I scored the 16 most-hyped anti-aging interventions. Zero have a proven human benefit.I scored the 16 most-hyped anti-aging interventions. Zero have a proven human benefit.
Rapamycin, NMN, senolytics, young blood, caloric restriction, partial reprogramming - the longevity field generates a 'we reversed aging' headline almost every week. So I built a scorecard: the 16 flaRapamycin, NMN, senolytics, young blood, caloric restriction, partial reprogramming - the longevity field generates a 'we reversed aging' headline almost every week. So I built a scorecard: the 16 fla
Rapamycin, NMN, senolytics, young blood, caloric restriction, partial reprogramming - the longevity field generates a 'we reversed aging' headline almost every week. So I built a scorecard: the 16 flagship interventions, each one's mouse evidence, and where it actually stands in HUMANS on a hard clinical endpoint (lifespan or healthspan - not a biomarker). Here is the running tally.
Proven human benefit on a hard endpoint: 0 of 16. Tested in humans and did NOT translate: 1 (aspirin). Human trial reported but safety/biomarker/null only: 5. Human trial pending, no result yet: 2. No meaningful human outcome data at all (mouse/cell/observational only): 8.
A few specifics, because the names matter:
- Rapamycin is the best-evidenced of all of them, and its main human trial (PEARL) reported essentially safety - no demonstrated anti-aging effect yet.
- NMN / NAD+ boosters reliably double a blood marker, but randomized-trial meta-analyses show no benefit to muscle or metabolism - and new 2026 work finds that blood marker doesn't even decline with age in humans. The premise under the whole supplement category is shaky.
- Senolytics (dasatinib + quercetin) showed nothing in early human pilots (a 5-patient Alzheimer's trial found 'no suggestion of effectiveness').
- Caloric restriction is the most robust in animals, yet the two primate trials disagree with each other, and the main human trial (CALERIE) moved biomarkers over two years - not lifespan.
- Aspirin is the cautionary tale: it extended male-mouse lifespan, but the large ASPREE trial found no healthy-lifespan benefit in older adults and a slight increase in mortality. That is what a real non-translation looks like.
Two honest caveats. First, '0 proven' is partly because you cannot run a decades-long human-lifespan trial - it means 'no proven win yet,' not 'everything fails.' Aspirin is the only row that is a tested failure. Second, this is not pessimism about the biology; tissue-level aging mechanisms are real. The point is calibration: the right prior on the next mouse headline producing a proven human benefit within a decade is low, and the eventual human effect will likely be far smaller than the mouse one.
Method, in two sentences: the population is the rigorous NIA Interventions Testing Program positives plus the most-hyped non-ITP interventions; each was scored on whether a controlled human trial has shown a hard-endpoint benefit, with sources per row. We maintain this as a living ledger and will update the tally as trials report.
What would change the number: a single positive hard-endpoint human result on any row (a positive metformin TAME trial, a rapamycin-successor efficacy signal, a young-plasma readout) moves it up, and we will say so.