Received the following marketing email from Amazon, copy below.
Appears “Amazon Clinic” is offering “anti-aging”
The game is changing BIG TIME as the 1000lb gorilla* is now playing the game!
Copy from email received;
“Say hello to Amazon Clinic: Virtual healthcare that fits into your life. When common health problems pop up, we’ll help you handle them without travel, appointments, or insurance.”
Choose a concern (like COVID-19, erectile dysfunction, or anti-aging ) and we’ll connect you with an online doctor or nurse practitioner who can assess your condition, prescribe necessary medications, or renew a prescription within hours. Plus, you’ll know the price of a visit upfront—no bills later."
Yes, I know, “800-pound gorilla is an American English expression for a person or organization so powerful that it can act without regard to the rights of others or the law”
I’d think it quite remarkable if they were to have board certified anti-aging, functional medicine, or integrative medicine physicians. To my knowledge, those would really be the only 3 specialties that spend a lot of time (or actually any time) on the topic of aging as a condition to slow or even try to reverse.
The rest of medicine is focused on treating disease, and some preventive medicine - but not with the understanding of aging as a specific condition that leads to every bad health outcome.
Anyway, most such services have been low value, high volume, often practicing low quality consumer driven care (e.g. antibiotic for your cold because you want it, Paxlovid for your covid - not because you are high risk - but because you want it, etc). It would be great if they do better with this.
Indeed it is the 1000 lb gorilla!
Well not exactly. Since the 1990’s there has been an increasingly rigorous board certification and specialty of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. It is one of the largest medical conferences now, with the 2024 session being 5000+ attendees and over 400 exhibitors. A4M Longevity Fest 2024
This is what I do in my practice as someone who is board certified by the American Academy of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. A required, and critical component to be eligible for this, is that you are an experienced physician with another ABMS specialty.
So not skin care, and instead a focus on aging as a process to be focused on, and applying best current science to attack this. This is what I do, and it is what I’m a specialist in.
So … yes, I know a little about skin care … am a big fan of Carnac the Magnificent … I also really appreciate colleagues in Functional and Integrative Medicine - also Lifestyle Medicine who have a similar wholistic view of how to extend lifespan and healthspan, that doesn’t primarily take the approach of treating a disease once it presents.
You are quite correct on what I expect with Amazon. However, putting yourself out there to provide care in a very specific specialty, without the likelihood of actually providing specialists capable of fulfilling the advertised care will be interesting. I’d love to call up and request a script for metfomin, acarbose, rapamycin and dasitinib, indicating that I simply want to live a bit longer, but have no health conditions.
I did that using Push Health and was assigned a Medical Doctor who ask a few questions. I supplied several published paper(Blagosklonny papers) and received a prescription for rapamycin. Paid $65.00 and 20 minutes of my time. Have used the same physician 4 times for rapamycin prescriptions.
Prescriptions where off label with no diagnostic codes.
I’d say that is an atypical and lucky situation to get that. Along with that, what level of expertise does that physician have in management of this? You’d essentially be getting nothing more than you’d get by buying it off shore. You had to inform the Physician - who amazingly, was willing to listen to you!
I think the biggest issue in regard to Joseph’s question of “allowing people to make their own choices” are the things people don’t know that they don’t know, and don’t have a systematic education in medicine. I’ve seen self treatment go badly, often with delayed presentations both due to over confidence, or simply continuing to try to sort things out themselves, without really understanding what is happening.
For those who are making their own way, which is certainly feasible, there are risks of not knowing the things you don’t even know exist. Nor would you have a reason to know, as you aren’t a physician.
There is a lot to this, and I appreciate the self taught nature to this group, as this is a group of brilliant individuals who are seriously investigating how to live better and longer. A systematic education is required to contextualize so much of what is presented in medical literature, and clinical experience to understand what is highly relevant, and what is likely an unimportant issue comes with this. This creates an unknown risk to individuals who are self managing.
The situation isn’t too satisfying, as routine medical care by traditionally trained physicians won’t get most individuals much of the care that is being self administering here.
Conventional “traditionally trained physicians”( especially in a Western Medicine System) are just followers at least 25 years or more behind “Real” currently published science.
Ignaz Semmelweis the classical example.
For those who do not know the Semmelweis story.
“Truth Passes Through Three Stages: First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Self-Evident”