Hey all --

I was on the 7:30 a.m. Continental flight from Newark to Boston this morning, and while flipping through the in-house magazine came across a full-page ad.

The headline on said ad? "Choose Life - Grow Young With HGH."

The rest of the ad, styled like a legitimate article, went on to describe why people should take human growth hormone -- "Like a picked flower cut from the source, we gradually wilt physically and mentally and become vulnerable to a host of degenerative diseases, that we simply weren't susceptible to in our early adult years."

"Only the lucky and rich" have previously been able to take HGH, the ad says, because it costs $20,000 a year. According to the ad, even beloved astronaut John Glenn takes HGH.

It goes on to tout something called GHR -- we're guessing it's growth hormone replacement, but we've scoured this dang thing and see nothing specified -- and says it is a "natural releaser, has no known side effects, unlike the synthetic version, and has no known drug interactions. Progressive doctors admit that this is the direction medicine is seeking to go, to get the body to heal itself instead of employing drugs. GHR is truly a revolutionary paradigm shift in medicine."

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with all of this. HGH has been pushed to the forefront (for me, anyway) since the Rodney Harrison situation came to light and when I saw this ad in the magazine, all I could do was chuckle. The NFL wants to banish HGH and the rest of the world wants to embrace it since it seems to be the one thing everyone's been looking for: the fountain of youth.

shalise