The filmmaker, like so many of his peers, received his H.G.H. straight from one of the top H-men in town. That would be Dr. Uzzi Reiss, an Israeli-born practitioner of gynecology and anti-aging medicine. Reiss, although affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, spends most of his time running his private practice: the Beverly Hills Anti-aging Center for Men and Women & Advanced Nutrition and Hormone-Based Gynecology.
That Reiss is not an endocrinologist is sort of the point. Too many of those guys, Reiss thinks, are behind the curve on the benefits of H.G.H.—a subject he has written about extensively, most recently in his book The Natural Superwoman. The man has been on Oprah. “The same doctors who criticize the uses of H.G.H. for anti-aging reasons take young, short children—the most vulnerable population—and give them much larger doses and claim it is safe,” Reiss says. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The other top H.G.H. guy in town is Dr. Andre Berger, a Canadian-born physician expert in the field of non-surgical cosmetic medicine. He, like Reiss, has authored an H.G.H.-centric book (The Beverly Hills Anti-aging Prescription), works the TV circuit, markets his own line of health-care products, and runs a practice whose name (Rejuvalife Vitality Institute) sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick story. Berger is a practitioner of “anti-aging medicine,” rather than “longevity medicine”—the designation preferred by certain other H.G.H.-friendly doctors. “If you’re thinking about this as extending life, we can’t do that,” Berger says. “Anti-aging medicine is about making people as vital, functional, happy, and active as they can be. It’s about maximizing their potential.
“It’s quite clear what the indications are for treatment,” he adds. “We treat a deficiency disease.” Then comes the million-dollar question: “So what is the definition of a deficiency?”
