As the human lifespan increases, New York Times best-selling author Michael Roizen, M.D. offers an inspiring look into the future of longevity–and reveals how to prepare for a longer, healthier future. 

Believe it or not, living to 100, 120, or even 130 years old will become increasingly common over the next decade–and life past 100 may not be what you think. In this groundbreaking narrative, best-selling author Michael Roizen explains how cutting-edge science and technology will revolutionize your ability to live longer, younger, and better.

As evidenced in the global press, today’s breakthroughs in longevity research are unprecedented. This provocative yet practical book will help you prepare for the next major social disruptor by making the best decisions for your brain, your body, and your bank account.

Dr. Roizen, along with acclaimed economists Peter Linneman and Albert Ratner, unpacks a wide swath of medical phenomena–from reengineering aging cells to DNA manipulation to bionic bodies–and shows how increased longevity will change our lives and our culture. They also provide a concrete action plan for good health, a youthful appearance, mental vigor, and strong finances in this brave new world.

The most comprehensive and forward-looking take on aging to date, this indispensable book illuminates the prevention, treatment, and technology that will reshape how we think about old age–and help us plan for an audacious future.

The Great Age Reboot Book Review

In summary, this is a great book that provides an introduction to ageing research, how it will impact healthcare and lifespans in future and what you can do today to take advantages of those advances. It is an easy read for all levels of education, though still all backed up with scientific evidence, with a casual tone and a light touch of humour.

I confess I was pleasantly surprised. Although the book description says it is a "look into the future of longevity," a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon and "longevity" is often used in the loosest sense of preventative medicine and slight improvement in healthspan. But no! Here is an indepth, easy to understand, introduction to the prospect of life extension and a non-academic (but science-based) explanation to some of the key approaches such as senolytics, stem cells and gene therapy.

It then provides some very practical and non-judgemental advice on ways to improve your health and prepare for living radically longer lives. And not just practical, but motivational too - the author really understands how people work.

The book covers areas outside of the usual healthy lifestyle tips, including being prepared for divorce and a fascinating chapter on current plastic surgery and skin rejuvenation options.  Living longer will change the way we work, live and retire - I never expected to change my financial planning strategy from reading a book about longevity but it really hammered home the importance of saving for a lot more tomorrows.

Highlights

Here are 101 key points from The Great Age Reboot:

• Our projections show that by 2030 you will be able to slow your rate of aging — likely to an average life expectancy for those now over 40 to at least 108.
• Down the line you will likely be able to reboot your life and body to return it to its younger, more optimal years.
• What Moore’s Law states for computational productivity in the past 50 years is about to occur for human-capital productivity.
• Instead of hospitals being repositories for the sick, they will need to become wellness centers.
• Since 1880, the life expectancy of newborns has increased 2.5 years on average every decade.
• Longevity is not the problem: It is the cure.
• While today only about 11 percent are older than age 70, in the year 2050 we expect that fully 26 percent of the population will be over the age of 70.
• Chronologic youth will become relatively scarce, while agedness will become commonplace.
• The number of patents related to longevity increased more than 400 percent from 2009 to 2014 and quadrupled again from 2014 to 2019.
• In six weeks, stem cells replaced the function and actually recycled the proteins from the poorly functioning heart cells.
• To repair ourselves again and again for youthful longevity, we will need to replenish our supply of stem cells.
• A recent study found that when older people breathed oxygen through a mask in a hyperbaric chamber, they lengthened their telomeres by a significant 20 percent.
• The FDA has long warned people about promises made by stem cell treatment clinics because they are likely to be unsubstantiated and potentially harmful.
• Senescent cells are formed even when we are infants but are recycled by our bodies and do not start accumulating until we are near age 30.
• A senolytic combo has been found to restore vision in animals with induced wet macular degeneration.
• With heart cells, a slight change in timing means you develop heart failure and your lungs fill up with fluid.
• Senolytics offer the promise of overall improvement and function of the heart by restoring youthful function to the cells that make it work.
• Autophagy helps your body clean up and repair itself by churning up damaged cells and getting rid of (eating) the unwanted cell parts while keeping the cells intact.
• University of California at Berkeley found that a process called a plasma exchange could work to slow aging by lowering pro-inflammatory proteins that tend to increase with age.
• Senolytics could be available after FDA approval sometime around 2026.
• More than 560 human cancer genes have been identified so far.
• Will parents be able to choose to turn off genes in newborns for certain characteristics that they don’t like, that perhaps have nothing to do with health?
• Researchers turned off two genes (IIS and TOR) and extended roundworms’ life span by five (five!) times.
• About 10,000 diseases are caused by a single error in a single gene.
• Immunotherapy advances have changed the way we think about treating cancer.
• Immunotherapy works by stimulating the body’s immune system to better fight cancer cells.
• During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 80 percent of those under age 70 in the United States who needed ICU care (and more than 90 percent of those who died) had one of six largely preventable co-morbid conditions.
• In the U.S., 43 percent of adult males were obese or extremely obese.
• Brown fat is metabolically efficient, in that it burns lots of calories, which serves the purpose of keeping you warm.
• Researchers have taken white fat in test tubes, regressed it to a more pluripotent fat, and turned it into brown fat.
• Replace white fat with brown fat and you’ve most likely greatly reduced the risks of all inflammatory diseases like osteoarthritis, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and brain dysfunction and have increased energy levels.
• Mitochondria convert glucose and fat into ATP, which is the jolt that is sent to your organs and systems to make everything run.
• There are only three in-cell antioxidants, and most food antioxidants do not increase them.
• Live younger longer is the promise of induced tissue regeneration of your mitochondria.
• You could send MRI-guided nanorobots into the blood vessels that could grab the plaque, bust it into little pieces, and have it excreted by the body.
• Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic believe that if they had unlimited dollars, they could be less than three years away from growing a heart and inserting it into humans.
• A recent report from CNBC said that the “delaying death” market is expected to grow to $ 600 billion.
• We estimate that by 2050, more than 10 percent of the U.S. population will be 90 years or older.
• A larger workforce that works longer doesn’t just benefit working individuals, but also society at large.
• Just one more working day a year per worker today in the U.S. due to improved health increases the GDP by about $ 90 billion annually.
• If each worker 55 and older today were to work just one year longer due to improved health over the next 10 years, it would increase the GDP by $ 340 billion (about 1.5 percent) annually.
• A five-year increase in work life for all workers generates an additional $ 1.7 trillion (8 percent of GDP) annually.
• If longevity increases without better health, it will mean higher costs of medicine and health care as people live longer.
• Our extended lives will fuel demand for goods and services, driving economic growth.
• Even if only 40 percent of the population adopts healthier habits, there would be a roughly 25 percent drop in medical outlays.
• While the benefits of wise decisions grow, the costs of unwise decisions also grow.
• Increased life expectancy can lead to increased wealth inequality between those who save and those who don’t.
• In our experience, memory loss is the most feared condition associated with aging.
• The sixth and seventh hours of sleep are key to getting rid of waste and decreasing inflammation.
• The AMBAR study showed in humans that a plasma exchange could help slow cognitive decline (by 50 percent).
• Why your immune system slowly declines after age 50 remains unclear.
• We do not yet have superb replacement spines, disks, and surrounding muscles — but you can prepare for them, and they are coming.
• Mice the equivalent of 100 human years old have regained their 20-year-old sight (in human terms).
• If you can delay your emotional decision— even for just a few minutes in some cases— it will allow you time to let your executive function process the information, weigh the options, and make the very best decision for you.
• About 40 percent of premature deaths in the U.S. today are related to lifestyle choices.
• By the time you are 55, 80 percent of your health outcomes are determined by your choices.
• Your longevity depends more on the aggregate of what you do most of the time, not being perfect all the time.
• Every little choice builds up into the overall functioning of your body — for better or worse.
• Technology can provide an excellent form of motivation for many people by establishing benchmarks and goals.
• You need a built-in ecosystem with your own tribe — a community of people who work together and support one another in pursuit of their goals.
• Having a partner (or partners) in your pursuit of behavior change is the variable that most likely predicts success.
• People who regularly participate in stress-reducing activities dramatically decrease their perceived stress levels.
• Reducing stress helps improve markers for heart disease and brain-related problems.
• Physical activity has a positive influence on brain function and increases the size of the hippocampus.
• Regular fish eaters lose fewer brain cells and also helps arteries stay clear.
• Avoid added sugars and syrups (found in processed foods, baked goods, and more).
• Avoid foods with saturated fats.
• Avoid simple carbs (found in white bread and pasta).
• 70-to 75-year-olds who regularly played speed-of-processing games experienced more than a 25 percent decreased risk of dementia.
• Oral bacteria thriving on food residue stuck between your teeth can migrate to your bloodstream.
• You can't prevent or treat every serious condition by behavior alone — but you will certainly stack the odds in your favor if you do.
• Overexercising causes inflammation and depresses your immune system.
• Getting an annual flu shot for 10 years, from ages 50 to 60, decreases heart attacks and strokes by 50 percent and death in this age group by 25 percent.
• Meditation can help improve telomere length.
• Social contact with at least six different people a month has long been associated with a number of positive outcomes.
• The risk in discovering incidentomas is in the anxiety they cause if nothing is done about them, as well as the risks of surgery if you do something about them.
• Second opinions should be sought for any decision or medical treatment that will last longer than three days.
• High blood pressure is one of the biggest warning signs the body has.
• Stem cell treatments are currently a $ 3 billion industry in the United States (largely fraudulent).
• Medications can be contaminated due to mass production, or can be fraudulently produced to give you 10 percent or 30 percent of what’s on the label.
• By 2050, in a rebooted world, we predict the typical retirement age will be much closer to 80 than today’s 65.
• Replenishing friends and love connections is essential throughout life.
• Tests to help you gauge inflammation include a full alphabet: hsCRP, MPO, OxLDL, ApoB, TMAO, IL-6, FP-Iso, ADMA, and others.
• Only 7 percent get more than 20 percent of the daily value of all vitamins and minerals.
• Split a multivitamin; take half in the morning, half at night (this will keep nutrient blood levels closer to constant).
• Omega-7 fatty acids seem to decrease inflammation and insulin resistance.
• Over the next five to 10 years we expect to be able to recommend personalized probiotics for you.
• While we have good safety data in humans, we do not know if NR (Tru Niagen or an equivalent) has the same benefit in humans as it does in animals.
• You have to look at what a study is telling you not just in terms of information, but also in terms of how rigorous that study was.
• The list of ingredients that have been proved to help your skin look younger is really quite short, but does include vitamin A, vitamin C, fruit acids, and niacinamide.
• A wrinkle is really a crack in the collagen layer.
• Deeper laser peels can turn back the clock by many years and the effects can last for decades.
• We suggest a five-step process of preparation:
•  - 1 Collect your data - it will inform what will work best for you.
•  - 2 Build your team - because social support is one of the most influential factors on health.
•  - 3 Save - saving today is synonymous with spending tomorrow and there will be a lot of tomorrows.
•  - 4 Reboot your approach to food - food is nature’s fuel and medicine, and many of us are poisoning ourselves with too many calories.
•  - 5 Embrace resilience - there’s no easy path to a long and happy life, and while that notion can be difficult to embrace in our quick-fix, fast-typing, scroll-through-social-media culture, it’s the truth.
• Wash your hands before you eat anything and after using public facilities. Please.
• If you invest in a high-quality knife and learn how to use it quickly and efficiently, your time savings in meal preparation are enormous.
• The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the way science and medicine can adapt, adjust, and search for solutions to problems we may not have expected to encounter but are indeed our new reality.