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4.5
Transcend: Nine steps to Living Well Forever is an overall well written and thorough guide to changing ones lifestyle for the better. I really liked the way the book was written and the content is very well organized and thorough. The authors really explain how the body works and what you can do to maximize your lifespan through their version of the food pyramid (which concentrates more on vegetables and greens rather than grains as a basis of a healthy diet), exercise plan, and supplement guide.The book is efficiently organized into two main parts: the problem and the plan. The first part (the problem) consists of chapters dedicated to problems that arise in individual body systems due to aging, including the neurological, cardiac, gastrointestinal, endocrine, and metabolic systems. These chapters also include information on the tests and actions you can take to help prevent and/or monitor these problems. The second part (plan) delves further into the actions you can take to maintain vitality and well being, which includes chapters on talking with your doctor, nutrition, supplements, and exercise. One particular aspect of the writing that I enjoyed was that it did not talk down to the reader. Instead the authors respected the fact that people buying their book were those who were serious about wanting to live long and functional lives (and possibly forever) and in my opinion found a good balance between presenting the information without getting too complicated for those with little to no science background. Please note though: this is compared to some other general health books which take an overly basic approach to nutrition and health; Transcend is still aimed at a broad audience, which might make it a bit too general for more scientifically minded readers who might like to know the evidence used to arrive at their conclusions or more thorough mechanisms of factors described in the book that contribute to aging.Another interesting feature of the book is that it discusses the latest news in scientific research on life extension and gives you estimates on how far we are from technologies that will effectively allow us to live forever. It primarily discusses these in a conversational format where the reader is talking to the future authors who tell him/her what life is like in the 2020s and 2030s. I found this a little weird and would have preferred if they had just written what they predict life would be like and how they came to that conclusion.All in all this is an excellent book and the book's thorough nature serves as an excellent introductory text to healthier living.
