Editorial: On the evolution of anti-aging medicine || FREE PAPER ||

Richard F Walker

International Society for Applied Research in Aging (SARA)

The practice of anti-aging or age-management medicine (AAM) has undergone logarithmic growth over the past decade and more. This fact is not necessarily surprising. The desire for enjoying a full life span in a healthy, vital, and youthful state is a universal human desire. Undoubtedly, this longing has caused people to seek out practitioners who promote themselves as having the knowledge and methods to at least approach the goal of healthy life extension through appropriate management of senescence. However there are several characteristics of AAM that set it apart from more traditional fields of medical practice. These include the following:

• AAM takes a health maintenance approach in therapy
• It was created by entrepreneurs not by those experienced in research on aging mechanisms and interventions
• While an extensive research literature on aging exists, there is a paucity of data and peer-reviewed papers on human responses to interventions in aging, and
• Until 2005, there was no legitimate and traditional forum for debate and exchange of information by AAM practitioners.