Top Breakthrough Supplements

Innovative Ingredients For Longevity And Performance

At Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki, held in Helsinki, Finland, on 3 and 4 June 2022, Shawn Wells took the stage with a presentation that moved between hard science, personal testimony and the increasingly crowded, often confusing marketplace of modern supplementation.

Wells, introduced as an architect of more than 700 supplements and the patent holder behind ingredients such as Teacrine, Dynamine and Dihydroberberine, did not begin with molecules or metabolic pathways. He began with breath.

He asked the audience to stand, to inhale deeply nine times, then to turn towards one another and, with permission, embrace. The room, at least for a moment, became less a conference hall than a collective nervous system learning to settle itself. It was an unusual opening for a talk titled Top Breakthrough Supplements, but it revealed the larger argument beneath the ingredient list: health, Wells suggested, was never only biochemical. It was social, emotional and deeply cellular all at once.

A Personal Story Beneath The Science

Wells spoke candidly about depression, suicidal thoughts, obesity in childhood, autoimmune struggles, a brain tumour and long periods of pain. “I have fought depression and multiple health issues, but I want you to know that I have been through it all and I am standing here today,” he said.

The emotional hinge of his talk came in the story of a doctor who once drew a lifeline between the ages of 20 and 80 and asked a deceptively simple question. “A doctor once drew a lifeline for me and asked why not be happy between twenty and eighty years. That question completely changed my life path.”

It was a moment that reframed the rest of the session. The supplements Wells highlighted were not presented as shiny shortcuts for self-optimisers, but as tools in a broader campaign against decline, dysfunction and unnecessary suffering.

The First Rule: Do Not Trust The Label At First Glance

Before naming any breakthrough ingredient, Wells offered a warning that may have been the most useful advice of the afternoon. In a supplement industry built on branding and vague promises, he argued that the ingredient name alone meant almost nothing.

“The ingredient name is not enough. To find a good supplement, you need full transparency, the right dose, and the correct form.”

He urged the audience to avoid proprietary blends and to demand labels that clearly state dosage, chemical form, plant part, genus and species, along with quality control standards. It was a reminder that in wellness, as in politics, opacity usually served the seller rather than the public.

Exercise Mimetic Hype Meets Metabolic Promise

Among the compounds Wells described, BAIBA, also referred to in the session as Beba and highlighted through the branded ingredient Mitoburn, stood out as one of the most futuristic. It was framed as an exercise mimetic, a molecule that elevated plasma signals associated with intense movement and triggered some of the body’s adaptive responses to exercise.

According to Wells, this signalling could support muscle mass, bone density, fat loss, neuroplasticity and aerobic capacity. Its promise lay not in replacing movement, but in amplifying the body’s response to it.

The larger metabolic context was brown adipose tissue, or brown fat, which Wells described as mitochondrial-dense and thermogenic. Unlike white fat, which stores energy, brown fat burns it. This distinction has become one of the central fascinations of metabolic science because it points towards a more active, dynamic understanding of body composition.

Grains Of Paradise And The New Thermogenic Frontier

If BAIBA represented the dream of exercise in a bottle, Grains of Paradise offered a more grounded, culinary route into metabolic enhancement. A spice with a ginger-pepper profile, it was presented by Wells as a non-stimulant thermogenic that activated brown adipose tissue and raised basal metabolic rate.

He cited evidence that 30 milligrams could burn roughly 100 extra calories a day without the jittery overstimulation often associated with fat-loss products. In an industry prone to loud promises, the appeal here was not extravagance but subtle leverage: an ingredient that nudged physiology rather than bullied it.

Dihydroberberine And The Challenge To Metformin

One of the clearest claims in the session concerned Dihydroberberine, which Wells positioned as a superior alternative to metformin for glucose disposal and metabolic health. The case rested on bioavailability and tolerability. Where metformin can be associated with gastrointestinal distress and vitamin B12 depletion, Dihydroberberine was presented as more efficient and gentler.

For a biohacking audience already steeped in the language of blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and longevity, the implication was obvious. The future of anti-ageing may depend less on miraculous discovery than on making known pathways safer and more precise.

Longevity At The Cellular Level

“Mitochondrial health is at the core of everything,” Wells said. “Protecting your mitochondria is key because nearly all disease is metabolic in nature.”

That sentence functioned almost as the thesis of the entire presentation. Wells repeatedly returned to the idea that biological age matters more than the number of birthdays one has survived. “Biological aging is more important than chronological aging. Keeping your cells resilient and fit is the foundation of longevity.”

To that end, he highlighted L-ergothioneine as what he called a longevity vitamin, notable for having a dedicated transporter in the human body. It was described as a protector of mitochondria, cognition and immune function, a molecule whose significance may have been underappreciated for too long.

He paired this with spermidine, a polyamine linked to autophagy and mitophagy, the cellular clean-up processes through which damaged components are recycled and resilience is maintained. In ageing bodies, those processes decline. In the language of the conference, spermidine offered a way to reawaken housekeeping at the deepest biological level.

Clean Stimulation And Better Absorption

Wells also addressed performance and cognition more directly. Paraxanthine, a metabolite of caffeine, was introduced as a cleaner form of stimulation, one that preserved focus and dopaminergic lift without what he described as caffeine’s toxicity, anxiety burden or adaptation issues in slow metabolisers.

For muscle growth, he pointed to Dilucine, a peptide designed to exploit the PEPT1 transporter and bypass the slower limitations of standard amino acid absorption. The claim was striking: faster uptake and stronger stimulation of muscle protein synthesis than conventional leucine.

These were not supplements aimed merely at filling nutritional gaps. They belonged to a newer category altogether: engineered precision ingredients intended to outsmart biology by understanding it more intimately.

The Quiet Radicalism Of Better Ageing

There was, however, a tension running beneath the optimism. Talks like this always hover between empowerment and escalation, between genuine innovation and the perennial fantasy that one more compound will solve what culture, stress, sleep debt and inequality continue to produce.

Yet Wells’s presentation at Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki was at its best when it resisted miracle language. Even as he described cutting-edge ingredients, he linked them back to fundamentals: movement, metabolic health, mitochondrial protection, emotional resilience and human connection.

His opening breathing exercise was not incidental. It was a statement that the body cannot be reduced to a shopping basket of molecules. Even the most sophisticated ingredient, he seemed to suggest, was only as meaningful as the life it was meant to support.

In the end, the most resonant part of Wells’s message may have been neither the promise of spermidine nor the allure of paraxanthine, but a more difficult idea: that longevity is not simply about adding years, but about defending vitality at every level, from the mitochondria to the mind, from glucose pathways to the fragile act of choosing to keep going.

Frequently asked questions

What is Shawn Wells's first rule?

Do not trust the label at first glance. In an industry built on branding and vague promises, he argued the ingredient name alone means almost nothing, and that finding a good supplement requires full transparency and the right form and dose.

What personal history does he bring?

Wells spoke candidly about depression and suicidal thoughts, childhood obesity, autoimmune struggles, a brain tumour and long periods of pain. I have fought depression and multiple health issues, he said, but I have been through it all and I am standing here today.

What is BAIBA, and what does it do?

One of the more futuristic compounds he described, highlighted through the branded ingredient Mitoburn and framed as an exercise mimetic, meaning a molecule that reproduces some of the metabolic signalling exercise produces.

About the event

This recap is part of the Biohacker Summit 2022 Helsinki series, recorded in Helsinki on 3 and 4 June 2022. Read the summary of the whole event or join the next edition, HOLOLIFE Summit 2026 Amsterdam, on 14 and 15 November 2026.