A keen, close study of the neuroses attached to everyday living.
A set of personal essays on the author’s struggle to apply order to her hard-to-quantify self, from sleep to fitness to romance.
Arndt’s first book is largely a memoir of her body, focused on the ways she measures it to better comprehend herself, an effort that inevitably falls short. She undertakes a sleep study to determine (inconclusively) if she’s narcoleptic or has “idiopathic hypersomnia.” She takes Adderall to buy time that’s forever slipping through her grasp. She obsessively minds the time, which typically prompts her to arrive frustratingly early for appointments; at a judo tournament, waiting for her bout, she contemplates the sweet spot of having enough time to relax but not so much that she’s anxious. (“All I could think about was not thinking too much about the wait.”) Online dating, with its match percentages and other algorithms, almost seems designed to kill romance before it can bloom, to generate “a compulsive worry that there might be someone even better out there if only we’d swipe enough to find them.” Most memoirists address dating with humor and medical issues with pathos, but Arndt cultivates a stoic middle ground, an approach that at its best reflects rigorous observation but sometimes is so distant the writing feels flat. Throughout, though, she’s engaging about the ways that “normal” arrangements alienate us, from kitchens’ sexist design for “a person with a specific body shape” to our social norms about weight and sweat. The author occasionally writes in a more lyrical mode, as in a diary of small incidents experienced during her work commute. But her strongest pieces place her at the center of larger forces that make her (and us) feel abnormal. “If what ailed me was uncertain and unverifiable,” she writes, “then I was uncertain and unverifiable too.”
A keen, close study of the neuroses attached to everyday living.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-946448-13-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Sarabande
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Useful but disappointingly commonplace tips.
In a follow-up to The End of Illness (2012), which explored how technological advances will transform medicine, Agus (Medicine and Engineering/Univ. of Southern California) restates time-tested but too often overlooked principles for healthy living.
The author outlines simple measures that average citizens can take to live healthier lives and extend their life spans by taking advantage of modern technology to develop personalized records. These would include a list of medical tests and recommended treatments. Agus also suggests keeping track of indicators that can be observed at home on a regular basis—e.g., changes in energy, weight, appetite and blood pressure, blood sugar and general appearance. He advises that all of this information be made available online, and it is also helpful to investigate family history and consider DNA testing where indicated. Along with maintaining a healthy weight, Agus emphasizes the importance of eating a balanced diet, with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and a minimum of red meat. Avoid packaged vitamins and food supplements, and if possible, grow your own vegetables or buy frozen vegetables, which will generally be fresher than those on supermarket shelves. The author also warns against processed foods that make health claims but contain additives or excessive amounts of sugar or fat. Regular mealtimes and plenty of sleep, frequent hand-washing and oral hygiene are a must; smoking and excessive time in the sun should also be avoided. Agus recommends that adults should consider taking statins and baby aspirin as preventative measures. He concludes with a decade-by-decade checklist of annual medical examinations that should be routine—e.g. blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol screenings, from one’s 20s on; colonoscopies, prostate exams and mammograms later—and a variety of top-10 lists (for example, “Top 10 Reasons to Take a Walk”).
Useful but disappointingly commonplace tips.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3095-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Oncologist Agus (Medicine and Engineering/Univ. of Southern California) predicts that the application of advanced technology for modeling complex systems will transform 21st-century medicine.
The author writes that a remark Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann made to him in 2009—“Look at cancer as a system"—transformed the way he views his own specialty and the entire field of preventative medicine. It made him realize that “[r]ather than honoring the body as the exceedingly complex system that it is, we keep looking for the individual gene that has gone awry, or for the one ‘secret’ that can improve our health.” Agus writes that although the ability to sequence the entire human genome is a great step forward, it is insufficient for achieving a significant breakthrough. Even though it may start with a mutation, cancer “is a dynamic process that's happening…far from the confines of a static piece of DNA”—it involves the body's immune system, its ability to regulate cell growth, metabolism and more. Agus directs his university’s Center for Applied Molecular Medicine and is the co-founder of two personalized medicine companies, Applied Proteomics and Navigenics. His hope is that their research will contribute to developing better analytical tools for preventative medicine and for the treatment of cancers. These will address the functioning of the body as a whole, applying digital technology already used by physicists to provide virtual models of cancers and model the action of proteins that regulate cell communication in the body. He also hopes to develop tools that will provide information on the concentration of different proteins in a drop of blood taken from a patient, which may reveal the onset of disease. The author also includes some guiding principles and warnings about certain healthy practices that may not be so healthy. A refreshing change of pace in the medical field, but by venturing beyond his field of expertise to pontificate on a wide range of subjects, Agus makes his otherwise intriguing narrative difficult to follow.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1017-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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