Lifespan Quotes

“This might be the least considered societal advantage of prolonged vitality, and it might just be the greatest advantage of all. Perhaps when we’re not all so afraid of the ticking clock, we’ll slow down, we’ll take a breath, we’ll be stoic Samaritans.
I would like to emphasize the word “perhaps,” here. I will be the first to say that this thesis is supposition more than science. But the small-sample Princeton experiment both followed and portended a lot of other research demonstrating that humans are a lot more humane when they’ve got more time. All of the studies, though, take stock of how people behave when they have a few more minutes, or perhaps a few more hours, to spare.
What would happen if we had a few more years? A few more decades? A few more centuries?”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To

“And that’s the world’s biggest problem: the future is seen as someone else’s concern.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To

“Hoelzel made it to 74, despite having subjected himself over the years to experiments that included swallowing gravel, glass beads, and ball bearings to study how long it would take for such objects to pass through his system. And people say I’m crazy.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To

“And it is home to what is arguably the most prestigious national scientific association in the world, the Royal Society. Founded in the 1600s during the Age of Enlightenment and formerly headed by Australia’s catalyst, the botanist Sir Joseph Banks, as well as such legendary minds as Sir Isaac Newton and Thomas Henry Huxley, the society’s cheeky motto is a pretty good one to live by: “Nullius in Verba,” it says underneath the society’s coat of arms. That’s Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“you were a member of the American upper middle class in the 1970s, you weren’t just enjoying a more affluent life, you had a longer one, too. Those in the top half of the economy were living an average of 1.2 more years than those in the bottom half. By the early 2000s, the difference had increased dramatically. Those in the upper half of the income spectrum could expect nearly six additional years of life, and by 2018, the divide had widened, with the richest 10 percent of Americans living thirteen more years of life than the poorest 10 percent.40”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“The quantum physicist Max Planck also knew this to be true. “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light,” Planck wrote shortly before his death in 1947, “but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”26 Having witnessed a few different sorts of revolutions during my life—from the fall of the Berlin Wall in Europe to the rise of LGBTQ rights in the United States to the strengthening of national gun laws in Australia and New Zealand—I can vouch for these insights. People can change their minds about things. Compassion and common sense can move nations. And yes, the market of ideas has certainly had an impact on the way we vote when it comes to issues such as civil rights, animal rights, the ways we treat the sick and people with special needs, and death with dignity. But it is the mortal attrition of those who steadfastly hold on to old views that most permits new values to flourish in a democratic world.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“On average, Americans consume more than three times the amount of food they need to survive and about 250 times as much water.14 In return, they produce 4.4 pounds of trash each day, recycling or composting only about of a third of it.15 Thanks to things such as cars, planes, big homes, and power-hungry clothes dryers,16 the annual carbon dioxide emissions of an average American are five times as high as the global average. Even the “floor”—below which even monks living in American monasteries typically do not go—is twice the global average.17 It”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“And in his 1995 book, The Road Ahead, Bill Gates made no mention of the internet, though he substantially revised it about a year later, humbly admitting that he had “vastly underestimated how important and how quickly” the internet would come to prominence.2”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Today, many of my colleagues are just as optimistic as I am, even if they don’t admit it publicly. I’d wager that about a third of them take metformin or an NAD booster. A few of them even take low doses of rapamycin intermittently. International”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“the evidence is irrefutable: if you believe climate change is a threat, you can’t say that GMOs are, because the evidence that GMOs are safe is stronger than the evidence that climate change is occurring.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“ANTAGONISTIC PLEIOTROPY: A theory proposed by George C. Williams as an evolutionary explanation for aging: a gene that reduces lifespan in late life can be selected for if its early benefits outweigh its late costs. An example of this is the survival circuit.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“That’s what people have been doing for centuries—without even knowing it—in centenarian-heavy places such as Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Sardinia, Italy. These are, you might recognize, some of the places the writer Dan Buettner introduced to the world as so-called Blue Zones starting in the mid-2000s. Since that time, the primary focus for those seeking to apply lessons from these and other longevity hot spots has been on what Blue Zone residents eat. Ultimately this resulted in the distillation of “longevity diets” that are based on the commonalities in the foods eaten in places where there are lots of centenarians. And overwhelmingly that advice comes down to eating more vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, while consuming less meat, dairy products, and sugar.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“1800, the global literacy rate was 12 percent, by 1900 it was 21 percent, and today it’s 85 percent.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Today, I can read an entire human genome of 25,000 genes in a few days for less than a hundred dollars on a candy bar–sized DNA sequencer called a MinION that I plug into my laptop. And that’s for a fairly complete readout of a human genome, plus the DNA methyl marks that tell you your biological age.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“He needed only a quick course of two senolytic molecules—quercetin, which is found in capers, kale, and red onions, and a drug called dasatinib, which is a standard chemotherapy treatment for leukemia—to eliminate the senescent cells in lab mice and extend their lifespan by 36 percent.4 The implications of this work cannot be overstated.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Young human cells taken out of the body and grown in a petri dish divide about forty to sixty times until their telomeres become critically short, a point discovered by the anatomist Leonard Hayflick that we now call the Hayflick limit.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Another STAC is NAD, sometimes written as NAD+.39 NAD has an advantage over other STACs because it boosts the activity of all seven sirtuins.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“The first paper on resveratrol’s effects on aging went on to be one of the most highly cited papers of 2006”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Like rapamycin, metformin mimics aspects of calorie restriction. But instead of inhibiting TOR, it limits the metabolic reactions in mitochondria, slowing down the process by which our cellular powerhouses convert macronutrients into energy.20 The result is the activation of AMPK, an enzyme known for its ability to respond to low energy levels and restore the function of mitochondria. It also activates SIRT1, one of my lab’s favorite proteins. Among other beneficial effects, metformin inhibits cancer cell metabolism, increases mitochondrial activity, and removes misfolded proteins.21”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“There is great reason for hope on the not-so-distant horizon, but those battling against the ravages of aging right now must do so in a world in which most doctors have never even thought about why we age, let alone how to treat aging.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“And because aging isn’t a disease by the commonly accepted definition, it doesn’t fit nicely into the system we’ve built for funding medical research, drug development, and the reimbursement of medical costs by insurance companies. Words matter. Definitions matter.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“But consider this: though smoking increases the risk of getting cancer fivefold, being 50 years old increases your cancer risk a hundredfold. By the age of 70, it is a thousandfold”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Separating aging from disease obfuscates a truth about how we reach the ends of our lives: though it’s certainly important to know why someone fell from a cliff, it’s equally important to know what brought that person to the precipice in the first place. Aging brings us to the precipice. Give any of us 100 years or so, and it brings us all there. In”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Broadly speaking, the more often a cause shows up on a death certificate, the more attention society gives to fighting it. This is why heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and dementia are major focuses of research and interventionary medical care, while aging is not, even though aging is the greatest cause of all those diseases.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“The way doctors treat illness today “is simple,” wrote S. Jay Olshansky, a demographer at the University of Illinois. “As soon as a disease appears, attack that disease as if nothing else is present; beat the disease down, and once you succeed, push the patient out the door until he or she faces the next challenge; then beat that one down. Repeat until failure.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Using your nondominant hand, write your name, address, and phone number while circling your opposite foot counterclockwise.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“Yes, humans are separated from yeast by a billion years of evolution, but we still have a lot in common. S. cerevisiae shares some 70 percent of our genes.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“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.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“We can’t prevent all DNA damage—and we wouldn’t want to because it’s essential for the function of the immune system and even for consolidating our memories57—but we do want to prevent extra damage. And there’s a lot of extra damage to be had out there. Cigarettes, for starters. There aren’t many legal vices out there that are worse for your epigenome than the deadly concoction of thousands of chemicals smokers put into their bodies every day. There’s a reason why smokers seem to age faster: they do age faster. The DNA damage that results from smoking keeps the DNA repair crews working overtime, and likely the result is the epigenetic instability that causes aging. And although I’m not likely to be the first person you’ll hear this from, it nonetheless bears repeating: smoking is not a private, victimless activity. The levels of DNA-damaging aromatic amines in cigarette smoke are about fifty to sixty times as high in secondhand as in firsthand smoke.58 If you do smoke, it is worth trying to quit.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

“But now I am six, I’m as clever as clever. So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.”
― David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To