Review: Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David A. Sinclair
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you are like me, you read this book because you are striving for a deeper understanding of the roles of mTOR, IGF1, sirtuin pathways and the like, and how they impact longevity. This book will surely help with this goal, but it could have done so much more. It certainly had ample opportunity to keep the reader immersed in the science content, but the author derails himself continually with social policy proclamations.

Any person who picks up a book like this to read in their spare time — something so evidently NOT a beach read — does not need the author to talk about which governments do the best job and what the world’s most important issues ought to be, and what governments really need to do.

Readers of books like this seek the science. This book was a little short on science but rather long on virtue-signaling implications of the science. I think the readers of books like this are perfectly capable of extrapolating their very own ideas about the future and the potential outcomes and what should or should not be done.

I enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2. I found Part 3 unnecessary. I am not interested in being told how to think about this - I simply want to understand the science. Take out all the public policy and political admonishing, and take out all the USA trashing, and throw in another unit on the actual lab studies and I would have found this a far better read.

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