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Preface       

In a book of this nature which requires years of research and writing, there are necessarily hundreds of persons to whom I am indebted. As much as I would like, I cannot list them all. (Several are listed specifically on the Acknowledgments page.)

However, the cooperation of the researchers involved in Gerovital H3 is most appreciated. Although the life extension and longevity researchers were separated by many thousands of miles—from Massachusetts to Florida; from New York to California to Washington, D.C., to North Carolina--—they were united in a common cause: to find out the truth about Gerovital H3. And these places only mark the major research locations in the United States. Extensive research on the antidepressant, anti-aging qualities of Gerovital H3 has been going on in Romania and other European countries for nearly three decades. Yet it was in the United States with testing beginning in 1973 under Federal Food and Drug Administration supervision that the controversy over GH3 appears to have been resolved in a manner which must please all true scientists. This is due to multi-phase testing on humans including several "double-blind" studies. There is also confirmation in many laboratories on animals and on their cells and tissues--—all by brilliant researchers whose works cannot be contravened because the conclusions are so overwhelming when viewed in their entirety.

The rapport I established with these eminent GH3 researchers through close communication and frequent visits was most essential to the type of book I, as an independent writer, demand. The manuscript was submitted to those researchers working under the FDA-supervised project for their comments, corrections and insertions. Almost all made suggestions which I was grateful to incorporate in the book to avoid technical errors. Almost all were pleased with the book itself, which in turn, pleased me.

Several knowledgeable observers have predicted that Gerovital H3 may prove~ to be the third life extension "wonder drug" of modern times--the other two being Penicillin and the Pill.

There have been many so-called "wonder drugs" in the last 30 years. Some have proved to be much less than wonderful and have been cast into the medical waste-heap. Some have proved useful for specific conditions and are included in the ever-growing list of worthwhile drugs doctors need for specific conditions--—these drugs can and do save many lives.

But it is difficult to imagine a near-universal antidote for depression and even harder to stretch the Imagination still further and conceive that such an agent could also be an antidote for the signs and symptoms of aging, and that it might actually be one of the long sought for substances necessary to counteract man's most ancient enemy.

As an investigative writer-reporter for many years without any real challenges to my published books or articles, I can say that I agree with the majority of life extension GH3 researchers: that GH3 is a safe effective medication, proved clinically on thousands of people and now proved in the laboratory. It is no longer a theory. It is a fact.

Therefore, I believe that any investigative writer, after having examined the facts logically, objectively, should take a stand in defense of the truth of which he writes. He should present all sides, of course, but still have the courage to report the facts no matter what ensues. This I believe I have done in this book, and the researchers believe so, too, as they have stated.

We think we are on the eve of a great life extension breakthrough in the history of the human race. Yet even if GH3 is only a unique antidepressant without side effects, we would still be achieving a major victory, for almost every member of our race suffers from depression, and as we progress toward our transfer to another dimension, depression and its apocalyptic partners are almost universally with us. We are now apparently in possession of Siegfried's Magic Ring—which while not yet conferring the immortality of the Gods, will enable us to undertake our lives on this planet with lengthened and broadened understanding; therefore with greater majesty and dignity when we are eventually faced with aging, old age and death.

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Researchers Statements

Mr. Herbert Bailey has done a really outstanding job presenting one of the most exciting and controversial stories in the long history of drug development. Furthermore, he has told this story in a way that is highly readable and entertaining, to all readers from the man on the street to the highly trained scientist.

After reading this manuscript, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Bailey has produced a balanced and completely factual account of the development of Gerovital H3. The sections describing the results of my research as well as those describing the results of other Investigators with which I am intimately familiar, are completely accurate and precise.

M. David MacFarlane, Ph.D.
Director of Research
Meyer Laboratories
Institute of Research

The author has reported in a popular vein some of the results and implications of our work on the red cells of sickle cell anemia. It is important to emphasize that all of the work reported here on sickle cells has been done in the laboratory in test tubes, and up to this time (Gerovital H3 has not been administered to any patients with sickle cell anemia. It remains to be seen whether effective plasma levels of the drug can be safely attained. If this is not the case, then, as the author points out, treatment of the red cells with GH3 outside the body remains a possibility. The tremendous gap in time, money and effort between laboratory practice and clinical application has yet to be filled, but the promise is clear and work will go on.

Richard F. Baker, Ph.D.
University of Southern California
School of Medicine

I want to take this occasion to say that we feel the reports you made of our life extension and longevity research with Gerovital H3 are accurate and reliable. We found nothing in your manuscript which is either inaccurate or understated or which leaves out any significant material.

In our work as psychiatrists, we have over the years been constantly interested in finding various forms of treatment and medications to relieve people of mental, emotional strains and psychic trauma. We have used most of the medications which have come along the line from the pharmacologists and, to one degree or another, have begun to feel that Freud's early predictions that biochemical and neuropharmacological methods of treatment in certain psychiatric disorders for an answer to some of man's psychic distress would finally prove correct. We feel that we were fortunate in being able to carry on research on the value and uses of Gerovital H3 in the treatment of depressive disorders.

Our experience with this life extension and antiaging product has indicated that it is useful in the treatment of mild to moderate depressions and, more than that, gives us further opportunities to explore the reasons why people become depressed, both emotionally and chemically, and therefore gives us an opportunity to help, in the long run, in the search to a means of uncovering some of the secrets of the depressive disorders.

It is our hope the work begun with GH3 will only be the beginning in a series of researches done by us and others in the field in understanding depression, anxiety, and possibly some of the processes of aging. Most of the mysteries of aging are as yet unrevealed.

We are further reducing the data which we have obtained to elicit other factors involving the effects of Gerovital on both the body and depression.

Morton L. Kurland, M.D.
Max Hayman, M.D.
Desert Psychiatric Medical Group

Herbert Bailey has written the story of the procaine-based, Gerovital H3 GH3, in an exciting fashion. Procaine is a local anesthetic that has been widely used for decades. It is quickly metabolized in the body into para-amino benzoic acid and an alcohol. Yet there have been persistent and growing claims that in the GH3 form it is more than a local anesthetic; that it is an anti-depressant, that it gives a sense of well being, that it is a restorer of youth and vigor and is beneficial for a number of disease states or dysfunctions that are concomitant with aging. Such claims suggest that a pharmaceutical fountain of youth is available and cause ecstasy in the minds of the critical and skepticism and accusations of charlatanism from the critical. A controversy exists that should be settled soon.

Our study (Cohen-Ditman report: see Chapter 10 and Appendix 3) of 41 patients treated in an open or non-blind fashion revealed that most claimed they felt less depressed, were more relaxed, had a sense of well being, and had a decrease in the discomforts of chronic inflammatory or degenerative diseases. These responses were made promptly and dramatically, but were mainly subjective. Certainly such broad and definite claims of benefit are intriguing and encouraging but caution in their interpretation is indicated. Our patients were familiar with the claims made for GH3 and expected symptom relief, increased vitality and a sense of well being. The possibility of a psychogenic effect cannot be ruled out by our study and such an effect could explain the improvement in our patients. The need for additional double-blind controlled studies is apparent. At this time it would seem unlikely that we have a pharmaceutical fountain of youth, but that we may well have a fairly safe and effective anti-depressant drug.

The writer of this book is to be commended for bringing this controversial story to the attention of all.

Keith S. Ditman, M.D., F.A.P.A.

As head of a team doing research on Gerovital H3, I found Herbert Bailey's book on the subject to be entirely accurate and reflective of the scope of our research.

Bert M. Zuckerman, Ph.D.
Professor of Nematology
University of Massachusetts
Laboratory of Experimental Biology

In writing the present book, Mr. Herbert Bailey has done a very outstanding job of presenting one of the most fascinating stories in the history of biomedical research on aging, life extension and longevity medicine. After reading his manuscript, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Bailey has produced a well balanced and factual account of the exciting development of Gerovital H3. The sections describing the results of my research with Gerovital H3 at the Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California, as well as those describing the results of other investigators with which I am familiar are accurate and precise.

Josef P. Hrachovec, M.D., D.Sc

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Chapter 1 - The First Concept

How would you like to stay young? Or to prevent, or at least slow down, the gradual erosion of your body and mind? How would you like to avoid the creeping depression that afflicts almost everyone as you get older?

Or how would you like to avoid the most dreaded affliction of all, that doddering, mumbling, forgetful state called senility?

No matter if you are thirty or ninety the probabilities are than you can.

We think many of the life extension answers are in this book. But before we start exploring these answers, let us examine a story that is probably one of the most significant and unusual you have ever heard. Certainly it will enthrall you if you are interested in fighting man's most feared enemies, commonly known as old age and death.

The dramatic personae of our story are some of the earth's most brilliant scientists, philosophers, Hollywood film and TV stars—and just plain average citizens. Some are old, some are young. All the researchers are young in the true sense of the term, pristine, in that their thought is original, clear, and in many ways unique. Never before has there been such a vast assemblage of geniuses and near-geniuses, working separately and yet somehow united, to establish a beachhead against a most potent aging enemy.

Our story begins many eons ago when man first became a man in that dark limbo between realities as man, unlike the animals around him, became aware of and began to fear death. However, for our present purposes, we shall skip forward to a day in the modem era. It was a day that went largely unnoticed by the world; yet it was probably one of the most momentous days in the history of man and for his progeny, yet unborn.

This was the day when a woman doctor stood up and announced to a skeptical group of eminent medical scientists that she had uncovered good evidence that a true, almost universal, fairly effective antidote for aging existed. The day was September 5, 1956, and the scientific meeting was held in Karlsruhe, West Germany.

The symposium was on the subject of aging, and ways to prevent it or at least slow it down—about which nothing or almost nothing about life extension was known. definitely. Great doctors all over the world had spent lifetimes trying to escape that seemingly inexorable equation which caused man and all things of which he was aware to move, with inevitable certainty from youth to maturity to old age and finally death. The somber equation:

Birth- Maturity--> Aging--> Death.

In spite of all his science, learning and intuition man had not been able to affect the aging process to any appreciable degree. In fact, he had not been able to even advance the traditional threescore and ten years of life allotted him by certain prophets of biblical days. A study of the aging process always would end with more puzzling questions than the researcher started out with. Study of aging was a study in futility and frustration—and bitterness. Nevertheless, the questions raised were so intriguing and the goal so compelling that man never could abandon the search.

And that is why a group of doctors gathered in Karlsruhe to speak to each other about tiny clues, promulgate pet theories or hunches, drink wine or mineral water, depending on their inclination, argue vociferously or quietly or sarcastically: again depending on the state of their hormonal flow and their inhibitions, or "trained reflexes"—and all the while knowing that as they talked, their bodies and minds were disintegrating into nothingness with every millisecond.—and knowing there was nothing they could do to stop the relentless process.

Such was the state of the study of longevety and aging in 1956. So it is little wonder that Dr. Ana Aslan's observations that a common local anesthetic, procaine hcl(known as novocaine in the U.S.) could and did delay the aging phenomenon—and in many cases, seemingly reverse it,—met with incredulity that day.

Dr. Aslan, director of Romania's Institute of Geriatrics in Bucharest, presented evidence on three groups of patients, each containing thirty to forty patients. These were patients living in the Institute and 2500 others who were being treated as outpatients.

She offered evidence based on more than five years of intensive and extensive life extension research among the aging and old people treated at the Geriatrics Institute that procaine hydrochloride was not just an anesthetic, but a potent anti aging factor.

Dr. Aslan spoke that day of how her GH3 patients at the Bucharest Geriatric Institute were benefited greatly by use of a procaine hcl based medication which she called GH3. She claimed a general "eutrophic" (beneficial) effect and a "regenerative effect at the cellular level." She also claimed that this nutrient, in general use for over fifty years, had made old people feel young or at least feel more like living. The treatment, she said, eliminated depression, produced muscular vigor, achieved amazing results in hypertension, arthritis and angina pectoris. In addition, it had regrown hair on some patients and recolored hair in a few others.

It is possible to imagine the consternation with which this news was received by the delegates, since such a report would be received with almost the same skepticism today.

She did not claim credit for the discovery that procaine hcl was helpful in many ailments; she quoted the work of the French doctor Rene Leriche and other researchers that procaine was of benefit in certain forms of arthritis and many other diseases. What is unique about her "rediscovery," as she termed it, is that procaine is effective in anti aging and longevty. This discovery had not been noticed before, the reason being that most researchers, having exhausted their various specialties on how procaine could help them in their particular problems, sent in their reports, and on publication promptly dropped the subject. They turned their attention to other matters, "publish or perish" being the dictum under which modern-day scientists labor. Meanwhile, their reports gathered dust on library shelves, it not being the habit of most researchers to follow up reports of others unless they are overwhelming in popular interest or unless they present a direct challenge to, or corroboration of, their own work.

(We must interject a note here. It was not "plain" procaine that Dr. Aslan was reporting on. It was an entirely different, superior substance, later called Gerovital H3. Few thought at the time that the added ingredients contributed much to the end result; but they did. As we will explain later, they made quite a difference, particularly as they affected the acid-alkaline balance (pH). This partly explains why many researchers trying to duplicate Aslan's results did not, and therefore Aslan's work was considered dubious for many years in "official" Western medicine.)

At any rate, the woman doctor's presentation was not enthusiastically received by the highly skeptical doctors at the conference. How could procaine, already in worldwide use for fifty years, possibly do the things she claimed for it? True, her presentation seemed valid enough on the surface: the records were well kept, control groups were established, and six years seemed to be a sufficient period of time for some indications even in the difficult matter of human aging. But why hadn' t anybody else done this before or noticed these effects during the long years procaine had been in use?

Can you imagine Ana Aslan's thoughts as she realized she would not be believed in spite of her carefully prepared presentation? Was she crushed and humiliated?

Yes, as she told me many years later, but that did not make her give up. She knew she was telling the truth; she knew that she and her coworkers were right. And there was the evidence of the patients themselves. Poor, pathetic, sniveling old people who had been given up to eke out their miserable existences in the old people's homes and finally die without dignity. This was, and still is, the sorry pattern accorded the aged throughout the civilized world.

Dr. Ana Aslan, at that ebb tide of her career, could not know of the many stormy years ahead: years of bitter controversy outside Romania, with frustration piled on frustration-- sometimes interlaced with moments of warm recognition by interested colleagues--until the dramatic moment of finally being accepted in almost every country. She could not know then that final recognition would not come in the United States and England until hundreds of thousands of people had been helped for over twenty years—think of the untold millions who died meanwhile without a chance to be helped—and hundreds of unassailable experiments had been performed. Even then the recognition would come slowly, agonizingly, and would require the full cooperation and resources of her government—as well as a set of fantastic, thoroughly incredible circumstances.

Nor could Professor Dr. Aslan know that one of her countrymen, his M.D. newly acquired, had observed her work at an old people's home, and was so profoundly impressed with what he saw--—the old people coming "back to life," as he described it to me recently--—that many years later, as a highly successful ophthalmologtst-researcher, he gave up his career so that he could work for the "magic substance" in the United States. It was to be an integral part of a pattern, which when assembled--regardless of your beliefs in coincidence or a Guiding Force, will tax your imagination considerably.

Our GH3 story had a happier chapter the following year (1957). Again the same group met at Karlsruhe. Meanwhile, our indomitable doctor had her findings published in the influential German medical journal. Therefore, doctors had had an opportunity to study the data contained in the article as well as see filmed evidence of the findings. This time Dr. Aslan was applauded by many delegates; in fact, she was given what we would call the "keys to the city."

She had come again with the same facts (buttressed by an additional years evidence) but still with a great degree of trepidation. Also, as she told me, she felt a certain uneasiness because of the "political situation." The cold war was still on. The world was polarized between communism and anticommunism. Nowhere was the battle raging with more intensity than in partitioned Germany where West fought against East. Romania had been through a succession of bewildering changes. First the pro-West royal government under King Michael; then a fascist regime during World War II under Hitler s Germany; then overrun by the Soviet Union with Hitlers defeat—with the resulting government being reorganized as a socialist republic under the aegis of the USSR. Small wonder that citizens of Romania might be slightly confused about politics.

However, Dr. Aslan found out that science does transcend politics and national barriers when she was treated with such high honors in Karlsruhe in September, 1957.

The fact that she was accorded great respect did not mean automatic acceptance by scientists in any country, West or East. But sporadic testing began soon in several countries, notably England, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, France and Turkey in the West; and the Soviet Union and Bulgaria in the East.

As we have previously pointed out, almost all the researchers in England and the United States employed straight procaine instead of Aslan's GH3—therefore, they did not achieve the same results as Aslan. Interestingly, however, a study--—double-blind--—carried out in the United States in 1965, in an admitted attempt to "sink the procaine myth," used GH3 and procaine. Much to the researchers surprise, they found that GH3 was significantly different from procaine in results on patients and that it was beneficial to older patients just about as Dr. Aslan had said. Further, extensive laboratory tests confirmed the clinical findings. For reasons we will explain later, this report, exhaustive though it was, was ignored until very recently. (See Chapter 12.)

Now that we have seen the beginning of GH3 therapy, we should take a look at the people involved with it—both pro and con. What is GH3? Why does it work? But first, we ought to learn about the status of studies on aging today.

What is aging? We shall also briefly examine various other forms of anti aging treatments and see how effective they are. We shall ask many questions of the so-called experts in the study of aging (gerontology) and see what answers they advance.

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Chapter 2 - How I Became Reinterested

At this point the reader may wish to know why I became interested in Gerovital H3. I heard about GH3 and Ana Aslan around 1958, when the news of GH3 penetrated this country. I wrote about it briefly, then waited for more results.* There were none but the negative reports, since the positive findings, although published in reputable medical journals, were not publicized in the popular press. The major assault against GH3 was in the form of an editorial carried in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 1963, followed by several negative studies reputedly done by carefully following Dr. Aslan's method of administration. (It turned out later that none of the negative studies used GH3; rather they used straight procaine, which as we shall see is far less effective.)

The title of the editorial was, curiously enough, "Procaine-—At Last Its Song Is Ended." Not aware that procaine had tried to sing and had come to a final disastrous off-key note~ I was amazed to find that a lyricist from the AMA had assembled all the negative "orchestration" and declared the song untuneful and therefore unworthy of meriting any further attention by medical men. When I say I was amazed, I am not being entirely factual. The fact is, knowing the leadership of the AMA quite well throughout many years, I was not really amazed, only bemused by the fact that not one shred of positive evidence had been printed in JAMA (there were approximately 250 favorable articles from all over the world at that time, to which the AMA had access). I pondered why doctors and scientists should accept this "Johnny one-note" verdict as absolute truth and would henceforth shy away from the very mention of the word "procaine."

The god had spoken ex cathedra. I knew that this sort of thing had happened many times before in the history of that Authoritarian Body which claims to speak for American medicine, and yet time after time has had to backtrack and cover up for medical blunders. The latter endeavor is somewhat easy for it, since the AMA has one of the best-paid and most powerful lobbies in the United States.

I have had much experience with the AMA s manipulations of the truth, but my most recent personal encounter was with vitamin B. Many readers are probably aware that I wrote the first book for the "layman" on vitamin B, which was widely sold and in which I told for the first time the amazing story of how the news of this vitamin was suppressed, even though thousands of reputable researchers all over the world had published favorable reports.

• The AMA and almost all the so-called established medical authorities in this country denounced vitamin B as being of little established value. Later, over-whelmcd by positive evidence, the AMA altered its position somewhat. Our. point is: the AMA has to be forced-- even overwhelmed--—as do other authoritarian "scientific" medical groups, before it will consent to listen to both sides of a scientific argument. Scientific objectivity? Forget it. That is an abstraction which is almost never transformed into reality. Power, raw and crude, translated subtly into medical jargon is the only language the medical politicians understand and react to.

• But back to GH3. There were several attempts by individual physicians to get medical authorities to examine the evidence--—evidence which was steadily accumulating in many countries. There were several well-recognized doctors in the United States who did examine the evidence, then gave GH3 to hundreds of their patients, with notable success. These include the late Dr. Herman Goodman, nutritionist, and Dr. Albert Simard, famed endocrinologist, both of New York City. Their efforts, however, did not budge by one micron the officials who were in command of our country s medical facilities.

• Gerovital H3 lay moribund in the United States for 12 long years until Alfred Sapse, M.D., revived it in 1971 and in a series of daring, lightning moves projected it to be tested under official FDA sanction as an antidepressant--with a chance of final approval, as we shall see. I first became aware of the GH3 revival in 1972 through Mike Wallace, an old friend from our Chicago days. We both started out in Chicago, Mike in radio and television, and I in newspapers, magazines, and eventually books. We had exchanged favors throughout the years.

Mike wallace went to Romania to see Ana Aslan and make a show for , the CBS-TV prizewinning production. I saw the show. It interested me particularly, as I had been wondering what had happened to Ana Aslan's treatment.

I discovered that GH3 was indeed a subject which should be investigated. Subsequently I wrote the GH3 story for a leading national magazine. It drew a tremendous response, far out of proportion to the magazines circulation, which was, about 2 million. I then decided that with such interest manifested, a full-scale examination should be accorded GH3. Following the investigation, a book would disclose the facts to the American people. Only a book could reveal the truth to people and their doctors about a unique discovery which might affect all of our lives, and about which— whether through design or stupidity—we had been kept in ignorance so long.

As the scope of my investigation widened, I became aware that I had scarcely seen the top of the iceberg. Beneath it lay the mass of evidence which did not exist—so we were told by our medical arbiters. Yet this evidence is so scientific, so voluminous, it is almost unthinkable it was ignored for nearly a decade. (See Appendixes and Bibliography.)

As time went on, the experiments in this country confirmed the findings abroad, and in certain Particulars, such as the double-blind tests and work with cells, went even further, and carried the GH3 project to an irrefutable conclusion.

The conclusion is that the life extension - benefiting factor in GH3 functions efficiently in every phase of life in which it has been tested; beginning with bacteria, the lowest form of complete life, on up through nematodes (microscopic worms), pigeons, mice and rats to the human being, where it functions best of all. The human, being more complex with his incredibly intricate body-mind-brain, is more capable of breakdowns, just as a very complex machine such as a spaceship can be thrown completely out of kilter by the malfunctioning of a tiny fuse—while the famous old Model T Ford could keep going almost forever, and when it did break down could more than likely be fixed with a piece of baling wire or some equally simple improvisation.

Therefore, to carry on with the analogy, GH3 may possibly be shown to be a certain type of universal lubricant-energizer medicine that all life forms use. The ones who benefit most are us humans, who can so easily be put out of effective action: by just a persistent thought pattern known as depression; or by a lack of, or too much, sugar in our bloodstreams. Or by an ingrown toenail. Or by failing an examination. Or by failing kidneys. Or by lack of oxygen. Or by too much oxygen. Or by our father s dying. Or by our father s not dying. If we were to list or analyze the complexities which influence that creature who dubbed himself Homo the wise, there would not be enough paper or enough time (as ordinarily construed) in the universe to finish the job, even if we only listed what we already know at that tiniest tip of the iceberg.

We shall report several of the key experiments which prove the efficacy of GH3, but rather than break up the dramatic story of GH3 with detailed and technical information, for the most part the studies will be included in the Appendixes and Bibliography. In that way we can proceed with the story, or as they call it now, scenario, without too many details.

For those who are interested in details and technical knowledge (and I hope you are, or at least your doctor is), every statement in this book which makes references to GH3 efficacy is based on actual experiments included in the Appendixes or the Bibliography. Therefore, there will be little excuse for doctors or anyone else to scoff at and/or ignore the mass of scientific evidence presented in this book. Anyone who ignores evidence has no intent of arriving at the truth. Therefore, the only logical response is to ignore the ones who ignore. It's better than fighting with them.

Now with my background and bias partly exposed, let us see if we can examine GH3 objectively.

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Chapter 3 - What Is Aging?

What is aging? You may think this question is so simple, it doesn't deserve an answer. Everybody who is not so stupid that he belongs in the funny farm knows what aging is. It' s--—well--ah--—getting old. Well, it s changing: men get bald and paunchy, their legs shrink, they get wrinkled, they lose vigor. Women get paunchy, grow light mustaches, their breasts shrink, they lose vigor. They dye their hair blue.

Then later, everyone who is old, really old, starts talking about his or her childhood and what happened in the old days. They don't think too much about what's happening now or might happen. Then later on, if they live through heart attacks, cancer, and the various other middle- and old-age diseases, they talk incessantly about their body functions—did they have a good bowel movement or did they get the right amount of pills to control their blood pressure and why are they mostly depressed? Fear of death. Disgust or despair at their present predicament, and inwardly knowing that there is no basis for real hope for them. They are doomed to die, and some think it is a mercy that many die babbling, mumbling incoherencies, oblivious of pain or conscious thought. Certainly it is easier on some of them than on their relatives, who have to bear the burden of excessive monetary problems, added to the sad realization that their dear ones aren't the same people they knew before. This is a terrible problem of aging, from an obvious, external viewpoint.

But what we have said thus far is simple, a matter of fact to millions of people who don't know what they can do here and now. We have not touched on what aging really is and how it can be prevented, the reason being that in our present stage of development on what has been termed Spaceship Earth, we are just beginning to unravel the tenuous threads that interconnect all life in the universe. We know almost nothing about man or the universe, but "authorities" of every kind profess to speak with special knowledge about both. Yet almost every hypothesis and/or theory man has propounded as a universal absolute has been refuted by other hypotheses or theories. And the faster the knowledge comes in, the faster are the refutations or the transcending of existing theories.

As I write this, I received news that one of sciences most favored hypotheses has suffered a severe challenge. In fact, it upsets practically everyone s opinion about what aging really is.

Let us see what the background of the supposition was (and is) and how it came to be seriously questioned, if not outright refuted.

For thousands of years it was observed by many scientists or philosophers that all species had a certain time to live and a certain time to die. In fact it is somewhat reasonable to suppose (as if reason or supposition had anything to do with it) that all creatures must die in order to make room for their progeny; it s a seeming law of religion, common sense, and lately evolution; and even more recently, the students of the cells--—biologists, geneticists. And indeed they were, and are, right--—up to a point.

Every species has a certain time to be born, grow to maturity, reproduce if possible, and then gradually fade out of the scene. Nature itself seems to bolster this theory. For example, the life of the so-called lower species is grooved to a very narrow time period. May-flies, which as larvae spend three years under water, suddenly emerge of a summer's day, shed their skins, seek a mate, and whether or not successful in this endeavor, die the same day. The pattern is inevitable. It is built into every form of life yet studied on our planet. With man as well as other forms of life, the pattern may vary individually, but never much from the species standard.

We all have read about some few men and women who live beyond 100, and indeed, there are "pockets" in the world where oldsters exist in more numbers than elsewhere. Ecuador, Hunzaland, and Georgia in Russia are the three best-known localities. All three are remote and their elderly inhabitants are usually illiterate, simple rural folk who go to bed at the same time as their animals and rise with them to eke out a conditioned routine existence comparable to their animals.

Drs. Bernard Strehler of the University of Southern California and Leonard Hayflick of Wistar Institute in Philadelphia (now at Stanford University) are chiefly responsible for the hypothesis that aging is a built-in mechanism in the genes. Until very recently, almost every "authority" on aging (what a word—it is almost like saying someone is an expert on God or ghosts or flying saucers--—how can you be expert on something about which almost nothing is known?) knew within a factor approaching 10 to the 30th that aging was caused by whatever scientific fad the expert happened to prefer. Let us briefly review the existing hypotheses. Some are well thought out and propounded with admirable thoroughness.

Knowing the human race and particularly scientists, who are about as jealous a breed as was ever developed by emergent evolution, I should advise my readers to take all of their findings with a large ampule of placebo.

The late great, controversial Dr. Alexis Carrel, initiated the idea of immortality of the cells (in the modern era) by keeping cells from a chicken heart alive for more than thirty-five years. It was assumed that cells are immortal if given the right amount of nutrients and the correct environmental atmosphere. But in 1952 George 0. Gey at Johns Hopkins discovered the awful price for immortality, at least among cells of higher forms of life: after a time they turn into cancer cells, which of course would kill the host if they were inside the body. The cells need a regulator that is found in the body. This is why we don't get cancer unless our regulator is overwhelmed by various circumstances, either outside or inside the body. Big jolt to scientific thinking at that time.

Another big jolt came in 1961 when Dr. Leonard Hayflick discovered that in the lab there is indeed a genetic biological clock governing all life, including the human being. For example, cell reproduction, which is essential to life, has a definite end. In man it is about fifty reproductions or generations. It is almost as if a screen director said "cut" at the end of about fifty generations of life and brought that particular strain to an end. Of course we are constantly replenishing our cells at differing rates; the average life of a red blood cell is around 120 days. As we and other creatures age, the division (and therefore multiplication) of cells becomes increasingly difficult, for various reasons—newly formed cells have the same life expeo. tancy as the old ones they replace. But up to September 1974, it was thought to be axiomatic that fifty— more or less—divisions (in the test tube) was it. Kapüt. Later, we shall see why this month marks a turning point for thinking about aging.

Hayflick found that freezing the cells halted their division—a sort of suspended animation—but as soon as they were thawed, they took up the same inescapable march toward death at the number they left off. In other words, frozen at twenty-five divisions, upon thawing, they had around twenty-five more divisions left in their life spans. However, Hayffick is not the prophet of Kismet one might expect because of the seeming finality of his and other researchers findings. Strehler also believes that although we have a genetic code or master plan built in, it is possible to alter the code and/or change whatever is the cause of aging, by genetic manipulation, or the skillful use of enzymes and viruses.

Other popular theses of aging are that the genetic code to the cells is preordained; that there is nothing anybody can do about it. Scientists point to the puberty cycle, maturity, reproduction cycle, the menopause in women, diminution of powers in the aging--such as loss of kidney, liver and lung functions at certain definite ages, and finally, the brain's dysfunction (second childhood or senility) and then, of course, death. They say certain functions can be improved in a minor way by environment: diet, exercise, hobbies, yoga, health foods, but brother, don't kid yourself: preordination is a fact of life and no one, but no one, can change it.

Another popular hypothesis is that of genetic error.

As we age, through whatever process, the cells become clogged with useless material (lipofuscin or ceroid matter), whether through poor diet, cosmic rays, or pollution, and are unable to function properly. Thus the process of biofeedback is interfered with. The cells can't communicate properly with the central computer (the brain) nor can the brain respond properly; therefore it sends wrong signals (through DNA/RNA), but even if it did send the right signals, the cells, being damaged severely, could not man their battle stations and execute their prescribed duties.

Another hypothesis states that because the cells are damaged in older life, they cannot distinguish friend from foe. As you know, the body is equipped with certain types of cells that fight off foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses--—in fact any sort of foreign protein. This is why it has been so hard to graft kidneys and other organs. It's called the autoimmune system. The autoimmune system works well usually, or we wouldn't be around to discuss it. But it seems that later in life, probably because of the factors previously mentioned (and very likely others we don t know about) these "cross-wired" cells start attacking their own body tissues as if they were invaders. It's much like a robot which, given definite programming, goes haywire through faulty communications and starts attacking the men who built it. No matter how the men may scream they didn't mean it to work that way, the robot simply carries out its orders, however twisted they may become. Imagine a giant scavenger white cell slowly backing away from engulfing a delectable bit of protein cell when it had imprinted orders to eat it! That would take certain countermanding orders of which our scientists, unfortunately, are not yet capable.

Which brings us to the "free radical" theory of aging, which Dr. Denham Harman of the University of Nebraska first advanced. It seems that certain molecules in our bodies get their electronic components disarranged because of radiation from the sun and cosmic rays. Several other factors have been postulated as also being responsible. However, in this minuscule explosion, an electron is freed. A free electron, being of a negative charge, has an utmost compulsion to become attached to a working system which has a positive charge. Now most normal systems of the body do not want wandering electrons. But certain abnormal systems, such as those of cancer and those which form deadly arterial deposits, will accept them. This unwonted activity compounds the injury to the cells and tissues which are trying to maintain a normal homeostasis so that we can live. In time, the "free" electrons do much damage to the body, thereby aging it. Apparently the only way to combat this action is through the use of antioxidants such as vitamin B—a subject we will explore later.

Almost everyone knows the name of Dr. Hans Selye, a physiologist at the University of Montreal. It is Dr. Selye's theory that almost all disease is caused by stress, particularly our Western world's worst killers, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism—but you name it--it's caused by stress.

Dr. Selye makes an excellent case for stress as being the causative factor in most ailments, not just in humans but in many other species. He asserts (backed up by almost unassailable research) that stress produces the diseases of which we are so aware, as well as depression. He believes that the brain is influenced by stress; the body is constantly in such a state of stress that it is impossible for the human being to escape it. Stress is defined as bodily, such as heat, cold, deprivation of oxygen, or mental, including the various frustrations, which as we know are limitless. The stress recently acquired by modern man is tearing down his body and mind.

Thank you, Dr. Selye. How do you suggest we avoid it? A long trip back to Eden?

Dr. Selye, many years ago, found that vitamin B would obviate most of the results of old-age-and-stress-produced disorders—at least in rats—but this fact was not, reported in the popular media until I reported it in my first book, Vitamin E: Your Key to a Healthy Heart. Even then the significance of the experiment was lost until very recently, and to my knowledge, Dr. Selye has not followed up his initial findings on vitamin E.

By now you must have discerned that not only is there some disagreement in the scientific world about aging, but there is also some agreement; some overlap, naturally. There are hundreds of other hypotheses, but we have touched on the major ones. In this book, which is dedicated to a new and practical approach to aging, we don't have space to present them all.

However, there are two more aspects of aging which we must deal with. The first is monoamine oxidase MAO, probably one of the most important clues in mankind's long search to prevent and/or alleviate old age and its related symptoms. Don't worry about the term: we will call it MAO from now on. It is a vital part of the explanation of how Dr. Ana AsIan s GH3 formulation works. We shall pursue this rationale in Chapters 12 and 16.

Now that we have examined most of the leading hypotheses and life extension theories, up to September 1974, we must reiterate that all the theories are worthwhile and certain of their aspects are valid. They are advanced by dedicated researchers who are not just uninspired pipette suckers and bottle washers (even though these workers are extremely important). The researchers are ambitious, profound thinkers, sincere seekers after the truth.

The significance of what we shall reveal now is appreciated only by a few. Yet this work, which was announced in September 1974, blew apart most of the accepted theories about man and his aging and opened up a completely different approach to the lifeextension problem. (Gerovital H3 has also lengthened the life span of cells, but the experiments were not published in the popular media; we shall examine these reports later.) Drs. Lester Packer and James Smith at the University of California at Berkeley proved that human lung cells when supplemented with massive doses of vitamin B were no longer subjected to Hayflick's dictum of death at roughly fifty generations. In other words, there was no inflexible law which said that fifty generations was it, period. Their findings meant that man through tampering (experimenting with his own cells with logic and insight) could really alter his life span—if the test-tube findings were corroborated. Since discoveries by other researchers had all been done in the test tube, there was every reason to assume the Packer-Smith findings were valid. Yet do you suppose the world knows about this discovery? Principally not. However, much to its credit the New York Times carried the story, pointing out the efficacy of vitamin B in maintaining the youthfulness of the cells.

As we have explained previously, researchers Packer and Smith took normal human lung cells and subjected them to massive doses of vitamin B. They had "control" (untreated) cells which promptly died at the fiftieth generation. Much to the researchers surprise, the vitamin B-treated cells continued to grow in good health past the 120th generation and were still going strong when the experiment was concluded. Most important, the vitamin B-treated cells were normal, and did not pass into the wild cancerous growths typical of cells grown in the lab.

The significance of this longevity experiment means that man, by chemicals, can alter the heretofore unalterable. It means that we are no longer prisoners of the Grecian Sisters of Fate and no longer prisoners of the equally ominous Science and Religion duo which have held us intellectual captives since the 19th century. Whether it be vitamin B, GH3, or a combination of many factors, it is good news for most of us.

I spoke to Dr. Hayflick at the Vista Hill Foundation s (San Diego) Seminar on Aging in February 1975. His answer to my positive observations about vitamin B and GH3 was: "This work is very interesting. That s what we scientists are here for. To look for the truth in all directions." This is the mark of a real scientist.

As for the old entrenched ones, it is best they do not take either vitamin B or GH3. They won't anyway, because it is well known that men—particularly those who have spent a lifetime defending their positions, will rather die than admit they have been wrong.

It takes a very great man or scientist to admit being wrong. As you may discern by the state of the world, there are very few of either.

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Chapter 4 - Other Therapies

We will now examine various therapies by which doctors and others without formal degrees attempt to prolong and extend life.

Let us begin by saying that, although many life extension approaches seem to have merit, and many of their advocates are sincere and even dedicated to their viewpoints, none as yet has succeeded in prolonging the prime of life. Provably so, that is. With one exception.

In other words, who the devil cares about prolonging his old age with all its multiple griefs, so he cannot die and be rid of the odious burden? The ideal is of course Dr. Faustus and Dorian Gray, without having to make pacts with the devil and such like creatures in order to maintain zest and potency for beautiful companions----as though sex were the chief goal of humankind. (A women s libber should write a counter-part for all those implausible, yet somehow fascinating stories foisted on them by men. On the other hand, please don t; they would be equally implausible. And a woman should have more intelligence than to merely copy a man s idea.)

Probably the best known life extension youth-doctor practitioner was the late Dr. Paul Niehans, who maintained a clinic in Switzerland for many years. His fame was such that practically all of the famous and near-famous were treated by him or his followers. His work is carried on by many clinics in Europe and other places— in fact, almost everywhere except the United States, where the ultraconservatives still hold the big black-snake whip in medicine.

Niehans's theory seems rational: Damaged cells, no matter of what organ or tissue, need repairing. What better way than to give them fresh new cells with which to do the repairing? For example, Niehans postulated that an injured liver would be repaired by injection of new liver cells, derived primarily from embryonic liver cells: embryonic before the still largely undifferentiated cells could develop the "sophistication" necessary to produce an allergic-immune response from the body's cells. Niehans used the cells derived from unborn lambs for the most part, then later used adult cells after they had been specially processed ("freeze-dried") to eliminate the immune reaction. This freeze-dried method is employed primarily today —though some practitioners maintain the living cells are more viable.

Be that as it may, in spite of Niehans claimed longevity results on many thousands of patients, he never saw fit to publish his results in medical journals. Proponents claim with some justification that Niehans's work would never be published in any leading medical journal; therefore, realizing this, he didnt try. Critics point out he could have written a monograph and had it privately published or indeed printed by almost any publisher in the world; many would have been eager to capitalize on Niehans's fame. The controversy rages, even after Niehans s death, for cellular therapy has spread throughout the world, chiefly through German manufacturers of the freeze-dried product.

Many famous people have taken cell therapy and reported much benefit. It should be explored further and made a subject of serious testing by teams of medical researchers, if they really want the truth about aging to emerge.

Probably the one big disadvantage to cell therapy was its cost and cumbersome method of administration.

As promulgated by Niehans, it entails the raising and keeping of herds of sheep, then killing the ewes, extracting the unborn lamb—grinding up its organs—at the exact time a patient is to be injected.

Clearly, while the results of cellular therapy seem to be promising, the treatment is not yet for the average man--—only for the relatively rich.

However, there is an antiaging health spa in Nassau called Renaissance, where cell therapy as well as other modalities is used; the cost is about $1500 for ten days treatment.

Renaissance is directed by Dr. Ivan M. Popov, a well-known and original medical thinker. The board of this organization is composed of eminent physicians throughout the world, including Dr. Franz Schmid, chief of staff at the Children s Hospital, Aschaffenburg, West Germany.

Dr. Scbmid makes a good case for the use of freezedried cells Instead of live cells.

I was impressed by the knowledge of the executive director, Elliott Goldwag, Ph.D., and by the results obtained by several of the patients. I have not investigated Renaissance in depth, but I have carefully noted the high caliber of the researcher-clinicians who are connected with the project.

With the exception of Gerovital H3, there have been no provable longevity, long-lasting methods of inducing old age to stop its relentless march. There have been many who tried, and some seemed to have a brief measure of success: Voronoff with his transplanted monkey glands; Brown-Seqüard with his transplanted dog testicles; Bogomolets with his cytoreticular serum; Metchnikoff with his acidophilus bacilli; and many others too numerous to mention here. The ones we have mentioned were great scientists and recognized by their peers as such—until they began advancing treatments for maintaining youth. That is when they started being laughed at, because it seems that attempted old-age regeneration combined with attempted sexual rejuvenation is both funny and embarrassing and therefore not worthy of a serious scientist's consideration. Actually sex was the focal point of many researchrs geriatric efforts. They were looking for the male hormone, but didn t know it. They were unaware that testosterone is not the answer either, although it is important.

A final shocker about old age: if you think that when and if we eliminate cancer and heart disease our troubles will be over and everybody will live happily ever after—you are wrong. Most of the "authorities" agree that even if we suddenly found a dependable 100% cure for heart disease and cancer, our life spans would not be prolonged for more than five or six years. Startling? Yes. But mere projongation of life is not the answer to aging, because who wants to live--—exist is a better word--—decrepit, senile, useless to both yourself and the society to which you have become accustomed?

Another exercise in futility consists of interviewing old people in an attempt to learn the secrets of longevity. You will receive every answer possible: drinking whiskey, not drinking it; smoking tobacco, not smoking it; eating meat, not eating it; having plenty of sex, not having it; drinking lots of water, not drinking it; working hard, not working at all; wearing shoes, going barefoot. You won't get a coherent picture—except for one thing: the vast majority are uninformed or do not care about the world's problems, or any other problems except their immediate needs. They very rarely let anything annoy them, because they can't be annoyed. Their adrenal glands do not start pumping adrenaline into their bloodstreams when they are subjected to what other people would call disturbing. They do not react as most persons or animals do.

The oldsters in the various pockets of longevity in the East know no more why they live longer than do their counterparts in the West. Modern scientific investigators can offer little more than personal opinions.

Lack of stress, which means lack of worry or thought about anything except habitual routine, vigorous exercise, living in an uncontaminated atmosphere free from pollutants of all kinds, and having long-lived ancestors are some of the ways people survive from 110 to 125. You have seen them: wrinkled as an Egyptian mummy, toothless, hearing and eyesight failing or failed; their strength diminished or nearly gone; thoughts confused, then finally dying.

Another version of life extension: be simple, ignorant, care little about the world; follow the ways of your ancestors, and learn nothing from them except the simple pattern of obedience, complaisance with everything as it exists; never change your ancestral customs or ways; go to bed early; never question authority; never learn more than your father knew; follow all this and you will live a long and most dull life. But it will not be dull to you because you are resigned and have become a human robot and do not question the gods or your superiors. Therefore you are happy and when strangers come to question you, you tell them what you think they wish to know.

Some think this is worth copying; I do not. If that is all getting old means, then I say I would have none of it. Being old does not, as the Chinese and some others think, mean wisdom; it means senility in most cases, which is the opposite of wisdom. But this does not mean that man cannot live to his prime in excellent condition—once we learn how to do it. This book is dedicated to that principle.

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Chapter 5 - Dr. Aslan's Background

Ana Aslan is a most persistent woman. This faculty was manifested to her parents rather early. Born in Bucharest in 1898 of wonderful middle-class parents, as she describes them, she soon let them know who was boss—although still loving them.

In her childhood the Wright brothers had just flown at Kitty Hawk and the news had traveled around the world. She knew with the yearning that only a child's dreams could impress on her unfolding mind that she wanted to be a flyer. Finally mama and papa were able to talk their young adventuress out of her mad scheme—or perhaps she "grew out of it" just as almost every child does who dreams of being an engineer, an airplane pilot, or nowadays an astronaut. But what if every child was talked out of his dreams by most practical parents? We would have no Einsteins, no Leonardoe, no Madame Curies, and no Ana Aslans.

Ana's parents could not talk her out of her second ambition: to be a doctor. This she knew she had to be, and when mama and papa said no again, she refused to eat. Imagine the consternation this caused! She said that unless they gave her permission to enroll as a medical student, she would never eat again. This meant, of course, she would die.

Put yourself in the loving parents place. What would you do? Now, put yourself in the beloved daughter's place who knows her parents love her and no doubt indulge her. She knows her parents very well. She knows that, loving more than most, they cannot let her starve to death; so she knows she will win. She does. After four days, the doting parents relent. They agree she can go to medical school.

But what if her parents had been adamant--what if they had said, "Let's see how far she will go." Perhaps she might have given in and then we would have had no Dr. Ana Aslan.

The fact that she had such loving parents in turn caused her to be loving, so that we now have the benefits of a brilliant, scientific, yet loving person. But it was not all her parents doing; the young bird, after flying from the parental nest, seeks exploration and life of its own.

After receiving her M.D. degree in 1924 from the University of Bucharest, Dr. Aslan was on the staff at several Bucharest hospitals, but for most of the next sixteen years she was Professor Dr. Danielopolu's assistant at the government clinic.

After World War 11 she was appointed director of the government's clinic in faraway Timisoara.

She had become not only Romania's first woman physician, but Romania s first cardiologist. She considered making cardiology her specialty, but gave it up because women doctors in Romania during the twenties and thirties had a rough time competing with men in any branch of medicine other than obstetrics. It was the same the world over—except in the Soviet Union, where women doctors were encouraged. Women's liberation was still just a glint in a few brave women s eyes. Astute observers may also note that the Soviet Union has flO Women in high political positions.

In 1947 King Michael was forced to abdicate and Romania became officially a part of the Eastern bloc which was allied with the Soviet Union. Romania, however, has been more independent than any other member of the bloc. (In fact, Romania has made a broad agreement with the United States which took effect January 1, 1975, in which economic and cultural ties were effected between the two countries.)

With the bloodless overthrow of the monarchy, Romania became a socialist state and Dr. C. I. Parhon was elected its first president. Dr. Parhon was a noted physician and researcher, having made ‘many original contributions to medicine, especially in the field of endocrinology. He was particularly interested in the aging process, establishing the Parhon Institute of Endocrinology, and later the Institute of Geriatrics in Bucharest.

He had often said his most brilliant pupil at the University of Bucharest Medical School, where he taught for many years, was Ana Aslan.

In 1951 Dr. Parhon asked Ana Aslan to accept the ultimate honor--—that of director of the Institute of Geriatrics; a post which she was happy to accept.

The stage was set for Dr. Aslan s findings about new, startling actions of an old drug.

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Chapter 6 - Challenging GH3 Reports

After Ana Aslan delivered her monumental reports in 1956-57, she did not retire to a villa in Romania to meditate about GH3. Rather, as is her character, she went on proving and implementing by facts what very few could deny: that GH3 was not just an antidepressant for the elderly, important as that was, but was an antiaging factor as manifested in various signs and symptoms. She was careful to report only the truth of what she observed on many thousands of patients under controlled conditions. She also experimented with animals, namely rats, pigeons, and the smallest of all life, bacteria.

The information she obtained under stringent test conditions for twenty-three years enabled her to speak with increasing authority. She had much corroboration throughout the civilized world, from France, Germany, Italy, and other countries. From France came corroboration from Professor Berger that rats lived much longer when given GH3 than did their littermates. Although Aslan claimed only about 20% more longevity for her 1800 rats, Professor Berger found that his GH3-treated rats lived 30% longer. We can see that 30% is a considerable period of time in a rat s life, which is about three to four years. Adding 30% to man s life span of 70 brings us to over 90 —in good condition throughout this extended period--—not the hopeless parody of life we have described previously!

Also, from all over the world, reports on patients being miraculously aided by GH3 came in by the hundreds. True, most had not performed the double-blind studies demanded in the United States and Great Britain, but they knew from long experience with their patients which ones were helped and why. This is called a longitudinal study; it is just as revealing as a double-blind study.

Ana was delighted with her results and with the corroboration from abroad. GH3 had amassed more than a hundred favorable reports from all over the world, all by qualified, well-recognized researchers. She herself, in collaboration with her assistants Drs. Cornel David, Alexandra Vrabiescu, Alexandra Ciuca, and several other eminent researchers at the Geriatrics Institute in Bucharest had published twenty or more papers attesting to the value of GH3. However, most of her papers were published in Romania, a country which, though renowned for many achievements, has not been well recognized by European medical societies. The primary reason—in fact, probably the only reason is that almost no one speaks Romanian except Romanians. Therefore, no one reads Romanian medical papers.

The Romanians have a proud history, of which at.. most no one is aware. They claim direct descent from the ancient Romans, who occupied their country for many years. Their language is much closer to the ancient Latin than any other language, including even Italian, which has been repeatedly exposed to infiItration from heterogeneous sources. Romania, somewhat remote, hidden behind the Carpathian mountains, has remained fairly isolated.

Dr. Aslan s first significant scientific challenge came in the early 1960s, when three or four British researchers published negative findings on her work. In the same period there were about a half-dozen negative American reports. (See Appendixes and Bibliography.) They stated they could find no evidence that procaine hydrochloride, administered according to the method advanced by Aim Aslan, was of any value in the treatment of patients suffering from the signs and symptoms of old age.

These reports were sufficient to close the official door on Aslan s therapy br more than a decade in both England and America.

How could recognized British and American researchers come up with results diametrically opposed to Aslan's studies as well as those of the European experimenters?

One important clue to the answer is that Aslan had been using Gerovital H3 GH3—not ordinary commercial procaine—since 1951; all her reports from then on stressed the difference between GH3 and commercially available procaine.

There are certain essential differences between procaine and GH3 which Aslan explained then (and which we explain in Chapter 16), but since procaine was the prime ingredient, hardly anyone bothered to use GH3--—the researchers used straight procaine.

So we can see why most British and American researchers, honest, methodical and precise as they were in their tests, attempting to duplicate Dr. Aslan's results--—with a great amount of skepticism, which is natural, normal, and to be expected in a scientific experiment--—nevertheless failed to follow Ana Aslan s most important direction: use GH3 in the recommended doses for an adequate period of time. They ignored the added ingredients that comprised GH3.

However, there were several studies in the United States which were favorable—including one monumental double-blind experiment. We will describe this experiment, great, definitive, and even, classical in its scope, which alone should have swung the tide of scientific opinion back to Aslan s findings. The experiment, published in 1965, was so precise and followed the procedures medical science should follow so scrupuiousiy, that it is a model of what medical science could have done to prove or disprove Dr. Aslan s claims. It is hard for almost anyone—particularly in medical science—to imagine that such a study, published in one of our country's leading medical journals, could have been virtually ignored, and also hard to imagine for those unschooled in medical history and the authoritarianism which unfortunately has dominated medical thinking for centuries, and yea, verily, up to and through our times.

Dr. Paul Gordon and Arnold Abrams, and several other doctor-associate researchers at the Chicago Medical School, published a two-part study of the effects of a double-blind experiment which they had made during 1963-64. It was published in Journal of Gerontology (vol. 20, 1965), and entitled "The Effects of a European Procaine Preparation in an Aged Population." The study was double-blind; neither doctors nor patients knew that standard procaine was being given versus the European brand called GH3. The study covered more than a year, with 30 patients receiving GH3, the other 30 receiving plain procaine. According to the conclusions, which were reached both physiologically and psychologically, the patients were greatly improved when given GH3, but not so much when given plain procaine. The testing was so exhaustive that many pages are required for tables, graphs, discussion of procedures—so that there would be no possible room for error; it all becomes a bit too technical for us to get into in this book. Those who are doctors or technically minded laymen, or those who just want to find out why the negative reports differed so widely from the results obtained by the favorable studies, please refer to Appendix 1 for the paper by Abrams et al.

I was objective when I began investigating this conflict; after having examined the evidence and having lived with this story for four years, I have reached a conclusion about what I believe any truth-seeking investigative writer-reporter should do—take a stand and try to bring the truth to the people. This does not mean that I have lost my objectivity. I will present the evidence both pro and con. All significant reports, both pro and con, can be found in the Appendixes and Bibliography. In the absence of any negative reports since 1963, however, and with the avalanche of positive reports on humans, animals, even worms and bacteria, and human cells sitice that time, I am proud to present to the world the first documented evidence in popular form that GH3 does work and is the first fully proved substance that mankind can use for depression; and aging, as we now know, is almost synonymous with depression.

Getting back to favorable American reports, we can mention Long, Bucci-Saunders, Smigel, Kral—a half dozen more were published in leading medical journals, versus a half dozen who made unfavorable reports (see Appendixes and Bibliography)

It is interesting that the AMA only took the unfavorable reports, ignoring the others, and in almost a gleeful tone pronounced the finis of GH3 therapy, Q.E.D. The AMA, unfortunately, is still in the hands of the kind of men who fought every advance in physical medicine, and "socialized" medicine beginning with Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the 1930s, and even now are fighting realistic national health care plans with all the power their member's dues can buy.

Almost every literate person is familiar with medicines dreary litany of refusal to listen to new ideas (departures from the norm) from ancient times to the present (from Apollonius to Fleming); it scarcely seems necessary to recall some of the episodes. For every Lord Lister (who advocated antiseptic surgery) there are ten thousand physicians such as those who booed Lister off the roster when he attempted to speak. The same shameful treatment was accorded to all the innovators of science and medicine—in modern times it has become the custom to ignore, ridicule, and ostracize the miscreants who dare advance different ways of doing things. Medicine advances because of the minds of those courageous researchers who will not give up what they know to be true.

The same treatment was accorded Ana Aslan by official groups in orthodox medicine for many years. In fact, only in the last two years has she been granted the privilege of proving her work, or at least a small part of it, in the United States. We shall discuss the reasons for this.

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Chapter 7 - Some Explanations

The story of how Ana Aslan's GH3 came to be officially tested in the U.S. in spite of the 1960-63 negative reports from England and America is a saga of many persons efforts, genius, shrewdness, perspicacity—and the fact that GH3 really works. In addition to all the favorable studies from Europe (and as we have seen, from the United States as well), reports from all the patients who had been treated in Romanian clinics could not fail to have their effect—regardless of the official U.S. medical position.

As the years went by and the news of GH3 treatment spread throughout the world, more and more people came to the Aslan Clinic in Bucharest and departed with good news. Their ailments were healed or greatly benefited, and most did not hesitate to proclaim it to anyone who would listen. And quite a few listened, including some well-known doctors in many countries. (As of 1975, at least 100,000 patients have been treated in Romania alone, and twice that number in other countries.)

We interviewed some of these patients who undertook the trek to Bucharest. They found it most rewarding and surprisingly inexpensive Everyone from movie stars to belly dancers to staid executives to housewives—all were helped, and not only knew it themselves, but could prove it to their friends and even their doctors. The examinations were scientific, and covered every phase of scientific testing known to medicine.

But while the number of persons benefited by GH3 steadily mounted, thereby exerting pressure throughout the world—even in the United States, still in the grip of the most tyrannical medical bureaucracy known to man in the Western world—there were other, even more powerful forces gathering for the inevitable confrontation which would be enacted in the U.S. Some knew nothing of the pivotal crises ahead; others were dimly aware; still others, knowing, began to organize and to move with incredible speed and organization.

One of these latter was Dr. Alfred Sapse of UCLA, a renowned ophthalmologist who had garnered a cluster of awards for his original work in proving the role of antibodies in tears; now he was working on one of his many grants from the U.S. Institutes of Health. More than a famous researcher, he was the young M.D. resident mentioned earlier who had seen Dr. Aslan's work among the elderly. In a village in Romania where he was sent for the last year of his residenceship, he saw the old people come to life again within a year or two.

"It was so amazing," he told me many years later, "to see these old people given up to die and then being treated with GH3—and then being, well, entirely changed. They were now happy, eager to participate in the life around them, able to work and mean something to themselves and others. Their ailments were either gone or greatly regressed—at least to the point where they didn t bother these old people. I saw these people before and after treatment—and I know what I saw, but it was incredible to me. I never forgot it."

Many years later, after a successful career as a clinician and researcher, he wondered again at what he had seen back in Romania. And this time he proved to be the key figure in setting up GH3 testing in the United States.

Meanwhile, across the world, other persons were playing leading roles in the GH3 drama, though at the time none was aware of his role or that a drama for mankind existed.

Dr. D. S. Robinson at the University of Vermont and his confreres, both in the United States and England, working in collaboration with several teams of American researchers including the National Institute of Mental Health, had come up with a definitive answer about why we get old and depressed at roughly the same time. It's a gradual degenerative action, but the process is definitely physiological, not psychological. The various teams had autopsied the brains and other organs of many persons in an attempt to unravel the mystery of aging and depression. They found that an enzyme, monoamine oxidase (MAO), begins to build up in the brain around 45, and somehow takes precedence over. other vital substances by displacing them. One of these is norepinephrine (noradrenaline), a hormone essential to our well-being and vitality.

They found that aging (real aging, that is) begins around the period of MAO ascendance and coincides with depression. It had long been known that suppression of MAO with certain drugs could cure depression and ameliorate the symptoms of aging. Some may remember the amazement and joy among the medical men when isopromiazid, the first of these drugs, was administered to tuberculous patients around 1951.

Patients danced in the aisles of their wards, their depressions and TB seemingly cured. The world press had a field day, reporting that not only was tuberculosis cured, but so was depression.

Alas, this joy was short-lived, for it was later proved that isopromiazid produced deadly side effects on various organs, including the liver, and did not cure anything, except that it gave the patients a temporary euphoria. Other medications of the same type followed, but proved not much better because, as it turned out, they were irreversible inhibitors of MAO. Since MAO is necessary in certain quantities to protect the liver's functions, regulate blood pressure, and so on, a substance that destroys this--—or any other--vital enzyme permanently is dangerous to the well-being of the body, which must try to maintain its homeostasis: that dynamic equilibrium of the body we must maintain to survive among the wear, tear, and unimaginable stresses to which we are subjected every millisecond of our lives.

Drs. Robinson et al. studied blood plasma and platelets as well as the brain. Their findings, the first done on man, corroborated similar results found in animals: aging, in every species studied, is always accompanied by a rise in the activity of the MAO enzyme in the brain, blood, and other organs and a corresponding fall in noradrenaline.

Now, at last, the researchers had found a biological law of aging which was apparently universal: MAO rise and noradrenaline fall equals aging. Premature rise and fall equals premature aging; the individual ages "before his time."

Another link in the ever-growing web of evidence associating MAO rise with aging, depression and old-age diseases is that, as many studies other than Robinson, et al., have shown that aging is almost always accompanied by signs and symptoms of depression, even if these are not recognized as depression. Robinson was confirming in the laboratory (in vitro) what had been obvious (in vivo) for centuries. (See Bibliography.)

This does not rule out depression at earlier ages. Everyone who has lived on earth for even a short while knows that the human being suffers depressions intermittently. Even the reputed son of God and Man, crucified at age 33, must have been infinitely depressed when he cried out, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Its causes are many and there is much controversy about treating it, but depression--—whether caused by external circumstances such as loss of a loved one, loss of a job, or internal, such as feeling inadequate, unable to cope with the world--—is universal. We would't be human if we weren t depressed at times. But depression is usually treatable by the right treatment.

Robinson s definitive work pinned down the aging type of depression as being not only universal, but due to physiological causes. All very well, but what practical value does the finding have? Previously tried MAO-inhibitors had relieved depression as well as the signs and symptoms of aging but were too dangerous, too productive of side effects, to be widely used, because they knocked out MAO permanently. The search was on for an MAO-inhibitor that would have no side effects, so it could actually benefit body and mind. The quest led straight to the substance whose use Ana Aslan had been advocating for 25 years. (It was not Ana who found the main reason why GH3 worked; it was an effort unsurpassed in medicine by the scope of its investigations, its experiments in the laboratory, and in clinical experiments. It is supremely ironic that this should be the work of American researchers, who have made an undeniable success of their efforts to establish the worth (or non-worth] of GH3 as an antidepressant in the lab and in treatment of human beings. It was in America, where GH3 was "finally killed"—according to the AMA—that GH3 would succeed.)

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Chapter 8 - The Key to U.S. Research

Alfred T. Sapse, M.D., assistant professor, department of immunology, UCLA, and director of the Laboratory of Eye Research, Cedars-Sinai Medical Research Institute, had a strange obsession which troubled him particularly in his spare moments—of which there were relatively few. He kept thinking about what he had seen and experienced many years before as a young doctor in Romania--—Dr Aslan's Gerovital H3 treatment, which had helped those old people so much.

He had read the papers about it, pro and con, but he knew that GH3 worked because he had seen it work, and there is nothing like firsthand observation. All the papers in the literature could not alter the truth of what he had seen.

His obsession was why and how GH3 was effective. If he could know the answers to why and how, he might be able to--—well, maybe help in some way to get it medically tested in the United States.

He had a few clues: several reports in the American studies (Bucci-Saunders, Gordon Abrams in particular) had suggested that procaine was an MAO-inhibitor. Research went back to 1940, when Dr. F. J. Philpot discovered that procaine was an MAO-inhibitor in the test tube (in vitro); but at that time no one knew the significance of MAO inhibition, nor could they know that the inhibition had to be reversible so that the vital enzyme MAO could still play its important role in the subtle chemistry of the body's metabolism—without destroying the hormones such as noradrenaline, which were also necessary to the body's normal functioning.

The exact amount of all the hormones, enzymes, vitamins and other substances functioning in the right place at the right time was the key to the balance of the human body. And balance (or homeostasis) of the body—if it could be maintained at optimum efficiency—would be the answer to aging or any other ailment afflicting the human body and mind.

Every researcher agrees—no matter how violent his disagreement about the cause of dysfunction—that if homeostasis (balance) could be maintained, the body would survive as long as the balance did: in other words, indefinitely. It would be the age-old dream come true.

Immortality. Was it possible? Probably not through any one process, yet this was the most important clue thus far, at least translated into practical, human terms. But Sapse was not thinking of anything than "Why does GH3 work?" That was the first step.

He had access to UCLA s giant computer, one of the best in the world. As Dr. Sapse told me later: "If it hadn t been for Medlar [the computerl, this might never have happened. Medlar is so incredible and so accurate and fast that you almost have the answer before you ask the question."

He fed Medlar information culled from all the world literature on GH3, in addition to his own theoretical formulations. Night after night, Sapse and Medlar worked together in a sort of mystical union, such as a man may have with a completely cooperative, thoroughly competent partner.

The question between man and machine was: How can a single drug do so many things to so many people? Is there any drug in the world that can do this?

With a pulse of 120 and sweat glistening on his forehead, on a fateful day in May 1971, Dr. Sapse approached Medlar with a perfcrated card. The card contained four letters.

The moment of truth had arrived. What would Medlar say to the five-word question? Would the answer be a blank, or would it be an answer such as "Sorry, but insufficient data"?

The computer ate the question and then, somewhat like the oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece, the giant machine opened a ridiculously small slot, and the answer fell down in the tray. It contained four letters! Suddenly the mystery surrounding Gerovital H3's 20-year-old controversial history was partly solved.

Conceivably a major breakthrough in the fight against aging had taken place. The four letters on the cornputer card were MAOI.

Since we have previously explained what MAOI means (monoamine oxidase inhibitor), we need not recount the technicalities. The researcher was stunned almost like Socrates when he received his three answers from the Delphic oracle.

Realizing this, the professor did an incredible thing. He startled his colleagues by announcing that he would devote most of his time toward research and promotion of Gerovital H3 —a substance that almost none of them had heard of—and if they had, It was unfavorable, most of them adhering to the AMA line.

He resigned his position at UCLA after a soul-searching period during which his colleagues warned him that he was ruining his career and following a disastrous course.

Dr. Sapse had no money saved and no backing. He took the gamble of win-or-lose, because of his obsessive belief that GH3 would succeed and he would succeed with it.

Sapse invited his friend Manfred Mosk to form a company to have GH3 tested in the United States. As a company, it was probably the most risky ever created. The company was started with $1000 capitalization, only on the evidence which Dr. Sapse had amassed, which amounted to the fact that GH3 worked, and that he would like to see it tested in the United States under FDA auspices, because he believed if it got a thorough testing, the government would approve its licensing here.

The next act of our drama took place in Dr. Sapse s apartment. Among those present were Manfred Mosk, Jean Doran, Dr. Sapse, and Dr. David M. MacFarlane. Manfred Mosk, an investment banker, specialized in the economics of the drug industry; Jean Doran, a good friend of Dr. Sapse, was former director of a chemical factory in Romania; Dr. MacFarlane was an assistant professor in the department of pharmacology at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He was introduced to Dr. Sapse after he (Sapse) had asked friends at USC to recommend a young dynamic scientist who specialized In the pharmacology of monoamine oxidase.

At the meeting, Dr. Sapse asked Dr. MacFarlane to test Gerovital H3 to see if it was indeed an MAO inhibitor.

Dr. MacFarlane was intrigued by the MAO-inhibition hypothesis. He was eager to explore it. He left with a sample of Gerovital H3, promising that be would call as soon as possible, regardless of whether or not he had found something of interest When he left, a lot of fingers were crossed.

About a week later, at three o'clock in the morning, the telephone rang at Dr. Sapse s apartment. Dr. MacParlane was at the other end of the line: "Dr. Sapse, I have some good news for you! You have a winner on your hands! Gerovital H3 is indeed an MAO-inhibitor—that is for sure—but I am intrigued by several features of Gerovital H3 that I had not found or known when using other drugs of this type. It will take me time to evaluate this, but I will."

Dr. MacFarlane kept his promise. In the months to come, he was the first to discover and report to the scientific press that Gerovital H3 is a weak, reversible, fully competitive monoamine oxidase inhibitor, qualities that make Gerovital H3 a unique drug of its type.

Now one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of GH3 occurred. When Dr. Sapse was convinced that he had the rationale of GH3, he telephoned his friend Mosk. It happened that Mosk was in Paris at the time. He had just returned from seeing a play, and business was not uppermost in his mind.

However, the insistent ringing of the phone forced him to answer. It was his friend Sapse, in Los Angeles. "You must go to Romania and get the contract for our company's distribution of GH3 in the United States," Sapse told him. "And do it as fast as you can. We now know the rationale behind GH3, and there s no time to lose making the tests."

Somehow he convinced Mosk to go immediately, which he did.

Now Mosk, although born in Romania, had lived in the United States so long that he had no contacts in the country of his birth. However, being intelligent and a capable business negotiator, he took the simplistic approach—unthinkable in modem-day diplomacy or business, which decrees you have to have an "In" and a prearranged order of protocol to achieve results. Perhaps so, usually. But not in the case of Mosk and GH3.

Mosk went straight to the proper authorities, told them his purpose, negotiated, and waited while they checked out his and Sapse's credentials. This took two weeks. And then an agency of the Romanian government negotiated with him a contract stating that his company, Rom-Amer, would have sole importing and distribution rights to GH3 in the United States for ten years; also the right to deal with the FDA, the United States governmental arm for drug approval.

As Dr. Sapse told me later: "It was a brilliant piece of negotiation by Mosk. For years GH3 had been under a vast cloud of suspicion, so finally when the Romanian authorities got a proper offer, they gave a proper answer. They want to see GH3 accepted, because the United States is still the leader of the world, no matter what others say."

When Mosk returned, he was able to capitalize the company for about a million dollars on the basis of the contract between Romania and Rom-Amer, and list it on the stock market. Our purpose here is not to emphasize the business side of GH3 but to dwell on the scientific. Yet the business side is so fascinating that it would be impossible to leave it out if we're being objective, and also since it plays such an integral part in relation to whether the United States ever gets GH3 or not. It's somewhat amazing to me,—a scientific, objective writer—that certain persons seem to feel that all talk of finances and business should be ignored in a book dealing with a medical treatment. Yet as almost everyone knows, it takes money to research any drug, and living in our so-called capitalistic society, everybody has to pay the rent and taxes—for research as well as for keeping the roof from leaking.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal will undoubtedly relate in great detail the story of Gerovital H3's financing in the United States when GH3 is approved.

A most challenging situation still lay ahead for Sapse and Mosk. They had to confront the Federal Food and Drug Administration, which was notorious for its opposition to foreign-produced drugs. Procaine hydrochloride (novocaine), which as we know is the primary ingredient of GH3, has been used by the medical and dental professions in the United States for the past seventy years as a safe, effective drug. It is safer than aspirin, which is now known to cause internal bleeding, and has been used for about the same seventy years with no knowledge of its pharmacologic action, only its empiric (practical) action.

However, Sapse and Mosk, armed with their MAO-inhibitor knowledge and their Romanian contract, approached the FDA, and finally got an appointment.

What they encountered at FDA headquarters amazed them. The officials of the FDA were receptive to Dr. Sapse's approach to GH3, particularly as it related to the aging-depression syndrome.

Necessarily, GH3 would have to go through all the steps required by law and FDA regulations, RomAmer would have to follow the necessary procedures in order to gain United States acceptance.

The test should be based solely on one factor which should be relatively easy to demonstrate: the effect of GH3 on old-age depression. There are millions of old, depressed people for whom there is no adequate and safe treatment without undesirable side effects. It would be of the greatest value if such a drug were available, particularly a low-cost drug—which GH3 obviously is.

At this point, it might be appropriate to quote the FDA's definition of depression. The following is contained in the FDA s most recent guidelines (June 1974):

Patients with a depressive syndrome usually manifest depressed mood ~(as described below) plus a significant number (4-5) of associated symptoms.

1. Depressed mood characterized by any of the following: sad, low, blue, despondent, hopeless, gloomy
2. Anhedonia--—inability to experience pleasure
3. Poor appetite or weight loss
4. Sleep difficulty (insomnia or hypersomnia)
5. Loss of energy; fatigue; lethargy
6. Agitation
7. Retardation
8. Decrease in libido
9. Loss of interest in work and usual activities
10. Feelings of self-reproach or guilt
11. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, such as slowed thinking or mixed-up thoughts
12. Thoughts of death and/or suicide attempts
13. Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness 1
14. Anxiety or tension
15. Bodily complaints

Three phases of testing would be necessary. Phase I is testing on patients already under psychiatric care, to determine safety and efficacy in the dosage prescribed by the Asian method. These patients would be withdrawn from other drugs, if any.

Phase II consists of double-blind studies In which GH3 would be tested against a placebo (a harmless yet inert substance such as saline water) under identical circumstances. The experiment would be devised so that the ampules would be identical in appearance; neither doctor nor patient would know what was being injected. In fact, no human being would know, because a third scientist working with a computer, independent of the testing group, would establish a code number for each ampule. The code would be sealed and broken only when the experiment was over. Then, and only then, would it be determined which patients received Gerovital H3 and which received the placebo. Meanwhile each patient would receive a battery of just about all the physical and mental tests known to medical science, before, during and after the experiment.

There could be no quarreling with the results of such a double-blind computerized test, which would be the crux of the whole experiment.

Phase III, the last hurdle for the experimental drug, consists of GH3's being tested by twenty to thirty psychiatrists throughout the country, each working with thirty to forty patients. This would ensure GH3's safety (and confirm its efficacy) on a relatively large scale, including ascertaining the degree of allergic responses among the population.

The reason for phase three is that mass testing should be done for every new drug, since some have been found to be dangerous en masse; few can forget the specter of thalidomide, which maimed hundreds of unborn children in a certain period of their mother's pregnancy. (However, for every thalidomide, there are hundreds of potentially excellent drugs which go unmarketed because of the too stringent laws passed in the wake of the thalidomide hysteria; this Is the opinion of many scientists, including many at the FDA, but that is another story beyond the scope of our inquiry in this book. We mention it only to show that a new drug, to be approved in this country, has to undergo years of testing at costs prohibitive except to a very few giant pharmaceutical houses, and even they can market but a fraction of the drugs they develop.) Surely there must be a "middle ground" between safe and dangerous. Take penicillin as an example. Penicillin would probably never pass today s laws because it is dangerous to a few, yet it has saved countless millions and opened the door to a wonderful new era in medicine. Aspirin, too, might not pass the present FDA tests for safety.

GH3 is fortunate in that it has already passed the animal and human safety tests (which are formidable hurdles) partly by virtue of novocaine's seventy-year history of use on millions of persons. All that remains is proof of efficacy and specific performance, in the United States under FDA supervision. Proof of efficacy we consider has now been established, as we shall see later.

At any rate Dr. Sapse, who had been told about the tough attitude the FDA takes toward new proposals--particularly coming from relatively unknown sources--related to me how he came out of the meeting "sailing in the clouds" because, while the FDA was objective, the representatives displayed a sincere and helpful interest in GH3. We must give the FDA credit (or at least their scientists dealing with Sapse) for reconizing the need for a drug that would be of benefit to man, and instead of throwing roadblocks in the way, which they could have done easily, helping him form the experimental design of the forthcoming research.

Back in Los Angeles, the teammates, Sapse and Mosk pondered over who should direct the overall Gerovital H3 program.

Now let's go back a few months. Sapse is in the office of William 0. Clark, Ph.D., director of Psychopharmacological Research Laboratories, Veterans Administration Hospital, Sepulveda, California, who has just published a book, Principles of Psychopharmacology, edited in collaboration with Drs. Keith S. Ditman and J. del Giudice, a monumental collection of articles by the most eminent U.S. scientists who have studied the drugs of the mind.

When asked by Sapse who were the outstanding men in geriatric research, Dr. Clark opened the book at the chapter "Psychopharmacology of Geriatrics," an article written by two doctors. One of them was Nathan S. Kline, M.D.

Dr. Clark observed, "Kline is one of the best, if not the best. Incidentally, he talks about procaine as being a possible monoamine inhibitor!" ‘Dr. Clark continued, "I would also like to recommend two of my best associates, Sidney Cohen, M.D., professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and Keith S. Ditman, M.D., director of the Vista Hill Foundation."

Sapse thanked him for his time and advice, and left. Dr. Clark continued to oversee the efforts of Dr. Sapse. His advice would be of immeasurable help in the months to come.

Back at UCLA, Sapse plunged into the study of Dr. Nathan S. Kline, the man and his work. The first book to read was The Hundred Most Influential People in the World Today, by Donald Robinson (New York: Putnam, 1970). Dr. Kline was the first scientist to receive two Albert Lasker awards, among a multiplicity of other honors. He was the first doctor to introduce tranquilizers to the Western world; the first to experiment with Rauwolfla serpentina, an old "snakeroot" remedy from India for relieving tension and high blood pressure. Used successfully in the East for at least two thousand years, it had been ignored by Western medicine as being in the realm of folklore and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. Shades of foxglove (digitalis), cinchona bark (quinine), buttercups (colchicine), and recently, acupuncture--—all of them were unworthy of consideration by Western science until successful treatments finally forced their recognition.

Dr. Kline, being a man of vast erudition and a freethinking rebel as well, in spite of his orthodox medical schooling (there are still a few around), was impressed with what he saw and read about the Indian drug. He decided to test it on hundreds of patients at Rockwell State Hospital (New York), where he was research director. He was warned by his friends and by medical authorities that by even testing this "snakeroot" substance he stood in grave danger of losing his job and with it his career. "Why in hell should you test this damn stuff? You know it doesn't work. It's just witch-doctor mumbo-jumbo," was the essence of his friend's warnings.

But Nathan Kline, being composed of stubborn genes and with his DNA-RNA delivering correct messages to his brain cells—and with perhaps a trace of extrasensory perception (intuition)—all of which seems to blend with genius—decided to carry through with the experiment. In simpler Words, he was saying: "It's worth a try. And what is science for—except trying to find the facts?"

The experiment was a success. Disturbed people in hospitals were calmed and achieved varying degrees of what society calls reality. They could now be talked to and further treated, and more important, a large proportion could be released.

The rest is history. Heretofore there had been no hope or help for the mentally ill, who occupied at least half the hospital beds in the country. Now, with rauwolfia (and the subsequent improvements in drugs that followed), the hospitals were rapidly emptied of the mentally ill, who now could be reached. Not all, but it was a major breakthrough, and it saved untold millions of persons from a lifetime doomed to insanity.

No wonder Kline was now honored and respected. He had won his gamble with destiny. He went on to more achievements, more experiments, but none have yet eclipsed his great triumph over mental illness.

Sapse telephoned Kline and asked to see him about GH3. "But why do you want to see me about this?" Kline asked. Sapse: "I would like you to be scientific director of GH3 research." Kline: ‘I'm very busy in many projects; why should I get involved in this?" Sapse: "Because the FDA has given us the approval for the experiment, primarily based on the fact that (GH3 is a safe MAO-inhibitor, beyond any doubt now." Kline: "In that case, come immediately. A safe MAO-inhibitor is what we need now desperately."

And thus Nathan Kline became scientific director of Rom-Amer and organized the testing of the drug. The event was widely noted in the various media. Kline was cited by Mike Wallace on CBS's 60 Minutes and in Newsweek and Time—as well as by this writer as getting the toughest, best researchers available for the testings.

He did get them. He got, for example, William W. K. Zung at Duke University, one of the most prestigious researcher-psychiatrists in the world, the developer of the universally used Zung test for depression.

Kline set up Phases I and II of the experiment. Dr. Sidney Cohen, former director of the Division of Narcotic Addiction and Drug Abuse of the National Institute of Mental Health and a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, would direct and institute the double-blind studies. Along with his associate, Dr. Keith S. Ditman, psychiatrist in private practice in Beverly Hills, California, and medical director and vice-president of the Vista Hill Foundation in San Diego, they would institute a part of Phase I. I interviewed many of their patients, which will be reported later.

We have only given the laboratory work a cursory mention, but the whole experiment was geared for "over proof," not to be confused with overkill in the military sense. In medicine or science, it is best to have every possible kind of evidence. The FDA did not demand animal evidence for GH3, but it was provided anyway by the most brilliant researchers at several great universities. And out of that research came forth clues and evidence which are so fantastic, yet conclusive, that without absolute proof no one would believe them.

For example, sickle-cell anemia. Who would have thought that GH3 would be demonstrated as having a potential in the treatment of that dread disease and other blood diseases? Yet it did, as we shall see later.

(See Appendix 11.)

Having set up the scientific design for the project, Dr. Kline has stepped aside from the project, waiting for the final results to come in. We will examine the evidence in the next chapters.

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Chapter 9 - A Definitive Positive Study

Critics of Dr. Ana Aslan's work frequently make the assertion that her cla