Review: Outlive; The Science and Art of Longevity

Then, there is tech entrepreneur, Bryan Johnson, 46, who has spent the last three years attempting to deflect death. He has spent over $4 million on a life-extension system called Blueprint aimed at vanquishing the ravages of time on his body. A team of doctors enforces a strict health regimen that includes gulping 111 pills a day to deaccelerate ageing. Johnson wants to turn his whole body over to an anti-aging algorithm. He believes death is optional, and he is not opting for it. The data compiled thus far suggests that Blueprint has been successful as it has given him the bones of a 30-year-old, and the heart of a 37-year-old. Only time will tell how successful this longevity experiment is.

With the average life expectancy now well into the late seventies, interest in prolonging life has provoked a new way of thinking. However, increasing lifespans do not run concurrent to improving healthspans. Notching up more birthdays even as your body deteriorates is a grim reminder of the hapless mythical Greek named Tithonus, who asked the gods for eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. Longevity has puzzled humankind for millennia, yet there is no single pathway to achieving it though a sizeable number of people have lived to be a 100. For the vast majority, though, living longer and living better continues to be a distant dream.

Long time physician and surgical oncologist at the National Cancer Institute Dr Peter Attia has focussed on the Horsemen diseases ie cancer, diabetes, heart and neurogenerative diseases. The very process of aging is what makes us vulnerable to these ailments while also affecting our healthspan. Invariably, individuals have to pass through the valleys of cognitive, physical, or emotional decline while negotiating old age. However, these conditions are preventable if proper tactics are applied in the early years. In other words, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”.

This interesting narrative on longevity that merges healthspan with lifespan takes into account professional expertise and personal experience. Attia refers to Medicine 2.0 as a quick-fix mentality that uses short-term fixes for immediate problems like an infection or a broken bone. Sticking with this mentality can make you go only thus far and can leave you forever on a merry-go-round of fad diets, trendy workouts, and miracle supplements. A shift in mindset to Medicine 3.0 requires an entirely different strategy.

Outlive provides an update on how far Medicine 2.0 has gone in addressing the Horseman diseases, which have supplanted fast death with a slow one by adding a few more years to life. Quoting innumerable studies and surveys, Attia explores the science of not just prolonging life but extending aliveness. It is in this respect that sleep and emotional health are prominent as physical and cognitive performance-enhancing substances. It’s not without reason that evolution has made both these non-negotiable. However, Attia seems to have missed out on including the positive impact of the science and art of correct breathing on both health span and life span.

The author enlists five broad domains in Medicine 3.0: exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional health, and health supplements. He believes that if we address our emotional health early on, we will have a better chance of avoiding clinical mental health issues, and our overall health will also benefit a great deal. It is true, though, that dealing with emotional health is harder than dealing with physical health. People are often less able to recognise the need for emotional health. While antidepressants and mood stabilizers can be deployed, it is mindful meditation that can make all the difference.

Outlive is a tool book on how to live a long, meaningful, and fulfilling life. It is a groundbreaking manifesto on staying young, even as we grow older. Much of the source of our condition is in our own heads and is the impact of our own unguarded thoughts. In the first century AD, Seneca expressed it a bit differently: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Attia provokes his reader to consider that there is no pharmacological magic bullet to treat all the scary conditions that we often discuss. Medicine 2.0 is relevant but it doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about bodily processes that take decades to unfold. Having spent long years in the world of medicine, Attia makes a strong case for not only living longer but living better too. He also leaves the reader to decide if life is better lived as a cool-headed Ric Elias or as an agitated Bryan Johnson.

Sudhirendar Sharma is an independent writer, researcher and academic.

Ric Elias was one among 155 passengers on the US Airways flight that had an emergency landing on the Hudson River in January 2009. None of them would have survived but for the efforts of the pilot. Elias’s outlook on longevity changed that day as he realised that, like the courageous pilot, all that’s needed is for individuals to think of what lies ahead at any given moment. “I think people get old when they stop thinking about the future,” he later remarked. As long as individuals think about their dreams, their aspirations, and what they look forward to, they are young. Simply put, longevity involves overcoming the fear of dying.

Then, there is tech entrepreneur, Bryan Johnson, 46, who has spent the last three years attempting to deflect death. He has spent over $4 million on a life-extension system called Blueprint aimed at vanquishing the ravages of time on his body. A team of doctors enforces a strict health regimen that includes gulping 111 pills a day to deaccelerate ageing. Johnson wants to turn his whole body over to an anti-aging algorithm. He believes death is optional, and he is not opting for it. The data compiled thus far suggests that Blueprint has been successful as it has given him the bones of a 30-year-old, and the heart of a 37-year-old. Only time will tell how successful this longevity experiment is.

With the average life expectancy now well into the late seventies, interest in prolonging life has provoked a new way of thinking. However, increasing lifespans do not run concurrent to improving healthspans. Notching up more birthdays even as your body deteriorates is a grim reminder of the hapless mythical Greek named Tithonus, who asked the gods for eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. Longevity has puzzled humankind for millennia, yet there is no single pathway to achieving it though a sizeable number of people have lived to be a 100. For the vast majority, though, living longer and living better continues to be a distant dream.

Long time physician and surgical oncologist at the National Cancer Institute Dr Peter Attia has focussed on the Horsemen diseases ie cancer, diabetes, heart and neurogenerative diseases. The very process of aging is what makes us vulnerable to these ailments while also affecting our healthspan. Invariably, individuals have to pass through the valleys of cognitive, physical, or emotional decline while negotiating old age. However, these conditions are preventable if proper tactics are applied in the early years. In other words, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”.

This interesting narrative on longevity that merges healthspan with lifespan takes into account professional expertise and personal experience. Attia refers to Medicine 2.0 as a quick-fix mentality that uses short-term fixes for immediate problems like an infection or a broken bone. Sticking with this mentality can make you go only thus far and can leave you forever on a merry-go-round of fad diets, trendy workouts, and miracle supplements. A shift in mindset to Medicine 3.0 requires an entirely different strategy.

Outlive provides an update on how far Medicine 2.0 has gone in addressing the Horseman diseases, which have supplanted fast death with a slow one by adding a few more years to life. Quoting innumerable studies and surveys, Attia explores the science of not just prolonging life but extending aliveness. It is in this respect that sleep and emotional health are prominent as physical and cognitive performance-enhancing substances. It’s not without reason that evolution has made both these non-negotiable. However, Attia seems to have missed out on including the positive impact of the science and art of correct breathing on both health span and life span.

The author enlists five broad domains in Medicine 3.0: exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional health, and health supplements. He believes that if we address our emotional health early on, we will have a better chance of avoiding clinical mental health issues, and our overall health will also benefit a great deal. It is true, though, that dealing with emotional health is harder than dealing with physical health. People are often less able to recognise the need for emotional health. While antidepressants and mood stabilizers can be deployed, it is mindful meditation that can make all the difference.

Outlive is a tool book on how to live a long, meaningful, and fulfilling life. It is a groundbreaking manifesto on staying young, even as we grow older. Much of the source of our condition is in our own heads and is the impact of our own unguarded thoughts. In the first century AD, Seneca expressed it a bit differently: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Attia provokes his reader to consider that there is no pharmacological magic bullet to treat all the scary conditions that we often discuss. Medicine 2.0 is relevant but it doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about bodily processes that take decades to unfold. Having spent long years in the world of medicine, Attia makes a strong case for not only living longer but living better too. He also leaves the reader to decide if life is better lived as a cool-headed Ric Elias or as an agitated Bryan Johnson.

Sudhirendar Sharma is an independent writer, researcher and academic.