Editor's Note: In this segment of One-on-One, Medscape Editor-in-Chief Eric J. Topol, MD, sits down with journalist and best-selling author A.J. Jacobs, who discusses the art of immersive storytelling. From his quest to "drop dead healthy" to a year of "living Biblically," Jacobs explains how he's developed a knack for becoming the punch line to his comedic writing, and why he’s planning the “world’s biggest” family reunion.
Who Knew? Jobs Are Scarce for Philosophers
Eric J. Topol, MD: Hello. I'm Eric Topol, editor-in-chief of Medscape. Joining me today is A.J. Jacobs, one of my favorite authors. We are going to talk about his work, some of which is on the topics of health and medicine, and some of which is way beyond that. This is part of our series in which we talk to some of the most interesting people influencing the world of health and medicine.
A.J., it's wonderful to have you here. I want to start with a little bit about your background. You went to Brown University?
A.J. Jacobs: I went to Brown and I graduated with a degree in philosophy. And there weren't a lot of jobs for philosophers at Fortune 500 companies, so I decided to become a writer. I was very fortunate in being able to scratch out a living as a writer.
Dr Topol: When you were in college or before that, had you done a lot of writing?
Mr Jacobs: I had done some. I wrote for my college and high school newspapers. Writing was almost by default because I had no other skills. But I could half-form a sentence on the page, so that was my only option.
Dr Topol: When was your first break?
Mr Jacobs: I worked at a tiny newspaper in California that doesn't even exist anymore.
Dr Topol: I thought you were from New York.
Mr Jacobs: Yes, but I moved out to California. I'm not sure why. It was a terrible career move because all of the publishing was in New York, so again I got very lucky.
Dr Topol: You were just playing hard-to-get.
Mr Jacobs: Maybe that's it. I created a mystique. I went on to work for Entertainment Weekly, and then I worked for Esquire. I have been at Esquire for 14 years.
Dr Topol: I sent you an email after you had done an interview with Chrissy Teigen. What was it like to interview a supermodel?
Mr Jacobs: She is wonderful and she is hilarious. I tell my wife this, so I'm not speaking out of school, but she gave me one of the top 10 moments of my life. During the interview we were talking about religion, and she said, "Have you ever read a book called The Year of Living Biblically? (Simon & Schuster, 2007). I said, "I have read that because I wrote it." She may have been prompted by her publicist [to say that]; that's very possible. But either way, it was one of the highlights of my life.
Learning It All -- The Hard Way
Dr Topol: You have had four New York Times best sellers. And it started with The Know-It-All (Simon & Schuster, 2004), right?
Mr Jacobs: That's right. That book was about trying to learn everything in the world. When I was a kid, my dad started to read the Encyclopedia Britannica; he didn't quite finish because he had a life. He made it to the middle of the letter B, so I thought I would try to finish what he began and remove that black mark from our family history.
And I will say, because this is a medical show, that I learned some fascinating medical facts. One was that, in 1896, the Bayer aspirin company patented a very effective cough suppressant. It was called heroin, and it turned out to have some side effects, so they had to take it off the market. But that was a lesson in unintended consequences. That's the way science works.
It was fascinating to read the history of medicine because it really gives you some perspective.
Dr Topol: So you read the 32 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica to be the smartest person in the world. By the way, did you invent stunt journalism?
Mr Jacobs: Oh, no. You probably know about [the late] George Plimpton, [journalist and co-founder of The Paris Review]. He is one of my heroes. As a journalist, he joined a professional football team. He got hit in the face by a heavyweight fighter. I love that idea. I don't like the idea of getting hit in the face, but I like the idea of putting yourself in the middle of the story and seeing what happens.
Following the Ten Commandments and Then Some
Dr Topol: First you were the smartest guy in the world, and then you were the most religious guy. That was The Year of Living Biblically. Was that your second book?
Mr Jacobs: That was my second book, which I wrote because I grew up with no religion at all. I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian—not very. But I wanted to learn about religion. I have a kid, so I thought one way to do it would be to dive in and live by all the rules ofthe Bible: followingthe Ten Commandments, such as love your neighbor, but also following the rules you don't think about. The Bible says you can't shave the corners of your beard. I didn't know where the corners were, so I just let the whole thing grow and I had the ZZ Top look.
Dr Topol: You looked like Moses.
Mr Jacobs: I was very Mosaic—it's true. The Bible had some interesting health advice as well. The apostle Paul recommends, in one of his letters to his disciples, to drink red wine for stomach ailments. He doesn't mention resveratrol, which is probably a good thing because those studies are a little shaky. But even back then, they were pro-wine.
Shrimp Forks and Treadmill Desks
Dr Topol: The book you wrote that has the most relevance in the medical health world is called Drop Dead Healthy (Simon & Schuster, 2012). When I read it—and that's when I first got to know your writing style—I would just break into hysteria. What was it like to do all of these incredibly healthy things?
Mr Jacobs: It came about because about 4 years ago I was in terrible shape. I wasn't traditionally fat; I was what they call "skinny fat." I looked like a snake that had swallowed a goat. My wife said, "You have to get in shape. I don't want to be a widow in my 40s." I thought, all right, if I'm going to do this, I'll take the same approach that I did with the Bible. I'm going to try everything out. I'm going to test all the medical advice I can find and see what works for me and what doesn't. That's what I did. I revamped my eating and exercise, my stress level, sleep, sex life, posture—the whole thing.
Dr Topol: Did you write the whole book on a treadmill desk?
Mr Jacobs: Yes, I did. The whole book. It took me about 1200 miles. That's one of the few things that I have kept. I can't keep everything because my whole day was taken up with healthy behaviors. But I really do write on the treadmill. I am a big fan. It keeps me awake. That's the first thing. And there are studies. I don't know how reliable they are, but there are studies that say exercising raises the level of serotonin in your brain.
Dr Topol: And one of your tricks for losing weight is to eat only with a shrimp fork?
Mr Jacobs: That was surprisingly effective, but I have abandoned that, to be totally honest.
Dr Topol: It wasn't durable?
Mr Jacobs: The idea was that you eat less if you eat on smaller plates. There have been studies about that. I actually used a fork that belonged to my 2-year-old, not a shrimp fork. That was a big lesson. I don't trust willpower. I have no willpower. Some people might have it but I have close to zero. The best way to act in a healthy way is to control my environment beforehand and treat myself like a lab rat. So if I use smaller plates, then I'm more likely to eat smaller amounts.
Dr Topol: You visited a lot of the gurus in the field during this expedition. Can you tell us about that?
Mr Jacobs: I learned the value of a second opinion, and a third opinion, and a hundredth opinion.
Fighting Alzheimer's With the 'Biggest' Family Reunion
Dr Topol: You encountered a lot in the book. It was absolutely hilarious. Now your next big project is perhaps the most ambitious of all. You are bringing the world's largest family together. Is that right?
Mr Jacobs: That's right, and you are involved.
Dr Topol: This is real; it's [based on] genetics and the whole area of the science of how we are related.
Mr Jacobs: That came about because I got a letter, out of the blue, about 6 months ago from a man who said that he was my 12th cousin and that he had a family tree with 80,000 people on it. At first I thought, when is he going to ask me to wire $10,000 to this Nigerian bank? But it turned out that he was for real, and he had this huge family tree. We are in the era now, because of DNA and the Internet, of [designing] these massive mega-family trees. They're insane; they're huge. So the family tree that I am in right now is the biggest one ever. It's literally 80 million people in 160 countries.
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Cite this: Eric J. Topol, A.J. Jacobs. New Year's Diet? One Author Has Tried Them All - Medscape - Jan 06, 2015.
