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Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying) Hardcover – February 17, 2015
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Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying)
Spring Chicken is a full-throttle, high-energy ride through the latest research, popular mythology, and ancient wisdom on mankind's oldest obsession: How can we live longer? And better? In his funny, self-deprecating voice, veteran reporter Bill Gifford takes readers on a fascinating journey through the science of aging, from the obvious signs like wrinkles and baldness right down into the innermost workings of cells. We visit cutting-edge labs where scientists are working to "hack" the aging process, like purging "senescent" cells from mice to reverse the effects of aging. He'll reveal why some people live past 100 without even trying, what has happened with resveratrol, the "red wine pill" that made headlines a few years ago, how your fat tissue is trying to kill you, and how it's possible to unlock longevity-promoting pathways that are programmed into our very genes. Gifford separates the wheat from the chaff as he exposes hoaxes and scams foisted upon an aging society, and arms readers with the best possible advice on what to do, what not to do, and what life-changing treatments may be right around the corner.
An intoxicating mixture of deep reporting, fascinating science, and prescriptive takeaway, Spring Chicken will reveal the extraordinary breakthroughs that may yet bring us eternal youth, while exposing dangerous deceptions that prey on the innocent and ignorant.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherGrand Central Publishing
- Publication dateFebruary 17, 2015
- Dimensions6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-101455527440
- ISBN-13978-1455527441
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Editorial Reviews
Review
-Christopher McDougall, New York Times bestselling author of Born to Run and Natural Born Heroes
"Spring Chicken is a masterful exploration of the fantasy and fact surrounding one of the most fundamental questions of humankind: why do we age?"
-David Perlmutter, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar-Your Brain's Silent Killers
"Spring Chicken is an utterly marvelous book - a guided tour of a fantastic, counterintuitive landscape (that happens to be your body), and also a whip-smart guide to living a longer and healthier life. With this book, Bill Gifford joins the ranks of Mary Roach and Bill Bryson as a science writer supreme, illuminating our world in a page-turning style that is as entertaining as it is enlightening."
-Daniel Coyle, New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code
"Bill Gifford's terrific Spring Chicken gives us a riveting account of the most important change of the last century-the doubling of our lifespans-and an intimate vision of what it will take to not only keep that trend going, but keep ourselves healthy and vibrant as we age."
-Steven Johnson, New York Times bestseller of How We Got to Now
"Gifford skillfully navigates the many strands of aging research to create an entertaining narrative of the perils of getting old."
-Kirkus
"An enlightening book-and a terrific read."
-The Wall Street Journal
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Grand Central Publishing; First Edition (February 17, 2015)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1455527440
- ISBN-13 : 978-1455527441
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #676,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #199 in Gerontology Social Sciences
- #820 in Anatomy (Books)
- #71,381 in Self-Help (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Bill Gifford is a veteran magazine writer and editor who writes about extraordinary athletes and cutting-edge health science. After growing up mostly in Washington, D.C., he returned after college to become a staff writer for the legendary Washington City Paper, for a salary paid in beer, rice and beans. He then moved to Philadelphia to write and edit for Philadelphia Magazine for several years. Continuing north along I-95 to New York, he worked as features editor and then "editor-at-large," the world's best job title, for Men's Journal. His freelance work has appeared in Outside magazine, where he is a longtime contributing editor, as well as Bicycling, Wired, Bloomberg Businessweek, Slate, and others, as well as in Best American Sportswriting. His first book, Ledyard, is a biography of the 18th-century explorer, writer, entrepreneur and bon vivant John Ledyard. His latest, Spring Chicken, is a personal investigation into the science of aging.
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How rare is that? I highly recommend the book.
I’ll still give it four stars as a stimulating update on a topic that fascinates and affects us all. At least there are source notes to follow up on some of the more interesting strategies, like intermittent fasting and metformin. The references will come in especially handy when you read about someone suggesting transplant immunosuppressants for age extension!
"...My heart pumped furiously, trying to keep my core warm, while robbing blood from my extremities. Like my testicles, which ached fiercely, as if in the grasp of a vengeful girlfriend. 'My ba**s hurt!' I blurted.
'Yeah," said the World's Toughest Nerd, with a knowing nod. 'That happens.' "
Rather than rely on journal articles, Gifford goes right to the sources and interviews the people who have lived a long time, or who have aged well, or are doing life extension research. As a result I felt I had almost met them myself.
My Kindle Paperwhite is pretty well stocked with diet and exercise books and I even own a copy of CALORIE RESTRICTION, AGING AND LONGEVITY, but in Spring Chickena I found information which was heretofore unknown to me. What a bargain!
I count myself lucky to have had my car radio on when Gifford was being interviewed on NPR. Thank you NPR and thank you Mr. Gifford for making me laugh.
What does that have to do with “Spring Chicken”? A lot.
Because in his many years reporting for Outside, Wired, in his first book Ledyard and elsewhere, Bill Gifford’s enormous credibility has come from his commitment to getting out there and playing the game, bringing the best investigative reporting methods to subjects that rarely get such treatment. When covering Lance Armstrong at Lance’s height of popularity, for example, Gifford trained, too, riding the merciless Colombian mountains with Armstrong’s “hill guys,” racing in the Tour d’Afrique, packing his empirical arsenal all the while and ultimately bringing it to his readers.
Readers will be happy to know that Gifford brings that commitment to his work, and his readers, to Spring Chicken – and so much more.
One reason why this book is such a corker is something I’ve appreciated in his previous work: the skill to make the complex - even terrifying - easier to understand. And if anything qualifies as complex and terrifying, it’s how long we might live, based our genetics and our behavior.
Spring Chicken: I laughed out loud, learned about myself, raised my eyebrows, mumbled "really?", laughed out loud again, read passages aloud to others, learned more about myself, missed my bus stop, nodded my head, shook my head, took notes so that I could try certain examples myself. I flat out loved it.
On pages 99-100 (Kindle version) the author is interviewing a research scientist who has, at home, a state-of-the-art blood analyzer machine:
"In a smooth, practiced motion, he suctioned off the blood into a thin glass pipette and transferred it to a small rectangular cartridge, which he then placed in the open tray of a small beige machine that looked like a parking-ticket validator but was, in fact, a state-of-the-art blood analyzer, normally found only in high-end medical offices. The machine began whirring. Vaughan performed this ritual on himself at least once a week, he said, and the benefits more than justified the machine’s $1,300 price tag. Rather than having to go to the doctor’s office to get blood work done once a year, he simply does it himself, whenever he wants . “I use it to see whether my various dietary interventions have any effect ,” he explained. “A DIYer like me can find out what works and what doesn’t in a few weeks— what works for me, not as a statistic.”"
Do you know what brand/model of machine this is? Where can I purchase such a machine?
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Niran Ojomo, MD ( Author of ALIVE OR NOT ALIVE)
Physician & Coach focusing on Wellness, Resilience, Human Performance & Longevity.
*Note for Kindle edition: Be prepared for the usual grammar and transposition errors that come from a machine scanned OCR with minimal editing.








