To those human encyclopedias out there:
Sat morning I was in the car and listening to the radio. Some guy (okay,
Michael, I won't say "d--e") was touting some hormonal injection, claiming it
could reverse the aging process by as much as twenty years. I didn't hear
the rest of this "program," but I tried to retain as much as the gist as I could.
Now, I know nobody ought to run out and stock up just because some
charlatan sells snake oil over the airwaves, but he made some claims that I
was sure were wrong, and yet he sounded very convincing (they always do,
don't they?). As expected, he threw around a lot of jargon.
He made at least one claim that I found very dubious -- "we now know what
causes people to age," and went on to describe some hormone in our brain
that we supposedly lose 80% of from the ages of 21 to 61.
Huh? I thought there were two -- and I know this is oversimplifying --
competing and viable theories of aging, the "program" camp (we're designed
to peter out at some point) and the "error" camp (we're designed flawlessly
and peter out due to the ravages of time, disease, etc). So, can he make
such a claim? Does his claim have any credibility at all -- or sound like
anything that has been learned in recent years?
How close is science to understanding the most likely cause of the aging
process?
He also claimed that this hormone has already been approved, and a
contingent of the elderly have been taking it for some time now. ANd he
claimed it can reverse the aging process by as much as 20 years.
Huh. Just I want -- again, to be 16...young, energetic, and pimple-faced.
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Jim Guinee, Ph.D.
Director of Training & Adjunct Professor
President, Arkansas College Counselor Association
University of Central Arkansas Counseling Center
313 Bernard Hall Conway, AR 72035 USA
(501) 450-3138 (office) (501) 450-3248 (fax)
"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things --
to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently
motivated to reach challenging goals."
-- Edmund Hillary, New Zealander mountaineer and explorer
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