{"product_id":"the-cure-for-everything-isbn-9780807022078","title":"The Cure for Everything","description":"A bold look at how commercial agendas distort the real science behind health and fitness studies and misinform the public about how to live a healthy life.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eResearcher Timothy Caulfield talks with experts in medicine, pharmaceuticals, health and fitness, and even tries out many of the health fads himself, in order to test their scientific validity, dispel the myths, and illuminate the path to better health.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e  \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eIntroduction: The Cookie Conundrum\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne: Fitness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSexy Abs and Simple Solutions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTwo: Diet\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiracle Foods and Magical Weight Loss\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree: Genetics\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Blueprint to Perfect Health and Happiness\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFour: Remedies\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eColon Cleansers, Meridian Alignment, and Wonder Drugs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFive: Magic\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eLooking for the Elixir of Life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments \u003cbr\u003eOmissions and References \u003cbr\u003eIndex“A \u003ci\u003eFreakonomics\u003c\/i\u003e for the health industry.”—Justin Sorbara-Hosker, \u003ci\u003eIndigo Lifestyle\u003c\/i\u003e blog\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Caulfield] thinks with an academic’s rigor and precision and knows the health maintenance territory inside out. Mr. Caulfield is at his breezy best in discussions of exercise and diet, both of which he approaches with a certain swagger… Mr. Caulfield muses at amusing and instructive length on the exact definition of fitness — the bizarre, science-free equivalency the modern aesthetic has established between fitness and sexy abs — and the depressingly well-validated fact that the older you get, the more running it takes to stay in exactly the same place.”\u003cbr\u003e —Abigail Zuger, MD., \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  “Caulfield’s cure for the mess we’re in is this lucid and well-researched compendium of the best-available science about diet, fitness, genetics, pharmaceuticals and alternative medicine. . . . A compelling and timely argument for science and a reminder that science is an iterative process, breakthroughs are rare, and there are no magical cures for everything.”\u003cbr\u003e —Julia Belluz, \u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Timothy Caulfield is a science nerd. He’s also a health nut. And he’s fed up with all the bogus diet claims, expensive fitness programs and weird information that poses as scientific fact. . . . [He] spent a year combing through research and interviewing top scientists. He also exercised like a maniac and ate an ultra-healthy diet. His search for the truth resulted in . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Cure for Everything\u003c\/i\u003e!”\u003cbr\u003e —Nancy J. White, \u003ci\u003eThe Toronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“[An] entertaining and thought-provoking slam.”—\u003ci\u003ePublisher's Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[The]\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e Cure for  Everything\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e is insightful and entertaining…Gently and with  humour, Caulfield guides readers through the funhouse world of health sciences.”—\u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003c\/i\u003e (Canada)\u003cb\u003eTimothy Caulfield\u003c\/b\u003e is the research director of the Health Law and Science Policy Group at the University of Alberta, where he holds appointments in the Faculty of Law and School of Public Health.\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eFrom the Introduction: \"The Cookie Conundrum\"\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Ninety-five percent of all disease is caused by a buildup of acid in  our bodies,” said the instructor emphatically. She had an unusual  accent, a mix of Bavarian barmaid and Southern preacher. She was large  and sturdy and seemed to believe everything she was saying. Every seat  in the room was taken by her audience of middle-aged couples, so I sat  on some exercise equipment at the back. I was on summer holiday and my  wife had convinced me to attend the lecture. “I bet it will be fun,” she  said. “Who knows? You might learn something.” Her smile told me she  knew I wasn’t likely to agree with her optimistic knowledge-enhancement  prediction.  “We need to cleanse our bodies,” the instructor said. “Just  like a car, we need to clean our bodies to make sure they work properly  so we don’t get diseases like cancer and diabetes. By cleansing our  bodies we will be- come more fit and our metabolism will increase and we  will lose weight, especially in all those tough spots: the arms, the  belly, and the bum.” She pointed to the relevant region of the body as  she said \u003ci\u003earms, belly,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ebum.\u003c\/i\u003e The last got a laugh  from the crowd. They were captivated. Some were writing notes as she  explained the details of detoxification.\u003cbr\u003e       \u003cbr\u003eI knew that absolutely every statement she made was either  incorrect or misleading. Complete crap. We don’t need to detoxify and  cleanse our bodies. Detoxification will not result in weight loss. You  cannot make a particular part of your body lose weight by consuming  algae, which was her recommended remedy for the elimination of flab.\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eIt was, however, an amazing performance, a mix of pseudoscientific  jargon, faith-healing proselytizing, and over-the-top fear-mongering.  Some of her claims were so absurd that I had to suppress a laugh. For \u003cbr\u003e example, she informed the crowd that if you eat meat and don’t  “cleanse” on a regular basis (i.e., irrigate your bowels), the lower  colon gets clogged with an immovable, thick, mucus-y sludge. This  sludge, apparently, causes a host of ailments, and many of us are  carrying around as much as ten pounds of this disgusting substance. Some  of her other claims infuriated me because of their simplistic  inaccuracies, especially those that concerned serious diseases. She told  the audience, her grave tone reinforced by scientific-looking diagrams  and terminology, that the toxins in deodorants cause breast cancer.  Nonsense.\u003cbr\u003e       \u003cbr\u003eAt the end of the talk came the sales pitch. “Do you want to be  healthy? You can’t blame aging,” the instructor informed us all. “You  can only blame yourself. You must take control and detoxify your body.  An acidity and toxicity assessment costs forty dollars. Isn’t your  health worth this much?”\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eCoincidentally, a host of detoxifying products and processes would  be available for sale after the assessment. As soon as the talk ended,  everyone in the room, it appeared, lined up to get detoxified.\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eAnd who can blame them? Despite my deep skepticism, I understood  the urge to jump to the head of the line. Who wants sludge in his colon?  Detoxifying sounds like a sensible idea. Don’t toxins cause disease?  And while the fat-melting-algae potion was a bit far-fetched, much of  her presentation seemed grounded in some kind of science. She was  offering a path to better health.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ----\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       I want to be healthy.   \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This book is about health. More particularly, it is about the science  as- sociated with health. As the detoxifying dominatrix demonstrated,  there is a considerable amount of weird information out there. Every  day, we are showered with advice about our health. We are told we are  fat. We are told what to eat. We are told what not to eat. We are told  to cleanse. We are told to take supplements. We are told we need to  exercise. We are told to stretch. We are told to take pharmaceuticals.  We are told to avoid pharmaceuticals. We are told to get our meridians  centered.\u003cbr\u003e We are told to get healthy, damn it!\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eOf course, it is true that there has never been more evidence—of  vastly differing degrees of quality—to support this advice. We live in  the health-science era. It is everywhere. Pick up a newspaper: there is a  good chance you will find several stories on biomedical research. Often  the stories are frivolous reports describing new diets or exercise  routines. But others may be about the latest big science discoveries—for  instance, a scientific breakthrough that promises life-enhancing  treatments for a particular disease will be available in just a few  years. There are also stories that come from the scientific fringe. My  local newspaper seems to have at least one article a week on the  benefits of some form of alternative remedy, practices deriving from the  realms of homeopathy, chiropractic, and naturopathy. Regardless of  their sources, all of these stories have a common theme: our health.\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eNewspapers, of course, are hardly our only source of health and  science stories. An ever-rising tide of information can be found on  television, on radio, in government reports, on blogs, on iPhone apps,  in books and magazines, and, of course, in advertising about  pharmaceuti- cals, diets, and fitness programs. We live in a sea of  (purportedly) science- based health information.\u003cbr\u003e      What are we to do, really, with all this information? Can one  actually use it to live a healthier life? What information can we trust?  Can emerging areas like genetics solve our health problems? Do any  diets work? Can we ever believe pharmaceutical companies? Is the simple  answer really that we all just need to clean our colons? Is there a cure  for everything?\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eIn this book, I will seek to answer these, and other related  questions. What will we find? While science is everywhere, the  scientific information that passes through the public’s field of view is  often wrong, hyped, or twisted by an ideological or commercial agenda.  It may also be twisted by our own beliefs, evolutionarily determined  predilections, or market- leveraged desires.\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eWe need to recognize the deep irony of it all. At a time when  scientific knowledge has never been more important, it is being  subjected to an unprecedented number of perverting influences. Not that  this should come as a surprise. As science becomes more central to our  lives, the stakes grow higher, and the incentives to twist the  scientific message multiply. \u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eIn some countries, health care consumes from one-third to one-half  of government spending. Both the pharmaceutical and alternative  medicine industries generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual  sales. And many billions of dollars have been invested in research  initiatives such as the Human Genome Project.\u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eThe result is clear: the health sciences are more essential to our  world than ever before. And their impact—on the economy, on human  health, on education, and on the broader culture—is likely to increase.  Science informs our decisions about the drugs we take, the food we eat,  and the forms of exercise we engage in. Scientific data should help us  make the best decisions we can, but is this what actually happens? While  never promising the Truth, science is meant to nudge us closer to an  objective picture of our world. It should give us some idea of what is  likely to work. But despite the power of science to provide practical  information, most of us have only a vague notion of what actually makes  us healthy. Our vision has been obscured by personal and institutional  agendas, commercial interests, and pop-culture spin. And to make matters  worse, the institutions that should guard us against these perverting  influences have mostly failed at the task. In fact, because governments  view scientific innovation as the engine of economic growth, they have  become part of the problem. They, too, have become twisted.  \u003cbr\u003e      \u003cbr\u003eMy aim is to clarify the picture and explain the forces that have  obscured it. I will try to strip away the hype and the agendas to reveal  the sound evidence where it exists and its absence when the research  hasn’t been done. I will also provide practical advice (and warnings)  for those wishing to navigate the churning sea of facts, findings, and  fears associated with emerging health technologies and health-promoting  strategies.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303556141285,"sku":"NP9780807022078","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807022078.jpg?v=1767738893","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-cure-for-everything-isbn-9780807022078","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}