Dr. Peter Attia’s Outlive, is the mother of all books on longevity and health. He talks about the history and practice of medicine, various illnesses, their causes and treatments, metabolism and its irregularities, diet, exercise, rest, the importance of looking after your health, both physical and emotional, from a young age in order to live long and well.
Attia starts his book by saying he found it challenging to present the results of his expansive research in an accessible way to readers who are not scientifically or medically trained.
This challenge is evident throughout the book. Although Outlive is a treasure trove of information and advice on increasing both life span (how long we live) and health span (how healthy we are in the final decades of our lives), at times it gets too technical about biology and chemistry, proteins and sugars, genetics and metabolism, etc.
Despite that, there’s a lot to be learned from Outlive. Attia develops his book systematically by starting with historical advances in medicine.
He calls the medicine practiced until the 18th century Medicine 1.0. He calls the medicine based on the scientific method, that came up with antibiotics and vaccination and is practiced now, Medicine 2.0. But he argues that although Medicine 2.0 is effective in stopping large number of deaths from communicable diseases (fast death), it is not effective in treating chronic diseases (slow death).
He calls the major chronic diseases of our times the “four horsemen”. These are: cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and type 2 diabetes. He devotes a chapter to each of these horsemen, what medicine knows about them and how far it still has to go.
Attia says Medicine 2.0 waits for the person to get sick and treats the symptoms, not the causes. But by the time we get the symptoms of the four horsemen, it’s often too late to treat them. So, he argues, in the age of chronic disease we need a new approach, which he dubs Medicine 3.0, that focuses on prevention, starting as early in life as possible.
This involves regular visits to the doctor when you’re healthy, regular tests that look for elements not included in routine blood tests and tweaking of every individual’s lifestyle according to the results of their tests. It requires discipline, perseverance and money. Even if you have the first two, cost is still an issue. Insurance companies don’t cover the costs of doctor visits or tests when the person is not sick.
In order to live the last decades of your life in better health Attia offers extensive advice, based on wide-ranging research and personal experience, in four main areas:
- Exercise, “The most powerful longevity drug”, with three goals: cardiovascular fitness, muscle building, and stability
- Nutrition: right nutritional biochemistry, eating pattern, amount and time for you
- Sleep: strategies for good quality and quantity of sleep
- Emotional health, which demands the same discipline and amount of work and financial resources as physical health
All of the above only scratches the surface of Outlive. Although Attia sometimes gets bogged down by his own athletic leanings, training and scientific minutiae, he also offers a wide perspective. For example in the chapter “The Crisis of Abundance: Can Our Ancient Genes Cope with Our Modern Diet?” he looks at the big picture of our civilization, how and why our eating habits have evolved and how they counter the basic design and needs of our bodies.
Everything considered, Outlive is a worthwhile read. It will change your views on old age, medicine and life.
Alternate Perspective 