Life Extension Magazine®
Each day, hundreds of medical discoveries are published in internationally recognized scientific journals. Only a few of these life-saving findings are ever made available to patients. The result is that human beings suffer and die while effective therapies already exist to alleviate or cure their condition. One reason for this travesty is that today's physicians are overwhelmed with a crushing burden of bureaucracy and patient load. Hurried doctors cannot possibly keep up with the abundance of new information bursting out of the scientific arena. Physician ignorance and apathy has created a hostile backlash that is motivating a growing number of Americans to turn away from conventional medicine. In this article, we reveal how Life Extension members can bypass today's broken down healthcare system so they can take full advantage of today's wealth of scientific knowledge. This information provides members with the opportunity to gain greater control over what happens inside their own bodies. We live in a world where medical discoveries have become routine events. The sheer volume of new findings, however, has inundated both the public and practicing physicians. While the media superficially reports on a few scientific discoveries, the vast majority of medical breakthroughs remain buried in the millions of pages of journals that are published each year. When medical discoveries are not delivered to patients, the inevitable result is less than optimal care. If you suffer from a non-life-threatening condition, this absence of applied knowledge means your agony may not abate. If you suffer from a lethal medical condition, the result of your physician not taking advantage of current treatment findings can result in premature death. In 1999, the Life Extension Foundation published a 946-page medical textbook titled Disease Prevention and Treatment (3rd ed). The amount of new information that has been discovered since 1999 is nothing short of remarkable. Regrettably, few of these discoveries have been incorporated into standard medical practice. The result is that people are dying needlessly, even though therapies to treat their diseases may already exist. In order to help bridge the gap between the findings of scientific research and conventional medical practice, Life Extension has just published the fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment that contains over 1,500 pages. Why doctors can't keep up
What differentiates practicing physicians from the Life Extension Foundation is our team of researchers who investigate the world's published scientific literature to uncover effective preventatives and treatments that are not being utilized by mainstream doctors. In many cases, this overlooked information has been published in conventional medical journals that physicians subscribe to. The difference is that Life Extension employs dedicated staff members whose job is to review, interpret and catalog the novel data they discover. Even well intentioned physicians lack the time and resources to systematically conduct this type of meticulous research. A review of past medical discoveries reveals how excruciatingly slow the medical establishment adopts novel concepts. Even simple methods to improve medical quality often meet with fierce resistance. A classic example of this occurred when a young Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that a contagious disease was being transmitted to hospital patients because medical personnel failed to wash their hands. In the 19th century, tens of thousands of women died every year from puerperal sepsis (childbed fever). The reason for this epidemic was that doctors were performing autopsies and then conducting vaginal exams with their hands covered with decomposing necrotic tissue. Dr. Semmelweis observed that women who used midwives instead of doctors had low rates of childbed fever. When Semmelweis published his meticulous findings about the importance of hand washing, the medical community reacted with hostility or dismissal. The prevailing belief at the time was that childbed fever is caused by bad air. After strident attempts to persuade skeptics, Semmelweis was committed to an insane asylum where he died at age 42, possibly from beatings by asylum guards. Accessing today's scientific pioneers How many forward thinking individuals like Dr. Semmelweis exist today? The answer is more than in any previous era. The challenge is finding those who possess exceptional degrees of compassion, competence and willingness to apply new discoveries. Over the past three decades, Life Extension has been privileged to interact with scientific pioneers who have developed novel solutions for preventing and treating degenerative disease. Their methods are based upon reviewing thousands of published scientific papers and medical conference reports, interacting with innovative doctors throughout the world, and their own professional experience. Medical history documents that bureaucratic committees do not make discoveries. Instead, it is the individual with an insatiable desire for knowledge that innovates by thinking beyond prevailing dogmatic principle. The new edition of the Disease Prevention and Treatment reference book represents a compilation of work by individuals who are passionate about ending today's epidemic of unnecessary disease and death. How this book came into being It is important to understand how the Disease Prevention and Treatment book came into being. In the 1970s, the founders of the Life Extension Foundation began to uncover information that could be used to alleviate suffering and prevent death. Conveying this information to those with health problems often resulted in significant improvements in their condition. As we delved deeper into the scientific literature, it became clear that many people were dying from medical ignorance. This startling revelation did not go totally unnoticed. A growing number of individuals began asking us for help when confronted with difficult-to-treat disorders. As more cases were presented to us, we came to the realization that a lethal communication gap exists between scientists and practicing physicians. Marvelous discoveries are published in prestigious medical journals today, yet little of this information is utilized to save lives. It's as if an impenetrable barrier separates scientific solutions from those in critical need of this knowledge. One objective of Disease Prevention and Treatment is to break down the walls of ignorance and apathy that are the underlying causes of most human suffering and death. The concept of "scientific medicine" The primary purpose of this new book is to provide information to Life Extension members that are overlooked by the medical establishment. Our mission has been to translate diverse scientific findings into therapeutic protocols that can be understood by lay people and their physicians. We call this concept "scientific medicine." Physicians who practice "scientific medicine" react uniquely when they hear about a new therapy. Their curiosity motivates them to evaluate the new therapy for safety and efficacy in the context of treatment regimens appropriate to their patients' conditions. The scientific physician evaluates the new therapy based upon:
Once satisfied that a new therapy has merit, scientific physicians then integrate the therapy into individual treatment regimens. These physicians, in essence, are using the results of promising new studies to help save the lives of their patients. While this may appear to be a common sense approach to better medical practice, it is no longer common in the clinical setting. The general public is often surprised to learn how seldom breakthrough discoveries are used to save human lives. Managed care and bureaucratic over-regulation have relegated most physicians to the practice of "assembly line" medicine. Sadly-in the most advanced medical system in the world-we have seen a move away from "scientific medicine" towards "fast-food medicine." In Disease Prevention and Treatment, we emphasize the need for physicians to return to scientific medicine for the benefit of their patients and for the continued advancement of medical care. Continued on Page 2 of 4
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Bridging the Gap Between Physicians learn about new discoveries at scientific conferences, from medical journals and on the Internet. However, only a fraction of these doctors translate this knowledge into enhanced treatments for their patients. In fact, physicians treating seriously ill patients often fail to utilize many established medical advances. For instance, the scientific literature documents that, if a cancer or congestive heart disease patient is anemic, their chance of survival is greatly reduced. Few physicians, however, are aggressive in their evaluation and treatment of anemia in their everyday practice, even though anemia correlates directly with increased mortality. The Fourth Edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment seeks to revolutionize medical practice so that physicians are motivated to obtain better clinical results, rather than breaking records as to how many patients can be treated in a given day. We are optimistic that this book will stimulate substantive changes for the better, based on the positive responses we have received from the medical community from prior editions of the book. If Disease Prevention and Treatment can persuade more physicians to practice "scientific medicine," then the benefit to all of mankind will be incalculable. Saving cancer patients' lives This new edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment reveals startling information about therapies that are not being used routinely in the clinical setting. For instance, if you are a cancer patient recovering from surgery, morphine is likely to be prescribed to relieve your surgical wound pain. The problem with morphine is that it impairs immune function and induces angiogenesis, which promotes cancer metastasis. Studies have shown that cancer patients given morphine are more likely to see their cancer spread to other areas of their bodies than patients not given morphine.1 There is another analgesic drug, however, that enhances immune function and does not induce new blood vessel growth in tumors. While this finding is substantiated in published studies, most doctors fail to make use of it in their clinical practice and continue giving morphine to post-op cancer patients. Armed with the information in this book, you can ask your doctor for the analgesic drug that helps to prevent the formation of metastatic colonies in other parts of your body. By referring to the Cancer Surgery chapter, you can obtain complete information about the drug that post-op cancer patients should request from their doctor. In fact, this latest edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment contains over 295 pages of novel information cancer patients can use to improve their odds of achieving a remission or complete response. Some of the unique information in this book describes laboratories that can evaluate tumor cells for certain types of gene expressions that help determine what therapies may be most effective. In the Cancer Treatment: The Critical Factors chapter, the eight most important steps a cancer patient should take are thoroughly outlined. None of these eight steps involves the use of dietary supplements. Instead, they specify conventional procedures that oncologists should provide to all cancer patients, but seldom do. A related chapter titled Should Cancer Patients Take Dietary Supplements? discusses the pros and cons of using certain dietary supplements during therapy. The Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy chapters discuss novel methods of improving the efficacy and reducing the toxicity of conventional cancer treatments. In addition to the chapters that describe numerous ways of improving mainstream cancer treatment, the fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment contains specifically written chapters on breast, prostate, colon and pancreatic cancers. Many of the findings from these extensive chapters have never been published anywhere before. What is most shocking is that conventional oncologists are not utilizing much of the information contained in these 295 pages about cancer treatment. The fact that Life Extension was able to identify so many approaches to cancer treatment that are ignored by practicing oncologists helps explain why more Americans are dying of cancer than ever before, despite major advances made in the research laboratory. Are you concerned about stroke and heart attack? While cancer is the disease people fear the most, cardiovascular-related diseases kill twice as many Americans as does cancer.
Sudden death heart attacks have plummeted in middle-aged people, but the elderly are suffering epidemic levels of stroke and heart disease. The aging process inflicts many unrecognized pathological changes that increase one's odds of suffering a cardiovascular event. It is those over age 70 who are now suffering the brunt of heart and vascular-related disorders. This new edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment contains 135 pages dealing specifically with the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases. While cardiologists have focused on a limited number of risk factors, the cardiovascular disease chapters identify every known risk factor and provide specific recommendations on how to counteract these heart and artery damaging pathologies. These chapters are the most comprehensive cardiovascular disease protocols ever published. They provide critical guidance for the middle-aged and elderly to guard against heart attack, stroke, aortic stenosis and vascular diseases. There is even information on what drugs heart attack victims should refuse if they are lucky enough to make it to an emergency room. The primary value of these 135 pages is to identify risk factors ignored by most cardiologists. If you think you know everything there is to protect against cardiovascular disease, you will be amazed to see what conventional and alternative medicine have failed to recognize. These 135 pages on cardiovascular disease could be a book in of themselves, but are all contained in the fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment. Heartburn medicines could cause cancer! Those suffering from gastro-esophageal reflux (GERD) are usually prescribed drugs to alleviate heartburn and esophageal irritation. These drugs are classified as "proton-pump inhibitors" and are sold under brand names such as Prolisec®, Prevacid® and Nexium®. While there is nothing wrong with the short-term use of these acid-blocking drugs, long-term stomach acid deficiency results in the overproduction of a hormone called gastrin. Gastrin is the agent that signals the stomach to produce more acid. When these drugs block acid production, too much gastrin is generated in a futile attempt to induce acid production. The problem is that there are gastrin receptors onthe membranes of many esophageal, pancreatic and gastric cancer cells. Large amounts of gastrin can bind to these receptor sites to induce the cells to hyperproliferate. This means that long-term proton-pump inhibiting therapy could increase your risk of these lethal cancers. You can learn how to avoid this problem in the Esophageal Reflux chapter of the fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment. Avoiding death in the hospital The word "iatrogenic" is defined as illness that occurs as a result of a diagnostic or treatment procedure. The term is also used to describe problems occurring as the result of "exposure to the environment of a health care facility." Iatrogenic (medically induced) illness is a leading cause of death in the United States. For instance, large numbers of hospitalized Americans die from the effects of malnutrition. This problem has been documented in medical journals, but many physicians continue to ignore obvious signs that their patients are starving to death. The archaic state of most hospitals directly causes seriously ill people to lose their appetite. One reason people die in intensive care units (ICUs) is that they often develop life-threatening blood sugar elevations that are not adequately treated. Patients in hospital ICUs are at a significantly greater risk of dying when they develop acute hyperglycemic (high blood glucose) episodes. The Anesthesia-Surgical Precautions chapter of Disease Prevention and Treatment reveals how intensive insulin therapy can lower acute elevation of glucose in the hospital setting and dramatically reduce mortality. The goal of Disease Prevention and Treatment is to keep you out of the hospital. For those who must be hospitalized, we provide critical information about innovative therapies and ways of preventing harmful side effects that will help you get out alive and healthy. Growing epidemic of obesityand type II diabetes Americans are making a greater effort to lose excess body fat than ever before. But, despite aggressive dieting, diet pills and exercise programs, more Americans are overweight than at any other time in history. Could it be that everything you have ever read about how to lose weight is wrong? We suspect it is. Beginning in 2000, Life Extension embarked on an experimental program to induce fat loss by modulating certain hormone levels in the body. After years of meticulous research, the first comprehensive program to lose excess body fat via hormone modulation has been published in the fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment. After you read the Obesity chapter, you will learn why it is virtually impossible to achieve sustained fat loss unless hormone levels are adjusted to that of a healthier individual. The Obesity chapter of the new Disease Prevention and Treatment book provides step-by-step guidance on how you can modulate your hormone levels to achieve a significant reduction in excess body fat. About 19 million Americans suffer from Type II diabetes. Complications relating to this disease make it a leading crippler and killer. Obesity and Type II diabetes are interrelated. By effectively treating either one of these disorders, you help correct or eliminate the other. Both the Obesity and Diabetes chapters provide novel solutions to the epidemic of excess weight gain and ensuing Type II diabetes. Continued on Page 3 of 4
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Bridging the Gap Between Why thyroid blood tests can't be trusted Thyroid hormone deficiency is responsible for many of the maladies associated with aging, including excessive weight gain, high cholesterol, depression and low energy. Standard blood tests often mislead doctors into thinking that thyroid hormone status is normal, but a more scientific method of interpreting these blood tests is revealed in the Thyroid Deficiency chapter of the 2003 Edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment. This method enables physicians and patients to detect and correct subtle thyroid deficits that can cause major health problems. Improving brain function in autistic children Conventional medicine offers little to children who suffer from autism, a mental disorder characterized by language dysfunction, poor social skills, repetitive behavior and the inability to interact socially. A double-blind placebo controlled study showed that when autistic children are properly supplemented with carnosine, remarkable improvements occur based on the tests doctors use to assess neurological function. In this study, parents of the children receiving carnosine reported that overall improvement more than doubled in only eight weeks.2 The doctor who conducted this placebo-controlled study has developed a simple-to-follow protocol that has been used in about 1,000 autistic children. The success rate to date is 90%, with some children showing dramatic improvement in the various disabilities associated with autism. The Austism chapter of the latest edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment reveals never-before-published nutritional protocols that have demonstrated significant benefit to autistic children. The medical establishment has not yet discovered these nutritional approaches, and the result is that teaching autistic children remains a daunting task for most parents.
Lethal effects of blood deficiencies The new Disease Prevention and Treatment book contains many chapters that address the lethal effects of anemia in the elderly, cancer victims and those afflicted with heart disease. When Life Extension staff physicians interact with a member's doctor, a careful review of blood test results is usually done before the consultation. If there is any indication of anemia, Life Extension physicians recommend Procrit® drug therapy or a blood transfusion. A study in the October 25, 2001 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine showed that elderly heart attack patients were 78% more likely to die over a 30-day period if they had severe anemia. When a seriously ill Life Extension Foundation member was hospitalized, blood tests revealed severe anemia.3 Life Extension suggested to the attending physician that, based upon the study published in the October 25, 2001 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the patient should be given an immediate blood transfusion. The patient's doctor specifically remembered reading the study and complimented Life Extension for coming up with the "great idea" of giving the patient blood. The problem is that it was not a "great idea" to give an anemic patient a blood transfusion, as this has been standard medical practice for almost 100 years. What this conversation revealed, however, is that even when doctors read a positive study in a prestigious medical journal, they still may neglect to apply the therapy to their patients in need. "Scientific medicine" in action A historical example of "scientific medicine" in action occurred 22 years ago when the Life Extension Foundation recommended taking folic acid to reduce heart attack risk. Back then, most cardiologists had never heard of homocysteine and did not know that folic acid reduces levels of this toxic artery-clogging agent in the body. Life Extension published evidence that most people could benefit from folic acid and vitamin B12 in 1981. It was not until the 1990s, however, that the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine reported compelling evidence linking elevated homocysteine with higher rates of heart attack and stroke. Life Extension did not discover the link between homocysteine and cardiovascular disease. This finding had been published in scientific journals as far back as the 1960s. The problem was that cardiologists overlooked this crucial information. They failed to transfer the findings about homocysteine from medical journals into their clinical practice. The result was millions of unnecessary heart attacks and strokes. More appalling is the fact that, even today, most cardiologists still fail to test their patients' blood for homocysteine and seldom recommend supplements like folic acid, vitamin B12, trimethylglycine (TMG) and vitamin B6 that have been proven to reduce toxic levels of homocysteine. What Life Extension did in 1981 was to translate the results of published scientific studies into a specific recommendation to its members, i.e., take folic acid to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. This approach of transferring the fruits of scientific discoveries to the front lines where patients' lives literally hang in the balance is critically important. Regrettably, this is not how medicine is commonly practiced today. Conservative doctors are fearful of adverse side effects and lawsuits, even though the published research often indicates only modest risks for patients. Folic acid can prevent many heart attacks from occurring, yet most doctors still have not translated this finding into their clinical practice. The fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment translates the findings from thousands of published studies into practical protocols that can help in the prevention and treatment of common diseases. We call this "scientific medicine."
From the research labto the bedside Disease Prevention and Treatment features novel protocols for the prevention and treatment of age-related diseases. Many of the therapies discussed in the book have not yet been accepted by mainstream medicine. It is important for the reader to understand the scientific criteria used to select the data upon which these protocols are based. Every day, new studies are published in peer-reviewed journals that reveal better ways of preventing and treating disease. The Life Extension Foundation evaluates the findings of these studies for their value in health care and medicine. When sufficient evidence accumulates to validate a new approach, it is then considered for inclusion in Life Extension's ever-evolving Disease Prevention and Treatment protocols. An early example of Life Extension's scientific approach involved the use of aspirin to prevent heart attack. Back in 1983, the Life Extension Foundation analyzed findings from published studies indicating that low-dose aspirin can reduce the risk of a heart attack by about 40%. Life Extension members were urged to take a low-dose aspirin tablet every day to protect against heart attacks. The FDA and medical establishment were harshly critical of Life Extension's recommendation, even though peer-reviewed scientific studies substantiated it. The FDA even issued an edict that any company who promoted the sale of aspirin to prevent heart attacks would be subject to civil and criminal penalties. According to the FDA, making a health claim for aspirin turned it into an "unapproved drug." In response to the FDA's censorship of health claims about aspirin, Life Extension developed a product called "First Amendment Aspirin." On the label of this product was a quote from a published study indicating that aspirin reduces heart attack risk. The FDA demanded that the sale of this product cease, but Life Extension refused, citing the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, i.e., the right to communicate that a published scientific study found that aspirin reduces heart attack risk. Realizing that they could not get around the U.S. Constitution, the FDA went to the manufacturer of the product and demanded that they stop making "First Amendment Aspirin" or face intrusive daily inspections. The manufacturer capitulated and stopped making the product. As new studies continued to verify aspirin's cardio-protective effect, the FDA finally issued a ruling in 1998 that allowed aspirin companies to advertise that aspirin reduces heart attack risk. It is difficult to calculate how many Americans have perished needlessly from heart disease, but the failure of doctors and the FDA to recommend low-dose aspirin therapy for decades caused millions of unnecessary deaths. It took the FDA 15 years to recognize what was clearly established in 1983, i.e. aspirin reduces heart attack risk. Continued on Page 4 of 4
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| Bridging the Gap Between Life Extension's most ambitious project ever The fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment consumed tens of thousands of hours of research time, including input from some of the world's leading authorities. To understand the enormity of this new fourth edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment, one only has to look at the number of text words compared to the third edition published in 1999. There are 1,120,000 text words in the 2003 edition of Disease Prevention and Treatment compared to 549,000 in the 1999 edition. There are so many text words in this fourth edition, that the full references had to be placed on a special Website. If the full references were contained in this edition, the book would contain about 2,500 pages and would be too heavy for some people to lift. The research costs involved in producing this 1,500-plus-page scientific "edifice" has been well over one million dollars. We are not confident that we will recoup this financial outlay. We do know, however, that the information contained in this book can save the lives of tens of thousands of Life Extension members. For this reason, we celebrate the culmination of three years of enormous effort that went into producing this Fourth Edition (2003) of Disease Prevention and Treatment. References 1. Gupta, K., Kshirsagar, S., Chang, L., Schwartz, R., Law, P.Y., Yee, D., Hebbel, R.P. Morphine stimulates angiogenesis by activating proangiogenic and survival-promoting signaling and promotes breast tumor growth. Cancer Res. 2002 Aug 1; 62(15): 4491-8. 2. Chez, M.G., Buchanan, C.P., Aimonovitch, M.C. et al. Double-blind, placebo-controlled study of L-carnosine supplementation in children with autistic spectrum disorders. J. Child Neurol. 2002 Nov; 17(11): 833-7. 3. Wu, W.C., Rathore, S.S., Wang, Y., Radford, M.J., Krumholz, H.M. Blood transfusion in elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction. N. Engl. J. Med. 2001 Oct 25; 345(17): 1230-6.
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