Notwithstanding the subtitle claim of “secrets from the leading edge of science”, we’ll note up front that this book was published in 2015, and what was new then, isn’t now. However, what was new then is still important now, so we think the book merits attention just the same.

The book examines why certain creatures (like humans) seem programmed to grow old and die, and why others (few others, but enough to make a list) either simply do not age, or else do age but can become younger when they hit a certain point. If this is the first you’re hearing of biologically immortal creatures, we’ll mention: they can and do die, just, their cause of death is usually by being eaten. But on a cellular and structural level, they don’t age. They grow to maturity and then just stay that way until one day they get eaten (or fall to some similar external circumstance).

Tackling the question of “why do we age?” (not as a philosophical question, but rather as an engineering question) is important to tackle the critical question of “…and could we not?”, and that’s what much of this book is about.

The real reason that compared to other mammals, humans live (for example) slightly longer than bats but not as long as naked mole rats, comes down mostly to genes, which makes it sound like things are set in stone, but rather, even without outright gene-editing technologies like CRISPR, gene expression is often quite modifiable, and often modifiable not just by drugs, but also by supplements, and indeed by nutraceuticals, which means also by diet, plus diet-adjacent things like fasting.

While this is mostly an explanatory book rather than a how-to, there’s enough to make practical use of, and even a recipes section.

The style is very gripping pop-science—or at least, if you’re anything like this reviewer, you’ll find it a page-turner. While being light on citations as we go (not like some authors who will mark several citations per page, or in the extreme, for every declarative sentence made), there is a reassuring bibliography at the back.

Bottom line: if you’re interested in the “under the hood” of aging, then you will love this book.

Click here to check out The Longevity Code, and slow down the aging process to live well for longer!

So, yet another book with “The new science of…” in the title; does this one deliver new science?

Actually, yes, this time! The author was originally a physicist before deciding that aging was the number one problem that needed solving, and switched tracks to computational biology, and pioneered a lot of research, some of the fruits of which can be found in this book, in amongst a more general history of the (very young!) field of biogerontology.

Downside: most of this is not very practical for the lay reader; most of it is explanations of how things happen on a cellular and/or genetic level, and how we learned that. A lot also pertains to what we can learn from animals that either age very slowly, or are biologically immortal (in other words, they can still be killed, but they don’t age and won’t die of anything age-related), or are immune to cancer—and how we might borrow those genes for gene therapy.

However, there are also chapters on such things as “running repairs”, “reprogramming aging”, and “how to live long enough to live even longer”.

The style is conversational pop science; in the prose, he simply states things without reference, but at the back, there are 40 pages of bibliography, indexed in the order in which they occurred and prefaced with the statement that he’s referencing in each case. It’s an odd way to do citations, but it works comfortably enough.

Bottom line: if you’d like to understand aging on the cellular level, and how we know what we know and what the likely future possibilities are, then this is a great book; it’s also simply very enjoyable to read, assuming you have an interest in the topic (as this reviewer does).

Click here to check out Ageless, and understand the science of getting older without getting old!