Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

by David A. Sinclair

Targeted sequencing aimed at answering a specific question—such as “What kind of cancer is this?” or “What infection do I have?”—can now be done in less than twenty-four hours. Within ten years, it will be done in a few minutes, and the most expensive part will be the lancet that pricks your finger.3 But those aren’t the only questions that our DNA can answer. Increasingly, it can also tell you what foods to eat, what microbiomes to cultivate in your gut and on your skin, and what therapies will work best to ensure that you reach your maximum potential lifespan. And it can give you guidance for how to treat your body as the unique machine it is. It’s common knowledge that we don’t all respond to drugs in the same way. Sometimes these aren’t small differences in small numbers of people. G6PD genetic deficiency, for instance, affects 300 million people of primarily Asian and African descent. It’s the most common genetic disease of humanity. After ingesting recommended doses of medicines for headaches and malaria and certain antibiotics, G6PD carriers can be caught unawares by hemolysis—what amounts to red blood cell mass suicide.4

I should finally check out dna sequencing given the reduction in price