Rating:  Summary: Not a great read but some worthwhile stuff Review: "Real Age" is a nice addition to the self-help health book market with a unique approach that draws a line between your chronological age and your "real" age. The book is basically a schmorgasborg of practical info, none of which is really earth-shattering. Its the tables scattered throughout the book that show your real age adjustments for doing/not doing certain activities that makes this book. I found it both encouraging and empowering to see how things in my control can benefit my long-term health (though not all real age elements are under one's control). While some of the info is sophomoric(touting the benefits of a personal trainer), some of it is useful (detailed breakdown on vitamins) and make this a worthwhile check-out at the local library.
Rating:  Summary: Nothing new Review: A friend of mine said that she found this book on line and wondered if I would read it with her. After reading the book we both decided that there was no new information in this book at all. All though there are some good points to the book I feel It's just old news with a new gloss over it. I was not very impressed at all.
Rating:  Summary: A life-changing book! Review: After reading this fabulous book I feel like I'm in my twenties again. Sure, Dr. Roizen uses scientific research, and deals with practical issues of our daily diet, lifestyle, and bad habits such as drinking and smoking that will reduce our life expectancy, but overall he encourages us in a simple way to rearrange our priorities--and that makes all the difference. He shows techniques how you can feel as healthy and young as you'd like to be, seriously! Anyway, another book along these lines with an emphasis on rearranging your priorities and with a spiritual touch to heal your soul and mind, is a book that I must highly recommend, Dietmar Scherf's "I Love Me: Avoiding and Overcoming Depression"--also available at Amazon.
Rating:  Summary: STOP "STALLED" THINKING ABOUT HAVING A HEALTHY LONG LIFE Review: An untapped frontier of medicine is how to have a longer period of good health before we die. Many people actually fear long life, because that may extend pain and disability. Yet we all know disabled people who beam with joy in every breath they take. REAL AGE is a good look at factors that affect longeivity, and allows you to understand how your habits and circumstances are likely to affect your life span. In doing this, Dr. Roizen helps you overcome your Misconceptions about what is and is not healthy as well as overcome Communication stalls about the latest medical research that you may not know about. Compiling this work also helps you overcome your Procrastination stall by encouraging you to take action now. The book is also good for the Disbelief stall (if we take time to live a healthier life, we will shortchange something else and get even more stress -- wrong!). The book also attacks the Ugly Duckling stall: causing us to look hard at that which we usually ignore -- our most unheatlhy habits. One thing about the book is unclear to me, however, the research seems tied to mortality . . . yet Dr. Roizen claims that we will extend the period of healthy life this way. My impression of the scientific research is that it normally measures the frequency of disease and mortality. I am a little skeptical that all of these things will increase my period of "healthy life" rather than my longeivity. The statistician in me also suspects that many of the variables are auto-correlated (they are measuring the same phenomena) so that we are double counting. He also seems to understate the benefits of certain factors. For example, if all of your ancestors lived to be over 100 that would seem to add much more to your life expectancy than would the amount that his charts suggest. Further, if these ancestors were hale and hearty to the end versus were in nursing homes for 40 years would also seem pertinent to "youthful long life". Like any form of new thinking, this book raises good questions, points the way to some better answers, and suggests the need for different research and analysis to get even better answers in the future. I found his understanding of nutrition to be a little light, for example. Take what you read here without a grain of salt (most agree we get too much) and you will be all right. Take this book too literally and you will run the risk of misleading yourself. If you feel better, or key health measures improve (such as your blood pressure) after tryng the ideas in the book, go with it. You are probably on the right track. A way to continue this research would be to increase the number of measures that physicians keep about the quality of life that patients experience who do these things that are recommended. Locate the best practices for extending quality of life (both finding out WHAT to do and HOW to encourage people to do these things). Combine the best practices in new ways to get the best future result. Imagine what the ideal best practices are and approach them (such as reinforcing these good habits with young people, something not discussed in the book), getting the right motivations and support involved, and repeating the process. Then you'll make great strides! I hope Dr. Roizen continues his research along these lines that I have just outlined. In the meantime, please do read, think about, and apply the lessons here that make sense to you, make you feel better, and show demonstrable impact on the quality of and length of your life. Good luck and good health to you all!
Rating:  Summary: Could be dangerous to your health Review: At best, this book just rehashes common-sense recommendations for taking care of yourself -- wear your seat belt, quit smoking, exercise regularly, and don't eat a lot of junk food -- so it's relatively innocuous. But, where weight is concerned, I feel that he's perpetuating stereotypes that could be detrimental to one's general health. He toes the party line -- above-average weight is bad, losing weight is good -- and his RealAge quiz attaches a disproportionately large penalty to a high BMI (try taking the RealAge quiz on his web site twice, changing nothing but the weight you report, and you'll see what I mean). The facts of the matter are that dieting doesn't work and usually makes you fatter, and that a fat person who exercises, eats a balanced diet, and otherwise takes good care of him/herself can be just as healthy as a thin person. I'm afraid that this book (like so many others on the market) will discourage fat people: they'll figure "I'm too fat, so why even bother?", rather than making the moderate lifestyle changes that would optimize their health and fitness, so the overall effects of the book will be negative. (I come from a long line of farm wives who, by modern standards, were "morbidly obese," but who led active lives, ate well, and survived into their 80's and 90's in vigorous good health -- so I'm doing my best to emulate them!)
Rating:  Summary: The Modern "Medicine Man" Review: Dr. Roizen is a one man wonder and his book is a fantastic must read for everyone interested in their personal health and fitness.Beyond that, the book's firm scientific basis creates a great foundation for future research on the effects of everyday life on physiological aging.
Rating:  Summary: Finally - a simple, easy to understand way to better health! Review: Dr. Roizen's approach -- laid out in clear and simple English by co-author Elizabeth Stephenson -- is compelling, easy to understand, and easy to act upon. It gets past a lot of the mumbo jumbo and conflicting health advice we get bombarded with every day, through a startlingly simple concept -- "Real Age" -- that distills the best scientific research available into a comprehensive health program a child of 5 could understand . For the first time, you will see how focusing on two or three key things can really make a significant difference in your overall level of personal health, allowing you to ignore the stuff that is "nice to do", but really not all that important. (And some of it, like flossing your teeth or taking Vitamin B does not require Herculean feats of athleticism). Everyone should take the Real Age test and learn how to start living a healthier life starting tomorrow. One caveat: While I would give the book a 5-star rating, the Real Age web site deserves only 2 stars -- I encountered significant delays getting on to it, and then it took forever to fill out the questionnaire. This part still needs some work. I'm sure there are millions out there who would love to be tracking weekly progress on their Real Age -- but not if takes this long to log on!!
Rating:  Summary: Best health book I've found Review: Finally a health book that makes sense! The book tells you each strategy you can use to live better, how much effort it takes, and what your payoff is. Did you know, for example, that simple flossing of your teeth may add six years to your life? This is by far the best health book I've ever read - and I've read a bunch.
Rating:  Summary: This is Research? Review: Have you ever been to an old museum and laughed at 200 year old "medical" books that suggested completely ridiculous ways to cure yourself? Using leetches as a remedy for hiccups, cutting your arm to let the bad blood out... Well, I have news for you, a hundred years from now, people will read this book with similar expressions on their face. I think anyone wants to find an easy way to make themselves younger. But to the average American, it is pretty obvious how to stay healthy and live longer. Eat healthy, excercise regularly and go to the doctor. I don't need a professor to do twenty years of research for that.
Rating:  Summary: Excellent book Review: I am trying to locate the Real Age Test as I did last week without succes
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