Too Much Medicine, Not Enough Health

What's the Real Health Care Crisis? The penetrating essays in this collection answer: health care isn't about health. As they unpack the shortcomings of the science that leads to overdiagnosis and overtreatment at the hands of the health care system, the authors offer an alternative to health as the absence of disease: health as the biological capacity to lead a full, rich life. Over sixty essays offer both a critical analysis of health science and practical solutions to health issues. A wide range of issues are explored, including - Why hypertension isn't a disease - Why obesity isn't a disease - How hormone imbalance is ignored - How nutrition standards are flawed - Why vitamins are good for you - How news media are biased on health - How research is biased on health - How environmental cues affect health - Why the conventional explanation for heart attacks makes no sense - Why the placebo effect is a good thing - Why mammograms don't save lives - The social determinants of health, illness, and injury - The environmental causes of health, illness, and injury - How the risk of illness is passed from one generation to the next - Why multitasking is a myth - Why menstruation is a good thing - Why wireless technologies are the cigarettes of the 21st Century Jeffry Fawcett, PhD and Layna Berman are independent scholars, health educators, and broadcast journalists. In addition to publishing the Progressive Health Observer from which the essays in this book are taken, they produce and host the nationally syndicated Your Own Health And Fitness radio show (www.yourownhealthandfitness.org). Their consulting practice educates people in the principles and practices examined in this book, enabling individuals to make informed health and medical decisions. Jeffry and Layna live among the redwoods of Northern California.