By Christy Santhosh
Feb 3 (Reuters) – Longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia has stepped down as chief science officer of protein bar company David Protein, the company’s founder Peter Rahal said in a post on X, after his dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became public.
Attia’s name appears more than 1,700 times in the trove of 3 million emails released as part of the Epstein files by the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday.
“Dr. Peter Attia has stepped down from his role as Chief Science Officer at David. We remain focused on serving our customers.” founder Peter Rahal said on X.
Following the controversy, Attia’s name and image were removed from the David Protein website and “experts” page.
David Protein and Attia did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
On Monday, the Wrap reported CBS News, owned by Paramount, is expected to cut ties with Attia who was named a contributor as part of Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’ strategy to restructure operations.
Weiss does not want to cut ties with Attia, according to the Wrap, leading to a battle between the CBS News’ chief and Paramount corporate.
In a post on X on Monday, Attia denied he was involved in criminal activity. But he apologized and said he was “ashamed” by the emails, which included “crude, tasteless banter”.
Sara Gottfried, a physician and author of the New York Times bestselling book The Autoimmune Cure: Healing the Trauma and Other Triggers That Have Turned Your Body Against You, posted to LinkedIn that Attia has been discredited as a medical expert.
“The longevity industry is built on trust, optimization, prevention. Now it has to reckon with the fact that one of its most prominent voices failed the most basic test of medical ethics,” she wrote on Tuesday.
Attia was an investor in David Protein and participated in its $10 million seed funding round in August 2024.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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