Discussion of individual drugs researched and approved by the FDA for the purpose of treating the specific diseases of aging.
This weekâs conversation was stimulated by an article in Januaryâs Endocrine News written by Sundeep Khosla, MD. The author of the article interviewed Dr. Khosla about a presentation he was making to a national conference.
The major focus of the interview was that there are many individual drugs which have been researched and approved by the FDA for the purpose of treating specific diseases of aging. In particular Dr. Khosla focuses on diseases of aging such as osteoporosis, diabetes, senility, dementia, all are what he called aging co-morbidities. His discussion focuses on the costs and the side effects surrounding these medicine that treat individual diseases of aging. He believes that we should be looking for the trigger or cause of the aging process, which he considers a new focus in medicine. Interestingly, Dr. Maupin and anti-aging doctors have isolated this trigger and it is a deficiency of testosterone. We are happy that there is someone presenting this thought to mainstream medicine, and hopefully they will come up with the same answer.
Dr. Khosla is in sync with our beliefs that there are major problems with treating each disease symptomatically is that as we age, we have more issues and more illnesses and more drugs, leading to confusion as to what is causing the symptoms as well as less patient compliance, higher costs, and a greater numbers of side effects.
Part of the problem focuses on the rules of the FDA in terms of drug research. If we are discussing a medicine for osteoporosis, we have to create a prospective study that includes a very large number of individuals who at some time in the future may get a fracture due to osteoporosis. Few entities have the resources to test in this way. However, there are many studies that investigate retrospectively, looking backward, at aging people who have used testosterone in different forms who have avoided senility, osteoporosis, Alzheimerâs disease and other diseases of aging. This type of study is not considered significant to the FDA.
Dr. Khosla is looking microscopically for the cause of aging, and focuses on cell inactivity, his question is can we find a way to eliminate the number of inactive cells as we age. His thinking is that if we can do that, we can wake up these cells, we can extend our health expectancy rather than just our life expectancy. The positive results of that would be that even if we did not live longer, we would live healthier and have a better more active life as we age. The cell inactivity is managed well by both testosterone and growth hormone, both of which turn on cell activity to âgrow cellsâ and replace dying cells. It is the macroscopic version of Khosla.
This focus is very similar to the work and research that Dr. Maupin and the folks at biobalancehealth.com perform however they work with the macroscopic driver of cell activity. Their goal is to find and provide treatments that help you stay healthy and active for the duration of your life, no matter how long that may be. Their belief is that they have indeed found such a solution. Replacing the hormones, testosterone and growth hormone, that are essential to strength and health as you age, seems to be the answer to both the symptoms of aging and the diseases that follow. The solution is to replace testosterone which stimulates growth hormone, and estrogen for women, at the same functional levels you had as a young adult. These seem to be the guardians of healthy aging. If we can restore your active levels of testosterone, that testosterone will act as a gate keeper, stopping the illnesses that occur as you age from even happening.
Dr. Khosla is an Endocrinologist, practicing in mainstream medicine. At BioBalance Health, we have been working with this premise for 17 years and he presents his plan as a completely new idea, and that may be true for mainstream medicine. To quote Dr. Khosla: âwe need to broaden our focus when thinking about age-related co-morbidities (i.e. osteoporosis, frailty, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, renal failure, etc.) and instead of targeting each disease separately, consider approaches that target fundamental aging mechanismsâcell inactivity is just one of nine key aging mechanisms.
- Genetic mutations
- Shortening of Telomeres
- Loss of protein communicators (peptides)
- Deregulated the ability to know when nutrients are needed
- Mitochondrial dysfunctionâabnormal use of oxygen in the cell
- Increased Cellular inactivity
- Loss of Stem cell activity
- Lack of cell to cell communication
These multiple characteristics of aging are all supported by the foundation of anti-aging treatment, testosterone and estradiol (for women) replacement in the most biologically identical form. Dr. Khosla believes we can make better and cheaper progress, risking fewer side effects with better outcomes if we focus on preventing the diseases of aging by preventing the triggers of those diseases, than if we focus on treating each disease separately as it occurs. We agree; however, we want to go one step higher on the chain of command for the body to the hormonal level where an increase to normal level of T and GH as well as estrogen in women cause all of the above cellular activities to normalize to a young healthy level.
This will allow better research focus, less expensive trials, fewer drugs, with fewer side effects, and a much healthier lifespan with a more enjoyable quality of life.
