Lifespan

Many friends of mine blew out the candles on their fiftieth birthday cakes this year. It'll be my turn soon.

Now that I've lived for nearly half a century, one of my birthday wishes would be having one less candle on the cake each year. I am not the only one who dreams about longevity, of course. There are lots of us aiming to stop the ticking clock.

For heaven’s sake, how?

One grows old, but never grows tired of looking up elixir or recipes of youth.

For David Sinclair, an acclaimed Harvard Medical School geneticist, we don't have to think of aging as an inevitable part of life. He remained young like Peter Pan when he wrote the masterpiece Lifespan at the age of 50.

After years of researching aging, Dr. Sinclair was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people. If there is one piece of advice he can offer, one surefire way to stay healthy longer and get younger is this: eat less.

Oh, this reminds me of a big fan of fasting. That's me. I love the recent New England Journal of Medicine review article on the link between periodic fasting (or eating in a 6-hour period daily) and extended lifespan. I thought, Wow, it's good news. Now there's a strong reason why I skip lunch proudly.