Perhaps this book can be thought of as actuarial tables with stories.
I read an excerpt of this book and was fascinated. Unfortunately, the excerpt was the most interesting thing to me. Not that the book is bad.
The excerpted chapter was bout how lifestyle affects your life. What happens if you exercise? Smoke? Drink? Are Sedentary? Eat vegetables? Eat Beef?
The numbers are all there. Unfortunately, even though I forget them now, I've already learnt the lessons-- Don't smoke. Exercise regularly, every day even, but after about 30 minutes of exercise there are diminishing returns. One drink a day is good for you. Two or more are not. Eat your vegetables.
Stay a away from radiation.
A 12 mile motorcycle ride is as about four times as risky as your average daily death risk.
There were many other stories there. Many. After you get out of the big risks, their contributes to your life expectancy are almost noise.
Take beef for example. Regularly eating beef slightly decreases your life expectancy. The change is measurable, but just barely. On average beef eaters will die a year or so sooner than non-beef eaters, however the distribution and overlap is huge.
Maybe that's the big lesson of the book. Outside of the big five (Eat your vegetables, exercise, sleep properly, don't smoke, maintain a healthy body weight) most activities have a tiny impact on your life expectancy. Sure radiation and extreme sports don't help. Just use common sense.
There is also a chapter on cancer. It's possible that about 20% of cancer is cured by the body. This is troubling since diagnostics are getting better and treatments can be tough on you. The rule of thumb may be, don't go looking for cancer unless you have health problems. Cancer diagnostics and treatments are not yet at the point where we should be very proactive.
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