Live Long, Die Short – by Dr. Roger Landry

First know: “die short” is not about your height—although on average, short people do live longer, partly because insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) promotes both tallness and accelerated DNA damage (thus, aging and cancer), and partly because if someone is very tall, it can cause circulatory problems, and without a nice easy flow of blood through the brain, bad things happen (such as accumulation of harmful detritus in the brain, and increased stroke risk too).

Next know: “die short” is, in this book, actually about shortening the decline at the end of life. Sometimes people say “I don’t want to live 10 years longer; they’ll be the 10 most miserable years”, but in fact if we look after our health, we will be healthy for perhaps >9.5 of our last 10 years, while an unhealthy person may just get their expected “10 most miserable years” 10 or 20 years earlier (and then die).

So, in short (so to speak), it’s about increasing healthspan.

To enjoy the longest and healthiest healthspan, Dr. Landry offers 10 tips. We’ll not keep them a secret; they are:

1. Use it or lose it
2. Keep moving
3. Challenge your brain
4. Stay connected
5. Lower your risks
6. Never act your age
7. Wherever you are, be fully there
8. Find your purpose
9. Have children in your life
10. Laugh to a better life

Each of these has a chapter devoted to them, in section 2 of the book (section 1 is about what we know about healthy aging, and section 3 is about where we go from here).

You’ll notice that one item not generally found on such lists is “have children in your life”; to be clear, they don’t have to be your children, and/but they do have to be actual current children; any now-grown-up progeny aren’t what’s being talked about here (wonderful as they may be, any support role they may play gets filed under “stay connected” instead).

The style is mostly impersonal pop-science with occasional personal anecdotes, and the book’s formatting (many subheadings within chapters) makes it easy to read a bit at a time, if that’s your preference. There’s a modest, but extant, bibliography.

Bottom line: if you’d like to stay younger as you get older, this book goes into a lot of detail about 10 ways to do just that.

Click here to check out Live Long, Die Short, and live long, die short!