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Here is a great article for those of you who are looking for the quick fix or the magic pill. The best part of the article is towards the end and is highlighted.

TO EPIDEMIOLOGIST S. Jay Olshansky, entrepreneurs who hawk anti-aging remedies to the senior set are public enemy No. 1. That’s why he recently “honored” the hormone-and-antioxidant-touting American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) with his Silver Fleece Award — a bottle of vegetable oil labeled “Snake Oil.” Olshansky, a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Public Health, also spearheaded the creation of a position statement signed by 51 eminent aging researchers warning the public that no currently available anti-aging product has been shown to slow down, reverse or stop aging. (The statement along with a scathing essay on fountain of youth claims will be published next month in Scientific American.)

“There is a lot of anti-aging quackery out there and we all agreed we need the public to be informed,” says Olshansky, author of “Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging.”
People have been hawking anti-aging medicines for centuries, he says, from the advent of alchemy in an attempt to produce youth-promoting gold from lead to grafting animal testicles onto older men — the first attempt at hormone therapy.

STOPPING THE MARCH OF TIME
With millions of baby boomers looking beyond Botox for more ways to stop the march of time, snake-oil salesmen are eyeing the pig in the python with dollar signs in their eyes. Just note the “longevity” clinics popping up around the country and the online miracle supplement advertisements bombarding your inbox.
Today’s anti-aging remedies range from the grain-of-truth approaches such as $50-a-bottle cocktails of hormones and antioxidants to the outright ridiculous: magical water from Vilcabamba, where people are said to live long, blessed lives; magnetic toe rings and mattress pads that promise to promote youth-preserving cell division; and a photon-releasing “time machine.”
Olshansky’s personal favorite: a light-emitting gun that fights disease and aging by “channeling the energy of the universe into your body.” The device, which was demonstrated at an A4M meeting that he crashed in December, “was essentially a battery-powered flashlight,” he says, chuckling.

But he stops laughing when he points out that what this comes down to is entrepreneurs taking advantage of people who are suffering. “People want to believe it’s true — some people are desperate, especially those with disease. People over 80 say, ‘What do you expect us to do when our spouse is dying and there’s nothing to be done?’” he says.
The government has also turned its attentions to anti-aging remedies. After Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) received a pseudo-scientific journal in the mail touting fraudulent age-reversing potions, the chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging launched a government probe of anti-aging scams. The resulting GAO report, out last fall, concluded that “dietary supplements marketed as anti-aging remedies may pose a potential for physical harm … and economic harm to seniors.”
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Scott Mulhauser, a spokesperson for the aging committee, said that the committee has asked the Health and Human Services Inspector General to investigate labeling practices of supplements that promise anti-aging benefits. They are also looking into legislative possibilities for consumer protection against such scams.
The Chicago-based A4M refused several requests to speak with MSNBC.com, but in a report on its Web site, the group asserts: “Anti-aging medicine serves to fill a void in quality, wellness-oriented preventive health care that is sought specifically by baby boomers. Baby boomers across this nation are, at this very moment, seeking the medical expertise of anti-aging physicians to provide very early detection, as well as the aggressive yet gentle treatment of disease, to help them live long and fulfilling lives. …. As such, anti-aging medicine does not prey on the aging population; rather, this medical specialty protects the health and well-being of baby boomers and the elderly.”

Anti-aging techniques challenged
April 26, 2002 — Dr. Ron Rothenberg’s California Healthspan Institute claims hormones can stop, or maybe even reverse, the aging process. NBC’s Robert Hager reports.

SHRED OF SCIENCE
Olshansky says he is most concerned not about the far-out magnets and flashlights, but the pills, potions and shots that have enough science to sound plausible. Over 60 percent of people 50 and older report taking dietary supplements, according to a recent survey by AARP. Among the most popular pills: antioxidants. Antioxidants, which include vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene and co-enzyme Q10, are often marketed as slowing down aging by fighting harmful molecules known as free radicals. The free-radical theory of aging is a very attractive theory and there’s a lot of animal data to back it up,” says Dr. L. Jackson Roberts II, professor of medicine and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. “But in terms of using antioxidant supplements to stave off aging in humans, there’s no evidence for that.” Most over-the-counter antioxidants are probably safe, but as older people often are taking other medications, doctors discourage them from taking supplements without their physician’s recommendation: They may contain unknown ingredients that can interact negatively with other medicines.
Roberts is not ready to dismiss antioxidants altogether, however. While he doubts that the antioxidants people are taking in over-the-counter supplements can actually suppress free radical damage to any meaningful extent, he says he’d like to see more potent designer antioxidants developed for trials in humans.

BOTOX NOT THE ONLY HOT SHOT
“While most of the stuff people are buying is harmless — they’re just emptying their wallets — the real hormones can have some serious adverse effects,” warns Dr. S. Mitchell Harman, director of the Kronos Longevity Research Institute in Phoenix, Ariz.

A variety of hormones commonly decline with age, among them: human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone, estrogen and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Injections, prescription pills and over-the-counter dietary supplements of these hormones have been touted in popular books as reversing or halting the aging process. In fact, Dr. Robert Klatz, president of A4M authored the book “Grow Young with HGH.”

Injections of growth hormone — offered at some longevity clinics for up to $15,000 a year — are touted as improving strength, muscle mass, mental acuity, libido and skin elasticity.
“Few studies have been done on HGH and they are very small and only go out for six months or less,” says Dr. George Merriam, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It does seem to improve body composition but nobody has proved it makes people stronger or live longer.”

In fact, Merriam’s research has shown that an exercise routine offers more benefits than HGH.
“I’m not saying it’s bunk — but what’s been done is just scratching the surface of what you would need to do to establish safety and effectiveness,” adds Merriam, a physician at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. Side effects seen with HGH include excess bone growth, carpal tunnel syndrome, fluid retention, glucose intolerance, diabetes and heart enlargement, Harman says. Plus, some research even suggests that people with high HGH levels are more likely to die at younger ages than those with lower levels of the hormone, and studies of animals with genetic disorders that suppress growth hormone production suggest that reduced levels of the hormone may actually prolong lifespan.

As for over-the-counter supplements that claim to contain HGH, you might as well take a sugar pill, Merriam says. HGH is a protein that your stomach would just digest, he says. According to the FDA, HGH is only approved for prescription injections so the over-the-counter supplements are either fraudulent because they don’t really contain the hormone or they illegally contain a prescription drug.

Also, supplements of DHEA, melatonin and testosterone marketed as restoring youthfulness and vitality haven’t been shown to have any anti-aging effects in humans, the scientists say. At best they’re expensive placebos, at worst, they have the potential for some serious side effect such as increased cancer risk, experts say.

People who take many of these hormones “just don’t understand what they’re doing,” Olshansky says. “For people who are so concerned about their own health it’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing.”

Dr. Robert Butler, director of the International Longevity Center in New York, adds: “Just look at the lessons we’re learning from estrogen — it’s been used for half century and it’s still under question — we’re still at a loss on its benefits and risks. Now, we’re carrying out an experiment on unsuspecting people taking all kinds of untried, unproven stuff.”

FUTURE OF AGING
This is not to say that Olshansky and his colleagues are against slowing aging or extending lifespan. Many of the upcoming position statement’s signers are scientists who have dedicated their life’s work to that very goal. But they all agree that no existing intervention works and worry that the boom in fraudulent products may undermine legitimate longevity research.

“This kind of quackery detracts from the real aging science that’s going on and may cramp support for important research,” says Butler, former founding director of the National Institute on Aging.
Scientists are looking at a number of promising avenues of aging research including enhancing the body’s own production of free-radical scavengers and probing genetic clues to longevity, Olshansky notes.
But for now, the only tried and true method to stave off the signs of aging is, of course, what we’ve always known: “If you want to live longer and be healthier, the things you can do are hard work — exercising, behaving at the dinner table, not smoking and drinking less. There’s no magic solution,” Butler says.