Lifespan: Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To

4.6 | 11,259 ratings

Price: 17.71

Last update: 01-10-2025

About this item

Audio bonus! Includes exclusive conversations with the authors!

From an acclaimed Harvard professor and one of Time’s most influential people, this paradigm-shifting audiobook shows how almost everything we think we know about aging is wrong, offers a front-row seat to the amazing global effort to slow, stop, and reverse aging, and calls listeners to consider a future where aging can be treated.

For decades, experts have believed that we are at the mercy of our genes and that natural damage to our genes - the kind that inevitably happens as we get older - makes us become sick and grow old.

But what if everything you think you know about aging is wrong? What if aging is a disease - and that disease is treatable?

In Lifespan, one of the world’s foremost experts on aging and genetics reveals a groundbreaking new theory that will forever change the way we think about why we age and what we can do about it. Aging isn’t immutable; we can have far more control over it than we realize. This eye-opening and provocative work takes us to the front lines of research that is pushing the boundaries on our perceived scientific limitations, revealing incredible breakthroughs - many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab - that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, the genetic clock. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes - the decedents of an ancient survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it. Dr. Sinclair shares the emerging technologies and simple lifestyle changes - such as intermittent fasting, cold exposure, and exercising with the right intensity - that have been shown to help lead to longer lives.

Lifespan provides a road map for taking charge of our own health destiny and a bold new vision for the future when humankind is able to live to be 100 years young.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Tom Hunter

If you read one book this year--let it be this one. It will show you how to live a longer life!

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2021

Of the 34 books I have completed reading this year, this is the best.

Pay close attention to the subtitle. Though as we age, it's natural for humans to focus more and more on extending their lives--this book, written by the world-leading authority on aging and what it will take to extend our lives, gives concrete actionable guidance on what you personally can do to increase your life:
* It shows the already known value of fasting, in that the act of skipping meals causes the body to switch to a life-extending mode. That means you at the very least skip breakfast. Your goal is to go as long as possible every day without eating.
* It shows how the commercially available supplement NMN, a precursor to NAD, can have direct and noticeable effects on one's health and lifespan.
* It shows how lots of small effects, such as exposing yourself to extreme cold for brief periods of time also triggers your body's natural life-extending mechanisms. I am not attempting to reproduce a 310-page book. To fully understand, read this book or the many follow on talks given by the same author.

Sinclair begins this book by describing the "information theory of aging". Until his theory, the generally accepted idea has been that aging comes when the "digital" information that is held on DNA using the 4 base pairs becomes corrupted through information loss. Sinclair posits that aging is not a result of the corruption of DNA (which the body can fix) but the corruption of the companion to DNA that controls gene expression, the epigenome--which is separate set of chemicals and proteins that GOVERN how the DNA map is used to build proteins. Sinclair shows that it's possible to correct these epigenomic errors. The mechanism for doing this is quite interesting. It has been used to cause a damaged mouse optic nerve to re-grow. Absolutely fascinating and plausible in terms of the science involved.

So, I will give you what you came here to see. The author near the end gives his own personal regime for extending his life:
* 1,000 MG NMN supplement every morning
* 1,000 MG resveratrol every morning
* Daily dose Vitamin D, Vitamin K, aspirin
* Keep sugar, bread and pasta intake as low as possible.
* Allow yourself to be hungry for part of every day. Delay your first meal of the day as late as possible.
* Skip one meal a day or at least make it really small. (Try to go as long as possible between eating.)
* Lift weights
* Expose yourself briefly to extreme cold, because that also triggers your body's survival mechanisms.

This was a great and interesting read that I tore through. In no cases did the author make logical fallacies. It was scientifically convincing and legitimate-seeming all through.

If you read one book this year--let it be this one. It will show you how to live a longer life.

T. Caraway

Both Fascinating and Entertaining

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2024

The research he talks about in this book is very eye-opening. And the book is written in an extremely entertaining fashion. Great stories, and plenty of details which you can use to verify the authenticity.

Before reading this book, I would never have imagined living to 120 years old and those years being healthy and active. Now it seems almost inevitable.

Blackbird

great and important book, but with deficiencies

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2022

This is a well written and deeply researched book written by an expert in the field, with the help of a professional writer, that focuses on research, gene therapies and supplements that are intended to extend human, and even non-human, lifespans. As such, it succeeds brilliantly as it presents a wealth of material in a concise introduction to the subject and provides an excellent review of what he and other aging researchers and geneticists have learned up to 2019.

Where I think the book falls short is in more thoroughly linking the effects of diet on health and in making, even in an Appendix, specific dietary recommendations, both pro and con, and providing a more thorough basis for the reader to make informed decisions. Yes, there are many other books that do this, but they do not provide the related genetic and supplement information, so readers are required to look in multiple volumes to get a more complete view of linkages between diet, health, and longevity.

The book also makes very few references to exercise although it encourages the reader to be active every day.

I think that a second edition of this book could be more useful by providing the core information covered in this edition, and updates, plus specific recommendations on what to and not to eat (or specific recommendations on where to get that information) as well as what kinds of exercise are recommended for each age group (or where to get that information).

The obesity epidemic so prevalent in Western countries and food insecurity issues prevalent worldwide are not mentioned, and probably ought to be. There is emphasis at the end of the book on global food waste and on consumerism, and how these affect the planet's ability to sustain increasing human populations, but these are not integrated into the overall thesis that great strides in extending human lifetimes are upon us and solutions are not offered.

A very thought-provoking book and one which offers a very optimistic view of the future, but one that I think ought to be expanded to integrate diet and exercise into the theme of extending lifespan.

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