Mark Hyman - Young Forever

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First ebook edition: February 2023

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ISBN 978-0-316-45320-2

E3-20221224-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

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If you were asked if you wanted to live to be 120 years old, would you say yes? For most of us, the idea of living beyond our eighties is not appealing. Frailty, decrepitude, dependency, loss of mobility, pain, and disease seem the norm. But is that all inevitable? Is it possible to live into our nineties, hundreds, and beyond disease-free, active, and mentally sharp? The answer emerging from the field of longevity and aging research is a resounding yes! Young Forever explores that science but, more importantly, provides a clear road map and practical guide to incorporate the best of the science into a self-care plan that will help you live a healthy and long life.

However, there is a fundamental question you need to answer for yourself before diving into the revolutionary science that can extend both your health span (how many years you live in great health) and your life span (how many years you actually live).

What is your why ? What matters to you? Why might you want to live to be 100, or even 150 or 200which is not beyond current scientific possibility?

Much of our lives are spent building, making, and creating. Marriage, children, career, friends, a few vacations. But imagine that you arrive at sixty stronger, fitter, healthier, wiser, smarter, and more energetic than you were at forty? Imagine you have another 60 to 80 years left to live of a vibrant, highly engaged, functional life? What would you do? How would you spend your time? Who would you spend it with? I just turned sixty-three and am stronger and healthier and far wiser than I ever imagined I could be by applying the science of healthy aging to myself. As I look out over the horizon I can now give myself to those things that matter most to memy family, my friends, teaching, and helping to bring the future of medicine and healing to the world.

For me the answer to why is simple: love and service. To meet myself, my friends, my family, and my work with love and to make the world just a little bit better before I die. To savor what I neglected in the busy time of building a family and career. To enjoy the gift of this life, the magic of being alive, the wonders of creation, the beauty and tenderness of other human beings. To serve and contribute to healing and more love in the world. To dance under the stars, to ride my bike around the world, to hike remote mountains, to learn new languages, to laugh and play and cry with those I love. To learn and grow and evolve my soul. That is my why. What is yours?

The Japanese, who are the longest-lived people in the world, have a concept called ikigai, or the reason for being. In short, its the state of four elements: what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. The science is clearthose who have more meaning and purpose in their lives live longer, regardless of their lifestyle.

We live in a world that is full of expectations and demands and struggle, and for many of us, when we finally reach our golden years we are spent, tired, and often sick. One in six Americans has a chronic disease, and according to the National Council on Aging, about 80 percent of older adults have at least one chronic disease and 68 percent have at least two. No wonder so few want to live to be more than 100 years old. Aging seems to bring inevitable dysfunction, disease, and death. Aging is scary.

But what if instead you could live to be 120 years old, go for a hike with your beloved, swim in a mountain pond, cook and eat a delicious meal, make love, and then just drift blissfully out of this life? Thats how I would want to go. In fact, I am counting on it. But if that seems like a fantasy, it is only due to a failure of imagination. A failure to think about aging and disease in the light of the current science of human biology, a science that is disrupting all our concepts of health and disease.

Aging accelerates the risk of all chronic diseasesheart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, high blood pressure, autoimmune disease, and more. The truth is that what we see as normal aging is, in fact, abnormal aging. It is the result of myriad changes in our biology that are treatable. Aging is not considered a disease by most of medicine today. But what if we start approaching aging as a disease, and a treatable one at that? While American medicine has not embraced this idea, the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially recognized aging as a disease.