LIFESPAN by David Sinclair

David Sinclair is one of the leading scientists in the field of ageing, a very passionate individual who believes that growing old isn’t just a natural part of life, but more like a disease which we don’t have a cure for, just yet.

In his book he explains exactly that concept, giving us details on what’s been taking place recently in the field of longevity.

He argues that all of the genetic info in our cells is still there as we get older, but our body loses the ability to interpret it. This is because “our body starts to run low on NAD, a molecule that activates the sirtuins (responsible for repairing DNA damage)”.

We have half as much NAD in our body when we’re 50 as we do at 20. Without it, the sirtuins can’t do their job, and the cells in our body forget what they’re supposed to be doing.

The most interesting part for me was reading about what we could do ourselves to at least slow down if not reverse, our own ageing process.

By putting our body through the below “healthy stressors” we can increase NAD levels and promote sirtuin activity:

• Intermittent fasting

• Animal protein restriction

  “Study after study has demonstrated that heavily animal-based diets are associated with high cardiovascular mortality and cancer risk.”

• Daily exercise

• Cold exposure

  “Because as it turns out, exposing your body to less-than-comfortable temperatures is another very effective way to turn on your longevity genes.”

What I like about these is that they are easy and completely free to try yourself, if you are curious and determined to see what they do for you.

I was curious myself and, for the last couple of years, these have become part of my daily life along with other feel-good habits that work for me, personally.

Ideally, we shouldn’t wait for an illness to finally turn our life around but be rather inquisitive and conscious about what goes into our mind and body, especially if we are hoping to have a long and healthy life.

“In my mind, there are few sins so egregious as extending life without health. This is important. It does not matter if we can extend lifespans if we cannot extend healthspans to an equal extent. And so if we’re going to do the former, we have an absolute moral obligation to do the latter.”