July 26, 2013, La Bruciata, Montepulciano, Italy.
Paperback 2011, 351 pages.
My physician brother, who hosts a radio show in Hong Kong on
health, was about 70 pages into this book when he gave it to me to read.
The claims made in the beginning of the book were certainly
gripping enough: a revolutionary way to look at illness and a way to maintain
our health until the day we die. To me
the book was just a collection of the author’s ideas on how to be healthy, an
assertion supported by the list of 10 things to do/avoid at the end of the
Q&A portion of the book.
The novel assertion in my judgment is the body is a complex
system, and this leads to the author’s campaign against vitamin D and other
diet supplements. On the other hand, he
is very much into statins, aspirins, and flu vaccines. The arguments against the former group are
somewhat supported by what he references, but there is no equal rigor to the
things he recommends (perhaps with the exception of aspirins.)
While the book doesn’t live up to the hype, it is
nonetheless not a bad book to read, and the advice is generally helpful. However, the author seems to have a typical
physician’s ego when he makes all these claims about how the book is different
from others.
Meanwhile, I am trying to get my MD daughter to read it
and tell me what she thinks.
