The Negotiation of a Lifetime
A book about epigenetic clocks, and how to use them.
A general-audience book on the science of biological age — what an epigenetic clock actually measures, how it differs from chronological age, and how to use that measurement to negotiate with your own genes. The premise: aging may not be one-way.
The thesis
For most of medical history, "biological age" was a useful intuition without a measurement. Now we can measure it — through methylation patterns at specific CpG sites in your DNA, with statistical methods (epigenetic clocks) that compress thousands of those measurements into a single age estimate.
That changes the conversation. If aging is something we can measure, we can also start to ask what moves it. Not just slowing it down, but pushing some of it backward. The book is a working physician's tour through that question, with the science clearly laid out and the popular claims (good and bad) named.
What it covers
- What an epigenetic clock measures — and what it doesn't
- Horvath, Hannum, GrimAge, PhenoAge: comparing the major clocks
- The biology underneath: methylation, histones, chromatin, mtDNA
- What actually moves the clock: the small set of interventions with real evidence
- The longevity-influencer industrial complex, and what to filter out
- Where measurement-driven medicine goes from here
The team
Marschall Runge, MD, PhD
Cardiologist, molecular biologist, former CEO of Michigan Medicine.
Be first to know when it ships.
Pitching publishers in spring 2026. Same notification list as the Substack and MOOC.
Related
- Active research initiative — the Michigan multi-omic longevity index this book draws from
- Topic page on longevity — the framework
- The Great Healthcare Disruption — the chapter on longevity in the broader healthcare context
- Reading list — the books on aging that shaped this one