Big Think

Question: What are your recommendations for people that want to live longer?

Aubrey de Grey: My general recommendation for getting people to live as long as they can in the context of what’s available already today is; 1.) pay attention to our body. Identify what’s going wrong; what you can feel is going wrong if you actually can pay attention. 2.) just do the obvious things that you know you’re mother told you – don’t smoke, don’t get overweight; you know get a balanced diet and 3.) in so far as you find that there are things that are going wrong, read literature. Don’t come to me because I don’t work on things we can do already; go to the many people, many very expert people out there who do but over generalize; don’t do something just because it’s supposed to be good for most people. Identify what’s wrong with you and what’s right with you, and of course, the more detailed the tests you can get to identify how you’re aging; you know what’s going on in your blood for example the better. You don’t necessarily have to do that every year; even doing it once will give you a thousand times more information than you could without the tests.

Recorded on:  October 2, 2009