Q. I love your new book, Longevity Lifestyle Matters. It's all stories, much like your Chronicles series and Adventure series. It's so much easier to remember ideas from a story. What prompted you to use a story format? And are the stories contrived or real?

A. I think you just answered part of your own question. Rudyard Kipling once said: If history was told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten. To paraphrase, I tell stories about health and brain function because the information is easier to remember—and if you remember it you might just implement it.

The stories are all “real,” in the sense that they represent discussions we have had with “real” people. Yes, they are changed to protect all aspects of confidentiality and they do not go into personal details as happened in the original discussions—however, people are pretty much people. I wouldn’t be surprised if you yourself have even heard discussions on similar topics.