Review by melissa_says -- Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks

[melissa_says]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks" by Morton E Tavel, MD.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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I absolutely loved this book! I rate this Three out of Four Stars. Unfortunately I cannot rate this book Four stars as I have doubts if it was edited by a professional editor. For the content, however, I believe it deserves another star.

This book would most appeal to anyone who has knowledge or interest in health, nutrition, diet, weight loss, food and illness in general. This should be a book that every doctor hands to their patient as so many topics relate to people in their doctor’s visits, or simply content in they’ve heard on the evening news. Because the author is an MD, I expected the content to be dry, but he wrote it for the average Jane or Joe to understand, with some humor thrown in there.

This non-fiction piece is extremely well-written and answers many questions that average citizens may have about nutrition, health, fads, and health in general, from the nutritional value of chocolate and coffee and wine, to detox diets and the dangers of mercury in fish, to downright fraudulent claims and commonly held myths. The table of contents and formatting are excellent for skimming through at the reader's leisure. There is also a "conclusion" or "summing up" section in the majority of chapters that allows the reader to quickly get at the heart of the topic.

Besides odd formatting issues (the names of the chapters had extra characters, one paragraph had odd spacing unlike other pages, and one example and footnote was in red ink and seemed poorly edited), I cannot say enough good things about this book and will be immediately recommending it to all my friends and family.

My favorite sections by far were the Tips, the first section of the book. There he covered topics that I have heard about through news sources or in general, and explained what was good or bad about that food, how to put it into the diet, etc. Topics in this section include all ranges of health-related topics: Olive Oil & Health, What to do about a Cold, Hypertension and the DASH diet, Cigarette Smoke, E-Cigarettes, Sleeping, Allergies, and more.

I found the Myths section a little frustrating at times, as to me, someone who has a background in health and nutrition, some seemed outright ridiculous. But to a reader that had little or less background, this section would be very helpful. Topics in that section include: Energy drinks, fortified food, Gluten Free, and more.

There were some chapters near the end, both in the Myth and the Tricks sections that I skimmed through, such as the Polygraph chapter as I was not interested in that topic and felt it was longer than necessary. But overall he presented a large variety of topics. It would be very difficult for someone who picked up this book to not learn several new things from this book. Topics in this section include: Dietary supplements, Human Growth Hormone, Detox Diets, Chiropractors, and more.

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Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
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