Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

With the growing Zika and Dengue threats, understanding how microbes and their hosts interact is vital. Not everyone can make it through this long and detailed account, but it is worth the effort. We will all face questions that are addressed in this book - - from whether to pay extra for heavily advertised probiotics to whether or not to support the release of wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in our own backyards to stop the spread of deadly diseases. Without requiring specialist knowledge or vocabulary, the author introduces the complex concepts behind the recent revolution in understanding of microbes' role in health, evolution, ecology, and culture. A few years ago, before I retired from a medical practice in non-tropical Minneapolis, I had a patient whose unusual rash was probably caused by an African parasitic worm that hosts a bacterium which allows the worm to live inside its human host. By chance, I had just seen an article on treating his condition by giving antibiotics to eliminate the bacterium, thus allowing the patient's immune system to kill the worms. In an increasingly globalized world, the more people acquire the background to be able to absorb information like that and recall it when it becomes relevant, the better. Fortunately, the reader is rewarded with tidbits of levity along the way - - the name of a product aimed at restoring healthy digestive system microbes, for instance: "rePOOPulate." There's no cheerleading for every trendy "natural" "probiotic" cure under the sun. Nature is revealed as indifferent to our personal goals - - and capable of producing undesired results when we try to tamper with it. What we find here instead is a very balanced look at what has been learned and tried, what has worked and what has failed, and where we may be going.