This is the category where the gap between what’s being researched and what’s being sold is widest.
Every entry below covers something genuinely under investigation, and almost every one is also being marketed to consumers well ahead of the evidence. The entries mark that line.
"Peptide" describes a chemical structure, not a level of evidence, and the two get conflated constantly. Inside: what these compounds actually are, the regulatory gap most of them occupy, and the practical risks that come with sourcing them anyway.
Read the full entry →Compounds designed to clear senescent cells have produced striking mouse results and far thinner human data. This entry keeps those two apart, and explains why translating rodent dosing into people is considerably harder than the marketing implies.
Read the full entry →Approved gene therapies treat specific diseases; applying the same tools to aging itself is a different proposition. What it sets out: why those paths diverge, where longevity-directed work genuinely stands today, and what's realistic near-term versus decades away.
NAD+ falls with age, and an entire supplement category has been built on that one observation. This entry separates what's reliably demonstrated about raising it from the outcome question nobody has answered: whether it changes anything you would notice.
The highest-ceiling idea in longevity research, and among the least ready for a clinic. The detail: the foundational science, the tumour risk that partial reprogramming is designed to sidestep, and the distance between a lab result and an application.
A small number of stem cell treatments are established medicine; a much larger industry sells everything else. This entry marks that line clearly, and documents the harms that have already been recorded rather than the hypothetical ones.
Mouse parabiosis experiments produced headlines that a commercial industry moved on well before the human evidence existed. It works through what the animal research actually showed, how relevant it is to people, and why the FDA issued a direct warning about it.
Scan an asymptomatic body and you will find things, most of which turn out to be nothing. What follows: what MRI can reliably detect, how common incidental findings are, and the follow-up cascade a single false positive sets in motion.
The most substantial science is furthest from a clinic. The ideas with the strongest theoretical foundations tend to be the least ready for use, and the treatments already being sold tend to have the thinnest support. That inversion is the single most useful thing to understand about this category.
Mouse results rarely survive the journey. Striking rodent findings are the norm here, and dose extrapolations from them are shakier than they look. A mouse lifespan study is a real result about a mouse. It is a hypothesis about a human, and the two get conflated constantly in marketing.
Mechanism is doing most of the persuading. Several of these interventions target real biology, including recognised hallmarks of aging. A compelling pathway explains why something might work. It is not evidence that it does, and this category is largely made of that gap.
Approval is narrower than the marketing implies. Some treatments here are genuinely approved medicine for specific conditions that look nothing like aging. A much larger industry sells the same category name for something else entirely, often outside regulatory oversight.
Screening carries its own costs. Scanning an asymptomatic body finds things, most of which turn out to be nothing. The follow-up investigation is not free, in money or in risk, which is why early detection is a more complicated proposition than it sounds.
The boring interventions still outperform all of it. Nothing in this category has evidence approaching that behind aerobic fitness, strength or blood pressure control. Anyone considering the frontier should have the basics settled first.
None has been shown to extend human lifespan. Several target real biology and have genuine early evidence, mostly in animals or on surrogate markers rather than outcomes. The gap between what is under investigation and what is being sold is wider here than anywhere else on this site.
Experimental means under active investigation with a research pathway. Unproven means being sold without one. Some treatments in this category are both, and several commercial offerings have moved well ahead of the research they cite, which is a different situation from an ongoing trial.
Mice are short-lived, genetically uniform and studied under controlled conditions, none of which describes a human population. Doses also scale badly between species. A rodent lifespan result is a real finding about rodents and a hypothesis about people, and those get conflated constantly.
Experimental means under active investigation with a research pathway. Unproven means being sold without one. Several commercial offerings in this space cite research they have moved well ahead of, which is a different situation from an ongoing trial.
Because the mechanisms are genuinely interesting and the outcome evidence is genuinely thin. That combination is easy to sell. A compelling pathway makes a persuasive story long before anyone has shown it changes an outcome in a person.
Compounds designed to selectively clear senescent cells, which accumulate with age and secrete inflammatory signals. The mechanism is compelling and the human data is thin, with most of the striking results coming from mice. Human trials are ongoing rather than concluded.
Ask what was measured, in what species, and against what outcome. Most claims here rest on animal work or on surrogate markers rather than human outcomes. Neither is worthless, and neither is the same as evidence that something works in people.
Not before the basics are settled. Nothing here has evidence approaching that behind aerobic fitness, strength or blood pressure control. The frontier is worth understanding, and it is a poor substitute for interventions that already have decades of outcome data.
Every marker on this page, benchmarked against your own age and sex.
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