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

by David A. Sinclair

Eventually, a combination of tax incentives and laws that outlawed the Edison lightbulb forced the adoption of LED lighting. Today’s LED lights use 75 percent less energy than incandescent lighting and last fifty times as long, which in a typical home is about two decades.

Gotta get myself some led bulbs

I take 1 gram (1,000 mg) of NMN every morning, along with 1 gram of resveratrol (shaken into my homemade yogurt) and 1 gram of metformin.7 I take a daily dose of vitamin D, vitamin K2, and 83 mg of aspirin. I strive to keep my sugar, bread, and pasta intake as low as possible. I gave up desserts at age 40, though I do steal tastes. I try to skip one meal a day or at least make it really small. My busy schedule almost always means that I miss lunch most days of the week. Every few months, a phlebotomist comes to my home to draw my blood, which I have analyzed for dozens of biomarkers. When my levels of various markers are not optimal, I moderate them with food or exercise. I try to take a lot of steps each day and walk upstairs, and I go to the gym most weekends with my son, Ben; we lift weights, jog a bit, and hang out in the sauna before dunking in an ice-cold pool. I eat a lot of plants and try to avoid eating other mammals, even though they do taste good. If I work out, I will eat meat. I don’t smoke. I try to avoid microwaved plastic, excessive UV exposure, X-rays, and CT scans. I try to stay on the cool side during the day and when I sleep at night. I aim to keep my body weight or BMI in the optimal range for healthspan, which for me is 23 to 25.

Davids routone

I’m not sure how long I was standing on the cliff. A minute or two, perhaps. Five or ten, maybe. However long it was, my family didn’t seem to mind. When the spell of nostalgia and wonderment released me, I found them a short way down the trail.

Anderson, “Ionizing Radiation and Aging: Rejuvenating an Old Idea,”

University of Bath researchers found in cloned mice that the telomeres protecting the ends of chromosomes were, surprisingly, slightly longer in successive generations and demonstrated no evidence of premature aging. T. Wakayama, Y. Shinkai, K. L. K. Tamashiro, et al., “Ageing: Cloning of Mice to Six Generations,” Nature 407 (September 21, 2000): 318–19. “Despite the length of telomeres reported in different studies, most clones appear to be aging normally. In fact, the first cattle clones ever produced are alive, healthy, and are 10 years old as of January 2008”; “Myths About Cloning,” U.S. Food & Drug Administration, August 29, 2018, https://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/safetyhealth/animalcloning/ucm055512.htm.

pyrrhic

I like this word.