Recommended Reading: Diet Can Alter Your DNA

Without trying (or rather, without paying attention), I gain weight. I've been thinking about what I could do to eat less and move more. It has to be pretty compelling to pull me away from work and other responsibilities, though I realize there should be nothing more compelling than my own health.

Serendipitously, then, I was assigned to work on the upcoming book Osteoporosis: Preventing and Healing Without Drugs by Peter Bales, M.D. (Prometheus: Sept 2008). The basic premise of the book is that nutrition is a more effective long-term approach to treating and healing osteoporosis than drug therapy. The author, an orthopedic surgeon in California, says early in the book that his medical school training didn't include enough information on nutrition. (It's a statement you've probably read and heard before.)

One of the major causes of now-epidemic osteoporosis is obesity. The heavier you get, the more pressure is put on the cartilage. But it's at least a double-whammy, because the obese person with a poor diet also has silent "suicide cells" at work that actually destroy cartilage.

Bales divulges a lot more information about nutrition and overall health, which is why I'm recommending this book to anyone who is interested in health. Check this out:

• Not Brushing and Flossing Can Lead to Heart Disease. Remember that old saying that dental health is an indicator of overall health? Apparently, it's true. Bales says on p. 44 that people with chronic periodontal disease have inflamed gums. The bacteria that causes gum inflammation is circulated through the bloodstream and causes inflammation in other parts of the body and is linked to the development of heart disease.
  
  
• Bad Diet = Physical Self-Destruction. An unhealthy diet leads to oxidation--or "rusting"--in our cells, causing them to malfunction and resulting in acidic pH in our bodies. Acid breaks down whatever it's exposed to. When cartilage cells are exposed to increased oxidative stress, they become dysfunctional and overproduce cartilage-degrading enzymes and free radicals. Bales calls these "suicide cells" on p. 49, because they actually attack healthy cells.
  
  
• Why Diet Books Say "It's Not Your Fault." Leptin is a hormone that is secreted through the hypothalamus that tells us to stop eating when we're satisfied. But as we gain weight and become obese, leptin resistance results and the hypothalamus does not respond appropriately. "As a result," Bales writes on p. 108, "we continue to eat even when our body does not need the excess calories." So, in addition to whatever psychological issues are making you eat, your body is sort of going along for the ride too. Women naturally have higher leptin levels than men. (But, does that make us "fault free"? You decide . . .)
  
  
• Overeating Can Stress You Out. Overweight and obese people have increased levels of insulin and sugar in their blood and are likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. The increased insulin and sugar cause inflammation throughout the body and a higher production of cortisol, a stress hormone secreted during "fight or flight." More cortisol in the body means your body is in a state of constant stress, and that can lead to what Bales calls adrenal burnout on p. 113, which means your body's horomone levels are all imbalanced.
  
  
• High Cooking Temps Affect Aging. According to Bales's footnoted information on p. 122, broiling meat at 437 degrees F (225 Celsius) or higher, or frying at 350 degrees F (177 Celsius) or higher increases the oxidation and "sugar-coating" of foods, increasing inflammation in your body and accelerating the aging process.
  


• Bad Diet Can Lead to Changes in DNA. This is headline news to me, but on pp. 126 and 142 Bales says that research shows that poor nutrition and environmental toxins causes our DNA to malfunction, and that malfunctioning is "passed on to our children." As the parent of a child on the autism spectrum, this point has HUGE implications.
  
  

So what is there to do? Well, you'll have to buy the book (preorder it at Amazon or B&N), but one of Bales's suggestions for rescuing your body--and possibly your children--from genetic malfunctioning includes avoiding processed starches like pasta and white bread.

Asperger's Syndrome 101

I have a child with Asperger's Syndrome. It's a developmental / neurological condition on the autism spectrum, but some people don't think it should be there because it doesn't involve a child's losing his vocabulary (autism is often characterized by children totally losing their vocab and starting from scratch). Some people believe it may be caused by immunizations, and I've wondered if his prematurity had something to do with it (my son was born 2.5 months early, and weighed 3.5 pounds), but our neurologist believes it is genetic.

Thanks to a very observant and helpful relative, I found out about this disorder when my son was 3; and thanks to a wonderful pediatrician, we were able to get services that same year.

One of the many things I've learned is that Asperger's isn't a destination; it's a lifelong journey with a lot of bumps but a lot of incredible, memorable moments.

Here were some of the signs we first observed that are autistic tendencies and/or symptomatic of Asperger's:

• limited vocabulary
  (At 3, my son was speaking primarily in 3-4 word sentences, but there were also "receptive" speech issues too, see next bullet)


• echolalia
  (He realized that he needed to respond to verbal communication, but if he didn't know what to say, he'd simply repeat what was said to him)


• hypotonia
  (Low muscle tone in the upper body)


• tactile issues
  (He wouldn't let anyone cut his hair but me, poor kid, and even now there's only one person he'll trust to do it)


• other sensory issues
  (My guy's big issue is sounds--he can tolerate a Harley, but a bumble bee will drive him batty)


• social problems
  (He would hug himself into a corner at daycare and didn't want to interact with the other children; at times won't keep his hands to himself; is very literal and doesn't "get" jokes)


• obsessiveness
  (He wants to talk only about his favorite obsession--think of how obsessed a teenage girl is with her first boyfriend and multiply that by 10--and will frequently interrupt conversations with "important" news about his favorite obsession. It's why Hans Asperger called his patients "little professors")
  
• repetitive behaviors
  (He would look out the corner of his eye and follow the edge of our dining table. Back and forth, back and forth he'd walk. Or he'd play with Hot Wheels cars in only a few predictable directions)


• emotional sensitivity
  (He is so self-critical that even erasing an answer on math homework can drive him to a fit or tears or both. He'll be mortified if he finds out he is the subject of this blog entry)


• strong parental attachment
  (Parents tell me how hard it is to let their children go; imagine how hard it is when your child doesn't want to let go and you're told to force him away)

When I first began researching autism and its spectrum of disorders, I had a crying jag from the information overload. But I'm here--and many other parents are here too--to say that life with a child with Asperger's can be challenging, but it is very rewarding, too. I have an exceptionally affectionate, unusually articulate child who has helped me grow in untold ways.

He keeps me grounded, because I still have a lot of growing left to do.

Great Day in the City

Every year I take my son to New York City for a day of fun. He's seen or been in all the major sights, so this year we took a 3-hour Circle Line cruise around all of Manhattan, allowing me to see some new sights of my own. I also had two books to deliver that day and a book signing to attend, so it was a busy day. Maybe too busy.

(The Freedom Tower is being built just behind the building with the triangular-shaped roof, to the left.)

(I'd never seen the Brooklyn Bridge from this vantage point before.)

(The South Street Seaport is a must-see if you like big ships. There's a comedy club nearby called Caroline's at the Seaport. Caroline Hirsch, the owner, was one of the people featured in a coffee-table book I was returning to the publisher, but that stop was still to come.)






(A view of the East River, and the sea beyond.)

(Here's a view of what's called "the projects" in Harlem. If you look closely, you might be able to see the traffic on FDR Drive.)

(Ever wonder what happens to retired subway cars? These guys are awaiting their final resting places on a barge at the northern tip of Manhattan. One of our fellow passengers said these cars would be "taken out to sea," but I decided not to think about the junk yard we may have created in the ocean.)

(A view from way uptown, looking down the Hudson River skyline. One of these new buildings is Trump Place. I believe it was partially overseen by Randall Pinkett, one of Trump's apprentices.)

After all our stops, dinner, and a brief visit at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble store, we were totally spent. I picked up the car in Hoboken, NJ, and we talked about boats the entire ride home.

My son has decided. He wants to own the Circle Line.

Take 3 . . . with Bertrice Small

I discovered Bertrice Small when I joined the Literary Guild as a teenager. One of the books I bought with my new membership was All the Sweet Tomorrows, an historical romance about an Irishwoman named Skye O'Malley. Even though I'd missed the first book in the series (but not for long), All the Sweet Tomorrows was not a disappointment. It was steeped in Elizabethan history, it was explicitly sensual, and it featured a strong-willed, independent woman. Perfect reading for a hormonal 15-year-old. In fact, Bertrice Small helped me realize two things: that I wanted to write about history, and that I wanted to work in book publishing.

Bertrice Small is still steaming up the romance market, such as with her upcoming The Captive Heart, winning a lot of acclaim along the way. She is a New York Times best-selling author and the recipient of the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievment Award, among others. She graciously took time to answer three of my questions:


1. You've written about so many interesting and memorable heroes and heroines. Do you have a method for developing fictional characters, and which one of your heroes would you want to meet for lunch?

BS: My characters just come to me. And when they do, I begin to consider who they really are, and then I develop a history for them. With actual historical personages, reading their known history can give you a very good insight into who they are/were. For me there really is no methodology for building characters. They really create themselves if you will open your mind and listen.


2. Could you share the story of your first sale--how long did it take to finish, did your agent shop it around for very long, and did you splurge on anything frivolous with that first advance?

BS: My first sale was in February of 1973. The book was The Kadin [pronounced kah-DEEN]. The publisher who first bought it was G. P. Putnam's Sons in New York City. Unfortunately the young editor got into a firefight several months later with the publisher, and he fired her. She retaliated by taking all her files down to the furnace room of the office building, and burning them. He struck back by cancelling the contracts on the 3 books she had bought and was working on. I was one of those books. However I chose not to accept this turn of events. I called the publisher, and thanks to his sympathetic secretary actually got to talk to him. He said he was given to understand I was a new mother. (Our son, Thomas, had been born the month after I sold the book) I said yes I was a new mother. He replied that his advice to me would be to forget this whole "book business," and be a good mother to my son. I told him writing would make me no less of a good mother, and that I would be in publishing long after he was gone.

I told my then agent, a lovely man, to take the book to Nancy Coffey at Avon Books. But he felt it should be a hard cover, and shopped it around for the next 2 years until finally he agreed to take it to Avon. Nancy Coffey bought it within a month; it was published in February of 1978, five years after it had first been sold. I am one of the original authors known as the "Avon Ladies" who started the revival of the romance genre. And the publisher who told me to give it all up? Well, several years later G. P. Putnam's Sons was sold to a big conglomerate, and he ended up practicing family law in New Jersey. And 30 years later I'm still here, and thankfully going strong. As for that first advance - which I got to keep - all my early advances were used for practical items like bills and shoes for that growing boy.


3. Your career spans decades. Please describe something that's changed in publishing--for good or ill--since you started.

BS: A great deal has changed in 30 years. In the beginning it was historicals and series books. Now the Romance genre has at least a dozen subgenres. Readers from the beginning have been fantastically loyal. But today publishing isn't nearly as generous as it formerly was with regard to promotion and publicity; and if a newbie doesn't perform up to expectations immediately, she isn't given time to grow. The price of books has gone up so much that it has spawned a secondhand market that hurts authors' sales because only the books shipped by the publisher show up as sales. Secondhand sales don't show up, so many readers bound by budgets wait for their favorite author to be sold secondhand. Then the publisher thinks the author isn't selling well anymore, and the author is paid less for the next book, or worse, not given a new contract. It's a very tough business now for everyone involved.

Publishing houses are, with few exceptions, owned by giant conglomerates who want a profitable bottom line. Readers who used to "vet" incoming manuscripts rarely exist in publishing houses. There are fewer and fewer editors. Copy and line editing is farmed out to freelance people who have no vested interest in a book's success. And covers are now computer-generated instead of being painted by wonderful cover artists like Elaine Duillo, Tom Hall, and Robert McGinnis. Yes indeed, a lot has changed in 30 years. Whether it is good or bad I may have an opinion, but I'm not really in a position to judge. What I do know is that the genre continues to grow and to thrive, and has since 1972 when Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's book The Flame and the Flower burst upon us. And that's good enough for me.

Quoteworthy:

"A nation or a society without values produces leaders without character."

--Joseph M. Marshall III, author of the forthcoming The Power of Four (Sterling)

Joseph M. Marshall III is a 2008 PEN Beyond Margins Award winner