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December 6, 2008
Worried Sick
Nortin Hadler, M.D., has written this most amazing book. It is subtitled, A Prescription for Health in an overtreated America. This is a major portion of the book I have been trying to write.
It is written in a wonderful conversational style with an appropriate amount of clinical jargon to make you realize he is an expert in both research and bedside medicine. The readability is enhanced by an absence of footnotes, with a set of shadow chapters at the end with more in depth discussion of the studies supporting his arguments.
Dr. Hadler takes the reader through an extended discussion of many of the issues that I have brought up here: Heart disease, cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure, diets, and cancer (screening particularly) of the colon, breast and prostrate. He discusses his area of greatest expertise -- creakiness (backaches, shoulder pain, etc.). From these "predicaments" his discussion leads to the general question of disease and illness and "alternative medicine."
There is very little I disagree with in these discussions. I have a slightly different approach to the terminology of disease, but find his has appealing aspects. He likes the term "predicament" for those frequent inconveniences like colds and backaches, and reserves "illness" for major symptoms, and "disease" for the major malfunction causing illness. More on that in other posts.
This excellent and extensive discussion of the state of our ability to influence health and disease leads to Dr. Hadler's main prescription for Health. He offers an alternative approach to financing medical treatment. It is radical, but very reasonable, if one grants his premise of social and civic responsibility for medical treatment and healthy lifestyles.
Posted by Robert Maddox at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)