Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Disease-Proof promises to teach us the "skills" we need to slash our risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other diseases by 80 percent. That's a bold claim based on iffy statistics. Rather than rigorous medical analysis you might expect from a researcher at Yale University, in this book you get a popularized, superficial take on a serious problem. There is some solid substance here. The book says that to improve your health you should focus on your fork (nutrition and weight), your feet (exercise), and your fingers (stop smoking). But who doesn't already know that? To some degree, the book recognizes that, and purports to give you skills to help you do what you already know you should do, like putting healthy foods on your plate and exercising portion control. But I was not impressed by those skills. The book seems to have been largely ghostwritten by the second author, or at least it reads that way to me. It has that "rah, rah" feel that ghostwriters often give a book. We learn about Dr. Katz's horse Troubadour, about his French-born neuroscientist wife's brilliance graduating from UC Berkeley and getting a PhD from Princeton, and about his friendships with former Arkansas-governor Mike Huckabee and other famous people. Although it's hard to say, these gratuitous comments seemed more like what a ghostwriter would put in. Most authors would feel a little self-conscious doing so. One example of what bothered me most about the book. The nuance of how our bodies deal with incoming energy sources -- fats as opposed to sugars, for example -- escapes any notice in this book. The authors say that unlike "prominent voices such as Timothy Ferriss and Gary Taubes," they think "a calorie is, incontrovertibly, now and forever, a calorie." In other words, what matters is "calories in versus calories out," not the nature of those calories. But then the authors contradict that, saying the "quality" of the calories does matter. Better I think to acknowledge that our knowledge about nutrition is limited than to fill a book with feel-good cheerleading and factual statements that are more opinion than fact. This book reminds me of similar nutrition fads of earlier centuries. Like the Graham crackers, a name which still survives from the vegetarianism and moralism of Sylvester Graham. Or the magnificent masticators of the "chew-chew" cult inspired by Horace Fletcher. Or the Kellogg brothers, whose cereals are still sold today but whose ideas on health have died. None of those nutrition promoters had any ideas that withstood the test of time. No more will the ideas in this book have any lasting influence. This book has no "remarkable truth about what makes us well" that will slash anyone's risk of disease by 80%. False promises, in my opinion. Of course, every reader brings their own experience and thinking to bear when they read a book. That means that even though the words may be the same, every reader reads a different book. Many other readers had a better opinion of this book than I did. If you are looking for inspiration as much as intellectual content, this book may be worth a try. If you want something meatier, probably best to look elsewhere.