RealAge, a Web site that promises to help shave years off your age, has become one of the most popular tests on the Internet. More than 27 million people have taken the site’s test, which asks 150 or so questions about lifestyle and family history to assign a “biological age,” how young or old your habits make you.
Then, RealAge makes recommendations on how to get “younger,” like taking multivitamins, eating breakfast and flossing your teeth. But while RealAge promotes better living through nonmedical solutions, the site makes its money by selling better living through drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. The drug companies can even use RealAge answers to find people who show symptoms of a disease — and begin sending them messages about it even before the people have received a diagnosis from their doctors.
[Source]
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Chapter: Health ::
20 July 2009
