By Deb Silverthorn

Dr. Michael Roizen is passionate about helping people choose to live younger and healthier and preparing society for the age revolution to live younger. He cracks the longevity code in his “The Great Age Reboot.”

His secrets to long life will be shared beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, at the Aaron Family JCC as part of the Margot Rosenberg Pulitzer Dallas Jewish BookFest presented by Central Market and the J in partnership with the J’s Lieberman Family Wellness Center.

“As we get ready to kick off the J’s Wellth Week, we’re honored to share BookFest with our sports and fitness department to bring information and education about living better in every fashion,” said Rachelle Weiss Crane, the J’s director of Israel engagement and Jewish living and BookFest producer.

“The Great Age Reboot,” co-written with Dr. Peter Linnman and Albert Ratner, addresses reprogramming old cells to be young again, rewriting DNA to guarantee a disease-free future, whether or not obesity can be eliminated and if 90 years old can be the new 4o.

“The numbers continue to look better for us. In 1999, when I was on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ we were saying 60 was the new 40. In 2033, it’s not unruly to think 90 can become 60,” said Roizen, 77 years old by the calendar but just under 58 by his reboot theory.

His Zoom interview with the Texas Jewish Post was conducted while the author walked  at his treadmill desk. Roizen can text or type while walking just under 2 miles per hour and talk at more than 3. He rarely goes to bed without marking 10,000 minimum steps each day.

“The Great Age Reboot,” which follows Roizen’s “What to Eat When,” the “What To Eat When Cookbook” and 19 other books, recommends how to make the best decisions for one’s brain, body and bank account.

Roizen says there’s no reason not to appreciate the benefits medicine affords; many of his patients over 50 are on cholesterol medications but do not appreciate how great the long-term benefits are. His advice? Turn to the benefits of lifestyle: diet, exercise and stress management.

His recommendations include “Only do things you love to do that love you back” (he uses the example of playing with a grandchild) and “Eat things that love your body.”

Roizen says, “Polio was never thought to be conquered; the same with chicken pox. But medical science has advanced. If you can live to 115 in relatively good health, then working to 90 (the equivalent of what 40 was) isn’t absurd. You’ll need your posse, purpose and play, which are most important,” said Roizen.

One’s posse, he explains, is a circle of friendships to be nurtured; the purpose is a reason to get out of bed each day; and the play is whatever physical activity a person enjoys. Roizen’s last advice is to remember after age 50 that we lose mobility and protein is important, even if it is in snacks throughout the day.

Roizen has appeared on “20/20,” “Good Morning America,” “Today” and other programs and he is published in hundreds of journals, medical textbooks, scientific papers and magazines. He holds 13 U.S. patents and many foreign ones and has had a drug he co-invented and developed approved by the FDA. Cofounder of RealAge Inc., he remains on the advisory board of that company, now known as Sharecare.

A past chair of a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee, the author has received numerous honors including the National Library of Medicine’s Paul G. Rogers Best Medical Communicator award.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Roizen is the son of Edith and Manus, of blessed memory. His parents were once smokers. Roizen agreed to give the toast at his sister’s wedding if they’d quit. They did, he did and they lived another 30 years — his mother to 91 and his father to 96.

Roizen calls his wife, Nancy, “the best thing that ever happened to me.” The couple, parents of Drs. Jennifer (Neil Berman) Roizen and Jeffrey (Jennifer Ferd) Roizen and grandparents of Ari and Rafi Berman and Julien Ferd, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month. They participate at Rabbi Silver’s synagogue at Temple-Tifereth Israel.

The founding chair of the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic in 2007, Roizen now serves as chief wellness officer emeritus.

Roizen uses his metric to motivate patients struggling with tobacco, heart, diabetic or arthritic problems while coaching them with simple — but persistent — lifestyle changes to live, feel, look and be years younger. His recommendations include socialization as well as exercise, whether it be on a treadmill, a walk in the park, playing ping-pong or gardening.

“There is compounding for our health as there is to financial wealth, and both can be changed because we get to control our actions,” he says. “We think this reboot can happen in the next 10 years so, for that time, we need to do all we can for our bodies and brains to not develop structural damage. It’s a choice.”

To register for the March 22 event, visit jccdallas.org/event/michael-roizen.