Personally, I'm optimistic about the capacity of studies and projects like these to extend our knowledge regarding aging. Human trials are fraught with ethical issues, and have very slow feedback loops (acquiring results from a study might take decades, which can be an entire career). Laboratory trials on mice and other small mammals can be more effective, but funding is hard and the results are isolated to a small academic lab. Large-scale supplements for pets can give data in a few years, have lesser (though not negligible) ethical problems, and have built-in funding. The funding process is, of course, a source of conflicts of interest, but it has to be done somehow.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38447491
There's also https://leapyears.com/ - another project with similar goals. That one is associated with David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School:
https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/people/david-sinclair
Personally, I'm optimistic about the capacity of studies and projects like these to extend our knowledge regarding aging. Human trials are fraught with ethical issues, and have very slow feedback loops (acquiring results from a study might take decades, which can be an entire career). Laboratory trials on mice and other small mammals can be more effective, but funding is hard and the results are isolated to a small academic lab. Large-scale supplements for pets can give data in a few years, have lesser (though not negligible) ethical problems, and have built-in funding. The funding process is, of course, a source of conflicts of interest, but it has to be done somehow.