Fleecing the flock

Pay up, feel saved and live forever

The wellness and longevity industry has for the most part transitioned into the glitz and glamour world. Its practitioners have become perpetrators of exploitation of the fears and needs of their clientele - offering eternal vitality, youth and immortality. In the final analysis many of the said practitioners are acting out their own narcissistic needs driven by self-enrichment.

Mentoring patients/clients in embracing healthy diets and lifestyles in the promotion of wellness was not enough. They needed to incorporate modalities which have never
been validated in order to bolster this pseudo-scientific wellness and longevity offering. The garbage list is exhaustive - mega-vitamin and miscellaneous supplement prescriptions (now given intravenously to boost income), a murky area of peptide applications, mitochondrial boosting (I kid you not!), ozone therapy, stem cell therapy, ice baths, colonic washouts ... those MD’s among the perpetrators sailing very close to the wind in regard to “primum non nocere”, first do no harm - the cornerstone of medical ethics.

A doubtful piece of research, a small fragment of observation in some obscure animal study, anecdotal contributions - all are added to the pot and through questionable extrapolation become the wellness offering. Misinformation (inaccurate information), dysinformation (deliberately manipulated information) and malinformation (disseminating information with known risk) keep the wheels of the wellness and longevity industry turning. This applies also to the very credentials of the perpetrators: a BA graduate having obtained a PhD by studying the eyes of rats now presents himself as a leading neuroscientist and professor of ophthalmology - dishing out high level medical advice; a chiropractor portrays himself as a neuroscientist and consciousness expert! The list of manipulators is endless.

At the tail end of the wellness requirements list is that of “stress management” - added in many cases to complete the “holistic” offering. Most of the practitioners are ignorant of the fact that this “stress” component has been studied over many years, giving rise to the the science of psychoneuro-immunology (PNI), the mind-immune influence. Mind states have been defined and distilled in regard to positive and negative consequences on immune function, providing insights into the development of illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and neuro-degenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS). Perhaps PNI interventions are not included because the self-enrichment potential is low as is the glitz and glamour component.

Ultimately it is the patient/client population that drive the industry. One can only hope
that authentic information permeates the consumers and reason prevails. In the interest of real wellness and quality longevity this circus needs to be terminated.

As a start, authentic neuroscience is offered here