The thesis of the book is pretty straightforward (page 3): "To add serious years to your life--and life to your years--you have to lower your risk for all diseases. And the only way to do that is to slow your rate of aging at the cellular level." Then (page 4), "After all, aging may be inevitable, but the rate of aging is certainly not." The authors are physicians themselves.
The book features a number of items: "major agers" (facts that accelerate rather than retard the aging process), "You tests" (quick tests to assess where readers are on the aging scale), "You tips" (end of chapter actions and strategies designed to retard the aging process), "You tools" (e.g., anger management, quit smoking, medical tests needed, stress management, etc.). Finally, Part II focuses on action planning with that part entitled "The YOU extended warranty plan." Much of what is in this book is well known by many readers. Still, it does a service by pulling things together.
Some You tips on page 41-45 are designed to enhance memory processes and thinking. Among which are: eat the right kind of foods (e.g., those high in omega-3 fats), load up on salads (emphasis to be on the vegetables, and not on dressing), add a dash of this and that (e.g., lycopene--from foods such as tomatoes and red apples, resveratrol--from red wine). On pumping up the immune system, some You tips from page 110: Eat shiitake mushrooms (to increase killer T cells), cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli or cabbage), catechins (found in green tea), ginger, quercetin (in onions and garlic). Again, some of these items are well know to us.
To protect against cancer? Use Vitamin D, aspirin (low dosage), tomato sauce, and so on.
On pages 320 and following, there are a set of action steps to take to retard the aging process. Not surprisingly, these include exercise, getting rid of bad fats and beefing up on good fats, do the Chi-gong workout, stop bad habits (like smoking), restrict caloric intake, and the like.
You follow the advice in this book, the authors contend, and you will retard the aging process. And, indeed, much of what I read is very consistent with advice routinely given out by health experts, physicians, and others. There are some things that I had not read about before in this book (Chi-gong, for instance). Other items, such as eating cruciferous vegetables and items rich in lycopene are commonplace suggestions. This book is useful in bringing a wide array of anti-aging materials together. So, it's not a revolutionary work, but it does represent a nice synthesis of what we know (with a few original ideas thrown in for good measure).