This should be of interest for those who like to keep tabs on what the anti-aging marketplace is up to: if you cast your eyes over the A4M website, you'll note a strong focus on the growing field of regenerative medicine these days. A4M are influential in the sense that they both reflect and help determine marketing and presentation within the anti-aging industry - reputable and disreputable groups included. Regular readers will recall that I have my issues with the way in which A4M conducts business, especially as it relates to their conferences, but a strong focus on regenerative medicine from this crowd can't be a bad thing. I don't think they have the clout to hurt the public view of regenerative medicine in any way at this time, and a greater influx of real, working science may chase out some of the bad actors in the industry. This has been coming for a while; the last update to the A4M definition of "anti-aging medicine" incorporated language that would not sound out of place in a prospectus for future regenerative medicine.

To this challenge, anti-aging medicine arrives as the new health care paradigm, offering a solution to alleviate some of the burden of this burgeoning older population. Anti-aging medicine, an extension of preventive health care, is the next great model of health care for the new millennium. This model is based on the early detection, prevention, and reversal of aging- related diseases.

One sea change I hope to see in this marketplace is good medicine chasing out bad medicine - if real, demonstrable therapies for age-related conditions exist, then the modern pill and potion salesmen have less of a leg to stand on. Good riddance to them, since their actions greatly damage the credibility of serious research into slowing or reversing the aging process itself.

As a last note, please do read my commentary on anti-aging medicine and science at the Longevity Meme before taking anything you read at A4M or related sites at face value.