Establishing a new discipline of medicine is no mean feat. Longevity doctors have started to make progress by establishing learning programs and embedding these courses in medical schools. They’ve started drafting guidelines for the field, and working out how they might go about becoming recognized by national medical boards.
But proponents recognize the challenges ahead. Clinicians disagree on how they should assess and treat aging. Most clinics are expensive and currently only cater to the wealthy.
Longevity doctors agree on some key points—namely that they want to extend healthy lifespans—but they disagree on how to measure signs of aging in their patients, how to assess their general health, and how best to treat or advise them.
…
Related on the SLP
High price tags aren’t just an equality issue. They can also exacerbate a placebo effect. … Paying for a treatment can exacerbate the effects, says Nir Barzilai, who studies aging at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and is scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research. “You cannot afford to not be satisfied.”
