Readers of this blogspace undoubtedly are aware that we have consistently castigated televised advertisements for the sale of medicine to the general public, as irresponsibly ignoring the individually nuanced possibility of adverse effects. For this reason, we have suggested their curtailment, similar to that of cigarette ads. We have also recommended, especially to our sisters, the salubrious practice of accepting the immutable process of maturity and its changing contextual perception of personal appearance as wiser and more rewarding than the ultimate futility of dependence upon advertised cosmetic products.
With analogous reference to the individual’s nuanced, natural age-related cognitive decline, we are obliged to perceive the televised offers of relevant amelioration, empirically questionable and perhaps misleading. No scientific or empirical basis is offered for the empirical efficacy of the proffered items’ highly vaunted cognitive and memory benefits, save the scripted assertions of physically attractive, mature actors, reciting the scripted roles of purportedly satisfied users. We have sought the advice of several medical professionals who have uniformly advised us that the publicly alleged benefits of such products are entirely unproven.
Experience has taught us that acquisitions of facile, commercially bruited “quick fixes” or alterations of naturally occurring aging phenomena are, at best, illusory and fertile grounds for sophomoric self-deception and, accordingly, ripe opportunities for commercial profitability.
Concerning the subject of aging memory and cognition, the aspiration for prevention or amelioration is not satisfied in the practice of taking pills in one’s senior years, but rather seen in the individual’s earlier habitual lifestyle of contemplative pursuit of knowledge, mature perception, and empirically based understanding. A healthy lifetime of contemplative use of one’s mind is the best assurance of acceptable cognitive health in later years, as opposed to not purported, miracle-working retail products hawked on television to gullible audiences.
By instructive analogy, an individual who has unwisely chosen to live a sedentary life cannot, in later life, acquires desired physical prowess and an attractive musculature by retail purchase, albeit the possible accuracy of the commercially televised declarations of efficacy. In the context of the theme of the present writing, we find utilitarian value in the populist phrase: “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
-p.
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