Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival

by T.S. Wiley, Bent Formby (Contributor)

When it comes to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and depression, everything you believe is a lie.

With research gleaned from the National Institutes of Health, T.S. Wiley and Bent Formby deliver staggering Americans really are sick from being tired. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and depression are rising in our population. We’re literally dying for a good night’s sleep.

Our lifestyle wasn’t always this way. It began with the invention of the lightbulb.

When we don’t get enough sleep in sync with seasonal light exposure, we fundamentally alter a balance of nature that has been programmed into our physiology since day one. This delicate biological rhythm rules the hormones and neurotransmitters that determine appetite, fertility, and mental and physical health. When we rely on artificial light to extend our day until 11 p.m., midnight, and beyond, we fool our bodies into living in a perpetual state of summer. Anticipating the scarce food supply and forced inactivity of winter, our bodies begin storing fat and slowing metabolism to sustain us through the months of hibernation and hunger that never arrive. Our own survival instinct, honed over millennia, is now killing us.

Wiley and Formby also
-That studies from our own government research prove the role of sleeplessness in diabetes, heart disease, cancer, infertility, mental illness, and premature aging
-Why the carbohydrate-rich diets recommended by many health professionals are not only ridiculously ineffective but deadly
-Why the lifesaving information that can turn things around is one of the best-kept secrets of our day.

Lights Out is one wake-up call none of us can afford to miss.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Nutrition, Science, Fitness, Food, Psychology

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2000

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard about this book from reading Robb Wolf's "Paleo Solution" -- and some of this is nothing new. Firemen, factory workers, nurses, doctors and others who work night shifts are more likely to get cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. I had heard of this -- why I never knew exactly why. Now I know too much.

Pediatricians tell parents children need 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night because they grow when they sleep. Well I had heard this too -- and have tried valiantly to get my kids to sleep the appropriate amount of time. Also there are different kinds of sleep and we all know the REM is more than just a musical band of the '80's.

But what I had not heard that much about is that we heal when we sleep. This makes sense -- when you are sick you try and get your vitamins and try to sleep more and you feel better, usually. When you lack sleep you need more caffeine and sugar to keep your energy up. Snagging sugar at 3 or 4 PM keeps you awake at night and messes up your hormone levels and leads you down the slippery sloop of illness. You need 9 hours of sleep at night to get to the period of sleep in which you heal for long enough to help your body. This I find an impossible task to accomplish -- but I do get 8 hours of sleep after reading this book and anecdotally I can say that I feel better and can control my snacking (well for the most part!) Did I read every end note and check every study -- no. Am I going to look for more books about sleep studies? Yes. The fascinating thing was at a luncheon recently I spoke to a woman who has had breast cancer twice and worked at night as a nurse for 40 years. She recently took part of a sleep study in Stamford and we had a really interesting conversation. So is there something to this? Could be -- I know that after turning off my lights earlier and getting more sleep I am happier and my kids like that!

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forget the haters, this is the ONLY book you will need for advice on leading a healthy lifestyle.

There's HEAPS of gems in here but the best I have found are:

- Get at least 9.5 hours of DARK sleep every night (i.e. when you wake up it should be dark, or dawn. Never sunny. yes, this means you have to go to sleep at like 9. But it is worth it.)

- Cut out all sugar from your diet.

- Cut out all vegetable oils from your diet. Use coconut oil, butter and olive oil instead. Canola (vegetable) oil is toxic.


This should be mandatory reading for all people (I mean it).

[Kim]

Get in your cave. Now.

[Dayna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I wish I could give more stars to. It is fascinating, enlightening. The authors make a lot of valid points, which seem to be backed by a lot of research. There are nearly 100 pages of references listed in the endnotes. That is almost half of the total length of the actual body of work. (Add the suggested reading/bibliography and glossary to the endnotes, and the actual body of work really is only half of the entire book.) There were a couple of instances in which the authors cited something as "proof" of this or that, and I had to raise my eyebrow and wonder. But ... the topics I actually know quite a lot about (diabetes and female hormones & cycles) are presented accurately. So, I know that the authors have their facts straight on at least two topics mentioned in Lights Out. This is a bigger deal to me than it sounds like. Many science/health/diet books do not accurately or thoroughly describe the differences between Type I and Type II diabetes, if they note a difference at all, and so the fact that this book gets it right does impress me at least a little bit. All of that said, this book was not written well. I actually made a note at one point that says, "Who edited this?!" Some of the paragraphs seem to have been written backwards. A lot of the metaphors are confusing. The attempt to write a lot of the scientific mumbo-jumbo in laymen's terms is not pulled off very well. And while I found most of the sarcasm to be hilarious, I can see how it would annoy people. Which brings me to another note I wrote in the margins, "Note to self: If ever writing in nonfiction, do not make a lot of references to current popular culture. It dates the work, terribly." Sarcasm seems to be a tool that science writers use to make a dry, heavy, or complicated subject readable. It works sometimes. The references to pop culture seem to be an attempt to make the reader relate to the author's approach to the subject. That might work ... the year it's published. But this book isn't even ten years old yet, and it sounds so old (or just plain irrelevant, to some readers). That's unfortunate, because this is not a popular science or popular medicine kind of book. Really, what it comes down to is common sense. Get plenty of sleep in a cool, dark place. Eat real food in season. It's good stuff. I just wish it was written in a better fashion. Either way, I still highly recommend it. As one reviewer said, get in your cave!

[Diana Sandberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very frustrating book to read. The author tends to ramble; he also makes a great many statements that he doesn’t support with anything other than the power of his own assertion. But then, he does also provide references for some statements. I should say that he does have quite a lot of end notes after the text, grouped by chapter. There are, in fact, pages of them for each chapter. They are not, however, connected by footnote or in any other way to specific remarks in the text, so it’s actually more trouble than it could possibly be worth to try to sort through them all for what might or might not be the reference to a particular statement. Bah.

I did also detect at least one statement that I was able to determine was not supported by evidence. He talked about the famous Japanese sweet-potato-washing macaques and claimed that once 100 of them had learned the technique in the usual way, all the rest, including those on other islands, suddenly knew how to wash sweet potatoes. My own internet search quickly turned up an analysis (http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC09/Mye...) that discussed this bit of folklore and revealed that, although this version has been widely propagated, the original research made no such assertion.

Even so, there were a few things in the book I found worth having read. One was his explanation of why sleep is so useful for healing: the body produces melatonin during sleep (or during the dark, he says one and then the other), and melatonin, among other effects, stimulates the production of white blood cells and t-cells. Ok, that works for me. Cool.

But most of this stuff is hogwash. He baldly asserts, for example, that cardio exercise is basically bad for you because the body’s systems interpret all that running as stressful, i.e., being chased, and therefore cortisol levels spike and lots of cortisol is very bad for you. Again, he may have cited in the endnotes something that supports the exercise = cortisol thing, but I couldn’t tell. And I don’t see why running couldn’t just as well be interpreted as chasing something, i.e., hunting, such as our revered ancestors did all the time.

Also, he harps constantly on how every change since, literally, the discovery of fire has been a huge disaster for humans. Yeah, right. We are, according to him, dying of our artificiality, but he doesn’t comment on the vastly increased lifespan of modern vs. Paleolithic humans. Pfft.

[Caterina Fake]

Read on the recommendation of my friend Linda Stone, a polemical book about how the government in by both endorsing a high carb, low fat diet (you know the famous "food pyramid"?) and hiding the truth about sleep (we need a minimum of 9.5 hours of sleep for 7 months of the year) has made America the fattest, unhealthiest and richest society in the world.

[Carrie Kellenberger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival was one of the first books I read about the power of sleep. I read it when it first came out in 2002 after it was suggested to me by a friend. I finished it again recently and the information in this book is still as relevant as it was back then.

This was the book that hammered home how important sleep is and how sick the majority of people are from being exhausted. We are dying for sleep. I've read countless books since reading this book in my own personal pursuit for sleep and I still keep coming back to the facts listed in this book from the National Institutes of Health.

Diabetes, cancer, depression and autoimmune illnesses were all listed as 'on the rise' in 2001 when this book was published, and T.S. Wiley's predictions have proved to be true.

The theory presented in Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival is that our lives changed drastically with the invention of the lightbulb. Artificial light allowed humans to become more active at times of the day and night when we would naturally be sleeping.

Before the invention of the lightbulb, we got up in the morning and went to bed with the rising and setting of the sun, but in today's world, we stay up far past what our bodies are meant to do.

We are relying on artificial light until 11pm at night or later, but our biological rhythms haven't had a chance to catch up. We fool our bodies into thinking it's summer year-round. We spent our time at the gym working out until late at night or go to bars with pulsing lights and music that aren't things our bodies were naturally adapted to.

Consequently, statistics have shown that this lack of sleep that we all suffer from results in all sorts of problems, including heart problems, diabetes, cancer, infertility, mental illness, autoimmune illnesses, sleep disorders, and much more.

Wiley also writes a lot about why diets that are rich in carbohydrates are ineffective and bad for our health, and what we can do to turn things around to improve our health.

[Jessica Kuzmier · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. There was a lot of speculation, diversions, and distractions that made up the body of material. I wound up scanning half the book and found myself reading the same exact premises twenty pages later.

The book’s one strength was its original postulation, which suggested all the artificial light that comprises our modern lifestyle has made us hopelessly out of sync with human physiology’s natural circadian rhythms and we should sleep as much as possible once the sun goes down for the night.

However, instead of focusing on what factors affect this sleep and making a good night’s rest the overriding focal point, I read snarky and repetitive stories about how eating carbohydrates is a no-no for your sex life and apples in winter cause diabetes, vegetarians are aberrations, aerobic exercise is for ‘evolutionary losers’, and conflicting hypotheses regarding endocrinology, paleontology, prehistory, anthropology and other attempts at what I assume was intended as pithiness that came off more obnoxious than anything else.

It’s a shame, because this general premise of how artificial light affects the human body has gained ground as the smartphone and social media have taken hold, and as the book was written in 2000 could have been a prophetic warning shot. Their research that one should sleep in a darkened room has been generally accepted as mainstream, and it’s a shame that this book could not have expounded upon this scientific finding instead of going down the rabbit hole into chaos like it did.

[Amelia]

I can't say I read the whole book, but I read enough. I flipped it open at random in the middle of the night last night, and found myself in the chapter that deals with cancer. The author writes that wild animals don't get cancer. Granted, this book was written about 20 years ago, but even then I think they knew that wild animals do get cancer. I went on to skim the last two chapters and the first chapters, but I think that was plenty.

So for scientific credibility, T.S. Wiley ad Brent Formby step out on the wrong foot. They are paranoid about government cover-ups and cherry pick data with the best of them. They're devotees of the low carb/Atkins diet and pooh-poohs aerobic exercise in favor of yoga and Pilates (I have nothing against yoga and Pilates, but getting your heart rate up is also a good idea).

For every sensible piece of advice there were three or four that seemed absurd or counterproductive. Sure, refined carbohydrates aren't great, and fake fats and sugars are worse, but coffee isn't all that great either, especially when the whole premise of the book is that people should be getting more sleep. They advocate eating carbohydrates only in the summer and eating mostly protein in the winter.

In short, it is not worth wading through the nonsense in this book to get to the nuggets of wisdom. I picked it up because it was mentioned in another book that was at least better written, but I think I've had enough of it now.

[Gerardo Avelar · Rating 2 out of 5]

The scientific evidence that sleep and circadian rhythms are very important to keep or improve human health, is overwhelming, that is a fact, nevertheless, this book fails at the attempt of bringing to the public the big picture on this matter.

The authors made up a "fantasy" story about circadian/food patterns and human health, by forcing some scientific/historical facts on their own distorted version of the "real story"; made up a "fantastical story" is not bad "per se", actually is a pretty common way to write an otherwise complicated story in many popular books, however, if you are going to do this, you still should respect the core of the story (or in this case, the scientific evidence) and keep some objectivity to make sure the readers are getting accurate information, but unfortunately this book is not the case, the story is so twisted that is not reliable at all (but of course, part of it can still be true), and furthermore, while trying to write an accessible story, they overcomplicate it (considering the few things actually described, this book should be way shorter than it is). Ironically, one of the chapters of this book is called "THE BEST PLACE TO HIDE A LIE IS BETWEEN TWO TRUTHS..." (capital letters in the original), which is exactly what the authors make, including some "truths" to hide his own lie (the overall story).

Also, this book has more than 100 pages of references/bibliography, this could seems like something nice, but is almost completely useless because:
-The authors don't include proper citation to the references (which are separated by chapters and ordered by author's last name), so, is really hard to find the proper reference of any claim.
-"Missing references": ironically, despite the high number of references, some works which are directly mentioned in the book are not included in the reference section.
-"Misinterpretation of scientific evidence": scientific papers and works have always limitations, so you have to be careful when reading them and not conclude anything beyond the results of the experiment are showing (which is harder than it sounds); but like many "pop science" books, the authors of "Lights out" seem don't care about that, misinterpret the evidence and just write about "the truth" they want to tell, no matter how far it is from the actual scientific evidence (which, because of its limitations, is by itself far from the "real truth").
-In the paperback edition, this part should be replaced by a web link to a page/doc with the references, because just how it is, is just a waste of space and paper.

And don't misunderstanding me, this book still has some good points, i.e., just talking about a very important, but neglected, issue like sleep and circadian rhythms (both from human health and evolutionary perspective standpoints) is very good; also they include some good advices about how people can improve them (but like the rest of the book, they include some "bad" or unscientific advices) and, overall, maybe after reading this book people just realize that the press and even official health government agencies are not entirely reliable in regards to health messages, either because they lie (specially the press) or just because they also misinterpret the scientific literature (and obviously, this book isn't the solution neither, actually, this is a serious problem of the health system, up-to-date science take so long time to reach not only the population, but also the health professionals as well, problem amplified on this era of the internet, which is full of false information, so people don't get the best information, and this kind of books, while trying to help, actually can be contributing to increase the confusion of the public and healthcare professionals).

[ryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

there are a lot of problems with this book. it sits very squarely on the scare-tactics-and-hyperbole side of pop-health writing. it's hyperbolic, overconfident, imprecise. the authors ruthlessly hate on veg*ns, and while i actually think they're mostly right about their reasoning there, they present it in such a way that it will only ever appeal to people who already agree with them and don't care about even attempting to persuade or compromise, only to bludgeon. the X-phile backdrop and the dated pop culture references wear out their bemusement factor early, the quantum/fractal/string theory claims are needless and cast doubt on the authors' critical thinking skills . . . and then there's the phrase 'purported "global warming"', which speaks for itself.

yet. another author, in reference to this, describes the book as "irascible in tone", but goes on to say that it "assembles more information than any other source about our biological addiction to artificial light". i reluctantly, half-heartedly agree with that assessment. i would really like to see another stab at a book of this nature, outlining the best current knowledge about the consequences of acircadian & aseasonal living, connections between sleep debt and hormonal dysregulation / insulin resistance / sugar cravings / etc. but i'd like it to be done with a little more restraint and a lot less conspiracizing.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lightbulb is why you're fat.

The lightbulb creates an artificial summer in our minds and fools our bodies into believing it's summer, which means we think we need to eat lots of food, even if we're not hungry, in anticipation of the upcoming winter.

Our obesity is killing us, but it's also nature's plan in that we're supposed to die off because of population growth. This scare-tactic book offers tons in the way of fear-mongering but very little of what I call "practical advice." For example, you should only eat what's available locally and in season, carrying Barbara's Kingsolver's rules in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" to an extreme. In winter, you should only eat what would legitimately be available 150 years ago. Meat, fat, real butter, and root vegetable. No fruit, no leafy greens, no carbs.

I can't quite fall into line with Weston A Price's food guidelines, but if you're trying to follow those, this book will make sense to you.

The author also says you should rarely eat fruit and only during the peak summer months. Leaving aside the whole carbon footprint thing (which I do take seriously, despite my flippancy here) - who would want to live in a world without fruit? Kiwis, strawberries, raspberries, apples, bananas, tangerines? Mangos? I need my mangoes!

A few other quirky things: the best time to get pregnant is August, so you have a baby born in May, right when food will be abundant again. Yet October 5th is the most popular birthday in the world, meaning there's a lot of drunken sex on New Year's Eve.

And you need 9.5 hours of sleep a night? What?! According to the authors, you should go to bed soon after the sun goes down and get up right after sunrise. I probably would be a lot healthier with 9.5 hours of sleep, even if I would be fat from all the bacon and real butter I'd be eating. But I'd also be boring. No wine, no cookies, no pineapple.

An interesting book to discuss, but not one for me to follow.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

No book in recent memory has had such a profound impact on my daily habits. This book completely changed my relationship to sleep, light, and sugar. The premise is almost deceptively simple: as humans we're not designed to be exposed to endless light year round and such exposure sets off a cascade of hormonal reactions in our bodies which have a profound impact on our food cravings (sugar), immunity, mental health, and well-being. The pages are teaming with information (almost information overload!), and I love that nearly half the book contains citations to the studies/information discussed.

I wanted to give this 5/5 stars, but unfortunately I had to knock one star off for tone. I'll put it this way - the authors' writing style is not for everyone. I would have preferred the authors presented the info without the sarcasm or snarky asides. Here is an example:

"Are you a fat-free vegan with an active lifestyle and a cellular phone who loves animals and networking on the Internet? We bet you're not alone. In this sad, ass-backwards world, many people have been convinced by factions of medicine and certainly the media that the moral and physiological high road leads not only to political correctness, but also to social attractiveness and good health. Not even."

Language like the above distracted from an otherwise incredible book, which really has changed my way of living. I'm eating dinner by candlelight, skipping all desserts, going to sleep by 9:30 pm, up at dawn, and I've never felt better!"

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book, though some of the underlying philosophy (as opposed to the actual science) is alarmist, bordering on tinfoil-hat squad conspiracy theory fervency.

As a rule, people who have electricity don't get enough sleep. What sleep we do get is generally of poor quality, and can easily be disrupted by things both obvious (excess light in the room, unpredictable schedules, caffeine, too much screen time late at night, eating too soon before bedtime) and less obvious (the very common, and easily remedied, magnesium deficiency, excess light exposure overall).

The authors lean a bit toward doomsaying on the subject of electricity - it's doomed us to a life of poor sleep, declining health, increasing obesity, and premature death, and there's nothing we can do about it - which might put off the unwary to the point that the really excellent and interesting Sciency Stuff might get dismissed along with the eyebrow-raising alarmist stuff.

But there's a message here, and it's that sleep is important for good health, and that if you want to improve your health, you could do worse than to examine your sleep, and apply a few simple strategies to improve its quality, duration, and seasonality. It will at least improve your functioning and your mood; it could (the authors suggest) actually save your life.

Definitely worth the read.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book 5 stars because it has really made me think about the way I'm treating my body. You always hear from people that you should get more sleep but I'm willing to bet most people have just a rough understanding of why. A couple reasons why this book might be tough to read:

- The writing style has been commented on by other readers, the author can sometimes be offensive or crude but honestly I think that everyone should be able to look past this. It could have been done a different way but with absolutely no "comments" it would read like a textbook which is no fun..

- You will probably be offended more than once. This book makes some serious recommendations about the way you should sleep and also eat, recommendations that you will probably be mad at because you haven't been doing them your whole life (or possibly any of it!) Just take them with an open mind, there are 100 pages of footnotes at the end of the book to back it up!

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lights out addresses the subject of the harm Americans are doing to their health by sleeping too little, sleeping in incomplete darkness, and eating as if summer went on all year long. It is not a pretty picture. Because the body is complex, it is also a rather complex picture. The authors give a great deal of scientific evidence to back up their assertions (half the book is bibliography) and they make a good case for getting more sleep in a well-darkened room. My strongest reason for not giving this book more stars is that I did not feel after reading it that I had any kind of idea of how long it might take to correct the damage done by chronic sleeplessness or what changes might be expected in one's health. Still, lack of sleep seems to be a subject to which little or no attention has been given, and as sleep is vital to our well being, the book fills a previously neglected niche.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot till my husband pointed out T.S. Wiley is a fraud (which he did as soon as I finished this 300+ page book)! However, there are nuggets of useful suggestions in this book like we all need to get more sleep and staying away from lighted computer screens/tvs before going to bed help us sleep. But some of the stuff she says sounds extremely wacky- stay up all day in the summer and sleep all winter? Sure that may have been the lifestyle of some European pre-historic peoples but what about people who lived near the equator? Overall, this book should be taken with an extremely large grain of salt.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. I have a high tolerance for bad writing and typically finish every book that I start, but this one was so terrible that I gave up. I kept hoping that Wiley would present a clear claim at some point and then review the research supporting and contradicting it, but that still hadn't happened a quarter of the way in, and flipping ahead didn't give me hope that it ever would. Instead, I got a stream of paragraphs jumping from Thomas Edison to stress hormones to Daisyworld to string theory and so on, punctuated with cringe-inducing sentences telling me that our lives depend on it and that we're literally dying for a good night's sleep.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book makes an overwhelming case that modern technology is disrupting humanity's sleep. They really flog it way beyond necessity. I can sum their arguments as such:
- If you need an alarm to wake up in the morning, then what you really need is more sleep.
- Sleep somewhere that's as dark and quiet as possible.
- Try to limit your exposure to strong lighting before you go to bed.
- Some people need more sleep, some less. Get as much as your body needs, don't rely on some other made-up statistic to tell you.
- Don't eat refined sugar. Avoid caffeine and alcohol.

[Dane Findley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems this book did not get the respect it deserved. It's one of the few books on fat loss and health-improvement that truly contains new information. My sense was that the book's findings -- with its hard-to-hear research and uneasy answers -- are why it wasn't a bigger bestseller. Still, I found it very helpful.

[Петър Стойков · Rating 2 out of 5]

Поредната шарлатанска книга, която се опитва да ни убеди, че е открила тайната на здравето.

Половината от обема й се състои от бележки и референции, което си е подозрително само по себе си, а става още по-подозрително като видиш, че референциите като цяло не подкрепят това, което пише в нея, а просто ей така са "цитирани" за да предадат тежест на казаното.

[Sergei Moska · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter, utter crap. One of the worst books I have ever read on any subject. It's a shame, because the thesis is interesting. The problem is the writing. You need to read it to appreciate how annoying it is.

[Gord Hicks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Slow. Judging and a really antique way of thinking. Not sure if the author was angry at someone when he wrote it but needs to present a less negative standpoint

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, this book is incredibly outdated, not due to its science or theories, necessarily, but mostly because of its societal references. It should either be retired (read: taken out of print) or updated, and I'd vote for retired because of the other reasons I'm going to explain.

It's really hard to get past the snarky and sarcastic tone from which the book's authors can't seem to escape. This is unfortunate, because I think there's some interesting science here that would be much easier to consider if I didn't constantly feel as if the authors were calling me (and everyone else) an idiot. When the importance of your message is lost in how you're conveying that message, you've got a problem.

The book also doesn't know what it wants to be. The essential premise is that the advent of mechanisms that sustain light beyond the natural rising and setting of the sun and in conjunction with the changing seasons is killing us through a lack of sleep. Interesting, and probably very relevant. But the book then spends most of its time criticizing modern medicine and prescribing essentially a keto diet (before the keto diet was popular) as the remedy to most of our modern physical maladies. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with any of the authors' premises and think there's a lot to consider here. But the constant sarcasm, insults, meaningless metaphors, and outdated references make this a very hard book to read.

Finally, there are nearly 100 pages of notes at the end of this book. However, none of those notes are referenced anywhere in the first 200 pages of the book. This makes distinguishing scientific facts from the authors' hypotheses difficult, and any attempt to find the source information the authors are referencing in the chapters would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Skip this one and check out any of the much better, more current books on longevity, low-carb diets, and sleep.

[Grazyna Nawrocka · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sarcastic and humorous tone of the book is very unusual in science writing. It feels very personal, but also helps to read through boring details.

The authors claim that the main reason for cancer, heart attack, obesity, etc. is sleep depravation. The lack of sleep, brought about by electric light, causes hunger, which we satisfy eating carbohydrates. Our hormone production,operations of immune system, neurotransmitters' release, microbiome depend on and are regulated by light.

Although we eat low-fat and low-cholesterol diet, obesity, disease and death numbers grow. Only carbohydrates can turn into cholesterol. Storing fat is possible only if insulin receptors are open, and only eating sugar can cause it. When one is lacking in sleep serotonin that regularly would be turned into melatonin (powerful antioxidant), remains unchanged, which causes depression and heart disease. Eating carbs also accelerates aging. Experiencing light during the night diminishes melatonin secretion and increases growth of tumors.

Things that are important to me personally are that processed food, including low-fat, contain high fructose corn syrup, which is basically sugar. It's smart to always check item's ingredients. I found bias against exercising (it's supposed to cause a heart attack) in the book very funny. My experience knowing many elder (over 60) hikers, who are extremely fit and healthy contradicts such ideas, and makes me question authors' credibility. Yet, most of the ideas from book seem sound. End notes listing bibliography comprise 1/3 of the book (over 100 pages), so perhaps most of it (except perhaps for evil exercising) is confirmed by the other sources.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

The good: There is a useful basic concept here, which is that humans evolved with circadian rhythms that match the Earth's rotation, and that we need to be in darkness - and to sleep when it's dark - for fully half of our lives, because certain hormones and bodily functions kick in during sleep/darkness that are necessary to maintain our health. So being exposed to artificial light when it's dark outside, or forcing ourselves to stay up late or wake up super early, is bad for us. I buy that.

The bad: This book is written and structured so, so poorly. It's rambling, condescending, sometimes too jargon-y without proper definitions/explanations and at other times too quippy and informal, and overall it reads like the authors wrote it while they were incredibly high. "You're in big trouble", "Wake up and smell the Slim-Fast", "Everything you've grown up believing is a lie", "God is in the molecules", "You're probably going to die...soon", "Bet that was a shock", "Getting the sordid picture?" - I mean at least half the book is intense dramatic statements like this, with a handful of actually interesting tidbits of information per chapter. There are tons and TONS of references, but they're all clumped together in the back of the book and not linked to any specific paragraphs or statements in the book proper. The same points are repeated over and over, and this easily could have been about a quarter as long.

I'm glad I was exposed to the general concept, and have made changes in my sleep habits as a result that I think will be good for me. But man, reading this was torture.

[Leslie Portu · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We're dying today because we've lost the faith. Man always looked to the heavens to decide his fate. Doctors and medicine men always looked to the heavens to decide YOUR fate. Everyone knew how it worked. The very word 'influenza' referred to the 'influence' the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars had on our health. We always knew that there were certain rules for staying alive in harmony with all other living things--how much you could eat, how long you stay awake, and how much stress you could endure. In our hubris, we've flaunted the rules.
We used to KNOW better."

Written in 2000, this book is even more relevant today than it was then. We have strayed so very far from what is natural and beneficial for our minds and bodies. A frighteningly large number of Americans are sick--both young and old. Sick with anxiety, depression, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and dementia.
Our metabolisms are broken.
But, hey, have no fear! Big Pharma & Big Food to the rescue! Pop some pills. Wolf down your plant-based, whole grain, low fat muffin with a Jamba juice smoothie chaser (packing a whopping 63g of sugar!). Work hard all day (sitting in a chair under florescent lights). Dash from the office to the gym treadmill (more florescent lights) to burn off every last calorie. Your day ends with nightly news highlighting lockdowns, hate crimes, global warming. A Netflix marathon follows. By the time you actually close your eyes it's after 11PM and the sun has set long ago.
Wake up to the alarm and do it all again.
Is it any wonder we're sick...?

[Jordana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The underlying points of this book and its emphasis on the importance of sleep were sound: "If you want to control your appetite, you must sleep as many hours as you would in nature according to seasonal light exposure". However, I was not a fan of its hyperbolic and sensationalistic tone - it may have been intended as humorous, but came off as condescending. It could have used further editing (I found a few spelling mistakes; the author's notes used the book's working title instead of the published title) and used too many examples of reductio ad absurdum. It would have been helpful to have numbered endnotes.

[Alex Egg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unscientific empirical observations on the plague of modern life. Interesting arguments which can lead you to a more in depth exploration our habits which, the author argues are not natural, but rather are product of modern life. Things like the advent of indoor lighting, year-round produce and high sugar diets may cause your body to stay in a state of "perpetual summer" which the author posits can be an explanation for a lot of the woes of modern western life: diabetes, cancer, obesity.

[Brian R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating

The tone may be off putting to some, but I found it an enjoyable read. Obviously carbohydrates are killing us. That much is very clear. I hadn’t thought of the connection with artificial light before and it’s certainly interesting. Sleep is clearly important for health but I’m not 100% sold on the causal link to carbohydrate craving. That’s the one weak link I see in an otherwise fascinating and well-spun theory.