AdG probably have some kind of optimization method worked out. He will only endorse things that have maximum payback per unit of work invested in it.
It would be stupid for him to be tangled up with C60, even if they fund an exploratory study his name could easily be smeared by nasty result by the anti-antiaging media.
What if everyone on C60 goes blind after a decade or something due to accumulation of carbon crystals in the eyeball.
I think that it's a combination of two things. One is that the scientific evidence isn't compelling enough yet. Another is that they want to focus on regenerative / damage repair therapies. One could argue about the role of c60oo as being regenerative in certain circumstances, but this is a case where the data really is not in. The Methuselah Foundation was the major outside funder (Longecity was the major funder) of our c60oo leukemia study. Aubrey is aware of the results and has expressed interest.
I must say from a somewhat layperson's perspective it doesn't seem to have been a sensible position: the results of Baati were spectacular, the cost of further data (e.g. the leukemia study) was fairly small and yet it has taken over two years for funded research. A lot of very knowledgeable and qualified people assessed the potential payoff sufficiently worthwhile to invest/risk their health in c60 almost immediately and yet there was no funding readily forthcoming from various altruistic organisations which one would imagine should be keenly interested. It wouldn't have taken much investment a couple of years ago to serve as a catalyst to establish what would now be real momentum in research.
I appreciate AdB's understandable position of not wanting to spend resource squaring the aging curve because, naturally, it has historically taken huge investment for tiny increases; but after Baati, c60 showed the possibility to be a game changer, even if it still would have appeared improbable at the time.
Anyhow, it is great it is on AdB & co's radar.
Yes, it does look a bit odd. The NIA has spent a small fortune on testing "promising" compounds to see if they resulted in mouse life extension. Not a whole lot has come of that, other than a belief among many that small rodent experiments mean almost nothing, and the results usually evaporate once a large experiment is done with proper husbandry. There's a long history of this that is well known in the life extension field. There actually was some talk of getting c60 into the NIA's Intervention Testing Protocol (ITP), but I have the impression (I hope I'm wrong...) that it's fizzled out. One might ask "why has no one run a smaller cheaper replication of Baati?" Well, for one thing, it's harder and more expensive than you might think. They take forever to set up and run to conclusion. There are now two lifespan trials I know of using c60oo, although neither is exactly a replication of Baati. Why did it take approximately 3 years from the publication of Baati to get to this point? For one thing, the paper was initially met with a wall of skepticism. An awful lot of people went through some sort of pattern matching algorithm along the lines of: Small N? Check. Extraordinary result? Check. Life extension involved? Check. Errors in a couple figures in the manuscript? (ok, admittedly one was a doozy) Check. Conclusion? Fraud. The End. It didn't help that it involved a substance (c60) that was very foreign to most of us. So there was all this skepticism, much of it knee-jerk, that we had to get through. Then there's the historical disdain for curve-squaring among the rejuvenation community. When we have exactly zero rejuvenation therapies currently available, I think a curve-squaring compound is pretty useful. Others (either younger or more single-minded than myself) seem to view curve-squaring as a silly distraction. Finally, there is the very real problem that the simpler the organism, the easier it is to make it live longer. A 90% median LS increase in rats is certainly not going to translate into 90% for humans. (But 9% wouldn't surprise me.) With as much as SRF already has on their plate, and considering all this, I'm not surprised they haven't actively pursued it.
Although the initial Baati paper didn't seem to cause much of a stir in the public, I think that a really robust replication would generate a lot of public interest, and would help to get across the idea that lifespan isn't set in stone. That in turn could lead people to more support of rejuvenation. There's also the numerous unmet medical needs that c60oo addresses, the latest being some suggestions, along with a very plausible theoretical case, that it is a potent preventive of burn injury. Were it widely deployed, it could eliminate a lot of human suffering for not much money.
That AdG isn't "into" this as a first priority once more shows the quandary of why life isn't "fair."
It's like the most brilliant people don't have a sniffer to be able to "smell test" the most obvious things.
And if he isn't focusing research on C60 because poor results could "smear" his name, then it would be a question of whether he has enough "backbone" to weather the shifting tide of public opinion. I doubt that.
I mean can anyone cite any other potential life extension tool that even begins to compare to what so many of us have experienced with the consumption of C60?
I truly ask that question of anyone reading this.
I'll ask that question of AdG if I have the chance.
I've given about 10 bottles to loved ones and no one has continued to take it. Even the one that noted that C60 greatly reduces the "high" that alcohol causes. She didn't continue it because she values the warm buzz during "happy hour" socializing with her husband and friends and C60 kills it.
Another friend that got me to try it expressed no interest in trying it herself.
And that brings into sharp contrast that they are aging far faster than I and that they are going to die and, unless an accident kills me, I will greatly outlive them.
Even brilliant friends that believe they are into "anti-aging" fail to note the great difference in their skin tone and mine and then be curious as to why my skin looks 20+ years younger than theirs. Little wrinkling. No sagging. It's obvious.
I've basically realized that only what was described to me by a brilliant friend as "mutants" will have open eyes to see C60's anti-aging potential and then dig in to study it.
It's sad, tragic and frustrating, but then ... many are called, but few choose to listen.
LongeCity
