A proactive, manageable, and practical approach to stemming the aging tide.
A heart surgeon and restorative medicine authority continues mapping his blueprint for a robust life through scientifically supported dietary changes.
In his latest, readers will find Gundry’s (The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods that Cause Disease and Weight Gain, 2017, etc.) friendly demeanor, sound advice, and compassionate motivational techniques unchanged as he takes a closer look at the aging process and examines a variety of ways to mitigate the damage done to the body across a lifetime. After debunking many commonly held myths about human aging, the author turns to one of his main areas of research: gut bacteria and how to make it advantageous for the body. In clear, concise language he describes the human microbiome (the body’s collective microorganisms or “gut buddies”) as being at the mercy of both a Western diet as well as a lectin-inducing plant-based one, each systematically hijacking and wreaking havoc on human cells. Gundry acknowledges this condition as reversible, however, as long as one adheres to his suggested nutritional therapies and lifestyle adjustments—e.g., avoiding lectins and carefully limiting alcohol and heartburn medications. Lay readers alarmed by the idea of micromanaging their microbial composition will find chapters on foods to best fight cancer and heart disease, as well as the enduring benefits of regular exercise for brain and memory health, more accessible and appealing. Gundry clearly lays out the immense potential for aging gracefully, and in the second half of the book, he presents a comprehensive program of wholesome organic food choices, meal plans, fasting intervals, vitamin supplementation, and lifestyle suggestions. Dedication and commitment are mandatory. Though the author sees aging as an unavoidable inevitability, that doesn’t mean the process has to be arduous and unhealthy. Instead, he believes that once one’s microbiome is improved and preserved, it can result in maximum health and longevity.
A proactive, manageable, and practical approach to stemming the aging tide.Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-284339-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper Wave
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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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