Live Forever? – by Dr. John Tregoning

The author, a research scientist, investigates our mortality, and what can (and can’t) be done about it.

His conclusions are mostly grim and fatalistic (have a good diet and exercise, don’t drink or smoke, get your vaccines, and anything else is merely changing what you’ll die of), but the real value of the book lies in how he gets there.

Dr. Tregoning is an immunologist, and as such he places the greatest stock in epidemiological studies, which can and if reasonable should be followed up with randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Why the “if reasonable”, you ask?

He gives the example of a study that was undertaken precisely to illustrate this: volunteers were sought for a RCT to test the efficacy of using a parachute vs using a placebo backpack. However, given that the intervention group (parachute) is a well-established lifesaver, and the control group (placebo backpack) means a wildly unethical risk of letting half the study population die, this study being performed as an RCT is of course absurd.

The reader who understands how that is a problem, will understand how asking for RCTs for many kinds of “…or the patient will suffer horribly and/or die” medical interventions is also the same problem.

That illustrative parachute study was conducted, by the way; however for safety reasons (acknowledged in the “limitations” section of the paper) they used a stationary aircraft on the ground, and concluded “the results may be cautiously extrapolated to high-altitude use” (highlighting another problem—that experimental conditions often cannot usefully replicate real-world conditions).

The point here, and indeed the main thesis of the book, is: examine the evidence for yourself and do not just trust headlines, including:

• when there headlines say there is evidence (does the evidence really say what the headlines are saying?)
• when the headlines are saying there is not enough evidence (are they asking for placebo-controlled trials for something that cannot be ethically placebo-controlled—like vaccines, HRT, cancer drugs, or surgeries, all of which are better suited to intervention studies without a control group?)

The style is—for all the grim fatalism we mentioned—entertaining and personable, making this bleak topic an engaging and even enjoyable read. There’s an extensive bibliography, and separately, many per-chapter footnotes.

Bottom line: will this book help you to live longer? If you’re currently on-the-fence about vaccines (in which case, maybe it’ll motivate you to get them as appropriate), then yes, quite possibly. Otherwise, probably not. However, what it will do is two things: 1) entertain you 2) give you a great insight into how to understand science itself, so as to not be at the mercy of headlines. For those reasons, we recommend this book.

Click here to check out “Live Forever?”, and understand the science behind the headlines!