Mainstream docs join anti-aging bandwagon

Dr. Mickey Barber, a Charleston, S.C., Cenegenics affiliate and Gooden's physician, was an anesthesiologist before turning to “age management” medicine five years ago. She believes that mainstream medicine “at one point in time was lucrative, but it is less so now with health insurance, litigation, and many doctors became discouraged. I think doctors are looking for another way to provide medical care for patients, and if part of that pays the bills, sure.”

A typical evaluation of a new patient in Barber's clinic, she says, takes about seven hours and she may order up to 90 laboratory tests. The day costs $3,000.

Johnny Adams, a 58-year-old software consultant in Newport Beach, Calif., has experienced the way some anti-aging doctors bump fees by prescribing and testing. He has spent between $1,400 and $2,000 per year for the last four years on anti-aging, but that represents a big drop in his costs.

When he first began, he says, he tried a number of doctors. “One had me on a very overly aggressive and rather naïve program. He had me on everything under the sun. Pretty soon I was taking something like 178 different nutritional supplements, hormones, some prescription drugs I was getting from overseas.” Now he focuses on nutrition, exercise and some supplements such as omega-3s, antioxidants and vitamins.

The anti-aging field's emphasis on supplements comes even though there is little evidence that most do anything for people who already eat a healthy diet. "I know it's possible that I'm just giving myself expensive pee," says Snyder, the ER doc, laughing.

Unlike manufacturers of prescription and over-the-counter medications, dietary supplement makers do not have to prove their products are safe or effective before selling them. Some supplements have been shown to be contaminated with lead or other harmful substances. And research has even found that large doses of antioxidants, like beta-carotene, actually increase cancer risks.

Hormones are hot
But hormones are the most popular tools in anti-aging’s armory. Scientists recognized their potential over 100 years ago, but their use in modern anti-aging traces back to July 1990 when a researcher named Daniel Rudman published a study about the effects of human growth hormone (HGH) on men over 60 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Though the anti-aging industry existed long before then, Texas entrepreneur Howard Turney, who now calls himself Lazarus Long after an immortal character in a Robert Heinlein novel, created a new version. He was so enthused about Rudman’s positive results that he started a resort called El Dorado in Cancun, Mexico, to administer HGH to those seeking rejuvenation. Klatz, then an osteopath and a consultant at El Dorado, held the A4M’s organizing meeting there.

Rudman issued many caveats and cautions about using HGH and never recommended its use to delay aging. In fact, he was horrified his study was being used to support the industry especially since heavy use of growth hormone can have unwanted side effects. Endocrinologists worry that unnecessarily taking HGH could trigger cancers, diabetes and other hormone-related conditions. There are still many unknowns.

Still, HGH, the body's "master hormone," became the hottest thing to hit anti-aging since vitamin C because it was a real drug that appeared to restore youthful vigor.

Klatz wrote a 1996 book, "Grow Young with HGH," summing up the life-extension world’s hope that there was finally a fountain of youth in a bottle. He dedicated it to Rudman saying, “His vision and pioneering human research with growth hormone for anti-aging marked the beginning of the end of aging.”

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Now that sports doping scandals have made HGH, as well as testosterone and other hormones, front-page news, and some anti-aging clinics and compounding pharmacies have been raided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for being overly liberal with hormone prescriptions, the anti-aging community has toned down its endorsement of hormones, at least in public.

“Less than 10 percent of patients involved in anti-aging are receiving growth hormone,” Klatz insists.

That seems a dubious assertion. In fact, hormones remain a key ingredient of anti-aging practice. “Most of my anti-aging patients get hormones,” typically growth hormone as well as sex hormones appropriate to each gender, Jurow says.

In his own article in "Medical Spas," Klatz argues that one of the main reasons for an M.D. to partner with a med spa is to “offer patients … Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy, which aims to arrest age-related declines in hormone levels such that the natural peaks achieved in youth are maintained throughout life.”

Hope in a bottle Americans are increasingly turning to herbs, vitamins and other dietary supplements in hopes of living healthier and longer lives, according to the Freedonia Group, a market research firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. Here's a look at some of hottest supplements cited by the group: Nutrients: omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, probiotics, soy proteins, pomegranate, cranberry, psyllium Vitamins: vitamins C, E, A, B12, K, folic acid and biotin Minerals: chromium, copper, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, potassium Herbal extracts: ginseng, ginkgo biloba, garlic, saw palmetto, chamomile, kava kava, spirulina Others: coenzyme Q10, melatonin, glucosamine, chondroitin

Yet there is no evidence that people live longer if they take HGH — lab animals with less growth hormone actually live longer than their normal brethren — or any other hormone. Nor is there any conclusive proof hormones make healthy older people any healthier. Research results are mixed, the picture murky.

The recent death of Cenegenics founder Dr. Alan Mintz, a prime HGH promoter, demonstrates that growth hormone is no panacea. He died last June, at age 69, reportedly during a brain biopsy. 

As some enthusiasts admit, anti-aging patients are essentially running a giant uncontrolled experiment on themselves — increasingly at the hands of doctors.

Critics point out that the biggest concern about doctors getting involved is that many patients incorrectly assume that if their trusted physician is recommending hormones and supplements, these treatments must be safe and effective.

The fact is, no drug, treatment or supplement has ever been shown to extend human lifespan.

But Gooden, the Charleston real estate agent, calls her own transformation at the hands of Barber “a miracle.”

"For as long as I can remember I have had insomnia," she says. "And increasing pain that doctors said was arthritis." Barber’s daylong testing, however, “showed what needed to be dealt with," mainly deficiencies in DHEA, estrogen and testosterone. “My hormonal levels were way out of whack, my cardiac function was not what it should be,” Gooden says.

Barber arranged for Gooden to meet with a personal trainer and a nutritionist and prescribed a host of prescription drugs such as testosterone, estrogen and thyroid medication, and the usual array of anti-aging supplements like DHEA and vitamins, most of which she obtains from Barber.

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