Thread by @CharlesMBrenner

Defining age reversal via a score on an aging clock rather than a functional measurement would constitute the single biggest scam in the entire tawdry history of anti-aging scams. let me explain /1

There's a buyer for the promise of anti-aging of course. this person wants to maintain functions for a longer period of time. maybe they run 7 min miles with their grandson, maybe they play competitive chess, maybe they skateboard and need to be able to recover from scrapes /2

Those are functional metrics: running, playing chess, wound repair. in all of animal history, every animal has declined in its motility, mental ability and repair capacity after it reaches some level of maturity. people want to prolong their mastery or better: reverse aging /3

As a nearly 59 year old man, I get that. I want my game in peak form for as long as possible. I work on it. Research we've done suggests that the NAD system comes under attack in many conditions of metabolic stress including infection, DNA damage, obesity, inflammation, etc /4

and that provision of NR can bolster repair & resiliency. For sure, we & others have shown that many rodent models remain healthier longer with NR. To my mind, clinical trials are showing that body composition, resting metabolic rate, lipid mobilization inflammatory markers & /5

COVID recovery are moving in the right directions safely with NR. No one has tested whether two years on NR would accelerate wound repair with respect to time zero but someone could easily test whether a month on NR (i.e., higher NAD status) would promote wound repair /6

These trials have to be placebo controlled. The anti-aging design essentially costs too much to be done. The trial in which people are scratched or topically burned after a month could literally be completed this year /7

Because ppl's run times & chess games decline slowly, placebo controlled trials for preservation of these functions will not be done even though that's what ppl care about /8

Imagine you enroll in someone's anti-aging clinic & they put you on their protocol. Maybe it's rapalogs, stem cells, young blood, resveratrol (frankly I'm worried on your behalf) /9

Even though you enroll to maintain your mile time, your chess game or your scrape repair capacity, they don't measure those. Instead, they have their patented aging clock /10

Imagine your surprise when they show you that your aging markers have been reversed even though your mile is slower, you lost your last 3 chess games or your latest scrape isn't healing very well. Imagine your surprise when you realize the so called aging clock was developed/11

to report younger ages in response to the drugs & supplements they are giving you. Some of the markers are useful measures of inflammation. Others are just reporting on what they are giving you to claim age reversal without a functional test. Don't be scammed /end