The Perfect Gene Diet: Use Your Body's Own Apo E Gene to Treat High Cholesterol, Weight Problems, Heart Disease, Alzheimer's...and More!

by Pamela McDonald    (Find this book)
This comprehensive work by nurse practitioner Pamela McDonald reveals the latest breakthrough in health and nutrition focusing on the APO E gene, which affects cholesterol levels, heart and Alzheimer's disease, and much more.It is widely known that each genotype requires its own balance of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins for optimal health. Within these pages, Pamela presents the latest information so that you can make appropriate diet and exercise choices relevant to your particular APO E genotype. The result will be an ideal level of health and well-being, which will reduce your likelihood of developing so many of the debilitating diseases that are prevalent in our society today.As Pamela says, "You have a choice for your health . . . backpack or bedpan?"    --  Publisher Marketing

The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Families

by Daniel J Wallace    (Find this book)
Lupus, a disease of the immune system, can be quite deadly, claiming the lives of thousands of patients yearly. Dr. Daniel J. Wallace is one of the world's leading authorities on this disorder, an eminent clinician who has treated over 3000 lupus patients, the largest such practice in America. His The Lupus Book, originally published in 1995, immediately established itself as the most readable and helpful book on the disease. Now Dr. Wallace has once again completely revised The Lupus Book, incorporating a wealth of new information. This Fifth Edition discusses new drug information and newly discovered information about the pathology of the disease--all laid out in user-friendly language that any patient could understand. In particular, Wallace discusses the first drug for Lupus to be approved by the FDA-- belimumab (Benlysta)--as well as other drugs in clinical trials. Readers will also discover fully updated sections on the science of lupus and breakthroughs in research. And as in past editions, the book provides absolutely lucid answers to such questions as: What causes lupus? How and where is the body affected? Can a woman with lupus have a baby? And how can one manage this disease? Indeed, Dr. Wallace has distilled his extensive experience, providing the most up-to-date information on causes, prevention, cure, exercise, diet, and many other important topics. There is also a glossary of terms and an appendix of lupus resource materials compiled by the Lupus Foundation of America. Over a million Americans have lupus. The new Fifth Edition offers these patients and their families an abundance of reliable, up-to- date information that will help them manage the disease and live a happier life.  --  Publisher Marketing

Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care

by Martin Makary    (Find this book)

Dr. Marty Makary is co-developer of the life-saving checklist outlined in Atul Gawande's bestselling The Checklist Manifesto. As a busy surgeon who has worked in many of the best hospitals in the nation, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he's also been a witness to a medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting. Over the last ten years, neither error rates nor costs have come down, despite scientific progress and efforts to curb expenses. Why?

To patients, the healthcare system is a black box. Doctors and hospitals are unaccountable, and the lack of transparency leaves both bad doctors and systemic flaws unchecked. Patients need to know more of what healthcare workers know, so they can make informed choices. Accountability in healthcare would expose dangerous doctors, reward good performance, and force positive change nationally, using the power of the free market. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system.  --  Publisher Marketing

The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning

by Daniel Bor    (Find this book)
Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science.

In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and builds on the latest research to propose a new model for how consciousness works. Bor argues that this brain-based faculty evolved as an accelerated knowledge gathering tool. Consciousness is effectively an idea factory—that choice mental space dedicated to innovation, a key component of which is the discovery of deep structures within the contents of our awareness.

This model explains our brains’ ravenous appetite for information—and in particular, its constant search for patterns. Why, for instance, after all our physical needs have been met, do we recreationally solve crossword or Sudoku puzzles? Such behavior may appear biologically wasteful, but, according to Bor, this search for structure can yield immense evolutionary benefits—it led our ancestors to discover fire and farming, pushed modern society to forge ahead in science and technology, and guides each one of us to understand and control the world around us. But the sheer innovative power of human consciousness carries with it the heavy cost of mental fragility. Bor discusses the medical implications of his theory of consciousness, and what it means for the origins and treatment of psychiatric ailments, including attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, manic depression, and autism. All mental illnesses, he argues, can be reformulated as disorders of consciousness—a perspective that opens up new avenues of treatment for alleviating mental suffering.
 A controversial view of consciousness, The Ravenous Brain links cognition to creativity in an ingenious solution to one of science’s biggest mysteries.