A comprehensive, original contribution to a burgeoning field of physiological research.
According to this book by Italian nutritionist Spattini (Anti-aging e lo stile di vita integrato, 2013, etc.), it may be time to thin out some long-standing ideas about fat loss.
This work provides a wide overview of the author’s research, which aims to demonstrate that so-called “spot” training—targeted physical activity to reduce fat and increase strength in a particular area of the body—is successful and feasible. Although this claim runs contrary to prevailing wisdom on the physiology of exercise, Spattini provides compelling reasons to reevaluate it. He grounds his ideas in a philosophy of medicine that focuses on the dietary, environmental and physical factors of specific body types and metabolisms—an approach he traces back to Hippocrates. His book claims to show how one can achieve localized and overall fat loss, paying specific attention to the interaction between nutrition and the nervous, endocrinal and enzymatic systems. Detailed diagrams and explanations show how the body produces hormones, how they interact, and how they affect a person’s overall health. This, in turn, provides the groundwork for Spattini’s unique COM diet, which also emphasizes chronobiology (which “studies the rhythmic variations of biological phenomena over the course of time”) and morphology. The book includes chapters on strength training for different body types; they also provide specialized dietary information, in keeping with the book’s integrated approach to health. Other chapters touch on mental health concerns in relation to these regimens. The author’s most novel contribution, however, is his articulation and defense of spot-training practices, including a careful survey of the relevant literature. The book also offers articles regarding spot reduction from authors Lorenzo Pansini, Chiara Caliaro and Paolo Luzi. Technical but clear enough for the educated layperson, it’s a useful starting point for learning just how the body stores and expends fat.
A comprehensive, original contribution to a burgeoning field of physiological research.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1502785527
Page Count: 378
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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