irreplaceable you
Mary Roach one world publications (UK); WW Norton (USA)

Our bodies comprise various soft, hard, and intricate components. What should we do when these components fail or don’t meet our needs? Medicine provides several solutions, including dentures, skin, heart, and hair transplants, but don’t expect an instant replacement.

In Alternative You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, popular science author Mary Roach explores the most intriguing historical and current efforts to repair, replace, or enhance our body parts.

These efforts range from dentures designed like mouth piercings, lab-grown anuses, to gene-edited pig hearts, each delivered with a humor that had me laughing, wincing, and holding my breath throughout the pages.

Roach, drawn to the “human element of exploration,” shares engaging tales as she travels the globe to meet surgeons, scientists, patients, and other individuals at the forefront of body modification.

Her bold and often cheeky questions animate these encounters. For example, during a dinner discussion about gut-derived vaginas with her surgeon, she mentions that intestinal tissue generally contracts to aid in food movement.

“That could be advantageous for partners who have penises, right?” she quips. “It’s not overly aggressive,” the surgeon replies, sipping his Chianti.

Roach embraces self-experimentation, visiting a hair transplant surgeon and persuading him to relocate hair follicles from her head to another body area. Her goal? To gaze in wonder at the few long strands that might sprout on her legs. While the transplant fails, she quickly dives into the trials of growing hair from stem cells. Spoiler: we’re not there yet.

One significant innovation Roach covers is ostomy, where surgeons create openings in the abdomen for waste drainage into an external pouch. She speaks with individuals who use stoma bags due to conditions like Crohn’s disease and colitis, which can lead to inflammation and frequent bowel movements, complicating life outside the home. Roach highlights the importance of reducing stigma around ostomies and discusses the remarkable technology supporting this procedure.

As expected from a book on body part replacement, there’s a chapter dedicated to 3D printed organs. Roach approaches this topic thoughtfully, noting that it’s not merely about feeding cells into a printer. Most organs consist of multiple cell types that must be arranged with precise specifications, and printed tissues often lack the authentic properties that remain elusive for researchers.

I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the human body. However, be advised—some vivid surgical descriptions are included. (If that’s not your cup of tea, feel free to skip the next paragraph.) At one point, Roach compares the tubes of fat and blood pulled from patients to “raspberry smoothies.” Additionally, when a leg implant is affixed to the femur, it sounds like “tent stakes collapsing.”

Such sensory details might not appeal to everyone, but for those willing to confront the raw, sinewy, and delicate reality of our bodies, this book serves as a profound reminder of our complexity and depth. I certainly walked away feeling grateful for all that I have.