Book Description
A new edition of a bestseller, this book covers the changes that occur with normal aging and disease processes from a physiological basis. Filled with illustrations and tables, it covers topics such as gGenetics of aging, developments in Alzheimer's, new treatments for Osteoporosis, new medications for Diabetes, new treatments for Gastritis, and new Nsaids to treat Degenerative Joint Diseases.
Book Description
With the growing size of the elderly population comes an increased interest in aging as a subject of research and study. Human Aging: Biological Perspectives is written for the one-quarter or one-semester introductory level course and is aimed at students with little or no science background. The main structure of the text follows a body systems approach. In addition to the introductory chapter and a chapter covering molecules, cells, and the theories of aging, each body system is covered in its own chapter.
Customer Reviews:
Bio: Old but Good.......2006-08-20
I am a little surprised that my instructor used this book seeing as it is about 4 editions old. Other than that it is a good book.
Product Description
This comprehensive handbook for Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) facial rejuvenation covers the complete guide of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, acupressure, Chinese food therapy, Qi Gong exercises as well as other modalities including Gua Sha, Moxa, and Jade Stick massage techniques for facial rejuvenation concerns such as wrinkles and sagging of the face, facial discoloration and age spots, dark eye circles and eye bags.
Customer Reviews:
Not for the general public.......2007-09-08
I found this book disappointing, for reasons I will explain below. The first thing I wanted to note, however, is that this book is not designed for the general public. Unless you have a background in Chinese medicine (particularly herbal and acupuncture interventions), this book will be confusing and quite possibly frustrating.
As an acupuncturist, I found this book to be broad in scope but light on details. It certainly is not the "bible of excellence" as one reviewer noted, although I do not doubt that the author is well-versed in her field. As with many expert practitioners, it is often difficult for them to translate their knowledge in a way that less expert individuals can make sense of it. The author assumes that the reader has a great deal of knowledge in the areas of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, as well as a basic understanding of cosmetology. That is a big assumption. Nowadays, one would also need to be knowledgeable about quality assurance management in order to assess adulteration concerns for any herbal products coming from China. At our clinic, we only use Chinese herbal products made by US companies that have gone through our quality control audit, which is quite time consuming. While herbal products from China may be superior, I do not have the expertise or time to evaluate them.
Pragmatically, I question some of the statments the author makes. For example, I do not think one should broadly suggest doing gua sha or cupping on the face, as the author suggests, unless the practitioner is well trained in those modalities. My concerns about bruising increases when gua sha and cupping are done together with facial acupuncture, as outlined in some protocols. Bruising on the face makes most patients unhappy, which is why I tend to use microcurrent for facial points. Not surprisingly, patients paying out-of-pocket for facial rejuvenation are particularly unforgiving.
I also question whether it is possible to integrate facial rejuvenation into a general acupuncture practice, particularly if one is going to use the procedure the author outlines in Chapter 29. A practitioner in my area told me recently that she was ending the facial rejuvenation part of her practice because she can make more money doing general acupuncture in 45 minutes than she can spending 2 hours doing facial rejuvenation. She also mentioned that continually dealing with her patients' vanity and unrealistic expectations was wearying. To balance this, one of my patients who is an aesthetician and does facial rejuvenation at a local spa does very well and enjoys her work, but then she isn't expected to use exotic herbal masks, gua sha, cupping, acupuncture, facial massage, dietary interventions, and Qi Gong exercises with her clients - nor is she the owner of the spa.
In summary, my assessment is that this book would be a great supplement to any coursework taken with Ms. (Dr?) Zhang, or perhaps as an adjunct to her DVD. I do not feel that the book can be used as a "comprehensive" stand-alone text, however, unless you are already experienced in TCM facial rejuvenation. For myself, coursework taken with Virgina Doran and Mary Elizabeth Wakefield were very helpful in this regard.
an okay book.......2007-08-03
But...it was difficult to reference the point locations, this is a good book for a practitioner, but for a student, I had to use it along-side a chart...
good to the point info..........2007-06-27
This book is useful with specific protocols for certain conditions. But it lacks breadth and does not cover a whole lot. 4 stars because info on facial acu is hard to find.
A great book full of practical wisdom~!!.......2007-04-07
A great book full of practical wisdom, and a strange subject... So, what is a " Facial Rejuvenation" anyway? According to Ping Zhang, it is defined as "a heritage of Traditional Chinese Medicine in its field". As a Korea Oriental Medical Doctor with more than seven years experience, I looked at this book with interest.
I recommend this book. Read it, and then go make a difference for someone.
The Most Authoritative Text On Facial Rejuvenation Ever!.......2006-12-04
This is the most authoritative and comprehensive text on the market for TCM facial rejuvenation. If a practitioner is serious about practicing in this field, this is the book to own. It is laid out clearly, and rich in ideas and different modalities to choose from. I have searched for a text like this for years, and now I have found it! I consider it to be my bible of excellence in this field. I have also purchased Ping Zhang's DVD on facial rejuvenation and I am equally impressed. Her expertise in this area makes both her book and DVD decisively the most invaluable tools to own in your practice.
Book Description
Robert Arking's Biology of Aging, 3rd edition, is an introductory text to the biology of aging which gives advanced undergraduate and graduate students a thorough review of the entire field. His prior two editions have also served admirably as a reference text for clinicians and scientists. This new edition captures the extraordinary recent advances in our knowledge of the ultimate and proximal mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of aging. As a result, six important conceptual changes are included here: DT Clarified distinctions between the biological mechanisms involved in longevity determination and those involved in senescent processes. DT A new conceptual framework around which we can organize all the new facts about aging. This will assist readers to make sense of the information and use the data to form their own ideas. DT Increased knowledge of aging cells has lead to new ideas on how a cell transits from a healthy state to a senescent state, while still allowing for high levels of intra- and inter-specific variability. DT Discussion of senescent mechanisms assists the reader to understand that aging is a non-programmatic loss of function, likely arising from the loss of regulatory signals, and so is modifiable in the laboratory. DT Because the standard evolutionary story does not fully explain the evolution of social organisms, this edition also includes recent work dealing with intergenerational resource transfers. DT Lastly, if aging mechanisms are plastic, then the demand to move these anti-aging interventions into the human arena will inevitably grow. A discussion of the biological and ethical arguments on both sides of the question frames the question in an appropriate manner. The mass of data related to aging is summarized into fifteen focused chapters, each dealing with some particular aspect of the problem. The last two chapters integrate all this material into a coherent view of how the relevant biological processes change over the life span. This view is expressed in two non-technical figures (you might say that the whole book exists to fully support Figs 9-4 and 14-9), whose meanings are elucidated as the reader progresses through the book.
Customer Reviews:
Biology of Aging: Observations & Principles.......2006-03-09
It was exactly the edition I needed for my Biology of Aging course. It was delievered on time by Amazon
WOW!.......2002-10-18
I got this book because I used to do work on the author's lab and I was amazed by the work they were pursuing there.
I have read other bio textbooks, but what strikes me most about this one is that if you really just want to read one, this one has got it all. It is a complete survey, of all that is known and being studied currently on the topic of aging. From how to study aging to the goals of society in aging to everything inbetween. From the stuff that works, to might works, to absolutely does not, this is an excellent overview of the field.
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- Talk about the secret that hides itself!
- Excellent, articulate instruction with lots of photo references.
- Back Pain and Spinal Alignment
- ahhhhh
- Good book, good information, worth the price
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Ageless Spine, Lasting Health: The Open Secret to Pain-Free Living and Comfortable Aging
Kathleen Porter
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Trager for Self-Healing: A Practical Guide for Living in the Present Moment
ASIN: 1933538406 |
Product Description
Ageless Spine, Lasting Health presents information about natural skeletal alignment that may be the most overlooked factor affecting long-term health, genuine fitness and aging. Included are simple guidelines for how to return our bones to an aligned relationship that provides for far greater ease of movement, fewer aches and pains and a process of aging that is more easefull.
Customer Reviews:
Talk about the secret that hides itself!.......2007-08-04
Kathleen Porter has written the seminal book about the most disregarded aspect of health/wellness/fitness of our times. Most of us, and by that I mean about 95% of human populations in technologically advanced countries (TACs), are simply unaware of this issue. Hence, her little pebble, thrown into a very big pond of ignorance . . . Its ripples are circling out, washing up against the amazing disregard with which we live in our bodies. Oh, many of us exercise like mad, driving ourselves to the edge of endurance, even participating in ancient modalities of spiritual physicality like Hatha Yoga (the physical expression of the broad study of the Mind which is yoga) or t'ai chi chuan (Why is t'ai chi chuan done slowly? So you can get a look at yourself.) in increasingly competitive fashions. Yet, we're missing the point entirely. And we're hurting ourselves in the process.
To what is Ms. Porter attesting? Simply that we are no longer natural in our bodies. She mentions that other animals move as their bodies' designs dictate: tigers move like tigers, giraffes, like giraffes, hawks, like hawks. Only humans move in our oddly disparate, sometimes personality-driven manners, each of us, whether striding or hobbling or waddling, moving in anomalous ways, counter to our body's basic design. You'd need to go to Bali or Myanmar or India or even Portugal to find adults who have remained naturally aligned in their bodies since childhood. Almost all of the rest of us went out of natural skeletal alignment in our fairly early youth. Ms. Porter's book helps you recognize what constitutes natural posture and offers concrete advice about how to rediscover it in your own body. This primer is a revelation. As more of us become aware of its "open secret", shared, the more likely that we will create increasing improvements in our physical wellbeing. It's such a remarkable study. Please do yourself, and everyone you love, a favor and read this one! There isn't an issue in our overstimulated, over-the-top, self-absorbed, ignorance-driven times that is of greater import to our physicality.
There are still individuals, to be found largely in parts of Asia, especially India and Southeast Asia, also in Africa and South America, and corners of the Middle East, who have remained naturally aligned in their bodies into adulthood (one good example, in the U.S., is Yao Ming, the NBA player from China). They, however, are not aware of that as a fact separate from their being. They just are aligned, that's all. A very intriguing possibility is, if enough modern humans become aware of this remarkable situation, that almost all of us (in TACs) have lost that innate naturalness of posture which we found as toddlers, that we are out of alignment but have the opportunity to learn to be self-correcting and can work at becoming aligned in our own bodies again, that perhaps we can evolve spiritually, mentally, emotionally, in ways that wouldn't have been possible if we hadn't gone out of skeletal alignment in the first place and on such a huge scale and had then, through the observation of a very few, Ms. Porter among them, been made aware of this. It may be a evolutionary step on the spiraling ladder of our psycho-physio-spiritual awakening.
Ageless Spine, Lasting Health: The Open Secret to Pain-Free Living and Comfortable Aging
Excellent, articulate instruction with lots of photo references........2007-07-12
This is a great book which broke me out of the muscle-bound-fitness mindset, which actually can cause more problems by creating tight joints, inflexibility, tension, disc damage, and poor posture. Kathleen Porter's writing and examples are very convincing. I recommend checking out Stuart McGill's (The leading PhD back specialist) books on low back disorders for a very scientific perspective on back health, which supports Ms. Porter's book. These two authors' books have made me much healthier and have saved me a lot of (damaging) exercise time.
Back Pain and Spinal Alignment.......2007-05-24
Kathleen Porter's book is must reading for anyone suffering from spinal disorders including disk degeneration, disk herniation, or back pain. The book presents a well reasoned, practical approach to an area of fundamental importance that probably does not receive enough attention in research and in treatment of spinal disorders. She provides an approach to reducing stress on the inter-vertebral disks and muscles through alignment of the bones by adopting a natural posture. While there is little scientific data to provide an evidence base for the importance of the approaches that she advocates, the anecdotal evidence and theoretical analysis that Ms. Porter provides with the use of photographs and schematic drawings makes for fascinating reading, and seems sensible and plausible. As a physician working on development of new non-operative treatments for spinal disorders such as disk herniation and low back pain, I would recommend the book to anyone interested in assessing different non-operative approaches to the achievement of improved spine health.
ahhhhh.......2007-05-21
Kathleen Porter has created a highly informative as well as beautiful book about an important health issue....one that has been overlooked and sorely neglected (pun intended). Her simple yet powerful discoveries, innovative techniques, clear writing, and aesthetically superb layout make her book exciting, fun, and easily approachable. Anyone with a whisper of body pain....and who doesn't?...or anyone with a pinch of curiosity about health and well being will greatly benefit from the knowledge collected in this book. Finally, someone has revealed a concept so simple, yet so powerful. It's about time.
Good book, good information, worth the price.......2007-05-01
Are you plagued by aches and pains on a regular basis? Have you come to accept them as a normal part of everyday life? If so then this book may interest you very much. If not then the book may still interest you before you have those problems. Author Kathleen Porter examines how the spine should be aligned for continuing health and to prevent problems. This natural alignment creates a natural balance and comfort that makes the muscles of the body relaxed and comfortable because the spine correctly supports the body instead of the muscles trying to hold it up. She does an excellent job of describing exactly how the body was meant to work and how to return it to normal. The basic premise of this book is that with regular practice and awareness you can return your body structure to how it was meant to work. Ageless Spine, Lasting Health is a recommended read.
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Practical Handbook of Human Biologic Age Determination
Manufacturer: CRC Press
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ASIN: 0849301297 |
Book Description
This landmark book focuses on the methodology used to measure human biological age. Although functional decline appears to be an inevitable and inescapable consequence of aging, there are often considerable differences between individuals with respect to the rate and extent of this decline. Individuals may be young or old in relation to their number of years. As a result, age-related disease or age-related death may occur at different chronological ages. It follows that the true or practically relevant age of an individual is not adequately defined by the time that has elapsed since birth; rather, it is expressed as "biological age"-a figure reflecting the individual's progressive inability to respond adaptively to an environmental stress that leads to a decreased viability and increased vulnerability to death.This book features contributions from leading investigators in the field and represents a comprehensive worldwide collection of the most recent research on estimating human biological age. Tests described in the book can be used to monitor the effects of any interventional therapy, including drug treatment, behavioral therapy, and lifestyle modification.
Book Description
A provocative look at how new research is highlighting the emerging powers of the aging mind
In The Wisdom Paradox, world-renowned neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg argues that though some mental abilities (such as recent-memory recall) decline as the mind enters the “autumn season” of our life span, the brain becomes more powerful in its ability to recognize patterns. As a result, we are able to make decisions at more intuitive and effective levels—a late- emerging mental strength he terms “wisdom.”
In lively, accessible prose, Goldberg delves into the mechanisms of the mind, outlining how the elegant structures of the brain develop and change over the course of a lifetime as they work increasingly in concert. Drawing on recent and historical examples of leaders and artists who achieved their greatest successes late in life—from Roosevelt to Thatcher to Reagan, from Goethe to Grandma Moses—Goldberg illustrates the effects of an emerging scientific understanding of the biology of wisdom. Drawing on the latest research in brain function, he takes to task outdated neurological concepts and argues that new neurons can be created throughout our lives, the left brain's specialization in pattern recognition accounts for its increased activity as we age, and the strengthening of neural pathways in later years accelerates decision-making processes. Most provocatively, he outlines how a “cognitive fitness” program can both curtail the negative mental effects of aging and enhance our decision-making powers.
Customer Reviews:
Original, Informative, Hopeful.......2007-07-21
Elkhonon Goldberg brings to fore many insights about the brain, but the overriding theme of the book is that as we age our brain shifts focus from a right-hemisphere dominated approach to a left-hemisphere dominated approach. New evidence has generally shown that, contrary to older studies, the right hemisphere is used to 'learn new things' and the left hemisphere is used for pattern recognition. As we age, we shift our brain dominance from right to left. Goldberg explains how we can take advantage of our awareness of this shift. (For example: keep our brain active so it doesn't atrophy -- especially the right hemisphere.)
Just as our brain shifts focus, this book shifts focus as we read along, too. The first part of the book is generally fact and hypothesis based. Goldberg explains his theories interlaced with personal narrative. The book then shifts focus to what we can do to maintain our cognitive abilities as we age. Goldberg outlines cognitive exercises we can do to keep our brain sharp. This chapter comes immediately following a chapter summarizing recent research proposing that humans grow neurons their entire life -- how many we grow and where they migrate to is up to us (in theory).
This is a positive book, bringing hope and some scientific rigor to those older folk interested in the life-cycle of their brain. Goldberg comes across as a competent scientist and, at over 50, still hasn't lost his writing ability. (If you read the book you'll learn, from a technical point of view, why this isn't so surprising. Hint: writing is a mostly left-hemisphere activity.)
Ooops! There go the piano lessons.......2006-06-26
This is the book that got me interested, once again, in neuropsychology and neuroanatomy. Yes, the immediate interest is that business of not wanting "to go gently into that good night." as Dylan Thomas wrote. How much will cognitive delcine affect me as I age (something we are all doing since birth - it isn't only the old who are aging).
I think Goldberg, motivated by his own need to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," used his enormous knowledge of neuropsychology to create a work that should benefit all who want to know what their chances are (or of relatives/friends) of continuing to lead a useful life despite the inevitable (and many) ways we decline in capacity as we age.
This book is not necessarily an easy read for a generation used to soundbites, e-mail abreviations, evening news pseudo-profundity, or dumbed-down magazine articles. One has to realize that neurology is the subject medical students fear most. And with good reason. The human brain has been described as the most complex thing we know of. Somehow, in a way not yet fully understood, consciousness emerges from the healthy, mature human brain to give us (finally in human evolution) the ability to study effectively with recent functional brain scanning techniques the very organ system that allows us to smell a perfume and recall a long ago romance, to see a face in the crowd and recognize someone we have not seen for ten years (or fifty years), to freeze with terror as the amygdala (as close as we can come to Freud's Id) brings to mind a terrible incident from childhood, to meditate and find a place of peace where some of our systems shut down like that scene in the film "2001" in which HAL, the space ship's computer, gets his memory modules unpluged after trying to kill the crew.
Frankly, I liked Goldberg's making the book not a text, but a personal exploration. Textbooks are the most boring article ever devised by the human mind - but necessary until in some new century slouching up towards Jerusalem we get microchip implants that make us into Borgs, don't snicker, people are having chips placed subdermal just so they can wave their arm at a door and have it open. Think how willing people will be score of years hence to suffer the implant of cerebral devices that give us many terabytes of updatable data storage or like "The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy" Marvin, the robot with a brain the size of a planet, unlimited intelligence. What Faustian deals will we make in centuries to come?
Get out your magic marker and color all those amazing bits of research and speculation about how our brains age. His theory is that we will get by nicely, thank you very much, on the sheer acumulation of left brain (that's not your creative side, sorry) routines which will enable us to be useful on the job and not too dull in our personal lives. This is despite the loss of some brain capacity (literally, the brain shrinks), memory loss, lessened creativity and such. It helps to have been bright and active using the brain in one's occupation.
However, we still don't know definitively what causes Alzheimer's disease or many other serious forms of cognitive decline. The good news is that we have a better chance than not of living our life to the full without disabling mental decline. It is not a 'neuropsychology for dummies' work. It is not well illustrated - see my review of Rita Carter's "Mapping the Mind" which is - but one keens at Goldberg's expertise in his field (he specializes in the frontal lobes, which, incidentally, is where the part of the mind that seems to be YOU is located - maybe).
With all the babyboomers coming along worried about their senior years, I see a bright future for this book - and many others like it. There are just so many more answers to those questions the artist asked: D'ou venons nous? Que sommes nous? Ou allons nous? (Gaugauin, MFA Boston). Goldberg is one of many helping us to understand the latest discoveries and theories in this field. He has some of his own; he's more in favor of the 'distributed processing' theory of brain function, not the highly modular view which has held sway for decades. Incidentally, recent research has shown that the Broca's area and Werneicke's area are less fixed and immutable than formerly thought.
I recommend this book.
seriously disappointed.......2006-03-30
I was unable to finish this book because I found it too academic and pedantic; it is of little use to elderly people who seek guidance in regard to the problems of agying
Exercise your brain.......2006-02-24
I didn't find much new here, but it's an interesting book, especially if you long to find out how "use it or lose it" applies to the grey matter.
BRAIN PLASTICITY IN ACTION.......2005-05-03
This is a terrific book explaining how new knowledge of brain plasticity can be put to use to combat mental decline. It combines state-of-the-art knowledge about the brain delivered in a very clear and lucid manner with enjoyable cultural and historical digressions. I liked Goldberg's other book, The Executive Brain, but this one is even better. It is refreshing to see a serious scientist stepping out of the ivory tower and developing practical applications. The idea of cognitive fitness through cognitive exercise is fascinating and I can't wait to start!
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Ageing Well: Nutrition, Health, and Social Interventions (Society for the Study of Human Biology)
Manufacturer: CRC
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ASIN: 084937474X |
Book Description
Providing an overview of current public health research on ageing, Ageing Well: Nutrition, Health, and Social Interventions explores the application of this research to public policy. The book focuses on the biological issues in ageing: diet, exercise, and cognitive health. It offers an in-depth exploration of social issues relevant to policy, discussing social inequalities, economics, the importance of quality housing, quality of life, cost of living, and social support for older people. Consisting of proceedings from the annual symposium of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, this interdisciplinary volume also addresses methodological, research, and policy questions.
Book Description
A few gray hairs and a couple of wrinkles are often the first visible signs of aging on our bodies. For most of us, however, aging remains largely a mystery. We can only wonder why we have to age and what casualty of age hovers nearby. Written in everyday language, The Clock of Ages takes us on a tour of the aging human body--all from a research scientist's point of view. From the deliberate creation of organisms that live three times their natural span to the isolation of genes that may allow humans to do the same, The Clock of Ages also examines the latest discoveries in geriatric genetics. Sprinkled throughout the pages are descriptions of the aging of many historical figures, such as Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen, Billy the Kid, Napoleon, and Casanova. These stories underscore the common bond of senescence that unites us all. The Clock of Ages tells us why.
Customer Reviews:
A very interesting book.......2005-12-30
I really enjoyed reading this didactic book, but I was a little dissapointed at the end.... I thought he was going to talk more about diet and life style, but he didn't. Maybe in a future edition, who knows. Anyway, it's a very good book, you should read it.
A journey into the mechanics of aging.......2000-03-25
Reading this book reminded me of a ride I once took at Disneyland where everything gets bigger and bigger so that you feel as if you are being reduced to microscopic size. You then travel into the human body, then a cell and then see the molecules that make them up. Medina starts with the human face of ageing - the final moments in the life of his aged mother - and then takes us on a journey from the outward signs of ageing to the molecular machinery which makes what he calls the "clock of ages" tick.
Despite our anxieties of "getting old" ageing starts long before we see wrinkles or grey hair. In fact, ageing is a complex developmental process which starts at conception. Despite taking such a biological view Medina never loses sight of the individual. The effects of ageing on the lives of many famous people are interspersed through the book with amazing facts about the body: Florence Nightingale was a hypochondriac who spent most of her adult life in bed and each of us contains about 60,000 miles of blood vessels!
Some in the field claim that our exploding knowledge of the mechanics of cellular renewal and DNA will see us living twice or three times our current life spans in approximately 30 years.
Good Summary But Missing One Discussion.......1999-04-08
Medina's work is an excellent, readable summary of what's currently known about aging. As it turns out, there are more questions than answers.
However, in amongst all the discussion of immortality I wish he had devoted a chapter to the wisdom of such a quest. He mentions in passing the ants and bees who each perform a distinct function and, separated from their hive or nest, expire rather quickly. Medina repeats the oft-quoted maxim that they are more like a single organism with independently-functioning cells than like distinct individuals.
I wish he had extended this analogy to mankind, and showed how immortality would be to the detriment of long-term species survival in a changing environment. "Descent with modifications" relies on continual refreshing of the genetic material. Lewis Thomas and Stephen Jay Gould (and even Richard Dawkins) have put forward the idea that the individual is not the prime target of evolution, and I think this paradigm shift helps explain the causes of, and need for, aging.
"The Clock of Ages" Makes for Good Time.......1997-02-02
"The Clock of Ages" by John J. Medina is subtitled 'Why We Age, How We Age, Winding Back the Clock.' Dr. Medina more adequately addressed the 'Why' and the 'How' of aging than the 'Winding Back the Clock.' As might be expected from a molecular biologist, Medina is at his most technical and most detailed when he is describing the major theories of aging--error accumulation and programmed death. Generally, he succeeds in clarifying technical concepts for the non-technical reader. The book is liberally seasoned with historical vignettes, analogies and diagrams. "Clock" clarifies various definitions of aging, different philosophies of aging and various theories of the biochemistry of aging. At the same time we are introduced to such diverse people as Casanova, Billy the Kid, Isadora Duncan, Alfred Nobel and Florence Nightingale. The vignettes of these people often liven up the book, but at times the analogies made from person to concept are a bit of a stretch.
Medina serves as a tour guide of the aging body with stops at the skin and hair; the bones, the muscles and joints; the brain; the heart; the lungs; the digestive system; the senses; and the sexual anatomy and physiology. "Clock" is mostly a story of decline and fall of the human body with predictions about future high-tech genetic and hormonal antidotes.
The third part of the sub-title 'Winding Back the Clock' only consumes 17 of 316 pages which is not in balance with the other two parts. Medina acknowledges but underplays the role of diet and exercise in winding back the clock. And although Dr. Medina recognizes the wide variability in the way people age as well as the variability of aging within individual body systems, he does not fully recognize the affects of culture and attitude on the aging process, but coming from a biologist this is to be expected. Overall, "Clock" is engaging and thought-provoking. I would, however, recommend several other books to give other views on aging other than the biological--try Betty Friedan's "Fountain of Age," Deepak Chopra's "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind" or Delany, Delany & Hearth's "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years."
Customer Reviews:
Great book; great for teachers as well.......2000-04-18
This is a readable, but thorough survey of the biology of aging. I teach in this field, and I'm sorry it took me a few years to run across this book. (Finally, courtesy the "related books" feature of Amazon.) In addition to being a very good book on aging (and there are several out there for the general reader), this book is chock full of great color photographs and clear, colorful graphs.
Wonderful book.......1997-11-05
Wonderful place to start for anyone who has ever wondered why we age and how. Evolutionary treatment is solid. I bought this one to keep.
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