Anti-Aging: Why Now? A Historical Framework for Understanding the Contemporary Enthusiasm

The enthusiasm for the elimination of aging reflects not only new scientific discoveries but also social and economic conditions that explain the creation of the movement and its antagonism to the process of aging.

Abstract

Not only science, but also social and economic conditions. In 1992, twelve physicians formed the American Academy of AntiAging Medicine, dedicating themselves to address the phenomenon of aging as a treatable condition. (See Klatz, this issue.) The founders of the academy declared what they called a fundamental truth: Aging is not inevitable (Klatz, 1997). Rather, they said, it was a pathological illness to be elimmated by exercise, diet, plastic surgery, and hormonal injections. Ronald Klatz (1997), the president of the academy, clearly proclaimed the group's antagonism to conceptions of aging as decline and decay: We the leaders of the Anti-Aging movement will help to usher in a new modern for humanity: The Ageless Society. Citing recent discoveries regarding genetics and endocrinal change, the movement argued that it was at the forefront of modern ideas. Yet to the historian of aging, such statements reflect well-worn ideas and the often-- enunciated hopes of the past. That old is a disease to be eliminated by science is hardly a novel idea; it has a recognizable history. As this essay will demonstrate, the hopes and concerns of the current anti-age movement have clear precedents that in fact illustrate some of the movement's most troubling limitations. The enthusiasm for the elimination of aging reflects not only new scientific discoveries but also social and economic conditions that explain the creation of the movement and its antagonism to the process of aging. EVOLVING VIEWS OF AGING The search for a fountain of youth is certainly not a new phenomenon and has persisted as views of aging have evolved. For hundreds of years, individuals have sought the means to retain youth and vitality. Generally, before the nineteenth century, this search was linked to the belief that old was characterized by a significant decline in vital energy, which supplied the necessary vitality for growth in childhood and stability in middle age. Bv the time of senescence, however, the vital energy reserve was gone, leaving most individuals depleted and debilitated. Those able to maintain their vital energy, whether through diet, moderation, or simple good luck, were apt to experience a healthy and vital old age. The most influential advocate of this belief was Lugi Cornaro, an Italian nobleman who, in 1550, wrote The Art of Living Long. The book was translated into English, French, Dutch, and German, and it became the bible of prolongevity advocates. By 1800, the English version of the book had gone through more than fifty editions (Gruman,1966). In his study, Cornaro argued that individuals were not destined to die at 60 or 70, but rather, with care and a good constitution, could live much longer. Comaro did not see old itself as an enemy to be vanquished. Instead, if good health were maintained, old was seen as a friend with whom he could share contentment. had never known that the world was beautiful, he wrote, until I reached old age (Cornaro, 1558). Throughout the nineteenth century, however, this notion of a vital and meaningful senescence was challenged by the scientific community, which had come to define old as a disease to be hated and feared. Based on studies first done at the hospitals in Paris, elite physicians began to link old to specific physiological changes in the body. By tracing lesions in the tissues and, later, changes in the cell, they concluded that old was not simply a decline in vitality that could be easily controlled through a regime of diet or exercise. Examining the aging eye, the loss of hearing, or the development of arteriosclerosis, scientists asserted that aging, like many diseases, appeared to cause numerous pathological transformations that were both progressive and inevitable. As a result, most clinicians agreed that illness and old were inseparably intertwined, if not quite synonymous (e.g., Nascher, 1910). By the early twentieth century, most authorities subscribed to the view of aging as a disease that destroyed both the body and the mind. …