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| Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
But stomach ulcers aren't caused by stress, they're caused by Helicobacter pylori -- although it seems like stress might slightly increase your risk of getting them.
Seeing how the book appears to have been first published long AFTER that discovery, I'm a little suspicious regarding the quality of the research.
The guy knows his stuff and can be quite entertaining.
Check his video over on EDGE on TOXO (the cat lady parasite). At the end he mentions an avenue for research he's working on into a possible mechanism by which stress damages chromosomes
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sapolsky09/sapolsky09_index.html
20 minutes well spent.
I agree the Zebra book was a little boring, but it fits right in w/ the recurrent OB theme on status and health
I'd heard that also.
I don't recall to what degree Sapolsky acknowledges it.
Ulcers are definitely not the core topic of the book; it's stress (and its varied effects).
The book both explains historic experiments and changes in scientific consensus, and cites studies properly. Of course I have no way of vouching for his selection of evidence, but there is plenty of it.
I think "slightly" understates the medical consensus that stress is an important cause of ulcers. See http://www.aventinomedicalgroup.com/documents/Stress_PU_JAMA.pdf, which notes that more than 80% of people with H pylori do not develop ulcers.
(I have a personal interest in this topic, because I used to have ulcers, which was cured by taking a combination of antacids and antibiotics to kill off H pylori, but I'm pretty sure that in my case stress contributed to having ulcers in the first place.)
Wow, that's an interesting read! Until I suspected that I had H. Pylori, I believed peptic ulcers were mostly due to stress (apparently I missed the popular consensus memo). After I found out the more common view, I realized that I was still confused; the dismissal of stress given the bacteria seemed unmotivated, given its role in enabling many other diseases. (Turns out, for me, it was stress all along, but probably no ulcers!) Thanks for the article.
I hadn't made that connection, but I do still endorse any of Robert Sapolsky's books. They're pretty much the only ones that I've liked in biology.
I also second Iain M. Banks.