In 1971, when the author’s father—a lean, active 56-year-old—suffered a massive stroke due to a blood clot in his left...
Deblois’ high-energy how-to debut aims to lay the groundwork for a healthier lifestyle.
In 1971, when the author’s father—a lean, active 56-year-old—suffered a massive stroke due to a blood clot in his left carotid artery, his blood pressure was an astounding 320/180. The doctor warned that Deblois and his brother (both in their early 30s at the time) could suffer the same genetic fate. In 2003, unfortunately, Deblois’ brother went into a clot-induced coma at the age of 62. Hoping to avoid a similar tragedy, the author started checking his own blood pressure regularly, noting decreases in his diastolic and systolic readings when he weight-trained. Now, at 73, the former high school physical-education instructor and coach continues to weight-train and claims to be in optimal health. Deblois doesn’t offer safety guidelines for weight-training exercises; however, he does provide a wellspring of information here, clearly warning readers of the dangers of high blood pressure and detailing the benefits of a comprehensive cardiovascular program of exercise. He points out, for example, that increased blood flow to the heart lessens the risk of clotting. At times, the book reads much like an introductory health course, describing how to take one’s own pulse and blood pressure and measure one’s “BMI,” or Body Mass Index. In Deblois’ discussion of combining weight-training with endurance training, he claims that five or six hours of “reasonable” effort per week can reduce systolic pressure by 50 points or more, and diastolic pressure by 30 points or more. His tone is scholarly yet congenial as he notes such things as basic diet guidelines; he suggests that one’s daily calorie intake should include no more than 25 to 30 percent fat. He also summarizes weight-training principles such as breathing and recovery and offers illustrated exercise instructions that compare a regular bench press with a decline bench press, for example. The author’s sample program, however, uses machines such as the leg press, so it may not work for readers with little money or access to gyms. However, his principles may be adjusted to fit most lifestyles. Overall, this dynamic instruction guide highlights preventive rather than palliative exercise as the key to good cardiovascular health.Pub Date: June 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1482540697
Page Count: 180
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2014
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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