The authors provide their own nutritional guidelines, with convincing explanations of how and why they differ from common wisdom or government specifications. There's a food pyramid that departs markedly from even the most recent government version, along with fairly simple formulas for how much of what nutrients an individual who wants to lose weight or improve health should consume. They also blunt a few saws, like the common modern assumption that any and all exposure to the sun is bad for you, and challenge the medical establishment's faith in some common practices like coronary bypass surgery and angioplasty.
With respect to lifestyle, the authors' advice includes a lot of common sense: choose healthy (and whenever possible organic) food, exercise, drink plenty of water, avoid sugar and addictive drugs, avoid stress, get enough sleep, quit smoking and so on.
Thus after a breathtaking, futuristic beginning, it turns out that the heart of the book is, as promised, Bridge One material covering what you can do today to achieve and maintain optimum health.
The book enters some unfamiliar territory in the area of nutritional supplementation. Here, its central ideas aren't all proven facts. They are intriguing, however, and seem sensible given the scientific evidence presented.
We cannot get adequate nutrients even from eating healthy foods, the authors argue, since modern processing reduces much of our food's nutritive value. Our biological defenses need to be enhanced in order to fight unnatural toxins from processing and pollution. Also, toxins aside, our bodies simply didn't evolve to live many decades beyond what the authors refer to as the child-rearing years. Government recommendations and much common medical practice don't take these factors into account. Ray & Terry aim to correct this.
Kurzweil's own story is instructive. I've seen him give an artificial intelligence technology demo - actually, "performance" would be a better term - and he certainly acts and looks fitter than most men his age. Now in his fifties, he has been for many years completely free of indications of the type 2 diabetes he was diagnosed with at 35. He attributes his good health in part to the dozens of supplements he takes each day, and the reader will be inclined to concur, but will at the same time clearly understand that Kurzweil has turned himself into a living experiment.
Article comments
1 - Bryce Eddings
Listed at Advance
2 - rick
I have a radio show called How You Can Be Your Own Doctor. I would love to have a copy of your book to review and tell my listeners. Can you donate a copy to me. Thanks Dr. Rick Kuykendall