1: Lifespan is a straightforward concept. It’s how long we will live.
“Lifespan deals with death, which is binary: we’re alive, and then we’re dead. It’s final,” Dr. Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
But before we die, sometimes many years before, “most people suffer through a period of decline,” Peter writes, that “is like dying in slow motion.”
Which is where … continue reading
When Dr. Peter Attia introduces his patients to his approach to medicine, he talks about icebergs.
“Specifically, the ones that ended the first and final voyage of the Titanic,” he writes in his terrific book Outlive.
At 9:30 p.m. on that fatal night, the immense ocean liner received an urgent message from another ship that it was sailing into an ice field.
The message was ignored.
“More than an … continue reading
The entire healthcare system is working against us.
“We are getting exactly what the system is designed to create,” Dr. Scott Conard and Vince Poscente write in their book Which Door?
“We’re incentivizing hospitals and providers to produce more volume, not better health,” they write.
“In fact, if the system actually did help a person become healthier, it would be shooting itself in the foot and reducing future revenue,” they … continue reading
1: Preventing or delaying disease is a fundamentally better approach than treating disease.
What’s in the way?
Only our entire healthcare system.
Disease prevention “doesn’t really fit into the business model of our current healthcare system,” Dr. Peter Attia writes in Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
“Health insurance companies won’t pay a doctor very much to tell a patient to change the way he eats,” he observes, … continue reading
1: That’s one of the questions Dr. Scott Conard and Vince Vince Poscente pose in their book Which Door?
The answer: Typically, we’d feel fine.
“As a young doctor, in practice for 7 years, I got a phone call one evening while eating dinner at home,” Scott recalls. “A shaking voice on the other end of the phone said, ‘Doctor, I just found John on the floor and he was … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
We are living longer. That’s a fact.
Lifespans have nearly doubled since the late 1800s, Dr. Peter Attia writes in his compelling book Outlive.
But when we look at the … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician living in the Austrian empire in the early 1800s.
He was concerned because so many mothers were dying following childbirth at his hospital in … continue reading
1: “Many pundits have been predicting a glorious new era of ‘personalized’ or ‘precision’ medicine, where our care will be tailored to our exact needs, down to our very genes,” Dr. Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
Which is a clearly a worthy goal.
The only problem with this approach?
Peter likens it to building a self-driving car in the 1950’s.
Our … continue reading
1: Our belief that progress happens gradually over time is all wrong.
Nowhere is this fact more accurate than medicine, Dr. Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
The notion of continual progress over time from ancient times to today is “a complete fiction,” he writes.
“It seems to me that there have been two distinct eras in medical history.”
The exciting … continue reading
1: September 8, 2009, is a day that Dr. Peter Attia will never forget.
He had just swum to Catalina from Los Angeles, a twenty-one-mile open ocean swim that took him fourteen hours.
“I was standing on a beach on Catalina Island when my wife, Jill, turned to me and said, ‘Peter, I think you should work on being a little less not thin.’
“Less not thin?” he thought to … continue reading
