Life Extension Revolution The New Science Of Growing Older Without Aging

Chapter 1 A New Role for Medicine Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old. Jonathan Swift Brian became a patient of mine about three years ago. He was 47 years old. He came to see me not because he was sick but because he wanted to feel better. Brian had built a successful software consulting firm and had worked hard to keep his business going while the high-tech industry went through difficult times. Now he was looking forward to enjoying the fruits of his labors. "I feel like the next twenty years should be the best of my entire life," he told me, "and I want to be in good health. No, in the best health possible." By all conventional measures, Brian was in fairly good health already. Nonetheless, he felt that he was slowing down. He wasn't planning to retire for another ten years or so, but he was finding it harder and harder to stay focused and motivated at work. His sex life with his wife had tapered off. To add insult to injury, he noticed that his hair was getting thinner at about the same rate that his waistline was getting thicker. In short, Brian was experiencing physical and mental changes typical for someone his age. Tina first consulted me at age 66, a little over a year ago. Like Brian, she wasn't sick but was sure she could feel better than she did. Tina is a gregarious, widely traveled woman who has always loved meeting new people and new challenges. She'd been looking forward to her retirement as a time when she'd be free for travel and adventure. But she'd noticed that she had begun to have trouble remembering details and names and felt more easily fatigued. "I hate feeling like a befuddled old woman," she said. "It's just not who I am!" Widowed eight years before, Tina was still a warm and vibrant woman with a lot to offer. She was open to the possibility of meeting someone to enjoy her later years with. But she was becoming less confident about her appearance. She felt that she looked older than she wasand certainly older than she felt. Although everything Tina described was fairly normal for a 66-year-old, she was frustrated and upset by the changes she was noticing. Both Brian and Tina wanted to know what anti-aging medicine could offer. THE PROMISE OF ANTI-AGING MEDICINE Twenty-five years ago, it probably wouldn't have occurred to someone in Brian or Tina's situation to seek help from a doctor. It would have been even harder to find a doctor who would have known what to do for them. Neither one of them was significantly overweight; neither smoked or drank to excess. Because they took reasonably good care of themselves, neither was suffering (yet) from heart disease, diabetes, or other conditions that might require treatment. By conventional standards, there was nothing wrong with them. They were in acceptable health . . . for their age. By those standards, people such as Tina and Brian could do little besides wait for the aging process to unfold, and hope for the best. Along the way, doctors would assure them that aches and pains, failing body parts, and increasing weakness and frailty were simply a normal part of the aging process. As the diseases of aging (heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, prostate cancer, etc.) set in, drugs would be prescribed to manage them. Most people are accustomed to this style of medicineand this rather hopeless view of the aging process. Anti-aging medicine, on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach. Whereas the focus of conventional medicine is on the diagnosis and treatment of disease, the goal of anti-aging medicine is to promote optimal health and wellness throughout every phase of the human life span. This visionary approachMiller, Philip Lee is the author of 'Life Extension Revolution The New Science Of Growing Older Without Aging', published 0000 under ISBN 9780553803532 and ISBN 0553803530.