[ExI] glutamine and life-extension

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 16 February 2010 05:10, Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Stathis,
>
> All this talk of neurons reminds me of a paper I wrote circa 1999:
>
> Glutamine Based Growth Hormone Releasing Products: A Bad Idea?
> http://www.newtreatments.org/loadlocal.php?hid=974
>
> My article above created a surprising amount of controversy among life-extensionists. I closed down my website, but recently found my paper republished on the site above without my permission.
>
> Thought you might find it interesting given your profession and the general theme.

Thank-you for this, it is not something I knew much about. It's
important to know about the *negative* effects of any treatment, and
this is often overlooked by those into non-conventional medicine. Of
course, it is sometimes overlooked by those prescribing conventional
treatments as well. Nevertheless, my bias is to follow conventional
medicine, and only rarely does conventional medicine consider that
there is enough evidence to recommend treatments with dietary
supplements. A common response to this is that medical professionals
are unduly influenced by drug companies, and there may be some truth
to that, but I work in the public health system where there is an
explicit emphasis on using the cheapest effective treatment: amino
acids in bulk are very cheap compared to most drugs, and they would be
used if there were good evidence for their efficacy. The other point
to make is that much of what doctors do is longevity treatment, even
if it isn't seen as that. Preventing heart disease, diabetes, cancer,
dementia etc. is equivalent to preventing the patient from getting
physiologically old and decrepit and dying early.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou