Book picks similar to
Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future by Andrew Weil
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The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat
Alan Levinovitz - 2015
Salt. Sugar. Fat. These are the villains of the American diet—or so a host of doctors and nutritionists would have you believe. But the science is far from settled and we are racing to eliminate wheat and corn syrup from our diets because we've been lied to. The truth is that almost all of us can put the buns back on our burgers and be just fine. Remember when butter was the enemy? Now it's good for you. You may have lived through times when the Atkins Diet was good, then bad, then good again; you may have wondered why all your friends cut down on salt or went Paleo; and you might even be thinking about cutting out wheat products from your own diet. For readers suffering from dietary whiplash, The Gluten Lie is the answer. Scientists and physicians know shockingly little about proper nutrition that they didn't know a thousand years ago, even though Americans spend billions of dollars and countless hours obsessing over "eating right." In this groundbreaking work, Alan Levinovitz takes on bestselling physicians and dietitians, exposing the myths behind how we come to believe which foods are good and which are bad—and pointing the way to a truly healthful life, free from anxiety about what we eat.
An Apple a Day
Joe Schwarcz - 2007
It’s full of good omega-3 fats. Don’t eat salmon. It’s full of PCBs and mercury. Eat more veggies. They’re full of good antioxidants. Don’t eat more veggies. The pesticides will give you cancer.Forget your dinner jacket and put on your lab coat: you have to be a nutritional scientist these days before you sit down to eat—which is why we need Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the expert who’s famous for connecting chemistry to everyday life. In An Apple a Day, he’s taken his thorough knowledge of food chemistry, applied it to today’s top food fears, trends and questions, and leavened it with his trademark lighthearted approach. The result is both an entertaining revelation of the miracles of science happening in our bodies every time we bite into a morsel of food, and a telling exploration of the myths, claims and misconceptions surrounding our obsession with diets, nutrition and weight.Looking first at how food affects our health, Dr. Joe examines what’s in tomatoes, soy and broccoli that can keep us healthy and how the hundreds of compounds in a single food react when they hit our bodies. Then he investigates how we manipulate our food supply, delving into the science of food additives and what benefits we might realize from adding bacteria to certain foods. He clears up the confusion about contaminants, examining everything from pesticide residues, remnants of antibiotics, the dreaded trans fats and chemicals that may leach from cookware. And he takes a studied look at the science of calories and weighs in on popular diets.An Apple a Day is a must-read book for anyone who looks forward to digesting the truth about what we eat.
Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America's Health Care System
David M. Cutler - 2003
Medical care is in crisis, we are repeatedly told, and so it is. Barely one in five Americans thinks the medical system works well. Enter David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist who served on President Clinton's health care task force and later advised presidential candidate Bill Bradley. One of the nation's leading experts on the subject, Cutler argues in Your Money or Your Life that health care has in fact improvedexponentially over the last fifty years, and that the successes of our system suggest ways in which we might improve care, make the system easier to deal with, and extend coverage to all Americans. Cutler applies an economic analysis to show that our spending on medicine is well worth it--and thatwe could do even better by spending more. Further, millions of people with easily manageable diseases, from hypertension to depression to diabetes, receive either too much or too little care because of inefficiencies in the way we reimburse care, resulting in poor health and in some cases prematuredeath. The key to improving the system, Cutler argues, is to change the way we organize health care. Everyone must be insured for the medical system to perform well, and payments should be based on the quality of services provided not just on the amount of cutting and poking performed. Lively and compelling, Your Money or Your Life offers a realistic yet rigorous economic approach to reforming health care--one that promises to break through the stalemate of failed reform.
Healing With Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition
Paul Pitchford - 1993
It's also a primer on nutrition--including facts about green foods, such as spirulina and blue-green algae, and the regeneration diets used by cancer patients and arthritics--along with an inspiring cookbook with more than 300 mostly vegetarian, nutrient-packed recipes.The information on Chinese medicine is useful for helping to diagnose health imbalances, especially nascent illnesses. It's smartly paired with the whole-foods program because the Chinese have attributed various health-balancing properties to foods, so you can tailor your diet to help alleviate symptoms of illness. For example, Chinese medicine dictates that someone with low energy and a pale complexion (a yin deficiency) would benefit from avoiding bitter foods and increasing sweet foods such as soy, black sesame seeds, parsnips, rice, and oats. (Note that the Chinese definition of sweet foods is much different from the American one!)Pitchford says in his dedication that he hopes the reader finds healing, awareness, and peace from following his program. The diet is certainly acetic by American standards (no alcohol, caffeine, white flour, fried foods, or sugar, and a minimum of eggs and dairy) but the reasons he gives for avoiding these negative energy foods are compelling. From the adrenal damage imparted by coffee to immune dysfunction brought on by excess refined sugar, Pitchford spurs you to rethink every dietary choice and its ultimate influence on your health. Without being alarmist, he adds dietary tips for protecting yourself against the dangers of modern life, including neutralizing damage from water fluoridation (thyroid and immune-system problems may result; fluoride is a carcinogen). There's further reading on food combining, female health, heart disease, pregnancy, fasting, and weight loss. Overall, this is a wonderful book for anyone who's serious about strengthening his or her body from the inside out.
The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight
Satchin Panda - 2018
Like most people, you probably wake up, get hungry for meals and doze off in bed around the same time every day. If you’ve ever experienced jet lag or pulled an all-nighter, you know that this schedule can easily be thrown off kilter. But for some people, that imbalance—difficulty sleeping at night, hunger at odd times, or sudden fatigue at noon—is a constant. If you're one of those people, Dr. Satchin Panda, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms, has a plan to reset your body clock.Beginning with an in-depth explanation of the circadian clock—why it’s important, how it works, and how to know it isn’t working—The Circadian Code outlines lifestyle changes to make to get back on track. It's a concrete plan to enhance weight loss, improve sleep, optimize exercise, and manage technology so that it doesn’t interfere with your body’s natural rhythm. Dr. Panda’s life-changing methods show you how to prevent and reverse ailments like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, as well as microbiome conditions like acid reflux, heartburn, and irritable bowel disease.
An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives
Matt Richtel - 2019
An epic, first-of-its-kind book, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist.A terminal cancer patient rises from the grave. A medical marvel defies HIV. Two women with autoimmunity discover their own bodies have turned against them. Matt Richtel's An Elegant Defense uniquely entwines these intimate stories with science’s centuries-long quest to unlock the mysteries of sickness and health, and illuminates the immune system as never before.The immune system is our body’s essential defense network, a guardian vigilantly fighting illness, healing wounds, maintaining order and balance, and keeping us alive. Its legion of microscopic foot soldiers—from T cells to “natural killers”—patrols our body, linked by a nearly instantaneous communications grid. It has been honed by evolution over millennia to face an almost infinite array of threats.For all its astonishing complexity, however, the immune system can be easily compromised by fatigue, stress, toxins, advanced age, and poor nutrition—hallmarks of modern life—and even by excessive hygiene. Paradoxically, it is a fragile wonder weapon that can turn on our own bodies with startling results, leading today to epidemic levels of autoimmune disorders.Richtel effortlessly guides readers on a scientific detective tale winding from the Black Plague to twentieth-century breakthroughs in vaccination and antibiotics, to the cutting-edge laboratories that are revolutionizing immunology—perhaps the most extraordinary and consequential medical story of our time. The foundation that Richtel builds makes accessible revelations about cancer immunotherapy, the microbiome, and autoimmune treatments that are changing millions of lives. An Elegant Defense also captures in vivid detail how these powerful therapies, along with our behavior and environment, interact with the immune system, often for the good but always on a razor’s edge that can throw this remarkable system out of balance.Drawing on his groundbreaking reporting for the New York Times and based on extensive new interviews with dozens of world-renowned scientists, Matt Richtel has produced a landmark book, equally an investigation into the deepest riddles of survival and a profoundly human tale that is movingly brought to life through the eyes of his four main characters, each of whom illuminates an essential facet of our “elegant defense.”
Burn: New Science Reveals How Metabolism Shapes Your Body, Health, and Longevity
Herman Pontzer - 2021
And if we exercise and cut carbs, we'll lose more weight. Right? Wrong. In this paradigm-shifting book, Herman Pontzer reveals for the first time how human metabolism really works so that we can finally manage our weight and improve our health.Pontzer's groundbreaking studies with hunter-gatherer tribes show how exercise doesn't increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level. This was a brilliant evolutionary strategy to survive in times of famine. Now it seems to doom us to obesity. The good news is we can lose weight, but we need to cut calories. Refuting such weight-loss hype as paleo, keto, anti-gluten, anti-grain, and even vegan, Pontzer discusses how all diets succeed or fail: For shedding pounds, a calorie is a calorie.At the same time, we must exercise to keep our body systems and signals functioning optimally, even if it won't make us thinner. Hunter-gatherers like the Hadza move about five hours a day and remain remarkably healthy into old age. But elite athletes can push the body too far, burning calories faster than their bodies can take them in. It may be that the most spectacular athletic feats are the result not just of great training, but of an astonishingly efficient digestive system.Revealing, irreverent, and always entertaining, Pontzer has written a book that will change how you eat, move, and live.
Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin & Free
Susan Peirce Thompson - 2017
Are you ready to join them?In this book, Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D. shares the groundbreaking weight-loss solution based on her highly acclaimed Bright Line Eating Boot Camps. Rooted in cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and biology, Bright Line Eating explains why people who are desperate to lose weight fail again and again:
It’s because the brain blocks weight loss.
Bright Line Eating (BLE) is a simple approach designed to reverse that process. By working with four “Bright Lines” — clear, unambiguous, boundaries — Susan Peirce Thompson shows us how to heal our brain and shift it into a mode where it is ready to shed pounds, release cravings, and stop sabotaging our weight loss goals.Best of all, it is a program that understands that willpower cannot be relied on, and sets us up to be successful anyway.Through the lens of Susan’s own moving story, and those of her Bright Lifers, you’ll discover firsthand why traditional diet and exercise plans have failed in the past. You’ll also learn about the role addictive susceptibility plays in your personal weight-loss journey, where cravings come from, how to rewire your brain so they disappear, and more. Susan guides you through the phases of Bright Line Eating—from weight loss to maintenance and beyond—and offers a dynamic food plan that will work for anyone, whether you’re vegan, gluten-free, paleo, or none of the above.Bright Line Eating frees us from the obesity cycle and introduces a radical plan for sustainable weight loss. It’s a game changer in a game that desperately needs changing.
“Bright Line Eating ushers in an end to cravings, an end to dieting, an end to that constant, exhausting, soul-sucking loop in your head about food and calories and pounds. . . . Living Happy, Thin, and Free is your birthright.” — Susan Peirce Thompson
Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To
David A. Sinclair - 2019
But what if everything we’ve been taught to believe about aging is wrong? What if we could choose our lifespan? In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Sinclair, leading world authority on genetics and longevity, reveals a bold new theory for why we age. As he writes: “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.” This book takes us to the frontlines of research many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab at Harvard—that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, aging. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes, the descendants of an ancient genetic survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it.
Fiber Fueled: The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, and Optimizing Your Microbiome
Will Bulsiewicz - 2020
Will Bulsiewicz, or "Dr. B," illuminates in this groundbreaking book, the explosion of studies on the microbiome makes it abundantly clear that elimination diets are in fact hazardous to our health. What studies clearly now show--and what Dr. B preaches with his patients--is that gut health is the key to boosting our metabolism, balancing our hormones, and taming the inflammation that causes a host of diseases. And the scientifically proven way to fuel our guts is with dietary fiber from an abundant variety of colorful plants.Forget about the fiber your grandmother used to take--the cutting-edge science on fiber is incredibly exciting. As Dr. B explains, fiber energizes our gut microbes to create powerhouse postbiotics called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that are essential to our health. SCFAs are scientifically proven to promote weight loss, repair leaky gut, strengthen the microbiome, optimize the immune system, reduce food sensitivities, lower cholesterol, reverse type 2 diabetes, improve brain function, and even prevent cancer. Restrictive fad diets starve the gut of the critical fiber we need, weaken the microbes, and make our system vulnerable.As a former junk-food junkie, Dr. B knows firsthand the power of fiber to dramatically transform our health. The good news is that our guts can be trained. Fiber-rich, real foods--with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes--start working quickly and maintain your long-term health, promote weight loss, and allow you to thrive and feel great from the inside out.With a 28-day jumpstart program with menus and more than 65 recipes, along with essential advice on food sensitivities, Fiber Fueled offers the blueprint to start turbocharging your gut for lifelong health today.
The Wim Hof Method: Own Your Mind, Master Your Biology, and Activate Your Full Human Potential
Wim Hof - 2020
You can overcome disease, improve your mental health and physical performance, and even control your physiology so you can thrive in freezing temperatures.” With The Wim Hof Method, this trailblazer of human potential shares a method that anyone can use—not just extreme athletes or spiritual masters—to supercharge your capacity for strength, health, and happiness.Wim Hof has become a modern legend for his astounding achievements, such as withstanding extreme temperatures, breaking world records, and running barefoot marathons over deserts and ice fields. In his gripping and passionate style, Hof shares the story of how he developed his method, along with testimonials and new insights from the university research studies on its amazing results. With guidance suited for any reader—young or old, sick or healthy—you’ll learn how to harness three key elements of Cold, Breathing, and Mindset to take charge of your own mind and metabolism.Yet the most important result of Hof’s method goes beyond improved health or performance—it is a path for reconnecting with your spiritual nature. “With these practices, you awaken to your inner source of power and fulfillment,” he says. “You find you can control your destiny.”
Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us
George Zaidan - 2020
Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. George Zaidan reveals what will kill you, what won't, and why--explained with high-octane hilarity, hysterical hijinks, and other things that don't begin with the letter H. INGREDIENTS offers the perspective of a chemist on the stuff we eat, drink, inhale, and smear on ourselves. Apart from the burning question of whether you should eat that Cheeto, Zaidan explores a range of topics. Here's a helpful guide:Stuff in this book: - How bad is processed food? How sure are we?- Is sunscreen safe? Should you use it?- Is coffee good or bad for you?- What's your disease horoscope?- What is that public pool smell made of?- What happens when you overdose on fentanyl in the sun?- What do cassava plants and Soviet spies have in common?- When will you die?Stuff in other books: - Your carbon footprint- Food sustainability- GMOs- CEO pay- Science funding- Politics- Football- Baseball- Any kind of ball reallyZaidan, an MIT-trained chemist who cohosted CNBC's hit Make Me a Millionaire Inventor and wrote and voiced several TED-Ed viral videos, makes chemistry more fun than Hogwarts as he reveals exactly what science can (and can't) tell us about the packaged ingredients sold to us every day. Sugar, spinach, formaldehyde, cyanide, the ingredients of life and death, and how we know if something is good or bad for us--as well as the genius of aphids and their butts--are all discussed in exquisite detail at breakneck speed.
Ketotarian: The (Mostly) Plant-Based Plan to Burn Fat, Boost Your Energy, Crush Your Cravings, and Calm Inflammation
Will Cole - 2018
The ketogenic diet kick-starts your body's metabolism so it burns fat, instead of sugar, as its primary fuel. But most ketogenic plans are meat- and dairy-heavy, creating a host of other problems, especially for those who prefer plants at the center of the plate. Dr. Will Cole comes to the rescue with Ketotarian, which has all the fat-burning benefits without the antibiotics and hormones that are packed into most keto diets.First developed for individuals suffering from seizures, keto diets have been shown to reduce inflammation and lower the risk of many chronic health problems including Alzheimer's and some cancers. Adding a plant-based twist, Ketotarian includes more than 75 recipes that are vegetarian, vegan, or pescatarian, offering a range of delicious and healthy choices for achieving weight loss, renewed health, robust energy, and better brain function.Packed with expert tips, tricks, and advice for going--and staying--Ketotarian, including managing macronutrients, balancing electrolytes, and finding your carb sweet spot, this best-of-both-worlds program is a game-changer for anyone who wants to tame inflammation and achieve peak physical and mental performance. Let the Ketotarian revolution begin!
Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds
Kelly A. Turner - 2014
Kelly A. Turner, founder of the Radical Remission Project, uncovers nine factors that can lead to a spontaneous remission from cancer—even after conventional medicine has failed.While getting her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Turner, a researcher, lecturer, and counselor in integrative oncology, was shocked to discover that no one was studying episodes of radical (or unexpected) remission—when people recover against all odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. She was so fascinated by this kind of remission that she embarked on a ten month trip around the world, traveling to ten different countries to interview fifty holistic healers and twenty radical remission cancer survivors about their healing practices and techniques. Her research continued by interviewing over 100 Radical Remission survivors and studying over 1000 of these cases. Her evidence presents nine common themes that she believes may help even terminal patients turn their lives around.
Diet for a Small Planet
Frances Moore Lappé - 1971
With the new emphasis on environmentalism in the 1990's, Lappe stresses how her philosophy remains valid, and how food remains the central issue through which to understand world politics.