If you’re interested in living a longer, healthier life, here’s your chance to learn about the latest research, meet other enthusiasts, and save money too.
“Topics to be covered in lectures, Q&A, and during meals and breaks include:
Supplements: Should we be taking resveratrol, vitamin D3, fish oil, coenzyme Q10, acetyl-L-carnitine, melatonin, DHEA, and many others? Benefits, costs, risks, and supplement advisors to consider.
DNA testing: Costs are coming down fast. We can’t re-write our DNA (yet), but there is much that can be done to “turn on” and “turn off” genes related to individual risks.
Telomere protection: Getting your telomeres measured, and techniques to protect them, from inexpensive to very expensive. TA-65 is the latter; we’ll debate value and cost.
Finding a life extension doctor: Very few physicians are informed or even interested in anti-aging techniques. Let’s explore how to find the ones who are.
Blood testing: If you’re young and healthy, get extensive blood work done now to get a baseline. If older, see where you’re too low or too high and take corrective action — the “normal” range accepted by the average doctor is almost certainly too broad.
Gadgets: From low-end blood pressure readers and Omron pedometer, to the mid-range Zeo sleep monitor, ShoulderFlex massager, and emWave PC biofeedback, to the high-end UVB non-tanning “tanning bed” for stimulating vitamin D production, we’ll look at which equipment is safe and cost-effective.
Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting: It’s pretty clear these can delay the diseases of aging. We’ll hear how hard or easy they are to carry out in real life. “Mimics” of calorie restriction: We’ll consider whether any of these are ready for prime time. Inflammation: Increasingly seen as central to the aging process, we’ll look at ways to measure and reduce this damaging process throughout the body, from taking aspirin and anti-inflammatory supplements to reducing abdominal fat and increasing dietary fiber. C-reactive protein (CRP) monitoring can track progress.
Sleep: Quantity and quality of sleep is increasingly being recognized as critically important; we’ll look at the factors governing these and how to control them.
Stress reduction: Perhaps the most important single factor to tackle, due to its connection to blood pressure and cortisol, and yet a challenge to reduce given today’s lifestyles. Many approaches can help –yoga, humor, meditation, sex, massage, vacations, moderate exercise, downsizing, simplifying, reducing email frequency, and getting off the computer one day a week.
Self-experimentation: Many longevity techniques involve changing a parameter and tracking its effects. We’ll look at designing such experiments, learning from the Quantified Self experience.
Exercise: What types, what’s the minimum, and (just as important) the maximum from a longevity perspective, since overtraining can cause overly high cortisol levels.
Eating: A complex, controversial, and centrally important topic for longevity — advice to take (not the USDA), macronutrients, micronutrients, organic vs. standard, raw vs. cooked, probiotics, what types of processing to avoid, specific “foods” to avoid including high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils, techniques for weight control and reduction, how to reduce the time required. Specific foods to consider: curcumin, turmeric, cinnamon, green tea, black tea, berries, dark chocolate, and stevia to replace sugar.
Mood: Optimistic people live longer, it’s claimed. We’ll look at mood-influencing supplements, techniques, and actions, from SAMe, rhodiola and Prozac to the pursuit of love and intimacy: married people and those in monogamous long-term relationships are said to live longer.
Enhancement and brain function: To figure out how to live longer, it would help to be smarter. Some of us have tried mental “enhancers” such as Provigil or Ritalin; let’s compare benefits and risks. We’ll look at supplements thought to preserve brain function, such as galantamine.
Standards of information quality: Large double-blind studies are not available for many longevity questions, and may never be due to high costs and inability to patent existing nutrients and practices. Yet health claims must still be evaluated, using less-ideal data.
Common errors: A common mistake in life extension news items is mistaking correlation for causation. Let’s examine how to guard against this and related confusions, rampant in media reports and even in some medical studies.”
