Book Review: Lifespan by David A. Sinclair, PhD, with Matthew D. LaPlante

Published in 2019. Non-fiction. The full title of this book is “Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have to”. It’s a bit long, but the topic is intriguing. David A. Sinclair is a researcher of aging and he begins the book by discussing the biological and chemical reasons why we age. I’m not a biologist, so much of this was over my head. But he brings it back to earth as he explains that aging doesn’t have to include the problems normally associated with it like dementia, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and so on. If aging were treated as a disease rather than a condition, the medical community would treat it different. In other words, as we investigated a disease like Covid, we would examine it’s molecular structure and how it affects the human body> But we don’t that with aging because it along with death is considered to be part of the natural cycle. The author argues that it shouldn’t be and he believes that by treating aging as a disease, we can come up with a cure that would be cheaper and more available than specific treatments of particular diseases.

It's a lot to swallow in one book, but the author also has a series of videos on YouTube that go over many of the same topics. The author provides his own regimen of using supplements, but does not advocate it for everyone. He admits more research needs to be done, and he is leading the efforts to do it with his own lab and research group. He suggests that in the future some people could live to 150 years old and be healthy.

Hmmm. If I lived that long, what would I do with my time?