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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good for the general reader,
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This review is from: Intestinal Bacteria and Health An Introductory Narrative (Paperback)
This is a short, very readable, very informative introduction for the average reader to our intestinal flora, a subject which for all its relevance to our health and physiology hasn't really penetrated to the world of popular science and health books. This book by Tomotari Mitsuoka, a biomedicine professor at the University of Tokyo and a head researcher at RIKEN, Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, seems to be the one exception.
This book tells you about the major players among the 80-100 species of microbes living in your gut and what the conditions of life are like inside your gastrointestinal tract. You'll also read about what happens to food and its various constituents during digestion. You'll learn why gas forms and what diarrhea is. There are plenty of fascinating side-stories along the way. For instance, there's the residents of Papua New Guinea who seem to live mostly on sweet potatoes, taking in almost no protein, which by normal nutrition standards should lead to an inability to thrive: yet they're a strong and healthy people. Of special interest to me, as a young parent, was the description of how the microbial world in the intestines of a breast-fed infant is so vastly different from that of a formula-fed infant. Interestingly enough, this is one of the few popular science books in which the author has already contributed to his own subject: he unobtrusively mentions his own laboratory's studies and discoveries, especially in developing new agar media and anaerobic (non-oxygen) environments for fastidious bacteria. (Through Google I've found that Mitsuoka is apparently considered the best expert in Japan and one of the few leading experts on intestinal microbiology in the world.) The author doesn't assume that the reader has a scientific background, and covers the history and study of microbiology and intestinal flora in a quick narrative way that eases understanding. How bacteria are built, different concepts like anaerobic and aerobic requirements, processes like fermentation, and how bacteria are found, cultivated, and classified are all explained. This book would facilitate anyone's study of introductory microbiology--I wish I had read it when I took micro myself! Some very basic knowledge of chemistry or microbiology would of course be helpful but is not necessary to read this book. This is an introductory text that the advanced reader might skim over to find the interesting tidbits. Though it was written in 1978, I don't find that it differs from my newer micro textbook. Its binding seems quite new and the writing is not at all dated--I had assumed the book was fairly new until I saw the copyright. There are a small handful of the errors commonly made in translating from Japanese to English, but nothing that impedes understanding. I highly recommend finding this book.
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