Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success was a very quick read.

I was not thrilled to read this book but decided to read it only after a friend loaned it to me.

I would rank the quality Gladwell's books in the same order they were published: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and way behind is Outliers: The Story of Success.

Outliers just seemed so contrived.

While each story was interesting, they didn't seem to quite fit into a coherent argument. It felt like Gladwell was trying to turn what should have been a simple article for the New York Times (not even an article for the New York Times Magazine) into a bestselling book.

Also, some of the stories -- particularly the one about the health of residents of Roseto, PA -- are well known to the public, which made it seem like Gladwell was trying even harder to make a book out of a simple essay.

So while I think that folks should read The Tipping Point and maybe even Blink for the educational value, I highly recommend that you not bother with Outliers.

Stephen Baker's The Numerati

Stephen Baker’s The Numerati, which I first wrote about here.

The book is organized into seven chapters which describe ways that data is being analyzed in mass quantities: Worker, Shopper, Voter, Blogger, Terrorist, Patient, and Lover.

You'd think that Lover would be the most interesting but it had the least substance; Voter (about Josh Gotbaum of Spotlight Analysis) was by far the most interesting chapter.

The Numerati was such a quick read that I finished it in just a few short disappointing hours.

I felt Baker was stretching to fill out his book with examples of how mathematicians are dangerously invading our privacy by quantifying and analyzing our lives.

Still, it was entertaining; just keep your expectations low.

Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie

I just read Natalie Angier's October 27, 2008 New York Times article "The Unappreciated, Holding Our Lives in Balance" which made me think of Scott McCredie's Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense. (Which, of course, I read after I heard about it in the New York Times; click here to read Daniel Smith's New York Times review titled "Without a Net" and published August 19, 2007.)

While I don't have any notes on this book (I read Balance before I started this blog), I remember finding this book thoughtful and well-written. While I wouldn't go so far as to agree with McCredie that Balance should be considered the sixth sense, McCredie did convincingly argue balance's importance on normal human function.

The book managed to be both educational and entertaining. The stories of Karl Wallenda were sweet while stories of pilot's disorientation (and how balance was a contributing factor in the death of John F. Kennedy Jr) were tragic.

I've always had a poor sense of balance despite my love of yoga. So I appreciated McCredie's appendix of exercises. The New York Times (of course) published a great article by Jane Brody in January titled "Preserving a Fundamental Sense: Balance" with simple balance exercises:

To increase stability and strengthen the legs, stand with feet shoulder-width apart and arms straight out in front. Lift one foot behind, bending the knee at 45 degrees. Hold that position for five seconds or longer, if possible.

Repeat this exercise five times. Then switch legs. As you improve, try one-leg stands with your eyes closed.

...

Sit-to-stand exercises once or twice a day increase ankle, leg and hip strength and help the body adjust to changes in position without becoming dizzy after being sedentary for a long time. Sit straight in a firm chair (do not lean against the back) with arms crossed. Stand up straight and sit down again as quickly as you can without using your arms. Repeat the exercise three times and build to 10 repetitions.

Heel-to-toe tandem walking is another anytime exercise, resembling plank walking popular with young children. It is best done on a firm, uncarpeted floor. With stomach muscles tight and chin tucked in, place one foot in front of the other such that the heel of the front foot nearly touches the toe of the back foot. Walk 10 or more feet and repeat the exercise once or twice a day.

Also try walking on your toes and then walking on your heels to strengthen your ankles.

Another helpful exercise is sidestepping. Facing a wall, step sideways with one leg (bring the other foot to it) 10 times in each direction. After mastering that, try a dancelike maneuver that starts with sidestepping once to the right. Then cross the left leg behind, sidestep to the right again and cross the left leg in front. Repeat this 10 times. Then do it in the other direction.

So in addition to your normal workout, make sure you aren't neglecting your vestibular system! Perform this test to assess your current balance:

1. Stand straight, wearing flat, closed shoes, with your arms folded across your chest. Raise one leg, bending the knee about 45 degrees, start a stopwatch and close your eyes.
2. Remain on one leg, stopping the watch immediately if you uncross your arms, tilt sideways more than 45 degrees, move the leg you are standing on or touch the raised leg to the floor.
3. Repeat this test with the other leg.
4. Now, compare your performance to the norms for various ages:
   
   • 20 to 49 years old: 24 to 28 seconds.
   • 50 to 59 years: 21 seconds.
   • 60 to 69 years: 10 seconds.
   • 70 to 79 years: 4 seconds.
   • 80 and older: most cannot do it at all.
   
   

Click here to view the table of contents and download an excerpt from the author's website or here to view the author's FAQ.

Brenda Avadian Lecture

Brenda Avadian, author of eight books, is speaking at the 11th Annual Louis Mary Battle Lecture on  Monday November 3, 2008 at the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Auditorium, Mercy High School.

Dr. Rebecca Elon, director of the Lorien Columbia Nursing and Rehabilitation Center,  will also be speaking.

Avadian's books include:

• Drive North in Your Career
• Finding the Joy in Alzheimer's: Caregivers Share the Joyful Times
• Finding the Joy in Alzheimer's: When Tears Are Dried with Laughter
• "Where's My Shoes?": My Father's Walk Through Alzheimer's

The event posting I saw gave this description of the speakers:

Rebecca Elon, MD
The Absence of Presence: Lessons from American Medicine
Dr. Rebecca Elon is the founding medical director of Erickson Health Howard County (EHHC). The outpatient offices of EHHC are housed within the Lorien Columbia Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where Dr. Elon has served as medical director since 2006.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Finding the JOY in Caregiving: When Tears are Dried with Laughter
Brenda Avadian, The Caregiver's Voice, is a spokesperson and advocate for caregivers and their loved ones with dementia. An eight-book author, she offers sprinkles of JOY from her own experiences caring for her father with Alzheimer's. For caregiving information, please visit thecaregiversvoice.com.

Reception starts at 6:00pm and lecture starts at 7:00pm at Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Auditorium, Mercy High School, 1300 East Northern Parkway, Baltimore, Maryland 21239.

Open to the public but reservations are required; call 410-252-4500 x7208.

The Big Necessity by Rose George

Just heard about a new book by Rose George -- author of A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in the Modern World -- about poop (feces, crap, doodoo, dookie, doody, shit, poo, turds, kaka, excrement, you get the gist)!

In this book, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters, George teaches us that 2.6 billion people have no access to clean food or water and lead lives surrounded by human poop, either in the bushes outside their villages or in their city streets, leading to more than 2 million deaths per year.

And she also teaches us about our "modern" sewer systems that are now overloaded and outdated.

Makes me think a bit about Liquid Assets.

Click here to read an excerpt or here to read more about this book on the author's website.

Anticancer: A New Way of Life

Just heard about a book that sounds like Devra Davis's The Secret History of the War on Cancer (click here to read my entries on that book). The book is Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, cofounder of the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre -- Devra Davis is also at the University of Pittsburgh so it makes sense that another book related to the environmental causes of cancer would come from a colleague.

Here's what the publisher has to say about this book, which was published last month:

When David Servan- Schreiber, a dedicated scientist and doctor, was diagnosed with brain cancer, it changed his life. Confronting what medicine knows about the illness, the little known workings of the body’s natural cancer-fighting capacities, and his own will to live, Servan-Schreiber found himself on a fifteen-year journey from disease and relapse into scientific exploration, and finally to health. Combining memoir with a clear explanation of what makes cancer cells thrive and what inhibits them, and describing both conventional and alternative ways to slow and prevent cancer, Anticancer is revolutionary in its clarity. It is a moving story of a doctor’s inner and outer search for healing; radical in its discussion of the environment, lifestyle, and trauma; and inspiring and cautionary in its certainty that cancer cells lie dormant in all of us—and we all must care for the “terrain” in which they exist.

Anticancer takes us on a serious journey and, ultimately, an empowering one. In the tradition of Michael Pollan, John Kabat- Zinn, Barbara Kingsolver, and Andrew Weil, Anticancer genuinely guides us to “a new way of life.”

Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver huh? Well then I definitely have to pick up a copy of this book.

Click here to watch a trailer (yes, a trailer) in Quicktime format for this book.

Servan-Schreiber is also the author of The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy which sounds interesting too . . . it seems to me that we all want a simple answer to all health problems -- preferably just a prescription for pills -- and it would be good to hear from a doctor who seems to break from the orthodoxy and speak out against prescribing the latest drugs.

Click here to learn more on the author's website.

Kelly Corrigan Lecture

Yet another author lecture in Baltimore...

Sinai Hospital Auxillary is celebrating its 60th Anniversary Celebration on Thursday, October 2, 2008 with a lecture by Kelly Corrigan, author of bestselling memoir The Middle Place, and music with Three of a Kind.

The event starts at 7:30pm at Beth El Congregation, 8101 Park Heights Avenue, Pikesville, MD 21208.

Free and open to the public but reservations are required; call 410-601-5033.

Here's a synopsis of The Middle Place:

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place—"that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap"—comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast—and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her—and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.

Click here to read an excerpt.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

As promised, here's a bit more on Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto (click here to view all my posts about this book).

Most of the contents of this book can be found from other sources by Michael Pollan -- his articles in the New York Times, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan on C-SPAN, and Pollan on NPR several times.

What's new is mostly his lists to help us decide what to eat (and even this can be learned from Pollan's talk on C-SPAN):

Eat Food

• Don't eat anything your great grand-mother wouldn't recognize as food: Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible: Shake the hand that feeds you.

Mostly Plants

• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves: did you know that the average American eats 200 pound of meat per year?
• You are what what you eat eats too.
• If you have the space, buy a freezer.
• Eat like an omnivore.
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils: "it stands to reason that a chemically simplified soil would produce chemically simplified plants."
• Eat wild foods when you can: lamb's quarters and purslane, wild game meat, salmon, mackerel, sardines, and anchovies are good bets.
• Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
• Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks.
• Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism.
• Don't look for the magic bullet int he traditional diet.
• Have a glass of wine with dinner.

Not Too Much

• Pay more, eat less: Okinawan's say hara hachi bu, eat until you are eighty percent full.
• Eat meals: didn't there used to be at least a mild social taboo against the between meal snack?
• Do all your eating at a table: your desk is not a table.
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
• Try not to eat alone.
• Consult your gut.
• Eat slowly.
• Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

Well, that's it. Pretty simple huh? We should all be slimmer and healthier in no time.

There are a couple of other things I found interesting from this book.



First, since Pollan makes several references to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, I'm glad that I finally read it. And like Devra Davis in The Secret History of the War on Cancer, Pollan also posits that the health industry (as a business) has had much to gain from the unhealthiness of Americans -- Pollan mentions fast food companies while Davis mentions large industrial companies. It's always interesting to see how books by different authors seem to converge.

And did you know that the average American today spends less than 10% of their income on food and less than thirty minutes each day preparing meals, and about an hour each day enjoying them; in 1965 the average American spent 44 minutes prepping meals and 21 minutes cleaning up. This lack of cooking, Pollan postulates, has something to do with our unhealthiness.

And check out these calories per day contributions to America's per capita food supply:

• Corn: 554
• Soy 257
• Wheat 768
• Rice 91

That totals 1,670 and these four crops acccount for two thirds of the calories we eat. It makes me sick just thinking about it. According to Pollan, "humankind has historically consumed some 80,000 edible species, and three thousand of those have been in widespread use." And now we eat mostly just four species, just because they are among the most efficient transformers of sunlight and chemical energy into carbohydrate energy??!

And if that wasn't enough:

• Half of all broccoli grown commercially in the US is the Marathon variety, known for its high yield.
• Most of the chickens raised for meat in America are Cornish cross hybrid.
• More than 99% of the turkeys raised for meat in Americaare Broad-Breasted Whites.

A typical Iowa farm in the early 1900s would have "raised more than a dozen different plant and animal species: cattle, chicken, corn, hogs, apples, hay, oats, potatoes, cherries, wheat, plums, grapes, and pears" and now that same farm would produce just corn and soybeans.

All of this lack of complexity has resulted in a substantial decline in the nutritional quality of produce in this country -- and that's as determined by the USDA.

And here's an interesting quote for you:

The increases in world [omega-6] consumption over the past century may be considered a very large uncontrolled experiment that may have contributed to increased societal burdens of aggression, depression, and cardiovascular mortality.

Hmm, maybe Baltimore would be less violent if it's drug-dealing residents ate a lot more omega-3 fatty acids?!

The Uncertain Art by Sherwin B. Nuland

I first heard about Sherwin B. Nuland's The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine through the New York Times Book Review -- Barry Gewen’s “A Doctor Finds Miracles in Medicine” published June 6, 2008.

The book consists entirely of essays publishes in The American Scholar between 1998 and 2004.

This book is really quite special. Nuland's post-9/11 essay and his thoughts on his heart transplant candidate friend are especially poignant. His essay on our species' obsession with poop was humorous. His writings on acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and the mind-body relationship are insightful. And every essay was thoughtful and educational.

I may even purchase a copy of this book, since I read one from the library.

Here's the Table of Contents:

Author's Note  xi
Prooemium: An Introduction to My Book  xiii

The Whole Law of Medicine  3
Narcissus Looks Into the Laboratory  12
The Medical School and the University  20
The True Healers  28
Pumping Iron  35
Acupuncture in the Operating Room  42
Chinese Medicine, Western Medicine, and Acupuncture  50
The Misty Crystal Ball  59
Hidden Meanings  67
Is There a Doctor in the House?  75
Writing  83
Robbing Graves  91
Mind, Body, and the Doctor  99
The Great Books  108
Grief and Reflection: After 9/11  116
Lightning on My Mind  123
Scatological Medicine  132
Hippocrates Redux  140
The Artist and the Doctor  148
The Man or the Moment?  157
Letters From a Heart Transplant Candidate  165

Acknowledgments  187
Index  189

Click here to read an excerpt. Enjoy!

The Uncertain Art by Sherwin B. Nuland

I'm really enjoying Sherwin B. Nuland's The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine, which I heard about through the New York Times Book Review (as usual) and checked out from the library last month.

Each essay, most of which were originally published in The American Scholar, is a joy to read. His essay on exercise is funny and I particularly like Nuland's ability to discuss the history of medicine (and even art history) as it relates to his surgical practice at Yale and modern medical practice in general.

Will write more when I finish the book...

September Songs: The Good News about Marriage in the Later Years by Maggie Scarf

Still trying to catch up on back issues of The Economist, but I couldn't resist reading part of the current issue dated August 30, 2008.

In "It gets better, or so they say" from the Books & Arts section, I read about Maggie Scarf's new book September Songs: The Good News about Marriage in the Later Years.

Maggie Scarf is a journalist, author, a visiting fellow at Yale University's  Whitney Humanities Center and a writer in residence at Yale University's Jonathan Edwards College.

I haven't read any of her other books (Unfinished Business: Pressure Points in the Lives of Women, Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage, Intimate Worlds: How Families Thrive and Why They Fail, and Secrets, Lies, Betrayals: How the Body Holds the Secrets of a Life, and How to Unlock Them) but reading about her latest book makes me think that I would be interested in reading several of her works.

I am surprised by the book's conclusion that marriage in later year improves and I would like to learn more about the studies that Scarf describes.

Click here to read a synopsis from the author's website.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger

I just read "Advocating an Unusual Role for Trees" about the intriguing and pioneering scientist Diana Beresford-Kroeger (written by Jim Robbins and published on NYTimes.com on August 11, 2008).

I was drawn to this article partly because of my newfound appreciation for trees due to reading Richard Preston's The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring (click here to read all my posts on that book).

Born in Ireland and currently working at the University of Ottawa school of medicine, Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, agricultural and medical researcher, lecturer, and self-described "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry.

Here's an excerpt from the NYTimes.com article:

She calls herself a renegade scientist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advocate an unusual role for trees.

She favors what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions.

...

But some of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s claims for the health effects of trees reach far outside the mainstream. Although some compounds found in trees do have medicinal properties and are the subject of research and treatment, she jumps beyond the evidence to say they also affect human health in their natural forms. The black walnut, for example, contains limonene, which is found in citrus fruit and elsewhere and has been shown to have anticancer effects in some studies of laboratory animals. Ms. Beresford-Kroeger has suggested, without evidence, that limonene inhaled in aerosol form by humans will help prevent cancer.

Sounds a little crazy, and definitely lacking hard scientific proof, but it could be true! After all, studies have not been done to study the effects on humans due to natural ambient compounds from trees.

And that Miriam Rothschild, an eccentric home-schooled British naturalist whom I greatly admire, "wrote glowingly of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s idea of bioplanning and called it 'one answer to 'Silent Spring'' because it uses natural chemicals rather than synthetic ones" makes me even more interested in Beresford-Kroeger work.

Beresford-Kroeger is also the author of several books, all of which I'd like to take a look at:

• A Garden for Life: The Natural Approach to Designing, Planting, and Maintaining a North Temperate Garden
• Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest
• North American Trees: An Ecological Green Guide
  
• North Temperate Gardening: An Ecological Green Guide
  

I will have to see if my local library carries any of these!

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II

Last weekend, a friend reminded me about yet another book related to nutrition and health that I've been meaning to read: The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II.

Drawing on the studies in rural China, this book (published in 2005) examines the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes and cancer and the confusion surrounding nutrition caused by powerful lobbies, governments, and scientists.

Also, I've been meaning to take a look at these other books related to nutrition and health (recommended by Michael Pollan):

• What to Eat by Marion Nestle
• The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home by Daphne Miller
• Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health by Marion Nestle

I'm sure if I read any of these books I'll want to expand my small fruit and vegetable garden even more!

Click here to read an excerpt of The China Study.

Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte

I've just read Lisa Margonelli's "Tapped Out," a review of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (by Elizabeth Royte) published June 15, 2008 in the New York Times.

It makes me think of Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (which I'd like to read) and Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (which I have read); click here to read my entries on these books.

For many years now, I've preferred to simply drink filtered tap water in my own reusable bottle -- used to be a Nalgene but with all the health problems associated with the old Nalgenes made with Bisphenol A (BPA) I've given mine up.

Here's how Lisa Margonelli concludes her review:

By the time I finished “Bottlemania” I thought twice about drinking any water. Among the risks: arsenic, gasoline additives, 82 different pharmaceuticals, fertilizer runoff sufficient to raise nitrate levels so that Iowa communities issue “blue baby” alerts. And in 42 states, Royte notes, “people drink tap water that contains at least 10 different pollutants on the same day.” The privatization of pristine water is part of a larger story, a tragic failure to steward our shared destiny. And if you think buying water will protect you, Royte points out that it too is loosely regulated. And there is more — the dangers of pipes and of plastic bottles, the hazards of filters, and yes, that “toilet to tap” issue. But there is slim comfort: Royte says we don’t really need to drink eight glasses of water a day. Drink when you’re thirsty, an expert says. That’s refreshing.

Ick, now that makes me think of The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis (click here to read my entries on that book).

I think I will pick up a copy of Bottlemania at my local library, though I may take my time before getting to it.

Reading all these books about the lies of corporate America has been generally depressing.

Click here to read an excerpt.

Tidbits from Bonk by Mary Roach

Last week I finished reading Mary Roach's hilariously educational Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (click here to read all my posts about this book).

Here are some tidbits for you:

• The syngina is a synthetic human vagina used in tampon R&D.
• In 2002, a group of psychologists at SUNY Albany published a paper suggesting that semen may have antidepressant properties, based on studies of college age women's moods and whether they have sex with or without condoms.
• The Monkey Gland Affair by David Hamilton is the story of the once popular notion that the implantation of monkey testicles would rejuvenate male sexual powers and heal just about any ailment.
• The USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) has issued a variety of interestingly titled patents for sex or penis related purposes such as Disposable Internally Applied Penile Erector and Men's Underwear with Penile Envelope.
• There is supposedly a Thai saying "I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat." This is due to the hundreds of incidents in 1970s Thailand involving angry wives chopping off their adulterous husbands' members. Sometimes the women would flush them down the drain or thrown them out the window and if the latter occurred, ducks and other livestock would end up eating them.
• Somewhere in Seattle, WA, the local police department sponsored a bondage safety course.
• Only one tenth of the clitoris is visible but 60% of the penis is visible.
• The only FDA approved device for female sexual arousal disorder, Eros Clitoral Therapy Device, is essentially a $400 masturbation device.

Bonk was a fun and easy read (though the graphic descriptions of penis surgery and experiments may make this book less appealing to men) and I wonder what Mary Roach's next subject matter will be!

Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason

Earlier this week I finished reading Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason (click here to read all my entries about this book).

I was surprised by Mason's references to Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism.

In the chapter titled Wood of the Suicides, Mason shares the tragic story of expressing his belief that suicide is okay with his friend John who subsequently hung himself.To cope with the suicide of his friend John, Mason visits a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York.

And on page 125 through 127, Mason summarizes the three death bardos described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and on page 213 introduces some of the Zen koans complied by the Chinese monk Mumon in The Gateless Gate.

Mason uses his discussion of Zen koans to illustrate the power of mindfulness training through guided meditations as a treatment for brain injury patients.

He even uses a haiku -- a kind of traditional Japanese poetry (俳句) -- in his Introduction (page 6):

In this world
We walk on the roof of hell
Gazing at the flowers. *

While I appreciate reading these Buddhist and Eastern ideas, I felt they were out of place in this book.

Also, while The Hospital in the Desert, the Chapter on Balad Hospital in Iraq, was interesting I felt that it too seemed out of place and perhaps could be the start of another book entirely.

I was also disappointed by the depressing and severe tone of this book and I much preferred the hopeful tone and the hard science of Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science.

Both books use stories of real life brain injury cases and while Head Cases uses them to paint a bleak picture of traumatic brain injury (TBI) without teaching readers much science, The Brain That Changes Itself inspires readers with the astonishing findings of neuroplasticity research.

As I recall, Mason dedicates just one page to neuroplasticity (page 169) and manages to make it sound unscientific.

My recommendation? Stick to Oliver Sacks and Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself. If you read Head Cases, be prepared for depressing hopeless stories; to be expected, I suppose, from a man who must feel constant frustration at the poor treatment available to patients with traumatic brain injuries.

* In case you're curious about the original Japanese text by Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶), I looked it up:

世の中は
地獄の上の
花見かな

And here's the romanization (also not included in the book):

Yo no naka wa
Jigoku no ue no
Hanami kana

NYTimes.com Book Review - The Uncertain Art by Sherwin B. Nuland

I've just read about Sherwin B. Nuland's The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine in Barry Gewen's "A Doctor Finds Miracles in Medicine" published June 6, 2008 in the New York Times Book Review.

I've always been fascinated by medicine and I love to read books about medicine (Awakenings and An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, and most recently Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason).

Nuland is a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University and the author of How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (which won the National Book Award).

The publisher, Random House, describes The Uncertain Art as "a superb collection of essays about the vital mix of expertise, intuition, sound judgment, and pure chance that plays a part in a doctor’s practice and life."

Already it sounds more light-hearted than Mason's Head Cases (good book, but quite intense and sad) and more interesting than Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids by Julie Salamon (reviewed June 3 in the New York Times by Abigal Zuger here).

I would especially like to read Nuland's writing about acupuncture, electroshock therapy, and other non-mainstream practices; I'll have to check my local library and see if I can put a copy of The Uncertain Art (and maybe also Hospital) on hold!

Click here to read an excerpt of The Uncertain Art.

Head Cases by Michael Paul Mason

As I sat at eating beef wide rice noodles (乾炒牛河, gān chaǒ niú hé in pīnyīn) at Chen's Kitchen (one of few Chinese restaurants in the Baltimore area that I've come across that serves this dish), I started reading Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason (click here to read my post about borrowing this book from the library).

Reading about young Cheyenne Emerick a struggling playwright in his 40s living in a dilapidated Hollywood apartment and suffering up to six seizures a day made me thankful for my generally injury-free life.

Cheyenne was just a young man when his love of snowboarding took him to Utah where he went of a jump at top speed, fell victim to flatlight (unable to see where the grey-white sky turned back into the ground) and landed in a quasi-cannonball position causing his knee to slam into his forehead and forever damaging his prefrontal cortex. Chapter One, The Hermit of Hollywood Boulevard, tells Cheyenne's story and Mason's inability to get him the help that he needs.

If it sounds intense, that's because these stories of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are often severe and permanently life-changing.

I will have to find some light reading after I finish Head Cases.

Click here to read an excerpt of this book.

Cellphones and Cancer (The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis)

Tara Parker-Pope's June 3, 2008 New York Times article "Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer" and naturally made me think of The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Dr. Devra Lee Davis, which I read in April (click here to read all my entries about this book).

Davis is a leader in the field of environmental oncology. And while Davis teaches readers in The Secret History of the War on Cancer about a myriad of environmental factors that cause or are contributing factors in cancer but I don't recall her mentioning cellphones or other radiofrequency (RF) or microwave (MW) radiation and I wonder what her thoughts are.

Certainly we know that ultraviolet (UV) light -- another type of non-ionizing radiation -- causes cancer and people have suspected for years that extremely low frequency radiation (ELF) from high-voltage power lines may contribute to cancer.

The website for the Center of Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh (which Devra Davis heads) does list cell phones as a risk factor so I suppose Davis either chose not to include this in her book or I simply forgot having read about it:

Use cell phones with an earpiece and speakerphone so the phone itself is not held up against your head. Children should not use cell phones. Studies claiming that there is no link between cell phone use and brain cancer were not conducted on people who used cell phones as much as the average person today. Cell phones emit low doses of microwave radiation that destroy rat brain cells and memory and reach one inch into the human brain. While British authorities recommend that children not use cell phones at all, some American firms are pushing phones for five year olds.

Some of the other items listed on the "12 Things You Can Do To Reduce Cancer Risk" Fact Sheet are equally alarming as they commonly occur every day:

Unless someone in your immediate family has had breast cancer before menopause, hold off getting your first mammogram until at least age forty, or until your doctor advises you start having them—and then have them done sparingly. Mammography does not prevent breast cancer, but can reduce deaths from the disease in post-menopausal women. It is also important to have regular physical exam of breasts by a health professional.

Use hormones sparingly. Lifetime use of hormones affects cancer risk. Consider alternatives to chemical contraception such as IUDs and condoms (which also protect against sexually transmitted disease). Avoid long term use of medications that contain hormones, including hormone replacement therapy.

Do not consume food and beverages that contain aspartame. Sweeten your food with good old-fashioned sugar or honey, or stevia instead. Despite having FDA approval, aspartame, the sugar substitute, was never given a green light by scientists—all were concerned about its potential to cause cancer. New independent studies raise further concerns about its long term safety.

Don't microwave anything in plastic, no matter what the directions say. Some plastic chemicals can leach into food.

Don't put anything on your baby's skin that you can't eat. The materials that create "no more tears" in baby shampoo are banned in several countries, because they cause cancer in animals. In some cases lotions used on the heads of African-American babies caused development of breasts and pubic hair. The FDA has no authority to regulate any of these harmful compounds in personal care products, unlike the European Union.

The note about microwaving plastic is especially scary since most of my friends microwave plastic without a second thought, though my parents have always warned me and my siblings to only microwave items in glass or ceramic or on paper plates.

Yikes!

Bonk by Mary Roach

I’ve been reading Mary Roach’s latest book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (click here to read all my posts about this book).

After initially reading this in a public place (local Starbucks), I headed home when I realized I felt a bit uncomfortable reading a book about sex outside of the comfort of my own home.

Just read a few excerpts and you'll see what I mean.

Once I was at home, I felt free to laugh at the absurdity of the studies and Mary's own participation in some experiments. Did you know that pig's penises are shaped like corkscrews? And that they sell pig vibrators to farmers to help them artificially inseminate their cows? Or that pigs and men are the only mammals thought to fondle breasts during sex?

Bonk presents a wide variety of research on human sexuality too. Did you know that one woman out of 5,000 is born without a vagina? And that Marie Bonaparte found regarding the distance between the clitoris and urethra that for women with a measurement of less than 1 inch (69% of women) orgasm easily, while those with a measurement of greater than 1 inch (21% of women) have much trouble experiencing pleasure in sex, and those right around 1 inch (10% of women) go either way depending on the circumstances?

Mary Roach is a fantastic writer who knows no embarrassment and I look forward to finishing Bonk and wonder what her next subject matter will be!