Doctor Eternity

But patients like Robin and Lani, a husband-and-wife team of nurses who run a home-care business for medically fragile children out of their Monument home, aren't worried about that. In 1993, when he was a 43-year-old instructor at the Air Force Academy, Robin had two cardiac episodes that may have been heart attacks. Between that and his declining physical well-being, he figured he'd surely be a goner by 75. His wife also seemed to be losing the battle with her body: Hormone imbalances had caused her to gain a troubling amount of weight.

That changed in 2004, when Robin noticed Grossman's first book in the 25-cent bin at a Goodwill Store and the two decided to undergo two-day evaluations at Grossman's clinic. The tests determined that Lani's pituitary glands weren't producing enough of the hormone cortisol, which was causing the weight gain, so Grossman recommended a natural cortisol supplement and diet tweaks. Robin's diagnosis was more exciting: The clinic had discovered that he had severely elevated levels of lipoprotein(a), a largely overlooked but toxic form of cholesterol associated with coronary heart disease and stroke. Grossman said he could bring Robin's lipoprotein(a) levels down with supplements, and recommended lifestyle changes to slow his aging.

Now, Robin says, he has considerably less gray in his hair, more stamina, and doesn't expect more heart problems anytime soon. Lani has lost seventy pounds.

"We are very optimistic that if things work out well, we could live to our nineties, or one hundreds, maybe even beyond that," Robin says.

The two apparently aren't the only ones happy with Grossman's treatment. The Denver Better Business Bureau has never received a complaint about the operation. The clinic's only apparent blemish is a 2005 letter of admonition Grossman received from Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners, of which he is a member, for allowing a naturopathic physician employed at his office to provide medical services without proper supervision. Such a letter is the board's lowest form of discipline, says program director Cheryl Hara; in fiscal year 2005, the board issued 27 letters of admonition among the roughly 14,000 physicians and physician assistants it licensed. "It's not serious, but I took it seriously," says Grossman, who no longer employs naturopaths. "I am not looking to be controversial. I am looking to do the best for my patients."

He acknowledges that his treatments are expensive. But he insists that he made more money as a small-town mountain doctor than he does now. Considering the amount of high-end tests and medical personnel involved in his longevity evaluations, "it's actually cheap," he says, and if the program is out of reach, people can get the same information from Fantastic Voyage. And soon, Grossman promises, the secrets behind the singularity will be even easier to access. He's building an online clinic where most of the information will be free. He and Kurzweil are also putting the finishing touches on their follow-up book, Your Fantastic Voyage to Staying Young...Forever, due out in March 2009, which they say will be a more user-friendly version of their ideas (more pictures, less footnotes).

Finally, if people still have qualms about his practice, Grossman lets them know about his success rate: Of the 500 or so people, ages 22 to 84, who've undergone his longevity evaluations over the past four years, "no one has kicked the bucket."

Several weeks after my longevity evaluation, Grossman calls with good news: "You're gonna live." To let me know exactly how long, he suggests I come by his office to look at the results — which he's compiled in a forty-page dossier.

That dossier, which he goes over with me page by page, is mostly positive. My blood pressure and heart rate — when I'm not getting blood siphoned out of my arm — are fine. My phase angle, which measures the health of my cell membranes, is optimal. There are no obvious precursors to cancer. I have some toxins lurking in my body, but not much more than anyone else living in the 21st century.

The biggest problem, says Grossman, is that I have elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol and too much weight around my waist. While a typical physical probably would have spotted all of this, Grossman's assessment goes one step further. He believes these issues indicate that I have metabolic syndrome, a combination of disorders that affects roughly 25 percent of the American population and increases my risk of a heart attack later in life by 300 percent. Most examinations wouldn't have caught this, he says, since metabolic syndrome often goes undiagnosed. "Other doctors have people in and out of their office all day. The economics force them to do that. But they can't help people change their life. And that's what we try to do. We try to change lives."

To change my life, he recommends a specific diet that reduces my calorie load by replacing carbs, starches and sugar with healthy proteins and veggies, along with regular high-impact exercise, which together should stave off the metabolic syndrome.

Grossman also suggests I start taking eleven supplements a day: two multivitamins, two doses of the essential fatty acid EPA/DHA to improve my cholesterol level, two Vessel Care supplements to lower my slightly elevated homocysteine levels, two supplemental DHEA capsules to increase my somewhat depleted amount of DHEA hormone, plus roughly two months' worth of twice-daily Tanalbit 1 pills to weed out the bad bugs living in my gut and twice-daily Florastor supplements to replace them with good bacteria. Since he still prescribes conventional medication, too, he also gives me a scrip for an asthma inhaler to increase my lung capacity when I exercise. If I follow all that, I should easily be happy and healthy until the singularity, says Grossman.