Where Does Life Extension Foundation Get Lost?

I’ve been trying to catch up on some of my reading over the past holiday week, and one of the publications I went through is Life Extension Magazine, a holistically-oriented publication from the Life Extension Foundation.

You’d think that because it’s published by a foundation, the magazine would be nonpartisan in its reporting on holistic health approaches. But it’s not. The magazine presents much interesting research about how nutritional supplements can help alleviate various conditions more effectively than pharmaceutical products, but there's always a sales pitch close behind.

As one example, the current winter edition features an in-depth article about new research strongly suggesting that pomegranate is such a powerful antioxidant that it can reverse atherosclerois and slow the progression of prostate cancer. This last finding is especially intriguing, since the only conventional treatment available to men with advancing prostate cancer is hormone treatment that suppresses production of testosterone. It only works for a few years—sometimes eight or ten years—but then it stops working and the jig is up.

But what does Life Extension Magazine do with these findings? It uses them to sell its various capsules, pills, and concentrates containing pomegranate. It does this with just about all the research it publishes, and it feels like a letdown every time it happens. It undercuts magazine's credibility as a journal of valuable research. The conventional medical community is skeptical to begin with of alternative providers, and when it sees Life Extension essentially do the same thing as Big Pharma—try to push pills—well, it’s hard to see the organization as special or different.

I understand that Life Extension needs to generate cash, some of which it says is used to sponsor research. But why does it need to be so in your face?

Comments

[jorn]

*whew** I thought I was the only one who felt that way. So, thanks.

I enjoy LEF's articles and they have essentially saved my mother's life. With each issue of the magazine, however, I feel I trust LEF just a little less. Why? It seems that each and every well-written study or article concludes with an LEF purchase as the only conclusion. While it could be viewed as convenient that the Life Extension Foundation just "happens to have a pill for that," my quest for something along the lines of "...or you could just eat more pomegranate..." always falls short.

They teach us to be suspicious of the conventional doctor-drug industry practices. Yet, LEF is starting to act the same. I really want to like these folks, but they're straining my support with the very reasons you cite.

[Linda Diane Feldt]

For the general public, ethics are misunderstood and underutilized. Clearly, it is unethical to use articles put forth as "scientific" with the end result of promoting your product. No ifs ands or buts about it. How can they be credible if they are also profiting? If the stated purpose of the journal and foundation is to sell products, and they use science to back up their sales, that has some honesty.
Putting yourself forward as a credible journal or newsletter and then "double dipping" by selling the news AND the product isn't ethical.And if they are triple dipping - being paid for the placement of the article - even worse. In the downward slide from professional to unethical, where have they drawn the line? Bottom line, we don't know.

[Mac]

If i had to take a guess I would say it has a lot to do with the fact that our society seems to come to the conclusion that health comes in pill format. But from the perspective of the magazine they are probably not going to get any funding from the pomegranate growers if they just tell people to eat more pomegranates.

[brice]

It is interesting that pharmaceutical companies blatently promote their own product with research ...that is how they work yet we are very critical of someone like the life extension foundation when they sell a product. It is interesting that we trust one yet are suspicious of the other....yet there is nothing that forces me to buy a lef production, unlike the pharmaceuticals which attempt to use hands-off patent periods before generic versions of drugs are available.

[william]

It is a review site that gives information on The Life Extension. It is firstly recommended antioxidants to prevent disease. LEF has a 27 year history of introducing life saving medical discoveries and funding scientific research.