Taking a look at some “longevity” trends
| Anna Chodos, MD Guest post in Your Local Epidiologist |  |
Open any social feed, and someone is selling you more years. One person offers an IV drip, another has a $400 blood test that reveals your “real” age, and a third suggests a morning protocol involving cold plunges, a dozen supplements, and a protein shake.
We’re getting wrapped up in the marketing of a trillion-dollar wellness industry. But underneath it all is a quieter, very real fear that I think most of us share: Am I doing enough? Am I aging too fast? Is everyone else getting an edge I’m missing? What actually works?!
So I called Anna Chodos. She’s a geriatrician, so she spends a lot of time with older people who often live with and manage the conditions the “anti-aging” industry is trying to prevent. She told me plainly: vastly extending human lifespans is not a reasonable expectation right now. No need to save for your 150th birthday party.
Anna, take it away.
A longer lifespan shouldn’t be the goal. What is the use of living to 150 if you’re not well enough to enjoy it? The prize is healthspan—the years you spend healthy and independent doing things you enjoy, whether it’s gardening, visiting grandkids, or simply remembering names.
The good news is that we already know a lot about improving healthspan. The bad news is that the evidence is tangled up with hype on social media, podcasts, and ads. So here’s my attempt to untangle it: What doesn’t work, what might help a little, and what I actually tell my patients.
The hype: What hasn’t been shown to work
Once you look closely at popular longevity products, you’ll notice two stories that keep repeating.
- “It worked on mice.” A drug that extends the lives of lab animals and the leap to humans gets made in marketing long before it’s made in research.
- “It helps sick people, so it must help everyone.” A drug that benefits people with a specific disease gets sold to healthy people as an anti-aging tool, without the trials to back it up.
Here’s how they apply to today’s most popular products:
- Rapamycin (Rapamune): Longer life in mice, not people. This transplant drug suppresses the immune system to prevent organ rejection. Mice given it lived longer. In humans, small trials showed mixed effects on markers of healthy aging, such as immune responses, lean tissue, and abdominal fat, but no evidence of a longer life.
- NAD+ supplements: Higher blood levels, no proven benefit. NAD+ is a molecule in every cell that helps turn food into energy and repair DNA. Its levels can fall with age. IV drips and patches do raise blood levels, and raising NAD+ improves aging markers in older animals. But human studieshave been small and lasted only weeks, and the research found no improvement in physical function. The FDA also doesn’t regulate supplements as it does drugs, and not to mention, the IV drips are pricey!
- Metformin (Glucophage): Helps people with diabetes; unproven for everyone else. This diabetes drug is linked to lower death rates in people with diabetes. That doesn’t mean it helps people without diabetes live longer. In one randomized trial, older adults taking metformin gained less muscle from strength training than those taking a placebo. A trial testing it for longevity hasn’t started yet.
- GLP-1 drugs: benefits for some, not an anti-aging pill. The list of benefits from these drugs does not include longevity, but trials have shown they slow aging. What they do show is lower death rates and chronic disease in people with obesity and heart disease or with diabetes. For average-risk people, the evidence isn’t there. They also carry a risk of muscle loss.
- Intermittent fasting: Weight loss tool, not a longevity one. Eating within a set daily window can help people eat less and lose weight, but it generally works no better than ordinary calorie-cutting. Some fasting regimens extended lab animals’ lives. In humans, it has not been shown to extend life. (continued on Page 2)