Although most discoveries in medicine have helped increase the human life span, few have diminished the ravages of aging. Until the last decade or so.

During this period medicine has discovered a number of new treatments that promise to not only extend the human life span, but also to maintain that extension at a youthful, vigorous level. It is now possible to strengthen life and lengthen life.

Some of these new therapies involve the use of nutritional supplements that assist the body in countering particular physiological aspects of aging. Certain vitamins, for example, act as anti-oxidants in the body, thereby combating the oxidizing free radicals that harm body tissues.

More remarkable are the recently employed hormone replacement therapies. These involve restoring to youthful levels hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, and melatonin, all of which have produced excellent results in countering some aspects of the aging process.

But pre-eminent amongst the new therapies is that which was emphasized in the introduction: Human Growth Hormone replacement therapy. Although the existence of Human Growth Hormone, or HGH, has been known for some time, its full potential - particularly its potential in countering the aging process - has only been looked into and confirmed in the last decade.

The results of HGH replacement therapy are nothing short of astounding. Not only do HGH treatments counter the effects of aging, they are also capable of reversing many of them. Experiments have consistently borne out the favorable results mentioned in the introduction: wrinkles gone or much diminished; fat tissue diminished; muscle mass increased; performance and libido increased in men; libido increased in women. And these are just a few of the positive benefits of this therapy.

In future chapters we will explore in detail all the benefits of HGH, and other therapies as well. We will also look at avenues of current research, and the discoveries that they will likely bring in the near future. And we will explore where these discoveries will probably take us over the next decade, and what they will mean to us by way of extending the human life span still further. We will even consider what the future holds by way of attaining that impossible dream: the dream of living forever!

For now it is enough to say that the most recently discovered therapies, particularly HGH replacement, have the capacity to thwart and retard the aging process. And to reverse much of it as well.