Living longer is only useful if you remain well enough to enjoy the extra years.SPAN: The Science of Extending Your Best Years is a practical, scientifically grounded exploration of how we age, why health declines and what can be done to preserve strength, cognition, independence and vitality for as long as possible.Physician and longevity medicine specialist Dr Manda Raz takes readers beyond the familiar advice to simply "eat well and exercise" and asks a more interesting question: what actually determines how well we age?Drawing on medicine, physiology and the evolving science of longevity, SPAN explores the biological processes that shape ageing and the interventions that may influence them. It examines cardiovascular fitness, muscle, metabolism, nutrition, sleep, stress, cancer, brain health and mental wellbeing, while explaining why prevention often matters decades before disease becomes visible.The book also ventures into the rapidly developing frontier of longevity medicine, including hormones, medicines that may influence ageing and other emerging approaches-carefully distinguishing established evidence from promising science and premature certainty.Throughout, Dr Raz challenges the idea that ageing is simply a slow surrender to inevitable decline. Genetics matter. Chance matters. Time certainly matters. But so do the trajectories we create through movement, medical care, risk reduction, recovery and the preservation of physiological reserve.Written with humour, scepticism and an accessible command of the science, SPAN is not a manual for immortality, nor an invitation to obsess over every biomarker.It is a book about something far more useful: extending the years in which your body and mind still allow you to live fully, independently and on your own terms.
