Good Germs Bad Germs or French Women Dont Get Fat

Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World

Author: Jessica Snyder Sachs

Public sanitation and antibiotic drugs have brought about historic increases in the human life span; they have also unintentionally produced new health crises by disrupting the intimate, age-old balance between humans and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies and our environment. As a result, antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times. Good Germs, Bad Germs tells the story of what went terribly wrong in our war on germs. It also offers a hopeful look into a future in which antibiotics will be designed and used more wisely, and beyond that to a day when we may replace antibacterial drugs and cleansers with bacterial ones.

Publishers Weekly

Science writer Sachs (Corpse) makes a strong case for a new paradigm for dealing with the microbial life that teems around and within us. Taking both evolutionary and ecological approaches, she explains why antibiotics work so well but are now losing their effectiveness. She notes that between agricultural antibiotic usage and needless prescriptions written for human use, antibiotic resistance has reached terrifying levels. A decade ago, resistant infections acquired in hospitals "were killing an estimated eighty-eight thousand Americans each year... more than car accidents and homicides combined." Our attempts to destroy microorganisms regularly upset useful microbial communities, often leading to serious medical consequences. Sachs also presents evidence suggesting that an epidemiclike rise in autoimmune diseases and allergies may be attributable to our misguided frontal assault on the bacterial world. The solution proposed is to encourage the growth of healthy, displacement-resistant microbial ecological communities and promote research that disrupts microbial processes rather than simply attempting to kill the germs themselves. Despite the frightening death toll, Sachs's summary of promising new avenues of research offers hope. (Oct. 16)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kathy Arsenault - Library Journal

The human body, science writer Sachs (Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle To Pinpoint Time of Death) makes clear, hosts a teeming ecosystem of microorganisms, which, like a terrestrial ecosystem, owes its survival to the balanced interrelationships of its inhabitants. The ecosystem of Homo sapienshas evolved over millennia to optimize our species' healthy development. Sachs reports, however, that scientists increasingly suspect that 19th-century advances in sanitation and the 20th-century advent of antibiotics have inadvertently disrupted these ancient symbioses. Increasingly, allergies, autoimmune diseases, and widespread drug-resistant bacteria are the unintended consequences of the modern world's dramatic medical progress. Fortunately, Sachs softens her bad news with stories of promising research, including new vaccines that may prevent diseases requiring antibiotic treatment, "probiotic" cultures that restore internal microflora balance, and, more controversially, genetic manipulation of bacteria to improve the virus-fighting qualities of friendly bacteria or to hinder the reproduction of those causing disease. The paradigm shift of working with instead of against bacteria has the potential to revolutionize 21st-century medicine; Sachs's book is a thoughtful lay reader's guide to this emerging field. Recommended for most libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Chapter and verse on the bugs that outnumber, outwit and no doubt will outlast us. The good news is that for the most part these bugs, aka bacteria, help or at least do no harm. With us since birth, the resident flora help digest and extract nourishment from what we eat, asking little but leftovers in return. Comfortably lodged in our various niches, they also impede hostile takeovers by the not-so-nice species, which is one reason we suffer diarrhea or other complaints. Sachs (Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death, 2001) deals with the well-known problems of human antibiotic abuse that leads to scary headlines about hospital superbugs or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, but she also covers the overuse of antibiotics for livestock, which ensures that at least some highly drug-resistant bugs make it to the supermarket. She explains the many ways bacteria acquire resistance: via mutations, but also through the exchange of genes within a strain (bacterial sex) and across species; genes are also ferried into bacteria by invading viruses. Sachs points out that most antibiotics are derived from bacteria species that have a supply of resistance genes sequestered in their main chromosome ready to be turned on to prevent bacterial suicide. Humans' built-in defenses are largely the components of the immune system, the antibody-producing and killer cells, as well as the ones that trigger allergic sneezes. The latter branch of the system may be in overdrive, she suggests, as we excessively spritz the latest bactericidal sprays and cleaners. This "hygiene hypothesis" posits that the reason for increases in asthma, allergies and autoimmune diseases in thedeveloped world is that the immune system, for want of normal disease-fighting activity, overreacts to any stray molecule it senses, triggering an inflammatory response. Sachs discusses a variety of proposed solutions for infection as well as allergy, but basically the message is, "Get over it! Learn to live and let live in a natural balance."

Look this: The Last True Story Ill Ever Tell or In Our Defense

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

Author: Mireille Guiliano

Stylish, convincing, wise, funny–and just in time: the ultimate non-diet book, which could radically change the way you think and live.

French women don’t get fat, but they do eat bread and pastry, drink wine, and regularly enjoy three-course meals. In her delightful tale, Mireille Guiliano unlocks the simple secrets of this “French paradox”–how to enjoy food and stay slim and healthy. Hers is a charming, sensible, and powerfully life-affirming view of health and eating for our times.

As a typically slender French girl, Mireille (Meer-ray) went to America as an exchange student and came back fat. That shock sent her into an adolescent tailspin, until her kindly family physician, “Dr. Miracle,” came to the rescue. Reintroducing her to classic principles of French gastronomy plus time-honored secrets of the local women, he helped her restore her shape and gave her a whole new understanding of food, drink, and life. The key? Not guilt or deprivation but learning to get the most from the things you most enjoy. Following her own version of this traditional wisdom, she has ever since relished a life of indulgence without bulge, satisfying yen without yo-yo on three meals a day.

Now in simple but potent strategies and dozens of recipes you’d swear were fattening, Mireille reveals the ingredients for a lifetime of weight control–from the emergency weekend remedy of Magical Leek Soup to everyday tricks like fooling yourself into contentment and painless new physical exertions to save you from the StairMaster. Emphasizing the virtues of freshness, variety, balance, and always pleasure, Mireilleshows how virtually anyone can learn to eat, drink, and move like a French woman.

A natural raconteur, Mireille illustrates her philosophy through the experiences that have shaped her life–a six-year-old’s first taste of Champagne, treks in search of tiny blueberries (called myrtilles) in the woods near her grandmother’s house, a near-spiritual rendezvous with oysters at a seaside restaurant in Brittany, to name but a few. She also shows us other women discovering the wonders of “French in action,” drawing examples from dozens of friends and associates she has advised over the years to eat and drink smarter and more joyfully.

Here are a culture’s most cherished and time-honored secrets recast for the twenty-first century. For anyone who has slipped out of her zone, missed the flight to South Beach, or accidentally let a carb pass her lips, here is a buoyant, positive way to stay trim. A life of wine, bread–even chocolate–without girth or guilt? Pourquoi pas?

Julia Reed

At the very least, we would all do ourselves a favor to make like Colette, for whom the table was ''a date with love and friendship '' instead of the root of all evil.

The Washinton Post - Lilly Burana

Grilled peaches with lemon thyme, tartine au cacao, chicken au champagne and halibut en papillote -- have we heard the "indulge within reason" spiel before? Oui. But not lately with such йlan and joie de vivre. It's hard not to be enlivened by a "diet" book that celebrates both chocolate and bread, and espouses such wisdom as "Life without pasta? Perish the thought."

Publishers Weekly

Guiliano's approach to healthy living is hardly revolutionary: just last month, the New York Times Magazine ran a story on the well-known "French paradox," which finds French people, those wine- guzzling, Brie-noshing, carb-loving folk, to be much thinner and healthier than diet-obsessed Americans. Guiliano, however, isn't so interested in the sociocultural aspects of this oddity. Rather, befitting her status as CEO of Clicquot (as in Veuve Clicquot, the French Champagne house), she cares more about showing how judicious consumption of good food (and good Champagne) can result in a trim figure and a happy life. It's a welcome reprieve from the scores of diet books out there; there's nary a mention of calories, anaerobic energy, glycemic index or any of the other hallmarks of the genre. Instead, Guiliano shares anecdotes about how, as a teen, she returned to her native France from a year studying in Massachusetts looking "like a sack of potatoes," and slimmed down. She did this, of course, by adapting the tenets of French eating: eating three substantial meals a day, consuming smaller portions and lots of fruits and vegetables, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, drinking plenty of water and not depriving herself of treats every once in a while. In other words, Guiliano listened to common sense. Her book, with its amusing asides about her life and work, occasional lapses into French and inspiring recipes (Zucchini Flower Omelet; Salad of Duck a l'Orange) is a stirring reminder of the importance of joie de vivre.(Jan.) Forecast: Guiliano, a champion of women in business who has been profiled in numerous magazines, will promote the book-with a 100,000-copy first printing-on an 11-city author tour, which should result in plump sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Think of French cuisine: the buttery croissants, the decadent pastries. Yet French women manage to remain svelte. What is their secret? Guiliano, CEO of Clicquot, Inc., insists that it's cultural. French women don't snack, eat fast food, eat hurriedly, drink hard liquor, flavor their food with sugar and fat, or weigh themselves. French women do eat three meals a day, eat until they are satisfied but not stuffed, drink lots of water, savor wine, walk everywhere, take the stairs, consider the presentation of food as important as the taste, and regard dining as a sensuous experience. Guiliano, who gained 20 pounds as an exchange student in the United States (and took them off when she got home), celebrates her French heritage and gives the reader a glimpse into the French way of food shopping and preparation. Each chapter offers mouthwatering recipes that are easy to prepare. Recommended as a unique addition to health and nutrition collections; expect demand following an 11-city author tour. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/04.]-Florence Scarinci, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.