Dear Reader,

I frequently tell my patients that I would like them to live 100 years and be in the nursing home, in a wheelchair and living with dementia for only the last three days of their lives, not the last decade. I want them to have a long life span but also a long health span.

While a life span counts the whole of our days, a health span counts how many of those days include good health. Health span is the length of time in which you go about your daily routine alert, engaged and active, before chronic conditions like heart disease or dementia make life more difficult.

Over the years life span has dramatically increased, health span hasn’t really kept pace. Yes, people are living longer — but their health is not keeping up with their longevity. In fact, the gap between the average life span and the average health span is now over a decade and widening.

Because of this gap, someone may reasonably live to be 90 years old, but the last 10 or more years of life may be spent in a bed, in a nursing home or with dementia. For many, this isn’t much of a life — and it’s certainly not the life they’d dreamed of living. The reason I wrote Live Younger Longer is that it doesn't have to be this way. We can all make small changes over time to reduce our chances of chronic illness or dying prematurely.

This book offers in-depth insights on the following and more:

The best foods to eat and why
Getting the most fitness in the least amount of time
Why sleep habits matter
The dangers of stress and what to do about them
The true impact of alcohol and tobacco on our bodies
How to make changes that will last a lifetime

Most of us also want to live well – to enjoy good health, vitality and happiness all the way into our later years. The good news is that you have many opportunities to stop and even reverse the progression of disease. Live Younger Longer is your guide to these opportunities.