Lifespan by Dr David A. Sinclair, Matthew D. LaPlante
$7.99
Lifespan
- Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To
- By: Dr David A. Sinclair, Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: Dr David A. Sinclair
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Categories: Health & Wellness
Publisher's Summary
In this paradigm-shifting audiobook from acclaimed Harvard Medical School doctor and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people on earth, Dr. David Sinclair reveals that everything we think we know about ageing is wrong, and shares the surprising, scientifically proven methods that can help listeners live younger, longer.
For decades, the medical community has looked to a variety of reasons for why we age, and the consensus is that no-one dies of old age; they die of age-related diseases. That's because ageing is not a disease - it is inevitable.
But what if everything you think you know about ageing is wrong? What if ageing is a disease? And that disease is curable.
In Lifespan, Dr David Sinclair, one of the world’s foremost authorities on genetics and ageing, argues just that. He has dedicated his life’s work to chasing more than a longer lifespan - he wants to enable people to live longer, healthier, and disease-free well into our hundreds. In this audiobook, he reveals a bold new theory of ageing, one that pinpoints a root cause of ageing that lies in an ancient genetic survival circuit.
This genetic trick - a circuit designed to halt reproduction in order to repair damage to the genome - has enabled earth’s early microcosms to survive and evolve into more advanced organisms.
But this same survival circuit is the reason we age: as genetic damage accumulates over our lifespans from UV rays, environmental toxins, and unhealthy diets, our genome is overwhelmed, causing gray hair, wrinkles, achy joints, heart issues, dementia, and, ultimately, death.
But genes aren’t our destiny; we have more control over them than we’ve been taught to believe. We can’t change our DNA, but we can harness the power of the epigenome to realise the true potential of our genes.
Drawing on his cutting-edge findings at the forefront of medical research, Dr Sinclair will provide a scientifically proven road map to reverse the genetic clock by activating our vitality genes, so we can live younger longer.
Readers will discover how a few simple lifestyle changes - like intermittent fasting, avoiding too much animal protein, limiting sugar, avoiding x-rays, exercising with the right intensity, and even trying cold therapy - can activate our vitality genes.
Dr Sinclair ends the audiobook with a look to the near future, exploring what the world might look like - and what will need to change - when we are all living well to 120 or more.
Dr Sinclair takes what we have long accepted as the limits of human potential and mortality and turns them into choices. Lifespan is destined to be the biggest book on genes, biology, and longevity of this decade.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our desktop site.
©2019 Dr David A. Sinclair (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Tristam Reeves
Good book but disagree with some conclusions
Much of the content in this book bothered me. I deeply appreciate David’s work and the passion he has for the subject is exactly what we need but I wish he would read the good work coming out of the field of functional medicine. Much of his nutrition knowledge is dated and was debunked in the last 10 years.
Animal protein is by far, the easiest to digestion and best source of many micronutrients, without which cause irreversible harm. Practitioners in functional medicine, regularly deal with vegetarians and vegans, that, after 10 years on the diet, suffer from irreversible low stomach acid production, specifically because the stomach is not exposed to animal protein.
We must steep all of our theories in evolutionary biology. Fasting works, because evolutionarily we adapter to periods of fasting. While humans can adapt to many different food sources, it is meat and specifically seafood that made use human. Our success over other hominids like from Neanderthal, was due to the introduction of seafood in our diet.
DHA and EPA cannot be obtained from a vegetarian diet and the conversion of ALA in to longer chain Omega 3 fatty acids is poor for much of the population.
Yes, mTOR is activated in response to > 25g of protein but this is any protein, including plant based proteins.
David, I propose that we leverage the benefits of mTOR and the benefits of autophagy. By going in and out of periods of fasting and periods of feeding. This way, mTOR and the hGH stimulated during fasting, builds healthy lean muscle tissue. If you say to keep animal aminos low constantly, you do two things:
1. People will never have enough amino acids to maintain healthy muscle and bone in to old age. Which becomes an issue as people age.
2. Amino acids necessary in liver detoxification and methylation for healthy brain function are not available
The above scenario, as is well known in functional medicine, leads to muscle wasting and mental health issues, typical in vegetarian populations.
The argument that nitrates in cured meat is detrimental to heal ignores three very important facts:
1. The highest source of nitrates/nitrites is celery
2. Vegetables are abundant in nitrates/nitrites as they absorb these from the nitrogen fertilisers used in agriculture
3. Studies on processed meat are never rigorous and suffer from confiunding variables like the healthy user bias and that in these studies, they do not screen out smokers or make the differentiation of processed meat with wheat or without as we know through Alessio Fasano’s work that gluten is having a much greater negative effect on health than the processed meat that is on these foods
4. The most important part of the equation is that certain guy flora convert nitrates/nitrites in to nitrosamines and gut health, irrespective of diet, has a much greater impact on levels of nitrosamines for this reason
The argument that TMAO in meat causes negative health effects is another argument that has been disproven many times. We know from observational studies that fish is beneficial and there is an almost linear relationship between fish consumption and health. Yes, there are confounders, but it cannot be overstated that fish and not red meat contain the highest amount of TMAO.
Your recommendation for GMOs as a source of vitamin A is flawed. Carotenoids found in these GMO crops that you reference are not in fact vitamin A. They are vitamin A precursors that require conversion in the body in to retinol. For many, this conversion is poor and as was the case for myself, if you do not get preformed retinol then you can suffer from the same effects of vitamin A deficiency despite consuming a large amount of carotenoids. The number once source of retinol is from liver, not from plants.
I highly suggest you checkout the good work that Chris Kresser and other functional medical docs are doing.
The pathway to longevity is not through drugs. There may in time be molecules that extend life span but only when the body is first healthy. This is done by identifying nutritional deficiencies and or imbalanced. Establishing great gut health and removing intestinal permeability. To lower or eliminate chronic stress through the use of meditation to decrease the size of the amygdala and to decrease activity in the default mode network. It is in the use of modbiotics and hormetic botanicals like turmeric and no, I disagree that isolated molecules are more potent than their natural counterparts as this has been shown in studies of curcumin versus the whole turmeric root.
I love what you do and I think you are brilliant, but please, invest some time in learning the brilliant work being done in the field of functional medicine. You must first have a healthy body through diet and lifestyle factors before you can extend that lifespan through the use of drugs.
271 people found this helpful
Anonymous User
Hard to tell hopes from facts
The first part of the book was solid, but later I found it difficult to tell the difference between facts backed by evidence and the author’s hopes and dreams. It’s fine to speak one’s opinions – im doing so now – but science gains credibility and avoids misinformation when it is explicitly clear which assertions are backed by evidence and which are not.
The second part on societal inpact could have been improved with more input from economists, psychologists, political scientists and philosophers, or perhaps be written as a separate book. There appeared to be some misconceptions on resource acquisition and re-distribution. Calls for conformity to certain moral values and calls for revolution were made. Labelling people bigots is like labelling people liars, everyone lies and everyone is bigoted; how much, about what and why, that’s what matters.
The author seems to be interested in adding years of experience to people’s lives but attacks people with many years of experience for their conservative fact checking. If it turns out brain plasticity is inversely related to years of experience (or time spent running a neural net), rather than cellular age; then longer lived humans may increase aversion to change despite them looking, acting and feeling young.
At the end of the day, this is still the best longevity book I’ve finished, and so it’s worth a listen. Suggest learning with cautious optimism, and follow up on the findings which are best supported by the evidence. Be careful of wasting money and kidney health on supplements that may help mice but harm humans.
62 people found this helpful