"After watching elderly mice on resveratrol perform like rodent Olympians in an endurance test, I came away convinced that the long, weird quest to extend life span-a 5,000-year trek during which hopelessly hopeful seekers tried everything from transfusing youths' blood into their aged veins to injecting minced dog testicles-was finally getting somewhere."
Even before the first person set off to find the Fountain of Youth, we've been searching for a way to live longer. But promises of life extension have long reeked of snake oil, and despite our wishful thinking-not to mention the number of vitamins we pop, cups of ginkgo tea we drink, or miles we jog-few of us believe we'll live to see 100, much less set a longevity record.
Scientists, too, have long been skeptical, often dismissing gerontology, the study of aging, as little more than a front for charlatans. And it's hard to blame them. Aging's daunting complexity has often led to more questions than answers, and opportunists have always been quick to cash in on any development, no matter how dubious.
But now we're closing in on true breakthroughs in anti-aging science. Compounds that dramatically extend the health spans and longevity of animals, including mammals, have recently been demonstrated in the lab, and gerontologists now generally agree that drugs that slow human aging and greatly boost health in later life are no longer a distant dream-in fact, candidates supported by reams of data are already at hand.
David Stipp, a veteran science journalist, tells the story of these momentous developments and the scientists behind them. He reveals how seemingly unconnected findings on gene mutations that can double animals' life spans, the life-extending effect of near-starvation diets, the link between dwarfism and longevity, the secrets of weirdly long-lived animals, and the special genes behind human centenarians' radical resistance to the ravages of time are coming together to spark an anti-aging revolution.
Writing for nonscientists, Stipp provides a definitive, engaging account of some of the most exciting, and sometimes controversial, advances that promise to change the way we live forever.

Reviews

"Improvements in technology, particularly the ability to sequence DNA quickly, have made the serious study of ageing possible. All this is carefully chronicled in "The Youth Pill" by David Stipp, a former medical writer for the Wall Street Journal and an able guide to this young science. His book draws readers down the blind alleys and experimental dead ends that are an inevitable part of scientific research, as well as explaining the advances that have been made and the hunches that led to them."
-"The Economist"
"An engaging account of the burgeoning field dubbed gerontology-the study of aging and of medicinal tools to block its unwanted effects"
-Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former deputy commissioner of the FDA, "Wall Street Journal"
"From the history of attitudes and philosophies on old age and various nostrums that have been pitched to the hard science of the cellular mechanisms of aging, genetic studies, and dietary variables and finally to what is becoming th