Ray Kurzweil - Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever

RAY KURZWEIL AND

TERRY GROSSMAN, MD

To Sonya, Ethan, and Amy, who inspire me to live forever.

-Ray

To Karen ... forever.

-Terry

PART I-THE PROBLEM

PART II-THE PLAN

Ray-I would like to express appreciation to my mother, Hannah, who taught me the power of ideas; to my wife of 33 years, Sonya, who lovingly shares with me all of the big and little challenges of life and gives me confidence in the future; and to my kids, Ethan and Amy, and my daughter-inlaw, Rebecca, who inspire me every day.

Terry-My contribution to this book was only possible thanks to the help and support of my family: my parents, Louis and Irene Grossman, for teaching me to think for myself (and then not giving up on me after realizing what they had done); my children, Abraya and Jay Johnson and Sam Grossman, apples (and grape seed skins) of my eye; my grandchildren, Harrison and Lucette, whose growth and successes I look forward to celebrating throughout this remarkable century ahead (and beyond); and Karen, wife, best friend, muse, sounding board, in-house psychologist ... and more.

We would both like to thank our support team of many multitalented individuals who provided fellowship, friendship, love, and support and were instrumental in helping bring this project to fruition:

Shannon Welch, our highly skilled editor at Rodale, who helped guide this project and went well beyond the "call of duty" by agreeing to serve as the female model in the book; Karen Rinaldi, Rodale's publisher, who provided many resources, support, and guidance; and the rest of our outstanding Rodale team: Chris Rhoads, associate art director; Andy Carpenter, art director; Mitch Mandel, photographer; Troy Schnyder, photo assistant; Beth Tarson, senior publicist; Beth Davey, publicity director; Hope Clarke, senior project editor; and Meredith Quinn, editorial assistant.

Loretta Barrett, our literary agent, who has devotedly and expertly guided this along with our other book projects.

Tom Garfield, who performed outstanding service in helping us with extensive research and wordsmithing.

Sarah Brangan, who also assisted with research and provided invaluable help in developing the recipes, including testing all of them.

Lolita Hanks, FNP, who provided valuable assistance with research.

Laksman Frank, our talented artist and graphic designer, who developed the illustrations.

Our research and communications team, who helped us find, assemble, and communicate the myriad facts in this rapidly changing field: Amara Angelica, Sarah Black, Sarah Reed, Celia Black-Brooks, Emily Brangan, Aaron Kleiner, Kathryn Myronuk, Nanda Barker-Hook, Peter St. Onge, Paula Florez, Diane Henry, and Robyn Stephens.

Our technical team, who helped us communicate with each other: Ken Linde, Sandi Dube, and Matt Bridges.

Our administrative and business team, who kept this project organized and on track: Aaron Kleiner, Denise Scutellaro, Joan Walsh, Maria Ellis, Bob Beal, Casey Beal, Mary Lou Sousa, Ardis Hoffman, Kelli Krill, and Cara Vandel.

Martine Rothblatt, whose dedication and commitment to all of the ideas in this book helped to inspire our work.

Donna Rae Smith, RN, for helping to develop and refine our fitness program.

A special thank you to our many readers who have helped us greatly over the years with suggestions, support, and corrections.

Our peer expert readers, who provided invaluable service in assuring the accuracy of the material in this book through fastidious reading of the manuscript and meticulous feedback: Michael Catalano, MD; Paul Dragul, MD; Karen Kurtak, L. Ac., Dipl. Ac.; Lee Light, MD; Joel Miller, MD; Tadashi Mitsuo, MD; Glenn Rothfeld, MD; and Kazuo Tsubota, MD. Special thanks finally to Aubrey de Grey, PhD, both for his seminal contributions to the field of longevity medicine by way of SENS (Strategies for Engineered Senescence) as well as for making time in his already overbooked schedule to read through and comment on the entirety of the manuscript. The above individuals provided many ideas and corrections that we were able to make thanks to their expert guidance. For any mistakes that remain, the authors take sole responsibility.

ntil quite recently, progress in health and medicine was hit-or-miss. We'd find something without having a good understanding of how it worked. Oh, here is a substance that lowers blood pressure. We have no idea why it works. We'd "discover" drugs to perform desirable functions, often with many severe side effects, but we lacked the means to design medical interventions for a carefully targeted purpose.

For example, in the mid-1990s, Pfizer developed a novel type of blood pressure medicine by the name of sildenafil. It blocked an enzyme that helps regulate bloodflow through arteries. By blocking this enzyme, they hoped to relax the arteries and lower blood pressure. Sildenafil made it all the way to human clinical trials, but it just didn't lower blood pressure enough for a marketable blood pressure medication. The study investigators told all the patients that the clinical trial was over and asked them to send their samples back.

Almost all the women did so, but a significant portion of the men in the study did not. Follow-up phone interviews revealed that many of the men had experienced a completely unexpected side effect. You undoubtedly now know sildenafil by its brand name: Viagra. Its developers weren't working on a drug to treat erectile dysfunction. They set out to develop a marketable blood pressure medication but got lucky and ended up with a blockbuster that made billions of dollars.

Such a random and haphazard approach to medical discovery is typical. But now this situation is changing-and very rapidly. With the completion of the Human Genome Project just a few years ago and with newly discovered means of modifying how our adult genes function, we have moved from the old paradigm, in which the progress in health and medicine has been unpredictable, to a new era in which healthcare has now become an information technology. And, as Ray has written about extensively, a key characteristic of information technology is very rapid exponential growth.

We've already started to reap the fruits of this new knowledge. We now have the means to dramatically reduce the risks of our biggest killers, heart disease and cancer, and to dramatically slow down the aging process itself.