Blending personal anecdotes with hard science, an accomplished physician, researcher, and science communicator gives you the tools to avoid medical misinformation and take control of your health​: "A brilliant step toward patients and physicians alike reclaiming a sense of confidence in a system that often feels overwhelming and mismanaged" (Gabby Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back). We live in an age of medical miracles. Never in the history of humankind has so much talent and energy been harnessed to cure disease. So why does it feel like it’s getting harder to live our healthiest lives? Why does it seem like “experts” can’t agree on anything, and why do our interactions with medical professionals feel less personal, less honest, and less impactful than ever? Through stories from his own practice and historical case studies, Dr. F. Perry Wilson, a physician and researcher from the Yale School of Medicine, explains how and why the doctor-patient relationship has eroded in recent years and illuminates how profit-driven companies—from big Pharma to healthcare corporations—have corrupted what should have been medicine’s golden age. By clarifying the realities of the medical field today, Dr. Wilson gives readers the tools they need to make informed decisions, from evaluating the validity of medical information online to helping caregivers advocate for their loved ones, in the doctor’s office and with the insurance company. Dr. Wilson wants readers to understand medicine and medical science the way he does: as an imperfect and often frustrating field, but still the best option for getting well. To restore trust between patients, doctors, medicine, and science, we need to be honest, we need to know how to spot misinformation, and we need to avoid letting skepticism ferment into cynicism. For it is only by redefining what “good medicine” is—science that is well-researched, rational, safe, effective, and delivered with compassion, empathy, and trust—that the doctor-patient relationship can be truly healed.

This book outlines the benefits and dangers of alternative medicine,drawing on scientific research to show which treatments work, which don’t, and how to use them. Itoffers a balanced, unbiased perspective backed by science.

Here, at long last, is an unbiased look at alternative medicine by a distinguished and experienced clinician with an open mind. Ignoring the name-calling and turf wars among various health care factions, Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld, a professor of clinical medicine and author of several bestselling books (including Doctor, What Should I Eat? and The Best Treatment), turns his erudition to examining the field of alternative medicine. Based on in-depth research, and written with his trademark wit and candor, Dr. Rosenfeld reviews the track records of dozens of the most widely-used alternative therapies. He discusses such diverse approaches as hypnosis, acupuncture, chelation, homeopathy, reflexology, aromatherapy, applied kinesiology, hydrotherapy, oxygen therapy, fasting, Ayurvedic medicine, use of medicinal herbs, craniosacral therapy -- and more. For each approach, Dr. Rosenfeld describes how it is used, the theories on which it is based, how much scientific evidence exists to support claims for it, and, most important for the health consumer, whether it actually works. Dr. Rosenfeld calls it as it is, including a delicious description of how to tell a quack from a legitimate practitioner. This is an eye-opening and entertaining approach to a controversial subject of vital interest to everyone. You will find many surprises in these pages. Read the excerpt for just some of the ways alternative medicine can and cannot work for you.

Essential, required reading for doctors and patients alike: A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of the world’s premiere cancer researchers reveals an urgent philosophy on the little-known principles that govern medicine—and how understanding these principles can empower us all. Over a decade ago, when Siddhartha Mukherjee was a young, exhausted, and isolated medical resident, he discovered a book that would forever change the way he understood the medical profession. The book, The Youngest Science, forced Dr. Mukherjee to ask himself an urgent, fundamental question: Is medicine a “science”? Sciences must have laws—statements of truth based on repeated experiments that describe some universal attribute of nature. But does medicine have laws like other sciences? Dr. Mukherjee has spent his career pondering this question—a question that would ultimately produce some of most serious thinking he would do around the tenets of his discipline—culminating in The Laws of Medicine. In this important treatise, he investigates the most perplexing and illuminating cases of his career that ultimately led him to identify the three key principles that govern medicine. Brimming with fascinating historical details and modern medical wonders, this important book is a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and Eureka! moments that people outside of the medical profession rarely see. Written with Dr. Mukherjee’s signature eloquence and passionate prose, The Laws of Medicine is a critical read, not just for those in the medical profession, but for everyone who is moved to better understand how their health and well-being is being treated. Ultimately, this book lays the groundwork for a new way of understanding medicine, now and into the future.

New edition of this highly controversial and campaigning book that reveals the truth about the pills and procedures your doctor prescribes and offers proven alternatives for diagnosing, preventing and treating many illnesses. Includes updated information on all the most recent health issues - vaccination, HRT, Viagra, IVF and more. Every year, 1.17 million British people - a population the size of Birmingham - are put in a hospital bed by a medical procedure gone wrong. And 80% of most of the treatments we take for granted have never been scientifically proven to work. In this groundbreaking book, leading health campaigner Lynne McTaggart reveals the real secrets of modern medicine. Extensively revised and updated, this new edition tackles some of the most worrying health issues of recent years. For example, did you know: * Statin drugs, the new miracle cure for high cholesterol, are causing a heart failure epidemic? * SSRI drugs - now come with a black box warning about suicide risk to children * HRT, touted as the most important preventative treatment for all the diseases of female old age, actually causes heart disease, dementia, strokes and cancer? * IVF could be causing cases of breast cancer? * The statistics about illnesses prevented by vaccination are vastly overplayed? * Viagra, the great white hope of male impotence, has caused a rash of sudden deaths and is effective, at most, only half the time. What Doctors Don't Tell You gives you all the information you need to take your health into your own hands, exposing the true dangers of conventional medicine and offering up-to-the-minute, scientifically proven alternatives for diagnosing, preventing and treating many illnesses.

A physician offers an impassioned and meticulously researched exposé of the alternative medicine industry, separating the sense from the nonsense. A half century ago, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese herbs, Christian exorcisms, dietary supplements, chiropractic manipulations, and ayurvedic remedies were considered on the fringe of medicine. Now these practices—known variably as alternative, complementary, holistic, or integrative medicine—have become mainstream, used by half of all Americans today to treat a variety of conditions, from excess weight to cancer. But alternative medicine is an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks, and many popular alternative therapies are ineffective, expensive, or even deadly. In Do You Believe in Magic?, health advocate Dr. Offit debunks the treatments that don’t work and tells us why, and takes on the media celebrities who promote alternative medicine. Using dramatic real-life stories, he separates the sense from the nonsense, explaining why any therapy—alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. As Dr. Offit explains, some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, but “there’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”

Discusses how to avoid harmful medical mistakes, offering advice on such topics as working with a busy doctor, communicating the full story of an illness, evaluating test risks, and obtaining a working diagnosis.

"Aclear-sighted, heartfelt, and humane story of the needless tests and treatments that cripple healthcare....as a guide to good medicine, it may help us get back to the essence of what good doctors do: be with patients in healing." —Samuel Shem, M.D., author of The House of God and The Spirit of the Place In Hippocrates’ Shadow, Dr. David H. Newman upends our understanding of the doctor-patient relationship and offers a new paradigm of honesty and communication. He sees a disregard for the healing power of the bond that originated with Hippocrates, and, ultimately, a disconnect between doctors and their oath to"do no harm." Exposing the patterns of secrecy and habit in modern medicine’s carefully protected subculture, Dr. Newman argues that doctors and patients cling to tradition and yield to demands for pills or tests. Citing fascinating studies that show why antibiotics for sore throats are almost always unnecessary; how cough syrup is rarely more effective than a sugar pill; and why CPR is violent, invasive—and almost always futile, this thought-provoking book cuts to the heart of what really works, and what doesn’t, in medicine.

Discusses the potential dangers of cholesterol-lowering medications, steroids, antibiotics, and Ritalin, and reveals the potentially life-threatening risks of certain medical procedures and tests

Our health care is staggeringly expensive, yet one in six Americans has no health insurance. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors. In this gripping, eye-opening book, award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee takes readers inside the hospital to dismantle some of our most venerated myths about American medicine. Brownlee dissects what she calls "the medical-industrial complex" and lays bare the backward economic incentives embedded in our system, revealing a stunning portrait of the care we now receive. Nevertheless, Overtreated ultimately conveys a message of hope by reframing the debate over health care reform. It offers a way to control costs and cover the uninsured, while simultaneously improving the quality of American medicine. Shannon Brownlee's humane, intelligent, and penetrating analysis empowers readers to avoid the perils of overtreatment, as well as pointing the way to better health care for everyone.