As a tenured professor of biology and genetics at Harvard Medical School, David Sinclair has long been the world’s most qualified “biohacker”. The term refers to a broad community that attempts to enhance bodily performance, sometimes through simple treatments like meditation. But some of its advocates go much further. Sinclair himself has turned his body into a walking laboratory to test his controversial thesis: that ageing itself is a treatable disease.
Looking incredibly young has certainly helped his case — even now, at 54, Sinclair could still pass for a 30-something. A decade ago, Time featured Sinclair on its annual list of the world’s most influential people. And by popularising the concept of “autophagy”, Sinclair has almost certainly influenced you at some point.
Autophagy, which comes from the Greek for “self-devouring”, refers to the process by which cells deprived of fresh supplies of glucose are forced to “feed off” themselves, reducing the inflammatory toxins that are so synonymous with ageing and, in theory, revitalising the mitochondria that power every cell. While Silicon Valley tech bros such as Brian Johnson, Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos may have garnered more headlines, a lone maverick scientist, in science-fiction style, was busy working on the medical secret to substantiate their quest for eternal youth. Or so it seemed.
Nowadays, former colleagues in academia are queueing up to denounce Sinclair. In March, when he announced with his brother that their company Animal Bioscience had developed a supplement for dogs “shown to reverse the effects of age related decline”, it proved to be the final straw. A former research partner, and colleague at Harvard Medical School, labelled him “the textbook definition of snake-oil salesman”, before Sinclair resigned from his role as President of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research on 13 March.
So where did it all go so wrong for Sinclair? After all, it’s not as though Time were wrong to cite his influence — which has become ubiquitous by stealth. With the unmasking of one of its leaders, where next for the biohacking movement? And is there more to it than billionaire daydreams and sketchy online apothecaries?
In many ways, it simply continues to grow. Because calorie restriction has been consistently shown to increase lifespan in laboratory animals, Sinclair’s championing of autophagy to stabilise lower blood sugars has seeped into popular consciousness as a rationale for weight-loss “hacks” that might also help you live longer. Advocates of intermittent fasting, buttered coffee, ultra-low carb diets, cold-water immersion or drinking diluted vinegar invariably invoke the implied cloak of scientific legitimacy that autophagy provides. And Sinclair personally aligned himself and his clout with these sorts of trends. By taking just one meal and 1,100 calories per day, and focusing on plant-based, low-carb, low-protein, and heart-healthy high-fat foods, he promoted the “deep cleanse” cellular repair and ultimate detox that autophagy is meant to provide. In turn, autophagy is in large part responsible for the popularity of the so-called 16:8 diet, whose adherents consume their calories in an eight-hour window before fasting for the next 16 to maintain low-blood sugars.
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