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My recent purchase of two copies of the Mayo Family Health Book -- one for each of my two daughters' families -- reflects my enjoyment and confidence in that publication. My wife and I have had our own copy for quite awhile, and have found answers to most of our medical questions in it. And the considerable discounted price from Amazon is just icing on the cake.
I am a very satisfied customer. The product meets my expectations and it was delivered promptly.
I bought this and was very disappointed. The writing was difficult to comprehend (yes, I'm not a doctor, unlike other reviewers) and I couldn't easily figure out where to look in the book for different illnesses.I returned the book and purchased the Merck Manual, saving over $10 and loads of time.I would highly recommend you read a sample chapter before purchasing, which was my mistake.
It is worth mentioning, though, that this book is not set up as a problem-solving guide of common illnesses and medical situations. Certainly, it is informative and in many quarters almost exhaustive (there are color photos of victims of every type of eczema or seborrhea extant, and boy there are a lot). The book is patiently and logically written, and really if you want anything more detailed you'll have to look at medical textbooks. As I mentioned, it does not work particularly well as a problem-solver, where a medically urgent situation pops up (high fever, breaking out in pockmarks), books through which the reader can logically determine which situations warrant a trip to the ER and which can perfectly well be treated at home.
Nor will you hear about the role played by Niacin (Vitamin B3) in lowering bad cholesterol; or zinc, essential to the prostate and which in more than FDA-recognized doses inhibits swelling and is even believed to forestall prostate cancer. In all fairness, The Mayo has a separate (170-page) MAYO CLINIC BOOK OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, and I only hope the authors have taken the subject more seriously in that work. I imagine it would be invaluable to the family whose member has been diagnosed with something new and frightening-sounding, or who has been recommended a fairly new and unfamiliar course of treatment. This book has four pyramids, including Vegetarian and Mediterranean diets. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was a little disappointed in this tome.
Left out are many quite acceptable natural substances like salvia, dandelion, elderberries --and chamomile (as in tea). In fact, in Germany standardized and concentrated extract of chamomile is commonly prescribed by doctors and filled at pharmacies like any other prescription med, making it "alternative" to nothing to alleviate anxiety. Within those ten few pages, the section on natural remedies lists ten--yes, 10--of the most popular remedies, barely more profound than a PARADE magazine article and not worthy of an institution with the experience and clout of the Mayo. In many cases the book anticipates what the doctor is going to do if s/he offers state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment, and also explains what's going to happen in high-tech settings like MRI machines. Certainly it does exceptionally well for the reader who is willing to research a topic addressed by conventional medicine.
In fact, a chapter devoted to ALL forms of complementary and alternative medical practices is only a pathetic ten pages long, which shamefully squeezes in superficial discussions of chiropractic, natural substances, meditation, acupuncture, yoga and homeopathy, among many other forms of treatment - that's ten pages out of more than fourteen hundred. This review is of the blue, 1,488 page MAYO CLINIC FAMILY HEALTH BOOK that was published in October of 2009. There is nothing about chamomile in the Mayo's book that I could find because it isn't to be found in that book of ten remedies. Similarly, a brief passage on "Touch and Manipulation" somehow neglects to use the words "Chiropractor" or "Chiropractic" except in a small blue box.
[rant]This gives the impression that Mayo, and by implication the health-care establishment, are not interested in anything other than big-ticket, high-tech (and high-priced) drugs, and this book's slight of complements and alternative therapies manages to reinforce and condone the common stereotype of U.S. physicians, uninterested in natural cures with hundreds (or thousands) of years of tradition, but ever-ready with the Rx pad and the pills. YOUR BEST MEDICINE by Goldstein and Goldstein, addresses alternative and non-alternative remedies to common complaints and has that problem-solving quality.
Food pyramid. Another option is that darling of HMO enrollees, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, by Fries and Vickers, now in its ninth edition, which uses flow charts to get through various medical situations and determine how best to treat them. What is particularly missing is any real discussion outside of the conventional American paradigm where the doctor's concern is allopathic (fix what's wrong, especially with high-tech meds) and alternatives are pretty well excluded.
This calls into question just which treatments are necessarily "alternative". So the MAYO CLINIC FAMILY HEALTH BOOK is certainly invaluable in many situtions, but not all.
It is so good we provided gift copies to our children's families and several other relatives. In the past we tried a number of health books. The Mayo Clinic book is the most comprehensive we have found. We have always found useful information for nearly everything we've looked up. It is not just recommended, but highly recommended.
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