Academic and challenging at times but generally engaging and informative about Alzheimer’s.
A psychiatrist specializing in integrative medicine makes a case for lithium as a preventive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Statistics cited by Greenblatt (Finally Focused, 2017, etc.) about Alzheimer’s are sobering: In the United States, for example, “10% of people 65 and older” have the disease, and it is “the sixth leading cause of death.” The first several chapters of this intriguing book offer a straightforward, easily comprehensible overview of Alzheimer’s and the manner in which the disease leads to death. The author reports that “currently, no medication is effective in preventing the progression of Alzheimer’s”; hence, the motivation for this work. The majority of the book is centered on Greenblatt’s belief that micro doses of lithium, a simple mineral, could be effective in preventing and treating early Alzheimer’s. The author supports his claim by referencing a number of recent research studies, all of them scrupulously footnoted. He observes, however, that lithium’s lengthy history as a medical treatment has sometimes worked against it because of concerns over high doses, which can be toxic. In addition, writes Greenblatt with chagrin, “there is little financial incentive for research on lithium. Companies are not interested in developing a new pitch for an old drug.” In spite of these factors, the volume provides a convincing argument for the supplemental use of lithium, delivering scientific details (some a bit dry and technical) about how lithium functions to protect brain cells. The author goes even further, suggesting that the use of a lithium supplement “contributes to brain health in broad ways.” The “action plan” he puts forth at the end of the book includes suggestions for using lithium paired with other nutritional supplements, including various vitamins as well as natural substances such as curcumin. Readers are cautioned to consult a physician, but even so, the emphasis on dietary supplements is strikingly narrow. Short chapters, summaries, and “key points” facilitate reading. This work is part of Greenblatt’s Psychiatry Redefined book series.
Academic and challenging at times but generally engaging and informative about Alzheimer’s.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 148
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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