Seventeen years ago, Eric Topol, a cardiologist and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, set out to discover why some people age so well, when others don’t. Aged 53 at the time, Topol considered healthy aging to be of deep scientific — and personal — interest. He also suspected the answer was genetic. So, with colleagues, he spent more than six years sequencing the genomes of about 1,400 people in their 80s or older with no major chronic diseases. All qualified, Topol felt, as “super agers.” But they shared few, if any, genetic similarities, he and his colleagues found, meaning DNA didn’t explain their super aging. So, what did, Topol and his colleagues wondered? His new book, “Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity,” is his answer. Synthesizing hundreds of studies about health, disease and aging, his book talks about a future where advanced drugs, biochemistry and artificial intelligence should allow us to tur...
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