What is life extension? put simply, life extension means practicing the science of aging slowly. It is living healthily for longer. Life extensionists make use of diet, lifestyle choices, technology and proven medical advances to live longer healthier, lives.

Life extension is fun! The value of your health and a physically younger body cannot be overstated. Health and wellness make a longer life well worth living.

Why settle for misery and ill-health in senior years when you could be canoeing, running, playing sports and otherwise living an active life? Why settle for a life that is shorter, less active and less fun?

Life extension is not herbal remedies, expensive spa treatments, wrinkle-removing cream, mysticism, quackery or any of the other non-scientific, often fraudulent schemes that seem to abound ever more these days.

There is a great deal of misinformation, especially online. You should always check with reputable sources before believing anything you read. Check twice as hard if someone is trying to sell you something.

Life extension is not static. It encompasses and embraces research into the causes of aging and advances in anti-aging, regenerative medicine. Many notable and well-known scientists, academic and corporate, work in this field.

While most life extensionists are not qualified to participate directly, they can certainly help in supporting and promoting such work.

The degree to which life extension is advocated, practiced and pursued is an individual choice. Some people may simply wish to live well for a normal, long human lifespan.

Others want to live far, far longer. Radical life extensionists look forward to a future in which the causes of aging are understood and conquered.

Present day methods of life extension are important stepping stones that will enable life extensionists to be alive to benefit from future medical advances.

For all life extensionists, supporting and advocating research should be just as important as practicing present day life extension. Future medicine and medical technology holds great promise, but only if we all work towards common life extension goals.

If we do not speak up and say that we want and are willing to pay for anti-aging medicine, then anti-aging research and investment will decline. If we do not speak out against legislation that slows or criminalizes anti-aging research, then we hurt our own health and well being.

Optimal health is both a lifestyle and an emerging medical specialty. The optimal health lifestyle involves following a strategy designed to help you live as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

The emerging medical specialty of Optimal Health Medicine is a proactive medical discipline directed at preventing age-related degenerative disease. Here are some important things you should know:

For people interested in life extension: making use of diet, lifestyle choices, technology and proven medical advances to live healthy, longer lives.

When discussing life extension it's not about extending the period during which one is a geriatrics patient -- It means extended youth. At worst, this is having the constitution of a 30 year-old when one is 70 -- and the constitution of a 70-year old when one is 150. At best, it means eliminating the aging process. Aging is a disease, and quite likely a potentially curable disease.

To discuss the value of life extension with people uninterested in extending their own lives is a great deal like suicide counseling. There is no easy way of translating positive attitudes about life into other people having a positive attitude about life. If a person does not value life, or believes that the value of life has an expiry date, the matter is beyond discussion.

This not in the sense of difficulty of communication, but in the sense that what is of value to one person may not be of value for someone else. Some like strawberry and some likes vanilla. Some want to live to be a thousand years old, and others don't care whether their are alive in five years. Personal choices.

But telling people what they should do with their extended life will not satisfy those who don't know what to do with themselves. Enthusiasm for living is the driving force behind the desire to live. To someone who equates extended life with extended boredom, a list of possible activities will only seem like a list of chores.

If people ask why anyone would want to live forever,  ask why they want to die. This is not a trick answer. One can only speculate that most people live lives that are woefully boring, depressive or painful -- and they are locked in despair that things will ever change.

Many people complete the goals of social programming (education, marriage, family, career and retirement) -- and then feel that there is nothing left to do but die. Ultimately, it is difficult to understand why people are so content to age and die when science is making strides towards the prevention of these things. There is an incomprehensible gulf of different attitudes

Death is Unhealthy

The belief that death is inevitable is unhealthy to humans. This is just common sense. psychosomatic science has proven that our beliefs influence our health. So what practical value does believing in death have if you desire health? The belief that death is inevitable has probably killed more people than all other causes combined.

Even if you survive illness, accident, and old age, your own belief in death will get you in the end, unless you change it. Seriously questioning the idea that death is inevitable is good and practical for both mental and physical health. Immortalisits argue that if death really were inevitable and beyond your control, then believing in physical immortality wouldn't hurt you.