Life Extension Track Record
Impeccable track record of 40 years of scientific achievement
Life Extension has led the world uncovering new ways to prevent and treat the diseases of aging since 1980. We’ve unveiled innovative treatment protocols in our Life Extension Magazine® years before they were recognized by conventional medicine. Today, many of the advances we’ve championed have become standard medical practice. Below is a chronology of those advances and achievements, spanning over an incredible four decades.
To view Life Extension’s achievements over the past 41 years,
click on any of the decades below:
1980s
- In 1981, Life Extension recommended the hormone DHEA to slow aging. There are now hundreds of published papers substantiating DHEA's youth-promoting properties. DHEA has become one of the most popular anti-aging supplements, and Life Extension's dosing protocols enable people to derive optimal benefits from it.
- In 1981, Life Extension recommended B-complex vitamins to lower homocysteine blood levels. Homocysteine is now recognized as a risk factor for heart disease, dementia, and stroke. Customers have been keeping their homocysteine levels low by taking bioactive folic acid, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6.
- In 1983, Life Extension recommended the use of low-dose aspirin on a daily basis to prevent vascular disease. Cardiologists in the United States now prescribe low-dose aspirin to protect against a heart attack in cardiac patients.
- In 1983, Life Extension warned against the intake of supplemental iron because of studies showing that excessive iron causes cancer. In 1988, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article showing that men with high levels of iron had a 40% increase in their overall risk of cancer.
- In 1983, Life Extension was the first organization in the United States to recommend the Japanese cardiac drug coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) as an anti-aging nutrient. The use of high-dose CoQ10 in the United States is enabling people with congestive heart failure to resume normal lives because this nutrient significantly boosts cardiac energy output. High-dose CoQ10 may also slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. A breakthrough in the field of anti-aging medicine occurred in 2006 with the publication of a study showing that the ubiquinol form of CoQ10 slowed aging in middle-aged, senescent-accelerated mice by 40%. Ubiquinol CoQ10 is what most Life Extension customers now supplement with.
- In 1985, Life Extension published an article suggesting that the progression of AIDS could be slowed by vitamin supplementation. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided Life Extension's premises in 1987 because the agency at that time did not believe that nutrition had anything to do with HIV progression. In the April 1995 issue of FDA Consumer, the FDA recommended vitamin supplements to slow the progression of AIDS — and a federal judge eventually forced the FDA to return everything it seized from Life Extension in 1987. Since we published the article in 1985, hundreds of published studies have shown that proper nutrient supplementation can slow the progression of the immune system decline that leads to AIDS.
- In 1985, Life Extension introduced lycopene as a dietary supplement for the purpose of preventing some forms of cancer. Lycopene is now accepted as one of the components of plants that has cancer-prevention properties.
- In 1985, Life Extension recommended the drug cimetidine (Tagamet®) as an adjuvant cancer therapy. Since then, published studies have revealed that this drug (most commonly associated with heartburn relief) can reduce the recurrence of certain cancers by as much as 79%.
- In 1986, Life Extension recommended low doses of a European drug called deprenyl as a potential anti-aging therapy. The FDA eventually approved deprenyl in higher doses to treat Parkinson's disease but has yet to recognize the anti-aging effects that low doses of this drug produce in healthy people.
- In 1986, Life Extension recommended the broad-spectrum antiviral drug ribavirin to treat lethal viral infections. Twelve years later, the FDA approved ribavirin as a treatment for hepatitis C.
- In 1988, Life Extension introduced phosphatidylserine to improve memory and slow brain aging. At a scientific conference on anti-aging medicine held in December 1997, phosphatidylserine was the hottest topic of discussion by speakers who were lecturing to 1,500 physicians about how to slow the aging process.