Besides, I’ve already observed from personal use and from results in my clinical practice that life extension vitamin programs do work.  Whether I and my clients will ultimately live longer or not, the people who I have put on these programs, including myself and my husband, usually report that for several years after starting they find themselves feeling progressively younger, gradually returning to an overall state of greater well-being they knew five or ten or fifteen years ago.  They have more energy, feel clearer mentally, have fewer unwanted somatic symptoms.

Sometimes the improvements seem rather miraculous.  After a few months on the program one ninety year old man, an independent-minded Oregonian farmer, reported that he began awakening with an erection every morning; unfortunately, his 89 year old cranky and somewhat estranged wife, who would not take vitamins, did not appreciate this youthfulness.  A few months later (he had a small farm) he planted a holly orchard.  Most of you won’t appreciate what this means without a bit of explanation, but in Oregon, holly is grown as a high-priced and highly profitable ornamental for the clusters of leaves and berries.  But a slow-growing holly orchard takes 25 years to began making a profit!

A few older clients of mine reported that they noticed nothing from the life extension program, but these are unique people who have developed the ability to dominate their bodies with their minds and routinely pay their bodies absolutely no attention, driving them relentlessly to do their will.  Usually they use their energies to accomplish good, Christian works.  Eventually, these dedicated and high-toned people break down and die like everyone else.  Will they do so later on life extending vitamins than they would have otherwise?  I couldn’t know because I can’t know how long they might have lived without supplementation and since they refuse to admit the vitamins do them any good, they won’t pay for them.

Many on life extension programs experience a reverse aging process for awhile.  However, after the full benefit of the supplementation has worked itself through their body chemistry, they again begin to experience the aging process.  I believe the process will then be slowed by their vitamins compared to what it would have been without supplements.  But I can’t prove it.  Maybe we will have some idea if the program worked 20 to 40 years from now.

At this time I know of only two companies that make top quality life extension vitamin supplement formulas.  One is Prolongevity (Life Extension Foundation), the other, Vitamin Research Products.  I prefer to support what I view as the altruistic motives behind Prolongevity and buy my products from them.  Unfortunately, these vitamin compounders can not put every possibly beneficial substance in a single bottle of tablets.  The main reason they do not is fear of the power-grabbing Food and Drug Administration.  This agency is