More than 12 years ago, I posted a blog note about the field of anti-aging medicine, longevity and its practitioners (see: Anti-Aging, Longevity Medicine, and Lab Testing) that included the following paragraph:
Just to frame the issue and get your attention, annual revenue from the anti-aging industry is estimated to be $56B -- this includes products such as anti-aging cream and botox injections. Need to find an anti-aging physician? No problem. Here is the link to the home page of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M). It's not too late to attend the 14th Annual International Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine.
Since I posted this first note, there still seems to be a heavy dose of hucksterism in the anti-aging field. A patient visiting a practitioner often is screened with a large panel of lab tests to determine the difference between his or her chronologic and biologic age. Study of telomere length may be one facet of such testing (see: Easing the brakes on the "immortality" enzyme could slow aging). The consequence of testing is often to suggest the need for dietary supplements or anti-aging sera. Here's a typical web page located by a search with the term anti-aging (see: The Best Anti-Aging Secrets). Perhaps even worse for the patient may be the occasional advocacy of the physician for off-label administration of growth hormone as a kind of elixir of youth (see: Growth hormone therapy).
Perhaps the longevity and anti-aging "brands" are now so tarnished that they can't be rehabilitated. However, it did occur to me that it also may be the right time to blend longevity medicine with mainstream medicine. In my mind, preventive medicine overlaps with anti-aging medicine with the suitable goal of pursuing a longer and disease-free life for a patient. This can be accomplished by ameliorating the most common causes of premature death which are sometimes called lifestyle diseases (see: Seeking the Correct Definition for a "Lifestyle Disease"; Relevance of Lifestyle Analytics for Healthcare Organizations). This attention to "lifestyle" problems would involve attention to obesity, diabetes, daily exercise, smoking cessation, drug and alcohol addition/dependence, and adequate sleep habits.
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