Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity

Peter Attia, MD

Mar 2023 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Peter Attia, MD

About this audiobook

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert
 
“One of the most important books you’ll ever read.”—Steven D. Levitt, New York Times bestselling author of Freakonomics
 
Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.
 
For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.
 
This is not “biohacking,” it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:
 
• Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
• That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
• Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.”
• Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
• Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.
 
Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of charts, graphs, and illustrations from the book, along with other valuable resources

Ratings and reviews

Great information to absorb from Peter. Add this to your reading list and good buy. Not entirely new information for me, but there were a few knowledge nuggets I ended up bookmarking for later to go back and research and absorb more.

Dr. Peter Attia has a wonderful mind, and he uses it to condense the complicated realms of biostatistics, physiology, and emotional well being into a easy to digest book. His delivery is engaging, using a variety of examples to drive points about health and wellness. Though he could have made this book read like a medical journal entry, the dense data is spread out with stories of the human condition and our unique struggles to thrive.

I have already told many of my colleagues friends and family about this book. This work coherently describes how we can reimagine medicine to flip the script from a reactive disease focused approach, to a proactive health promotion model. more than another diet or exercise book, this is a manuscript to help people formulate a strategy to develop a sustainable and effective plan to improve their overall health and wellness for the long term.

About the author

Peter Attia, MD, is the founder of Early Medical. He received his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine and trained at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in general surgery. He also trained at the NIH as a surgical oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where his research focused on immune-based therapies for melanoma. He serves on the editorial board for the journal Aging. He is the host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering the topics of health, medicine, and longevity.
 
Bill Gifford is a veteran journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (Or Die Trying). His work has appeared in Outside, Scientific American, Bloomberg Businessweek, Men’s Health, and numerous other publications.