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RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?
What is aging? Aging is not a mysterious metaphysical phenomenon. Aging happens in the particulars. Your arteries become clogged. Your arthritis flares up. Age is not just a chronological measurement; it's the rate at which the primary internal guardians of health--your cardiovascular and immune systems--decline. While your chronological age is fixed, your biological age may be years older--or younger--depending on a combination of factors. RealAge offers a revolutionary, systematic program that calculates the aging effect of more than 100 different health behaviors--ranging from diet and medication to stress control and chronic smoking--and enables you to assess your own biological age. Most important, it shows you how to design a specific path to improving or reversing your own aging trajectory. Developed by Dr. Michael F. Roizen, chair of anesthesia and critical care at the University of Chicago and preventive gerontologist, along with four other scientists, the RealAge program is based on cutting-edge scientific research. Dr. Roizen and his team have pored over 25,000 medical studies, evaluating what they tell us about aging and what they tell us about the prevention of aging. In RealAge , they present the complete results of their analysis for the first time. Each chapter covers a broad health topic--for example, how the right vitamins and supplements, exercise, or diet can be used to control how your genes affect you--and calculates the RealAge advantage you will gain by adopting a specific behavior. Charts, fact sheets, and tests give you specific choices to make and describe benefits to be gained so you can measure your success. Suggested behavior changes are rated in order of difficulty so you can decide whether the result is worth the effort. Ultimately, this program is about maintaining your health. The better condition you are in, the better prepared you will be to fight the factors that age you. RealAge demonstrates that you can have more control over the aging process. It makes science simple and its promise is You may live as young at seventy as you did at forty-four. Remeber your high school reunion? Even though everyone was the same chronological age, people no longer looked the same. Some wore the years well, staying young and exuberant despite the passage of time, whereas others looked as if they had aged ten years more than everyone else--and probably had. Did you know
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1999
25 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 27, 2018
Sometimes I wonder about all the things I do for myself, whether I’m doing them for myself or to myself. I am often overwhelmed by the thought that exercise is a lifetime commitment when I have problems exercising on a day-to-day basis. Is it really better to eat healthy now when I’m relatively young? People talk about enjoying their old age, their golden years, but I, frankly, just don’t want to get old at all.
What I really needed was a tangible way of measuring all those things that are “good for me” to do, health-wise. In his book, RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? , Dr. Michael Roizen provides a tangible means for measuring all these things. I confess that I first heard about the book (and the website, https://www.sharecare.com/static/realage) on Oprah’s talk show, many years ago, and was intrigued enough to order the book especially since at the time I was exercising a lot but had not seen any improvement.
The Premise
Dr. Roizen took all of the information about living a healthy, active life from a myriad of sources and compiled it into a single tool that could help people analyze their health and their lifestyles. He developed this tool to measure a person’s physiologic age, as opposed to one’s calendar age: people who have abused their bodies may have an older physiologic age than their calendar age; people who have taken care of their bodies may have a younger physiologic age than their calendar age. The lower one’s physiologic age, the longer one can expect to live.
Dr. Roizen’s goal isn’t just to extend people’s calendar lives. He points out early in the book not only can people live longer on the RealAge program, they can also add more life to their years by remaining healthy and active: more years to play with the grandchildren, more years to take that trip around the world, more years of golf with friends, more years without feeling old and infirm.
The Tool: The RealAge Test
Let me first preface this section of my review by pointing out that I didn’t take the test in the book. I went to the website and took the test instead: the website test is interactive with each user and gives instant gratification by calculating the results. Trying to figure out the test in the book seems terribly time-consuming and leaves much more room for error. Also, while the website is updated periodically with new medical findings and research, the book is not, so it’s entirely possible that one’s score, according to the book, could become skewed.
The RealAge test asks questions about one’s lifestyle, eating habits, exercise, family health history, and other factors like stress. Before taking the test (in the book or on the website), you need to know the following items: cholesterol values (LDL and HDL), blood pressure, amounts of vitamins you take, heart rate, weight, and height. If you don’t know and are taking the test online, the computer will assign average values for someone your calendar age.
Here are a few examples of the questions on the test:
Do you smoke?
How often do you eat breakfast?
How fast do your drive?
Are there smoke detectors in your home?
Are your parents divorced?
How often do you socialize with friends?
Do you own a dog?
Developing a Plan
After ascertaining one’s results from the test, the book takes the reader through developing an age reduction plan. At the beginning of the chapter, Dr. Roizen lists 44 strategies that will help the reader reduce their physiologic age. The following chapters provide more detail as to how to implement a change in one’s life, and why the change has an effect on one’s body. The topics covered range from taking vitamin supplements to exercise and diet plans and reducing stress in one’s life.
Flossing and brushing your teeth every day can make you 6.4 years younger.
Drinking alcohol in moderation can make you 1.9 years younger.
Not managing your finances can make you 8 years older.
Having orgasms (in a monogamous, safe sex environment) can make you 1.6 years younger. (See, being healthy isn’t always a chore!)
The plan also divides courses of action into various levels including quick fixes, moderate changes, and difficult changes.
Elements of Style
While I found the book very informative, Dr. Roizen’s writing style is somewhat dry. I really didn’t need that much detail about my arteries or prescription drugs. The most interesting parts of the book were the case studies that Dr. Roizen used as examples and anecdotes to prove his points. Some of the studies were very touching and I liked the personal element they lent to the book.
Dr. Roizen is obviously a very well-educated person and he does well with explaining things in lay terms. However, outside of the anecdotes, all the scientific jargon and lengthy expositions did not hold my interest. I only finished this book out of sheer discipline. I shouldn’t have bothered: all the information is on the website, with a much more user-friendly presentation.
Overall
I’m going to assume that everyone who reads this review has access to the internet. Since that’s the case, I do not recommend buying the book. The website has all the same information, the test is interactive for each user, and the website is updated frequently. What’s more, the book costs $25, the website is free.
I wholeheartedly recommend visiting the website. Taking the RealAge test changed a lot of things in my life because now I know exactly what I’m doing for myself and how these actions will improve the quality of my life. My RealAge is consistently 5 years younger than my calendar age.
What I really needed was a tangible way of measuring all those things that are “good for me” to do, health-wise. In his book, RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? , Dr. Michael Roizen provides a tangible means for measuring all these things. I confess that I first heard about the book (and the website, https://www.sharecare.com/static/realage) on Oprah’s talk show, many years ago, and was intrigued enough to order the book especially since at the time I was exercising a lot but had not seen any improvement.
The Premise
Dr. Roizen took all of the information about living a healthy, active life from a myriad of sources and compiled it into a single tool that could help people analyze their health and their lifestyles. He developed this tool to measure a person’s physiologic age, as opposed to one’s calendar age: people who have abused their bodies may have an older physiologic age than their calendar age; people who have taken care of their bodies may have a younger physiologic age than their calendar age. The lower one’s physiologic age, the longer one can expect to live.
Dr. Roizen’s goal isn’t just to extend people’s calendar lives. He points out early in the book not only can people live longer on the RealAge program, they can also add more life to their years by remaining healthy and active: more years to play with the grandchildren, more years to take that trip around the world, more years of golf with friends, more years without feeling old and infirm.
The Tool: The RealAge Test
Let me first preface this section of my review by pointing out that I didn’t take the test in the book. I went to the website and took the test instead: the website test is interactive with each user and gives instant gratification by calculating the results. Trying to figure out the test in the book seems terribly time-consuming and leaves much more room for error. Also, while the website is updated periodically with new medical findings and research, the book is not, so it’s entirely possible that one’s score, according to the book, could become skewed.
The RealAge test asks questions about one’s lifestyle, eating habits, exercise, family health history, and other factors like stress. Before taking the test (in the book or on the website), you need to know the following items: cholesterol values (LDL and HDL), blood pressure, amounts of vitamins you take, heart rate, weight, and height. If you don’t know and are taking the test online, the computer will assign average values for someone your calendar age.
Here are a few examples of the questions on the test:
Do you smoke?
How often do you eat breakfast?
How fast do your drive?
Are there smoke detectors in your home?
Are your parents divorced?
How often do you socialize with friends?
Do you own a dog?
Developing a Plan
After ascertaining one’s results from the test, the book takes the reader through developing an age reduction plan. At the beginning of the chapter, Dr. Roizen lists 44 strategies that will help the reader reduce their physiologic age. The following chapters provide more detail as to how to implement a change in one’s life, and why the change has an effect on one’s body. The topics covered range from taking vitamin supplements to exercise and diet plans and reducing stress in one’s life.
Flossing and brushing your teeth every day can make you 6.4 years younger.
Drinking alcohol in moderation can make you 1.9 years younger.
Not managing your finances can make you 8 years older.
Having orgasms (in a monogamous, safe sex environment) can make you 1.6 years younger. (See, being healthy isn’t always a chore!)
The plan also divides courses of action into various levels including quick fixes, moderate changes, and difficult changes.
Elements of Style
While I found the book very informative, Dr. Roizen’s writing style is somewhat dry. I really didn’t need that much detail about my arteries or prescription drugs. The most interesting parts of the book were the case studies that Dr. Roizen used as examples and anecdotes to prove his points. Some of the studies were very touching and I liked the personal element they lent to the book.
Dr. Roizen is obviously a very well-educated person and he does well with explaining things in lay terms. However, outside of the anecdotes, all the scientific jargon and lengthy expositions did not hold my interest. I only finished this book out of sheer discipline. I shouldn’t have bothered: all the information is on the website, with a much more user-friendly presentation.
Overall
I’m going to assume that everyone who reads this review has access to the internet. Since that’s the case, I do not recommend buying the book. The website has all the same information, the test is interactive for each user, and the website is updated frequently. What’s more, the book costs $25, the website is free.
I wholeheartedly recommend visiting the website. Taking the RealAge test changed a lot of things in my life because now I know exactly what I’m doing for myself and how these actions will improve the quality of my life. My RealAge is consistently 5 years younger than my calendar age.
November 5, 2017
Much needed information and perspectives
I've been meaning to read this book for a long time, and I'm glad finally did. RealAge is packed with lots of information and recommendations for staying younger and being healthy. Though the book doesn't prescribe a clear cut program for what you should do to take care of your health, the author does a good job explaining why exercising, taking vitamins (which I don't do), eating fruits and vegetable, getting regular medical checkups, and much more, are essential to staying healthy. This book will be guide for me as I with work to form better habits that decrease my age and maybe help me live a longer, productive life.
I've been meaning to read this book for a long time, and I'm glad finally did. RealAge is packed with lots of information and recommendations for staying younger and being healthy. Though the book doesn't prescribe a clear cut program for what you should do to take care of your health, the author does a good job explaining why exercising, taking vitamins (which I don't do), eating fruits and vegetable, getting regular medical checkups, and much more, are essential to staying healthy. This book will be guide for me as I with work to form better habits that decrease my age and maybe help me live a longer, productive life.
September 8, 2024
Love this book on biological aging and longevity.
May 10, 2018
Something of a "miss" for me, as I was looking forward to reading this book and really appreciated the premise - which I believed would be a comprehensive self-inventory of lifestyle and health habits for a rating on Real Age. Instead, I found the book to be something more along the lines of Prevention magazine wisdom. I was already familiar with the basics and unfortunately this book did not take me any further.
June 1, 2008
It is fascinating to take the Real Age quiz, and discover that you might be younger than your chronological age!
Dr. Rozen shows us how to live a Younger, longer life. He shares 44 scientifically proven steps that delay aging!
Dr. Rozen shows us how to live a Younger, longer life. He shares 44 scientifically proven steps that delay aging!
November 13, 2016
Some interesting data, I like that the author provided reference to the studies he based his information on. I did have a sense that some information was out dated (no surprise, the book is almost 20 years old), and wasn't particularly relevant for me as I have no medical issue of note.
January 17, 2009
Interesting information about one's body for the novice. His more recent books contain much more up to date research.
February 10, 2010
Interesting analysis of your real age. Answer several questions and see if you are "younger" or "older than your actual age. Some surprises here, other things are pretty much common sense.
April 14, 2011
I like everything Michael Roizen writes. Recently had a physical and decided to see about a few changes...cholesterol!
February 7, 2017
The author writes, that you can reverse your aging process, and even slow it down. Very informative book. This book is found on Audible.
Want to read
October 25, 2015 613.0434 R
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews