Nortin Hadler, a professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology at UNC Chapel-Hill, has been warning for years about the lack of evidence supporting many popular medical treatments and tests.

His work is controversial. In books such as Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society and Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America, Hadler argues for holding medical interventions to a high standard: Do they reduce mortality or substantially lessen the burden of illness? Do potential benefits significantly outweigh potential harms? Unless research proves this, the interventions should be avoided, Hadler insists.

In his newest book, Rethinking Aging: Growing Old and Living Well in an Overtreated Society, the 69-year-old Hadler turns his attention to older Americans. The following interview has been edited.

Q: Youve called your book Rethinking Aging. What do you want readers to understand about aging?

This book is a celebration of the fact that the baby boomers and the traditionalists the generation that came before the boomers are the first in the history of the world to hit age 60 and to be able to say, What do I want to do with the next 25 years of my life?

We shouldnt worry so much about what will kill us. We should be focusing on making it to age 85 and having a pleasing journey along the way.

Q: Youre concerned about the medicalization of aging. Explain why.

You can be healthy well beyond 60, but youll be different than you were when you were 20. Youll have different posture, wrinkles and other changes that are age appropriate. We have to be very, very careful about calling any difference from when we were younger an illness or a disease. And we have to be even more careful about telling people that we have things we can do to fix these differences, but this happens all the time. Thats the medicalization of aging.

Q: You talk about the importance of older people making informed medical decisions.

For the first time in the history, we have a tremendous amount of information about efficacy: what makes sense to do medically and what doesnt.

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UNC professor has a different prescription on aging