Customer Reviews

Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I have to agree exactly with Leslie of Texas' review below.

The basic information and premise of the book - that staying up late decreases production of melatonin in our bodies, and messes up our hormone system's balance in other ways as well - is potentially crucial to our health. That is why I give this book 4 stars, despite the terrible writing.

The author has a writing style that I believe comes from not really understanding much of what she is writing - I was particularly struck by the sentence in the Acknowledgements thanking her daughter for spending "countless hours explaining physics, chemistry and math to her old mom". This was a surprising admission, considering that a good portion of the book attempts to lecture the reader about a variety of unrelated topics that are not really understood by the author (or any other pop science writers) - including chaos theory and many other recent areas of scientific thought, taken wildly out of context.

The important information to get out of the book, is that 10 years of research at the National Institute of Health have confirmed that modern man's tendency to go to sleep much later than sunset disrupts the body's natural cycles, and this causes a variety of health problems due to the effects on the critical hormone system of the human body. Levels of melatonin, prolaction, leptin, cortisol, insulin, dopamine and serotonin are all affected.

The essential recommendation of the book is - during fall and winter - to try and get at least 9.5 hours of sleep by going to sleep as soon as possible after sunset (ie by 9 or 10 pm), and the rest of the year to also try and get to sleep as soon as possible after sunset.

The other recommendations are the same as can be found in the books by Drs. Eades, ie follow a low-carbohydrate diet and do weight lifting exercise instead of aerobics.

I agree that it is unfortunate that this important research is presented in such a poorly written fashion, and mixed up with so much extraneous opinion.

As many other readers have reported, the editing in this book is just simply awful. There's the mention of an appendix that doesn't exist, the lack of footnotes, mispellings...and then there's that little side trip into paranoia and conspiracy theory in the very last chapter that had me wondering just what kind of kooks these people were! As far as the editorial errors go, well, I'll just assume that was the publisher's fault, but the rest?

But the truth is, I do believe they're onto something. I've successfully incorporated many of their suggestions into my own lifestyle after long years of low-fat, high carb eating. And although I do try, at this point in my life its VERY difficult for me to get nine hours of uninterrupted pitch-dark sleep from September to April.

I bought and read this book shortly after it came out earlier this year. I've tried a number of times to find out anything else about these authors, but have come up with almost nothing. While a fair number of people are reading the book, it appears to have gotten almost no attention past initial reviews shortly after it was published. This is frustrating since I would like nothing better than to see their ideas verified--or at least challenged. ...

Lights Out had the potential to be a great book.

I agree with the main point of the book that it's healthier NOT to stay up late with artificial lights, TV, and the internet. I also agree that the healthiest diet is a diet low in carbohydrates (and especially low in sugar) with generous quantities of animal proteins and fats. I like the advice to go to sleep after the sun sets and to seal all light out of the bedroom. It's great that someone is exploring the topic of humans sleeping out of synch with the natural night.

BUT I have to say that T.S. Wiley is one of the worst writers I've ever read, not to mention that she's a total crackpot nut case. The writing is completely disorganized, contradictory, and sensationalist with lots of black and white thinking and lots of false information.

Why couldn't she have just stuck to the very important information about sleep, light, and carbohydrates and skipped all of her nutty, self-indulgent, provincial biases?

Her tone is often unnecessarily offensive: "Think of fat as a condom for your carbs," (page 173).

She contradicts herself constantly and gives completely false information: "The Aztecs had corn oil as a fat source, the Greeks had olives, and the Chinese had the soybean," (page 178), and then: "Think about the world we're really from. There were no machines, and therefore there was no corn oil," (page 180).

Just so no one is left confused by Wiley's misinformation, the Aztecs, who existed no later than the 16th century, did NOT eat corn oil, which was invented around the turn of the 20th century. Similarly, soybeans were NOT the source of fat for the Chinese. Soybean oil, which like corn oil is a solvent-extracted oil (thereby necessitating the invention of solvents in order to be eaten), was not produced until the 20th century.

Wiley goes off topic A LOT. At one point in chapter 9 (by the way, the subject matter is so randomly elaborated on that the chapter breaks are practically meaningless), she is in the middle of psuedo-poetic meditation on the "whirling Dervishes" of the spinning planets when she suddenly degenerates into a rant on cigars: "It's no accident that cigars have become chic again" (page 198). And this is strange because back on page 188 she lists vitamins and supplements she recommends including: "And, finally, have a drink or a cigar once in a while; and remember, unless it makes you jumpy, coffee's good for you." Why? She doesn't say, of course.

Wiley fails to sufficiently explain a lot of her advice: "Don't drink milk. You're an adult," (page 173). That's not really enough of an explanation for me. I'm still going to drink my milk.

She also fails to footnote any of her controversial statements. Says who that each human only gets one billion heartbeats, and then we die?

It would be hard to keep track of how many times Wiley tells the readers that they're about to drop dead; that the human race is about to go extinct; that once humans are past reproductive age, nature wants us dead; and that she thinks we should live no older than age 40.

And she repeats her death mantra in a moralizing tone like we deserve to die: "Harnessing the primal energy of lightening gave us the keys to the kingdom. Now we're going to pay," (page 27). "When you're not a player, nature takes you out," (page 88). "You're probably going to die . . . soon," (page 125). "Now we live too long and eat too much," (page 157).

I have three pieces of advice for Wiley for her second edition:

1) HIRE AN EDITOR!!!! (And Editor, please remove from the book all passages which are merely Wiley's opinion and Wiley's polemical, half-baked ideas.)

2) Learn how to use citations and footnotes.

3) Have real scientists who specialize in molecular biology, nutrition, and sleep research proofread your manuscript to take out all of your errors.

If anything, Lights Out is done a disservice by it's own publicity. From the cover and the following reviews, I thought it was yet another wanna-be fad diet, only this one was reffered to as "the drool on your pillow diet." Ouch. I'm not one for diet books or self help. I only read it in the first place because I couldn't get my mother to stop reading it out-loud. Actually, to my grate surprise, Lights Out is a thoughtful, and provacative treatment of evolutionary biology. It explains how we work on a molecular level, and explains why we're the way we are from cave men on down. It explains things as as pragmatic as why you should go to bed, and why dieting always makes people fat and crabby. As well as overwhelming things, such as why the so-called diseases of civilization have singled us out, why we're speeding our own end as a species THROUGH medical advances, and basicly why evolution sucks. At first the theories seem no less than brillient, but once read, take on an erie quality of common sense, leaving the reader wondering why no one else knows any of this. That's when the book gets scary- apparently everyone knows (the FDA, the Surgon General, everybody) and the rest of us haven't been told for some seriously sick reasons. It reads like a mystery novel, so I don't wanna give too much away. But the bottom line is my mother can't be everywhere, reading out-loud at everyone, so it's up to you to go check it out for yourselves. It's well worth the trip.

The idea presented in the book is believable. Humans evolved without artificial lighting and the long periods of wakefulness that lighting brings. Therefore, seasonally they spent very long hours resting/sleeping. I can believe that we are hurting ourselves by not following this pattern.

I also agree with the authors on the evils of flour & sugar and the benefits of a carbohydrate restricted diet.

However, the book presented several ideas that left me with more questions than answers.

My first question is noted in other reviews. Did all "cave men" sleep in caves? That's a lot of caves. Did they sleep far enough into the cave that moonlight never touched them?

Extinction?? If humans make it past reproductive age before our sleep deficit kills us, how can extinction occur?

Exercise causes your brain to think you're dying?? Wouldn't the absence of high levels of adrenalin (causing the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are afraid) clue your brain into the fact that you are not fleeing a predator??

How did they come up with the 9 1/2 hour recommendation? I didn't see that anywhere.

In 1996, an asteroid 3 miles wide came as close to the earth as the moon and we didn't hear about it? I find it hard to believe that some astronomer, amateur or professional, didn't report this to the media. However, because there is no reference in the book that seems to relate to this event and the government hushed it up anyway, it's impossible to know one way or the other.

All the skin cells of your body can detect light and this disrupts sleep? I don't know if the light from a fiber optic tube as used in the study is the same as the light we are exposed to from street lights, digital clocks, etc.

The writing style is the worst part of the book. It was hard reading a 200 page book that sounded like a script from "Hard Copy."

Consider this carefully worded scientific statement made on pg 50. "Interleukins have numbers like IL-1, or 2 or 3, instead of real names, probably because there are a bazillion of them." Talk about advancing my scientific knowledge!

It seemed the word extinction was on every other page.

Again, the idea is a good one, but don't buy this book. Get it from the library or just read the reviews here and you'll have the essence of the idea.

Wiley and Formby rely on scientific and evolutionary truths to formulate their theory that the dawn of artificial lighting and the resulting 24/7 culture have played havoc with our health. Sleep deprivation is only part of the theory: Not sleeping when we're supposed to (ie. when the sun goes down until it comes back up again) interferes with hormone levels. Those irregular hormone levels create food cravings -- for the wrong kinds of foods, which leads to obesity -- along with depression, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. Although the cover insinuates that this is primarily a diet book, it is so much more. It's an entertaining roadmap that shows us how we can eradicate the diseases that plague modern man and woman by paying attention to the natural cycles of our body and of the planet. If that sounds too New Age-y for ya, consider that there are 97 pages of endnotes and scientific references. But all that science doesn't mean it's a ho-hum read: The writing style is quick and clever, and references to evolutionary truths, quantum physics and molecular biology are completely comprehensible, thanks to the authors' personal and personable style. I've not read this theory anywhere else; other researchers have alluded to sleep deprivation, but none I know has actually been able to prove like Wiley and Formby that it is the reason we are all dying of the same diseases.

Pocket Books should be ashamed of publishing such a badly-written horribly edited book. Really too bad because I think the theories deserve some real thought and documented research. One hundred pages of references doesn't mean a thing if you can't line up a fact with a reference (who did the research that says we only get one billion heart beats?). A 30-page glossary seems nice, but the 2 words I tried to find weren't in there, and I'm sure some that are there aren't in the book. One of the final chapters mentions an appendix twice -- but the book has no appendix! Minor, but showing how badly this book wasn't edited, the last page (About the Authors) has the title of the book wrong!
Although this book was very, very frustrating to read, I wanted to learn what it has to teach. I wish I knew which parts were from real science and which were pulled out of hats. Reviewers who say it is an easy read couldn't have tried to understand all the words ... for example, in one page, she discusses Newtonian physics, Quantum physics, supersymmetry and string theory AND Chaos theory. She may use simple words, but her thoughts ping-pong around through complex and questionable ideas and trying to "connect the dots" and discern the truth make in-depth reading very slow and frustrating.

T.S. Wiley should have hired a ghost writer. Hopefully someone else will write this book the right way and help us see what in here is fact.

There is quite a lot of research on the effect of circadian (daily) rhythms on the effects of medication and on health in general but this is the first book I have seen that tries to take into effect the larger rhythms of the seasons and the year. I'm not sure that I can buy into eating and sleeping seasonally as proposed by the authors, but it brings up some provocative points.

It makes a lot of sense that if sleep is the body's way of repairing the wear and injury of the day, then skimping on sleep would prevent the body from repairing itself and over a long period of time would make it easier for cancers and other health problems to establish themselves. The part that is new to me is the effects of light; I hadn't known that the skin can sense light. The body interprets light as daytime and adjusts the hormonal balances accordingly. This can create medical havoc over a long period of time.

The book alternates between a very readable discussion of metabolic pathways and the probable evolutionary purposes of these, and histrionic "The end of the world is at hand!" statements. Some of the technical discussions of neurotransmitters are the clearest I have ever read. This alternates with some stories that I thought were myths such as the one about 100 monkeys learning to wash their food. Occasionally it seems the authors forget to finish their arguments. There is a brief statement about "proper hormone replacement therapy" for post-menopausal women but no follow-up as to what is meant by "proper".

Although a very large section of the book (97 pages) is devoted to lists of research papers, the papers are sorted only by chapter. There is an absolute lack of endnote numbers. When the authors assert that a study shows something, I would like to have had the little numbers to lead me to the actual reference. I tried scanning through the end-notes to see if I could link the assertion with the reference and gave up after wading through pages of fine print. I couldn't even find them in my own searches in PubMed. There is also a reference to a non-existent appendix of seasonal foods.

I think this is worth reading and pondering, and I even found it convincing enough that I evicted my bright LED alarm clock from the bedroom in favor of an old-fashioned clock. I think the authors may have some very good points about light and sleep, but I think the book should also be read with some skepticism and care.

The main premise of this book is that artificial lighting tricks our bodies into thinking it's a permanent summer, so we binge on carbohydrates to prepare for a hungry winter that never comes. However, we have four seasons, not two, and animals fatten up for the winter in the fall, when daylight hours are decreasing, not in summer. For example, bears, the champion hibernators, prefer carrion (meat) and fats in the summer, but gorge on fruits and other carbohydrates in the fall.

In just the first chapter of this book, I lost count of how many times the authors made statements I knew to be wrong or knew counterexamples for, cited a statistic to "prove" an unrelated fact, or used statistics in a meaningless way. Sprinkled throughout the book are examples that infer causality from correlation.

For example, they repeatedly mention that exercise and low-fat eating have taken hold with large parts of the American population, while diabetes, cancer, and heart disease keep rising. This doesn't prove anything - do people who exercise get these diseases at the same rate as people who do not?

The authors repeatedly state that running and other vigorous exercise cause a terror reaction in humans, even though we run while hunting but cannot outrun most predators.

On page 175 they cited the "Eskimo" (Inuit) diet as an example of how good low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diets are for you... even though these high-latitude peoples are certainly not sleeping in tune with sunrise and sunset. A more likely answer is that thousands of generations of natural selection have produced Inuit who can thrive on such a diet, especially given the physical work that goes into sustaining their lifestyle.

There are no references to mid-latitude peoples who choose to live without artificial lighting, such as many Amish and Mennonite groups. I'd be curious to know what their obesity and disease prevalences are. Cultures that take siestas would be another obvious group to test these hypotheses against.

There is an extensive bibliography, but they are sorted alphabetically by chapter, with no cross-referencing, making it nearly impossible to verify any given statement.

The clever mix of conventional and uncontroventional premises makes it difficult to sort out truth from untruth. It's well-accepted that modern high-sugar diets and stressful living are unhealthy. It's certainly true that many low-fat foods are no healthier, since they replace fat with sugar.

It may well be true that sleep problems are a cause and not an effect of modern illnesses, but the authors of this book chose to write a pseudo-scientific book promoting yet another low-carb panacea diet rather than any kind of proof of their premise.

One of the most provocative medical detective stories I've ever read. Hooray for the authors, who've looked at our health problems with fresh eyes and common sense. The evidence they've compiled that messing with Mother Nature will make you sick makes perfect sense. It's one of those books that really changes the way you look at the world. And it's fun to read in the way that really interesting science/medical books can be. You'll learn a lot. I did. A fun fact: the NIH has proven that mice that sleep in the dark and are up in the light cannot be given cancer, no matter how many carcinogens they are subjected to.