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Is Dara Torres Believable?
Some writers and others are questioning Dara Torres' Olympic feats at the age of 41. Today I read Mark Zeigler's article in the San Deigo Union-Tribune asserting that Torres is truly unbelievable and she is likely taking growth hormone.
Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals is practically beyond belief. And yet, Zeigler does not question his accomplishments. The point is that Phelps and Torres are both very rare... bodies like theirs do not come along very often - to enable what they do - but they can, and this time they did. We may not see another Michael Phelps with the perfect body proportions and extraordinary workouts for another 100 years and along the same lines, we might not see another Dara Torres, who ages as slowly as she does, for some time to come.
I am likely one of the world's experts on growth hormone and aging, having recently testified before Congress on the subject, prior to the Roger Clemens hearing. Mark Zeigler's statement that the decline in athletic performance with age is due to growth hormone is not true and tremendously oversimplifies a very complex physiologic puzzle. Many well-conducted scientific studies also show that growth hormone replacement does very little if anything to enhance athletic performance. Also, in mice, growth hormone speeds up aging, increases risk for cancer and shortens lifespan.
So is Dara Torres' performance at her age natural (in conjunction with her extraordinary workouts)? I believe so. Just as believable as finding someone who has lived to 110 years old. And, I can tell you, as Director of the New England Supercentenarian Study (www.bumc.bu.edu/supercentenarian) that 110 yr olds exist also. In fact, we even had a 119 yr old in our study (the second oldest in the world, ever). These extraordinary people, like centenarians (age 100+) have a history of aging very slowly, markedly delaying any disability well into their 90s. For a supercentenarian, they can delay disability to say age 105+.
Centenarians are pretty rare, at about 1 per 6,000 in the population. Supercentenarians are a lot rarer, at 1 per 7,000,000, but they do exist! Dara Torres is very rare also, but to me, she is aging very slowly and doing so naturally is the natural history of centenarians and supercentenarians. OK, have I emphasized the word "natural" enough?
Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals is practically beyond belief. And yet, Zeigler does not question his accomplishments. The point is that Phelps and Torres are both very rare... bodies like theirs do not come along very often - to enable what they do - but they can, and this time they did. We may not see another Michael Phelps with the perfect body proportions and extraordinary workouts for another 100 years and along the same lines, we might not see another Dara Torres, who ages as slowly as she does, for some time to come.
I am likely one of the world's experts on growth hormone and aging, having recently testified before Congress on the subject, prior to the Roger Clemens hearing. Mark Zeigler's statement that the decline in athletic performance with age is due to growth hormone is not true and tremendously oversimplifies a very complex physiologic puzzle. Many well-conducted scientific studies also show that growth hormone replacement does very little if anything to enhance athletic performance. Also, in mice, growth hormone speeds up aging, increases risk for cancer and shortens lifespan.
So is Dara Torres' performance at her age natural (in conjunction with her extraordinary workouts)? I believe so. Just as believable as finding someone who has lived to 110 years old. And, I can tell you, as Director of the New England Supercentenarian Study (www.bumc.bu.edu/supercentenarian) that 110 yr olds exist also. In fact, we even had a 119 yr old in our study (the second oldest in the world, ever). These extraordinary people, like centenarians (age 100+) have a history of aging very slowly, markedly delaying any disability well into their 90s. For a supercentenarian, they can delay disability to say age 105+.
Centenarians are pretty rare, at about 1 per 6,000 in the population. Supercentenarians are a lot rarer, at 1 per 7,000,000, but they do exist! Dara Torres is very rare also, but to me, she is aging very slowly and doing so naturally is the natural history of centenarians and supercentenarians. OK, have I emphasized the word "natural" enough?
