Drawing from Scientific American's "Fact or Fiction" and "Strange But True" columns, we've selected fifty-eight of the most surprising, fascinating, useful, and just plain wacky topics confronted by our writers over the years.

    Richard Furman is a vascular surgeon with decades of experience. But his personal journey into living younger longer began with a tight pair of pants. Rather than go up a size, he decided to get back to his ideal weight. He changed how he ate. He began to exercise regularly. He started intensive research into what it takes to prevent the kind of conditions his patients had. What he found changed his life . . . and will change yours.Do you want to be healthy and active all of your life?Do you want to enjoy not just long life but quality life?Do you want to be there—wholly there—for your family and friends?Aging is inevitable, but heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, stroke, erectile dysfunction, and other age- and obesity-related problems are not! Simple, sustainable changes you make today can mean the difference between enjoying time with friends and family, and wasting it in doctors’ offices and hospitals.

    The author, who has the condition, looks at how it affects children and adolescents and explores pain management, pregnancy, physical and psychological aspects, and how it widely affects dancers and other performance artists. New material includes:changes in terminologyinformation on how osteopathy and nutrition can helppsychological approaches beyond CBThow to deal with professionals what to expect from support groups and rehabilitation programmesThis new edition will be a must for anybody who suffers, or suspects they might be suffering from, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (Hypermobility Type) and provides everything needed to enjoy a fulfilling life with this complex condition. It will also be of interest to their families and friends, and professionals working with Hypermobility Type EDS.

    The completely updated and expanded third edition of this landmark guide brings this bestselling medical home reference into the nineties. It is simply the most useful, comprehensive home health reference ever published, brought to you by the nation's most respected medical authority.This lavishly illustrated volume, prepared by a a team of over forty distinguished medical authorities under the direction of the American Medical Association, incorporates the most significant trend in health care: wellness and preventive medicine. It covers the sweeping revolution in technology and puts more emphasis on the reader as a health-care consumer. It also updates the information on the most prominent health issues of the nineties, including Alzheimer's disease, AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, stress, death and dying, drug abuse, and more.The book is divided into four sections for easy reference. Part I, "Your Healthy body, " contains specific tips you can use for preventive self-care and encourages you to adopt a more healthy lifestyle, with advice on diet, exercise, losing weight, reducing stress, and stopping smoking. A full-color atlas of the human body shows you the location and name of almost every organ, nerve, bone, and muscle.Part II, "Symptoms and Self-Diagnosis, " provides the clearest, most reliable aid for recognizing medical problems ever published for the layperson. Over 165 pages of unique diagnostic symptom charts with clear questions and yes/no answers will help you track down what a particular symptom may signify and advise you whether it is something you may safely treat yourself, a condition requiring a doctor's visit, or an emergency requiring immediate medical attention.Consistently voted the book's most popular feature by readers' polls, these charts alone can save you time and money by sparing you needless visits to the doctor. Full-color photographs, used in conjunction with the charts, will help you identify various conditions and decide when to seek medical advice. An all-new diagnostic imaging section introduces full-color images of ultrasound, Doppler, MRI, CT scans, and other technologies that are becoming commonplace in doctors' offices and hospitals.Part III, "Diseases, Disorders, and Other Problems, " provides detailed, accessible, expertly illustrated articles on more than 650 medical problems. Separate sections address the special problems of men, women, couples, infants and children, adolescents, and older people, including a comprehensive section on pregnancy and childbirth.Part IV of the guide, "Caring for the Sick, " covers all the basics of professional medical care, home nursing, and caregiving. You'll learn how to choose a personal physician, how to get the most out of your hospital's services, what your rights as a patient are, and how to cope with a sick child or older person or someone with a terminal illness. You'll also find a glossary of over 300 medical terms and a color-coded section on first aid that includes the most up-to-date CPR positions and other lifesaving information.The American Medical Association is committed to the principle that, as patients and health consumers, we need to do all we can to work more effectively with our physicians andhealth care teams. This third edition of the "Family Medical Guide" -- easy to understand, superbly designed, beautifully illustrated, and brimming with up-to-date information -- will help you and your family stay healthy and help you create an effective partnership with your doctor when you need it. It belongs on every family's reference shelf.

    As temperatures rise--and icecaps shrink and storms lash our coastal areas into oblivion--being smart about carbon footprints, waste streams and consumer choices becomes increasingly important for all of us.Green Living, from the award-winning editors of E: The Environmental Magazine, offers a thorough, step-by-step plan for every making aspect of your life earth-friendly, from the laundry room to the kitchen: -Maintaining a healthy home-Going organic and avoiding genetically modified food-Finding a planet-friendly car-Making socially responsible investments-Using personal-care products free of damaging chemicalsWith advice on everything from planet-friendly cosmetics to home-based renewable energy, and straight talk on hemp, hybrids and hair dye, Green Living is the ideal reference for both the neophyte and the experienced environmentalist.

    But in the scalp of a balding man, they do not get everything they need and as a result, the hair-producing cells gradually die off. Here we have an example of a mild ‘disease’ which is caused by cellular malnutrition.” —Dr. Roger J. Williams “A living cell requires energy not only for all of its functions, but also for maintenance of its structure.” —Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi "What could be more important to understand than biological energy? Thought, growth, movement, every philosophical and practical issue involves the nature of biological energy.” —Raymond Peat, PhD ======== The Current View of Pattern Hair Loss is Unproductive (and Dangerous) While it is often stated with great confidence that pattern pattern hair loss is the result of defective genes and "male" androgenic hormones (e.g., dihydrotestosterone or DHT), the theory is physiologically unsound. After 60 years of research the "genetic-androgen" hypoheses has produced a single FDA-approved "therapy" that works less than 50% the time and can result in permanent chemical castration (Minoxidil is a nonstarter for many men and women). In contrast, castrates and pseudohermaphrodites--who serve as the foundation for all baldness research--are protected from pattern hair loss 100% of the time. Steps Towards a 'Bioenergetic' View of Pattern Hair Loss Standing on the shoulders of giants (e.g., Otto Warburg, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Gilbert Ling, Ray Peat and others), HAIR LIKE A FOX sets up an alternative 'bioenergetic model' of pattern hair loss with a focus on the smallest unit of life, the cell. This same context elucidates simple yet effective therapies for halting and perhaps reversing pattern hair loss in a way that harmonizes with our unique physiology.

    With the support of elite marathon runner, Mara Yamauchi, and sports psychologist, Dr Josephine Perry, Ant will mentally prepare his recruits for the big day – but is it enough to get them over the finish line?

    Michelle Harrison kept throughout her months of residency in OB/GYN--draws us into the serious and thrilling work of delivering new life into the world...and into Dr. Harrison's own struggle to reconcile the often startling difference between patient care and hospital convenience. She writes about her patients, for whom she never had quite enough time; about her colleagues, with whom she did not always agree; about the excitement of learning new procedures; about the pressures that never let up. She brings us as close as most of us are likely to come to the intense inner life of a big hospital."

    This volume covers the symptoms, causes, diagnosis, treatment (including analgesics and NSAIDS), self-help (including diets and complementary therapies), plus the stresses of living with a chronic condition. It is endorsed by the Fibromyalgia Association.

    And yet she is often confounded by the cases she describes in her column: unexpected collections of symptoms that she and other physicians struggle to diagnose.A twenty-eight-year-old man, vacationing in the Bahamas for his birthday, tries some barracuda for dinner. Hours later, he collapses on the dance floor with crippling stomach pains. A middle-aged woman returns to her doctor, after visiting two days earlier with a mild rash on the back of her hands. Now the rash has turned purple and has spread across her entire body in whiplike streaks. A young elephant trainer in a traveling circus, once head-butted by a rogue zebra, is suddenly beset with splitting headaches, as if someone were "slamming a door inside his head."In each of these cases, the path to diagnosis--and treatment--is winding, sometimes frustratingly unclear. Dr. Sanders shows how making the right diagnosis requires expertise, painstaking procedure, and sometimes a little luck. Intricate, gripping, and full of twists and turns, Diagnosis puts readers in the doctor's place. It lets them see what doctors see, feel the uncertainty they feel--and experience the thrill when the puzzle is finally solved.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    They do their best work under pressure. Janice Hudson was an adrenaline-charged emergency room nurse in a San Francisco-area hospital when a friend told her about CALSTAR, a fledgling helicopter ambulance service with an opening for a flight nurse. Weeks later she was swooping over the Bay Area to scenes of shootings, accidents and disasters. The trauma junkie had found her element.Hudson spent ten years as a flight nurse, answering calls that were by turns horrifying, heroic and absurd. She decries her personal flights from hell that involved children and drunk drivers. In this moving story, she recalls her triumphs, like the time she performed a surgical cricothyrotomy on a patient as he hung upside down in his overturned car -- in the dark. And she shakes her head at some of the bizarre calls, like the one that took her to the scene of a suspicious mountain lion attack (there are no mountain lions in the Bay Area). But no matter what the call, CALSTAR and its dedicated crew braved danger and hardship to reach the scene of catastrophe in a race against time to bring help to those whose only hope of survival lay in the speed of the helicopter and the skill of the medical crew.A born storyteller, Janice Hudson writes with compassion, insight and wry humor. Trauma Junkie is an in-the-trenches account of emergency nursing at its most demanding.

    Based on years of research and work with her own clients, Susan Elliott offers a proven plan that will help you to:Examine past relationships for unfinished business and negative patternsIdentify warning signs and red flagsKeep your standards and boundaries high, even when you're head over heelsWork through rejection, rebounding, and other bumps in the roadDecide when to take a relationship to the next level and when to say goodbyeWith practical rules, strategies, and self-assessments—including tips for dating as a parent and dating online—Getting Back Out There will help you transition from your split to a happy, healthy new relationship.

    Margaret I. Cuomo is inspired to seek out new strategies for waging a smarter war on cancer.This year, about 1.6 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed and more than 1,500 people will die "per day." We've been asked to accept the disappointing strategy to "manage cancer as a chronic disease." We've allowed pharmaceutical companies to position cancer drugs that extend life by just weeks and may cost $100,000 for a single course of treatment as breakthroughs. Where is the bold leadership that will transform our system from treatment to prevention? Have we forgotten the mission of the National Cancer Act of 1971 to "conquer cancer"?Through an analysis of more than 40 years of medical evidence and interviews with the top cancer researchers, drug company executives, and health policy advisers, Dr. Cuomo reveals intriguing answers to these questions. She shows us how all cancer stakeholders--the pharmaceutical industry, the government, physicians, and concerned Americans--can change the way we view and fight cancer in this country.

    Building from a review of the basic science to the how and why of clinical practice, this text is thorough guide to immunohematology and transfusion practices. It begins with six color plates of which Plate 2 - standardized grading of macroscopic red cell antigen-antibody reactions - is extraordinarily useful. These are actual photomicrographs of immediate spin reactions and at a glance, will automatically assure standardized reporting of the reactions. Chapter on medicolegal and ethical aspects of providing blood collection and transfusion service is simply fascinating reveting reading. An added bonus is the table of blood group characteri stics (antigen, ISBT number, frequency in different ethnicities, expression during life, etc.) on the inside covers at the front and back of the book. Nothing like having a quick complete reference when you need it! This is a great book. Valerie L. Ng, PhD, MD, University of California, San Francisco, California for Doody Review Service.