this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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I came across David Sinclair and his research into reverse aging. Especially, I came across this video by Veritasium with Sinclair. Apparently his team has managed to reverse aging in mice in a lab? Has this been peer reviewed?

I personally want to believe Sinclair, but he just.... seems snake oil salesman-ey for some reason. For one, the channels that he seems to come on are the same channels that host manosphere/pseudoscience/conspiracy related guests. Secondly, he talks a lot of shit about his fellow scientists and just seems a little egoistic? I dunno...

Also, the recommendations that he seems to give (like reducing protein intake) to slow aging just seem to be against conventional wisdom? Also, for the drugs that he recommends taking, wouldn't the FDA approve them if they actually worked? I dunno. This isn't how a man of science behaves, right?

Anyway, aside from Sinclair, how far have we gotten in the reverse aging/stopping aging or whatever science? Should we hope to get drugs/treatment to cure this in the next 10/30/50 years?

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[–] cymbal_king 2 points 9 months ago

David Sinclair is an interesting person. I've seen him present his research in a professional setting and he does some really interesting science. He is also very enthusiastic at selling his story.

There's likely no amount of supplement and drug cocktails that will undo the damage of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Best case scenario is this research could be on to something that significantly augments a healthy lifestyle, or worse case it could be wasting a lot of money on something that potentially ends up being harmful a few decades from now.

I've looked at the list of supplements and drugs Dr. Sinclair takes and there is mechanistic rationale from cell culture and animal experiments behind the ones I'm most familiar with. But it is a big leap to go from cell culture and animal models to human health on a much longer time span. The clinical trials needed to really demonstrate a lot of these claims are incredibly expensive and would take decades. Drug companies in the anti-aging field tend to focus on older patients to start with and earlier endpoints like lower cancer, Alzheimer's, or heart disease incidence. They also tend to be funded by silicon valley tech executives.