A comprehensively researched, if occasionally uneven, text with far-reaching, unnerving conclusions.
Monte, in his debut, details the dangers of aspartame, an artificial sweetener whose consumption, he claims, leads to “diseases of civilization,” such as autism, lupus, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
The author, who holds a doctorate and master’s degree in food science and nutrition and a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, has spent his career educating the public about food safety, specifically the dangers of methanol. Readers may recall from their high school science classes that there are two types of alcohols: ethanol, the type that’s safe to consume, and methanol, or wood-grain alcohol, which, although present in many foods in trace amounts, is extremely toxic in large quantities. Monte writes that aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in Diet Coke, among other products, turns into methanol when consumed, and it’s his “ardent belief that diseases of civilization are the consequence of long-term consumption of methanol, a poison whose most damaging effects are specific to humans.” Diet soda and cigarettes are the most common methanol sources, but the chemical is also present in canned fruits and vegetables, black currant and tomato juices, smoked meats and fish, and fruit brandy, among other foodstuffs. Overall, the author delivers a thoroughly researched text with clearly presented information, even for readers with a minimal science background. Perhaps due to his lengthy tenure as a professor at Arizona State University, Monte is particularly skilled at using analogies to explain biological processes in terms comprehensible to lay readers. He also includes several helpful explanatory tables, charts and illustrations. Readers may find it frustrating, however, that the book’s citations aren’t in the book itself, but only on an outside website; although it’s nice to have links to the relevant articles, it would have been helpful to have the references available in the text (particularly for readers without Internet access) to check where information came from. Also, the book occasionally takes odd turns for a science text, as in “The Mutation of Eve,” which puts forth a theory about how the mutation that prevents humans from safely ingesting methanol occurred: “Please bear with me as I weave a little yarn of how the mutation might have happened. I chose to call this unknown woman, whose child would become the mother of all modern humans, Eve.”
A comprehensively researched, if occasionally uneven, text with far-reaching, unnerving conclusions.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2011
ISBN: 978-1452893679
Page Count: 250
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
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
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
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