2 out of 4 stars
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Health tips, Myths and Tricks: a physician guide, by Morton E. Tavel was released in 2015 by Brighton publishing LLC. The author, a physician, is based in Indiana USA. Do you ever wonder about the health benefits of dark chocolate, coffee, the best weightloss regime? If so then this is the book for you. The author covers these topics including best proven remedies for common ailments and debunks some age old myths and scams.
The book is divided into 3 sections; health tips, myths and tricks spread over 62 chapters. The health tips section offers medically proven, insightful methods of managing common ailments, such as diabetes and obesity. The myth section debunks popular health fads such as detox regimes and with references, offer medically accepted alternatives. Finally, the tricks section discusses devious treatments such as fake medicine and unfounded claims made by quacks and how to avoid them.
The author takes a scientific and self proven approach in evaluating his points. Scientific methods demand proof with constant analysis using approved methods to authenticate a claim. I still beg to differ on his stance in adoption of alternative medicine to which he criticises. All conventional medicine are either synthetic analogues and/or direct natural extracts of bioactive compounds. The same principle is applied in alternative medicine which has been used for thousands of years. Despite recent advances in modern medicine to which I acknowledge, I believe alternative therapies still hold promise in health management and treatment. This is especially true in areas around Asia and Africa where both are applied with remarkable success in some cases like Asthma (personally, modern medicine didn't help). These alternative therapies differ demographically and the best solution to determine there efficacy is stricter regulation and continuous research. I believe outright opposition is counterproductive, consider the case of the Malaria wonder drug Artemether. For many years Chinese medicine used it's extracts to treat Malaria and only recently has it been adopted in modern medicine. Modern medicine has at times relied on folk cures to discover a wide range of medically bioactive compounds.
Though the book's contents appear tailored for a localised audience, given the unfamiliar scams and products, it still offers valuable insights on select popular topics. These include the genetically modified food debate, food contamination even management of heartburn were particularly useful and relatable.
I would rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. I would not rate it any higher due it's outright opposition of alternative therapy. However, I'd not speak for it's intended audience as there are many unfounded claims worldwide and I only speak from personal experience. There was some important points on food contamination especially brown rice to which I strongly approved.
I'd recommend this book to diabetes, heart, hypertension patients or people conscious of related ailments and those seeking clarification on genetically modified food debate. I'd however not recommend it to people who don't tolerate opposition to alternative therapy and medicine.
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Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
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