The Supplement Boom
As an information technology consultant with her own business, Laura Brown is used to tackling complex problems. Her specific field is computer architecture, and her clients have included Ernst & Young, General Electric, and Delta. She spends hours every day doing research before she makes any decisions. Her job depends on it. It is no surprise then that she approaches her health with the same degree of rigor. She is constantly searching for the best ways to maintain her well-being. After years of looking, Brown has come to her own simple conclusion: herbs and supplements are part of the formula for chasing life.
Brown has gone so far as to develop her own individualized plan for good health. In addition to vitamins, Brown takes three or four capsules of Chinese herbs twice a day. The fifty-two-year-old also drinks two or three cups of tea made from the passion flower daily as a way to help lower her blood pressure and ease the lower back pain that comes from spending long hours at the computer. She also occasionally takes a supplement made from the muscadine grape as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.
Brown, whose business is named System Innovations, also tries to keep her system finely tuned with aromatherapy. She attended a seminar in southern France to study aromatherapy several years ago and now uses such scents as lavender and peppermint for purposes ranging from relaxation to waking up.
Overall, Brown says her health is good, and she rarely needs to see a doctor. Since she began taking herbs and supplements, Brown says she no longer suffers from an annual cold. She is one of the 45 million who believe that taking natural products works to strengthen and support her natural defenses.
“Somewhere along the way I made a choice,” says Brown, who speaks in a quiet way that belies her high-powered job. “I found an approach that worked.”
Like Brown, millions of Americans are also choosing herbs and supplements, and the marketplace has responded with a myriad of purported remedies for all that ails us. Nowhere is the noise as loud as it is with antioxidants. Stories about antioxidants have graced the covers of national newsmagazines and the front pages of newspapers large and small. Food products claiming to be antioxidants are everywhere. Wander down almost any supermarket aisle, and you are likely to see products boasting their potential as antioxidants, from green tea to cereal to blueberries.
Just what does it mean to be an antioxidant?
ANTIOXIDANTS
More than thirty years ago, the Duke biochemistry graduate student Joe McCord was looking for the function of one obscure enzyme when he accidentally stumbled on another. He was so intrigued that he immediately called his mentor, Irwin Fridovich, to take a look. McCord had found a substance in the body that seemed to exist in every living species. As far as they could tell, this protein existed in the cells of all mammals, plants, and even microbes. Every single one of them. Right up the food chain. The only living organisms whose cells didn’t have the enzyme were anaerobic bacteria—bacteria that do not need oxygen to survive. Initially, McCord and Fridovich didn’t know what this enzyme did, but they knew it must be important. After all, every oxygen-breathing creature had selected for this enzyme during millions of years of evolution. The two researchers had discovered a protein, which they named superoxide dismutase, or SOD, that neutralized superoxide, an unstable and dangerous oxygen molecule called a free radical.
This was the dawn of research into antioxidants and free radicals. Searching for ways to fight these free radicals has been the source of intense interest among scientists who want to find ways to improve and extend life. The enormous market for products that will help our bodies neutralize these dangerous free radicals has also resulted in claims by supplement makers that aren’t always born out by the facts. Pills, powders, oils, foods, and beverages all make claims and counterclaims about their powers as antioxidants.
No one disputes the immense damage caused by free radicals. These unstable oxygen molecules produce what is called oxidative stress, which has now been linked to more than one hundred diseases. Search the medical literature on oxidative stress, and you will find more than 39,000 papers. What’s more, free radicals and the resulting oxidative stress have been linked to aging, which is why I am including them in this book.
Back in 1969, when McCord and Fridovich published their groundbreaking findings on superoxide dismutase in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, their paper was met largely with indifference, even in the field. McCord remembers presenting the findings for the first time to his peers at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He talked about this remarkable antioxidant enzyme that scavenges free radicals.
“Almost everyone’s response was, ‘What’s a free radical?’” recalls McCord, who is now a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and works for a supplement maker.
There are different markers of oxidative stress in the body that increase more or less in a straight line as we age. Your level at forty is greater than your level at thirty. Your level at fifty is greater than your level at forty, and so on. Oxidative stress is like the wear and tear on a car, McCord says. In fact, one way to view aging is the slow oxidation of your body. This raises a question: What, if anything, can we do to stop free radicals in our bodies from oxidizing—or aging—us in order to extend our lives and improve our health? Before I look at that question, let’s consider what we mean when we talk about antioxidants.
FIGHTING FREE RADICALS
Many of the systems in our body exist simply to take in oxygen and get it to our cells. We breathe oxygen into our lungs, transfer it to our red blood cells, and then our heart pumps it around our bodies, where cells use it to burn sugars to create energy. Unfortunately, there is a downside to this process. A by-product of this energy production is an unstable form of the oxygen molecule. This is a free radical, and it can wreak havoc at the cellular level, damaging cells. That means oxygen, the same basic element that sustains us, may sew the seeds of cellular aging. Extending the car analogy, McCord likens these free radicals to incomplete combustion in a car’s engine. In a car, the result is the production of carbon monoxide.
Unlike a car, we have built-in ways to repair minor damage and neutralize free radicals: antioxidants. They are able to scavenge most of these free radicals. However, they do not get all of them, and as we age, the remaining free radicals cause damage. Our own “engine” becomes less efficient. The “tailpipe emissions” get dirtier. These dirty emissions, the free radicals, eventually cause too much damage to be repaired by the body’s own mechanisms. As a result, our bodies start breaking down.
Ground zero for oxidative damage is the mitochondria, the cells’ power plants. Mitochondria are microscopic, sausage-shaped structures inside the cells. Hundreds of mitochondria exist in every cell. The mitochondria convert sugars and oxygen into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy-releasing molecule that powers most of what goes on in the cell.
Like most power plants, the process is not perfectly efficient. There is some “pollution.” In the case of the mitochondria, the potentially harmful by-products are the free radicals. The free-radical oxygen molecules are highly reactive because they are missing one electron, and electrons are most stable when they’re paired. To become more stable, free radicals steal electrons from other molecules. These molecules, in turn, become unstable and steal molecules from still other molecules. The chain reaction results in cellular damage, including damage to DNA and the mitochondria themselves. Damage to the DNA can cause tumors and cancer. Damage to the mitochondria causes them to become less efficient and, over time, generate less energy-producing ATP and more free radicals. Eventually, enough oxidative damage occurs to trigger the cell to self-destruct. As oxidative damage accumulates, it can damage connective and nerve tissues and blood vessels.
Energy production in our cells is not the only reason free radicals form in our bodies. Smoking, exposure to the sun, and other environmental factors also produce free radicals that can cause premature cellular aging.
It stands to reason that anything we can do to eliminate free radicals would greatly benefit us in our quest to live longer, healthier lives. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our bodies have developed ways to fight rampaging free radicals. Vitamins A, C, and E, SOD, and two other enzymes you probably haven’t heard of—catalase and glutathione peroxidase—prevent most but not all of the oxidative damage in cells. As I mentioned earlier, oxidative damage still takes place. Stopping that process could be one of the biggest keys to chasing life. How can we better arm our bodies’ own defenses to fight more successfully against these free radicals?
For years, researchers thought the solution might lie in antioxidant vitamins. Supplementing our diets with these vitamins, scientists reasoned, might reduce the number of free radicals and help prevent age-related diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. The government and others underwrote large-scale, long-term studies to see whether increased doses of vitamin E, vitamin A, and vitamin C would offer extra disease-fighting protection. The experiments did not produce the hoped-for results.
“I think we unfortunately went down the garden path,” McCord says. “We had the idea that more would be better, and there was very little evidence of that.”
The American Heart Association released a science advisory in 2004 that said research on vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene (a form of vitamin A) supplements failed to justify their use to prevent or treat cardiovascular disease. The American Cancer Society also does not advocate taking these vitamins as supplements, because the results of studies testing their results against cancer have been disappointing. In fact, in cancer patients, taking vitamin E might hurt the body’s natural ability to fight tumor cells by actually helping keep tumor cells alive.
Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, at Tufts University, was not surprised by the studies’ disappointing results and is critical of studies that look for a single nutrient, such as vitamin E, to prevent cancer or heart disease. The antioxidant defense network is complicated, he says, involving both what we eat and what our cells produce.
“It’s not a one nutrient, one disease sort of thing. It’s complex.” Studies of the disease-fighting power of different vitamins tend to be overly simplistic, he says, trying to cure one disease with one supplement at one dose. Antioxidants work in concert, he says, as part of a dynamic system in the body.
Like the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society, Blumberg advocates a balanced diet rich in whole grains and a variety of fruits and vegetables. As we’ve seen, eating fruits and vegetables, which are loaded with antioxidants, has been linked to a lower risk for many chronic and potentially life-shortening diseases.
“I do feel there is an enormous power to nutrition,” Blumberg says, adding that we need to eat in moderation and eat a wide array of fruits and vegetables to maximize the power of good nutrition. “You need that diversity, that variety of plant foods to provide the full complement of antioxidant nutrients.”
McCord, now in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is not ready to give up on using supplements as antioxidants just yet. The biochemist thinks the disappointments from vitamin studies do not show that antioxidant supplements do not work, just that the research has been misdirected.
“Antioxidant therapy is by no means a dead topic; we have simply been looking at the wrong ones,” McCord says. The focus, he says, should be on how we can supplement our diets to increase the levels of the two enzymes that do the heavy lifting when it comes to neutralizing free radicals: superoxide dismutase (SOD), the enzyme he codiscovered almost four decades ago, and catalase. These two enzymes, he says, are responsible for scavenging 99 percent of the free radicals in the body. If we can get the body to produce more of these enzymes, he reasons, then it would do a better job at fighting free radicals. Don’t bother popping pills containing SOD. This is useless, because it is digested and churned up by the stomach like any other protein.
McCord says there are about forty plants, most of them used in traditional medicine in India and China, that have been shown to induce the body to produce more SOD and catalase. McCord recently coauthored an article in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine that showed how a supplement containing five such plant extracts not only increased the body’s production of SOD and catalase but decreased the markers for oxidative stress associated with aging. Whether this translates into longer life remains to be seen. The supplement contained extracts of the following:
1. green tea
2. turmeric
3. milk thistle
4. ashwaganda and
5. bacopa.
Ashwaganda (also spelled ashwagandha) is a plant also known as winter cherry. Bacopa is an herb. This was a very small study, with only twenty-nine participants, but statistically very strong. Still a lot more research needs to be done.
“It may not be the final answer, but it may open a doorway that has a lot of answers behind it,” says McCord. He enjoys thinking that the enzyme he discovered almost forty years ago may be at the heart of antioxidant research in the years to come.
BUYERS BEWARE
Of course, supplements are not limited to antioxidants, and increasingly, Americans have been turning to them to cure what ails them, looking for help for everything from weight loss and sore joints to depression and diabetes. I suspect the rise in popularity of herbal medicine coincides to some degree with a growing dissatisfaction with modern medicine, which is too bad.
In any event, millions of Americans now take supplements; estimates range from 15 percent to 40 percent of the population. Even President Bush reportedly takes supplements. Annual supplement sales in the United States now top $20 billion, yet the industry is largely unregulated.
Unlike prescription drugs, supplements do not require approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Because supplements are derived from natural ingredients, many people assume they are inherently safe. Most of the 29,000 supplements on the market are, but there are no guarantees and little government supervision—at least in the United States. Also, there are no guarantees about the concentration and purity of supplements on the market. Some have been found to contain prescription medication to boost their efficacy. Others have contained toxic heavy metals.
Even when the supplements themselves are safe and reliable, they can cause medical problems if they are not used correctly or if they are taken in large doses. Supplements also have the potential for dangerous interactions with drugs, a real danger, considering the huge number of Americans who take prescription medicine. Certainly, you should consult your doctor before taking any supplements, especially if you are already taking any prescription medicine.
I was amazed to learn that even when a supplement is dangerous, the federal government has trouble banning it. Under the 1994 law governing supplements, federal regulators must prove supplements unsafe, not the other way around. In 2004, the FDA attempted to ban the diet supplement ephedra after it was linked to heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, and at least 164 deaths. A federal judge overturned the ban, ruling that the federal government could not issue a blanket ban on the supplement, but needed to state which dosages were unsafe.
Supplement makers also do not have to report adverse reactions to their products, as drug companies do. The federal government estimates only about 1 percent of adverse reactions are reported, despite a hotline and Web site set up to record such reports. More than one in eight calls to the California Poison Control Center was prompted by a child’s adverse reaction to a dietary supplement, including vomiting, nausea, and increased heart rate, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Shining the light on one potentially harmful supplement does not prevent other potentially dangerous supplements from filling the void in the marketplace. For example, when the dangers of ephedra became known, a supplement made from bitter orange peel, Citrus aurantium, was advertised as an ephedra-free alternative for dieters and athletes. However, Citrus aurantium may pose many of the same risks as ephedra, according to a research review published in the journal Experimental Biology and Medicine.
Many companies that produce supplements suggest they are safe because they have been used for thousands of years or are derived from ancient medicine. Being natural or part of a traditional treatment does not make it safe. Aristolochic acid, derived from a Chinese herb, was sold for a variety of ailments, but turned out to be a carcinogen linked to kidney failure and death. The supplements chaparral, comfrey, germander, and kava have also been linked to liver damage and death. None of these cautionary tales has slowed the booming market for dietary supplements.
Echinacea and the Common Cold
The best selling of these is echinacea, an extract from the coneflower, which is a member of the sunflower family. An estimated 15 million Americans take echinacea to prevent and treat colds. There is little clinical evidence it does either. A 2005 study funded by the federal government and published in the New England Journal of Medicine found none of three different preparations of echinacea on the market were successful at preventing the cold. Supporters of echinacea said the dose tested was too low. Other government-funded studies found echinacea did not work as a treatment for the common cold in adults or for upper respiratory tract infections in children. Nonetheless, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is continuing to fund the study of echinacea as a possible treatment for upper respiratory infections.
Supplement takers, including Laura Brown, reading the preceding paragraphs will no doubt conclude that I have been somehow coopted or brainwashed by some medical-pharmaceutical industrial complex. My response is that I believe in the scientific method, and if a well-run trial shows a treatment does not work any better than a placebo, we should first try to replicate the results and then think twice about continuing that course of treatment.
Still, I doubt anything I write here will dissuade anyone of the efficacy of echinacea or any other supplement. To be sure, belief alone is a powerful healing tool, which I will take up in detail in chapter 8.
Let’s consider some of the other popular dietary supplements, such as garlic. The lower rate of heart disease among southern Europeans, who eat the garlic-rich Mediterranean diet, has led to a lot of interest in the plant. An estimated 7 million Americans use garlic supplements. Three dozen clinical trials in adults have found that taking various garlic preparations resulted in a small but statistically significant reduction in total cholesterol over the short term. Studies show garlic also may protect against platelet aggregation, which can raise the risk of stroke. Few studies have looked at the efficacy of fresh garlic, although research suggests heating garlic right after it is crushed or chopped appears to diminish garlic’s beneficial properties. Some scientists recommend letting crushed or chopped garlic sit for ten minutes before cooking with it. Several population studies suggest garlic and other vegetables in its class, such as onions and leeks, may help protect against cancer.
Saint-John’s-wort, a long-lived plant with yellow flowers, has been used for centuries as an herbal treatment for depression. An estimated 1.5 million Americans take Saint-John’s-wort supplements. There is some evidence Saint-John’s-wort works to treat mild to moderate depression, but studies have concluded the supplement does not work to treat more severe depression.
Consuming the root of the Asian ginseng plant is said to improve overall health, increase mental and physical performance, lower blood sugar, and control blood sugar. It should come as no surprise, then, that drinks and other products add ginseng to attract health-conscious consumers. Does it work? Some studies have concluded ginseng may lower blood sugar and boost immune function. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the research has not been conclusive.
Gingko biloba is another supplement added to various beverages. It has long been touted as a memory-boosting supplement. However, research suggests it does not improve memory as advertised.
Soy products are also popular supplements, reputed to be heart healthy and protective against prostate and breast cancers. Proponents point to the Japanese and others in Asia who eat soy-rich diets and have far fewer cases of these cancers than their counterparts in much of the West. No clinical evidence currently supports the assertion that soy lowers the risk for these hormone-related cancers. Studies do suggest soy products offer moderate benefits in lowering LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and triglycerides.
Let’s consider the supplements President Bush is known to take. First, he takes a daily multivitamin. The president also takes a combination of glucosamine and chondroitin and a fish oil supplement. Glucosamine and chondroitin are taken for joint pain. President Bush suffers from knee pain from years of jogging, something he forgoes now in favor of riding a mountain bike or using an elliptical machine.
A government study found glucosamine and chondroitin together did not provide significant relief for most knee pain, compared to a placebo. The two widely used supplements also failed when tested separately. However, the supplements did bring relief for participants with moderate to severe pain, according to the large-scale study. President Bush had knee surgery in 1997 on his left knee, so it’s quite possible he fits in this moderate to severe group.
How about the other supplement President Bush reportedly takes—fish oil? Fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids. A review of the medical literature suggests eating fish or taking a fish oil supplement can reduce the risk of heart attack and heart disease, though fish oil alone did not affect cholesterol levels. Omega-3 fatty acids are also thought to be good for the brain. Have you ever heard the old mantra that fish is brain food? Clinical evidence is not yet strong enough to make any conclusions about whether this is the case, but a number of doctors believe it does help protect the brain against Alzheimer’s and other problems. No doubt more and better studies will be conducted in coming years to see if fish and fish oil really do keep our brains healthier. Incidentally, if you are looking for other ways to keep the brain sharp, I’ll have more on that in chapter 5.
EAT YOUR SUPPLEMENTS
Blumberg, at Tufts, is not a big fan of supplements. He is a staunch believer in a diet consisting of a healthy variety of foods, eaten in moderation. But he is not ready to write off supplements entirely. Blumberg sees times when supplements can be beneficial and fill a void in our diets.
For instance, consider the person in the process of shifting from an unhealthy diet to a healthy diet. Old eating habits need to be discarded. New ones need to be developed. No one makes the shift from junk food to healthy food overnight. During the transition, supplements are a good way to make up for nutritional shortfalls, Blumberg says. But he is quick to add, “Dietary supplements are not dietary substitutes.” In the long run, it is always best to make a change in diet, but if there is no chance you are going to get enough of a certain nutrient in your diet in the short term, you should take a supplement. Shortfalls are common for most people, and a typical multivitamin/multimineral can help fill the gap between actual intakes and requirements.
There is another time when taking a supplement makes sense, Blumberg says. There is a chance you realistically are not going to eat certain foods that contain a vital nutrient. You may intensely dislike the taste of fish, for example. In this case, taking an omega-3 supplement makes sense. It also makes sense to eat foods fortified with vitamins and nutrients if that helps you achieve recommended levels of different vitamins and nutrients.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, most Americans are falling short of the recommended daily allowances of vitamins A, C, and E and the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium. This certainly seems to suggest many could benefit from a multivitamin with minerals.
Other Americans, it appears, take too many vitamins. Some doctors believe many are popping vitamins to counteract unhealthy diets and lifestyles, with some potentially dangerous side effects.
Also, almost half of all Americans take some prescription medicine. For older Americans, the percentage is higher. Drugs may change the way your body metabolizes food, which may result in nutrients being flushed from the body or less well absorbed. This, too, would be a good reason to take supplements.
Finally, as we get older, we need more of certain nutrients to maintain healthy levels, and this too may require supplements. For example, as we age, we become less efficient at converting sunlight into vitamin D. As a result, we need to include more foods with vitamin D in our diet, such as milk, which is fortified with vitamin D, or we need to take a vitamin supplement.
Also, vitamin B12 and folic acid are less well absorbed by the elderly, who don’t secrete as much hydrochloric acid in the stomach. The result is a higher stomach pH (less acidity) and the reduced ability to absorb these nutrients. Vitamin B6 requirements in the elderly also go up, although experts are not sure why. It’s possible it is utilized more rapidly. All this happens at a time in life when appetite decreases for many, meaning there is less opportunity to make up this potential nutritional shortfall.
Too little calcium will result in a loss in bone density and osteoporosis, but should we take calcium supplements? A seven-year study involving 36,000 women, published in 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine, upended conventional wisdom by concluding that seven years of taking calcium and vitamin D supplements daily provided minimal protection against broken bones for older women. As a result of the study, a number of doctors and nutritionists concluded that women with low bone density should take medicine to help build bone mass. Several drugs are available. Osteoporosis affects about 10 million Americans, mostly women, and leads to 1.5 million fractures a year. If you are worried about the strength of your bones, you can have a bone density scan, a painless type of X-ray.
Women (and men) who do not have bone density issues should try to get their daily calcium requirement through their diet. The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Office of Dietary Supplements recommends two or three servings a day of calcium-rich foods. Examples of servings are 1 cup of milk, 8 ounces of yogurt, or 1.5 ounces of natural cheese, such as cheddar. Orange juice also comes fortified with calcium. Most Americans do not get enough calcium in what they eat and drink, which is why the National Osteoporosis Foundation continues to advocate calcium supplements for most Americans, despite the disappointing results of the large-scale study mentioned above.
Experts warn that osteoporosis begins early. Because we build 90 percent of our bone mass by age nineteen, young people should be encouraged to get enough calcium in their diets. Children allowed to choose sodas over milk as they mature may be setting themselves up for a fall later in life, quite literally.
HORMONE REPLACEMENT
As we age, our body chemistry changes. Production of hormones such as testosterone and human growth hormone declines. Replacing these and other hormones to more youthful levels in an effort to extend vitality is controversial and potentially dangerous. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of interest.
Open up Google and search for “human growth hormone,” and you’ll get more than 5 million hits. Human growth hormone (HGH) is produced by the pituitary gland and spurs bone and tissue growth. Between the ages of twenty and sixty, the levels of HGH released by the gland drop by half or more. Now a growing number of doctors appear willing to prescribe the hormone as an antiaging therapy.
Some people are born with a pituitary gland that does not produce enough HGH. This results is dwarfism, the treatment of which was the hormone’s original medicinal use. HGH was discovered fifty years ago and was originally harvested from cadavers. Twenty years ago, researchers figured out how to make it synthetically. Promoters of giving HGH to the aging now claim injections of the hormone will do everything from boosting muscle, memory, and sexual function to lowering blood pressure and reducing fat. The treatment can cost more than $10,000 a year.
A 1990 study of HGH in 12 older men, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the hormone reduced fat and increased muscle and bone density. A larger study in 2002, involving 125 older men and women, found HGH injections resulted in less fat and more muscle, but not increased strength. The earlier study has been quoted extensively on the Internet, prompting the journal to post on its Web site a warning about the potentially misleading ads online.
Critics say the risks of using HGH far outweigh the potential gains. They include headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, swelling joints, bloating, the increased risk of diabetes, and possibly tumor growth. Ironically, it may also speed the aging process. Mice with too much growth hormone die younger. The long-term risks in humans are not known, but critics say too much HGH could potentially shorten the life span of those taking it.
Testosterone is another hormone whose production peaks early in adulthood. Replacing the hormone to more youthful levels has been touted as a way to promote heart health and retain muscle mass, memory, and sex drive in men, but in large doses, it can cause hair loss and mood problems. Also, it may increase LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, and raise the risk for certain cancers, heart disease, and stroke. Some scientists have implicated testosterone as the culprit behind men’s shorter life expectancy. Women who take testosterone to counteract menopause may start exhibiting male secondary sex traits, such as hairiness.
Promoters of hormone treatments to improve vitality also crow about the benefits of thyroid hormones and an adrenal hormone called dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA. Production peaks in the midtwenties and then decreases as we age. Not much is known about what happens if we bring the levels back to where they were when we were younger. Possible problems with supplementing thyroid hormones include heart arrhythmias and bone loss, while DHEA may cause liver damage and breast enlargement in men and hairiness in women.
The Search for Eternal Youth
Rejuvenating hormone therapies are not new. More than a century ago, the French physiologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard thought he had discovered the secret to eternal youth in the testicles of animals. At seventy-two, he removed and crushed dog and guinea pig testes, testicular blood, and seminal fluid, mixed them with water, and injected the filtered extract under the skin of his own arm. After three weeks of injections, Brown-Séquard reported greater strength, mental concentration, and stamina. More than twelve thousand physicians injected thousands of doses of similar concoctions, named Sequarine and billed as “the medicine of the future,” into the general public. An ad for the serum claimed it “embodies the very essence of animal energy” and was successful in treating a long list of ailments, including nervousness, rheumatism, gout, diabetes, paralysis, and influenza. Of course, Sequarine was no age-defying potion, and the fad eventually faded.
It’s too soon to say whether HGH and some of the other hormone therapies being prescribed today will succumb to the same fate. Not enough research has been done on the long-term effects of HGH and other antiaging hormone treatments to prove their safety and efficacy. Given the number of people willing to take chances with their health by replacing hormones that naturally decline with age, we will get more telling answers about their long-term effects on the body in the years to come. In the meantime, it seems at least premature to begin injections or other treatments with these hormones.
UNLIKELY ELIXIRS
History is filled with dietary antidotes to aging, most of them unappetizing or downright bizarre. Chinese Taoists thought eating foods related to long-lived plants and animals would help increase longevity. They recommended crane’s eggs, tortoise soup, and the products of pines and cypresses. The thirteenth-century English philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon, no doubt looking at the wrinkled skin of the elderly, concluded that the loss of “innate moisture” over time caused old age. He advocated taking baths and ingesting small quantities of pearl, coral, aloe wood, gold, and “bone from a stag’s heart.” These were intended to replace “innate moisture” lost through aging. The breath of a virgin was also recommended for old men, who would absorb some of the “vital principle” by being in the company of youth.
I’m not going to advocate dining on stag’s heart, but there are potential health benefits to be found in some unlikely places. Take dark chocolate, for example. Eating dark chocolate boosts the blood’s antioxidant power by 20 percent, according to research published in a paper in Nature. The antioxidant in chocolate is called epicatechin. Milk chocolate is much less effective. A study of older men in the Netherlands found eating the equivalent of a third of a chocolate bar a day may lower blood pressure and the risk of death. Dark chocolate (but not milk chocolate or white chocolate) also appears to inhibit the aggregation of platelets, an early step in the formation of blood clots that can cause heart attack or stroke. Cocoa beans contain flavonoids. Red wine; apples; berries; and green, white, black, and oolong teas also contain flavonoids, which are thought to increase nitric oxide in the blood and improve the function of blood vessels. However, chocolate also contains sugar and fat, so while a little chocolate may be a good thing, a lot of chocolate may be too much of a good thing.
How about red wine? Much has been written about the potential life-extending properties of red wine, thanks to the so-called French paradox—the relatively low level of heart disease in France despite the prevalence of high-fat foods and cigarette smoking. The French also drink a lot of red wine, leading to speculation that a compound in the wine, resveratrol, may be responsible. Resveratrol is a compound that shows antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and potentially artery friendly properties in laboratory and animal studies. In addition to wine, resveratrol is found in red grapes, red grape juice, peanuts, blueberries, and cranberries. All wines contain resveratrol, though red wines contain more than whites or rosés. In cells cultured outside the body, resveratrol inhibited the spread of a number of human cancers. Resveratrol has also increased by 60 percent the life spans of yeast, flies, nematodes, and a short-lived fish native to Zimbabwe. It’s not known whether resveratrol has life-extending properties in humans.
Green tea has achieved a sort of cult status for its reputed health-giving properties. It’s so “hot,” it’s included in sodas and other drinks. As I mentioned earlier, an extract of green tea was in the antioxidant supplement the University of Colorado’s McCord tested with some success. Teas, including green tea, have been shown to lower cancer risk in some animal studies, but population studies in people have not been conclusive.
How about coffee? Many people drink coffee not to become healthier but to give them a caffeine-fueled boost. Still, University of California, Davis researchers think brewed coffee (both caffeinated and decaf) has the same amount of antioxidant as three oranges. A number of studies also suggests that coffee lowers the risk for type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease (for men), and possibly colorectal cancer. Not all the news about coffee is good, however. Caffeine raises blood pressure, which can be dangerous for people with hypertension. Unfiltered coffee, such as espresso and French press, also increases cholesterol. Filtered coffee doesn’t have much of an effect on cholesterol. Before you run off on a coffee binge, remember that as with most things, moderation is key.
EDUCATE YOURSELF
If you are excited about the idea of taking herbs and supplements as a way of taking responsibility for your health, know that there are a lot of claims being made that need to be checked. Educate yourself. Remember that snake oil salesmen have been boasting about the healing properties of all sorts of things for centuries. We want to believe them because we want more control over our well-being. Remember, too, that just because a substance is “natural” and has been around for centuries, it is not necessarily safe. Laura Brown has taken this important first step toward controlling her own health. While the scientific data may not support her decisions, there is no arguing that she believes these supplements work for her. She has 45 million Americans alone who agree with her. If you are one of them or are thinking of becoming one of them, refer to this chapter, and do your homework.
This chapter has attempted to use clinical data to cut through the claims made about some of the more popular supplements. There are thousands of supplement makers out there, some of them making exuberant promises about their products. Don’t take their word for it. The NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements Web site has a lot of information that can help you make informed decisions. So do the Web sites of the Mayo Clinic and Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute. Finally, remember that there are no miracle cures. As you chase the healthiest possible life, be smart about what you put in your body. Next stop: run for your life, because there are no shortcuts or substitutes for hard work.
Paging Dr. Gupta
• There is no fountain of youth. Beware the product that says it will make you younger.
• Go to the source, not the supplement. There is no substitute for a diet filled with fruits and vegetables.
• Stay away from human growth hormone. The potential for harm outweighs any potential benefit.
• Depending on your age, your race, and where you live, you might consider taking a vitamin D supplement.
• Discover the unlikely elixirs. Dark chocolate, red wine, and coffee may extend life.
• Just because something is natural, it is not guaranteed to be safe.