This is why I’ve come to believe that emotional health may represent the most important component of healthspan. Nothing else about longevity is really worth much without some degree of happiness, fulfillment, and connection to others.

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

Research has also found that REM sleep is especially helpful with what is called procedural memory, learning new ways of moving the body, for athletes and for musicians.

Most people have relatively small concentrations of this particle, but some individuals can have as much as one hundred times more than others. The variation is largely genetic, and an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the US population has levels high enough that they are at increased risk; also, people of African descent tend to have higher levels of

This experience informs our three-part strategy for dealing with cancer. Our first and most obvious wish is to avoid getting cancer at all, like the centenarians—in other words, prevention.

The second property that defines cancer cells is their ability to travel from one part of the body to a distant site where they should not be. This is called metastasis, and it is what enables a cancerous cell in the breast to spread to the lung. This spreading is what turns a cancer from a local, manageable problem to a fatal, systemic disease.

Protein

The sad fact is that our muscle mass begins to decline as early as our thirties.

The correlation between poor metabolic health and being overnourished and undermuscled is very high. Hence, for a majority of patients the goal is to reduce energy intake while adding lean mass. This means we need to find ways to get them to consume fewer calories while also increasing their protein intake, and to pair this with proper exercise.