3 out of 4 stars
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HEALTH TIPS, MYTHS AND TRICKS - A Physician’s Advice, Health information to liberate us from “snake oil” by Morton E Tavel, MD
With this book, the table of contents grabs your interest from the start. This is usefully divided into three sections: Tips, Myths and Tricks, giving structure to the book which allows the reader to go straight to a topic of interest. Topics chosen are of interest to a large proportion of the population, e.g. weight loss, eating chocolate, benefits of red wine. However, the book covers much more than food. All sorts of popular topics such as smoking, e-cigarettes, painkillers, acid reflux, sleep, back pain, exercise, nasal allergies, hard water, Wi-Fi, toilet flushing and hand drying! So there is something of interest for most people. In fact, there are so many topics covered that the text could have been two separate books, one relating to foods and the other to non-food topics. I did feel that the “Scams” section was a bit too long, obviously a pet hate of the author.
The author is very obviously of scientific background and many sections of the text are rather technical. I feel that this could reduce the readership, although it is possible to skip the very technical information and each topic is well summarised. The book is scientifically structured with an introduction, research, results and summary. Each discussion is well reasoned and supported by scientific research which must have taken a long time to collate. The initial chapter was very detailed and quite hard going which may put off many readers, however, later chapters were much more readable. With such popular topics covered so well, I feel that everyone could benefit from reading it. Unfortunately, the format makes it only attractive to a limited sector of our community, and as such I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.
Lots of very interesting nuggets of information are hidden in the text, for example, preceding each meal with a glass of water will reduce calorie intake due to earlier satiety, thus help to reduce weight in an inexpensive and harmless way. How brilliant! Added humour is splattered amongst the more serious messages, making the read a fun as well as a learning experience.
There is, understandably a US bias to products mentioned, many of which are unknown by the rest of the world. However, the author has included many facts and research from Europe to give it more balance. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to watch the popular “Trust me I’m a doctor” or “scientific”-based food programmes shown on UK television.
All in all a great read that helps make sense of the misinformation that bombards us on a daily basis. Money saving and healthy living tips abound. With so much information to take in I will be reading it again and referring to it in the future.
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Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
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