3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Not Science, not Fiction, not Something-in-between… Not a breath-taking novel to keep you alerted till the back cover, wanting for more, but rather a nice collection of well argued thoughts on everyday health and wellbeing issues. Nonfiction. Its title "Tips, Tricks and Myths: A Physician's Advice" clearly reveals its three main parts and its authors professional background. The first impression might incite you to balance between considering this book a handbook, suitable for quick resolving of occasional health related doubts in everyday life and considering it a trusted reference book full of links to gaining deeper insight into the specific subject, but after going through its pages, you might end in wanting to use it both wise, depending on specific topic it addresses.
Every one of the three parts of this book consists of short chapters which address sound dilemma sometimes even posed as a question, like for instance in chapter 28 "Can we prevent premature aging of the skin with sunscreen?" in the first part named "Tips". Throughout each chapter, the author communicates firm message regarding the posed chapters' title, showing deep understanding of the subject and gaining your trust by good reasoning, quoting and citing scientific journals and latest medical research. The book is easy to follow.
In spite of referencing professional medical resources, it is written so that a non-professional or non-native-English-language-speaking person can understand.
This is a kind of educational book, one learns new facts and gets informed, information's status is up to date… Somehow, you might feel a kind of disappointed with topics you were really interested in, for it is impossible to cover 62 topics (that is the overall number of chapters) on 280 pages (which is the length of the book before the last chapter "About the author"), thoroughly and with the same quality as in books completely dedicated to addressed topic.
The beauty of this wide collection of thoughts and attitudes towards personal health is that it can be read in various occasions (train, bus, couple of minutes while waiting your guests to arrive) and it really can be quite up to the point, concise, precise and instructive. You might encounter useful tools (for instance at page 34, a link to site with calculator of safe amounts of consumed fish regarding mercury poisoning) or you might want to bring it along when shopping instead of grocery list (chapter "Some foods are better than you may think") or as a quick reminder in a drugstore (chapter "A few tips about pain-killers").
I full-heartedly recommend reading of this book but taking its statements as it is said in its title, as an advice (which you will wisely use). I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars, because although aiming for an excellent state of the art in the field of healthy nutrition for a non professional, equipped with lots of numbers and well documented it still looks like well begun but half done, and leaves one to find him/herself that "more than meets the eye" additional content.
******
Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like O Lga's review? Post a comment saying so!