Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-Aging Industry Made a Disease Out of Getting Old-And Made Billions

The beauty industry—which once revolved around creams and powders, subtle agents to enhance beauty—has become the anti-aging industry, overrun with steroids, human growth hormone injections, and “bio-identical” hormones—all promoted as “cures” for getting old. Acclaimed BusinessWeek science reporter Arlene Weintraub takes us inside this world, from the marketing departments of huge pharmaceutical companies to the backroom of your local pharmacy, from celebrity enthusiasts like Suzanne Somers and Oprah to the self-medicating doctors who run chains of rejuvenation centers, all claiming that we deserve to be forever young—and promising to show us how.

Weintraub reveals the shady practices that run rampant when junk science and dubious marketing meet consumer choice. She shows for the remarkable economic and cultural impact of anti-aging medicine, on the patients who partake and on the rest of us. It’s not a pretty story, but Weintraub tells us everything we need to know to avoid being duped by this billion-dollar—and dangerous—hoax.

“There is no scientific evidence suggesting that compounded ‘bioidentical’ estrogen products are safer or more effective than conventional prescription estrogen products. And yet every day I see patients who have been misled by anti-aging, menopause ‘experts’ into believing that the compounded hormones they have purchased are safer,and work better than those I prescribe. That so many of my patients have been misinformed by greedy entrepreneurs who take advantage of women who desperately want to feel better is, at the least, disturbing. Any woman who places her trust one of these an anti-aging ‘experts’ needs to read Arlene Weintraub’s Selling the Fountain of Youth to understand that there is no scientific basis for their assurances or recommendations.” –Lauren Streicher, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

“A remarkable piece of investigative reporting on the questionable origins and corrupt inner workings of the anti-aging industry. Revelations about shoddy ’science,’ money-hungry entrepreneurs, dubious academic credentials, and actors masquerading as medical experts will shock insiders and unsuspecting readers alike. Copies of this book should be given to all States Attorneys General, and millions of baby boomers should read it as a warning and a wake-up call. Selling the Fountain of Youth may very well prove the beginning of the end of an industry that promises more than it can deliver.” –S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago