Durk Pearson, born in 1943 in Illinois, is best known for coauthoring a series of books on longevity, beginning with Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach

Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach

Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach was a 1982 book by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw that popularized the life extension and smart drug movements....

.

Early life

While a student at MIT, he was a member of the MIT Science Fiction Society

MIT Science Fiction Society

The MIT Science Fiction Society is a literary society and library of science fiction and fantasy books and magazines, located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

 and one of the writers for the early underground comic God Comics. Pearson graduated from MIT with a triple major in physics, biology, and psychology.

Career

Pearson has patents in the area of oil shale and tar sands recovery, lasers, holography and supplement formulations. Pearson assisted with equipment design and experiments for NASA's Space Shuttle. Pearson is also an International Society for Testing and Failure Analysis honoree.

Publications

Pearson and Sandy Shaw are the coauthors of Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach

Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach

Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach was a 1982 book by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw that popularized the life extension and smart drug movements....

(ISBN 0-446-51229-X, Warner Books, 1982), The Life Extension Companion (Warner Books), The Life Extension Weight Loss Manual, and Freedom of Informed Choice: FDA v. Nutrient Supplements, (Common Sense Press, 1993). He and Sandy Shaw

Sandy Shaw

Sandy Shaw is an American writer on health. She is an advocate of life extension.-Education:Shaw's father was an engineer and her mother a housewife. She received her degree in chemistry from U.C.L.A...

 have co-authored numerous articles on Life extension

Life extension

Life extension science, also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology, is the study of slowing down or reversing the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan...

, cognitive enhancement

Nootropic

Nootropics , also referred to as smart drugs, brain steroids, memory enhancers, cognitive enhancers, and intelligence enhancers, are drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration...

, Anti-aging, Weight loss

Weight loss

Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body mass, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue...

, and other aspects of nutrition.

Television, film, and video

Pearson and Shaw wrote, designed the stunts, and acted as technical advisors for a 1978 episode of The Wonderful World of Disney, called "Black Holes, Monsters That Eat Space and Time." They acted as scientific and technical advisors and received screen credits for the Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 movie Firefox

Firefox (film)

Firefox is a 1982 American action film produced, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. It is based upon the 1977 novel of the same name written by Craig Thomas....

. They received screen credits for acting as technical advisors for Douglas Trumbull

Douglas Trumbull

Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...

's movie Brainstorm

Brainstorm (1983 film)

Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood...

, starring Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...

. In 1988 Steve Sharon, Pearson and Shaw authored the thriller The Dead Pool

The Dead Pool

The Dead Pool is a 1988 American action thriller film about the manipulation of a "dead pool" game by a serial killer, whose efforts are foiled by a hardened detective. It is the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series, set in San Francisco, California and starring Clint Eastwood as...

, which was later sold to Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 and made into a Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....

film. Pearson and Shaw make a cameo appearance in the funeral scene.

Court case on dietary supplements

Pearson and Shaw in a civil action challenged the constitutional validity of several U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") regulations that require sellers of dietary supplements to obtain FDA authorization before labeling such supplements with "health claims". In ruling against the FDA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the supplement health claims were constitutionally protected free speech.

External links

• Durk Pearson-Libertarian
• Truth, Freedom, and the FDA: An Interview with Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw
• Maintain your Brain the Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw Way (Interview)