An impassioned but unconvincing argument for a medical treatment.
A urologist proposes a new approach to treating aging in women.
In this follow-up to Ageless Man (2017), Debled theorizes that many of the negative symptoms that are associated with aging and menopause in women can be attributed to a decline in testosterone production. The book reviews clinical evidence for such a decrease in testosterone and other hormones, and it goes on to draw connections between lower hormone levels and symptoms generally associated with menopause and aging, including muscle loss, Type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Debled discusses each symptom in detail and talks about how it may be the result of androgen deficiency. As the book addresses existing research, it also makes suggestions for new areas of study with a focus on androgenic hormones in women. Debled concludes that the aforementioned physical conditions, which he calls the “androgenic diseases of menopause,” can be best treated with mesterolone supplements, though he acknowledges that mesterolone is not approved for use in the United States. He also discusses ways in which standard hormone replacement therapy, with its focus on estrogen and progesterone, is harmful. Over the course of this book, Debled presents a thought-provoking interpretation of clinical evidence that runs counter to accepted scientific practice. However, he doesn’t make a convincing case for his fundamental upending of conventional wisdom. Readers who are inclined to treat women’s aging as a natural process are sure to find the author’s perspective challenging. Throughout, Debled treats the symptoms of aging as extremely negative (“If you are over forty, don’t you believe yourself to be sick?”). In particular, he presents them as distasteful from an aesthetic perspective; his descriptions of older women (“Old, frustrated obese women often deploy ingenuity and diet-program calculations, generally without result”) are extremely unflattering. In addition, the book’s description of women’s sex organs as their “male genitalia,” because they respond to androgens, isn’t linguistically or conceptually standard.
The goal of the author’s method of treatment is the elimination of aging (“mature human beings will no longer know the inexorable decrepitude that leads to death at around age eighty”). To that end, Debled generally does a good job of explaining physiology in chapters detailing conditions associated with getting older and how they may be connected to decreases in hormone production. In the book’s conclusion, he links his advocacy of mesterolone treatment to an episode in his past, when his approach to treating impotence resulted in the end of his teaching career and his establishment of a private clinic. The observations and recommendations in this book are based on the author’s work there, which includes the use of mesterolone. The book does include research citations, although readers should be advised that many of the papers are in French and refer to Debled’s own work. The book is enthusiastic about reevaluating the aging process, but it does not provide enough evidence to persuade readers to try the treatment that it endorses, which isn’t approved by U.S. government regulators.
An impassioned but unconvincing argument for a medical treatment.Pub Date: June 29, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
