Life time Your body clock and its essential roles in good health and sleep

Renowned British scientist Foster provides non-medical readers with a useful treatise on sleep and the circadian rhythms affecting all biological organisms. The book is well referenced--high quality scientific sources are frequently cited. Foster's goal is to inspire readers about emerging biological rhythm science and encourage its application in lifestyle choices that promote personal health. Initial chapters introduce concepts of sleep and biological rhythms of organisms from bacteria to mammals, offering a comparative review of the different organ systems they comprise. Chapters 3--13 introduce sleep/circadian rhythm disruption (SCRD) and discuss various aspects of SCRD consequences, often providing suggestions on how best to time various human activities (e.g., ingesting specific nutrients or medications) to achieve maximum benefit. The final chapter offers hope for integration of biological rhythm science into personal and societal behaviors. Each chapter concludes with answers to questions from attendees at the author's speaking engagements. Two useful appendixes conclude the book. US readers will occasionally need to convert values expressed in terms of British standards to those familiar to a US audience (e.g., normal levels of various blood values). Readers should be alert to important information included in long captions to the occasional figures in the text. Those with an introductory course in biology will have a slight advantage. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates. General readers. --Tina D. DeLapp, emerita, University of Alaska Anchorage