What the Drug Companies Won't Tell You and Your Doctor Doesn't Know: The Alternative Treatments That May Change Your Life--and the Prescriptions That Could Harm You Book

This book attempts to a) to point out the flaws in our current drug based medical system and b) to outline some of the basic facts and principles of what the author calls `rational medicine.'

The first point is well made in this book. All sorts of shocking facts and statistics are included that should be more than enough for anyone to re-evaluate the information we have come to accept as factual concerning drugs and how they are used to treat diseases and how harmful or successful they are.

The author explains that 60 thousand dollars are spent marketing to each doctor in the US, and that drug companies now control medical education and many medical journals as well. He also explains how easy it is for drug companies to skew the results of randomised controlled trials in their favour or to simply refuse to publish any studies that show negative results. The dangers of various drugs are outlined as well as the fact that there are often safer alternatives.

The second point in this book is far less well made. This book would likely have been much better and stronger if it had focused just on the first point. This second point is discussed in such a way that it would make me wary of recommending this book to doctors or to anyone else. A lot of basic information is missing and a lot of the medical information given is just plain wrong.

For example:
- The author is very ignorant about fats and oils. Canola oil is recommended and there is a lot of scare-mongering about any oil that isn't monounsaturated - as if eating all mono fats is best for you. (That is not the case!)
- The author has fallen for the anti-saturated fat myths and the cholesterol myths and the diet information given has a significant vegetarian bias. Many unscientific myths about the `huge risks' of eating animal products are repeated here.
- The author does a very good job explaining that we should not eat too many high GL foods but then recommends a so-called Mediterranean diet which is based on bread, pasta, beans and potatoes. (Incidentally, this diet isn't at all a real Mediterranean diet.)
- The author recommends a very low salt or even salt free diet. He seems unaware of the enormous difference between refined salt and unrefined sea salt, and why we need unrefined sea salt to be healthy and that it does not negatively affected blood pressure, despite what is popularly believed.
- The author recommends a large intake of (unfermented) soy products, which we now know is not safe. No warnings are given about the extreme effects these foods can have on pregnant women, babies and small children.
- Readers are encouraged to stock up on frozen vegetables (ugh!).
- Huge importance is placed on the use of peppermint oil to treat IBS symptoms which is just ridiculous. This is symptomatic treatment at best and does nothing to treat the cause. I'd also argue that it is not even remotely as effective with IBS symptoms as the author claims. (How can it be when you are still eating the foods that caused the symptoms, or still taking the drugs that caused the symptoms, or whatever else.)
- Similarly the recommendation of the PGX fibre supplement as a miracle weight loss supplement is completely silly and unscientifically valid as well.
- A person could easily come away form reading this book thinking that it will be very good for their health to take 1.5 grams of calcium daily and either no magnesium at all, or only 250 mg of magnesium. The whole issue of the importance of calcium and magnesium ratios is not even mentioned! This is appalling and very dangerous. Magnesium deficiency is extremely common and when you take huge amounts of calcium without enough magnesium to balance it you can make magnesium deficiency even worse. Magnesium deficiency is a major cause of cardiac deaths and can worsen many conditions including cardiac and muscular conditions. Dr Sherry Rogers has described advice to take 1.5 grams of calcium daily as silly, ignorant and dangerous.
- No distinction is made between vitamin D3 and D2, and the maximum intake of vitamin D supplementation is given as 2000 IU this despite the fact that many patients need more than this to have levels in the `normal' and certainly the optimal range. Better than picking any arbitrary number however would be a recommendation for those who think their vitamin D levels may be low to actually have their levels tested.
- There is a huge focus on mental attitude of the patient in this book. Some focus in this area is necessary of course but I do really feel it is bizarrely overstated. Two case studies are given - one of a man who was given a placebo and whose huge tumours all disappeared only to reappear when he found out his `drug' was said not to work, and another of a man who developed cataracts because there `were things in his life he didn't want to see' and whose vision completely recovered following psychotherapy to deal with these issues. If these cases are genuine then they are extremely rare. Far more likely these days are patients being told that they are not ill when they are. Considering this, how is making so much of the above two rare case studies helpful? The mind and body link is already way over-emphasised to the detriment of patients and the huge focus on it in this book distracts the reader from the far more likely issue of nutrient deficiencies and toxicity issues going undiagnosed and untreated and patients being unfairly blamed for not recovering due to a poor attitude. There are so many other amazing facts or case studies highlighting the success of nutritional medicine that could have been used and far more usefully.

This book provides little useful or practical health information beyond the recommendation for taking a good quality multivitamin and mineral supplement and a bit of fish oil, calcium and magnesium. Some good basic points are made though about biochemical individuality, the importance of detoxification, the need to buy good quality supplements and not just any old brand and the fact that eating well is of primary importance and can't be made up for by any drug.

The information on drug companies and how they have twisted medicine to suit their own interests is excellent and I would give it four out of five. The medical information is problematic and I could only give it two out of five.

A far better book on both those points is Dr Sherry Rogers' book Detoxify or Die. This book contains far more comprehensive and useful medical information about what causes disease and how we can avoid becoming ill or improve our health if we are already ill. You also come away from reading the book with your head full of shocking facts and statistics about how we are all being taken for a ride and lied to by drug companies. This book is far superior and truly groundbreaking.

For more information on salt see the book on salt by Dr Brownstein.

For more information on soy see `The Whole Soy Story'

For more information on fats and oils see `Know Your Fats' by Mary Enig PhD.

For more information on why `calories in, calories out' is wrong and why saturated fat is not bad for you and doesn't cause heart disease see `Good Calories, Bad Calories' by Gary Taubes.

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.