Whenever we talk about longevity we cannot not mention David Sinclair, who is a leading researcher in longevity. His recent podcast is the most popular on the topic of longevity.
I love listening to him but the problem is I know calorie restriction and time restricted eating is smart but I love good food more.
People don't just want to live longer. They want to basically do absolutely nothing different than what they do now and also live longer. I wish we at least would frame the problem correctly.
The ultimate "best" outcome would be some sort of intervention that mimics the results of calorie restriction or fasting, but without the sacrifice.
But to get there, we need to study the mechanisms through actual calorie restriction and fasting, both to 1. prove that it works in humans, and 2. figure out why.
It’s worth noting that there has been a lot of controversy around Sinclair and his work.
> Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was a biotechnology company based in Cambridge, MA that developed therapies for type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. Conceived in 2004 by Harvard University biologist David Sinclair and serial entrepreneur Andrew Perlman, and founded that year by Sinclair and Perlman, along with Christoph Westphal, Richard Aldrich, Richard Pops, and Paul Schimmel, the company was focused on developing Sinclair's research into activators of sirtuins, work that began in the laboratory of Leonard P. Guarente where Sinclair worked as a post-doc before starting his own lab.
> Sirtris went public in 2007 and was subsequently purchased and made a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline in 2008 for $720 million. GSK paid $22.50/share, when Sirtris's stock was trading at $12/share, down 45% from its highest price of the previous year.
> Studies published in 2009 and early 2010 by scientists from Amgen and Pfizer cast doubt on whether SIRT1 was directly activated by resveratrol and showed that the apparent activity was actually due to a fluorescent reagent used in the experiments.
> GSK/Sirtris terminated development of SRT501 in late 2010. GSK said it was terminating SRT501 due to side effects of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea it caused, and because the compound's activity wasn't specific to SIRT1, at some doses it actually inhibited SIRT1, and the compound itself wasn't patentable.
> In February 2022, Sinclair raised widespread controversy in the longevity research community by rejecting to communicate in an academic debate in which his resveratrol research was criticized after months of mounting evidence against reseveratrol as a longevity intervention.
It's like only focusing on the Steve Jobs failed products and not his successful ones. David Sinclair isn't at the Jobsian level yet but from everything I've read, listened to and viewed, he certainly has the potential to be there.
I am glad this dude is like 20 years older than me, it gives me a safe buffer to decide if I should hop on his train or not. If he still seems healthy in his 70s it will be very interesting.
People don't just want to live longer. They want to basically do absolutely nothing different than what they do now and also live longer. I wish we at least would frame the problem correctly.