Nicholas Wade has an outstanding piece in today's Times Science section about the "hope" for Resverotrol and other sirtuin-activating compounds that may activate the lifespan extending pathway controlled by caloric restriction, although, like several stories on the subject lately, it left me wondering about a few things. Comment and answers appreciated, they are:
1. The reason for these stories--a Cell Metabolism article that appeared July 3 was actually quite negative about resverotrol's lifespan-extending effects. The Cell piece was about an experiment on normal, rather than high fat fed mice, raising the questions that resverotrol's previous success with high fat mice actually had more to do with energy partitioning than with the stress resistance touted by Sinclair and Guerente.
2. Why, journalistically speaking, is the peg for this piece ( and others) "hope" rather than "did Glaxo blow it?" for paying $720 million for these compounds last month?
3. Sinclair and Guerente are both feverishly spinning the "increased healthspan" rather than "increased lifespan" angle--that's fine for them, but are we journalists giving them too easy a pass on this?
4. Where does metformin--which activates many of the same genes in mouse liver as resverotrol--fit in as a possible "aging deaccelerator," and, given its FDA approved status, to what degree does it make resverotrol moot?
