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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommended for Readers in Their 30's and 40's, 16 Aug 2003
This book does an excellent job of showing people how to age well. It's best point is made on the very last page, when it points out, "The odds are overwhelming that we will be 100 percent unsuccessful at those things we never attempt."The author spends a chapter each disproving the following rumors: 1) Aging is Boring Subject, 2) All Old People Are Pretty Much the Same, 3) An Unsound Body Equals an Unsound Mind, 4) Memory is the First Thing to Go, 5) Use It or Lose It, 6) Old Dogs Can't Learn New Tricks, 7) Old People Are Isolated and Lonely, 8) Old People Are Depresses, and Have Every Right to Be, and 9) Wisdom Requires Being Smart and Elderly. The author is a director of aging research at Harvard University, and he has written this book primarily for younger adults (30's and 40's) to plan for optimal aging, as well as for adults up into their 60's, 70's, and 80's. One of the MOST important points he makes is that blood pressure IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD (especially in the 30's and 40's) should be CAREFULLY MONITORED each year. A jump of diastolic pressure of 10 points during this time period is a danger signal. Most of the non-Alzheimer's adults who go downhill mentally are those who have had heart or circulatory problems, so one of his biggest points in the book is to do everything you can to avoid this particular problem, especially when you are YOUNG (in your 30's and 40's). The only reason I have rated the book four stars instead of five is that some of the information he discusses was self-evident to me, and he did not include a chapter on how to maximize aging specifically for people who are already in poor health, or already frail in their 50's or 60's, such as having to be in a wheelchair, or use a walker, even at a relatively young age.
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