Bryan Johnson has spent tens of millions of dollars on a highly publicized quest to reverse the aging process. The tech millionaire follows a strict diet and fitness regimen, stacks multiple dietary supplements, obsesses over sleep hygiene, and subjects himself to a litany of medical tests to track his biological data. Harnessing his newfound celebrity, Johnson has become a false authority in the wellness space, touting supplements and alternative therapies and selling his own brand of olive oil.

This article isn’t about Bryan Johnson. Rather, it’s about how Johnson could easily have been the muse for a new longevity initiative recently launched by luxury fitness chain Equinox. Their Optimize program, a lite version of Johnson’s vision, harvests biological data from its clients (via blood tests, fitness and strength assessments, and wearable sensors) and uses it to create personalized fitness and nutrition programs. The program has been described by Equinox as “the definitive approach to health optimization” that’ll “unlock the peaks of human potential.” But priced at $42,000 a year, the program is making headlines for the wrong reasons. Is Equinox’s ultra-premium service worth the membership fee, or is it another cash grab in a wellness industry that’s made longevity its latest plaything?

The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com

Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org

Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/health-club-equinox-puts-a-price-on-longevity-just-42000-a-year/

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I was contacted in 2023 by a journalist writing for a major news outlet. In her email—which was written with the terseness that only journalists and famous people seem to get away with—she asked me to comment on a new study that had made a “major breakthrough” in the best time of day to exercise to elicit optimal health. It’s a subject that resurfaces periodically whenever the well of fashionable supplements or celebrity fitness trends runs dry, which it rarely does. I obliged and offered the kind of dispassionate and understated interpretation that scientists love and journalists hate. She didn’t print my response; she didn’t even reply to say thanks. I’ll tell you what I told her.

The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com

Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org

Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-best-time-of-day-to-exercise-another-media-fail/

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“If you don’t tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you, and you probably won’t like how they do it.” —Shirley Malcolm, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

We know that complex life likely evolved from single-celled organisms. As soon as microbes emerged from the primordial soup, they were shaped by natural selection, ensuring survival of the fittest. Eventually, though not inevitably, evolution would lead to great complexity. After microbes came the Cambrian explosion—a rapid diversification of complex life. The seas became populated with soft-bodied fish, and after a few billion years, the vertebrates emerged. Bony fish eventually found the sand from the sea. Through intermediate forms, fins produced limbs. Hominids eventually came to rule the Earth with color vision, grasping hands, and brains able to fashion tools such as typewriters and laptops we could use to oversimplify complex scientific phenomena.

The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com

Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org

Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/from-the-lab-to-the-layperson-a-pioneering-initiative-to-improve-the-translation-of-science/

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