This is a promising publication in terms of popularity for several important reasons. Chief among them is that it addresses the ever interesting issue of dealing with personal health with a simple to understand approach. Drs. Roizen and Oz challenge the readers’ original ideas on the ever vital concerns about how our bodies function and how we age. With the intent of inspiring interest in the book, you are invited to take a pre-test to determine your knowledge beforehand. With such an interest priming device, you are ready to launch into an easy to understand to explanation about how blood is pumped throughout the body, how food is digested, and the interactions among body systems and internal organs.

Once they have peaked your level of curiosity, the authors provide knowledge and advice about how to keep your body running long and strong. The book includes information about how diseases find their way into your body and how you are affected by them. Drs. Roizen and Oz provide well written advice on how to prevent and defeat those conditions that threaten the quality of life. Supplementing these pearls of wisdom are important clues to effective exercising, guidelines to good nutrition, non-complicated life style alterations, and alternative ways for their implementation.

A major central point here, which promises to be so popular to a wide audience, is the description of a workable and comprehensive approach to fend off the shortcomings associated with aging. This is in turn capped off with a thirty-recipe eating plan aimed at helping the reader live a younger life.

The book includes twelve chapters. In Chapter One, entitled "Your Body, Your Home: Super Health” the authors use an informative and entertaining tone to stoke up your interest for what follows.

The second chapter “The Beat Goes On: Your Heart and Arteries” provides a thorough treatment of the vital importance of this organ. Chapter Three addresses the mind, embracing the brain and the nervous system. Chapter four “Motion Control: You’re Bones, Joints, and Muscles" is very useful in dealing with the possible effects of aging on these parts of the body. Next is a chapter dealing with the lungs and their importance to healthy living. Included is a discussion of the widespread damaging effects of tobacco. Chapter Six: “Gut Feelings: Your Digestive System” is a good treatment of the stomach and associated intestines.

The sexual organs are the topic of a separate chapter seven. The author provides some insightful information and suggestions regarding sexual activity. The sensory organs are examined in a separate chapter, as are hormones. Cancer is dealt with in Chapter 11. The closing chapter is “The Owner’s Manual Diet". Nearly sixty pages provide a detailed menu for all meals and snacks. If you are in search of clues to healthful eating, you will find this to be a highly useful section of the book.

The fifteen page Index is a most useful to readers who want to trace down specific information on a topic referred to in the book. For example, thirteen referrals are provided for diabetes. Among the most interesting facts here are the advantages of caffeine. Special health topics and informational tidbits make this book an interesting read for almost anyone.

In conclusion, this is a most entertaining and engaging book. It is written in relatively non-medical terms in the language of the typical reader. It is the variety of book that many readers will choose to have on their own book shelves for easy and frequent reference.

This book review was contributed by Lynne M. Gilli, Program Manager of Career and Technology Education in the Maryland State Department of Education in Baltimore, Maryland, and Angelo C. Gilli, retired.