A campaign against anti-aging
medicine has recently been launched by an international group of some 50 biogerontologists
- biologists who conduct research on the basic processes of aging. Proclaiming
that there is "no truth to the Fountain of Youth" in Scientific American and other
publications, they seek to discredit what they judge to be fraudulent and
harmful products and therapies. At the same time, they are attempting to distinguish
their own research from the activities of practitioners and entrepreneurs that
purvey hormone injections (e.g., HGH), special
mineral waters, and other anti-aging
services and products.
In the February 2003 issue of The Gerontologist, Robert H. Binstock, professor of aging, health, and society at the Case
Western Reserve University School of Medicine, interprets why this war against
anti-aging medicine is taking place and assesses its consequences. He argues
that the biogerontologists -- many of
whom are themselves trying to
develop interventions that will actually slow or arrest the processes of aging
- fear that the contemporary prominence
Of pseudoscientific anti-aging medicine
could threaten the status and funding of their own research. Through their
attack on anti-aging medicine, however, they may be shooting themselves in the
foot.
Binstock’s
analysis is that the biogerontologists may be
inadvertently undermining their own legitimacy and research support by blurring
public understanding of the difference between the anti-aging services and products
that they are denigrating, and their own aspirations to achieve effective anti-aging
interventions.
Instead of this war on anti-aging
medicine, he suggests, the biogerontologists might be
wiser to invest their efforts in pointing out to the public and decision makers
the potential health benefits to be realized from their own research in the
decades ahead, such as active longevity
free from disability and functional
dependence.
###
The Gerontologist is a refereed publication of The Gerontological Society of America, the national organization of professionals in the field of aging.