Defying Gravity: The Case of David Sinclair
Epigenetics and Aging (10)
Before I delve into some current epigenetic research designed to slow, arrest, or reverse aging, a comment on anti-aging strategies in general. The public hunger for a “solution” to aging has been mined by private companies to great effect profit-wise. Unfortunately, when it comes to anti-aging products, corporate profits do not at all correlate with effective therapies. The unregulated supplement industry is particularly rife with therapeutic bullshit, aided and abetted by unscrupulous medical doctors, sometimes academic doctors, and occasionally doctors with credentials of both sorts.
The resveratrol frenzy is an exemplar. Resveratrol is a polyphenol, a large class of plant compounds with antioxidant properties. As one of the more recently discovered antioxidants resveratrol was touted by advocates of the oxidative stress theory of aging. This had a particular appeal to red wine drinkers, as resveratrol is abundant in grape skins. (Little mention was made of the fact that resveratrol is even more abundant in peanut skins.) Hence red wine was touted as a pleasant prophylactic for cardiovascular health, diabetes and more.
But resveratrol fever really ramped up when it was linked to sirtuins--which I will discuss in more detail in the next post in this series--by David Sinclair, a professor at the Harvard Medical School. Sinclair famously claims that aging is a curable disease, which should put anyone with even a vestigial capacity for critical thinking on huckster alert. Sinclair claims, base on research on yeast, that the anti-aging effects of resveratrol resulted from its activating influence on SIRT-1 (called SIRT-2 in yeast), which, at the time seemed a prime candidate lifespan extender https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01960.
Based on what turned out to be a flimsy connection between resveratrol and SIRT-1, Sinclair created a company called Sirtuis, which was purchased by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline for 700 million dollars. After investing more than 300 million more dollars on failed clinical trials, GSK wanted their money back, but were thwarted by some deft maneuvers on Sinclair’s part. Though now thoroughly discredited, Sinclair continues to tout the resveratrol-sirtuin connection, albeit in ever more sophisticated forms. Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) and related biochemicals now figure prominently in recent formulations, and occupy the front seat in his new company, Animal Biosciences, focused on anti-aging supplements for pet dogs. It was his claim to have reversed aging in dogs that unleashed a flood of criticism from other scientists, notably, Matt Kaeberlein, a professor and longevity researcher at the University of Washington. Kaeberlein did not mince words; he called Sinclair’s claim to have reversed dog aging “a lie”. Moreover, he renounced his membership in the Academy of Health and Lifespan Research (AHLR), for which Sinclair served as President. Subsequently, Sinclair was forced to resign his Presidency by other academy members. The man is shameless, though, and his YouTube presence is undiminished.
Sinclair will not be the last doctor or scientist with impressive credentials to pitch products based on shoddy research; there is too much money to be made. On the whole scientists are less susceptible to the lure of lucre than the average person. Prestige is generally the currency most coveted. But the money available in anti-aging research is enough to tempt even the scrupulous. Keep this in mind, as I turn, in the next few posts, to anti-aging strategies based on epigenetics. Not surprisingly, Sinclair, himself has taken this turn https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.12.027.