A Short Guide to a Long Life
By David B Agus
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
In his international bestseller, The End of Illness, Dr. David B. Agus shared what he has learned from his work as a pioneering cancer doctor, revealing the innovative steps he takes to prolong the lives of not only cancer patients, but those who want to enjoy a vigorous, lengthy life. Now Dr. Agus has turned his research into a practical and concise illustrated handbook for everyday living. He believes optimal health begins with our daily routines.
A Short Guide to a Long Life is divided into three sections (What to Do, What to Avoid, and Doctor’s Orders) that provide the definitive answers to many common and not-so-common questions: Who should take a baby aspirin daily? Are flu shots safe? What constitutes “healthy” foods? Why is it important to protect your senses? Are airport scanners hazardous? Dr. Agus will help you develop new patterns of personal health care, using inexpensive and widely available tools that are based on the latest and most reliable science.
An accessible and essential handbook for preparing for visits to the doctor and maintaining control of your future, “A Short Guide to a Long Life explores the simple idea that a healthy tomorrow starts with good habits today” (Fortune).
David B Agus
David B. Agus, MD, is the author of the international sensations The End of Illness, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and The Lucky Years. A professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California, he is the founding Director and CEO of the Ellison Institute of Technology and a contributor to CBS News. He lives in Santa Monica, California.
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Reviews for A Short Guide to a Long Life
103 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This short book attempts to answer some of the most common health questions.What should I eat? Real food (that does not come with a label). Understand basic bio-vocabulary; know the difference between vitamin and supplement, or define inflammation. Consider getting a dog; it will force you to get some exercise, along with leaving your desk and forgetting about multi-tasking. There seem to be a million different diets available. Find the diet that works for you, and stick with it. Grow a garden (or, at least, a window box). Practice good hygiene. Maintain a healthy weight. Caffeine is OK in sensible amounts. Consider getting a DNA test.Get in the habit of taking a baby aspirin daily. Be smart about being sick. Maintain good posture and strengthen your core. Adopt a positive attitude. Smile. Try an activity that is out of your comfort zone. Eat at least three servings of cold-water fish per week. Never skip breakfast. It's a good idea to be a little obsessive-compulsive about washing your hands. There is no such thing as doing it too often. There is no shame in asking for help.The book also includes things that should be avoided. They include: fad diets, detoxes, dangerous sports and risky behavior, sunburns, airport x-ray scanners, insomnia, juicing, smoking and vitamins and supplements (!)No one is expected to immediately do (or not do) everything in this book. Pick just one thing, incorporate it into your daily life so that it becomes a habit, then pick another. Anyone who cannot find just one health aid here needs more help than this book can provide. For everyone else, this book is short, very easy to understand, and very much worth reading.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5David provides a list of rules for good health. As implied by the term rules the author is paternalistic in his edicts. He claims that his rules are based on the results of randomized clinical studies in which he claims to have a metanalysis. He then does not not discuss such studies or how he may have examined the results of the body of science. He does not discuss alternative views nor acknowledge the existence of differing opinions. Much of his rules are good advice but some are not. Perhaps his motivation is good but it is more likely that the attitude of the book portrays one with an egotistical view. I do not suggest this book to anyone above a high school education.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book looked so informative and it really was just average!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5`This book is an awesome source for easy to follow directions to healthier life choices. This can be utilized for any age of person. Great work. AAA+ rating from me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Has tips which are easy to follow.It was a revelation to learn about flip side of vitamins
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great information. Every bit priceless. Thanks a lot. Bye bye
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A concise roundup of ideas you can easily take action on. Includes the reasoning behind the recommendations. There's a helpful section with checklists for people of different ages.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As advertised a short but info packed book on a wide range of health topics that everyone can use to enhance their well being. Dr. Agus shares his knowledge and insight to avoid the bad influences on your health; and there are many. He likewise offers tips and approaches to do much good and the shoulds and shouldn'ts when it comes to everything healthy. A worthwhile read that is concise and to the point.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A short beginners guide to healthy living and longevity and anti aging. This is done with hundreds of tips and ideas one on each page. Many are just common sense and this is a beginner level. Having read hundreds of health books I disagree on the Doctors take on not using vitamins.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5You had me until "Dr. Oz".
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mesaged. Abaker
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5kttkkkLltrrktktrek"kll;kee4a'm"krlltkrd Dr rkkjdji l
Book preview
A Short Guide to a Long Life - David B Agus
Introduction: The Power of Prevention
At least twice a week, I tell a patient that I have nothing left in my arsenal to combat his or her cancer. It’s over, and in most cases the end is near. I’ve never gotten used to this gut-wrenching conversation. But I do it as part of the role I’ve accepted. That we are no better at treating cancer today, with a few notable exceptions, than we were fifty years ago is maddening. More infuriating still is that many of my patients could have prevented their cancer or other life-altering disease had they done a few things differently earlier in life. That makes those conversations even more upsetting. I’m pretty certain that most people could delay or totally prevent a vast majority of the illnesses we see today—including not only cancer but heart and kidney disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders—if they just adopt a few healthy habits early on and avoid the ones that lead to illness.
The best way to fight not just cancer but all the other ailments that typically develop over time is to prevent them. A staggering seven out of ten deaths among Americans each year are from chronic diseases like the ones I just named. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke account for more than 50 percent of all deaths every year. About half of us are living with a chronic condition right now.
But prevention is a hard sell. Think about yourself for a moment: can you see yourself twenty, thirty, or forty years from now? We all want to live however we choose today and pay our dues later. I see this payment being made by my patients daily, just by looking into their eyes.
I’d like nothing more than to be put out of my job. Imagine a world where we all die of old age—our bodies go kaput, much like an old car with hundreds of thousands of great miles on it. One day, the engine doesn’t start and nothing can revive it. In fact, 1951 was the last year you could die in the United States with the cause old age
being listed on the death certificate. Since then, we’ve had to name a specific disease, injury, or complication. I find it astonishing to think that we live in a high-tech world with access to a vast array of knowledge about how to stay healthy, and yet preventable noncommunicable diseases now account for more deaths worldwide than all other causes combined. We rarely hear about the person who dies peacefully in her sleep at ninety-nine years young. Instead, we hear about individuals who suffer mightily and eventually succumb after a long battle.
In our age of information, where health tips are dispensed like candy by the media, the work of being healthy has gotten complicated. Just consider your own search for truth about what’s good for you—or what’s bad. It’s common practice to rely on experts to tell us how to live—news stories covering the latest scientific findings, bestselling books that tout one theory or another, government recommendations, claims on labels, and doctors like me. But this advice is so terribly common that it commonly conflicts. What is a person to do with a hot media account of a new study that finds multivitamins effective in preventing cancer—only to read another media account the next day that says multivitamins can increase your risk for cancer and do nothing for heart health? (And to add insult to injury, you learn that the company that makes the vitamins is the same one that makes the drugs to combat cancer!)
When I wrote my first book, The End of Illness, my purpose was simple: to share what I’d learned from working out on the edge of the cliff that is the war on cancer—a place where we take risks in medicine in the hope of finding innovations to prolong people’s lives. While the death rate from cancer hasn’t changed dramatically in the past fifty years, progress against other diseases has relied on single discoveries that have allowed us to treat or eradicate them. Examples include the use of statins to prevent cardiovascular disease and stroke, antibiotics to combat infectious diseases originating from bacteria, antivirals and vaccines to tackle and protect against specific viruses, and a heightened awareness of the risks posed by behavioral factors such as smoking and poor diet or overeating. Except for these isolated improvements, why aren’t we better at treating and curing chronic degenerative diseases that often cannot be blamed on a single culprit?
For decades we’ve tried to reduce our understanding of the body and its potential breakdowns to a finite cause, be it a mutation, a germ, a deficiency, or a number such as a white blood cell count, glucose level, or a triglyceride value. But this has led us far astray from a perspective that could not only change how we care for the body, but also how we create the next generation of treatments and, in some instances, cures. The original title of The End of Illness, upon which this life guide is based, was What Is Health? It’s a question that bugs me and my colleagues to this day. I don’t know what true health is. We can certainly try to measure health in a variety of ways—weight, cholesterol, blood sugar, blood cell count, how you look, and how well you sleep, for example. But that doesn’t really tell me much in terms of overall health and how many years and days you might have left. This has motivated me to urge people to begin viewing their total health as a complex network of processes that cannot be explained by looking at any one pathway or focal point. In many instances, it does no good to try to understand a certain disease; we just need to control it, much like an air traffic controller manages planes without knowing exactly how to fly one. This radically different perspective on health is what can open the doorway to future solutions, and even cures.
I don’t think I fully grasped the thorniness surrounding the subject of health, however, until I started discussing my book and responding to readers. I quickly found myself on the receiving end of questions like, What’s your real motivation for writing a book? Why are you hawking prescription drugs? How can a doctor who treats the very rich have anything valuable to give the average person who barely has health insurance? Let me head this last question off at the pass right now by saying the vast majority of my prescriptions
in this book are surprisingly simple, such as wearing good shoes (Rule 59
) and eating lunch at the same time every day (Rule 3
). How much does it cost to keep a fairly regular schedule every day and to walk around more (Rule 16
)? How much will you save by ditching your vitamins and supplements (Rule 62
)? How much easier will your life get once you learn that it’s better to buy frozen vegetables than some fresh produce (which isn’t nearly as fresh as you think; see Rule 5
). And even when I suggest something that comes with a price, such as paying for a DNA screening test, there’s often an inexpensive, if not totally free, alternative (see Rule 19
), which can be even more informative and useful.
When I went on the Dr. Oz Show in the fall of 2012, I was billed as the most controversial doctor in America. But I think I’m the absolute opposite. I won’t endorse anything that’s not backed by well-controlled clinical trials—studies that live up to the rigors of the scientific method. In that regard, I’m one of the most conservative of doctors in America. People tend to label certain things as aggressive or, conversely, mainstream. Many individuals think taking aspirin and statins on a daily basis is aggressive but taking vitamins is mainstream. But the data tell a totally different story, painting a picture in which aspirin and statins can significantly reduce your risk of death (what scientists call all cause mortality
) while vitamins and supplements may raise your risk for a variety of illnesses, including cancer. I can understand and appreciate someone’s suspicion when hearing a doctor push a pill, and her assumption that there must be financial remuneration or incentive involved. For the record, I have no financial ties to any drug company. In the past I have been paid for giving lectures to pharmaceutical management teams, but I’ve never been involved with any pharmaceutical marketing. If I suggest a certain drug or class of drugs, it’s for a good, well-documented reason: because they have been shown to make a positive difference.
I actually don’t mind stirring up controversy and inspiring people to ask questions. Spending on food and