Mashadipati: Bw Reads: A longevity empire’s rise and fall

Welcome to Bw Reads, our weekend newsletter featuring one great magazine story from Bloomberg Businessweek. Today Courtney Rubin and Deena Shanker write about Peter Attia, who built his health-focused brand on trust and credibility. The revelation of a yearslong relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has upended that. You can find the whole story online (free!) here.

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In 2015, before Peter Attia was an influential longevity guru endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hugh Jackman, he was a little-known doctor raising money for the Nutrition Science Initiative, or NuSI, a nonprofit he'd co-founded. Attia's mission was to figure out whether obesity was caused by eating too many calories in general, or specifically carbs. Although Attia was responsible for fundraising at NuSI, it was one of the few things he didn't succeed at beyond the initial money the group received, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing nonpublic information. Unlike his ultramarathon 26-mile swims or the fasting regimens he espoused in those days, getting people to write big checks couldn't be optimized.

In late May of that year, Attia received an email introduction to the financier Jeffrey Epstein, who by then was a registered sex offender, and just in the past few months, had become the subject of another round of news stories. Attia was introduced by a well-known doctor, Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden and Epstein ex-girlfriend, emails released by the US government show. At the time, Attia's nonprofit was struggling to produce evidence of its carbohydrate-obesity hypothesis. He used the opportunity to pitch his new financier contact on some other ideas. In addition to his work at NuSI, Attia wrote to Epstein, they could also discuss "my medical work in longevity/healthspan." They spoke on the phone on June 2, prompting a flurry of emails, and Attia arranged to send a phlebotomist to take Epstein's blood for analysis shortly after. Attia himself would arrive in New York on June 7 and visit Epstein for dinner at his East 71st Street mansion.

Email from Attia to Andersson-Dubin thanking her for introducing him to Epstein. Source: DOJ — Email from Attia to Andersson-Dubin thanking her for introducing him to Epstein.

Within hours of leaving, Attia wrote to Epstein, musing at 2:44 a.m. about the "best line of the night." (Something having to do with airplanes.) A few days later, Attia wrote to Andersson-Dubin, with the subject line "THANK YOU," and said of Epstein: "He might literally be one of the—if not the—most interesting people I've ever met." Before the end of the month, Attia would tell Epstein, "the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can't tell a soul."

The Attia-Epstein friendship would continue for about four more years, carried out over email, in phone conversations and at in-person meetings, until at least February 2019, months after a Miami Herald exposé laid bare how Epstein's wealth, power and connections protected him from law enforcement despite allegations of crimes against underage girls. Attia wasn't shy asking Epstein about other power players he might know, giving Epstein medical advice, finding him specialists for ailments or offering at least a couple of billionaire introductions of his own. "I sent larry summers your manifesto this morning," Epstein wrote Attia in 2015, referring to Attia's 1,000-word pitch to "combine the best evidence of diet/sleep/exercise/drugs/hormones into a super longevity package." (A spokesperson for Summers declined to comment.)

Email from Epstein telling Attia that he' sent Attia's manifesto to Larry Summers. Source: DOJ — Email from Epstein telling Attia that he' sent Attia's manifesto to Larry Summers.

A decade later, it's clear that the beginning of Attia's friendship with Epstein coincided with the beginning of what would become Attia's empire. Clients of his medical concierge practice, Early Medical, pay six figures for extensive lab testing, full-body scans and personalized nutrition, exercise and sleep protocols. While Attia's client list isn't public, he's regularly in the company of the ultrarich and uberfamous. (When Jeff Bezos got married in Venice last summer, Attia was there, spotted talking to fellow guests while waiting for a vaporetto.) Attia also went on to become one of the most trusted wellness influencers, with 1 million YouTube subscribers, 1.6 million followers on Instagram and 100 million downloads of his podcast. His book, Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity (co-authored with journalist Bill Gifford), spent nearly three years on the New York Times bestseller list. He's been involved with more than a dozen startups, including a telehealth company, a wearable health-tracking device maker and a protein-bar brand.

Amid a sea of biohacking hucksters and fitness hacks, Attia became a trusted voice with a formidable command of actual science. Many of today's wellness trends can be traced in some form back to Attia—proteinmaxxing, rucking (walking carrying a heavy backpack), Zone 2 cardio, even the casual use of the word "healthspan." Completists love Attia's attention to detail, which includes extensive podcast show notes ("like 50-page books for each podcast," gushed his friend Kevin Rose) and countless references to books he's read. Sure, his currency is health expertise, but his real brand has always been his credibility.

Which is perhaps why, when his name appeared some 1,800 times in the massive Epstein file release on Jan. 30, he experienced one of the swiftest fallouts. This was a different Attia than the man his fans knew. One whose banter included "Pussy is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though," and who was making plans with Epstein in New York instead of flying home to California where his infant son had stopped breathing—a story that's been told multiple times, including in his book, with plenty of self-flagellation but zero mention of Epstein.

Attia shifted into crisis mode, posting a 1,000-plus-word statement to X on Feb. 2. He wrote that he was never involved in anything criminal and had not ridden on Epstein's plane, been to his island or attended any sex parties. Indeed, the emails do not show that Attia had any involvement in or direct knowledge of illegal activities. He said he met with Epstein seven or eight times at his New York home, between summer 2014 and spring 2019, "regarding research studies and to meet others he introduced me to." (According to Businessweek's count, it appears from the emails that Epstein and Attia met 11 times, beginning in June 2015—a count Attia's spokesperson confirmed, noting that the original statement was written "from memory in haste" and that Attia never witnessed "misconduct or anything unusual." He did not answer questions about whether Attia saw the top floor of the house, or specifically Epstein's massage room.) Attia ordered and reviewed lab work for Epstein, discussed his medical history and offered him medical advice. Still, Attia insisted in his X statement he was not Epstein's doctor, "though several times I answered general medical questions and recommended other providers to him." Attia told Businessweek in an emailed statement that he provided Epstein with only "informal guidance," adding that "I did not bill him, do a formal intake (which I do with every patient), maintain records for him, or establish a treatment plan."

But the damage was done. Within days, two of the best-known brands Attia advised publicly dropped him, while others quietly removed all digital traces of him. Outlive, at No. 15 after 131 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, dropped off of it entirely. On Feb. 23, Attia released a statement through a spokesperson saying he had resigned from CBS News, marking the end of a contributor role that had only just been announced.

It's impossible to know the full scale of what went on between Attia and Epstein. They traded jokes, confided in each other and discussed favors; and Attia met some influential people through Epstein. In his statement to Businessweek, Attia describes a much more transactional relationship with a person he "misjudged." He said after being introduced to Epstein in his fundraising efforts—a common type of high-net-worth introduction when it came to raising money for a nonprofit—he "remained in contact" with Epstein in the hope that he "might eventually fund research or refer patients," but Epstein did neither, he said. "In the most concrete sense, my professional interaction with Epstein produced nothing." Echoing his statement on X, Attia also told Businessweek that he asked Epstein about his 2008 conviction during their second meeting and believed Epstein's explanation that it was "an isolated mix-up," an explanation that, Attia said, aligned with Epstein's lack of serious punishment. "I am not going to participate in the construction of a narrative that uses a handful of private emails from a decade ago to redefine who I am today, or mischaracterize a career built over two decades of work," Attia wrote.

What is clear is that Attia found a rare entrée to power and money and did not let the opportunity pass him by. As he wrote in his statement on X, in those days he had "little exposure to prominent people, and that level of access was novel to me." For a person who built his entire career on optimizing outcomes, who wears a glucose monitor and tracks data on dozens of his biomarkers, the choice to maintain this relationship revealed a glaring blind spot.

On the Podcast

Spring break is here, and so is the chaos. With Transportation Security Administration agents going unpaid amid a partial government shutdown, staffing is short at airports across the country. This week on the Everybody's Business podcast from Bloomberg Businessweek, hosts Stacey Vanek Smith and Max Chafkin trace the invisible threads connecting 2-hour security lines to systems crumbling beneath our feet.

Businessweek's Deena Shanker joins to dig into the Epstein files and explain who faces consequences when things come crashing down. Plus, Martha Gimbel of Yale's Budget Lab asks a question on the minds of many Americans: Is retirement actually realistic anymore?

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Bw Reads: A longevity empire’s rise and fall

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