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Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity Eric Topol Simon & Schuster (2025)<\/p>\n
Super Agers, by clinician Eric Topol, has just been published, but it was almost surreal for me as a US scientist to read the book now, with its optimistic take on the state of the medical field. Despite their extreme promise, many of the lines of research that Topol describes have been subject to funding cuts by the Trump administration since the book was written.<\/p>\n
For example, although Super Agers argues that we are on the verge of treating a host of diseases \u2014 from viral infections, such as influenza, HIV and rabies, to tuberculosis and several types of cancer \u2014 using the mRNA technology underlying COVID-19 vaccines, that sort of research is now on the chopping block in the United States.<\/p>\n
The research aiming to keep people healthier for longer<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Topol has assembled an admirable and comprehensive review of cutting-edge approaches to tackling many illnesses that cut human lives short. He explains each disease and the current state of treatments \u2014 including an impressive overview of ongoing and recently completed clinical trials \u2014 and explores future possibilities. These include advances in CRISPR gene editing and stem-cell techniques aimed at treating blood disorders, cancers, Alzheimer\u2019s disease and more. He covers an immense amount of material in an accessible manner, and has well-supported recommendations for readers.<\/p>\n
Many of the diseases covered \u2014 obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, for example \u2014 might not be considered \u2018ageing\u2019 by non-specialists. But Topol, like most researchers in the field, argues that anything that decreases life expectancy and quality of life is a facet of ageing, and should be addressed medically.<\/p>\n
Many popular-science books about ageing and longevity focus on either personal stories or self-help suggestions. By contrast, this book is light on anecdote. Topol \u2014 a trained cardiologist at Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, who has been interested in human ageing for several decades \u2014 uses his own clinical experience to describe the progress and outstanding challenges in a range of health issues. Given this background, it is no surprise that the author focuses on chronic diseases.<\/p>\n
Topol is particularly bullish on GLP-1 agonists: the blockbuster diabetes and obesity drugs, such as semaglutide (sold as Ozempic), that have shown benefits for not just these diseases, but also a surprising set of healthspan-shortening conditions. Calling them \u201cone of the most life-changing medicines in history\u201d, he explains that GLP-1 agonists have positive effects on liver disease, kidney disease, cancer and fertility. Some hope that the drugs might help to treat dementia, Parkinson\u2019s disease and Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
He also touches on a few facets of human ageing that are less easily studied in animal models, namely the importance of outlook, social interactions and the impact of mental health. Topol points out that the \u201cwellderly\u201d population (people who are more than 80 years old and very healthy) have little in common at the genetic level, but are very active and socially engaged.<\/p>\n
Forever young: what science can and can\u2019t tell us about cheating ageing<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The author offers two examples \u2014 Mrs L. R., a 98-year-old \u2018healthy ager\u2019, and Mr R.P., who is also 98 but has greatly benefited from advances in medicine \u2014 to illustrate his larger messages about the value of human interactions and medical progress. Longer lives might be achieved either through random good luck, resiliency and a sunny disposition (as with Mrs L. R.) or through current state-of-the-art medical treatments (Mr R.P.).<\/p>\n
As with any work on lifespan and healthspan, Topol\u2019s book summarizes current knowledge about the impact of diet, but he notes the lack of true randomized clinical trials exploring how diet affects longevity. He offers some advice that counters messages from other longevity gurus \u2014 pointing out, for example, that the high protein intake that others have recommended, with little solid evidence, might be associated with inflammation. Otherwise, the information is consistent with much of what can be found elsewhere, just with solid clinical support. And of course, exercise is covered, too. For example, he notes that, with his own growing awareness of research on exercise and ageing, his advice to patients as a cardiologist has shifted from emphasizing aerobic conditioning, instead highlighting the importance of strength, resistance and balance training to reduce the risk of age-related diseases.<\/p>\n
Although some people are naturally healthy agers, others rely on medical treatments.<\/span>Credit: CFOTO\/Future Publishing\/Getty<\/span><\/p>\n Topol notes with some frustration that diagnostic tests that could accelerate treatments have often not been adopted broadly. For instance, a clear point of exasperation is that metagenomics \u2014 an approach to rapidly uncover the source of an infection \u2014 is not used widely. Although some procedures that might diagnose, cure or treat diseases have not become normal in clinical practice owing to high costs, others might simply require changes to standards and training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity Eric Topol Simon & Schuster (2025) Super Agers, by clinician Eric Topol, has just been published, but it was almost surreal for me as a US scientist to read the book now, with its optimistic take on the state of the medical field. Despite their extreme promise, many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[4754,814,3983,3140,8014],"class_list":{"0":"post-26402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ageing","9":"tag-approaches","10":"tag-cuttingedge","11":"tag-medical","12":"tag-transform"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}