A convincing defense of an innovative method for relieving back pain.
Lutz, a physician, makes the case for a new treatment for back pain in this nonfiction work.
The author introduces readers to a process he developed that offers an alternative to surgery for treating back pain. The book explains, with the help of anonymized MRI images from Lutz’s patients, the physiology of back pain (“It’s nothing more than an unhealed wound inside a disc with a great deal of inflammatory proteins and nerve fibers that complicate the healing process”), and why standard treatments are inconsistently successful. The most effective treatment, Lutz argues, is platelet-rich plasma injections, in which a patient’s blood is drawn, concentrated in a centrifuge, and injected into the damaged spinal disc. Lutz writes about how he developed the treatment, which had previously been used for other types of injuries, placing it in the context of his own medical career and trends in medical education. He describes the iterative process of testing, refining, and sharing the treatment, and both peer-reviewed research and patients’ anecdotes are presented to demonstrate the technique’s viability. The author is a skilled writer who both tells an engaging story and makes a solid argument. As few doctors currently offer platelet-rich plasma as a treatment for back pain, the book’s advocacy for it naturally serves in part as an advertisement for Lutz’s services, but the science-driven narrative is persuasive; the text reads like a recommendation rather than propaganda. The book is informational, with plenty of easy-to-follow scientific detail, and is also thoughtful and personal, including passages about the evolution of the practice of medicine and Lutz’s own career. Readers with an interest in the development of science will enjoy this inside look at how a treatment innovation arose, was improved, and was debated by the medical community. Those who suffer from back pain will appreciate the clear explanations of what causes their discomfort, why they may have found little relief from standard care, and a potential new approach to healing.
A convincing defense of an innovative method for relieving back pain.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781544537221
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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