RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?

By Michael F. Roizen and Elizabeth Anne Stephenson

Book Overview

What is aging? Aging is not a mysterious metaphysical phenomenon. Aging happens in the particulars. Your arteries become clogged. Your arthritis flares up. Age is not just a chronological measurement; it's the rate at which the primary internal guardians of health--your cardiovascular and immune systems--decline. While your chronological age is fixed, your biological age may be years older--or younger--depending on a combination of factors. RealAge offers a revolutionary, systematic program that calculates the aging effect of more than 100 different health behaviors--ranging from diet and medication to stress control and chronic smoking--and enables you to assess your own biological age. Most important, it shows you how to design a specific path to improving or reversing your own aging trajectory. Developed by Dr. Michael F. Roizen, chair of anesthesia and critical care at the University of Chicago and preventive gerontologist, along with four other scientists, the RealAge program is based on cutting-edge scientific research. Dr. Roizen and his team have pored over 25,000 medical studies, evaluating what they tell us about aging and what they tell us about the prevention of aging. In RealAge , they present the complete results of their analysis for the first time. Each chapter covers a broad health topic--for example, how the right vitamins and supplements, exercise, or diet can be used to control how your genes affect you--and calculates the RealAge advantage you will gain by adopting a specific behavior. Charts, fact sheets, and tests give you specific choices to make and describe benefits to be gained so you can measure your success. Suggested behavior changes are rated in order of difficulty so you can decide whether the result is worth the effort. Ultimately, this program is about maintaining your health. The better condition you are in, the better prepared you will be to fight the factors that age you. RealAge demonstrates that you can have more control over the aging process. It makes science simple and its promise is irresistible: You may live as young at seventy as you did at forty-four. Remeber your high school reunion? Even though everyone was the same chronological age, people no longer looked the same. Some wore the years well, staying young and exuberant despite the passage of time, whereas others looked as if they had aged ten years more than everyone else--and probably had. Did you know that: Financial stress can make your RealAge two to thirty-two years older? The difference between having the ideal blood pressure 115/76--and high blood pressure--higher than 140/90--can make a RealAge difference of more than twenty years? A tablet of aspirin a day can make your RealAge 1.9 years younger? Flossing daily and seeing a dentist and dental hygienist every six months can make your RealAge 6.4 years younger? In RealAge you will discover many other easy-to-institute Age Reduction Strategies that will enable you to live longer and younger.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060191341
• ISBN13: 9780060191344
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A REAl eye opener

It was this book that opened my eyes on how well I was or wasn't taking care of myself. I was motivated after the first chapter to do things like taking aspirin, limit cell phone calls, taking vitamins, watching diet, etc. I have reduced my realage from my chronological age by 15 years now. If a book can influence people to take care of themselves based on medical science, why not pick up a copy? It's an investment in your life!

VERY HELPFUL

Thanks to this book I've reduced my age from 34 to 29, and have more energy than I have in years. The beauty of Roizen's program is that some of the steps are extremely easy, like just taking an aspirin. Others, such as regular aerobic exercise, are more difficult, but knowing you're buying yourself extra years makes the effort worthwhile. I'm giving this book as a Christmas gift to my future in-laws.

STOP THINKING TRADITIONALLY ABOUT AGE!

I had fun taking the test, more fun finding out that I am six years younger than my chronological age, and even more fun telling people that! However, I already know that having a healthy life style, exercising, eating well, relieving stress and a great marriage are all things that keep me feeling and looking younger. I found the rest of the book a little disappointing, because each chapter repeats, although in much more detail, the items on the test. This is a good book for someone who wants a general overview of things to do to be healthy and problems that an unhealthy life style can cause. Practicing what Dr. Roizen suggests takes time, you may need more detail and want to review what you should do with your own advisors. I also suggest you read another new book that will help you understand why it is difficult for some people to change their life habits, called THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, by Mitchell, Coles and Metz. The first half of the book talks about our bad habits or "stalls", like THE TRADITION STALL (I grew up on lasagna or chicken soup and matzoh balls, or bread and butter - and I like those foods) or The Misconception Stall (I don't have time to exercise or meditate, when you will find that if you do, you begin to do things so much better, you have created the time). The second half shares eight steps to make progress at 20 times the usual rate. If you read REAL AGE and THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION together, you will develop ideas to get "younger and better" faster!

Finally - a simple, easy to understand way to better health!

Dr. Roizen's approach -- laid out in clear and simple English by co-author Elizabeth Stephenson -- is compelling, easy to understand, and easy to act upon. It gets past a lot of the mumbo jumbo and conflicting health advice we get bombarded with every day, through a startlingly simple concept -- "Real Age" -- that distills the best scientific research available into a comprehensive health program a child of 5 could understand . For the first time, you will see how focusing on two or three key things can really make a significant difference in your overall level of personal health, allowing you to ignore the stuff that is "nice to do", but really not all that important. (And some of it, like flossing your teeth or taking Vitamin B does not require Herculean feats of athleticism). Everyone should take the Real Age test and learn how to start living a healthier life starting tomorrow. One caveat: While I would give the book a 5-star rating, the Real Age web site deserves only 2 stars -- I encountered significant delays getting on to it, and then it took forever to fill out the questionnaire. This part still needs some work. I'm sure there are millions out there who would love to be tracking weekly progress on their Real Age -- but not if takes this long to log on!!