Good Germs Bad Germs or Total Astanga

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."

Table of Contents:

Seven Key Terms and Conventions     ix
Prologue: A Good War Gone Bad
Ricky's Story     3
Daniel's Story     7
Revenge of the Microbes?     9
The War on Germs
From Miasmas to Microbes     15
Germ Theory Reborn     20
The Sanitarians     26
The Search for Magic Bullets     29
Life on Man
The Body as Ecosystem     35
Into the Mouths of Babes     37
Life on the Surface     41
Life on the Inside     44
Bugs in Space     45
Where No Biologist Has Gone Before     49
The Inner Tube of Life     52
Who's the Boss?     59
A New Window Opens     64
Stealth Infections or Innocent Bystanders?     67
Too Clean?
Hair Trigger     73
From Hippocrates to the Hygiene Hypothesis     76
A History of Self-Destruction     81
Children in the Cowshed     83
Teaching Tolerance     87
Innate Immunity     89
The Dirt Vaccine     91
Old Friends     97
Beyond Immunity     101
Bugs on Drugs
A Killer in the Nursery     105
An End toBacterial Disease?     109
Microscopic Mating Games     111
The Bacterial Superorganism     115
Danger Ignored     116
Old Habits, New Insights     120
Out of the Hospital and into Our Daily Lives     125
The Reservoir Within     131
Resistance by the Shovel     136
Down on the Farm     141
The Antibiotic Paradox     148
Fighting Smarter, Not Harder
The Good Old Days?     151
Preserving Antibiotics: Less Is More     154
Homing In on the Enemy     158
Drugs with On-Off Switches     163
Silencing Resistance     165
Farming Out Resistance     168
Beyond Antibiotics: New Ways to Kill     170
Cocoons and Frog Slime     176
Beyond Lethal Force - Defang, Deflect, and Deploy
Drugs That Disarm     185
Vaccines - Forewarned Is Forearmed     189
Domesticate and Deploy     193
Prescription Probiotics     196
Fighting Fire with Fire     199
A Superhero for the Mouth     203
Transgenic Probiotics     205
Probiotics for Livestock     212
A Second Neolithic Revolution      214
Fixing the Patient
The Dragon Within     219
Enhancing the Bionic Human     225
From Sepsis to Chronic Inflammation     228
Immunobug Immunodrugs     232
Tweaking the Bug     233
Into the Future     234
Coda: Embracing the Microbiome     235
Notes     239
Further Reading     273
Acknowledgments     275
Index     277

Books about: Los Angeles Times Cookbook or Lifes a Fish and Then You Fry

Total Astanga: The Step-by-step Guide to Power Yoga at Home for Everybody

Author: Tara Fraser

Astanga is one of the most popular and energetic styles of yoga: it produces an internal heat and purifying sweat that detoxify muscles and organs. Thanks to yoga teacher Tara Fraser, almost anyone can learn astanga’s techniques and experience its benefits, from improved circulation to increased strength and suppleness. With the help of 200 color photographs, she carefully guides aspiring practitioners through more than 60 basic poses: the Sun Salutations to warm-up; each posture in the primary series; and a finishing sequence to cool down gently. Along the way, she demonstrates how to develop a workout that is safe, always challenging, and suitable for any level. Special boxes offer additional insight into a posture or how to adapt it, if necessary.