The RealAge Makeover: Take Years Off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life [Paperback]

Michael F. Roizen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2005

Why not live at 60 feeling like you did at 35?

Thousands of Americans are younger today than they were five years ago. How is that possible? By following the specific recommendations that reverse aging in Dr. Michael Roizen's bestselling book RealAge®: Are You As Young As You Can Be?, people who were previously much older than their chronological age have now taken up to twentynine years off their biological ages. Since that first publication, more than 10 million people have taken the RealAge® test in one form or another, and thousands of people have thanked Dr. Roizen for helping them make simple changes in their lives -- changes that have made them healthier, younger, and more vibrant.

In the last several years, Dr. Roizen and his team have learned much more about the aging process. The RealAge® Makeover makes sense of recent critical medical findings -- mportant new research on inflammation in your arteries, stress reduction, chronic disease management, hormone replacement therapy, and other choices you can make to keep aging at a distance. You’ll also find the latest on vitamins and other supplements, which are age-reducing, which are aging, and which ones to avoid if you are taking certain medications. Roizen then offers more than seventy ways to reduce or even prevent 80 percent of the diseases that make you feel older. For example, coffee or the right kind of chocolate in moderate amounts can help reduce inflammation, preserving your arteries, joints, and memory. But the wrong choice can lead to needless aging and loss of energy, such as taking too much Vitamin A. And The RealAge® Makeover tells you how much (in years) each choice is worth so you can make the choices that are meaningful to you.

More potent than any statistic or finding are the personal stories interwoven throughout -- success stories from readers who followed the RealAge program, became biologically younger, and are living happier, healthier lives. With this book, readers have more opportunity than ever to turn back their biological clock to look, feel, and actually be many years younger.

Join the RealAge® Revolution and give yourself a RealAge® Makeover!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Dr. Michael Roizen hopes to discover a cure for the common birthday. The author of the bestselling book RealAge and Oprah guru, Roizen translates groundbreaking medical research into a series of calculations and choices that promise to reduce age-linked symptoms and diseases. The RealAge Makeover begins with a self-test of 132 health factor questions that compare your calendar age with your "real age"--based on healthy habits plus heredity, he rounds up the usual suspects (sun exposure, sleep patterns, good fats) as well as the unusual (the kind of chocolate you eat, the number of nagging unfinished tasks, your catsup consumption). Although Roizen flags heredity, he focuses on the three key factors of aging: arteries (heart attack, stroke, memory loss), immune systems (prostate and breast cancer), and environmental stresses (lung cancer, STDs). He offers a sliding scale of difficulty in his "younger every day suggestions." Whether talking about stress, diet, or disease, Roizen offers case examples and subtle and engaging strategies such as describing the role of living beyond your means in aging or the difference between "four-legged" and "no-leg fats." Readers looking for a quick fix will benefit less than those who follow the recommendations that require focus and commitment. As Baby Boomers age and books about turning back time increase, Roizen's will remain a standout. --Barbara Mackoff --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Michael F. Roizen, M.D., is cofounder of RealAge^™ and chair of the RealAge Scientific Advisory Board. He is past chairman of a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee and a former editor of six medical journals. His first book, RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? became a New York Times #1 bestseller. He appears frequently on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The 700 Club, and Canada AM. He has hosted several PBS specials, and his own radio show is heard on twenty-seven satellite stations. He also writes a monthly column for Reader's Digest and he and Dr. Oz share a daily syndicated newspaper column. He is currently chief wellness officer and chair of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006081702X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060817022
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,649 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

We wrote YOU: The Owner's Manual to help everyone understand that 70 percent of how long and how well you live is in your hands. But we wanted to go one step further and move you from just knowing the rules to really understanding how your body works. And we realized that if we bottled the 'eureka moments' and irreverence that medical school teaches, you might really enjoy the artistry of the inner workings of your body (we included cartoons so guys would understand). But The Owner's Manual was limited: folks whose lives were already touching the health care system needed advice to best navigate that serpentine path. We realized that a 'Smart Patient' was essential to realizing the promise of 'The Owner's Manual'. Luckily for us, the Joint Commission, our nation's health care safety advocate, approached us to help with a BIG problem. Medical errors in hospitals cost us 98,000 lives per year, and the Joint Commission could not squash this crazily large number without making all patients allies in this fight.

Being a Smart Patient means you've passed a stringent exam (well, a fun but informative quiz, anyway), and you know things that the vast majority of other patients do not. We learned a lot from this process of writing, and share all we knew beforehand and learned:
' You'll know why you need to include your spouse in your health history, even though there's no blood relation.
' You'll know why you should always be one of your doctor's first appointments of the day.
' You'll know which hospital staffer you should always talk to before choosing a surgeon (hint: it's the anesthesiologist).
' And you'll know why you should never touch the TV remote control in your hospital room.

The book debuted at #2 on the NY Times list, so some must at least like the jokes, or the cartoons (we understand an insurance company doesn't care for the one on page 333), or the insights combined with an encyclopedic list of trustworthy resources.

It's a scary statistic, but it's true: you have a 2 in 5 chance of being affected by a major medical complication in your life. And even the best doctors using the most cutting-edge technology can't prevent it. Yet that's the unrealistic expectation. The unsettling reality is that health care has become so complex it is no longer possible for any one doctor or other health care provider in the system to manage the whole process unless they have a partner. And that person is YOU.

The following insider tips are just a taste of those we crammed into You: The Smart Patient. We hope that this book will inspire and empower YOU to get involved in your health care.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

The first sign of a Smart Patient is that telltale document they produce during their first visit, or even their 50th. It's their health profile. This is the sign of a patient who means business, one who will challenge us to be at our absolute best and who won't waste time and money on redundant and unnecessary efforts. To create the perfect health profile, circa early 21st century, find the sample form labeled Your Health Journal. These forms are also online at www.jcrinc.com and www.realage.com.

Have a Tattle Plan
Bring your spouse or advocate to your doctor's appointment when you're giving your health history; there are a lot of questions that only he or she can answer. But, please, before coming in to the office together, make sure you discuss which fibs you're going to tell. Why? Because when you tell us that you've been taking your cholesterol-lowering drugs with the discipline of a Marine, your spouse will shoot you'or us'an involuntary look that communicates something close to Are you kidding me? We never miss it. And sometimes your spouse is trying to give your fibs away: it's called love.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 142 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to increase the Quality and Quantity of your life!!!, April 13, 2006

By 

Stephen Pletko "Uncle Stevie" (London, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The RealAge Makeover: Take Years off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life (Hardcover)

+++++

"I care passionately about people's health and well-being. As a doctor, I find it enormously satisfying to help people overcome illness, disease, and disability. And, of course, nothing is more meaningful than actually saving a life. At the same time, life as a doctor can have its darker side. As a specialist in both cardiovascular anesthesiology and internal medicine, I spend much of my working life with patients who are among the sickest of the sick...The physical and emotional distress I witness is made even more painful by the knowledge that so much of my patients' suffering could have been prevented."

This is how the preface to this book, by Dr. Michael Roizen, begins. This is a book about prevention, how to substantially reduce your chances of becoming "the sickest of the sick."

For those familiar with the prevention literature, much of what Roizen presents is not new but there is some new stuff (at least, new to me). However, a unique feature is that when Roizen states a prevention health tip, he also indicates how many years younger or older you will become (with respect to your true or calendar age). Some examples:

(1) Floss and brush your teeth daily. Benefit: As much as 6.4 years younger.
(2) Drink alcohol in moderation. Benefit: 1.9 years younger.
(3) Not avoiding "passive" smoke. Benefit: 6.9 years older (for those exposed to 4 hours a day or more of passive smoking).
(4) Eat breakfast daily. Benefit: 1.1 years younger.
(5) Learn a new game that requires intelligence. Benefit: 1.3 years younger.

My favorite chapters are subtitled as follows:

(1) Reverse arterial aging: the easiest, fastest way to gain energy.
(2) Your personal bodyguard against disease.
(3) The #1 most important way to grow younger.
(4) How to reduce stress, look younger, and get measurable results.
(5) Five habits that can give you more energy.

You are not expected to apply all the health tips (if you do you can gain up to 29 years!). Choose those that you feel you can manage and fit effectively into your lifestyle.

Finally, there are two things that Roizen states that I feel require some caution:

First, he states to keep your immunizations up-to-date and he gives a very brief discussion as to why. Immunizations are very controversial and I suggest before taking his advice, to do some research on them.

Second, he advocates taking a well-known, over-the-counter drug daily. A very smart doctor once said, "Every drug stresses and hurts your body in some way." Thus, I would be very, very careful with this recommendation.

In conclusion, for those that what to increase the quantity and quality of their life, this is the book to get!!!

(first published 2004; preface; 13 chapters; main narrative 475 pages; references; index)

+++++

69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great if you need to make some lifestyle changes, May 4, 2006

By 

Amalfi Coast Girl (Mid-Atlantic, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The RealAge Makeover: Take Years off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life (Hardcover)

This review is written from the perspective of a former hospital adminstrator, with just under 2 decades of experience in the healthcare system. Too often by the time a patient gets to the hospital, the cumulative damage of years of uninformed choices has taken its toll. If you follow the recommendations in this book, you can reverse the effect of many of your prior bad choices.

If you have been studying nutrition and health for a while this book probably doesn't have anything new to offer. Much of the information contained in this book is also covered in "You the Owner's Manual" by the same author, and Dr. Oz. If you are just beginning to investigate lifestyle changes this book is solidly sourced, and easy to read.

The chapters are titled as follows:
1. Look Younger, Live Longer
2. What's Your Real Age?
3. Get Younger Every Day
4. Keep the Blood Pumping
5. The Immune System
6. Live Smart in the Aging Environment Around You
7. Stress Less
8. Eat Real Chocolate
9. Three Workout Choices to Age Less
10. Vitamin Power
11. Daily Dose of Goodness
12. A Doctor's Note
13. Be Eighty, Feel Fifty-Two

The author includes an easy to use table that allows you to calculate your "real age". The benefit of this table is that it allows the reader to easily pinpoint what specific behaviors they partake of that are the most detrimental to their health. For example lets assume that you consume a particular number of 4 oz cups of brewed tea every day. If you drink 6 cups everyday you get to deduct 1.5 years, for 3 to 5 cups deduct 1 year, and for 1 to 3 cups deduct 1/2 of a year.

The doctor also gives the reader 78 quick fixes to reduce their real age and gives them the "real age" benefit of making those changes. For example if you start to both floss and brush everyday you get a real age benefit of 6.4 years.

The doctor explains that the three most important factors that affect aging are:
1. Aging of the Arteries
2. Aging of the Immune System
3. Social and Environmental Factors
The book also tells you what to do about the factors above that affect our aging. The doctor does a nice job of explaining why he makes the suggestions that he does for improving your arteries and immune system.

The book is full of "Real Age Makeover Success Stories" that are very motivational.

Overall, I think this is a very solid book. The author has developed an original methodology for putting health and nutrition science into a measurable system. If you are new to the study of health and/or nutrition this is an excellent addition to your library.

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Info-mercial in print, November 9, 2006

By 

WT "WT" (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The RealAge Makeover: Take Years off Your Looks and Add Them to Your Life (Hardcover)

I am not trying to take anything away from the underlying message in this book. Because, it is valuable. BUT, it is a painful read. It is just like an info-mercial... The 1st 100 pages keeps repeating that you are going to learn a better way to live but doesn't tell you how. The book could have been a third of the length and gotten the message across very well. Michael needs to find a new editor for his next book.