2023 The Screamers Science Hype Award goes to anti-aging media coverage

Every year I give out The Screamers Science Hype Award.

The point of The Screamers is to raise awareness about science hype and catalyze new ways to combat it. In that spirit, I award what I see as the most extreme examples of science hype. Sometimes in addition to the one main winner, I give “honorable” mentions too.

These awards are focused mostly on the biomedical sciences. However, I do sometimes award media issues in additional fields of science.

The Screamers Award winner: hyped media coverage of anti-aging

2023 was quite a year of science hype in many areas. What struck me the most was the ballyhoo in the longevity and anti-aging space.

Many media outlets gobbled up overstated or unverified claims about anti-aging regimens like so many fistfuls of supposed longevity supplements.

As a result, I had no trouble finding wild longevity headlines. They were often about folks like Bryan Johnson and David Sinclair but also others.

These media pieces were so ubiquitous and some of the anti-aging regimens intensive enough that I even began to wonder whether the most extreme anti-aging efforts might be a disease unto themselves. Potentially a fatal one. I also coined some neologisms like “health flexing” and “health celebrities”.

Here are some examples of hypeful longevity headlines in 2023. One is the overall winner, while the others are runners-up.

• I’m a 63-year-old doctor who has the biological age of a 40-year-old… this is my morning routine, The Daily Mail. So this one claims 23 years of age reduction. In the piece Dr. Mark Hyman is also quoted as saying that his goal is to live to 180.
• A Harvard genetics professor who only sleeps 6 hours a night and doesn’t exercise every day swears 3 habits helped reverse his biological age by a decade, Fortune. We have 10 years of supposed age reduction here.
• ‘We’ll be living and working to 120 – and it will start within a decade’ says doctor to the stars, NY Post. Then there’s living to 120 here per a Hollywood doctor.
• New treatment could see humans start to live to 150 within the next decade, indy100. Is 120 not good enough? This one says we’ll possibly be living to 150.
• Then there’s supposed speediness of possible anti-aging approaches. Harvard scientists have identified a drug combo that may reverse aging in just one week: ‘A step towards affordable whole-body rejuvenation’, Fortune. 

Given all this hype, it was hard to pick just one winner, but I did. The winner of the 2023 The Screamers Science Hype Award goes to The Daily Mail article (first bullet point above). The article has no balance.

Some common sense approaches to moderate anti-aging efforts

The irony about the article and its headline being so bad in my view is that much of Dr. Hyman’s actual routine makes good common sense, unlike the reported regimens of other prominent anti-agers.

His emphasis on a plant-based diet and exercise are two solid pillars of general health.

It’s unclear whether such practices can consistently stave off aging, but some data suggest it’s possible to a modest degree. It’s not going to knock 23 years off of your biological age though. Maybe a year? These practices are likely to improve your quality of life.

I have a post on potential natural stem cell boosts that could have longevity impacts. These are common sense things rather than extreme measures like snorting stem cells, DIY gene therapy, or swallowing massive amounts of supplements.

Always talk to your doctor before taking any steps to change your health.

The Screamers Runners-up

Miracle Gro?

In addition to the runners-up in the bullet point list above, I thought I’d mention a couple of others.

Miracle Regrowth: How Stopping an Aging Enzyme Can Repair Nerve Damage, SciTechDaily. True, the research paper that this news item is reporting on is kind of interesting, but where’s the miracle?

Aging miracle cure that isn’t: NMN

Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN) May Be the Miracle Cure for Aging, Healthnews. In contrast to the headline, from the article, “Animal studies suggest NMN does not help to prolong lifespan. However, it may produce some health benefits…” So, another non-miracle.

Understatement of the Year Award to The NYT SpaceX coverage

And, finally, a runner-up award goes to an NYT Science article about a recent SpaceX rocket mission in which the rocket blew up but the story was relentlessly spinning things positively.

SpaceX Makes Progress in 2nd Launch of Giant Moon and Mars Rocket. I love space travel and SpaceX has done some cool things, but this article was far from balanced.  This specific sentence blew my mind given that the SpaceX rocket blew up (emphasis mine):

Saturday’s flight of Starship, a powerful vehicle designed to carry NASA astronauts to the moon, was not a complete success.

I guess at least nobody died.

Here’s the part of the article that seems to finally face facts at least somewhat:

“Soon after stage separation, the booster exploded — a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” in the jargon of rocket engineers. The upper-stage Starship spacecraft continued heading toward orbit for several more minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 90 miles, but then SpaceX lost contact with it after the flight termination system detonated.”

Boom.

I’m trying to think if there’s an equivalent crock of baloney expression as “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in the biomedical sciences. Thoughts?