YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition: An Insider's Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger (Hardcover)

by Mehmet C. Oz (Author), Michael F. Roizen (Author)
Key Phrases: colorful noniceberg, arterial aging, aging fats, Owner's Manual, Myth Ouster, Nervous System (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.

The flagship book of the YOU series, which spawned three subsequent New York Times bestsellers, has now been expanded and updated to make you understand your body even better—perhaps too well.

YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. In this update, the doctors have included a new chapter on the liver and pancreas, which will finally demystify the most exotic parts of our bodies; a new workout chapter that will finally get you moving; and nearly one hundred Q&As asked by you, the reader. It has also been updated throughout to give you up-to-the-minute know-how to not just understand what to do to keep fit, but also why and how.

The book opens with a quiz, "How Well Do You Know Your Body?," which sets the stage for the following chapters. After taking the quiz, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs, including the heart, brain, lungs, immune system, bones, and sensory organs. Each chapter also contains common myths of the particular body part that the authors will debunk.

Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body—as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, this new edition includes even more great-tasting and calorie-saving recipes as part of the Owner's Manual Diet—an eating plan that is designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.

Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?

About the Author

Dr. Mehmet C. Oz is the professor and vice chairman of Surgery at Columbia University and director of the Cardiovascular Institute and the Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is the health expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show and writes for O Magazine, Esquire, and Reader's Digest. Oz and Dr. Roizen host a show on Oprah & Friends radio, where they discuss healing techniques, preventative medicine, and the latest in health news, so that Americans can make well-informed decisions about their health.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; Upd Exp edition (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061473677
• ISBN-13: 978-0061473678
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,703 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 148 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies, May 8, 2008

By	MaryL. - See all my reviews

In short, just a very fun and informative book with several worthy goals. For one, it educates your average person in the inner workings of the human body. It does this quite entertainingly through frequent quizzes, trivia, facts, and interesting pictures- for instance the authors use a lot of elf cartoon. Corny, but fun.

Additionally, the book also gives one many helpful tips on how to keep their body running smoother and it is a pretty informative and amusing read that should enhance the well-being of many- especially middle-agers like me who want to learn more about how their bodies work so they can keep it running smoothly in the years to come. Aged readers may also be interested in Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff to keep the shoulder working well- 54% of people over the age of 60 have a torn rotator cuff.

Note: People who have read the first "You The Owner's Manual" will notice additional information on the liver and pancreas, as well as a new workout chapter.

71 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your body is a wonderland, May 13, 2008

By	Julie Neal "The Complete Walt Disney World" (Sanibel Island, Fla.) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What a fun and important book! Everyone with a body should have a copy.

When I first cracked it open I landed on page 234: Figure 8.1 The Male Dipstick (yes, that's how it's titled). At first glance the full-page illustration of the male reproductive organs appears to be from any science reference book, but then I look again. Mr. Peanut is drawn hanging onto a tubule inside the scrotum.

This kind of silliness permeates "You: The Owner's Manual." The humor and breezy tone makes it a surprisingly easy read.

The first two-thirds of the book covers everything in the human body, from the heart and brain to the lungs and liver. The last third focuses on ways to keep your body healthy. A 70-page chapter called the Owner's Manual Diet has more than 30 recipes, enough for a 10-day trial. The diet isn't so much about losing weight, but about "making you feel better, helping you live younger, and slowing the effects of aging." The following chapter, the Owner's Manual Workout, illustrates some simple exercises.

Throughout the book are fun "Factoids." Did you know that pound for pound, the tongue is the strongest muscle? Also scattered throughout are lots of little quizzes.

Under the dust jacket is a plain red cover.

Here's the chapter list:

1. Your Body, Your Home: Super Health
2. The Beat Goes On: Your Heart and Arteries
3. Do You Mind: Your Brain and Nervous System
4. Motion Control: Your Bones, Joints and Muscles
5. To a Lung and Healthy Life: Your Lungs
6. Gut Feelings: Your Digestive System
7. In Your Trunk: Your Liver and Pancreas
8. Sex Marks the Spot: Your Sexual Organs
9. Common Sense: Your Sensory Organs
10. Sick Sense: Your Immune System
11. This Gland is Your Gland: Your Hormones
12. Hell Cells: Cancer
13. The Owner's Manual Diet
14. The Owner's Manual Workout
15. FAQs

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Information Buried in a Sea of Jokes, September 27, 2008

By	Kristen A. Bryant "Kristen" (Ferndale, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm having a very hard time with this book. I've started and stopped reading it about dozen times already in the past 2 weeks. My problem? There is a lot of good information in here (really!) but it gets lost in the constant barrage of sarcasm and jokes inserted by the authors to (apparently) make it "entertaining". For me, the sheer number of jokes starts out as annoying, and finally becomes so distracting that I usually have to put the book down after about 20 minutes.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about from page 176 under a heading of "Mouth":

"The food-consumption process starts right here--in your body's food processor. Though opera singers, politicians, and courtside fans are known mostly for what comes out of their mouths, what makes our mouths so special is how we handle what goes into them. For starters, consider you mouth to be like the guy who buckles you in on a Ferris wheel--it's there simply to prepare the food for the journey."

The paragraph then goes on to describe crocodile teeth and elephant teeth, but I'm so distracted with thoughts of "what do opera singers and Ferris wheels have to do with MY mouth?" that I'm no longer learning, I'm ruminating on low ratio of information-to-jokes in the text. (Out of the 7 sentences in that paragraph, I felt the relevant information could have been boiled down to 2.)

Like I said, the book has a LOT of good information. If you are someone who can filter out all of the "noise", you'll get a lot out of it. However, if you're like me, and find all the sidebars distracting, it's a grind.