Since eternal youth is impossible, more and more people are joining the anti-aging movement. A movement of doctors who are promoting the means by which they would be arrested as doping dealers in competitive sports.

It also works without doping: senior bodybuilders on the barbell

When Ronald Klatz gives a lecture, the first thing he likes to do is show a picture of muscle-bound 60-year-olds in a bodybuilder pose. “They are our best examples of ideal aging,” he says. “They kept on doing sports, dieting, nutritional supplements, sometimes hormone replacement therapy – so they’re the role model.”

Doctor Ronald Klatz is a co-founder and president of the American Association for Anti-Aging Medicine, which organizes 15,000 American doctors. They promise their patients’ fitness and strength until old age.

More efficient

Seniors in the gym

The origin of anti-aging medicine lies in the practices of sports doctors. When the American Society for Anti-Aging Medicine was founded, most of the doctors involved were there because of their background as doctors in competitive sports, explains Klatz. Whether dietary supplements, interventions in metabolism, training methods or laboratory analyzes – many methods can be used in every phase of life, whether it is a competitive athlete in his mid-20s or senior athletes who are 50 or older. “When you train for a competition, it’s about maximizing physical performance,” says Klatz. “And that’s the core of anti-aging medicine: maximizing physical performance.”

Twenty years younger after Testosterone Enanthate en venta six months

Anti-aging physicians achieve this maximization of physical performance with drugs that are among the doping agents in sports. The human growth hormone HGH has been very popular for some years. It is important for children’s growth. It also controls some metabolic processes in adults, but the level drops continuously over the course of life

“Daniel Rudman published a report in 1990 in the New England Journal of Medicine about human growth hormone that opened the eyes of many people,” Klatz points out a key study in anti-aging medicine. Rudman has shown that the signs of biological aging in people over 60 can be turned back by 10 to 20 years with just six months of hormone replacement with growth hormone.

Young thanks to HGH

The Rudman study cited by anti-aging doctor Ronald Klatz showed that human growth hormone swelled muscle mass in twelve aging men and melted body fat. The test subjects’ bones became harder and their skin thicker. Rudman himself never propagated the hormone for rejuvenation cures, but the anti-aging scene soon praised it as the fountain of youth hormone par excellence.

Pills for fitness?

In 1998 Ronald Klatz even dedicated a whole book to him: “Grow young with HGH” – Rejuvenate yourself with HGH. “When we get older, we don’t need as much of it anymore, but an HGH level close to zero isn’t good either,” he explains. Because the hormone maintains the health of all tissues in the body. If you replace it until the level is 45-50 years old, you can achieve significant health improvements in older people.

Hormones with no effect

This is exactly what serious endocrinologists, hormone specialists like Professor Christian Strasburger from the Charité in Berlin deny. For example, there was an investigation that compared what it does for the patient to simply do strength training and what it does for the patient if they also get growth hormones in addition to strength training.

“It was found that strength training in aging people does have a very beneficial effect on performance and other health parameters,” says Strasburger. “However, the addition of growth hormone has no additional effect.”

Reasonable risk?

It is therefore also unclear whether competitive athletes really benefit from HGH doping. Both athletes and anti-aging patients risk serious health problems. In too high a dose, growth hormone triggers joint pain, water retention in the body, carpal tunnel syndrome and pre-forms of diabetes. According to what is known, the growth hormone can also ensure that damaged cells in the body are no longer removed but instead turn into cancer cells.