From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
What they found was that the majority of people — above 50% — maintained cognitive function from their 50s into their 80s. We knew this more than fifty years ago.
Ultimately, I think we'll be able to pop a pill and reset our body's age. It takes us about 4-8 weeks currently to reset the age of a mouse, it shouldn't be any different for humans.
The real culprit behind the sickness often goes unnoticed: it's the disruption to our circadian rhythm caused by traveling across time zones. Our bodies are designed to operate on a natural rhythm.
I told my dad from the beginning, we're fighting both disease and doubt, and we have to tackle them simultaneously.
People have been told that asthma is an incurable condition, that they'll need to stay indoors and rely on a bronchodilator every few hours for life. But that's just not true. The way you breathe is deeply connected to asthma symptoms, a message that asthmatics rarely hear from anyone.
Even just 20 years ago we used to ask the question, 'why do we sleep?' It was one of the last great scientific mysteries; and the crass answer (at that point) was that we slept, to cure sleepiness. Much like saying we eat to cure hunger, however, this tells us nothing of the physiological functions that food and nutrition provide.
There are two key advantages of thinking of guns as a public health issue. First of all, it removes some of the emotion from the issue. Secondly it moves the debate to be about evidence; where we can empirically show what works, at what cost.
They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again.
30% of people who have life-threatening illnesses don't take their medicine as prescribed, that's mind-blowing. These are not people who have a cold – these are people who are going to die if they don't take their medicine, and even in that situation, compliance is difficult.
About 80 billion of the dead ones died of infection over humanity's lifetime, and the average lifespan of those people was 30. Think of all the self-actualization, the dreams, the aspiration, the success, fulfillment, the family, the grandchildren—all those things that you never ever saw.
If we want to build or maintain function, we need to apply a stimulus. And then, as much as we can, we need to provide the environment that allows us to best adapt to that stimulus.
You need one strong relationship in your life to remain sane. You need a relationship that doesn't depend on digital transmission! You need somebody who you understand deeply, who you can talk to directly, who can give you a reality check when everything coming through your computer and phone is bewildering.