Gero Vita

Claims, Benefits: Prevents aging and senility, cures arthritis, heart disease, depression, diabetes, and many other ills.

Bottom Line: This is a quack product that won't prevent or cure anything. It has been around for years, is currently being aggressively marketed to older people, many of whom fall for it and waste their money.

Full Article, Wellness Letter, March 1999:

Ask the Experts

Q: Does Gero Vita really help prevent aging and senility? I got a brochure for it in the mail.

A: It won't prevent or cure anything. Gero Vita, also called GH3, has been around for years—it's one of those crazy ideas that never die. Many readers have questioned us about the new brochure. It focuses on fears of senility, and actually claims that "age spots" on the skin are the first sign of impending memory loss, which is baloney. Previous ads were even more sweeping: "Famous Romanian Anti-Aging formula will make you younger overnight." Ads also claim that Gero Vita or GH3 is a new vitamin or a drug that can cure arthritis, heart disease, depression, diabetes, and many other ills.

Gero Vita is supposedly a derivative of procaine (trade name Novocain), the local anesthetic used by dentists. The ads say that Gero Vita was created at the Geriatric Institute of Romania. There actually is such an institute in Bucharest, where starting in the 1940s Dr. Anna Aslan experimented with procaine injections as an anti-aging drug. However, no one has been able to replicate her experiments. Studies have never shown that procaine—or Gero Vita—is of any use in combatting the effects of aging.

Moreover, though the current makers of Gero Vita claim that it's a derivative of procaine in pill form, that is wrong. Actually the pill contains only one of the components that procaine breaks down into in the body: PABA (a sunscreen and also a constituent of some foods), which is excreted from the body. It also contains a synthetic mood-altering substance, as well as an amino acid and a hodgepodge of vitamins and minerals.

Gero Vita is sold as a "nutritional supplement" ($30 for a month's supply). The FDA and Postal Service have periodically pursued it, and they should renew the chase. In theory, marketers cannot make explicit health claims for such stuff, but that doesn't stop them in the current free-for-all market.

Last words: This is an excellent example of how the FDA is unable to protect us from quack products.

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, March 1999