Looking at this press release, I have to wonder if the folk at Geron know what they've letting themselves in for, partnering with these TA Sciences people and their TA-65 product.

Looking around the TA Sciences site (via Google, since they don't link much from the home page), the FAQ makes it much more clear what they're up to - selling herbs, essentially - and just how deceptive the uber-scientific cover and hyping of telomeres and telomerase is for that activity. It reminds of the pitch for Protandim; a little piece of interesting scientific research stretched out thin as possible to cover a cartload of marketing for herbal compounds.

TA Sciences follows stringent scientific procedures to back up the safety and efficacy of our products. Over the last four years we have conducted a series of studies including, most importantly, the Pivitol 2005 Anti-Aging Trial designed to directly measure the effect of TA-65 when taken internally. In this trial we saw a clear reduction in the signs of aging from the introduction of TA-65 into the bloodstream.

...

TA-65 is a naturally occurring molecule found in the ancient Chinese herb Astragalus. Well known to most of China's 1.3 billion people for over 1000 years, Astragalus root can be found in every traditional Chinese herbal shop. Major health benefits from this plant have long been recognized by practitioners in China, but never before has the TA-65 active ingredient been isolated and purified.

"Clear reduction in the signs of aging," if you read the footnotes, is parsed out into a vague statement on telomerase activity which means nothing of the kind. So here we have the same old marketing nonsense, dressed up in flashy scientific clothing to give it the veneer of legitimacy. Same old attempts to adopt the form of science without the substance of science, the same old corrosive misinformation and look and feel games. To that end, Geron are going to see their name mentioned every other word for so long as it drives sales to the gullible.

Don't be duped - if these people were selling anything worth buying, they wouldn't be draping it in shiny, shiny gauze and otherwise acting like every other shyster at the dubious end of the "anti-aging" marketplace. Your choice is of course your choice, but why make life easier for the people who make it harder for legitimate longevity research to obtain support and funding?

Technorati tags: anti-aging, telomere

Posted by Reason at April 9, 2007 8:49 PM | TrackBack (0)