(Anti-aging) Buyer Beware

I was watching TV this morning – while on a treadmill doing high intensity interval training, thank you very much – when a commercial for a bladder control medication came on the air.  The announcer first extolled the virtues of this prescription drug (which transformed a crabby woman, who was always pestering her husband to stop the car so she could go pee, into a smiling woman, who strolled arm-in-arm in a lovely park with a very relieved-looking – forgive the pun — husband.)  Just when I was enjoying this happy scene, the announcer began listing, with the rapidity of an auctioneer, the possible side effects of taking the medication: dry mouth, dry eyes, headache, constipation, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness.

The potential side effects of taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that almost a quarter of all Americans older than 45 currently take, include muscle aches – “could be a sign of a life-threatening condition,” warns the label — abnormal liver function, heartburn, dizziness, abdominal pain and decreased sexual desire.  Those taking meds for high blood pressure (17 percent of Americans) run the risk of leg cramps, fatigue, cold hands and feet, skin rash, dry hacking cough, loss of taste, asthma symptoms, insomnia, depression and erectile dysfunction.

I mention this not to scare away people from taking medications that could help them and could, in the case of statins and anti-hypertensives, significantly reduce two important biomarkers of aging.  (In fact, many of these listed side effects, particularly the scariest, are very rare.) I mention this not to steer people to “Natural” products.  You assumed that’s where I was headed, right?

Nope. I mention these side effects to highlight the fact that federal regulatory law requires that we consumers are made aware of the potential side effects of prescription drugs.  But no law requires we know the potential side effects of the vast array of highly touted non-prescription anti-aging remedies.

That’s because the $28 billion a year supplement and nutraceutical industry is largely unregulated.  What manufacturers claim – “instantly builds lean muscle mass!” “revs your metabolism and boosts your energy!” etc. is not subject to rigorous (actually, any) testing.  Potential side effects do not have to be revealed.  It is a caveat emptor world in which it sometimes it takes a tragedy, or a lawsuit, to discover if there even are potentially serious side effects.

So it’s our job as emptors to assume that anything and everything we put in our mouths has potential side effects.  When you blast the body with large doses of something, even if that something is a substance the body normally produces (a hormone, for example), even if that substance is “natural” (a bio-identical hormone, for example), you are altering the body’s ecology.  Some alterations may be helpful, some benign, some downright harmful.  Regardless, other things are going on in addition to the one alteration you had in mind.  The “other things” are the side effects — helpful, benign or harmful.

I personally would like to make a decision about what anti-aging supplements and remedies I use based on solid research.  I want to know both the upside and the downside.  Don’t you?  This website will help.