I was multitasking the other day, simultaneously working out on the elliptical trainer while watching the latest ‘WWII in Colour’ on The Military Channel (which really needs to be renamed ‘Hitler Comes Alive!’).

In any event, an infomercial popped on the screen that immediately caught my attention. It was advertising a new wonder pill called Ageless Male. The commercial opened with a middle aged sad sack struggling to walk up a single flight of stairs.

As the beleaguered dud huffed and puffed his way towards the fifth stair, several words popped up on the screen: ‘Do you find yourself more tired than usual?’ The scene shifted, and soon I spied the same middle-aged bumpkin in bed, but rolling away from his wife with a dejected look on his face. A second question appeared on the screen, ‘Do you no longer have a healthy sex drive?’

Over the next 30 seconds, the poor bastard failed at everything else in his world. Each time, a question would begin with 'Do you lack:
-    Energy production (I assumed that had nothing to do with oil, gas or natural energy, although it may have obliquely referred to flatulence).
-    Positive mood (our star was shown pouting and frowning over a stack of paperwork. His taxes, perhaps?).
-    Lean muscle (needless to say, the role model made John Goodman seem wiry in comparison).
-    Strong bones (the dude was having problems lifting his pet dog, a toy poodle that couldn’t have weighed more than eight pounds).
-    Concentration (he kept looking at the TV screen instead of his laptop. Maybe, it was just the damn tax form again?).
-    More zest for life (Alas, a gorgeous sunrise was lightening up our leading man’s hood but there he was, just sitting on the front porch, petting that scrawny, little mutt of his).

I felt sorry for the guy. But, then, magically, he became a different person! Suddenly, our obese, couch potato was transformed into Sylvester Stallone. He was smiling, joking, jogging and, most importantly, putting a big grin on his woman’s face. What, I wondered, had caused the remarkable metamorphosis?

Jacob Rosenstein, MD, FACS, quickly provided the answer.

Trained and credentialed in Age Management Medicine (a sheepskin he probably obtained from the same university that trained and credentialed me in Blog Management & Creation), ‘Dr.’ Rosenstein waxed poetic about Ageless Male.

The good doctor said Ageless Male addresses the root (His word. Not mine.) cause of our infomercial leading man’s woes: low testosterone levels.

Ageless Male, whose tagline is ‘The wisdom of years. The vitality of youth’, will increase the average middle-aged male’s testosterone levels by a whopping 61 percent, said Dr. Rosenstein. And, here’s the best part, Ageless Male costs only $39.95 for a month’s worth of pills!

I was hooked. But, alas, I honestly don’t suffer from any of the maladies listed in the infomercial so, while I’m the right demographic and psychographic target, I have no incentive to “…call now and talk to one of the friendly, Ageless Male telephone operators.”

I jest, of course. But, I don’t blame the shysters who are pushing this totally ersatz magic in a bottle solution for middle-age inertia. There’s only one tried and true solution to the above-mentioned maladies that I’m aware of, and it’s called proper nutrition and regular exercise.

I don’t blame Ageless Male for trying to perpetrate a scam. I think this charade is the result of an out-of-touch, sedentary group of bureaucrats otherwise known as the Food & Drug Administration and Federal Communications Commission, respectively. If anything, they’re the guys who need to be popping capsules of Ageless Male every day. If they did, maybe they’d be more alert, have more energy, be more focused and yank this bogus product off the air. Sadly, neither government agency possesses “the wisdom of years or the vitality of youth.”