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Buying Youth
Fran Hawthorne
11/01/2007
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For 52-year-old Kevin Hart, former chief executive of
SunAmerica Financial Network, a regimen of daily HGH treatments, weekly
testosterone, multivitamins and nutrients was the only thing that stopped angry
outbursts and a deep depression that set in six years ago after he sold his
company. With the proceeds from the sale of his stock, "I had newfound wealth,
independence, freedom," he says. Yet, instead of being excited, "I went from
the happiest guy in the world to this dark, depressed personality. If a mother
was taking too long to get her kids out of the car seat when she was dropping
them off at school, that would have me out of the car or flipping her off the
bird." Gordon told Hart that his hormone levels had probably been dropping for
years, but the adrenaline rush of running his company masked it. Once he started
taking the hormone supplements, he got back in balance.
The problem is that no standard, large, long-term, randomized
human trials have been done on HGH, so it is impossible to know how much of
Vidor’s and Hart’s gains are because of it, the other hormones they take, their
vitamins and supplements or even the power of hope. Meanwhile, the hormones can
have serious side effects. Commercial estrogen increases the risk of heart
attacks in older women and breast cancer for all ages. The FDA has approved
growth hormone only for the rare instances in which people produce little or
none of it naturally, and a 1990 law specifically forbids any other use. That’s
a tougher stance than the regulators usually take on unapproved drug use because
of congressional concerns about its misuse as a steroid/growth enhancer by body
builders, teenagers and other at-risk groups, an FDA spokesperson says.
Moreover, trials with animals and a small number of people have shown that HGH
can lead to diabetes, hypertension, hardening of the arteries, abnormal bone
growth, swelling in the legs and feet, aching joints and possibly even an
increased risk of cancer.
Not surprisingly, anti-aging physicians question the concern
about the treatments they prescribe. Raffaele says so far he has not received
any complaints from the FDA, and Gordon has begun switching his patients off the
standard, daily HGH injection to an oral spray that, he says, avoids the legal
controversy. Advocates also downplay the risks, asserting that the dosages in
the HGH trials were far higher than they prescribe and that the "bioidentical"
estrogen they use is different from the more dangerous commercial variety, which
is made of horse urine.
Vidor and Hart say they are not worried about the warnings.
"There are much more horrific things out there," Vidor says. "I’d rather take
the chance that this would keep me healthy, than be 80 years old and suffer
because I didn’t do this." Hart claims that the controversy over HGH is dying
down. Nevertheless, he has devised his own test: "I purposely take myself off
the treatments every year for three months, because I want to continue to make
sure I need it." The self-test always confirms that he does.
Diet and Wine
Scientists have known for years that when some animals eat
about one-third fewer calories than normal, they live significantly longer.
There are different theories as to how this works exactly, but the basic idea is
that the body focuses its limited energy on the most urgent survival needs,
including slowing down the degenerative processes of aging. It’s also been long
assumed that the food-deprivation strategy—known as calorie restriction, or
CR—should work in humans. More recently, researchers discovered that
resveratrol, a substance found in red wine, seems to produce the same effects as
CR, possibly by spurring production of a key protein.
Paul Glenn, the 76-year-old founder of the Cycad Group, a
venture capital firm near Santa Barbara, has concocted an eclectic meal plan
based on years of reading and talking to experts. He eats one "substantial" meal
a day, with a diet heavy in bran cereals, lean meat and fish, mixed nuts and
skim milk. He works with a trainer three times a week for 30 minutes, then
spends another half hour per day swimming and on exercise machines. In addition,
he takes about 100 vitamins, supplements and fish oil. But Glenn doesn’t count
calories, and he insists that he doesn’t feel deprived. "I’m deliberately
indulging in Trader Joe’s 75 percent bittersweet chocolate," he says. "A couple
of squares are enough to kill an appetite, and that’s what I want to do, kill my
appetite." The result: At 5-foot-10, Glenn is a trim 152 pounds. "I want to stay
alive and be healthy longer. Since I don’t have a belief in the hereafter, what
you see is what you get," Glenn says.
To supplement his personal efforts, Glenn created a foundation
dedicated to anti-aging research in 1965, with an annual budget of around $2
million. (Most recently, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research gave $5
million to doctor David Sinclair, a cofounder of Sirtris and an associate
professor at Harvard Medical School, for his work on resveratrol.) So far, he
concedes, none of the donations have actually produced much in the way of
results, but he’s not discouraged. "We keep meeting more bright people, we keep unfolding more and more layers of complexity." The one disappointment he does
admit to: "I will not benefit myself perhaps nearly as much as younger
generations."
Peter Thiel has not personally tried any of these tactics,
other than following a standard nutritional diet and taking vitamins and supplements. Instead, Thiel, a cofounder of the online payment company PayPal,
who now runs venture capital firm Clarium Capital Management and a hedge fund,
hopes to find more ways to stave off old age. He has pledged $500,000 over three
years toward research into stem cells, DNA, proteins, immunology and other
areas. "We’re living in a culture where people are largely in denial about
death," he says. "They don’t think they’re going to get old." He has chosen to
spread his investment around several research areas, Thiel adds, because, "we
really don’t know what’s going to work." Because he’s only 39, there’s a good
chance he’ll be around to enjoy the fruits of his contributions. "In 50 years,"
he predicts, "we could be living in a world where very large numbers of people
are living to 100 or more."
Illustration by Matt Mahurin.
Fran Hawthorne is author of Inside the
FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We
Eat.
Additional Information
 Searching for a Magic Pill
 Mom Was Right
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