3 out of 4 stars
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<r>Wouldn't it be great if you had an accomplished M.D. with a background in cardiac medicine on call whenever you needed him or her? Anytime you felt some illness coming on, whenever you had a question or a concern about your health or someone in your family's health, you could call or visit this good doctor and ask about your concerns and get a sound medical answer based on the doctor's lifelong experience, scientific study and research, and actual medical practice. What kind of diet is best? How much caffeine is it safe to drink? Should I eat or skip breakfast every day? Is organic food better for me than regularly grown food? Is it better to go to a chiropractor or a physical therapist for my lower back pain? Your friend the doctor would be there with the right answers for you.<br/>
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<I><s></s>"Health Tips, Myths and Tricks, A Physician's Advice"<e></e></I>, by Doctor Morton E. Tavel tries to fill this kind of need. The book also has an interesting subtitle, "Health Information to liberate us from Snake Oil". The good doctor knows that there is a lot of dangerous guidance being purveyed as medical fact to the public and has taken it upon himself to make us aware of who the snake oil salesmen are and what they are trying to sell us using fact-based medicine and science to make his case. (See the Tricks section of the book).<br/>
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What I liked most about the book was the breadth of subjects it covered in a brief straightforward style Each of the many topics Dr Tavel speaks to in this book was thoroughly covered in a few pages which speaks to a crisp presentation style and good editing and a straightforward expression of opinion and factual support. <br/>
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The book is very well annotated with data, but it doesn't interfere at all with the presentation of the facts and conclusions in Dr. Tavel's narrative. The data ensures that you aren't just taking the author's word at face value, even if it is the word of an M.D. who specializes in heart medicine. The narrative is well footnoted which allows Dr Tavel to cover a lot of topical ground in this book. I counted 32 tips, 20 myths, and 10 tricks overall, and not once did I feel completely lost in the weeds or left short on any subject.<br/>
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My only dislike with this book is that, perhaps inevitably, there is some medical jargon that is included, and on a few occasions early on, the writing style was perhaps overly academic. This might have been edited out, but again it wasn't pervasive throughout the book and only occurred in one or two instances.<br/>
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While on the subject of editing, there was one rather glaring typo that I noticed in the book in Chapter 56, and the way my eBooks paginated on my iPhone, this was on page 506 of 613 the phrase was broken out by dashes so it is rather easy to find. It reads,” ---both favorable an unfavorable---". It should read, “---both favorable and unfavorable---“.<br/>
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I would rate this book <B><s></s>3 out of 4 stars<e></e></B> and would strongly recommend it as a useful modern day medical quick reference book.</r>
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Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
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