Antiaging doctors and antiaging doctors are selling peptide therapy as a frontline tool to be used with patients seeking to fight the effects of aging. There is no shortage of websites, blogs, and videos, touting the benefits of peptide therapy as a cure all for health concerns from memory loss to erectile dysfunction. 

However, unlike oncology or anesthesiology, “antiaging” is not recognized as a medical specialty. Neither the American Board of Medical Specialties nor the American Board of Physician Specialties, both organizations who board certify medical doctors in their specific are of practice, does not recognize antiaging as a medical specialty. This is because “aging” is not recognized as a disease. 

Because antiaging, a term invented in the 1980s, is not recognized as a medical field, there is no accepted criteria for certification. There is no antiaging body of literature that has been vetted by a certifying board and incorporated into an accepted curriculum. This lack of standards created an industry with no consensus between legitimate experts, and which opens the door to unsupported treatments and fringe pharmaceuticals are popularized. It also warrants mention that while “peptide therapy” includes primarily substances with minimal scientific support, none of that support has been conducted in an elderly population. 

So-called “peptide therapy” is not a well-defined course of medication as one would see in something like cancer treatment. The peptide use promoted by antiaging doctors, has never been subjected to the type of clinical trials required in the FDA approval process. Very few of these suggested “peptide therapy” combinations have ever been credibly researched by those prescribing or providing the drugs. Hence, there are no clinically accepted protocols, especially in aging populations, who are at increased risk from diseases like cancer, which may be aggravated by the use of many peptides, and from potential interference with other life-sustaining and life-saving therapies. This is increased by the lack of safety studies into the use peptides combined in therapeutic doses. 

Given the lack of safety data, established protocols, oversight of antiaging medicine, as well as ongoing safety concerns, aging Americans should avoid the peptide therapies suggested by these practitioners.