Anti-Aging Products

Anti-Aging Products

It is a natural human desire to want to live as long as possible. The desire to prolong one’s life was common long before the advent of American consumerism, although the explosion of mass communications over the last 100 years has resulted in the proliferation of life-extending products, services and technologies. Today, anti-aging products are a mainstay of the self-help, nutritional and alternative health industries, as well as a huge area of research for pharmaceutical firms.

The most important phrase for consumers to remember, whatever products or services they are thinking of buying, is “caveat emptor,” or buyer beware. It is not enough to expect the government – through the FCC, FTC or FDA – to keep spurious anti-aging products off television and out of the magazines. People have to use their own critical faculties to judge for themselves.

Snake oil salesmen

What could be more valuable than life itself? Nothing, of course, which is why the anti-aging products industry has always had more than its share of snake oil salesmen, cranks and frauds. With the completely freeform and unregulated communications of the Internet, it is more important than ever for consumers to do their homework and use their critical thinking skills to separate the little bit of fact from the large deposits of fiction.

Anti-aging skin care products fall into a number of categories, of course. There are the generally unremarkable and usually uncontroversial exercise regimens. Clearly, a person with better muscle tone and cardiovascular health will outlive a severely overweight person, all other factors being equal. Nutritional plans abound for life extension, as well, and unless they venture into the obsessive or bizarre, sensible diets are pretty basic stuff.

Supplements and mega-therapies

Linus Pauling, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, was an early proponent of megadoses of vitamin C as a general life-extender. Although subsequent research did not confirm the more astonishing claims for the vitamin, we now know the important role that vitamins, minerals and other trace substances have in maintaining health – even if it is inaccurate to call them anti-aging products.

It is becoming clearer all the time that a balanced approach to nutrition, exercise and health care is probably the most likely route to longer lives for all human beings. Anti-aging products have a definite place at the table, but as components of an overall “life plan,” not as special “magic” pills or potions.

The road ahead

There is much research being done on cells, specifically on ways of delaying their decay. The problem, in the context of anti-aging products being marketed to the public, is that consumers are not well educated in science and can be misled by “junk science.” Suffice it to say that any “amazing, miracle breakthroughs” in cell therapy or any other life-extension method will be announced by the leading medical and scientific journals, not by a 30-minute sponsored program on a cable channel. This particular “caveat emptor” should be taken most seriously.

The road from the science lab to the marketplace is shorter than it used to be, and new discoveries in medicine, chemistry and health make their way into consumer anti-aging products much more swiftly these days. Rather than wait for the “ultimate breakthrough,” though, you would be well advised to do your best in each of the health-related areas of your life – improving your nutrition, exercising regularly, treating any conditions quickly and effectively, staying informed and being candid with your doctor. There may be no secret potion yet, but the average life expectancy for Americans went from the low 40s in 1900 to the mid-70s in 2000. Obviously, we’re doing something right!