Health
No, the body doesn’t just wear out as we get older.
Friends often look at me quizzically when I tell them this. One says, “But I can feel myself wearing down.” And another: “Nothing works the way it used to.
Apr 7, 2014
Column
Josh Mitteldorf
Aging & evolutionary biology
Josh Mitteldorf is best known for promoting the theory that aging is not “wearing out” but rather an evolved program that limits lifespan. The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. He began blogging about aging on this site in 2012. His guidance for a long life is at AgingAdvice.org. His two books on aging are available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Mitteldorf’s PhD is in astrophysics. Since about 2020, he has taken up a new challenge as curator and critic of science on the fringe, writing about promising science that the science establishment has unjustly neglected.
In other areas of life, Mitteldorf’s two daughters were among the first girls to be adopted from China in the 1980s. He has taught a weekly yoga class for fifty years. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. Follow his other writing at mitteldorf.substack.com, and listen to his poetry on YouTube.
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Health
Build exercise into your day
The two greatest fitness inventions of all time (in my humble opinion) are the bicycle and the stairwell.
Apr 3, 2014
Health
Salt is good for you
Last year, the Federal CDC backed off from 50 years of advising everyone (and especially heart patients) to limit their salt intake.
Apr 3, 2014
Health
Life Extension Supplements: A Reality Check
In a paper published late last year, a cautious and expert biochemist reports that none of the most popular “life extension supplement” mixes actually extend life span in mice.
Mar 25, 2014
Health
A one-man experiment in radical anti-aging
One reason that there is still so much uncertainty in anti-aging medicine is that we can’t do experiments on humans the way we do on mice.
Mar 21, 2014
Health
Mitigating risk of Alzheimer's Disease: More important than we thought
Recent re-analysis suggests that Alzheimer's Disease ought to be ranked with cancer and heart disease as one of the most important mortality risks for older Americans.
Mar 12, 2014
Health
A Well-known Anti-aging Supplement
Carnosine is a good supplement, with many studies offering indirect evidence for effects that ought to be beneficial.
Mar 5, 2014
Health
One-Minute Workouts
One-minute workouts - a list of exercises 0. Stairs are a terrific resource - available almost everywhere people live and work.
Feb 25, 2014
Health
Anti-Oxidants can Nullify the Benefits of Exercise
A lot of people still try to understand aging as a kind of accumulated damage, or wear-and-tear.
Feb 17, 2014
Life
A Heavy Hitter Weighs In Against Evolutionary Theory
Demography is the statistical study of population age structures, or the study of aging and fertility through population statistics.
Feb 10, 2014
Health
An easy way to make stem cells, & A new way to eliminate senescent cells
1) Creating pluripotent stem cells may be much easier than we thought.
Feb 4, 2014
Health
The most promising medical technology on the horizon today
You would think that the 2009 Nobel Prize might have done more to raise the profile of research in telomere biology, but the field remains a specialized…
Jan 25, 2014