Complaining About Hype in the Longevity Industry

The author of this commentary is overly critical of the science of rejuvenation as a whole, if one takes a tour of his work, but here he makes legitimate points about the harms done by an excess of hype. He picks on one of the easier targets, the publicity that David Sinclair has generated for his work, initially on sirtuins and later on reprogramming, with which it is fairly easy to find issues. Raising awareness, marketing potential programs, is a necessary evil in the matter of directing funding into new fields, but unrealistic promises sustained over time become damaging. Is aging treatable? In the sense that the rate of aging can be modified by genes and the environment, yes. However, aging is easy to accelerate, i.e. by smoking, overweight, infectious diseases, and other factors, and much harder to slow. Do sirtuins extend lifespan in yeast, invertebrates and vertebrates? Has David Sinclair discovered sirtuin activators? Based on 25 years of work by academic and industrial investigators, the clear answer to both questions is no. Whereas Sinclair claims that sirtuins are dominantly acting longevity genes from yeast to humans, early reports of sirtuins extending lifespan in invertebrates could not be independently replicated. In 2011, researchers from 7 institutions published together that sirtuin genes do not extend lifespan in worms or flies. Sinclair's theories were au courant for two decades. Indeed, sirtuins and resveratrol have been subjects of hundr...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs