- Harvard researcher Dr. David Sinclair is facing backlash in the longevity community.
- Critics say he took claims about “reverse aging” too far, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Longevity medicine is attracting billions in investment from the world’s richest leaders.
Harvard researcher Dr. David Sinclair has found himself at the center of controversy within the longevity community.
Sinclair has been an iconic figure in the longevity movement for years. He has created several biotechnology companies focused on reversing the effects of aging, received acclaim for his research, and cultivated a loyal fan base who swear by his lifestyle advice.
He has also received his fair share of critics who claim his research is not always supported by sufficient evidence. But in recent months, the Wall Street Journal has reported that Sinclair is facing a new level of backlash from colleagues and researchers who say his claims about curing aging have gone too far.
A question of semantics?
The controversy began on February 29, when Sinclair’s dog supplement company, Animal Biosciences, issued a press release.
“I am very proud of the teams at NCSU and Animal Biosciences who, after years of collaborative research and clinical trials, have developed the first supplement proven to reverse aging in dogs,” Sinclair said in the release, according to Newsweek.
Sinclair maintains he was misquoted. “The quote I endorsed has been proven to reverse the effects of aging in dogs,” he told the Journal, adding, “I thought it was a reasonable statement.”
Scientists were quick to dispute this claim. “The data is not good, you call it the wrong way, and then you sell it,” Dr. Nir Barzilai told the Journal. “The sale is a step too far.” Dozens of scientists have resigned from the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research, a nonprofit organization of longevity researchers that Sinclair co-founded and led as president.
Dr. Matt Kaeberlein – a biologist who was part of the quitting crowd – described Sinclair on X as the definition of a “snake oil salesman.”
Sinclair resigned from the Academy in March, the Journal reported based on an email released by the Academy. Barzilai has since taken over as president.
Dr. Sinclair did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Animal Biosciences has reissued a press release revisiting the “reverse aging” claim. But scientists in the field say the problem is even more fundamental: There is no way to reverse aging, let alone measure it.
THE biological age concept — the actual age that our cells, tissues and organ systems appear to be, based on biochemistry, according to the National Institute on Aging — is gaining ground in longevity circles. However, it is still a vague and controversial concept, because there is no standard for normal aging. How we age varies greatly from person to person.
Experts working to standardize longevity medicine say it may be years before it is recognized as an official field like cardiology or neurology. according to MIT Technology Review. “It’s a new field,” Andrea Maier of the National University of Singapore and co-founder of the “high-end” private clinic Chi Longevity told the MIT Technology Review. “We have to organize ourselves; we have to set standards.”
Yet billions of dollars are spent on research. Longevity startups has attracted global investment of more than $5.2 billion in 2022, according to PitchBook. And those supported by the the world’s richest leaders like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel are dedicated to the study of cellular aging – and its remedies. This means that debates about the semantics of aging will only become more relevant to our daily lives.
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