Some doctors say science has discovered what Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon never could: the fountain of youth. And for people who want to take a sip, there are now plenty of places to seek eternal youth without having to embark on an exhaustive search. In recent years, hundreds of anti-aging clinics have sprouted up across the country with the tantalizing promise of enabling people to live decades longer and healthier. The concept appeals to many doctors. About 2,500 physicians nationwide have established specialty practices in longevity medicine over the past 10 years, according to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a Chicago-based organization of 10,000 physicians and scientists. Broadly defined, anti-aging medicine involves the use of any technique, technology, medication or intervention for early detection, prevention, treatment or reversal of age-related disease. "The demographic is the largest in medicine," says academy president and founder Ronald O. Klatz, M.D. "We offer something for everyone age 45 and older. Once you start the process of aging, anti-aging medicine has something for you." Some doctors have turned to anti-aging medicine as patients. "The results are remarkable," says Donald Kozil, M.D., a 68-year-old suburban Chicago ophthalmologist, who has been taking human growth hormone and vitamin supplements as part of an anti-aging program since August 1999. "I'm not saying I'll live one day longer than the good Lord intended, but I want to be as healthy as I can for the time I'm here," he said. Anti-aging physicians fall into one of two camps: those working to extend life span -- particularly "health span", or years of healthy living -- and those who believe that people can achieve immortality. "Immortality is within our grasp," proclaims a recent news release from the academy, the only medical society dedicated to the science and practice of longevity medicine. One of the goals of the anti-aging organization is to refute the view that aging is natural. "Our motto is: 'Aging is not inevitable'," Klatz said. "There are effective treatments and interventions for memory loss, visual impairment, slowed gait and speech, wrinkling of the skin, hardening of the arteries and many of the maladies we call aging." Advances in medicine and public health dramatically increased life expectancy during the 20th Century. Vaccinations, antibiotics, improvements in sanitation and nutrition, and treatments for heart disease and cancer, among other things, have all contributed to a rise in life expectancy in the United States. At the turn of the century, people lived 47 years, on average. Today, average U.S. life expectancy is 77 years, a historic high. The once exclusive centenarian club has become increasingly crowded. An estimated 100,000 Americans are age 100 or older, a number that has tripled in the past 20 years. Many anti-aging doctors and scientists believe that living at least 100 to 120 years will soon be the norm. "We have learned so much in the past 50 to 60 years about the biology of aging that it is now possible to envision the development of interventions that could retard aging and aging-related diseases in humans," said Mark A. Lane, Ph.D., chief of the nutritional and molecular physiology unit in the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. However, the demography of aging -- with the over-65 age group expected to explode from 4 percent to 13 percent of the population over the next 10 years -- also opens the door to "new markets for snake oil salesmen," said Lane, who's also president of the American Aging Assocation. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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