The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype about Your Health

A medical journalist with a Ph.D in health policy, Davis's first book provides a helpful look at the dangers of taking health advice at face value. When confronted with a claim that ""studies prove,"" Davis advises considering eight questions, among them ""What kind of study is it?"" ""Could the findings be a fluke?"" ""Who paid for the research?"" and ""Was it peer reviewed?"" Looking at pharm ads, government campaigns, consumer advocates and other sources of (mis)information, Davis provides readers with a wary eye for even ""official"" pronouncements. For instance, Davis recounts how, in 1985, a division of the National Institute of Health hired a PR firm to design a campaign on the dangers of high cholesterol, and assumed that the drop in cholesterol levels and heart disease-related deaths over the next decades were directly related; that correlation led doctors to triple the number of patients taking statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs). What they've ignored, at the peril of many, is that smoking rates decreased and treatments for heart disease improved during that period; further troubling is the fact that eight out the nine experts on a recent study were being paid by statin manufacturers. An insightful and informative look at a number of health issues, this should be enlightening, if a bit frightening, reading for those seeking to take charge of their health.