Spontaneous Healing...Eight Weeks to Optimum Health...Eating Well for Optimum Health...The Healthy Kitchen — in each of his widely acclaimed, best-selling books, Dr. Andrew Weil has been an authoritative and companionable guide through a uniquely effective combination of traditional and nontraditional approaches to health and healthy living. Now he gives us a book about aging that is unlike any other in the breadth and depth of its information and understanding. Hugely informative, practical, and uplifting, it is infused with the engaging candor and common sense that have been the hallmarks of all his books.

At the heart of Healthy Aging is Dr. Weil's belief that although aging is an irreversible process, there are myriad things we can do to keep our minds and bodies in good working order through all phases of life. To that end, he draws on the new science of biogerentology (the biology of aging) as well as on the secrets of healthy longevity — diet, activity, and attitude — that he has gathered firsthand from cultures around the world.

In Part One — The Science and Philosophy of Healthy Aging — he explains how the body ages, and he explores the impact of gender, genes, environment, and lifestyle on an individual's experience and perception of the process of aging. He describes the various would-be elixirs of life extension — herbs, hormones, and antiaging medicines — separating myth from fact and clearly delineating the difference between the spurious notions of preventing or reversing the process of aging and the real possibilities of inhibiting or delaying the onset of diseases that become more likely as we age. He writes movingly about the ways in which an acceptanceof aging can be a significant part of doing it well, and of recognizing and appreciating the great rewards of growing older: depth and richness of experience, complexity of being, serenity, wisdom, and its own kind of power and grace.

In Part Two — How to Age Gracefully — Weil details an easy-to-implement Anti-inflammatory Diet that will protect the immune system and aid your body in resisting and adapting to the changes that time brings. And he provides extensive practical advice on exercise; preventive health care; stress management; physical, mental, and emotional flexibility; and spiritual enhancement — all of which can help you achieve and maintain the best health throughout the lifelong process of aging.

Healthy Aging — a book for people of all ages — is Andrew Weil's most important and far-reaching book yet.

"America's best-known complementary care physician offers a convincing portrait of aging as a natural part of life that can be active, productive and satisfying. Using the examples of his mother, who died at age 93; centenarians from Okinawa and Sardinia; and myths and legends, Weil (Eating Well for Optimum Health) explores common Western beliefs and attitudes about aging and urges readers to develop healthier perspectives. The 60-year-old author assesses the growing and lucrative field of anti-aging medicine, takes the position that aging is not reversible, and offers many ways for readers to prevent conditions and illnesses that limit mortality and ensure well-being into the later years. He provides scientifically based information on why and how the body ages and advice on key components of good health at every age: exercise, nutrition, vitamins and herbs, and stress-relieving activities. Much of this advice is available in Weil's previous works as well as on his Web site. The real value is Weil's courageous stand, one likely to meet resistance in a culture devoted to external indicators of eternal youth. Refreshingly, Weil embraces the notion, popular in Eastern cultures, that age brings wisdom, peace and prosperity of a different kind. Agent, Richard Pine." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Weil's inclusion of scientific sources sets his book apart from the glut of antiaging titles." Library Journal

"No other health-maintenance adviser manages authoritativeness and moderation quite as Weil does....He comes on as an open-minded observer who persistently studies and tests, often with himself as subject, the diet and supplements, exercises, stress-reduction measures, and spiritual practices that he recommends." Booklist

Dr. Weil draws on the longest-running medical studies, as well as on the secrets of longevity that he has gathered firsthand from cultures around the world, to write a book about aging that is unlike any other in the breadth and depth of its information and understanding.

Andrew Weil, M.D. is the author of ten previous books, including Spontaneous Healing, Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, Eating Well for Optimum Health and, with Rosie Daley, The Healthy Kitchen A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he is clinical professor of medicine and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. He writes Self Healing, a monthly newsletter, and maintains the Web site DrWeil.com. More of his work on aging can be found at www.healthyaging.com. He lives in Arizona.

Also available from Random House Audio, read by the author; in a Random House Large Print edition; and from Vintage Español, a division of Random House.

The Healthy Kitchen with Rosie Daley is available in Knopf paperback.