Many of us have come to expect that our bodies and minds will deteriorate in our final years—that we may die feeble, either dependent or alone. Paradoxically, this outcome is a kind of success. For most of history, humans didn’t live long enough to confront the ailments of old age. In 1900, a baby born in the U.S. could expect to live just forty-seven years, and one in five died before the age of ten.
One of his clients, Carl Barney, is the eighty-two-year-old founder of a nonprofit inspired by Ayn Rand. He told me that, during the past three years, Attia has encouraged him to diversify his exercise routines and sleep more. At Attia’s urging, he now scoops collagen protein powder into his morning tea, drinks bone broth before dinner, and tries to consume another hundred-plus grams of protein during the day. I asked him whether Attia’s advice was worth the high price.