Naturopathy Books

The cover leads one to believe that there is a 'plan' for beating arthritis in 28 days--no.--- only a plan that a clever and catchy title will sell a book. I have done a lot of reading,and there are diet guidelines for reducing arthritis symptoms (acid/akaline balance in food, especially from the Edgar Cayce readings). There is no 'list' of foods to eat,or avoid in this book. The book is 90% recipies---ones that do look very tasty,but ones that could be used for any 'healthy' diet. I mean, if you ate this way a number of diseases;cancer,heart disease etc. would be eased, so why is this book particular to arthritis? As for the '28 day hype'--you would have to follow all the 3 meals a day recipies--for 28 days. Does anyone have the time to follow recipies for 3 meals a day every day--I mean these are all recipies--no guidelines as in 'eat any fruit-- except,don't eat red meat" etc.The recipies are all for 4 portions--so what if you live alone,no one else has arthritis in your household--I guess you just freeze the rest. They also advise "excercise"--but don't list or show any.Since they do not give you a list of foods to avoid or encourage--how is this to help your arthitis??Only that this is a low-calorie/fat plan--so you could lose weight and that would be less strain on your joints.There are so many other better books out there for arthritis--I learned nothing new here--except that some people will do anything to sell books.

IOWA BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS
PRESS RELEASE
For release, April 9, 2003


Cassim Igram, D.O., a 47 year-old physician from Batavia, Illinois, entered into a Settlement Agreement
with the Board to resolve pending disciplinary charges. Dr. Igram was charged with being disciplined by the
Illinois Medical Board. The Illinois Board accused Dr. Igram of engaging in unprofessional, unethical and
dishonorable conduct in his care and treatment of several individuals who sought nutritional consultation.
Dr. Igram was fined $4,000 and his Illinois medical license was placed on permanent and irrevocable
inactive status. Under the terms of the Iowa Settlement Agreement, Dr. Igram must provide the Board 90
days written notice and fully comply with any and all requirements established by the Iowa Board prior to
beginning the practice of medicine under his Iowa medical license.

This is basically a pamphlet. There are 3 juice recipes, all using a green drink powder. The author talks about all the natural benefits of fruits and vegetables yet uses commerical drink powders. If you are looking for juice recipes (i.e. best way to blend different fruits and vegetables) this is NOT the "book" for you. I will be returning this to Amazon.com. Signed, Ripped-off in NJ.

This book was a waste of time and and money. How it ever made it to the NY Times Bestseller List is beyond me. In addition to the ludicrous statements the author makes about holistic healing methods, it is also a very outdated book. Check the copyright date. There are more current and much better books available about holistic healing.

This publication is at least ten years out of date. The book was published in the United Kingdom and all of the references stem from that area.

Literally speaking, this small pamphlet really is 'a comedy of errors'. To be frank, the book is twenty-four pages of editorial and grammatical errors, incorrect statements, and poorly thought out words. Other than a few general statements about shiitake, maitake, reishi, and kombucha, this pamphlet gives the reader nothing in the way of justification for its lofty asking price of four dollars. Like so many other New Age texts that have come before it, this pamphlet refers to mushrooms as being plants. Plants are capable of photosynthesis, fungi are not. Mushrooms are the reproductive structures, or the fruiting bodies, of certain types of fungi. However, this book goes even further, and states that mushrooms are herbs, and are the same as medicinal plants. In addition to the aforementioned unforgiveable sins, the pamphlet boldly asserts, but never qualifies its statement that 'They (medicinal mushrooms) heal, but unlike synthetic drugs, do not have toxic side effects'.

Yet, the book's organization starts out well enough. Each vignette on a particular mushroom gives some terse information on the mushroom's location and distribution, common names and folklore, cultivation history, bioactive compounds, and finally its therapeutic applications. I myself could not help noticing that the pamphlet consistently showed how the mushrooms could be used to treat the Big Four Diseases of the Day: AIDS, Cancer, High Blood Pressure, and Infectious Diseases. Aside from pandering to ill-conceived New Age sentiments and misleading the gravely ill, this pamphlet does little of practical utility.

Readers looking for more in-depth, reliable information on medicinal mushrooms and more value for their money would do well to consult Kenneth Jones's excellent book, Shiitake: The Healing Mushroom.

Scam-master Trudeau is back, again! After having claimed that he can cure mental retardation, autism, and cancer, after conning millions with his sham products, the government finally banned him from selling his quack elixirs. Being the genius that he is, he turned to writing books, claiming that the government is trying to suppress the fact that most diseases can be easily cured. If we cured them though, the medical industry would go away, and so would all that money. So why do doctors and their families die of cancer at the same rate as the rest of us? Are they SO afraid of the government that they refuse to use the secret cancer cures that Trudeau claims they know? Of course not! There is no cure for cancer! Let's hope Trudeau doesn't develop cancer soon, the nut! Or perhaps, let's hope he does! He is, after all, ultimately a predator, preying on the gullible, desperate, and uninformed. You have to buy this book, which contains NO natural "cures," and then you have to PAY again to access his website, which, surprise surprise, also contains NO natural "cures." Sure, he makes some claims, for instance: calcium cures cancer; the sun does NOT cause skin cancer, sun BLOCK causes skin cancer, etc., etc. His claims are so outlandish that they would be humorous if people didn't take him so seriously. If sun block causes skin cancer then why did people get skin cancer before sun block existed? He may claim that more people get skin cancer now, but that would only be because of the fact that "back in the day" most people didn't live long enough to develop it! It reminds me of the old quack claim that milk actually causes osteoporosis, because in countries where people don't drink milk, women don't develop it. These are third-world countries though, where most women don't live long enough to get osteoporosis!

If you purchase this you are only giving your money to a felon and notorious thief.

Having just recieved Michael T. Murray's "natural alternatives for weight loss", I spent a half-hour or so this evening thumbing through the book to get some kind of idea what the overall picture the author was presenting on the weight-loss dilemma.

As it turned out, a half hour was all the time I needed to see that Michael T. Murray presents no new material on this subject, at least none the reader can use.

Mr. Murray starts out (quite reasonably) with the subject "WHY DIETS DON'T WORK". I seem to remember a chapter of this title in every weight-loss tome from Dr. Adkins "diet revolution" to the venerable "fit or fat" by Covert Bailey. ( No indeed, Mr Murray, they didn't work then, and they don't work now) This somehow fails to expain why in the next several chapters the author attempts to put us on one! Except for a little lip service to supplements like chromium and a (frankly) weird chapter on positive affirmation (ev! ! ery day in every way I'm getting better and better!) the author does absolutely nothing in the way of breaking new ground in the field of weight loss.

I can't see why a professional person would put his name on a book that is a mere rehash of all the old ineffectual hash that came before it. I feel as if I threw my money away.

My advice: don't bother with this one.

And I quote from this book: "ancient healers believed that some type of energy or life force was a necessary component of health. In ayurveda, it's called prana. In Chinese medicine, it's called qi [...] naturopaths like myself call it vis medicatrix naturae, Latin for the healing power of nature. These [vitalistic] concepts remain fundamental tenets of many of the natural practices discussed in this book. The importance of maintaining or realigning this natural energy is one reason holistic practitioners painstakingly construct a complete health profile, including an assessment of your spiritual and emotional well-being, before recommending treatments [p.003...] a homeopathic remedy acts on the vital force of the body, strengthening it or perhaps providing it with the right hints to produce healing [...] the vital force is the inner intelligence that animates each and every person. It has been referred to for thousands of years and by many different names: breath, chi, prana, life force. By stimulating one's vital force, the correct homeopathic remedy can set into motion healing that may continue for days, weeks, or even months [p.321...] qi: the energizing life force. Two major physiological manifestations of yin and yang are your blood and a nebulous concept called qi [...] which represents the life force that energizes you [...] qi inhabits your body and the bodies of all things. People have qi. Birds have qi. All animals have qi. Vegetables have qi. Rocks also possess qi. Each star in the sky has its own qi. Sand on the beach has qi. All thing, animate or inanimate, possess qi [...] as far as the body is concerned, it translates roughly into energy. Qi circulates blood and holds all of your tissues and organs into place [...] your own qi is then responsible for transporting that nourishing, revitalizing energy throughout your body [p.460...] shen means 'spirit' and encompasses emotions as well and mental functions such as memory and mental activity. Treatments are often focused on calming the spirit [p.469]." I'm still trying to figure out how, in this day and age, 2007, an entire profession (naturopathy) can get away with stating that the scientifically-ejected vitalistic and spiritistic (the doctrines of naturopathy) are science-based. The book is an excellent example of naturopathy's HPN=VMN='vital spirit force' woo-woo.

The writing style, and format, I find so cumbersome that I abandoned the effort to get to the message.