PREFACE

Aging. It happens to everyone. Even, to my surprise, to me. Not long ago, I found myself at midlife -- fifty, to be exact -- wondering what I would have to do to enjoy the next twenty, thirty, forty (or more) years that I might live… in great condition!

I don't want to live forever. I do want to have a great eighty to ninety years.

So far it's been a great life. Lately, though, I started to experience those things that are universal signals of reaching a certain… maturity. I need to wear glasses to read. I can't run at the same pace or with the same stamina I used to. It's become a little more difficult to regulate my weight. I started to ask myself questions. Is this inevitable? Do I need to worry about things like losing mental clarity, and, if at some point, I might pass some statistical margin that would put my health at risk for any of the so-called "diseases of aging"? My personal and professional concerns began to move away from managing health to a larger arena -- the conservation of faculties, appearance, and physical health and abilities. Within that arena, several questions arise:

- Are the diseases and maladies of aging inevitable?
- Who out there is the vast world is doing the most innovative work in human improvement and regenerative health and medicine?
- What are the best and most cutting-edge tools available to help us prolong and/or enhance our health and well-being?

Fortunately, I have a privileged vantage point from which to explore and answer these questions, that being my profession for the past 20 years as a successful nutritional consultant in New York City and author of 'The Balance,' a best-selling book on the subject of nutritional self-care. I realized my next step was now to develop a broader perspective -- an aerial perspective, if you will -- on the subject matter of optimal performance and successful aging. What I discovered was a lot more that I could have ever expected. This quest turned out to be a year-long adventure that has taken me physically and digitally around the world. I chose to speak to authorities such as researchers, scientists, doctors, pharmacists, paleontologists (yep), experts in fields as new and emerging as brain performance, and optimal human sexuality, to the world's top authorities on ,em>skin elasticity and preservation, and hair loss and hair regrowth.

I found that if I wanted to have this state of exceptional health, I would have to look at the whole picture, not holistically, but holographically. I started to realize the relevance of everything: from managing our hormones, to how much sleep we get (yes, we really do need eight hours), to the most advanced diagnostic testing available today to gauge every single level of our health, and the full range of products we can now put to use.

I needed a new, useful understanding of the human biological system, of what the human species could be by taking advantage of the incredible breakthroughs of twenty-first century science, of how each of us can look and feel fabulous and live those great eighty to ninety years in what I came to call the high-tech body.

What is a High-Tech Body?

A high-tech body has nothing to do with computerized brains or robotic arms. There are no androids in our immediate future. It is not about trying to gain perfection. Having a high-tech body means being able to take advantage of numerous resources available to you in order to obtain and retain the best possible health throughout your lifetime.

Achieving a high-tech body is an ongoing process on the road to looking and feeling fabulous, if not forever, then for as long as is humanly possible. It means using the most up-to-date, cutting edge information in medical, scientific, nutritional, progressive, complementary, holistic, and "health sciences" to: