Vigilance glossary

This is a catalog of phrases that trigger my alarm bell when reading papers.

We reversed aging - did you actually measure the reduction in late-life mortality rates of the treatment group compared to controls? Did you observe the treatment group breaking lifespan records for the species? Or did you just score better on frailty measures?

We rejuvenated the cells - what’s the mutational load of these “younger” cells? Did the cell’s oncogenes get un-mutated to become comparable to the DNA of the cell in a newborn organism? Or did you just remove the barriers that kept old mutated cells from becoming tumorigenic?

We reprogrammed the cells with Yamamaka factors - same questions

We extended healthspan - why not lifespan? have you ruled out the possibility of lifespan staying unchanged or even contracting? what measures and proxies are you using for defining “healthspan”?

We turned back the epigenetic clock - did you actually unwind all of the accumulated epigenetic noise in an unbiased manner, or did you just make a few targeted changes to known targets? How do you know the genes that you’re targeting aren’t changing their epigenetic state as an adaptive response to age-related problems?

Our treatment group survived X% longer than the control group - did the control group itself actually survive for as long as the species usually does? Or did they all die young and therefore your treatment looks better by contrast? Does the treatment group climb high on the longevity leaderboard for the species?