Book Reviews

Textbook of Work Physiology:
Physiological Bases of Exercise, 4th Edition

The Biology of Human Survival

Textbook of Work Physiology: Physiological Bases of Exercise, 4th Edition.
Per-Olof Astrand, Kaare Rodahl, Hans A. Dahl and Sigmund B. Strome. Champaign, IL: 2003, 650 pp., illus., $79.00, ISBN: 0-7360-0140-9.

   In 1970, Astrand and Rodahl introduced their textbook to the exercise science community and subsequently observed its emergence during the latter portions of the 20th century as one of the most cited textbooks by teachers and researchers for exercise and work physiology information. However, with the fourth edition, the Astrand influence has been confined to his previous concepts and research findings with Rodahl and colleagues at The Norweigian University of Sport and Physical Education assuming the authorship.
   The text consists of 18 chapters whose titles are our biological heritage; the cell and its regulatory mechanisms; the muscle and its contraction; motor functions; body fluids, blood and circulation; respiration; skeletal system; physical performance; evaluation of physical performance on the basis of tests; body dimensions and muscular exercise; physical training; nutrition and physical performances; temperature regulation; factors perfecting performance; fatigue; applied sport physiology; applied work physiology, and physical activity and health. In addition, there are four appendices that are devoted to the definition of units, prefixes for unit abbreviations, conversion tables and symbols plus a section devoted to a glossary of terms. The text is well illustrated with two color figures, essentially 19 per chapter, and contains more than 1,600 citations with approximately 50% being published within a decade ago and 10% since the turn of the century (the third edition was published in 1986). New citation figures that enrich the chapters are the identification of classical studies and the listing of additional readings. However, the authors could have provided more information on the nature of the experiments and on their significance in advancing physiological understandings and concepts.
   Single or multi topical chapters devoted to one’s biological heritage, muscle and motor functions, the skeletal system, respiration, physical performance, physical training, applied sport physiology, and applied work physiology are comprehensive and noteworthy. Also deserving of comment is the information pertaining to environmental influences with special attention being devoted to the effects of elevated temperatures. “Hot topics” related to molecular biology, gene expression, metabolic signaling, aging, pregnancy, and the female athletic triad are discussed and interspersed throughout the chapters. Exercise physiology instructors should realize this text is likely the only one that extensively details the physiological effects of specific activities, e.g. walking, running, skiing, swimming, skating, rowing, soccer, etc., as well as occupations pertaining to house work, farming, mining, fishing, fire fighters and the like. With an intended focus on performance, it was surprising that the physiological responses in a microgravity environment were not mentioned within its contents.
   Because of the uncertainty in the scientific background of its readers, this edition, like most exercise physiology textbooks contains background information found in basic physiology texts. With exercise genomics becoming the topical area of the future, the text would have been enhanced by a specific section on the subject. In addition, more attention being directed on the immune and endocrine contributions to exercise and training would have helped increase the comprehensive component of the text.
   In the preface, the authors note that “an attempt has been made to meet the contemporary needs of the physical education student at both the graduate and postgraduate levels.” Even with the caveats of the preceding paragraph, the authors have accomplished this purpose and can look forward to its continued acceptance at the national and international level.

Charles M. Tipton
University of Arizona
The Biology of Human Survival
C.A. Piantadosi.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003, 280 pp., illus, index, $35.00.
ISBN: 0-19-516501-2.

   Because the broad sweep of human physiology encompasses many specialized disciplines whose subject matter ranges from atoms to populations, most of us are highly focused in our research. Occasionally, a work of intellectual synthesis provides an elevated view that allows us to appreciate how the big and the small fit into the integrated system that is the human organism. The Biology of Human Survival by C.A. Piantadosi affords just such a prospect. Using human responses to environmental extremes as its organizing principle, the book begins with concise surveys of the characteristics of the human environment and of the history of environmental physiology and proceeds to an overview of the mechanisms of adaptation, acclimatization and acclimation.
   In the laboratory, we may be able to limit the number of experimental variables under study, but in the real world this is an impossibility. Therefore, in the third chapter of this book the author introduces the important concept of cross-acclimation, the complex ways the body responds to multiple stressors. For example, pre-adaptation to cold may protect against subsequent exposure to ionizing radiation (positive acclimation), but may increase vulnerability to hypoxia (negative acclimation). This integrative and multivariate approach is carried forward through the remaining chapters which deal, in turn, with nutrition, water and salt balance, thermal homeostasis, defenses against both the deficiency and excess of oxygen, effects of ionizing radiation, as well as the consequences of microgravity and hypergravity. The author illustrates the interaction of these factors in human attempts—both doomed and triumphant—to cross deserts and salt seas, to penetrate the Artic and Antarctic, to delve the oceans, to reach into the upper regions of the atmosphere and beyond, into space. The human ability to escape the physiological envelope by means of behavioral adaptation, including the use of technology, is a theme that further unifies the book and includes the concept of double failure, in which an earlier oversight combined with a subsequent adverse event leads to catastrophe. This important idea is vividly demonstrated by the author’s account of Robert Falcon Scott’s second, and fatal, attempt to attain the South Pole during the British Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913. The ponies they had brought to transport their vital supplies were unequal to the task and died or had to be euthanized early in the expedition, after which the men themselves had to be their own beasts of burden, pulling heavy sledges laden with their necessities. Why did Scott and his companions die after completing over 90% of their planned trip and but one-day’s-walk from a re-supply cache? Scott himself blamed bad weather and bad luck; others subsequently attributed the failure to the death of the ponies and discouragement of the men. These factors were, of course, important; but the author of The Biology of Human Survival demonstrates convincingly that the explorers perished from inadequate nutrition. Scott had allowed for 4,500 calories per man per day, but a straight-forward calculation and a compelling graphical display of available data show that after the ponies were gone the exhausted men needed far more than this and endured a daily deficit of 1200 to 1600 calories. Therefore, the double failure began with the planning, before the expedition began: not enough extra food was allowed for adverse circumstances—the inevitable “bad luck.”
   The next-to-last chapter is a sobering assessment of the futility of humanity’s attempt to adapt to the ultimate stressor: its own power of self-annihilation, through weapons of mass destruction. The final chapter is a hopeful, but realistic consideration of the physiological possibilities for long-term space travel, even on multi-generational voyages, as well as extraterrestrial colonization. There is an intriguing discussion of how the morphology of the human body might change in a permanent state of micro gravity. The principles of population biology are used to estimate what would be the minimum required size for a sustainable population on such an adventure.
This book rests on a foundation of broad and solid scholarship and is written in a highly accessible style. It could serve as a textbook in a variety of courses at either the undergraduate or graduate levels. It can be read with great profit by practicing physiologists who want a broad view of the field. And it should be required reading for other professionals whose work has consequences for human survival: engineers, equipment designers, expedition planners, or military officers, to name a few. It will also be of considerable interest to weekend warriors who climb mountains, trek the wilderness, go to sea in small boats or dive beneath it using scuba. Or, you might just read it for pleasure if you have any interest in the marvelous ways humanity adapts to its environment.

Barry W. Allen
Duke University Medical Center
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