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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Quick Start Guide to Your Body, August 16, 2009
This review is from: Your Body: The Missing Manual (Paperback)
This book is a member of the O'Reilly Missing Manual series, long a favorite of mostly the geek crowd for filling in material that may have been left out of or been hard to find in the owner's manual. The subtitle is "The book you should have been born with."
The chapter headings are listed below:
Skin, Your Outer Layer
Fat
Muscles
Bones
The Doors of Perception (the senses)
Your Lungs
Your Heart
Your Digestive System
Your Immune System
Sex and Reproduction
Your Final Exit: Aging and Death
The book introduces each subject with a description of the normal workings of the organ (its physiology). It then briefly discusses what can go wrong (what doctors call pathology). Practical tips for routine maintenance and health are discussed, many myths are shot down. A number of interesting factoids are discussed in text boxes that are enhanced visually by a yellow or blue background.
This book is a good introduction to the subject matter, but is incomplete in many areas. e.g. I could not find a list of generally accepted screening recommendations in the book, things like suggested frequency of blood pressure screening, when should a statin drug be considered in a patient with high cholesterol, the importance of knowing your HDL and LDL cholesterol values and not just your total cholesterol, how often should woman have Pap smears and mammograms, should a man have a PSA test done. These are a few of many issues that might have been addressed and weren't. On the other hand several pages are addressed to love-making techniques, how to use and not abuse the clitoris, and does penile size make a difference in sexual satisfaction of the woman. Alcohol is briefly discussed, not in relation to health, but rather sexual performance. Ovulation, the release of the egg from the woman is nicely discussed, including the need for intercourse to occur near the time of ovulation to improve the chances of conception.
Some common and practical issues aren't addressed, e.g. what is dandruff and how does one control it? Decisions must be made in deciding to limit the information in a book, but it might be more important to list more of the common things and less of the things one is unlikely to face in life.
There is a 16 page index.
The contributors are listed in the front pages of the book. The "technical" reviewer is listed as a medical student due to graduate in 2 years. The book might have been better served by enlisting a practicing physician who is more versed in the practical aspects of providing directed and economical health care to his patients.
A strength of the book is its emphasis on the importance of life style choices and their effects on health. There is no question that for many of us, our life styles have more to do with our health than the medicines we take or the number of visits we make to the doctor.
For most electronic devices we purchase, we receive both a User's Manual and a Quick Start Guide. This book is more of a Quick Start Guide, a tantalizing introduction to the subject, but incomplete in many ways.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Body Manual, September 6, 2009
This review is from: Your Body: The Missing Manual (Paperback)
Your Body- The Missing Manual is a thorough description of how
the body works and the classic breakdowns inherent with the
passage of time. The work describes the major systems; such as,
the outer layer, fat, muscles, bones, sensory, lungs, heart,
digestion, the immune system, reproduction, aging and death.
Some classic descriptions include the heart healthy zone, fitness,
the aerobic zone, the threshold zone and the red zone. The immune
system can overact by attacking harmless environmental
substances like dust and pollen. Allergy goes hand-in-hand with
inflammation. We can improve the immune system via a balanced
diet, stress avoidance, rest and an optimistic outlook.
Overly prescribed antibiotics, unnecessary antibacterial products
and a dirty environment can exacerbate immune system reactivity.
Removing the irritants can reduce the symptomatology of an
irregular immune system substantially.
The author spends some time explaining how we die and the
classic experiences reported in near death cases. For instance,
the average death starts with the rapid descent. This
process is a steady weakening of the body systems over time.
The moments before death include the agonal phase which
consists of muscle convulsions, gasps and a gurgling sound
called the death rattle. At some point, the heart stops and
the body begins to cool.
The book doesn't say how to slow the process of rapid
descent; however, nutrition and exercise may be important
intervention strategies along with stress reduction and a
positive outlook. Removal of overly prescribed medicines
may be another element in maintaining life together with
superior nutrition strategies.
The book would be an excellent acquisition for health
conscious consumers who would like to get a better
understanding of how the body works.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not clinical, fun to read, but not for youngsters, September 2, 2009
This review is from: Your Body: The Missing Manual (Paperback)
I was hanging out on Facebook one day and O'Reilly Media sent out a status message saying they needed a few people to review a new book Your Body The Missing Manual. I responded and was contacted by an O'Reilly representative who got my shipping information.
Within a couple of days, I received a box. Inside was a stinky (stinky because of the ink and paper they used) book with a green cover.
I didn't really know what to expect. I had planned to compare this to some of the larger encyclopedia-like books that my kids had that were packed with fancy color pictures and diagrams for various aspects of the body. This book isn't like those at all. It is more exposition and less illustration, although there are some very good illustrations in the book. They're just relatively simple compared to other books.
The writing style is very interesting. It is not clinical at all and is littered with sarcastic and sardonic quips. The first chapter -- about your skin -- starts off, in the very first paragraph, talking about robbing a bank wearing a ski mask. When the author wrote about techniques for removing fingerprints to avoid leaving evidence of your involvement at a crime scene, I was beginning to wonder if there was an underlying, hidden agenda in the book.
The text is packed with fascinating callouts that fit in contextually throughout the book. This lets the author pack each chapter with numerous bits of tangential information.
All in all, however, the book is somewhat light on the coverage. This isn't a tell-all, but it is a tell-a-lot. And what it does tell, it tells well. There is a lot of information about latest research and findings. For example, I learned that stretching (in the chapter on muscles) isn't the recommended activity before an aerobic/cardiovascular workout, but that 5-10 minutes of light warm up activity is better.
I learned a lot from this book I didn't know before so I definitely feel more knowledgeable as a result of reading it.
While the other body atlas-type books I've seen seem to be targeted at pretty much all ages, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under the age of 16. The reason I would not recommend this book to younger readers is because Chapter 10, the chapter on sex and reproduction, ventured a bit too far out of my comfort zone into sociological and cultural aspects of sexuality than I would ever feel comfortable letting younger kids read. I'm pretty sure my 10-year old does not needs to learn about "Arousal and the Art of Foreplay," "Reaching The Big O," or how to "Engage in mutual exploration."
So, all in all, a good book. It's light, not-very-clinical reading that's bound to teach you several things you didn't already know. You can buy it direct from O'Reilly or from everyone's favorite online bookseller: Amazon.com for $25 or less.
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