A few years ago, former “Three’s Company” star Suzanne Somers embarked on a new career: She became a proponent of bioidentical hormones, which she describes as safe and natural therapies for menopausal women. She wrote three bestselling books on the topic, “The Sexy Years,” “Ageless” and “Breakthrough.” And to cap it all off, she will appear in a movie–titled “Suzanne Somers’ Breakthrough Tour,” which will show in some movie theaters on November 4 and November 9.
Read more here.
That headline got your attention, didn’t it? It caught my eye, too, especially when I saw the words “anti-aging ice cream” on the websites of well-known journalism outlets like Allure Magazine and Fox New York. This so-called news emanated from a deal that consumer-products giant Unilever (parent company of Ben & Jerry’s) signed recently with a Silicon Valley company called Ampere Life Sciences.
Read more about what I discovered on my quest to find anti-aging ice cream.
I was featured this morning on Wisconsin public radio. In a one-hour conversation with Joy Cardin, we discussed a number of issues surrounding the search for eternal youth, including: Why do anti-aging doctors tell patients that horse hormones are bad but pig hormones are good? How did Botox contribute to the growth of anti-medicine? Is society’s obsession with youth to blame for the growth of the anti-aging industry?
Acai
Way back in January 2009, the Better Business Bureau issued a warning to consumers to beware of online offers for free trials of acai berry–one of the many products sold on the Web that purports to promote weight loss and halt aging. Turns out many of the so-called free trials weren’t free at all–they actually hooked unsuspecting shoppers into expensive monthly shipments of acai juice or supplements. Since then, many consumer protection organizations have issued similar warnings. And last year, Oprah Winfrey and her on-air doctor Mehmet Oz sued 50 Internet retailers for improperly using their names and likenesses to advertise acai and other supplements.
But as I learned recently, these offers are still rampant on the Internet. Read more at HuffPo.
Welcome to my blog. I’m Arlene Weintraub, author of Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-Aging Industry Made a Disease out of Getting Old–And Made Billions. The book will be published by Basic Books in September 2010. My goal here is to open a dialogue about anti-aging medicine. What works? What’s a scam? Stay tuned.
Copyright © 2010-2018 by Arlene Weintraub
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