The Guru of Anti-Aging

By ARLENE WEINTRAUB

There's plenty doctors can do to control the effects of old age, says a leading light in the anti-aging medical movement.

Since 1981, Dr. Ronald M. Klatz has served as the chief champion of anti-aging medicine. He coined the very term "anti-aging." In 1992, he became the founder and president of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, which he describes in his Internet bio as a "medical organization dedicated to the advancement of technology to detect, prevent, and treat aging-related disease and to promote research into methods to retard and optimize the human aging process." He isn't shy about expressing his support for the entire anti-aging arsenal of tools, including controversial drugs such as human growth hormone (HGH). He's even written books on the topic, including Grow Young with HGH, Ten Weeks to a Younger You, and Hormones of Youth.

During a telephone interview with BusinessWeek Science Editor Arlene Weintraub, Klatz discussed the history of anti-aging medicine, the controversies that have followed its success, and his hopes for the future of this nascent field. Following are edited excerpts from their conversation.

What inspired you to get into anti-aging medicine?

The goal of medicine is to prolong life. That's what most of us doctors go into medicine to accomplish. One day I looked in the mirror, and I saw wrinkles. I said, "Physician, heal thyself." Until the 1980s, scientists didn't have a clue as to how or why we age. Then it became very clear that medicine was developing new technologies for dealing with genetic disorders and chronic degenerative diseases. Many of these diseases occur in the aged. I felt that if medicine could control the metabolic effects of aging, we could control aging itself.