This looks ok at first glance. Not as good as rapamycin (had to say it), but decent absolute and relative effects, at least in females. Here’s my method for quickly assessing claims of lifespan extension in mice in under 60 seconds /1

Check the absolute control and median lifespans. To do this simply start at 50% (or 0.5 depending on units) on the y-axis, look straight across to the survival curve, then look straight down when you hit the line. Where your eyes hit the x-axis will be approximately median /2

For max LS, just look at the x-axis where the survival curve hits zero /3

For controls, we’re hoping to see median around 850-900, males typically slightly longer-lived in C57Bl/6. If control median is below 800 for me that’s a red flag




/4

For treatment group, I’m not excited if median < 900d (females) – 1000d (males) and max < 1200. I’m pretty excited when someone beats 1400d for max LS. That's how old our longest rapa-treated mouse (Ike) lived in a relatively small cohort /5

The reason this exercise is important is because most (perhaps all) of the questionable or non-reproducible claims of lifespan extension in mice have come from studies where the controls were short-lived /6

“What about healthspan?” Healthspan is a concept. It is not quantitative. Anybody who claims to have “extended healthspan” is claiming something that is not supported by statistics. It is a failure of the peer-review system that this is still allowed

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30084059/

/7

You can quantitatively improve individual healthspan metrics, and many interventions are reported to do so. Personally, I still believe a big lifespan effect is much more convincing, especially for first report of a novel intervention. Too much healthspan cherry picking /8

Ok, back to this study Using our easy rule above:

Control median and max: ~850 days and ~1200 days
Treatment med and max: ~1000 days and ~1225 days

So, not bad relative to a lot of the stuff in the literature

/9

Couple of oddities. Males and females had very similar med/max LS. What strain is this?

Intervention appears to move median but not really max LS. Not uncommon but worth noting.

Overall, a pretty efficient way to get to the heart of a lifespan claim in less than 60s

/10