Official Position Statement on The Truth About Human Aging
Official Position Statement on The Truth About Human Aging Official Position Statement on The Truth About Human Aging Intervention Issued June 2002
by American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M, Chicago, IL USA), a non-profit educational medical organization now composed of 11,500 member physicians, health practitioners, and scientists representing 65 countries, is the undisputed leader in advancing anti-aging medicine around the world. The A4M is engaged in training, education, and advocacy initiatives to expand the availability of leading-edge preventive healthcare around the world. With the expanding acceptance of anti-aging medicine by both the public and the scientific community, however, individuals and organizations with their own agendas have sought to create synonyms in an effort to rebrand as their own a revolution in preventive healthcare that cannot be denied. These alternative phrases are simply substitutes for the original concept of "anti-aging medicine" as established by the A4M. Longevity medicine, successful aging, healthy aging, optimal aging, and aging gracefully, among other synonyms, are being substituted by conventional gerontologists for the term antiaging. Simply put, the gerontological establishment seeks to silence the most visible independent source of innovations in aging research and education.
As scientific research on aging has progressed, discoveries being made in human aging intervention threaten the powers-that-be who exert a stranglehold control of the pursestrings that fund aging research. As a multi-billion dollar industry, aging is a big business. In the nine years since its inception, the A4M has become a prominent organization leading a campaign encouraging the appropriation of funds to clinical antiaging research and the acceptance of anti-aging medicine as a clinical medical specialty. Both of these endeavors threaten the very core of existence of the gerontological establishment, posing a serious challenge to the well-established financial arrangements and personal reputations involved therein. To respond, the gerontological establishment has systematically engaged in the press to advance its biased position, securing high-exposure coverage for its propaganda campaign purporting that anti-aging interventions are ineffective and harmful. To each of these staged publicity efforts, the A4M has requested opportunities for equal-time coverage and/or rebuttal, only to be summarily denied without fair consideration. Turning a blind eye and deaf ear to journalistic integrity, publications have abandoned their objective commitment to excellence in scientific reporting, and kow-towed to pressure from the gerontological establishment.
Earlier this month, the biased gerontological position on aging intervention was published in Olshansky SJ, Hayflick L, Carnes B, "Position Statement on Human Aging" Scientific American, June 2002. In response, the A4M issues its official position statement on "The Truth on Human Aging Intervention," endorsed by the medical organization representing 11,000 clinicians and scientists from 65 countries who are involved in advancing safe and efficacious anti-aging medical care. The A4M's official position statement is comprised of the following elements:
- A4M White Paper: In March 2002, the A4M issued its White Paper titled "Validating the Facts and Science of Anti-Aging Medicine: A Report on the State of the Clinical Specialty." This work surveys the objective and independent factual evidence that substantiates the anti-aging medical movement.
- Feature coverage in support of anti-aging medicine, viewable at - "Aging versus Antiaging: Geriatrics is in trouble while antiaging medicine takes off," The Futurist [World Future Society], ....Sept.-Oct. 2001. - "The Benefits of Immortality," The Futurist [World Future Society], Jan.-Feb. 2002. - "Anti-Aging Medicine: Resoundingly Clear, Independent Support for Expansion of an Innovative Medical Specialty," Generations ....[American Society on Aging], Winter 2002.
- Gerontological Bias vs. A4M Factual Response, which we present below :
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Past and
anticipated advances in [aging] interventions only
influence the manifestations of aging--not aging
itself. The biomedical knowledge required to modify
the processes of aging that lead to age-associated
pathologies confronted by geriatricians does not
currently exist." A4M FACTUAL
RESPONSE: In the April 10th issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association, the
Alliance for Aging Research reports that "There is
little research on the aging process itself: less
than 1% of the entire budget of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) is devoted to studying
the biology of aging." [Mitka M, "As Americans Age,
Geriatricians Go Missing," JAMA, 287(14); April 10,
2002.] Over the next five years, the NIH's budget
will be doubling: in 2003, the NIH will receive
$27.3 billion. Of this $3.7 billion increase over
fiscal year 2002, zero dollars have been earmarked
for clinical anti-aging research. Moreover, the
National Institute on Aging (NIA), the NIH branch
tasked with "understanding the nature of aging,"
has received over $10.3 billion since its creation
in 1974, yet NIA admits that "despite increasing
funds to make awards, the Institute has experienced
a decline in success rate [ie, the payoff of
research versus cost of project awards]." ["Overall
Funding Policies, National Institute on Aging,
www.nia.nih.gov/funding;/policies/gfunding.html].
We propose that the NIA rethink its funding
strategy in order to welcome eager, independent
anti-aging researchers who lack the bloated-budget
thinking of their gerontology counterparts. At an
"average NIA grant of $345,000 to $370,000," A4M
submits that over 2,000 anti-aging research
projects -- yielding near-term, applicable results
for aging intervention -- could be funded by the
$880 million appropriated to NIA for 2002.
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Eliminating
all aging-related causes of death currently written
on the death certificates of the elderly will not
increase human life expectancy by more than 15
years."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: In 1900,
the leading causes of death, namely tuberculosis,
pneumonia, and diarrhea/enteritis, reflected lack
of sanitation and effective infection control. Life
expectancy in 1900 stood at just 47.3 years. In
1997, the leading causes of death, namely heart
disease, cancer, and stroke -- collectively, the
"degenerative diseases of aging," Life expectancy
in 1997 stood at 79 years (women) and 74 years
(men). The US Department of Health and Human
Services projects that life expectancy in 2050 will
be 84.3 years for women and 79.7 years for men.
["Healthy People 2010," U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services. Washington DC: January 2000.]
A4M believes that at least another ten years can be
added to life expectancy when factoring in the
impact of biotechnology. This position is supported
by the Global Business Network (GBN), a worldwide
membership organization engaged in a collaborative
exploration of the future. GBN Chairman Peter
Schwartz has remarked that " Science and medicine
will not only extend more people's lives to ... 120
years, but advances in biology will lengthen human
life even beyond that. If we look at the current
work on stem cells and phenomena like telomerase
... we find we're learning a great deal about the
control mechanisms for aging. It's very likely that
over the next 25 years, society will see serious
and effective medical intervention in the aging
process -- people undergoing such therapy will keep
looking and feeling and acting younger than their
calendar age. The prospect of individuals living
significantly longer than the current norm will
begin to open up. In fact, looking at historical
trends, one finds that over the past century, we
nearly doubled our lifespan, the average having
gone from about 45 to 85. There's no reason to
imagine that we won't do at least as much in the
next century. If you double 85, you're at 170 -- so
my bet is actually conservative." ["Wanna Bet?,"
Wired May 2002, p. 131.]
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS:
"Relatively little evidence from human studies that
supplements -- lead to a reduction in either the
risk of these conditions or the rate of aging."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: In April
2002, Dr. Bruce Ames et al of the University of
California/Berkeley reported in The American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition that they were able
to treat more than 50 genetic diseases with high
doses of vitamins. The team also believes that
there may be many more diseases similarly treatable
-- including aging, because the process involves
biochemical deficiencies that may be modulated with
vitamin therapy. The researchers suggest that
vitamins, which are converted to coenzymes, team up
with enzymes to perform various essential metabolic
functions. Saturating the body with vitamins
increases coenzyme levels and provides the
necessary nutrients to conduct cellular processes
properly. Commenting on the findings, Dr. Ames
states that "there is potentially much benefit ...
in trying high-dose nutrient therapy, because of
the nominal cost, ease of application, and low
level of risk." Dr. Ames adds that he "suspect[s]
the big impact [of dietary supplementation] is
going to be in aging." [Ames BN, Elson-Schwab I,
Silver I, Am J Clinical Nutrition, April 2002, 75:
616-658.]
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "No product
currently sold has been demonstrated to reverse
aging. No hormone, has been proved to slow, stop or
reverse aging. Growing younger is a phenomenon that
is currently not possible."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: We
reference the 1990 landmark study on growth hormone
by Daniel Rudman et al, in which the researchers
state "the effects of six months of human growth
hormone on lean body mass and adipose-tissue mass
were equivalent in magnitude to the changes
incurred during 10 to 20 years of aging." [Rudman
D, Feller AG, Nagraj HS, Lalitha PY, Goldberg AF,
Schlenker RA, Cohn L, Rudman IW, Mattson DE,
"Effects of human growth hormone in men over 60
years old," N Engl J Med 1990 Jul 5; 323(1): 1-6].
More recently, in April of this year, scientists
from the US National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National
Institutes of Health, reported earlier this year in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
that feeding fruit flies throughout adulthood with
the drug 4-phenylbutyrate (PBA) can significantly
increase lifespan, without diminution of mobility,
stress resistance, or reproductive ability.
Moreover, treatment for a limited period, either
early or late in adult life, was also found to be
effective. PBA extended the maximum lifespan of
fruit flies by over 50% and their average lifespan
by one-third. [Kang HL, Benzer S, Min KT, "Life
extension in Drosophila by feeding a drug," Proc
Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Jan 22; 99(2):
838-43]
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "It is
unlikely that scientists will be able to influence
aging directly through genetic engineering because
... there are no genes directly responsible for the
processes of aging."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: In February
2002, Icelandic biotechnologists announced that
they had isolated the Methuselah gene, a stretch of
DNA that offers a protective defense against old
age. The researchers located the gene after
comparing the records of 1,200 people who lived for
90 years or longer with that of a similar number of
people with average lifespans. Results showed that
those who lived longest were more closely related
than those who lived for an average lifetime, and
that a single gene appeared to be responsible for
protecting the nonagenarians from the ravages of
old age. Kari Stefansson, the Chief Executive of
DeCode Genetics, the company behind the discovery,
believes that the discovery will help scientists to
develop life-lengthening drugs, saying: "There is
no reason why we cannot do this. We know the
location of this gene. Soon we will study its exact
DNA sequence and work out how it works in the body.
You can then think of making drugs that could
replicate its action." This discovery follows new
data released by the Harvard Centenarian Study,
which recently found that 100% of the centenarians
they studied had Methuselah-type genes, which
appeared to protect them from age-related
conditions such as cancer, dementia and heart
disease. Many had also inherited a gene dubbed the
longevity gene. The researchers also found that the
children of centenarians were likely to live 10 to
15 years longer than the norm, and their siblings
were four times more likely than average to live to
see their 90th birthday.
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Suggestions
have been made that the complete replacement of all
body parts with more youthful components could
increase longevity. Though possible in theory, it
is highly improbable that this would ever become a
practical strategy to extend length of life."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: Replacement
parts for worn out or damaged human organs are
presently helping people to extend both total and
healthy lifespan. In the not-so-distant future,
refinement of today's organ replacement
technologies will extend total lifespan even
farther. The A4M is not the only medical
organization putting forth this position. At its
annual meeting in 2000, the American College of
Cardiology predicted: "It is the year 2024. You are
75 years old, and you discover that a man next to
you on an airplane has a pig heart, and his
arteries are swarming with "smart dust" that sends
continuous reports on his condition to his doctor's
computer. That's not so strange, because you have a
pig heart, too. And by 2049, when you are 100, many
of your organs will be replaced. Plus you'll feel
better than you did at 50 because "nanolabs" in
your blood can manufacture and supply drugs
whenever they are needed." [Raeburn R, "Oh, so you
have a pig's heart too," Business Week, March 27,
2000].
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Optimum
lifestyles, including exercise and a balanced diet
along with other proven methods for maintaining
good health, contribute to increases in life
expectancy by delaying or preventing the occurrence
of age-related diseases. There is no scientific
evidence, however, to support the claim that these
practices increase longevity by modifying the
processes of aging."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: In an
important study of 6,2000 men by researchers from
the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care
System/Stanford University published in 2002,
physical fitness was determined to be more
important a factor in longevity than high blood
pressure, sky-high cholesterol levels, or bad
habits such as smoking. In fact, the researchers
found that men with the lowest exercise capacity
were roughly four times more likely to die during
the study than the fittest participants.
Altogether, physical fitness was shown to have a
bigger impact on the risk of death than all of the
well-publicized heart disease risk factors. [New
England Journal of Medicine 2002; 346:793-801,
852-853.] The net result of risk factor
intervention or biotechnological applications from
genetic engineering to stem cell research is the
same: a prolonged disease-free lifespan. Anti-aging
medicine is a medical specialty founded on the
application of advanced scientific and medical
technologies for the early detection, prevention,
treatment, and reversal of age-related dysfunction,
disorders, and diseases. Thus, anti-aging medicine
considers the disabilities associated with normal
aging to be caused by physiological dysfunction
which in many cases are ameliorable to medical
treatment. Whether it is by delaying or preventing
the occurrence of age-related diseases, or
modifying the processes of aging, the net result of
anti-aging medicine is to increase the healthy
human lifespan.
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Despite
intensive study, scientists have not been able to
discover reliable measures of the processes that
contribute to aging. For these reasons, any claim
that a person's biological or "real age" can
currently be measured, let alone modified, by any
means must be regarded as entertainment, not
science."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: With a
major mission objective to "support and conduct
high-quality research on aging processes and
age-related diseases," is it not requisite that NIA
elucidates the markers of biological age? In 1999,
the A4M launched the LEXCORE research study
(www.lexcorelink.net). LEXCORE is an
independently-funded longitudinal study of aging
that employs a large-scale, cross-population data
acquisition strategy in order to obtain a depth and
breadth of data collection harvesting key
indicators of health. Sixty-five sites around the
world are participating in this research effort.
A4M anticipates that LEXCORE will yield clear
definitions for the parameters of biological age
within a very short period once critical mass of
data is achieved. Once these markers are
established, correlations to efficacious
interventions for aging may readily be established.
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "Dramatic
claims made by those who advocate antiaging
medicine ...are not supported by scientific
evidence, and it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that these claims are intentionally
false, misleading or exaggerated for commercial
reasons."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: A4M is a
non-profit organization, and does not promote or
endorse any specific treatment nor does it sell or
endorse any commercial product. A4M agrees that
there are a few lessthan- reputable vendors
involved in the anti-aging industry. To-date, A4M
has launched three important initiatives to combat
this problem: · In 1999, the A4M created
the Consumer Education & Research Council,
which seeks to expose anti-aging product marketing
practices that may be misleading or deceptive and
educate consumers about what they should expect
from anti-aging healthcare products.
- In an ongoing effort to warn the public of dubious marketing efforts of fraudulent and unscrupulous vendors, the A4M regularly issues advisories at our website (www.worldhealth.net). In July 2001, A4M issued an alert titled "Beware Bait-and-Switch Nutritionals Marketing that Misrepresents Scientific Growth Hormone Research," to warn the public of misleading claims being made by nutritional HGH manufacturers and vendors attempting to confuse research documenting injectable HGH replacement therapy as validating nutritional products.
- In 2002, the A4M established the Panel to Establish Guidelines for Anti-Aging Product Marketing, a committee of medical ethicists, physicians, scientists, and business leaders who will promulgate ethical guidelines for self-regulation of the anti-aging marketplace.
GERONTOLOGICAL BIAS: "There are
no lifestyle changes, surgical procedures,
vitamins, antioxidants, hormones or techniques of
genetic engineering available today that have been
demonstrated to influence the processes of
aging."
A4M FACTUAL RESPONSE: If we are
to believe the gerontological propaganda that
nothing whatsoever has influenced the processes of
aging, how can the following trends in the growth
of the population brackets age 65+, 85+, and 100+
be explained: Created from data from Federal
Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics,
"Older Americans 2000: Key Indicators of
Well-Being," at www.agingstats.gov/chartbook2000;
Centenarians in the United States -- Current
Population Reports 1990: Special Studies,
Publication P23-199RV, U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, July 1999 Moreover, the United
Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing that took
place in April 2002 predicts that:
- One out of every ten persons is now 60 years or older; by 2050, one out of every three persons will be age 60+.
- The oldest old (age 80 and over) is the fastest growing segment of the older population. Currently making up 100% of the 60+ age group, this segment will grow to 19% by 2050.
- The number of centenarians (aged 100 years or more) is projected to increase fifteen-fold, from approximately 145,000 in 1999 to 2.2 million by 2050.
[UN Press Release, April 9, 2002, at
www.irna.com] If -- as the gerontological
establishment purports -- nothing whatsoever
influences the processes of aging, how are millions
of people around the world living longer and
healthier extended lifespans, and why would the
United Nations make these predictions for fifty
years from now?
CONCLUDING REMARKS: Simply put, the death cult of
gerontology desperately labors to sustain an
arcane, outmoded stance that aging is natural and
inevitable. The gerontological establishment
stifles any and all suggestions that today's
research discoveries on aging intervention will
become transformed into practical clinical
interventions of tomorrow. This is especially
incongruous in light of fantastic recent
developments across all facets of biotechnology and
new drug development. Perhaps the most significant
achievement of A4M has been the global adoption of
the notion that "aging is not inevitable." National
societies of physicians and scientists endorsing
anti-aging technologies now exist in Japan,
Singapore, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Australia,
and are presently being formed in at least a dozen
more countries. This is powerful testament to A4M's
hopeful vision for a future absent of the
debilitation, disability, and dependence that has
long characterized human aging. History is replete
with examples of medical pioneers whose innovations
and foresight were trivialized, ignored,
challenged, or violently opposed by the
establishment, only to ultimately become accepted
by society at-large. Leopold Augenbrugger was
ridiculed for percussing and auscultating his
patients' chests; Ignaz Semmelweiss' recommendation
for doctors to wash their hands before each patient
landed him in a mental asylum; and more recently,
cardiologists denied Nathan Pritikin's program for
dietary modification to modulate cardiovascular
risk until after his death. Given time and
objective, undeniable evidence, scientific truths
are ultimately borne out. In the words of Dr.
Augenbrugger, "It has always been the fate of those
who have illustrated the arts and sciences by their
discoveries to be beset by envy, malice, hatred,
destruction, and calumny." Today, the
gerontological bias on aging intervention is dense
with mistruths and fiction at best, and outright
lies and deliberate deception at worst. Anti-aging
medicine, as the fastest-growing medical specialty
in modern medicine, now takes its turn as the
target of the slings and arrows of its rivals.
Ultimately, the truth on aging intervention will
prevail, but this truth will be scarred from the
well-funded propaganda campaign of the power elite
who depend on an uninterrupted status quo in the
concept of aging in order to maintain its
unilateral control over the funding of today's
research in aging.