Long-winded and emotionally charged preface to my review of this book:
I truly believe that poor nutrition is the cause of many of the health issues plaguing modern society. Medical doctors today so often ignore the possibility of nutritional deficiencies in patients; I experienced this as my father-in-law was fighting metastasized cancer via multiple rounds of chemotherapy. As the disease progressed, each new symptom that cropped up got its own expensive, man-made drug prescribed. In the end he was taking certain drugs just to alleviate the side effects of other drugs.
As we found out too late, several of those medications were depleting specific nutrients (generally by blocking the nutrients' absorption) in the body of a man who already had an almost nonexistent appetite due to chemo and late-stage cancer. Soon, drugs were being prescribed to deal with symptoms that, upon researching, were all very likely the result of multiple deficiencies in crucial vitamins and minerals.
After three rounds of failed chemotherapy, my father-in-law was approved for a new, cutting-edge immunotherapy drug that's showing tremendous potential in cancer treatment. Unfortunately, he was already so weak that after only four weeks his calcium levels had plummeted and he was forced to stop treatment. He died just a month later.
I wonder all the time if maybe things would have been different had his doctors focused as much on assuring his body was getting the right nutrients during his treatment as they did on filling him with man-made drugs that each had its own list of horrible potential side effects. And I'm not blaming his doctors for his death - they were compassionate, dedicated, and did everything they could to save him. They took his death as their own personal failing.
I do, however, blame the fact that the most fundamental workings of our bodies remain tragically understudied and often ignored during conventional treatments. And I definitely blame the drug companies who don't see enough profit potential in figuring out the puzzle that is optimal human nutrition, and instead spend billions developing synthetic drugs that do things like reduce nerve pain (and possibly cause clumisness, uncontrolled eye movements, aggressive behavior, anxiety, crying, depression, chest pain, fever, memory loss, and a bunch of other neat things - but don't worry because they have drugs for those too).
We're never going to reverse many of the health problems we're seeing in our society until we understand our bodies better.
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This book was recommended by Vin Kutty, one of the co-founders of OmegaVia and InnovixLabs, as one of the best health/nutrition books he's ever read. As Mr. Kutty is very well educated in regards to nutrition science, I was immediately curious about a book he so highly regarded.
I've now finished reading it, and it gives me a lot of hope that soon people won't have to experience what my father-in-law did - that maybe someday soon doctors will consider fixing their patients' nutrition to be the first step in addressing their ailments. If nothing else, it proves that there are extremely smart people in our world making progress on bringing nutrition science into the mainstream.
The authors have formidable credentials - always a good sign - and display their obvious experience in scientific writing through the constant citing of evidence for their claims throughout the book. With how rampantly unproven and misleading information about health and nutrition gets spread, it was refreshing to read such well-cited information.
The authors go into great detail about the science behind their claims so it can get pretty technical at times, with lots of acronyms and long, multi-syllabic words being thrown around. However, it's well worth it in the end even if you have to skim some parts. Knowing exactly how the food I eat affects my body (down to very small details like how fructose gets shunted directly to our livers indicating that our body can't utilize it effectively) makes me look at eating in a very different way. It's helped me transition to viewing food as nourishment and fuel instead of entertainment. I've always been horrible about snacking, so this is definitely progress in my life.
I've already been practicing intermittent fasting for several years, so it was great to read more about why fasting is good for us and see some of the studies done regarding it. If I had to pick a favorite part of the book, it would be the section describing the nutritional breakdown of breast milk. Using that information to extrapolate what percentage each macronutrient should make up in the human adult's diet is so simple and logical, yet I'd never even thought about it before. This book is full of great moments like this.
If I had any complaints about the book, it would be the title. I've been recommending the book to family and friends and everyone's first reaction is to assume that it's just another fad diet book. I have to tell them to ignore the title and trust me that it's not what they think. Thankfully, once they get into the first chapter or so they realize I'm telling the truth.
All in all, I'm very glad to have stumbled across this book. It's a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in nutrition and health, is suffering from chronic ailments, or is just looking for a healthy diet that's backed by science.
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