Book Reviews

Symmorphosis: On Form and Function in Shaping Life
Ewald R. Weibel
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000, 256 pp., illus., index, $45.00
ISBN: 0-674-00068-4

    This slender book is an updated version of the J.M. Prather Lectures delivered by Prof. Weibel at Harvard University in May 1995. It should be read by all serious-minded, thinking integrative physiologists. Whether or not one agrees with the underlying assumptions and the ways in which the central arguments are worked out, the book is an elegantly organized and well written summary of the major results from one of the best long term, synergistic, intensely creative research partnerships in integrative physiology in recent times. This was the partnership between the author and C. Richard Taylor, who unfortunately passed away prematurely in 1995. Weibel, Taylor, and their many collaborators and students over a period of more than 20 years produced both large numbers of excellent papers relating to the central idea of this book, but also the central idea itself. The idea has major heuristic value for physiological researchers.
    As stated in the Preface (p. xii) the principle of symmorphosis postulates “that the quantity of structure incorporated into an animal’s functional systems is matched to what is needed: enough but not too much.” The book elaborates upon this theme through a detailed description of mammalian respiratory systems at many levels from the subcellular to the organismic. Tests of the validity and utility of the principle are made for these systems without undue amounts of hand waving and over generalizing. The systems are considered as longitudinally integrated series of steps for oxygen and substrate fuel movements from the outside world to the cells. Assessments are made of degrees of matching of the capacities of each of the steps and of possible optimization of the structures and rate processes involved. Interesting issues are raised relating to possible safety factors built into capacities and engineering design principles manifested in the structures of the organ systems involved. The closing chapter summarizes Weibel’s personal views as to major open questions remaining and various conclusions he considers justified.
    From this reviewer’s perspective the concept and the book are both fascinating and provocative for as far as they go, but the book, at least, does not go far enough. This is why I used the term heuristic to describe it. The treatment is less comparative and less evolutionary in its perspectives than it could be. It considers only capacity adaptations of animals. It does not consider resistance adaptations, the second major category of physiological adaptations that are often critical to animal survival in nature. 
    A great deal of additional work will be required to determine the extent to which the principle of symmorphosis is truly useful, both theoretically and practically. There are many issues involved. Important critiques considering various of these issues have been written by Dudley and Gans (Physiol. Zoology 64:627-637, 1991), Lauder (in Rose and Lauder (eds), Adaptation, pp. 55-91, 1996), and Plotnick and Baumiller (in Erwin and Wing (eds), Paleobiology 26 (suppl.):305-323, 2000). Many papers have also appeared in which the authors have been stimulated to try to apply the principle to such different subject areas as enzyme compensation in metabolic pathways in tunafish muscle (Fudge et al., AJP: Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 280:R108-R114, 2001) and growth of fish larvae (Osse et al., Aquaculture 155:249-258, 1997). These latter efforts have been unevenly successful.
    This is one of the more stimulating and thought provoking books about animal physiology that has appeared in many years. Read it. 

Malcolm S. Gordon
University of California, Los Angeles

The Osteoporosis Primer
Janet E. Henderson and David Goltzman (Editors).
New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000, 372 pp., illus., index, $64.95
ISBN: 0-521-64446-1

    As late as the 1970s osteoporosis was one of those rare diseases of bone metabolism of which medical students were taught practically nothing and textbooks devoted no more than a line or two. The lay public, of course, had hardly heard of this disease, let alone worry about its socioeconomic impact. What a huge difference 30 years have made. Osteoporosis is now recognized as one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among the aging populations of the western world, affecting 18 million North Americans. Warnings of its dire consequences, if untreated, flash across the television screens several times every day and are a common topic of daytime talk shows. 
    Justifiably so, osteoporosis has attracted major attention by researchers and clinicians alike. Thousands of scientific papers are now published every year dealing with all aspects of the disease from the genetic, cellular and molecular mechanisms of its pathogenesis to its clinical features, epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. This rapid evolution of the topic has undoubtedly created the need for an Osteoporosis Primer: an introductory textbook for medical students, house-staff officers, general practitioners, geriatricians, rheumatologists, gynecologists, and endocrinologists. 
    The Osteoporosis Primer, edited by Henderson and Goltzman, promises to provide such a text in a way that will relate the clinical presentation of the disease to its molecular and biochemical basis. It consists of 25 chapters that have been divided into four sections: 1) molecular and cellular environment of bone; 2) determinants of peak bone mass; 3) pathophysiology of the aging skeleton; and 4) clinical aspects of osteoporosis. For a small size volume, 372 pages, the book covers many topics. They range from the basic biology of the specialized bone cells, the osteoblast and osteoclast, to the role of local factors (e.g. cytokines and growth factors) and the systemic hormones involved in the regulation of these cells, to the genetic and nutritional determinants of bone mass acquisition during childhood and adolescence, to cellular and biochemical mechanisms, to the radiologic and biochemical means of diagnosing the disease, and finally the commonly used drugs for its treatment: estrogens, selective estrogen receptor modulators, bisphosphonates, and parathyroid hormone peptides. 
    The majority of the authors are Canadians and most of them are well recognized experts in the field. I found several of the chapters (especially chapters 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15) well written, informative and useful even for aficionados. This is the strength of this textbook. However, the Osteoporosis Primer as a whole does not deliver on its promise to provide a cohesive and integrated presentation of osteoporosis for the uninitiated. In fact, most of the authors of the basic chapters do not even mention the word osteoporosis, whereas the authors of some clinical chapters seem unaware of the recent basic science developments. It is widely accepted that irrespective of the specific cause, be it sex hormone deficiency, old age, or the adverse effects of glucocorticoid excess, the disease results from a derangement in the physiologic regeneration of the skeleton by the process of bone remodeling. Yet, the essential features of remodeling and its relevance to the pathophysiology of osteoporosis are for the first time mentioned in chapter 15. The exciting new discoveries of the receptor activated nuclear factor kB (RANK) and its ligand (RANKL) are repetitively addressed in several chapters but there is no attempt to link them to pathophysiology, except in chapter 15. A few chapters are completely unrelated to osteoporosis and the one dealing with biochemical markers of bone turnover provides information that, in my opinion, is uncritical and confusing. Finally, the review of the various therapeutic agents, as a whole, deals with the topic unevenly. The book devotes two chapters on vitamin D analogs and fluoride, which are no longer considered useful therapies for osteoporosis, while completely ignoring non-pharmacologic modalities and very useful lifestyle changes. 
    The general reader will find useful information in the Osteoporosis Primer, and those familiar with the topic will enjoy several of the minireviews provided by the individual chapters. However, this is hardly the teaching tool or, as the title implies, the primer that will introduce the reader smoothly into the essential principles and concepts one needs to appreciate in order to understand this multifactorial disease of the skeleton. If the uninitiated reader looks for a concise textbook integrating the molecular biochemical basis of the disease to its clinical presentation and its management, he will not find it here. However, all in all, the Osteoporosis Primer represents a useful addition to the ever-expanding literature on the basic and clinical aspects of osteoporosis, and, as such, is recommended. 

Stavros C. Manolagas
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Books Received

Advances in Insect Physiology, Vol. 28.
P.D. Evans, (Editor).
San Diego, CA: Academic, 2001, 339 pp., illus., index, $109.95.
ISBN: 0-12-02424228-1.

Gravity and the Lung. Lessons from Microgravity.
Lung Biology in Health and Disease, Vol. 160.
G. Kim Prisk, Manuel Paiva, and John B. West. (Editors)
NY: Marcel Dekker, 2001, 383 pp., illus., index, $175.00.
ISBN: 0-8247-0570-X.

High Altitude: An Exploration of Human Adaptation.
Lung Biology in Health and Disease, Vol. 161.
Thomas F. Hornbein and Robert B. Schoene (Editors).
NY: Marcel Dekker, 982 pp., illus., index, $235.00.
ISBN: 0-8247-0313-8.

Optical Mapping of Cardiac Excitation and Arrhythmias.
David S. Rosenbaum, and José Jalife, (Editors).
NY: Futura, 458 pp., illus., index, $99.00.
ISBN: 0-87993-481-6.

Respiratory Physiology of Newborn Mammals: A Comparative Perspective.
Jacopo P. Mortola..
Baltimore, MD. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 344 pp., illus., index, $89.95.
ISBN: 0-8018-6497-6.

Visable and Near Infrared Absorption Spectra of Human and Animal Haemoglobin: Determination and Application.
W.G. Zijlstra, A. Buursma, and O.W. van Assendelft.
Boston, MA: VSP, International Science Publishers, 368 pp., illus., index, $124.00.
ISBN: 90-6764-317-3.

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