Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients


Ben Goldacre - 2012
    We like to imagine that it’s based on evidence and the results of fair tests. In reality, those tests are often profoundly flawed. We like to imagine that doctors are familiar with the research literature surrounding a drug, when in reality much of the research is hidden from them by drug companies. We like to imagine that doctors are impartially educated, when in reality much of their education is funded by industry. We like to imagine that regulators let only effective drugs onto the market, when in reality they approve hopeless drugs, with data on side effects casually withheld from doctors and patients.All these problems have been protected from public scrutiny because they’re too complex to capture in a sound bite. But Dr. Ben Goldacre shows that the true scale of this murderous disaster fully reveals itself only when the details are untangled. He believes we should all be able to understand precisely how data manipulation works and how research misconduct on a global scale affects us. In his own words, “the tricks and distortions documented in these pages are beautiful, intricate, and fascinating in their details.” With Goldacre’s characteristic flair and a forensic attention to detail, Bad Pharma reveals a shockingly broken system and calls for something to be done. This is the pharmaceutical industry as it has never been seen before.

The Shape We're In: How Junk Food and Diets are Shortening Our Lives


Sarah Boseley - 2014
    Sarah Boseley, the Guardian's award-winning health editor, argues it's time we understood the complex reality of what makes us fat.Speaking to behavioural scientists and industry experts, yo-yo dieters and people who have gone under the knife,Boseley builds a picture of an obesogenic society - one where we're constantly bombarded by the twin evils of big budget food marketing and the diet industry.Filled with in-depth, original reporting, Boseley reveals just how widespread the problem is - 1 in 4 of us are obese - and makes the case that it is time to fundamentally change the way we live.The Shape We're In is essential reading for anyone interested in their health and the health of their children.

Stop Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain: What Every Woman and Her Doctor Need to Know


Andrew S. Cook - 2012
    Dr. Cook explains why so many patients are misunderstood and misdiagnosed, why most endometriosis surgery is done so poorly, the principles and correct techniques for effective endometriosis surgery, and how to find the best doctors and healthcare providers. This book embraces a women's perspective and provides much-needed support for women who have suffered from the pain of endometriosis. He also explains his comprehensive and successful program for treating endometriosis.

Let Every Breath... Secrets of the Russian Breath Masters


Vladimir Vasiliev - 2006
    This groundbreaking manual on Systema Breathing presents step-by-step training drills given to you in a thorough and comprehensive way. You will learn the unique methodology of Systema Breathing and get the foundation for every physical activity of your daily life. Whether you are looking to raise your athletic skills to the next level, or wish to increase your potential and to enjoy life, this is your tool to uncover the endless reserve of energy, health and happiness. At the same time, it is very easy reading, full of entertaining stories and thought provoking ideas.

Letters from the Pit: Stories of a Physician's Odyssey in Emergency Medicine


Patrick Crocker - 2019
    Every day the staff of emergency rooms throughout the world are saving lives - 24/7/365. Dr. Patrick Crocker provides us an intimate glimpse into the growing mind of an emergency physician, from residency to retirement. Told in a unique first-person stream of consciousness style, you are right in the middle of the action, looking over the doctor's shoulder while he works. In this compilation of notable, frightening, funny, sad, and poignant cases, you'll see Dr. Crocker's struggles to Do No Harm in the most challenging of situations. Through these stories, you'll see him find the delicate balance between help and harm, empathy and self-preservatio

The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature


Gad Saad - 2011
    In this highly informative and entertaining book, the founder of the vibrant new field of evolutionary consumption illuminates the relevance of our biological heritage to our daily lives as consumers. While culture is important, the author shows that innate evolutionary forces deeply influence the foods we eat, the gifts we offer, the cosmetics and clothing styles we choose to make ourselves more attractive to potential mates, and even the cultural products that stimulate our imaginations (such as art, music, and religion). This book demonstrates that most acts of consumption can be mapped onto four key Darwinian drives—namely, survival (we prefer foods high in calories); reproduction (we use products as sexual signals); kin selection (we naturally exchange gifts with family members); and reciprocal altruism (we enjoy offering gifts to close friends). The author further highlights the analogous behaviors that exist between human consumers and a wide range of animals.

The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest


Dan Buettner - 2008
    What's the prescription for success? National Geographic Explorer Dan Buettner has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity found in the Blue Zones: places in the world where higher percentages of people enjoy remarkably long, full lives. And in this dynamic book he discloses the recipe, blending this unique lifestyle formula with the latest scientific findings to inspire easy, lasting change that may add years to your life.Buettner's colossal research effort, funded in part by the National Institute on Aging, has taken him from Costa Rica to Italy to Japan and beyond. In the societies he visits, it's no coincidence that the way people interact with each other, shed stress, nourish their bodies, and view their world yields more good years of life. You'll meet a 94-year-old farmer and self-confessed "ladies man" in Costa Rica, an 102-year-old grandmother in Okinawa, a 102-year-old Sardinian who hikes at least six miles a day, and others. By observing their lifestyles, Buettner's teams have identified critical everyday choices that correspond with the cutting edge of longevity research-and distilled them into a few simple but powerful habits that anyone can embrace.

Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes


Frans de Waal - 1982
    De Waal reminds readers through his account of the chimps' sexual rivalries and coalitions, and intelligent rather than instinctual actions, that the roots of politics are older than humanity.

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action


Elinor Ostrom - 1990
    Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways--both successful and unsuccessful--of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.

United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis


Mark McDonald - 2021
    

Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine


Geoff Manaugh - 2021
    We are now all too aware of how it is applied, but we know far less about how the idea came to be--and where it may yet go.Until Proven Safe tracks the idea of quarantine around the globe, through time and space, chasing the story from the lazarettos and quarantine islands of Venice--built before communicable diseases were really understood--to the hallways of the CDC, NASA, and the cutting-edge labs and conference rooms where the future technology of quarantine is being developed. The result is a tour of an idea that could not be more urgent or relevant, a book full of stories, people, and insights that is as compelling as it is definitive.

Manthropology


Peter Mcallister - 2009
    Spanning continents and centuries, it is an in-depth look into the history and science of manliness. From speed and strength, to beauty and sex appeal, to bravado and wit, it examines how man today compares to his masculine ancestors. Peter McAllister set out to rebut the claim that man today is suffering from feminization and emasculation. He planned to use his skills as a paleoanthropologist and journalist to write a book demonstrating unequivocally that man today is a triumph---the result of a hard-fought evolutionary struggle toward greatness. As you will see, he failed. In nearly every category of manliness, modern man turned out to be not just matched, but bested, by his ancestors. Stung, McAllister embarked on a new mission. If his book couldn’t be a testament to modern male achievement, he decided, it would be a record of his failures. Manthropology, then, is a globe-spanning tour of the science of masculinity. It kicks off in Ice Age France, where a biomechanical analysis demonstrates that La Ferrassie 2, a Neanderthal woman discovered in the early 1900s, would cream 2004 World Arm Wrestling Federation champion Alexey Voyevoda in an arm wrestle. Then it moves on to medieval Serbia, showing how Slavic guslar poets (who were famously able to repeat a two thousand-line verse after just one hearing) would have destroyed Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, in a battle rap. Finally, it takes the reader to the steaming jungles of modern equatorial Africa, where Aka Pygmy men are such super-dads, they even grow breasts to suckle their children. Now, that’s commitment. For modern man, the results of these investigations aren’t always pretty. But in its look at the history of men, Manthropology is unfailingly smart, informative, surprising, and entertaining.                         *** HOW DOES MODERN MAN STACK UP? Russian arm wrestling champion Alexey Voyevoda has a twenty-two-inch bicep and has curled more than two hundred and fifty pounds---with just one arm. But could he stand up in an arm wrestling match with an average Neanderthal male? Or, for that matter, a female? (p. 10)                       *** Today’s Ultimate Fighters compete in a sport where bouts routinely end with an unconscious loser splayed out on a blood-soaked canvas. But what would a match in the Octagon look like next to the Pankration bouts of the Ancient Greeks: a battleground or a playground? (p. 77)                       *** A modern army goes into battle with state-of-the-art technology and centuries of strategical insight. But for sheer determination, could they have bested Nero’s legions, who marched nearly two marathons a day for six days straight---each legionary carrying hundred-pound packs? (p. 99)                       *** There’s philological evidence that suggests Homer may not have written the Iliad; he may have rapped it. If 50 Cent had to face Homer in a rap battle, would he come out on top? (p. 160)                       *** Wilt Chamberlain is known for scoring on more than just the court. He claimed to have had as many as twenty thousand sexual encounters in his lifetime. Such conquest could only be matched by one of the world’s greatest conquerors: There is the evidence that approximately 32 million people are descended from Genghis Khan. (p. 248)

I Do Not Consent: My Fight Against Medical Cancel Culture


Simone Gold - 2020
    

Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention


John M. Kirsch - 2010
    Kirsch, M.D., an Orthopedic Surgeon for the common man. It is the result of 25 years of research into a new and simple exercise to prevent rotator cuff tears and impingement syndrome in the shoulder, as well as treating these conditions and frozen shoulder. Testimonials and research CT scan images are included as well as images of the exercises performed by models and patients.

Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information


Paul A. Offit - 2018
    Neck-deep in work that can be messy and confounding and naive in the ways of public communication, scientists are often unable to package their insights into the neat narratives that the public requires. Enter celebrities, advocates, lobbyists, and the funders behind them, who take advantage of scientists' reluctance to provide easy answers, flooding the media with misleading or incorrect claims about health risks. Amid this onslaught of spurious information, Americans are more confused than ever about what's good for them and what isn't. In Bad Advice, Paul A. Offit shares hard-earned wisdom on the dos and don'ts of battling misinformation. For the past twenty years, Offit has been on the front lines in the fight for sound science and public heath. Stepping into the media spotlight as few scientists have done--such as being one of the first to speak out against conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism--he found himself in the crosshairs of powerful groups intent on promoting pseudoscience. Bad Advice discusses science and its adversaries: not just the manias stoked by slick charlatans and their miracle cures but also corrosive, dangerous ideologies such as Holocaust and climate-change denial.