The Longevity Code: Your Personal Prescription for a Longer, Sweeter Life

Just under 400 pages the book covers topics like cracking the code and identifying the factors that contribute to or threaten your longevity. FInding your personal longevity prescription and his own guide to the 76 most effective longevity boosters.... . Common sense suggestions that may sound easy but anyone who knows the statistics knows that he makes sense and that sadly too many people dont follow the advise.He covers issues like getting out of abusive an relationship and a negative job environment and much of what he has in the book has been covered in a vast number of other books and magazines, and even on TV. But for someone who doesn't read alot of books on making lifestyle changes this is one that will probably have in it, the information that one might need 5-6 other books to cover.It is a great book for the person who has never made positive lifestyle choices and needs a book that will cover all the bases.

If Zorba the Greek had been a doctor, then this is the book he would have written! I really liked it. Dr. Zorba's main point, just like the Greek's, is that there's more to life than simply good cholesterol and a low blood pressure. It's not that these strictly medical points are unimportant, it's just that the other areas in one's world can be just as significant, if not more so, in making life long.....and sweet. Dr. Zorba divides life into five interconnected spheres: physical, mental, kinship/social, spiritual and material (financial and job-related.) In each of these spheres readers are encouraged to find their own personal strengths and weaknesses. The book has a series of fill-in-the-blank charts and lists to help you personalize this information. There is a set of cards in the book's center with which can be used for "Playing the hand you're dealt." The game is to arrange you longevity "boosters" and "busters" into some kind of order, discarding the ones that don't count for your specific genetics and lifestyle, and then to work on the ones that define your own unique longevity "game." It may be a little hokey, but I got a lot of good ideas for myself out of it.What I really enjoyed about the book, though, were the stories. Just as things would start to get a little dull, the good doctor would tell a little tale about one of his own patients to make the point. I particularly liked the one about "Ralph," whose two-month ride up to Alaska on a Harley did more good for his good health and longevity than all the standard medical advice he'd been given before it. This was true despite the fact that motorcycle riding is "dangerous," if looked at out of context. Although riding a motorcycle may worsen your odds in the strictly physical sphere, it may actually boost your overall life expectancy when the mental, social and even spiritual spheres of the experience are included. In fact, motorcycling your way to a long life has a kind of Zen feeling about it, especially when you include the bike maintenance.This actually seems relevant, by the way, given the book's unexpected introduction by the Dalai Lama.Anyway, "The Longevity Code" seems like a well-balanced book, written by a natural storyteller whose advice is backed up by scientific evidence and clarified by examples from his life as an actual family doctor. I was surprised how much I really liked it.