Talk:Gerovital

Untitled
This article was listed on votes for deletion; see Votes for deletion/Gerovital. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 05:36, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

For a December 2004 deletion debate over this page see Votes for deletion/Gerovital

This page reads like a pamphlet from Aslan herself. It should be rewritten in an objective tone.

Random notes to myself and others

 * The obituary of Ana Aslan, Rumanian Specialist On the Aging Process, Dies in 90's By GLENN FOWLER New York Times (1857-Current file); May 29, 1988; pg. 28: "[In Rumania] in 1994 the government-sponsored Parhon Institute of Geriatrics was established in Bucharest, and Dr. Aslan soon became it dominant figure. The institute developed in to a magnet for wealthy and prominent people... Among the famous people who took her treatments were&mdash;or were widely reported to have done so&mdash;were Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Nikita S. Khrushchev, Indira Gandhi, Marshal Tito, and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany, as well as the actresses Lillian Gish and Marlene Dietrich. The vast majority of scientists outside Rumania dismissed Gerovital as another false fountain of youth. The medical establishment in Britain and the United States, including the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Assocation, found it had no merit, and the Food and Drug Association refused to sanction it." I think what we have here is a formerly notable quack medicine whose reputation mostly did not survive that of its promoter, but which still being manufactured and sold. More if I find more. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:04, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC) Nope, it's not a former quack medicine, more's the pity. I've seen a slew of 1980s references to the FDA's not allowing it in interstate commerce and cracking down on people trying to sell it, but can't figure out whether that's still true or whether the "nutritional supplements" loophole opened the floodgates. Any further notes I make will go in Talk:Gerovital. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:04, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Obit also says "a few scientists, including the noted endocrinologist Albert C. Simard of the Pasteur Institute in France, hailed Gerovital as a wonder drug." Holding off on mentioning this in the article until I can find out a bit more about Simard.
 * http://www.realgerovital.com/alert.htm claims to sell "real" Gerovital H3 and warns that "The American market is flooded with fake GH3®."
 * http://www.zalmo.com/fake.html states that it has real Romanian Gerovital H3 and warns "Please avoid the low quality and high prices of the US and UK illegal copies" with tips http://www.zalmo.com/fake.html for spotting fakes.
 * http://www.aslavitalpill.com/ claims to have " the ONLY ORIGINAL FORMULA BEING IMPORTED TO USA."
 * http://www.realgh3.com/number1.html cautions "Beware of the many phony GH3's; they are out there. TMI supplies such a C of A with every new order, or upon request. That's why our website is called "RealGH3.com", we are the only company willing and able to supply documented proof of our GH3's authenticity."

Tourist attraction: http://www.romaniatourism.com/blacksea.html:
 * The Black Sea coast has long been known for cures of arthritic, rheumatic, internal and nervous disorders. Eforie Nord and Mangalia Spas specialize in mud baths (the mud is taken from the area's salty lake waters) as well as in world famous "Gerovital" and "Aslavital" original rejuvenation treatments.

"Aslan" and the C. S. Lewis books
I have to wonder... C. S. Lewis's first Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was published in 1950. In these books, Aslan is a magical lion who is also a Christ-like or God-like figure. It's an interesting name, and it is surprisng to me to suddenly encounter it in a completely different context. Ana Aslan was apparently just starting to become well known in 1950... I wonder if Aslan is a common Romanian surname? I wonder if Lewis was aware of it as a Romanian surname and liked the sound of it, or what? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 02:40, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It does not seem to be a terribly common Romanian surname. Google search on Romanian-language results only for "aslan" gives 802 hits, "aslan -ana" 509 hits so over a third of all the Aslans known to Google are Ana Aslan...


 * It's of Cuman origin, if anyone cares... bogdan 17:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct name of the substance always seems to have the H3
...seems to always be given as Gerovital H3. It is not just "Gerovital." There does not seem to be a hyphen between the H and the 3. I have seen some instances where the 3 was superscripted, Gerovital H3. If the article survives VfD I will leave it under Gerovital because that's shorter and easier to look up, but intend to add a redirect from Gerovital H3 and possibly GH3 and G-H3 which seem to be common abbreviations. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:45, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Safety
Procaine dosages suggested by Gerovital suppliers are low compared to those used for anesthesia. The "package insert" link in the article shows that one preparation contains 100 mg. of procaine per individual dose. Dosages of over 500 mg are commonly used in local anesthesia. One figure for the "minimum anesthetic dose associated with adverse reactions" 19.2 mg of procaine per kg of body weight, or over 1300 mg for an a person weighting 70 kg (154 lb). This shouldn't go into the article though because I'm not sure of my ground and this is really too close to expressing a medical opinion.

http://www.btinternet.com/~teppic2000/KurtCobainCase/DMDPT8.htm says procaine is a common adulterant in street heroin and strongly implies that it may have played a factor in Kurt Cobain's death. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 03:03, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The url http://www.btinternet.com/~teppic2000/KurtCobainCase/DMDPT8.htm cited  as the basis for the above entry by Dpbsmith does not "strongly imply" - or imply at all - that procaine "may have played a factor in Kurt Cobain's death.  Section 3 on the referenced url page mentions procaine is sometimes used as a filler in heroin, but does not give an opinion as to whether the heroin used by Kurt Cobain contained procaine. It does say, however, that combining benzodiazepines (diazepam) and heroin are common partners in death because "both drugs cause respiratory depression" and increase the likelihood of respiratory failure.


 * This isn't an article. This is the talk page for the article. There's no reason to delete my comments above, which have not been used as material in the article. I was searching for well-sourced material that would show whether or not the dosages of procaine in Gerovital products represent a safety issue. The specific wording I saw in the article on Cobain's death is "Still, the importance of procaine's potential toxicity is emphasized by Nakamura..." Dpbsmith (talk) 02:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Still illegal as of 2004
I'm still researching this, but this Gerovital advocacy article, http://www.medical-library.net/sites/framer.html?/sites/_gerovital_(gh3).html, stays that it is still banned by the FDA, and as nearly as I can tell all websites offering to supply it are located overseas, so I'm reasonably sure it is still illegal to sell it in interstate commerce in the United States. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 17:30, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yep, the FDA confirmed this in an email to me. It's Illegal to import and under an "automatic detention alert." http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia6101.html

Presentation
How is it administered? From the prohibition list, I understand that it can be taken orally, injected and as a cream, isn't it? What did Aslan use? --84.20.17.84 13:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC) It is a cream. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.228.152.6 (talk) 18:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Citations needed
The paragraphs in the first section beginning "As with many scientific discoveries," "Ana Aslan, MD was a Doctor of the National Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics,"  "This notion launched her," and "Claims coming out of the Institute's clinics" all need sources. All that's needed is to say where they came from. Very likely they are from some book or magazine article about Aslan or Gerovital. All I'm asking for good citation(s) of the book or article--title, year of publication, publisher, magazine if not a book, page numbers, etc. It's just a question of where the information came from. If it's a book by Aslan, that would be a very good source.Dpbsmith (talk) 02:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

A few fixes
It was necessary to alter some sentences to insure neutrality. These particular sentences had no citations and were apparently the product of the imagination of someone who really, really hates Gerovital. Medicine is amazingly political and I've been fascinated how slanted some articles on science, particularly medicine, can be here on Wikipedia. Gingermint (talk) 23:46, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

POV sentence
The sentence He adds, "don't bother with a conventional doctor [who] will have the usual American medical establishment brain wash attitude." seems to give a POV weighted against medicine and towards Supplementary, Complementary, and Alternative Medicines. I'd delete it but I bring it here first. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 16:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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article is not neutral
The article is clearly one sided, it could be because the company is not chipping in. Just sources that denounce it are mentioned, and misleading quotations are used, like in that 1973 article the quote was taken out of context:

http://www.nytimes.com/1973/03/18/archives/disputed-drug-is-restudied-for-use-in-geriatrics-reports-a-decade-a.html

The article clearly states that scienVats tried something else with little effects, while the wikipedia article says the article mentions 3 clinical trials, which were mentioned but they were taken 10 years before, not related to the "cold" water statement. In the article the defender's of the drugs views are also mentioned, still the editor managed to collect just the negative review.

Only failed clinical trials are mentioned.

Also, saying that it is promoted using false claims, that would be illegal, still it is sold all over Europe. Talking about false claims, we have many other anti-aging creams that are promoted in the same way, just with different main ingredients such as Retinol or Coenzime Q10.

The FDA has banned many other drugs that are used in the EU and other parts of the world, so if the FDA has banned it it does not mean that is automatically something dangerous.

Some of the sources are from the communist period, when the propaganda was writing one sided articles in order to denounce on purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.103.128.131 (talk) 04:44, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

In the Effectiveness section, only one source is mentioned, a source that denounces the drug 3 times on the page:

Perls T (June 2013). "The reappearance of procaine hydrochloride (Gerovital H3) for antiaging". J Am Geriatr Soc. 61 (6): 1024–5. doi:10.1111/jgs.12278. . Jump up ^

Perls T seems to be the only authority on this, even if many other sources that claim different views can be found online.

Other 3 from 8 sources are using FDA arguments to denounce the drug, so the same authority is present as 3 different sources, basically the FDA Ban Section, and the Quaility Control section are based on the same authority. The same authority is used in Denouncement.

Jed Disbennett (March 1994). "Unproven Medical Treatments Lure Elderly". FDA Consumer Magazine. Archived from the original on 2004-12-11. Jump up ^ "FDA Quotes". Tierra Mega-Nutrients. Archived from the original on 2006-06-20. Retrieved 2006-11-28. Jump up ^ "Automatic Detention [for Gerovital] (IA#61-01)". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Archived from the original on 2006-09-30. Retrieved 2006-11-28.
 * The article satisfies WP:NPOV. If there are reliable sources we are not using, please propose them. Note sources for treatment efficacy must be WP:MEDRS. The changes you made were not neutral. Alexbrn (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Non-Neutral
The above criticism, a year and a half old, is largely accurate. This article manages to be too negative about a quack product, and that is difficult. This article needs a little toning down. We don't need to be quite as hard in the voice of Wikipedia. There must be plenty of anti-quack newsletters to quote from. Robert McClenon (talk) 08:49, 12 December 2018 (UTC)