A comprehensive “evidence based” guide on exercise, health and performance for aspiring athletes and pros alike.
Hutchinson, a journalist and physicist, offers a refreshing perspective on fitness and well-being. Instead of adding to the list of manifestos on the perfect fitness regimen, the author sets aside conventional wisdom for scientific exploration and invites readers to form their own opinions. From the outset, Hutchinson clearly states his intentions: “This is an important point: there’s no single ‘best’ exercise program or technique that applies to everyone. You’ll have to take into account your background, current level of fitness and goals in designing an appropriate workout regimen—not to mention more subtle considerations like the types of activity you enjoy. After all, the most effective program is the one you can stick with!” With that in mind, the author leads readers on a path that methodically disentangles myth from fact regarding exercise, performance and healthy living. But Hutchinson isn’t only concerned with what works and what doesn’t; he's interested in the why as well. The author’s scientific training serves him well in referencing hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 100 interviews with researchers worldwide. However, he carefully balances the scientific data with a blend of tips and helpful diagrams. For example, readers may enjoy learning the mind-body connection and how listening to music or watching TV can affect a workout. Each chapter closes with a “cheat sheet,” a clearly defined list of the key points. Factual, informative and empowering.
Pub Date: May 24, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-200753-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
A collection of gracefully written short pieces narrated by a thoughtful, sensitive young woman in the process of becoming a doctor. McCarthy, now a pediatrician at an inner-city clinic in Boston, began writing these essays (she calls them stories) while at Harvard Medical School and continued through her residency in pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Boston. Each of these pieces, originally published in the Boston Globe magazine, shows her reacting to a different, usually difficult, situation and concludes with her gaining some new insight about what it means to become a doctor. The formula is simple, but the author's idealism, frankness, and modesty set her accounts apart from the more self-important ones that medical practitioners sometimes produce. The opening piece, which describes McCarthy's encounter with a cadaver in her first-year anatomy class, reveals that the emotional component of medicine is her primary concern. In others, she worries about thinking too much like a doctor, learns how important it is to be able to communicate with patients, and discovers that, even as a student who can't perform procedures, she can still offer aid and comfort to a frightened patient. We also see McCarthy awkwardly touching the boundaries that separate her roles as doctor and as friend. Later stories about AIDS babies and abused children show the painful limits of medicine. The intelligence behind these beautiful stories keeps them from being tearjerkers: There's no shortage of compassion and caring, but McCarthy's control of her material is such that sentimentality never creeps in. By the end, the author has become a pediatrician and a mother, two roles whose synergy promise to make her better than good at both. This delightful book makes the future of medicine seem brighter.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-83874-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
Some surprising answers to questions about why our bodies are designed the way they are and why we get the diseases we do. Nesse, a physician (Psychiatry/Univ. of Michigan) and Williams (Ecology and Evolution/SUNY, Stony Brook) first teamed up to write an article on Darwinian medicine, which applies the concept of adaptation by natural selection to medical questions. That article, published in 1991 in The Quarterly Review of Biology, has been expanded into the present book, in which the authors look at the design characteristics of the human body that make it susceptible to disease. Their conclusions? First, sometimes it's our genes that make us vulnerable to disease. Some genetic defects arise through mutations, but more often, genes with deleterious effects are maintained through natural selection because their benefits outweigh their costs. Second, there's a mismatch between our present environment and the one that over thousands of years shaped our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There simply hasn't been time for our bodies to adapt, and we suffer the consequences. Third, disease results from design compromises. For example, the structural changes that allowed us to develop from horizontal four-footed creatures to upright two-footed ones left us vulnerable to back problems. Fourth, our evolutionary history has left us some troublesome legacies, such as the unfortunate intersection in our throats of the passages for food and air. Some of the areas Nesse and Williams apply their Darwinian approach to are infectious diseases, allergies, cancer, aging, reproduction, and mental disorders. Happily, they write with impeccable clarity, and when they are speculating (which they do freely), they are careful to say so. They also offer numerous suggestions for research studies, thoughtful proposals for reshaping medical textbooks and medical education, and a scenario dramatizing Darwinian medicine's possible clinical application. Fascinating reading for doctors and patients alike.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8129-2224-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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