Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers—psychological stress damages human health—tedious but important (and well sourced)
Probability Theory—the Logic of Science (Jaynes) - only halfway through it. I can’t justify its length unless I were really willing to work through all the computation shown (I’m not). The text is still somewhat meaningful if you merely read it.
Long, unexplained list:
The Wasp Factory, The Player of Games, Matter (Iain Banks)
Return from the Stars
Lilith’s Brood
Cyteen
Godel, Escher, and Bach (EGB)
His Dark materials (juvenille, mediocre movie, but fun)
But stomach ulcers aren’t caused by stress, they’re caused by Helicobacter pylori—although it seems like stress might slightly increase your risk of getting them.
Seeing how the book appears to have been first published long AFTER that discovery, I’m a little suspicious regarding the quality of the research.
But stomach ulcers aren’t caused by stress, they’re caused by Helicobacter pylori—although it seems like stress might slightly increase your risk of getting them.
(I have a personal interest in this topic, because I used to have ulcers, which was cured by taking a combination of antacids and antibiotics to kill off H pylori, but I’m pretty sure that in my case stress contributed to having ulcers in the first place.)
Wow, that’s an interesting read! Until I suspected that I had H. Pylori, I believed peptic ulcers were mostly due to stress (apparently I missed the popular consensus memo). After I found out the more common view, I realized that I was still confused; the dismissal of stress given the bacteria seemed unmotivated, given its role in enabling many other diseases. (Turns out, for me, it was stress all along, but probably no ulcers!) Thanks for the article.
The guy knows his stuff and can be quite entertaining.
Check his video over on EDGE on TOXO (the cat lady parasite). At the end he mentions an avenue for research he’s working on into a possible mechanism by which stress damages chromosomes
I don’t recall to what degree Sapolsky acknowledges it.
Ulcers are definitely not the core topic of the book; it’s stress (and its varied effects).
The book both explains historic experiments and changes in scientific consensus, and cites studies properly. Of course I have no way of vouching for his selection of evidence, but there is plenty of it.
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers—psychological stress damages human health—tedious but important (and well sourced)
Probability Theory—the Logic of Science (Jaynes) - only halfway through it. I can’t justify its length unless I were really willing to work through all the computation shown (I’m not). The text is still somewhat meaningful if you merely read it.
Long, unexplained list:
The Wasp Factory, The Player of Games, Matter (Iain Banks)
Return from the Stars
Lilith’s Brood
Cyteen
Godel, Escher, and Bach (EGB)
His Dark materials (juvenille, mediocre movie, but fun)
Black Company
Malazan Book of the Fallen
The Glass Bead Game
Jane Eyre
The Dispossessed
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
The Gods Themselves
The Ugly Little Boy
Permutation City
A Fire Upon the Deep
Neuromancer
Diamond Age
Anathem
Lovelock
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Songmaster
Enchantment
Kushiel’s Dart
The Shadow of the Torturer (Book of the New Sun)
The Deed of Paksenarrion
Flatland
White Light
The Eyre Affair
Pronoun Music
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Air: Or, Have Not Have
Never Let Me Go
| Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
But stomach ulcers aren’t caused by stress, they’re caused by Helicobacter pylori—although it seems like stress might slightly increase your risk of getting them.
Seeing how the book appears to have been first published long AFTER that discovery, I’m a little suspicious regarding the quality of the research.
I think “slightly” understates the medical consensus that stress is an important cause of ulcers. See http://www.aventinomedicalgroup.com/documents/Stress_PU_JAMA.pdf, which notes that more than 80% of people with H pylori do not develop ulcers.
(I have a personal interest in this topic, because I used to have ulcers, which was cured by taking a combination of antacids and antibiotics to kill off H pylori, but I’m pretty sure that in my case stress contributed to having ulcers in the first place.)
Wow, that’s an interesting read! Until I suspected that I had H. Pylori, I believed peptic ulcers were mostly due to stress (apparently I missed the popular consensus memo). After I found out the more common view, I realized that I was still confused; the dismissal of stress given the bacteria seemed unmotivated, given its role in enabling many other diseases. (Turns out, for me, it was stress all along, but probably no ulcers!) Thanks for the article.
The guy knows his stuff and can be quite entertaining.
Check his video over on EDGE on TOXO (the cat lady parasite). At the end he mentions an avenue for research he’s working on into a possible mechanism by which stress damages chromosomes
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html
20 minutes well spent.
I agree the Zebra book was a little boring, but it fits right in w/ the recurrent OB theme on status and health
I’d heard that also.
I don’t recall to what degree Sapolsky acknowledges it.
Ulcers are definitely not the core topic of the book; it’s stress (and its varied effects).
The book both explains historic experiments and changes in scientific consensus, and cites studies properly. Of course I have no way of vouching for his selection of evidence, but there is plenty of it.
I hadn’t made that connection, but I do still endorse any of Robert Sapolsky’s books. They’re pretty much the only ones that I’ve liked in biology.
I also second Iain M. Banks.
Seconding the Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.
It’s like Catcher in the Rye for serial killers