Nicole's Genie In the Bottle

In Dr. Joe Schwarcz’s novel The Genie in the Bottle, he offers a different look on chemistry in everyday life. There are commentaries that discuss the chemistry involved in health, such as how the sun is much more dangerous than we think and that natural weeds, such as Jimson weed can make people delirious. There are also chapters that discuss how food and chemistry are related, such as most diets not making people lose weight and blueberries keeping people younger. The last section of the book involves different topics, such as how toiletries were once thought to be deadly, but it really was a wrongfully informed Internet webpage. There are many fascinating chemistry experiments that can be done to inform the world more on different parts of life.
In The Genie and the Bottle, there is a chapter called “Health Matters”, which has many commentaries on naturally occurring parts of chemistry. In 1903, sunbathing used to be used as a cure for diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, Hodgkin’s disease, and festering wounds. The ozone layer was not being destroyed at the time, and it was recently founded that the sun increased the skin count of vitamin D. However, soon after it was discovered by different scientists that too much sun caused people to get wrinkly skin (or a haggard look), eye cataracts, and skin cancer. Therefore, sun lotion was suggested for people to wear. The SPF number is the amount longer a person could stay in the sun than without sun lotion, so if the SPF is eight, a person can stay in the sun eight times longer. However, sun lotions with an SPF higher than thirty still remains questionable if it protects people more. Another naturally occurring substance in the world that was studied by scientists because it faltered people’s health is Jimson weed. When the people of colonial Jamestown wanted to expand their land so they could grow the very successful crop of cotton, they encountered a problem when camping in the fields, preparing to fight the Native Americans. The colonists put weeds they found in the ground into their food to make it taste better, little did they know they were putting Jimson weed into their meals. The people soon were wandering around the fields laughing, delirious, and slurring their words. The weed was later discovered to having naturally occurring compounds that interfered with the human nervous system. There are many chemical experiments done to inform people about health as there are to discover unknown facts about food.
The chapter “Food Matters”, is similar to health matters, except for it discusses the unproven and proven facts about food. In the commentary about blueberries, it is proven from animal experimenting with rats that fruit and vegetables prevent aging within the body. Rats that were of the human equivalent age of sixty-five have a balance time of five seconds, where as younger rats like the teenage human have a balancing time of thirty seconds. However, since blueberries have the highest anti-oxidant capacity (which have the ability to neutralize aging chemical species), rats were giving blueberry extract, which increased the older rats ability to balance from five to eleven seconds. Also, as people grow older they lose their short-term memory. The rats that ate the blueberry extract were able to get through a maze unlike rats that did not take the blueberries. Therefore, from animal testing it could be proven that fruits and vegetables, because they contain anti-aging chemicals, are able to prevent people from aging. There are around 26,000 diets out in the world, but it is puzzling to why some think that one will work when all the others do not. The different diets do not have the same theories. Some are low in carbohydrates, others low in fat, low in calories, and high in protein. All the companies have different reasons for what their diets contain. However, in the end all diets eventually lower the metabolism’s need for calories, which then makes the small amount of food that dieters eat seem the same as before to the metabolism. Therefore, the only proven way of losing weight is to eat less, avoid fatty and sugary foods, and exercise more than a person is used to. There is also a chapter in Dr. Schwarcz’s called “Silly Stuff” that is about the mistakes made in chemical experiments and wrongfully informed people.
In the chapter “Silly Stuff” in The Genie in the Bottle, there is a commentary about toiletries being deadly. Many shampoos and tile detergents for bathrooms contain molecules like sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS. This molecule became common for using in bathroom substances because it was a good foaming and cleaning agent. SLS was also very quick and effective. However, websites began to post information saying that SLS will make peoples’ hair fall out, if it got in someone’s eye they could have a cataract, and lastly it gave people cancer. These people who wrote this were misinformed, and this is not true about toiletries and bathroom detergents. Therefore, bathroom soaps that contain the molecule of SLS are not dangerous to human’s health proven by chemical experiments.
In conclusion, The Genie and the Bottle discusses different parts of chemistry that are occurring people’s everyday life. Animals can be tested, and experiments can be done to prove different theories about foods, health, and the past. People’s diets and their health does matter, therefore scientists should be listened to because they will have an experiment to back up what they are saying, and prove it true. Dr. Joe Schwarcz’s book contains very informative commentaries about fascinating chemistry that relates to peoples’ everyday life.