Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1477

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Sex, Drugs And Middle Age
CBC-TV 2003 Nov 10

Full text:

In North America, every seven seconds, someone turns 50. But the aging baby boomers are not going down without a fight. Prolonging youth and sexuality has become a cultural obsession. SEX, DRUGS AND MIDDLE AGE, a two-hour documentary, journeys through the maze of menopause for both sexes.

The quest for the sexual fountain of youth has unleashed a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical race. There’s Viagra for men, new drugs to help women achieve the ultimate orgasm, plus all kinds of hormonal cocktails to preserve the aging body and mind.

The search for a chemical fountain of youth started in the 1960s when estrogen replacement therapy at menopause was sold as the ‘youth pill’.the drug that preserved femininity and sexuality for a lifetime.

It’s been mired in controversy and promise ever since.

Today men are clamouring to have their own menopause recognized.

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is being billed as the new anti-aging hormone for men. But do these drugs work? Are they safe? And has the treatment of menopause for both sexes become an industry? Sex, Drug and Middle Age explores the cultural reasons why our anxieties about aging are at an all-time high.

From London to Vienna to New York, from on-the-edge clinics to the slick marketing campaigns of the drug companies, Sex, Drugs and Middle Age is a story of risks, profits and promises – a documentary journey into the fight against aging.

Sex, Drugs and Middle Age is produced by CBC-TV’s Documentary Program Unit. Executive producer is Mark Starowicz. Senior producer is Susan Dando.