With all this talk of HGH abuse.. anyone ever read "Life Extension"?

[Minnow]

A woman I worked for in the 80's was a very trendy, holistic type, and this was one of the books in our office that I pored over during slow times. There were pics of the authors, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw with captions like, we are sedentary scientists and look at our muscle tone and all over youthful appearance, blah blah. It was all about vitamins, hormones, amino acid and other supplements in the quest for the ultimate anti-aging combination.

I tried the weight loss combo.. the components I could buy in health food stores at least (no hgh) for awhile.. L-arginine, phenelalynine (sp?) and whatever else. Worked ok, but at the time I was a lot more physically active and eating healthier in general, so who knows. I think I developed a rash and quit somewhere along the line...

They were big advocates of HGH and experimented on themselves. Anyone remember any of this?

[count zero]

I remember them. Was wondering just the other day what happened to them, i.e., did they live longer? I mean, it was thirty years ago or so, wasn't it? Should be enough time to get a good idea what the effects were. Guess I could google them, have you tried that?

[Highwayman]

Wasn't HGH sold on TV about 10 years ago as a diet pill...burn calories at night while you sleep type pitch?

[Vietbet]

I remember buying the book in the early eighties, though one key was taking the Arginine etc two hours before bedtime and not eating after that. I remember they did a pretty wild interview on Mike Douglas. As they are apparently still hawking the same stuff, I guess any pills that can keep you married for thirty years seems interesting enough

[count zero]

Here they are in 1996. No more recent info found by me, and their home page appears to be defunct.



EDIT: Sorry, link doesn't work. Sandy looks like Roseanne Rosannadanna.

[count zero]

Trying another link:

[Vietbet]

"I'm sorry to have to say that those seeking the fountain of youth are going to have to keep on looking.

To begin with, Pearson and Shaw are not recognized authorities in the realm of science in which they claim special insight. Nor do they enjoy such a status in any other field of scientific study, for that matter. Pearson is said to have graduated from MIT after having studied physics, biology and psychology, while Shaw is said to have graduated from UCLA with majors in chemistry and biology. These are hardly "formidable credentials" as it's put in an ad for "LifeForce Technologies," one of many commercial efforts to capitalize on the popularity of "Life Extension." And though they claim to be "scientists," they do not reference any work of theirs in their book and, indeed, don't seem to have ever published original research in any peer-reviewed publication. Neither has any scientific group or association endorsed their views "

The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics

[Pancho Sanza]

60 Minutes did a piece on HGH as an anti aging medicine last year.

Aging In The 21st Century, Steve Kroft Reports On The New Field Of Anti-Aging Medicine - CBS News

[buddyboy]

Vitamins 'could shorten lifespan'

Researchers are now suggesting that taking certain vitamin supplements may affect people's lifespan--but not in the way you'd expect.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Researchers at Copenhagen University have suggested that antioxidant supplements like vitamins A and E, and beta-carotene, may enhance an individual's risk of early death.

The benefits of vitamin supplements have always been questionable, with hundreds of experiments on them not leading to much certainty on how they truly benefit people.

Recent theories suggest that vitamins taken along with a healthy diet may stop damage to the body's tissues by eliminating the molecules which are said to cause it. This theory is still very controversial, however.

The Copenhagen research team looked over 815+ clinical trials which tested the benefits of vitamins A, E and C (as well as beta-carotene and selenium). They next selected 68 trials whose methods seemed likely to produce an accurate picture of the benefits vitamins give, then put all the results together to make one big study. This showed no benefits or negative results from taking vitamins.

When 21 of the original 68 trials were removed, however, it was shown that Beta-carotene increased the risk of early death by 7%, vitamin E showed a 4% increase, and vitamin A showed a shocking 16% increase.

These results are still controversial and no doubt many more studies will follow. Still, this is something to think about the next time you pop a vitamin A, E or a beta-carotene.

[skilled27]

Without a doubt the best thing to do is to take a multivitamin like Centrum. Taking the individual vitamins are bad because you need all the vitamins in a certain ratio to balance each other out. This is critical. Centrum has the vitamins in the amounts you need.....balanced as they should be. Centrum also has the advantage of being the best absorbed multivitamin. It was on Consumer Reports.