Posted on 06/14/2009 6:24:07 PM PDT by greatdefender
The American Medical Association is taking on a segment of the $50 billion "anti-aging" industry that promotes the use of hormones as a treatment for consumers to slow or reverse the aging process. In a report presented Sunday in Chicago to a committee of the AMA's 543-member policymaking House of Delegates, the AMA Council on Science and Public Health calls into question claims made by for-profit Web sites, anti-aging clinics and other businesses promoting hormones as anti-aging treatments. "Despite the widespread promotion of hormones as anti-aging agents by for-profit Web sites, anti-aging clinics and compounding pharmacies, the scientific evidence to support these claims is lacking," the council said in its report. The nation's largest physicians group says it currently has no policy on anti-aging. But several specialty groups of physicians testified Sunday on the lack of scientific evidence to support anti-aging benefits. In addition, doctors worry about potential dangers of using hormones as anti-aging treatments.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I’ll volunteer for anti-aging.
And yet they can’t seem to muster the energy to speak out against botox, or against the injections and implants that are behind the current epidemic of young women and middle-aged with grotesquely bulging lips. Medical doctors are raking in millions by convincing psychologically disturbed people that these bizarre treatments will make them look younger and/or sexier.
Me too since my doctor took me off hormones.
It’s not the doctor’s fault some of their patients aren’t too stable in the head.
You'll even get breasts as a bonus, and a higher voice. Maybe even a monthly period and cervical cancer.
Peloisi is an example of such people
You dont have to go to far to read a thread with poster remarks on older men/women that are really unkind.
Personally I dont care how old looking I become just as long as the good Lord and my body chooses to stay in the race.
And grateful for the length I have been here and every day I wake up with everything still functioning enough to stay independent.
More and more Docs are moving away from the practice of prescribing hormones to relieve menopause symptoms because of the risks of developing cancer.
Buddy of mine told me he had to go to the doc for a “testosterone shot in the butt”. I said that “testosterone” and “shot in the butt” being used in the same sentence sounded scary to me.
How a person ages depends on how they treated their bodies all their lives. While you’ll never be able to undo the damage already done, it’s never too late to start eating properly and getting into better shape to prevent further damage and extend the time you do have left.
Isn’t it amazing that all those people who once said they’d rather live hard fast and loose and die young but happy turn out to be the ones who will try any magic potion that comes along in hopes of turning back the clock they’ve sped up.
It always seems that when you are young, you have all the time in the world, but when you get old you realize that time goes by way too fast, a lifetime is very short.
LoL! It certainly does!
Yes! Our society worships youth & despises old age. I do not care if I look "old" when I am old! I wear it as a badge of honor. I had my chance to look young when I was young & now I will grow old with dignity. The Good LORD gave us wrinkles and white hair as we age - this is the way it is meant to be.
There are lessons to be learned while we are here on this earth & vainly, desperately, reaching for youth when we are aged and saged - just looks plain ridiculous! These people that think they look good with all of this artifice are only fooling themselves. They look like freaks!
The older one gets the more disease prone they are. I have had cancer twice so I imagine with or without the hormones I am predeposed to it. Of course, no one in my family including great grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, father or mother have ever had it. Not one person in my family both sides has ever had cancer.
Go figure.
I’d probably be in a wheelchair, or dead, without bio-identical compounded hormones.....some people (like me) really need them to be able to function. I could have bought into the Rheumatoid Arthritis Docs plans for me....$10,000 a year for meds, and then additional meds, to counteract the side effects of those $10K meds....I did further research....and found out...I do NOT have RA, or if I do, it’s solved with the hormones. Try and take them from me.....
Oh, and P.S....my hormones (DHEA, Pregnenelone, Bi-est, Testosterone, and Progesterone) do NOT prevent wrinkles (I wish). Plus, I’m under the care of a Physician/Naturapath who was the developer of the hormones 30 some years ago....Dr. Jonathan Wright. Don’t challenge me.
LOL Yeah, that’s pretty bad.
I ate well ALL my life....have been active since I was born, was an athlete/gymnast when it was NOT cool to be one (1960’s)....I never did drugs, never smoked, didn’t live fast and loose.....hereditary issues matter for some....you cannot generalize like you are.
Premarin is horses urine....it’s NOT a bio-ID natural hormone....it’s probably good for horses, but not for humans.
No, but it IS the doctor’s fault if s/he responds to a patient who is expressing irrational concerns about her (or less often his) appearance, by eagerly offering to shoot the patient up with botox or collagen or surgically install synthetic tubes in the patient’s lips. And it IS the doctor’s fault if the doctor does this over and over again, with hundreds of patients, and builds his whole practice around this sort of thing, and always tells the patient how “great” the results look, even when the rest of the world is looking at these patients and thinking they look faintly monstrous.
I’m not saying patients shouldn’t be free to purchase such “treatments” or that doctors shouldn’t be free to sell them. I’m just pointing out that the AMA is more than a little hypocritical and capricious when it comes to selecting the targets of its public criticism. Fact is, the “bioidentical hormone” industry makes money for compounding pharmacists, at the expense of big pharmaceutical companies. The latter want to sell large volumes of mass-manufactured pharmaceuticals in a small choice of pre-set doses and combinations, and have doctors limited to these mass-manufactured products when prescribing or recommending pharmaceuticals.
The “science” behind giving people limited choices of say 50mg or 100mg of hormone X, is certainly no better than the science behind the custom-compounded “bioidentical” hormones. And the AMA’s claim that concern over “science” is behind its attacks on physicians and pharmacists who prescribe and provide “bioidentical” hormones is lying BS — what’s behind it is pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, which is notorious for lining the pockets of cooperative doctors and doctors’ groups.
Premarin is the same hormone found in humans, and works just as well as the human stuff. At least until fairly recently, there were also hormone products being made from the urine of post-menopausal nuns. But horse urine is cheaper and easier to collect.
Even I ate better foods (traditional Polish/Ukrainian cooking) than the kids today do. I can just imagine what the cancer rates will be by the time they reach my age with all the instant crap with more chemistry on the label than actual food their parents feed them today.
Are you a doctor? A researcher? Where’d you get that “fact?”
Time is the greatest distance between two places.
I knew a woman who was obsessed with staying young. she took massive amounts of hormones, also stuff from the health food store and rubbed hormone cream into her thighs. Anything anyone told her about she took. She developed a brain disease, I think it is something like Cruczchfelt-Jacobs disease. (I know that is spelled completely wrong) It is to humans what mad cow disease is in cows. She died a horrible death after being slowly incapacitated for several years. I always wondered if something she took to stay young brought it on.
I suppose not. Some people inherit their problems to be sure.
Just like I am developing diabetes in my old age because it runs in the family. I may be able to control it with proper diet practices for a while, but eventually I’ll turn type 1.
I’ve already progressed from being diagnosed with type 2 two years ago, but not requiring drugs, to having to go onto metformin a few weeks ago. I inherited the weak pancreas genetics from my grandfather I suppose.
But even he lived to 82 despite being a type one diabetic most of his adult life.
You are wrong there sir, it is not the same as found in humans. My body never made a single drop of horse urine.
I don’t know about the “Nun” part, but the rest of his statement is true.
He meant the synthetic hormones made from mare urine are used in human hormone replacement therapy.
it’s said to be the equivalent to the hormones produced naturally.
Aging may be "natural", but that doesn't mean it has to be inevitable. Years from now, people will look back on aging the same way we look back on other diseases for which there was once no cure but which are now easily overcome with a shot or a pill. Keep an eye on resveratrol and drugs that mimic it. See Sirtris for example. Aging's about to go the way of the dinosaur. I just wish they'd hurry before I get much older.
I know what he said and I know what he meant but he is wrong. Hormones made from horse urine are not exactly like the ones I made in my body. If they had been, my body would have accepted them, and it did not.
Those horse farms were mare urine is collected from pregnant mares are called PMU farms. It was a profitable business at one time.
Some peoples bodies are more fussy than others.
What synthetic hormones did you end up on? Or did you just give up on hormone therapy?
My wife went (still is) going through that stage, but the doc refuses to give her hormones to ease her symptoms.
No, it’s not. What’s the delivery of the “Premarin?” Pills, creams? WHAT.....how does it get into the body...through the liver? How fast does it dissipate? Does it surge, then drop? Tell me a little more.
You should get your wifey to a decent doc who will do the lab tests to test ALL her hormones...and then consider the bio-ID compounded ones JUST for her....and have her get tested regularly for the first year.
The business hasn’t gone away, it’s just become heavily regulated, animal rights groups have made things tougher etc.
As with everything the government sticks it’s nose into, regulations become too costly and profitability vanishes.
I stopped taking any hormones completely I feel better if I don’t take anything. I never had much of a problem with hot flashes, sweats and the like, the doctor put me on hormones because it was the thing to do at that time. I am 69 and I have started taking blood pressure medicine and 1/4 gr. aspirin.
That is a good way to put it, my body is very fussy. LOL!
Beats me, why don't you look it up for yourself?
I just know how the stuff is made and what it's used for. It's used in hormone replacement therapy. And in birth control pills as well. So there you go, pills, and no doubt there are creams, and trans-dermal patches as well. probably even injections too. Look it up.
Besides, it's tougher on me than it is her...
Well....smarty, maybe you should do a little research yourself.....I’ve done it. And, I know the delivery method and dose matter a whole he** of a lot....
If her symptoms are hot flashes only, I’d agree...but, if she’s having trouble MOVING her muscles, walking, and dressing herself.....it’s NOT the same. Speaking from experience.
My wife is only 50. I hope it doesn’t last till she’s 69 LoL!
She’s not overwieght or anything, but her bloodpreasure started going all wacky as well. She was sent to the hospital from her work a few times because it was so high, well into heart attack/stroke range. And she was getting severe headaches.
We don’t know if it was caused by her hormones being out of wack, probably. But she’s been on blood pressure meds ever since, which seems to have taken care of the problem.
She (and I) are also on the 80mg aspirin regiment.
ROFLOL
I’m not the one trying to be a smarty. I was just telling you what I know.
If you are already wise from experience, why bother asking?
Try explaining what YOU know instead.
Of course delivery method and dose matters. That’s something that’s tailored to meet each individuals needs. Nothing that works for one person is guarantied to work for another.
I wish! LoL!
She has her achy days as well. not to the extreme of not being able to dress her self. She'd have to want to get out of her PJ's on those days to find that out. She'll just sit around all day in her PJ's with her claws out.
I stay in my garage all day when that happens.
Sorry....you just seemed so set in your beliefs....I had to do a years worth of research....premarin and many hormones are given in PILLS.....they go thru the LIVER....which doesn’t make sense....that’s not where they are needed, and hormones do not NATURALLY go through our livers, other than the ones the LIVER needs. Also, with Premarin...a SURGE of hormone happens in the hour or two after the pill which is probably the cause of many of the problems that come with it. Bio-id creams compounded for the individual are put on the labia and do not go through the liver, but go directly (or as closely as possible) to the sexual organs needing those hormones....over a much slower time frame.
Balance of hormones is important too....you can’t just take some estrogen.....you need to test DHEA, Pregnenelone, Testosterone, Progesterone, and Estrogen.
Here’s an interesting article from my doctor, Dr. Jonathan Wright....http://www.tahoma-clinic.com/hotflashes.shtml
But, that article BARELY touches the research he’s done. Hope that helps. I, as you can tell, am passionate about this...having dealt with many ignorant doctors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.