals, although there are some exceptions (such as magnesium oxide, which we found in their multivitamin and other products). 

Transparency

Also, most of Life Extension’s formulas have fully transparent labels, so you can see the dose for each ingredient.

However, several products do contain proprietary blends, either for the whole formula or just part of it. 

Overall, their use of proprietary blends doesn’t seem to be much of a concern since it’s not that often and typically in products where they have similar-acting ingredients. But it’s still something to be aware of.

Doses

Life Extension claimed that they focus on using only research-backed dosages for their ingredients. And overall, this is true.

Some are underdosed, but overall, Life Extension does a good job of putting in what you need to get the benefits.

Below are examples of some of their products that have good dosages backed by evidence:

  • Neuro-Mag Magnesium L-Threonate: 2,000mg (144mg magnesium)
  • Curcumin Elite: 200mg Curcuminoids
  • NAD+ Cell Regenerator: 100mg NIAGEN Nicotinamide Riboside
  • SAMe: 400mg S-adenosylmethionine
  • FLORASSIST Balance: 15 Billion CFU Probiotics
  • Vitamin D3: 125mcg

Life Extension Product Testing

Life Extension is cGMP-compliant through NSF International, which ultimately ensures the identity, strength, composition, purity, and quality of the ingredients in Life Extension formulas.

This company uses a variety of testing procedures in all facets of the manufacturing process, from the raw materials to their finished products.

Specifically, Life Extension uses independent testing labs to analyze raw materials for quality, and submits finished products to third-party testing organizations to ensure potency and purity. One such company they’ve participated with is ConsumerLab, which is one of the top companies for ensuring product quality. 

Life Extension also provides Certificates of Analysis (CoA) for all of its products. You just have to request one for whatever supplement you want.

Certifications

Life Extension is compliant with cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practices) and certified through the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation). This combination ensures that Life Extension exceeds, and doesn’t just meet, the standards for manufacturing and handling procedures. 

Also, the vast majority of Life Extension’s supplements are non-GMO, although they don’t have an official Non-GMO Project verification. 

A lot of their products are also vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and free from top allergens, although they don’t have any official verifications for these.

Life Extension Value

When shopping at Life Extension, you can expect to see pretty affordable prices overall for their different supplements.

Below are some prices we gathered from some of their best sellers:

  • Vitamin D3: $7.50 for 60 servings
  • Curcumin Elite: $21.94 for 60 servings
  • Neuro-Mag Magnesium L-Threonate: $29.94 for 30 servings
  • AMPK Metabolic Activator: $24.94 for 30 servings
  • N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine: $12 for 60 servings
  • Bioactive B-Complex: $8.10 for 30 servings
  • Two-Per-Day Multivitamin: $18.38 for 60 servings
  • Quick Brain Nootropic: $16.45 for 30 servings

We went through many of their supplements on the Life Extension website and couldn’t find much over $1 per serving, even for some of their more complex formulas with several ingredients.

And the single-ingredient formulas or simpler products were often priced at $0.50 or less per serving. So Life Extension definitely is a high-value company since they offer generally low prices yet still have top-tier quality and solid dosages.

Reputation & Customer Feedback

Life Extension has a high reputation within the health supplement industry and has stayed at that level for pretty much the entirety of its 40+ years of existence. 

They are not officially BBB (Better Business Bureau) accredited, although the BBB gives them an A rating on their website

In general, customers also seem to be happy with the Life Extension supplements. According to ReviewMeta (a company that filters Amazon reviews to ensure higher legitimacy), Life Extension’s products are rated an average of 4.1 out of 5, which comes from over 70,000 ratings and 18,000+ reviews. 

Listed below are several customer reviews to give you an idea of what people think about this company:

“I am a retired ICU RN. An MD that I admire and trust explicitly recommends Life Extension and uses them in his office. I cannot vouch for their return policies, as I’ve never had to return anything, but I’ve found their shipping to be extremely fast, within the week, with a notice if something will take a bit longer, which is rare.”

“I’ve never had any issues with Life Extension. Their products are always good, shipping is always fast and prices are the best I’ve found for many supplements I take. However, I will say that I don’t like that they add sorbitol to some products. And that they don’t use organic ingredients in supplements derived from plant sources. I get those types of things elsewhere.” 

“Really great phone reps. Extremely well trained and helpful. Lab testing through Labcorp did have a lot of issues, but LE was happy to reissue the tests for free to be retaken. Took their time to review the results and make recommendations.”

“The company doesn’t just sell supplements, they also offer free wellness advice and I like the sale they have on lab tests! Good return policy too. Can’t complain.”

“I had a health issue and found this site from my doctor. I’ve used over two dozen of their products and have found them to be excellent. I enjoy reading their magazine and yes it’s used to promote their products, but it has lots of good content in it. Pricing is reasonable, based on the quality of their products, they don’t use lots of fillers. They do have lots of sales and I’ve used that to try things that I was interested in, but didn’t want to pay the full price to see if it was something I really needed.”

We did find a few negative reviews too, which included complaints such as long shipping times, ineffective products, or poor customer service. But there weren’t very many of these and, overall, there were more positive reviews in those areas as well. 

Where to Buy Life Extension Supplements

There are several places to buy Life Extension products. You can buy them right from the Life Extension website which often has more frequent offers and deals compared to other places. 

life extension

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Life Extension

  • Products include Amino Acids, Vitamins, Minerals, and more
  • cGMP-compliant through NSF International
  • Company offers lab testing products in addition to supplements

But they’re also available on the Life Extension page on Amazon, as well as at a variety of online and in-store retailers, such as:

  • Walmart
  • Target
  • The Vitamin Shoppe
  • GNC
  • Walgreens

Comparisons

Life Extension is a diverse supplement company with many types of products offered. And they are generally low to moderately priced, especially taking into account the quality of their ingredients.

Bulk Supplements

One thing to consider is that they don’t offer much in the way of athletic performance or sports nutrition supplements. Therefore, a brand like Bulk Supplements may be a better fit for athletes since they generally offer more sports performance and recovery products. 

NatureMade

If we look at how Life Extension compares to other similar-focused companies, the general verdict is high too.

For example, consider NatureMade, which is also a very well-trusted and respected brand. In general, NatureMade products are slightly less expensive than Life Extension, but Life Extension also seems to use more trademarked ingredients. 

So, it’s not like one is inherently better than the other. And you’d likely make a good decision regardless of which of these you bought from.

Verdict: Life Extension Review

Life Extension is definitely one of the best health supplement brands out there, with a strong reputation that’s lasted over 40 years. 

They take the time to create well-researched and properly-dosed formulas, many of which include clinically-studied trademarked ingredients. They also ensure the safety, purity, and potency of all products through independent and verified testing organizations, which makes them more trustworthy than some other brands.

With so many products offered, it’s safe to say that Life Extension is a great place to start if you’re looking for supplements to boost all-around health and wellness. 

Ratings

  • Reputation: 4.2
  • Formulas: 4.4
  • Testing/Quality: 4.8
  • Value: 4.1

Overall Rating:
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Jack Cincotta, MS

Jack Cincotta is a certified holistic health coach through AFPA and a board-certified holistic health practitioner through AADP. He has written hundreds of articles on nutrition and supplementation. Jack has a M.S. degree in Psychology and is passionate about researching the science behind nutrition. He often uses research-backed supplementation protocols for many of his clients to optimize results.