Grossman Terry - Fantastic voyage: live long enough to live forever

Notice

This book is intended as a reference volume, not as a medical manual. The information given here is designed to help you make informed decisions about your health. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. Note that some of the dosages given exceed FDA recommendations. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, we urge you to seek competent medical help.

Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book.

Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.

2004 by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D.
Illustrations 2004 by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Book design by Anthony Serge

Illustrations designed by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D., and illustrated by Laksman Frank

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kurzweil, Ray.

Fantastic voyage : live long enough to live forever / Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13 9781579549541 hardcover

ISBN-10 1579549543 hardcover

eISBN 9781623361099 ebook

1. Longevity. I. Grossman, Terry. II. Title.

RA776.75.K875 2004

612.68dc22

2004017041

We inspire and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them
For more of products visit rodalestore.com or call 800-848-4735

To the memory of my father, Fredric, who could have been alive today if he had had the knowledge in this book.Ray

To the memory of my grandfather, Jacob Light, who lived 104 healthy years without seeming to need any health advice at all.Terry

CHAPTER : YOU CAN LIVE LONG
ENOUGH TO LIVE FOREVER

Immortality is within our grasp. The knowledge exists, if aggressively applied, for you to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you can be in good health and good spirits when the more radical life-extending and life-enhancing technologies become available over the next couple of decades.

We are in the early stages of multiple profound revolutions spawned by the intersection of biology, information science, and nanotechnology. With the decoding of the genome and our efforts to decode its expression in proteins, many new and powerful methodologies are emerging. These include rational drug design (drugs designed for very precise missions with little or no side effects), tissue engineering (regrowing our cells, tissues, and organs), reversal of aging processes, gene therapy (essentially reprogramming our genetic code), nanobots (robots the size of blood cells built from molecules placed in our bodies and bloodstreams to enhance every aspect of our lives), and many others. Some of these transformations will bear fruit before the ink is dry from printing this book.

Each of us comes to concerns about our health and well-being in a different way. Study and reflection, the experiences of relatives and friends, and our own experiences of pain and joy all play a role. These are our stories, a journey of decades of exploration and the intersection of our paths that brought us to write this book together.

Animals spend most of their effort pursuing food as well as avoiding becoming a predators next meal. Most of human effort throughout our history has also been devoted to hunting, foraging, growing, cultivating, transporting, and preparing food. Our food choices also have a profound impact on health and disease. We start our exploration of food by looking at its most common constituent: water, a far more complex substance than is commonly understood. Consuming the right type of water is vital to detoxifying the bodys acidic waste products and is one of the most powerful health treatments available.

CHAPTER : CARBOHYDRATES
AND THE GLYCEMIC LOAD

Carbohydrates are vital to the primary energy cycle in the biological world. But we did not evolve to consume the large quantities of refined sugars and starches that make up most of the modern diet. Sugar and simple starches, which are converted into sugar in the body almost immediately, produce spikes in insulin, which in turn create carbohydrate cravings. This process underlies much of the populations inability to control excess weight, accelerates the aging process, and increases the risk for heart disease. Sharply limiting these high-glycemic-load foods will break this vicious cycle.

Fat is well known as a primary means of storing energy, both in the food we consume and in our bodys own fat cells. In an era of abundant calories, excessive energy storage in the form of fat significantly accelerates atherosclerosis, glucose intolerance, and other degenerative processes. The modern Western diet has gone to an extreme imbalance in the omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio, so most people need to sharply reduce omega-6 fats, which encourage inflammatory processes, and increase omega-3 fats, which are anti-inflammatory and have been shown to dramatically reduce heart disease. Protein is another class of caloric nutrient that we cannot live withoutit is natures primary building block for our tissues and organs. The right types and balance of protein are the mainstay of a healthy diet low in carbohydrates and that sharply restricts bad fats.

Nutrition is one of the most powerful lifestyle influences on your health. Metabolic processes underlie the paths to the primary degenerative diseases. By understanding and assessing your personal metabolic pathways, you can reprogram these processes away from disease and toward long-term vitality. Many digestive problems, such as leaky gut syndrome, will contribute to long-term degenerative disease if not diagnosed and corrected. Nutrition starts with what you eat, but the digestive process is also critical, because nutrients are beneficial only if they reach your cells.

CHAPTER : CHANGE YOUR WEIGHT
FOR LIFE IN ONE DAY

You can significantly reduce your risk of all degenerative diseases, including heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, by reaching your optimal weight. Youll have more energy and feel better. Youll look better tooperhaps the main reason losing weight has become a national preoccupation. Closely related to losing weight is caloric restriction, the only proven method of extending life and slowing down aging. We provide a program that you can adopt quickly while reaching your ideal weight gradually. No radical changes in diet are required. You only need to make a single change to a healthy pattern of eating.

CHAPTER : THE PROBLEM
WITH SUGAR (AND INSULIN)