July/2000
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THE BODY CLOCK GUIDE TO BETTER HEALTH:
Reviewed by Sonia Ancoli-Israel, PhD |
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Don't let this long title scare you. This straightforward book, by Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg, is about a new area of medicine called chronomedicine and a new approach to treatment called chronotherapy. Illnesses disrupt normal body rhythms. The signs and symptoms of illness may vary over the day, the month, or the year. Timing sleep, timing meals, timing exercise, and timing medication all affect overall health. Chronotherapy uses the information we have about our biological clocks to optimize treatment. Chronotherapy is currently used in the treatment of asthma, cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heartburn, and heart disease, to name just a few. The book, however, reviews chronotherapy for 32 distinct diseases, "from A to (Nearly) Z." It also has an excellent explanation of what biological rhythms are and how they affect everything we do. Of particular interest to millions of people will be the chapters on sleep disturbances. Not only do these chapters review what normal sleep is and explain what happens to us as we sleep, they also explain why we sleep, what happens to us if we don't get enough sleep (we risk having difficulty with attention, memory, and decision-making, among other problems). The Body Clock Guide to Better Health also gives us tips for a good night's sleep. Getting up at about the same time every day, regardless of how much sleep you got, the authors write, is the single most effective way to keep body rhythms in tune. Smolensky is director of the Memorial-Hermann Chronobiology Center at the University of Texas-Houston. Lamberg is a veteran medical journalist and the author of four other books on sleep and body clocks. Sleep does change with age. This book explains the differences in sleep between babies, adolescents, middle-aged adults, and the elderly. For example, we are told that in adolescence, teens who don't get enough sleep have lower grades. Again, the authors provide tips on how to improve sleep at all ages, such as how to instill good sleep habits in young children, why not to hassle your teenagers when they sleep late on weekends, and how to improve sleep in older persons with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or confusion after a stroke. Some of the other tips include which times are best for many medical tests and procedures, when to take your medicine to ensure that it works best and causes the fewest unwanted side-effects, how to reach and maintain your ideal body weight, what time of day is best for intercourse if you want to conceive, why afternoon or early evening is best for exercise, how to prevent or minimize jet lag, and how to cope with working outside the traditional 9 to 5 hours. The entire book is based on scientific research, and it is written in a concise and readable way that every reader will be able to understand. As a review in TIME states, "Even skeptical readers may be won over by this persuasive book." (http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,47686,00.html) Not only will reading the book help you understand why certain things happen in your body, it will help you and your health care professional find better ways to help you stay healthy, recover faster if you get sick, and improve your overall well-being. The Body Clock Guide to Better Health examines body rhythms from a practical perspective, offering the dual benefits of improving the treatment of specific conditions while boosting overall health. Everyone should read this book. Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ph.D. |
Copyright (c) 2000
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