AMA on Hormone Therapies
People should be free to do stupid things with their own property, including their own bodies. Similarly people should be free to persuade, catcall, and debate when dumb courses of action are undertaken by others. Here, the American Medical Association (AMA) reminds us of the present state of scientific knowledge on hormone therapies: "Despite the widespread promotion of hormones as anti-aging agents by for-profit Web sites, anti-aging clinics and compounding pharmacies, the scientific evidence to support these claims is lacking ... People want a fountain of youth, and it doesn't exist. You need to conduct trials which prove the efficacy and safety of these products as you would with any other medication." Though what the AMA (and FDA) regard as sufficient trials are in fact so onerous as to be destructive of progress, a regulatory burden that blocks useful innovations and dramatically raises the cost of others. When listening to organizations like the AMA, keep in mind that they operate as a guild - their goal is to maintain high barriers to entry to their professional space so as to keep prices high. Regardless of the politics here, a weight of evidence for hormone therapies just doesn't exist, however. Despite the loud "anti-aging" marketplace, these therapies remain proven useful only for a small range of rather unpleasant diseases.
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-anti-aging-15-jun15,0,6543267.story