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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Regaining lost youth
— the controversial and colorful beginnings of hormone replacement therapy in aging | | Author(s) | Arnold Kahn |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, vol 60A, no 2, February 2005 |
| Pages | pp 142-147 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Endocrine systems ; Drugs ; Biological ageing ; Histories. |
| Annotation | The quest for regaining lost youth has taken many forms, one of which began in the 19th century, continues today, and is based on the notion that by replacing internally secreted substances (i.e. hormones) which decline with age, the vitality and physical attributes associated with youth can be retained. Although the approach remains highly controversial, as for example in "anti-ageing medicine", it is no more controversial than when it was the work of three high profile investigators, Charles Eduoard Brown-Séquard, Eugen Steinach and Serge Veronoff, the latter setting the basis for using this strategy. The therapies developed by all three received widespread attention (including ridicule) in the popular press, were spread rapidly by practitioners of questionable training and ethical motivation, and disappeared from common use relatively quickly. More importantly, though, in the process of developing and promoting their therapies, these individuals made important contributions to the origins of endocrinology, the biology of sex, and establishing hormone replacement therapy (HRT). It remains to be seen whether contemporary efforts using HRT to blunt and reverse ageing have the same fate as their predecessors and make comparable important contributions to biology and medicine. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051103201 A |
| Classmark | BKH: LLD: BH: 6A |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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