Chasing Life
Sarfaraz K. Niazi, Ph.D.
Niazi@niazi.com

Chasing
Life by Sanjay Gupta, the famed chief medical
correspondent of CNN whose face was plastered all
over our tube when the US armed forces entered Iraq.
Certainly a very charming surgeon out of Atlanta, he
has decided to follow the path taken by folks like
Dr Weil and Dr Chopra. His new book, Chasing Life
(Warner Wellness $24.99) declares that it reports
“new discoveries in the search for immortality to
help you age less today.” You have two choices; read
the 45 tips given in his book and listed below or
buy the book and read more about these tips. Whereas
Gupta is well-connected with the new world of
science, there is absolutely nothing in here that
can be called new. I will deconstruct this book by
first questioning the concept of longevity.
Around the beginning of the 20th century,
the average life expectancy of Americans was around
65 years if we exclude those early childhood totally
preventable diseases; those diseases gone today, the
average American lives about 10-12 years longer, a
full century later. These data are a gold mine for
statisticians; if we take out accidental deaths (due
to poor quality of home designs or tools or
whatever) and a few other factors (like lack of
sewerage system), we will surprise ourselves that
there has been no real increase in the life
expectancy over the past century. If wearing seat
belt reduced traffic deaths and added to average
life expectancy, this is not a tribute to a healthy
body, perhaps to a healthy brain that pays
attention.