Fountain of Youth?

Fountain of Youth (St. Augustine, FL)

Don Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in America with Columbus on his second voyage, 1493. Leon and his fellows, not Columbus, completed Spain's claim to the New World. Made governor of Puerto Rico in 1510 and later deposed, Ponce de Leon, at his own expense, equipped an expedition to the North in 1513. A few years previous, Amerigo Vespucci had discovered and claimed the South American continent for Spain. Two of the mightiest nations in the world stood opposed for proprietorship of half the globe. Ponce De Leon heard Indians tell of Bimini, a fabulous island in the North. Historians do not unanimously honor at full value the beautifully romantic story that Ponce was seeking to find the fountain of youth.

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Hormone Offers Promise of Youth, Risks

AP: CHICAGO - Americans are injecting themselves with human growth hormone as part of a regimen prescribed by fringe doctors and a multimillion-dollar anti-aging industry that — depending on who is talking — is either solidly based on science or mostly hucksterism and quackery.

But a portion of patients also get blood tests that detect supposedly low levels of a marker for human growth hormone. Those patients often go home with a prescription for injectable HGH and a $500 monthly hormone bill that insurance does not touch.

University of Illinois-Chicago epidemiologist Jay Olshansky, who co-authored a paper published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association on legal issues surrounding HGH, said anti-aging doctors were surprised to learn they were on shaky legal ground.

They now are changing tactics by redefining growth hormone deficiency and making questionable diagnoses of their patients, Olshansky said.

"They've been administering growth hormone as an anti-aging intervention for a long time. They haven't been hiding it at all," Olshansky said. "Now they're trying to redefine it as a treatment for growth hormone deficiency."

Most prescriptions for HGH should go to children, according to Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston Medical Center, but 74 percent in 2004 went to people age 20 and older.

Whether HGH enhances health in already healthy adults remains uncertain, but small, short-term studies have shown benefits and risks.

In 2003, a placebo-controlled, randomized study of people 65 and older found that growth hormone increased lean body mass and decreased fat mass, but the study subjects experienced frequent side effects including diabetes and glucose intolerance.

Other studies have linked HGH to raised cholesterol levels, heightened blood pressure, joint problems, swelling and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Dr. Evan Hadley of the National Institute on Aging said legitimate research on growth hormone has been blown out of proportion by wishful thinkers and marketers.

"Science doesn't have immediate answers for people who want to know what the fountain of youth is today," Hadley said.

But age-management doctors said their work focuses on disease prevention, and so is an affront to the disease-oriented medical establishment.

"Many of my colleagues have criticized the work I do," said Dr. Geoffrey Jones, who puts about 15 percent of his patients on growth hormone. "I don't blame them. I was in the same shoes they're in. When I heard about it, I was critical of it. It's the old saying: If you're not up on it, you're down on it."

Read the whole article here...

On the Net:
National Institute on Aging fact sheet on hormones and aging
Cenegenics Medical Institute

So, half a millenium after old Ponce de Leon starting looking for the legendary Fountain of Youth, some people think they've finally found it. Of course, there are those pesky side effects...