Life extension: Encyclopedia II - Life extension - History of life extension and the Life Extension Movement

Life extension - History of life extension and the Life Extension Movement

In 1970, the American Aging Association was formed under the impetus of Denham Harman originator of the free radical theory of aging. Harman wanted an organization of biogerontologists that was devoted to research and to the sharing of information among scientists interested in extending human lifespan.

Although humans have been seeking to extend their lives at least from the time of the ancient Sumerian king Gilgamesh, the 1982 bestselling book Life Extension (ISBN 044651229X) by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw popularized the phrase. The book deals largely with antioxidant supplements, and is dedicated foremost to Dr. Denham Harman. The 1980 book The Life Extension Revolution (ISBN 0688035809) by Saul Kent did not sell so well. But Mr. Kent appeared on the Merv Griffith Show with Pearson and Shaw, and was able to use the flood of letters to create the nutraceutical firm called the Life Extension Foundation, which is non-profit. The Life Extension Foundation has grown to produce a magazine which has a large circulation. The group has a track record which includes promoting the benefits of many health suppliments such as S-adenosyl methionine and melatonin many years before the medical field accepted the benefits of those substances.

Money generated from the Life Extension Foundation allowed Saul Kent to finance the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the largest cryonics organization. The cryonics movement had been launched in 1962 with Robert Ettinger's book, The Prospect of Immortality. In the 1960s, Saul Kent had been a co-founder of the Cryonics Society of New York. Alcor gained national prominence when the baseball star Ted Williams was cryonically preserved by Alcor in 2002 and a family dispute arose as to whether Ted had really wanted to be cryopreserved.

In 1983, Dr. Roy Walford, a life-extensionist gerontologist published a popular book called Maximum Lifespan. Later, Dr. Walford and his student Dr. Richard Weindruch summarized years of their research into the ability of calorie restriction to extend the lifespan of rodents in their 1988 scholarly work The Retardation of Aging and Disease by Dietary Restriction (ISBN 0398054967). It had been known since the work of Clive McCay in the 1930s that calorie restriction can extend the maximum lifespan of rodents. But it was the work of Walford and Weindruch that gave detailed scientific grounding to that knowledge. Walford's personal interest in life extension motivated his scientific work and he practised calorie restriction himself.

For years the FDA tried to destroy the Life Extension Foundation, through seizure of merchandise and court action. The FDA refused to regard aging as a disease or life extension as a valid treatment category. In 1991 Saul Kent and Bill Faloon, the principals of the Foundation were jailed and told by the FDA that they would become the target of criminal indictments that would "destroy their lives forever" and were advised to plead guilty of crimes against the state. Against legal advice, Kent and Faloon fought the FDA in court and filed countercharges concerning their mistreatment. In 1995 the FDA informed Kent and Faloon that, in exchange for a guilty plea, they would not have to go to prison and could continue doing business on a more limited basis. Instead of pleading guilty, Kent and Faloon filed a new battery of legal motions, escalated their counterattack against the FDA and began extensive preparations for their trial. In November 1995, the FDA dropped all charges except the charge of "obstruction of justice" against Saul Kent. In February 1996, this charge was also dropped.

In 1993 the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) was formed to create an anti-aging medical specialty distinct from geriatrics, and to hold conferences for physicians interested in this field.

An important recent development in life extension has been the work of biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey of Cambridge University. Dr. de Grey proposes that damage to macromolecules, cells, tissues and organs can be repaired by advanced biotechnology.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of life extension and the Life Extension Movement", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki