Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. —John F. Kennedy

More research points to the forties and sixties as the decades of life when deep sleep is especially important for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. People who have slept less during those decades seem to be at higher risk of developing dementia later on. Thus, good sleep in middle age appears to be especially important for maintaining cogniti

In technical terms, San Millán describes zone 2 as the maximum level of effort that we can maintain without accumulating lactate. We still produce it, but we’re able to match production with clearance. The more efficient our mitochondrial “engine,” the more rapidly we can clear lactate, and the greater effort we can sustain while remaining in zone

DBT teaches a variety of techniques to enable people to maintain and improve their distress tolerance, and to recognize and cope with their emotions—and not be controlled by them, as I had been for so long. One simple tactic that I use to cope with mounting emotional distress is inducing an abrupt sensory change—typically, by throwing ice water on

The third and final category of deterioration, I believe, has to do with emotional health.

So along with changing Stephanie’s diet, we put her back on a regular exercise program, focusing on steady endurance exercise to improve her mitochondrial efficiency. This had a side benefit in that it helped manage her off-the-charts high cortisol levels, due to stress;

You may have heard of this gene, which is called APOE, because of its known effect on Alzheimer’s disease risk. It codes for a protein called APOE (apolipoprotein E) that is involved in cholesterol transport and processing, and it has three variants: e2, e3, and e4. Of these, e3 is the most common by far, but having one or two copies of the e4 vari

From the standpoint of pure efficacy, CR or caloric restriction is the winner, hands down. This is how bodybuilders shed weight while holding on to muscle mass, and it also allows the most flexibility with food choices. The catch is that you have to do it perfectly—tracking every single thing you eat, and not succumbing to the urge to cheat or snac

Once you understand that apoB particles—LDL, VLDL, Lp(a)—are causally linked to ASCVD, the game completely changes. The only way to stop the disease is to remove the cause, and the best time to do that is now.

This is why our approach to exercise must increase not only our conventional measures of fitness, such as our VO2 max and our muscular strength, but above all our resistance to injury.