Yet Another Miracle!

Just how many miracle pills can there be?  Are there really dozens of astonishing, astounding, amazing, age-reversing, disease-defying, energy-boosting, mind-sharpening, skin softening, muscle-building pills and potions?  Are health and vitality just a capsule away?

Uh, no.

But you’d certainly think so cruising the internet or flipping through the pages of health and fitness magazines.  (Or watching infomercials …which, of course, none of us admit doing. I, however, can admit this because it was all in the name of research.)

Tru-Pure Green (with 45 percent chlorogenic acid…whatever that might be) is “a miracle pill in a bottle.”  Protandim ( a secret mix of phytochemicals) turns back the clock.  TA-65 (made from Chinese herbs) is the secret to cellular youth.  No, wait: carnosine is the fountain of youth.  And don’t forget resveratrol.  You’ve heard about the miraculous power of this pill (derived from red wine) to rejuvenate you head to foot.

It’s not just internet hucksters who are promoting these “get young quick” approaches.  The way mainstream media, even – gasp – the New York Times, reports on scientific findings also fans the flames.  A study showing the possibility of the potential of promise (you get the idea) gets major coverage.  Never mind that the youthenizing substance in question showed its promise in a Petri dish.  Just yesterday, the Times reported on “New Optimism” on resveratrol. It’s actually the same as the old optimism.  Lab-based studies have been intriguing for years.  Person-based studies, not so much.

That old if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true rule stands. I’ve just spent a year and a half doing deep research, interviewing both established medical scientists and veteran holistic practitioners, following up internet hyperbole, scouring peer reviewed journals – and trying some of this stuff myself.

There is promising research.  There are supplements, anti-oxidants and phytochemicals that appear to have some age-reversing affects.  In the lab.  In lab rats.  Worms.  Flies.  There’s very little solid, large-scale, placebo-controlled, double-blind testing in humans.  If you want to be smart about your Miracle Pill purchases, if you want to track the latest in good, scientific evidence, I suggest clicking over to this site. But mostly I’d suggest stopping the search for a miracle and starting to live the kind of active, health-conscious life, a rich intellectual, creative – even spiritual life — that will, in fact, increase vitality and turn back the biological clock.