Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young

by Josh Mitteldorf, Dorion Sagan

Overview

A revolutionary examination of why we age, what it means for our health, and how we just might be able to fight it.

In Cracking the Aging Code, theoretical biologist Josh Mitteldorf and award-winning writer and ecological philosopher Dorion Sagan reveal that evolution and aging are even more complex and breathtaking than we originally thought. Using meticulous multidisciplinary science, as well as reviewing the history of our understanding about evolution, this book makes the case that aging is not something that “just happens,” nor is it the result of wear and tear or a genetic inevitability. Rather, aging has a fascinating evolutionary purpose: to stabilize populations and ecosystems, which are ever-threatened by cyclic swings that can lead to extinction.

When a population grows too fast it can put itself at risk of a wholesale wipeout. Aging has evolved to help us adjust our growth in a sustainable fashion as well as prevent an ecological crisis from starvation, predation, pollution, or infection.

This dynamic new understanding of aging is provocative, entertaining, and pioneering, and will challenge the way we understand aging, death, and just what makes us human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250061713
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	1,066,692
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Theoretical biologist Josh Mitteldorf has a PhD from UPenn. He runs the website AgingAdvice.org, and writes a weekly column for ScienceBlog.com. Mitteldorf has had visiting research and teaching positions at various universities including MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley.

Dorion Sagan is a celebrated writer, ecological philosopher, and author or coauthor of over twenty-four books, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His work has appeared in Natural History, Smithsonian, Wired, and The New York Times, among other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface: What This Book Is About
Prologue: Your Inner Stalker (written by Dorion Sagan)
Introduction: How a Lifelong Obsession with Aging and Health Became My Career (written by Josh Mitteldorf)
You Are Not a Car: You Body Does Not "Wear Out"
The Way of Some Flesh: The Varieties of Aging Experience
Darwin in a Straitjacket: Tracing Modern Evolutionary Theory
Theories of Aging and Aging of Theories
When Aging Was Young: Replicative Senescence
When Aging Was Even Younger: Apoptosis
The Balance of Nature: Demographic Homeostasis
So We All Don't Die at Once: Wiles of the Black Queen
Live Longer Right Now
The Near Future of Aging
All Tomorrow's Parties
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Glossary
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A thoughtful examination of the role of aging and death in supporting life." —Kirkus Reviews

“Mitteldorf and Sagan take an extensive stroll through evolutionary theory and aging research in support of an off-center view… The authors may be on to something.” —Science News

"Science proves it: You can turn back the clock and feel ten (or even twenty!) years younger. In their new book...Josh Mitteldorf and Dorion Sagan outline the groundbreaking findings and offer an easy-to-follow plan to prevent and reverse the signs of aging." —Closer magazine

"Together Mitteldorf and Sagan slough off the old aging theories to make way for the new.... In many ways Cracking the Aging Code reminds me of On the Origin of Species—both work to overcome entrenched ideas...Mitteldorf is like a Darwin himself, full of questions about nature, plunging himself into thought against prevailing notions, making an intellectual voyage to the far ends of research to gather, with painstaking care, all the data needed to support the idea of group selection. For those readers who might not be aware of how scientific progress is made, I recommend this book because there is so much to be learned here from witnessing the struggle against orthodoxy, which is everything in science." —Digital Journal

“This is the science book of the year, the best I’ve read in quite a while… Mitteldorf supplies abundant evidence for his theory and it makes for fascinating reading… Cracking the Aging Code should be required reading for anyone interested in aging or indeed evolution and biology.” —Rogue Health and Fitness

"This truly revolutionary book presents a new view of aging: we don’t wear out; we are killed from within by genes timed to eliminate us for the good of the larger community. Are the authors right? They’re certainly persuasive, and the implications are staggering.” —Carl Safina, Stony Brook University Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity and author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

“In Cracking the Aging Code, an enlightening and entertaining elucidation of senescence, you’ll learn the sad truth: we are prey to an inner assassin. The programmed self-destruction we call aging is an inside job. But authors Mitteldorf and Sagan still manage to find hope and offer practical advice to help you live long and prosper.” —Julie Holland, MD, author of Moody Bitches: The Truth About The Drugs You're Taking, the Sleep You're Missing, the Sex You're Not Having, and What's Really Making You Crazy

“Cracking the Aging Code is the most original popular science book you’re likely to read this year. Josh Mitteldorf is a creative thinker and a master teacher. Whether you agree or disagree with the central premise—we are programmed to die—you’ll find that Cracking the Aging Code reshapes your understanding of profound issues concerning the genetic construction of life and death.” —Peter D. Kramer, Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and author of Ordinarily Well and Listening to Prozac

“Brilliant, challenging, rejuvenating...with dazzling, sagacious prose and fascinating, cutting-edge science, Josh Mitteldorf and Dorion Sagan take an extended and profound look at the pernicious problems of death and aging from all angles. If you love life and want to live more of it, Cracking the Aging Code is brimming with ideas that are broken down with patience and humor so even the less scientifically-minded can grasp what the great anti-aging researchers are grappling with today.” —Susan Block, Ph.D., author of The Bonobo Way and director of the Dr. Susan Block Institute

“The authors have attacked one of the greatest paradoxes in the evolutionary sciences. If genes are so damned selfish, why do they code for the destruction of the bodies that carry them? This book includes many a fascinating, entrancing but real tale from nature. And it shows how every one of these pieces of evidence challenges us to answer the book's big question—why would genes code not just for survival but for an organism's annihilation?” —Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History and The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates

“How do we grow into old age?’ Josh Mitteldorf knows as much about this subtle question as anyone writing today, and his account is full of surprises. He and his coauthor, Dorion Sagan, have created a winning combination of biological literacy and civilized conversation, a true gift to the reader.” —Angus Fletcher, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at The City University of New York Graduate School and author of The Topological Imagination: Spheres, Edges, and Islands

From the Publisher

10/10/2016
Mitteldorf, a theoretical biologist, and Sagan, a science writer (and the son of science educators Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis), argue that genes are programmed to promote their own long-term survival as well as to die for group survival and population stability. The existence of cellular death programs could be seen as supporting the group selection theory of evolution, in addition to the far more accepted kin selection theory. Yet this notion is far from proven. The authors’ contention that caloric restriction can lead to prolonged life is widely accepted, but the same is not true of their assertion that predators control their own numbers so they won’t overwhelm their prey. Furthermore, too many unsupported statements erode the reader’s confidence in the authors’ thesis. The book states that “people who are most prominent in telomere research tend to believe that telomerase will prove to be the philosopher’s stone, the fountain of youth, the elixir of Gilgamesh about which humanity has dreamed for thousands of years.” However, the authors identify neither those prominent people nor the research leading them to that ostensible belief. This is unquestionably a fun, provocative read, but it is marred by too much hyperbole and too little support. Agent: Gillian MacKenzie, Gillian MacKenzie Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2016
Mitteldorf (Ctr. for Connected Learning, Northwestern Univ.) and Sagan (Cosmic Apprentice; Death and Sex) assert that aging, which is preprogrammed at the cellular level, provides ecosystems with stability and survival. They detail aging's molecular mechanisms and origins in protozoans, from which multicellular life descends. The authors also demonstrate the shortcomings of other aging theories. Their theory that aging results in population stability is plausible but needs more research. However, Mitteldorf and Sagan do not explain how aging works alongside coevolution and infant mortality or its place in ecosystems with boom-bust cycles. And the authors never tackle the arguments against life extension nor seriously consider competing funding priorities or extended lifetimes with depleted savings. They anticipate unlocking cellular telomerase to reverse senescence without mentioning that cells regulate this enzyme's production with multiple triggers because it runs amok in tumors. Maxine Weinstein and Meredith Lane's Sociality, Hierarchy, Health is a current, scholarly alternative; Sonia Arrison's 100 Plus tackles longevity, while David Stipp's The Youth Pill covers life extension. VERDICT Despite some flaws, this accessible science is the first worthwhile popular book on the evolution and biology of aging in years.—Eileen H. Kramer, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston

Library Journal

2016-04-07
An advancement of the challenging theory that, along with growth and puberty, aging also unfolds "on a schedule programmed into the regulatory portion of our DNA."At first glance, this would appear to contradict "the fundamental premise of Darwinian evolution," survival of the fittest, the principle of natural selection epitomized by the "selfish gene," a term coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976). Theoretical biologist Mitteldorf and ecological philosopher Sagan (Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science, 2013, etc.) make a convincing case for broadening the generally accepted neo-Darwinian framework, which incorporates the role of the genome in shaping the individual, to include species evolution and the relationship between individual survival and survival of the ecosystem on which it depends. They address the seeming paradox that "genes for aging have been fixed in the genome, despite the fact that these genes work against themselves." By limiting the reproductive potential of the aging individual, they play an important role in evolution. The authors contend that death and aging are crucial to the existence of "stable ecosystems in nature." Without them, unchecked reproduction would lead to major extinction events and the destruction of ecosystems. Mitteldorf and Sagan suggest that aging and death have evolved to moderate what might otherwise be untrammeled reproduction by predators, leading to the destruction of their prey and their own extinction. Natural selection operates to create a balance between longer life expectancy and greater fertility. Death and aging play a necessary role by regulating population growth in order to create the space for "populations of living things to evolve rapidly and efficiently." This leads the authors to the provocative conclusion that if we accept the goal of increasing longevity and the long-term survival of the human species, we must also accept the idea of zero population growth. A thoughtful examination of the role of aging and death in supporting life.

Kirkus Reviews