This book was a hard hitting read, but contained a lot of information, advice and medical knowledge that although useful, made it a difficult book to actually enjoy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It outlines age, gender and country specific statistical parameters for avoiding the illnesses and events that are most likely to shorten our lives. What to do and not do. Overall, this is practical and worthwhile advice.
Thank you to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I read this in one sitting . The general premise is that we can predict the majority of illnesses we are likely to suffer from by our age and gender. The 'missing keys' are referred to again and again but are not revealed until 75% is read at which point they turn out to be diet, exercise and health screening for the conditions most likely for your age and gender.This is hardly new, but the use of health statistics in preventive medicine is.
The author repeatedly refers to his father who was a promoter of healthy living, which may be true and he may have been ahead of his time - but how often do I need to be told this?! The author is clearly a very capable man and has hit on an area of statistics that could be helpful in dealing with healthy living - his credentials kept me reading. However overall it is poorly constructed as a piece of writing.

Prevention is the best Medicine, especially if you know what to look out for!
This is the first book in which I found age and gender specific statistics regarding the causes for premature death and disability. Dr. Hayes wants to make us aware of our personal health risks depending on personal age and gender. In order not to become a statistic and die too early or suffer for years from debilitating disabilities, we have to become proactive to lead a healthy life for many years to come. The good news is that we can prevent a lot of disease from happening if we refrain from certain risk-taking behaviors and make an effort to eat healthy and exercise right. We also have to watch our health and get tested for the most prevalent diseases that can affect us at our specific age. If we were not so stubborn to disregard the advice given in this book, the cost of health care would dramatically decrease while the quality of our lives would dramatically increase. Dr. Hayes gives us a head start in becoming more responsible for our own health, by listing which unhealthy behaviors to discard, which healthy behaviors to adopt, when to see a doctor and for which illnesses we should be screened.