It's a safe bet that you've seen the widely disseminated advertisement for Cenegenics, an anti-aging medical protocol with practices nationwide, including one in the Nashville area.

 

In the ad, a 67-year-old physician named Jeffry Life poses bare-chested, wearing just a pair of jeans. He's in extraordinary shape for a man his age – heck, for a man of just about any age. Whether or not a hot body on a balding senior citizen is your cup of tea, one thing's for sure: the ad is drawing patients to Cenegenics, founded a dozen years ago by a physician. In fact, the company says about 25 percent of its patients are physicians.

 

Brentwood psychiatrist Julia S. Binford, MD, is one of them. Board-certified, with a bachelor's in chemistry and a master's in biochemical nutrition, Binford received her medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She completed her residency in psychiatry at Indiana University Medical Center in 1996, where she received the William P. Fisher, MD, Award for excellence in clinical and academic performance. Unlike most Cenegenics patients, Binford was only in her 40's when she turned to Cenegenics in a desperate attempt to rally her flagging health. At the encouragement of her heart-surgeon husband, she flew to the company's main office in Las Vegas and signed up for the plan. With her health much improved, Binford then launched a Cenegenics affiliate practice in January 2008 in Brentwood.

 

Binford described Cenegenics as "proactive healthcare. We're not replacing primary care – we're an extra tool along with it." The idea behind the protocol is a healthy lifestyle boosted by nutritional supplements if needed and hormone replacement, also only if needed. It's the hormone replacement, particularly the prescribing of human-growth hormone if a patient's levels are below the normal range for his or her age, that has drawn detractors. Their criticism is easy to find on the Internet, yet Medical News' attempt to find a Nashville-area doctor who would take umbrage with the concierge-style program was unsuccessful.

 

Binford acknowledged that the hormone-replacement piece of the anti-aging strategy is "what everybody kind of gets excited about," yet she stressed it's just one part of a four-part program:

Cenegenics "has had the input of physicians in different specialties. It pulls from medical literature, not only in the areas of hormones, but also cardiology, urology, all of your traditional areas, plus from preventative literature and from sports medicine. It pulls a lot of that together," Binford said.

 

When potential patients first show up at her office, taking a medical history, reviewing symptoms and identifying chronic disease is the first step. "Most common in our society now are going to be metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cholesterol, abdominal obesity and hypertension," Binford said. Age-related symptoms have to do with energy, mood, sleep quality, body composition, aches and pains, and sexual function, she added. If the patient's symptoms appear to be age-related, then the Cenegenics program is recommended.

 

Patients who sign up first receive a visit from a phlebotomist at their home or office. What follows is the core of the program – a seven-hour evaluation and education session. "Because we're looking at any age-related changes in the body that we can affect and have control over, we start with the brain," Binford said. Patients do a Web-based, neurocognitive test that takes about 40 minutes and evaluates different areas of mental processing, attention and memory. Next is a bone-density scan for both women and men and a body composition scan that measures lean and fat weight and the body fat percentage.

 

"One of the goals of age-management medicine is to hang onto muscle and not have the expanding waistline. When people lose weight, we want to make sure that they're not losing muscle along with fat," Binford said.

 

Next, an exercise and nutrition consultant conducts other body analyses – flexibility, balance, strength, muscle endurance – along with checking vitals like heart and lung function and blood pressure. The rest of the day is spent in consultations with Binford or the exercise/nutrition consultant, who is a physical therapist with a master's in nutrition. Recommendations are made for an exercise regimen tailored to each patient, and nutritional guidelines are outlined that generally adhere to a Mediterranean-style, heart-healthy diet that emphasizes lower-glycemic eating, complex carbohydrates, minimal processed foods and healthy fats such as Omega 3s, olive oil and nut oils.

 

"We also go through how fats can influence inflammation in the body. Many of the disease processes of aging have to do with inflammation at the root," Binford said. Based on blood-work results, Binford may prescribe medications and/or over-the-counter supplements. "It's a blend of alternative and traditional medicine," she explained. "It might be as simple as a high-quality fish oil with Omega 3s if you have high triglycerides or heart disease. Or it could be more complex, like getting in yogurt cultures for irritable bowel."

 

As for the hormone piece of the puzzle, Cenegenics looks at a wide variety of endocrine measures: thyroid, cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone (for women), DHEA, human-growth hormone and more. "Our goal always is to be within the normal range, but to be in the optimal part of that normal range for your age," Binford said. And hGH usually isn't prescribed until Binford determines whether the level can be increased naturally with healthy eating and vigorous exercise, she stressed.

 

Cenegenics isn't cheap, and it's not covered by health insurance, albeit the cost can be lower if some of the patient's blood work is handled by his or her general practitioner. Also, some patients already have appropriate prescriptions from their internist to combat some problems. The Cenegenics cost for the all-day examination is $2,995, and about a third of that cost is to pay for the extensive lab work.

 

At the end of the day, the patient receives a notebook with lab results, educational materials, and recommendations for diet, exercise and over-the-counter supplements. Some patients decide to take it from there on their own, and may turn to their regular physician for follow-up. Binford stressed that if prescriptions are recommended, including hormone prescriptions, she won't write those unless the patient continues with the Cenegenics program.

 

Patients who continue with Cenegenics pay a quarterly "professional fee" of up to $750, which assures blanket access to Binford and other health professionals in the practice. "You can utilize us as much as you want. I do have patients who come in every week, and then I have patients who travel or live outside Nashville, and they prefer to handle follow-up by phone, fax and e-mails. Since the phlebotomist comes to you, it makes that kind of follow-up possible," Binford said. Follow-up blood work is more frequent earlier in the program, and tapers off as the patient stabilizes.

 

After the initial day-long visit, lab work costs aren't included in the fee. If patients buy all their supplements and prescriptions from the Cenegenics pharmacy, Binford said the monthly cost (factoring in the quarterly fee) averages about $800 monthly.