The Longevity Influencer Who Went Into ‘Withdrawal’ Without Jeffrey Epstein

If you didn’t know who Peter Attia was last week, here’s how you’ll remember him going forward: Attia is the guy who once emailed Jeffrey Epstein to confirm that “pussy is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”

Until recently, Attia was known as a wellness influencer in the manosphere and a newly appointed contributor at CBS as part of the “Free Press to network TV” pipeline. He has a popular podcast and wrote the best-selling book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. But Attia is also all over the Epstein files—his name pops up more than 1,700 times in the Justice Department’s latest batch of documents. From 2015 to 2018, Epstein and Attia exchanged numerous emails. Many of them are mundane: Epstein writes to Attia about “a very strange vein like red pattern” on his stomach; he asks Attia what kind of probiotic he should use; there is talk of MRI scans of Epstein’s spine. But others are vile. In a June 2015 back-and-forth about cancer and longevity, Epstein muses that he’s not sure why “women live past reproductive age at all.” (CBS did not respond to a request for comment; the network is reportedly expected to drop Attia after last week’s revelation.)

Attia, a onetime researcher who earned an M.D. but never completed his surgical residency, is beloved by his fans for his measured, scientific approach to living one’s best life. On a recent podcast, he spends two hours examining Alzheimer’s disease in women. Other episodes delve into timely topics such as protein intake, fertility, chronic pain, and nicotine; his October discussion about the safety of Tylenol use during pregnancy offers an evidence-based counterpoint to the alarmist White House press conference on that issue. But he’s also been knocked for overhyping treatments with limited data behind them and for exploiting his eager fans (a course he offered on longevity cost $2,500, according to a 2023 Wall Street Journal article). Eric Topol, a high-profile cardiologist who directs the Scripps Research Translational Institute, called Attia a “huckster” earlier today.

In the mid-2010s, about the time he befriended Epstein, Attia seemed focused on building a roster of clients whom he could advise on longevity and wellness. An exercise physiologist who once worked with Attia told me that Attia sent him to do a physical evaluation of Epstein at the late financier’s cavernous Manhattan residence in July 2017. He remembers two young, attractive women who flowed in and out during the session with Epstein, though Epstein didn’t acknowledge them. “Something felt a little off,” he told me. A proposed follow-up session never took place. (The physiologist spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to be associated with the scandal; he told me he hasn’t spoken with Attia in years.)

Attia’s emails with Epstein reveal no such qualms. In an email in which Attia seems to be pitching Epstein a longevity program, he asks Epstein if “you’re interested in living longer (solely for the ladies, of course)?” In July 2016, Attia asked Epstein what he was doing in Palm Beach, where Epstein allegedly abused numerous underage girls. “Guess,” Epstein writes. Attia replies: “Besides that.” In 2017, Attia appears to have spent time with Epstein in New York—rebuffing his wife’s pleas for him to return home to California—while his infant son was having a medical emergency. In the emails, Attia is not just Epstein’s medical adviser but a friend and ardent admirer. In 2016, Attia wrote to Epstein’s assistant that he goes “into JE withdrawal when I don’t see him.”

When Attia and Epstein met in 2014, the full extent of the latter’s crimes weren’t yet publicly known, but his misdeeds weren’t a secret. Epstein first pleaded guilty to a child-sex offense in 2008, and by 2010, he had settled several lawsuits over allegations of sexual misconduct. A representative for Attia pointed me to a long semi–mea culpa that Attia posted on his X account this morning. He writes that he “never saw anyone who appeared underage” in Epstein’s presence, and that he had “nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone.” Attia also says that when he learned about the extent of Epstein’s crimes from a November 2018 Miami Herald article, he confronted Epstein and told him that he needed to accept responsibility and pay for support for those he had harmed. (In December 2018, Attia wrote to Epstein that he “would like to discuss some stuff with you in person.”) And, in his X post, Attia calls the emails between him and Epstein “embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible.”

In his lengthy explanation of his behavior, Attia writes that he was fascinated by Epstein’s wealth and access to influential people. Epstein had contact with plenty of household names, such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Attia’s emails refer to “Ehud”—likely Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister who was known to have a relationship with Epstein but has previously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. In an August 2015 email, Epstein tells Attia that he’s having dinner that night with “musk thiel zuckerburg [sic].” (In 2019, a spokesperson for the Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said he had met Epstein “in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein.” In 2021, Gates told PBS that his meetings with Epstein were a mistake. A spokesperson for Peter Thiel said on Saturday that Thiel never visited Epstein’s island, and Musk wrote on X that “no one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released and I’m glad that has finally happened.”)

Attia is more representative of another category of Epstein associate: researchers who thought Epstein could either fund their work or help push their careers to the next level. In his X post, Attia writes that he was introduced to Epstein when he was raising money for scientific research. Epstein was known to have donated millions to a research center run by Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard. (In 2021, the university temporarily sanctioned Nowak for violating rules about professionalism and campus access in connection with his involvement with Epstein, but he remains a professor there. He said at the time that he regretted “the connection I was part of fostering between Harvard and Jeffrey Epstein.”) Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, received $250,000 from Epstein’s foundation for his science-communication group. At one point, Epstein introduced Attia to Krauss over email because Krauss was hoping to start a podcast and wanted tips. (Last year, Krauss said that none of his communications with Epstein was criminal, and that he “was as shocked as the rest of the world when he was arrested.”)

Attia, in other words, was seemingly not alone in being wowed by Epstein’s wealth and well-known friends. A particular challenge for Attia, though, is that wellness influencers offer their followers more than diet-and-exercise tips. They’re selling wisdom. Follow my advice, they contend, and you’ll live a longer, healthier, more fulfilled life. But a chummy, yearslong association with a convicted child predator is, at the very least, unwise.