Reviewed by Ashley Harwyn, PA-C  |  A4M Board Certified  |  Updated September 4, 2026

Anti-aging is the most oversold phrase in medicine, and functional medicine is the most loosely used. This page is going to be specific about both, because the useful version of this work is real and the sold version of it is mostly a supplement bill.

What does anti-aging medicine actually mean here?

It means preventive medicine with a longer appointment. The history takes as long as it takes, testing is chosen from that history rather than from a menu, and the plan separates what is proven from what is reasonable to try, out loud, so you know which is which.

Functional medicine describes the same care model from a different angle: looking for a cause rather than matching a symptom to a prescription. That is a way of working, not a treatment, and it does not carry its own evidence base separate from the rest of medicine. What it must never mean is skipping the screenings and treatments that do have one.

What is actually proven to slow aging?

The strongest human trial in this field is CALERIE, funded by the National Institutes of Health. More than 200 healthy middle-aged volunteers were randomized either to cut daily calories by 25 percent for two years or to eat normally. The group that cut managed an average reduction of 12.5 percent, roughly 250 calories a day, and lost about 10 percent of their body weight, mostly fat[1].

Measured against blood biomarkers, that group showed a slower pace of biological aging[1]. That is a genuine result and it is worth knowing. It is also a long way from what gets advertised: it is a modest slowing of a measured rate, achieved through sustained calorie reduction under supervision, not a reversal and not a product.

The NIA's own framing alongside that result is the part worth carrying around. Being physically active, not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, sleeping well, staying up to date on vaccines, getting the recommended cancer screenings, and treating high blood pressure and cholesterol[1]. Their scientific director's line about it is blunt: we do not need a magic pill[1].

Are the supplements worth it?

For preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer, the US Preventive Services Task Force has graded this directly, and the grades are not flattering. Beta carotene and vitamin E carry a grade D, meaning the Task Force recommends against using them for that purpose[2].

Multivitamins carry a grade I: the evidence is insufficient to weigh benefits against harms either way. So do most single or paired nutrient supplements[2]. A grade I is not a verdict that something does not work. It is a statement that nobody can currently tell you whether it does, which is a different and more honest thing than either side of the supplement argument usually admits.

None of that makes supplements pointless. Correcting a measured deficiency is a separate question with its own evidence, and it is one we answer with a test rather than a questionnaire. The practical test for any bottle on your shelf is whether you can say what it is for and how you would know it was working. If neither of us can answer that, it probably should not be on the list. See how supplement plans are built here.

Can a biological age test tell you anything useful?

Aging clocks are real science and they are genuinely interesting. DunedinPACE, developed from a long-running study of more than 1,000 people, uses patterns of DNA methylation to estimate how fast someone is aging rather than how much they have aged[1]. Researchers use it to test whether an intervention shifts that pace, which is exactly what it was built for.

What it was not built for is directing one person's care. A pace-of-aging number has no validated treatment attached to it, so a result cannot tell you what to take or what to stop. Where it may eventually matter is in timing: a clinician might reasonably start a screening a year or two earlier for someone aging faster than expected[1]. That is a plausible future use, not a current instruction.

The screenings that carry a real evidence grade

This is the part of a longevity visit that actually has recommendations behind it. Screening for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes carries a USPSTF grade B for adults aged 35 to 70 who have overweight or obesity, and the Task Force lowered that starting age from 40 to 35 in 2021[3]. A grade B means moderate net benefit, which is more than can be said for most of what gets sold under this heading.

Blood pressure, lipids and the age-appropriate cancer screenings sit in the same category. Between them they cover most of the modifiable risk an adult in their forties or fifties carries, and they are cheap. They are also the items most often skipped in favor of a larger, more interesting panel, which is the inversion this page exists to argue against. See full panel lab testing and lipid testing.

Why more testing is not automatically better care

Every test has a false positive rate, and an abnormal result on a test nobody needed generates its own follow-up, its own cost and its own anxiety. A large panel run before anyone asked what you came in for is easy to sell and hard to interpret. Fewer tests, each chosen to answer a question you actually have, is a slower sell and better medicine.

What functional medicine adds, and what it does not replace

What it adds is time and attention: a history long enough to find the thing that a fifteen-minute appointment misses, and a willingness to treat a cause rather than manage a symptom indefinitely. That is worth paying for, and it is why people seek this care out.

What it does not replace is the rest of medicine. If you have a condition with a guideline, the guideline still applies. If a screening is due, it is still due. A clinic that positions itself as an alternative to that, rather than an addition to it, has confused a care model with a belief system. See primary care and mental health support.

How this works in Mount Pleasant and Charleston

A first visit is history first, because the history decides what is worth measuring. Then targeted labs and, where it helps, body composition. Then a plan that names what is proven, what is reasonable to try, and what we are not going to do. Ashley Harwyn, PA-C sees patients in Mount Pleasant on Bramson Court and in downtown Charleston at the Longevity Club on Rutledge Avenue.

What we will not do

We will not tell you that a treatment reverses aging, because none has been shown to[1]. We will not sell a supplement protocol we cannot explain the purpose of, and we will not use a biological age result to justify one. If a plan cannot survive the question of how you would know it was working, it is not a plan.

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Ashley Harwyn, PA-C A4M Board Certified · Founder, Solcara Health Online

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About the author

Ashley Harwyn, PA-C

Founder, Solcara Health · Board Certified in Anti-Aging and Functional Medicine (A4M)

Ashley has practiced medicine for more than fifteen years. Her path into it began at home, with a family member born with a congenital heart defect and a childhood spent watching how much the quality of a clinician's attention could change the shape of a life. She has since practiced across a range of settings, including medical mission work in Uganda, before founding Solcara to build the kind of practice she kept wishing existed, one that treats women as whole people and tells them the truth about what the evidence does and does not support.

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