In the tradition of Atul Gawande and Sherwin Nuland, Marc Agronin writes luminously and unforgettably of life as he sees it as a doctor. His beat is a nursing home in Miami that some would dismiss as ''God's waiting room.'' Nothing in the young doctor's medical training had quite prepared him for what he was to discover there. As Agronin first learned from ninety-eight-year-old Esther and, later, from countless others, the true scales of aging aren't one-sided - you can't list the problems without also tallying the hopes and promises. Drawing on moving personal experiences and in-depth interviews with pioneers in the field, Agronin conjures a spellbinding look at what aging means today - how our bodies and brains age, and the very way we understand aging.

"How long can humans live? Is immortality possible? Just what is the aging process? The aging and inevitable death of the human body have inspired more myths and outrageous quackery than anything else subject to scientific inquiry. . . . Now comes a most fascinating book, insightful and scholarly, to provide what answers have emerged so far." --San Francisco Chronicle Here, at last, preeminent cell biologist Leonard Hayflick presents the truth about human aging. Based on more than thirty years of pioneering research in the field, How and Why We Age explores not only how our major biological systems change as we grow older, but also examines the intangible alterations in our modes of thinking and feeling, our moods and sexual desires, our personality traits and our memories. With the immediacy of the latest scientific discoveries, Dr. Hayflick explains how aging affects every part of the body, and dispels many of the most persistent aging myths, to show that: * Hearts do not naturally get weaker with age. * Regular exercise and a low-fat diet won't slow aging. * Curing cancer would only add two years to the average sixty-five-year-old American life. Curing heart disease, however would add fourteen years. * Only five percent of people over the age of sixty-five are in nursing homes * No human has lived--or probably can live--past 120 years. Gracefully written, clearly organized, and packed with essential facts and statistics, How and Why We Age is a landmark study of the aging process for readers of all ages. "Written in clear, nontechnical language, it is an excellent introduction to the scientific and demographic literature on this multifacetedsubject." --Nature

How recent breakthroughs in longevity research offer clues about human aging All of us would like to live longer, or to slow the debilitating effects of age. In How We Age, Coleen Murphy shows how recent research on longevity and aging may be bringing us closer to this goal. Murphy, a leading scholar of aging, explains that the study of model systems, particularly simple invertebrate animals, combined with breakthroughs in genomic methods, have allowed scientists to probe the molecular mechanisms of longevity and aging. Understanding the fundamental biological rules that govern aging in model systems provides clues about how we might slow human aging, which could lead in turn to new therapeutics and treatments for age-related disease. Among other vivid examples, Murphy describes research that shows how changing a single gene in the nematode worm C. elegans doubles its lifespan, extending not only the end of life but also the youthful, healthy part of life. Drawing on work in her own lab as well as other recent research, Murphy chronicles the history and current state of the field, explaining longevity’s links to reproduction and mating, sensory and cognitive function, inheritances from our ancestors, and the gut microbiome. Written with clarity and wit, How We Age provides a guide to the science: what we know about aging, how we know what we know, and what we can do with this new knowledge.

In the tradition of Atul Gawande and Sherwin Nuland, Marc Agronin writes luminously and unforgettably of life as he sees it as a doctor. His beat is a nursing home in Miami that some would dismiss as God's waiting room. Nothing in the young doctor's medical training had quite prepared him for what he was to discover there. As Agronin first learned from ninety-eight-year-old Esther and, later, from countless others, the true scales of aging aren't one-sided -- you can't list the problems without also tallying the hopes and promises. Drawing on moving personal experiences and in-depth interviews with pioneers in the field, Agronin conjures a spellbinding look at what aging means today -- how our bodies and brains age, and the very way we understand aging.

Preeminent cell biologist Leonard Hayflick reveals the results of more than thirty years of pioneering research in the field of aging. Gracefully written, clearly organized, and packed with essential facts and statistics, "How and Why We Age" is a landmark study of the aging process for readers of all ages.