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The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting through the Hype about Your Health
It happens every we pick up a newspaper or magazine or turn on the television and are bombarded with urgent advice about how to stay healthy. Lose weight! Lower your cholesterol! Early detection saves lives! Sunscreen prevents cancer! But in many cases, pronouncements we rarely think to question turn out to be half-truths that are being pushed by various individuals or groups to advance their own agendas. The Healthy Skeptic explores who these health promoters are―from journalists and celebrities to industry-funded groups and consumer activists―what their motives are, and how they are spinning us in ways we often don't realize.
This treasure trove of little-known facts, written by a seasoned health reporter, provides invaluable tips, tools, and resources to help readers think more critically about what they're being told. Becoming a healthy skeptic is vital, Davis argues, because following the right advice can have a profound impact on overall health and longevity.
IN TEN ENTERTAINING CHAPTERS, ROBERT J. DAVIS
* Diets and why they don't work
* Dietary supplements
* The campaign to reduce cholesterol
* Celebrity exhortations to "get tested"
* Sunscreen and its promoters' claims
* The antichemical activists
This treasure trove of little-known facts, written by a seasoned health reporter, provides invaluable tips, tools, and resources to help readers think more critically about what they're being told. Becoming a healthy skeptic is vital, Davis argues, because following the right advice can have a profound impact on overall health and longevity.
IN TEN ENTERTAINING CHAPTERS, ROBERT J. DAVIS
* Diets and why they don't work
* Dietary supplements
* The campaign to reduce cholesterol
* Celebrity exhortations to "get tested"
* Sunscreen and its promoters' claims
* The antichemical activists
- GenresNonfiction
254 pages, Hardcover
First published May 2, 2008
About the author
Robert J. Davis
4 books17 followersRobert J. Davis, PhD, a.k.a. The Healthy Skeptic, is an award-winning health journalist whose work has appeared on CNN, PBS, WebMD, and in The Wall Street Journal. The author of three previous books on health, he hosts the “Healthy Skeptic” video series, which dissects the science behind popular health claims. Davis holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree in public health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, and a PhD in health policy from Brandeis University, where he was Pew Foundation Fellow.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 8, 2009
The basic message of this book is that when it comes to health claims, don't believe everything you read. Actually, it’s more like don't believe ANYTHING you read without first checking up on the research behind it, the sources promoting it, and what those telling you what to do stand to gain if you comply.
Here's the thing: even supposedly trustworthy sources aren't quite as neutral about these issues as one might imagine. In this book, health journalist Robert Davis carefully explains why that is. Everyone is aware, of course, of the basic conflict of interest that occurs when scientific research on new drugs, supplements, procedures, diets or health products is paid for by those who stand to benefit from a positive result. Davis does a good job of examining not only these more obvious conflicts of interest, but also how the media who should be more skeptically examining these claims will often swallow the PR hook because exciting new discoveries sell more papers than the usually more ambiguous truth. In addition, he also exposes how many seemingly neutral non-profits making health recommendations are actually funded by industries that benefit from the suggestions they make, and even those that aren't sometimes raise health alarms not based on good science but for other, more mundane reasons such as trying to get attention and new members.
The only way to avoid being unduly biased by all this health spin, Davis suggests, is to learn the basics of what constitutes a good study, get your information from as neutral a source as possible (many of which he includes in the book), and accept the reality that human health is far more complex than a marketing and PR campaign can ever accept. In the course of his discussion, Davis offers examples of how to be a good skeptical health consumer by examining a number of health claims from the sacred (lower your cholesterol, lose weight and wear sunscreen) to the fringe (anti-aging medicine is safe and effective.) I was surprised to learn that some studies suggest that the use of statins to lower cholesterol in some populations may not be worth the risk of side-effects, that losing weight may not always be the health-improving home run its presented to be, and that sunscreen, while helping prevent a mild form of skin cancer, has not been proven to protect against the most dangerous form of melanoma and may in fact increase risk of it by giving people a false sense of security about their level of protection.
In his final chapter, Davis discusses why people are often so easily swayed by questionable health advice. Most people like the idea that we can be in control of our individual destinies, and, to some extent, we are. He includes a clear list of those actions that have been definitively shown to improve one's health and suggests that people do make the effort to follow them. But in making health choices, he reminds us that it's important to prioritize and not try to follow every new health recommendation fad with scanty real evidence. Doing so will only cause us to become more stressed, and thus undermine our attempt to be more healthy in the first place.
Here's the thing: even supposedly trustworthy sources aren't quite as neutral about these issues as one might imagine. In this book, health journalist Robert Davis carefully explains why that is. Everyone is aware, of course, of the basic conflict of interest that occurs when scientific research on new drugs, supplements, procedures, diets or health products is paid for by those who stand to benefit from a positive result. Davis does a good job of examining not only these more obvious conflicts of interest, but also how the media who should be more skeptically examining these claims will often swallow the PR hook because exciting new discoveries sell more papers than the usually more ambiguous truth. In addition, he also exposes how many seemingly neutral non-profits making health recommendations are actually funded by industries that benefit from the suggestions they make, and even those that aren't sometimes raise health alarms not based on good science but for other, more mundane reasons such as trying to get attention and new members.
The only way to avoid being unduly biased by all this health spin, Davis suggests, is to learn the basics of what constitutes a good study, get your information from as neutral a source as possible (many of which he includes in the book), and accept the reality that human health is far more complex than a marketing and PR campaign can ever accept. In the course of his discussion, Davis offers examples of how to be a good skeptical health consumer by examining a number of health claims from the sacred (lower your cholesterol, lose weight and wear sunscreen) to the fringe (anti-aging medicine is safe and effective.) I was surprised to learn that some studies suggest that the use of statins to lower cholesterol in some populations may not be worth the risk of side-effects, that losing weight may not always be the health-improving home run its presented to be, and that sunscreen, while helping prevent a mild form of skin cancer, has not been proven to protect against the most dangerous form of melanoma and may in fact increase risk of it by giving people a false sense of security about their level of protection.
In his final chapter, Davis discusses why people are often so easily swayed by questionable health advice. Most people like the idea that we can be in control of our individual destinies, and, to some extent, we are. He includes a clear list of those actions that have been definitively shown to improve one's health and suggests that people do make the effort to follow them. But in making health choices, he reminds us that it's important to prioritize and not try to follow every new health recommendation fad with scanty real evidence. Doing so will only cause us to become more stressed, and thus undermine our attempt to be more healthy in the first place.
July 23, 2011
I always enjoy a thorough debunking, and this book's got plenty. Sunscreen? Not so fast! Throw statins at your high cholesterol? Not so fast. But more than debunking via solid science, this book is about critical thinking and research skills, and about how humans are biased to believe opinions presented as facts. Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.
April 29, 2009
This was tough--I actually felt about 4 stars through a lot of it, but then dropped down to 2 toward the end. It's an interesting look at how our ideas about good health are shaped by the media, industry, special interest groups, the government. But after making his point, his suggestion for approaching health info is basically to become an expert on everything. If someone tells you to wear sunscreen, you should LOOK UP THE STUDIES that they're basing that suggestion on, and if they don't tell you which studies, you should FOLLOW THE MONEY and figure out who's financing that person. Like, say, your mom.
So he was not in any way helpful, except to say that, beyond eating right, getting exercise, and not smoking, almost everything else is superfluous for almost everybody.
I have other quibbles but it's really not worth my energy to enumerate them. The first part, though, about where all this info comes from and why not to listen to any of it, really, is pretty great.
So he was not in any way helpful, except to say that, beyond eating right, getting exercise, and not smoking, almost everything else is superfluous for almost everybody.
I have other quibbles but it's really not worth my energy to enumerate them. The first part, though, about where all this info comes from and why not to listen to any of it, really, is pretty great.
February 23, 2017
Great read! I didn't know about the flimsy evidence for the use of sunscreen preventing melanoma. I actually experienced something in elementary school similar to the child's program described. Sunscreen's importance was drilled into me, like many others, for my whole life and I had no idea that it should not be the first method of prevention. I was horrified to read how even well-known and respected journalists and news anchors don't seem to do full and complete research. I have already noted how whistle-blowing/fear-mongering documentaries give full respect and credibility to said whistle-blower/fear-mongerer, while raising eyebrows and being completely disrespectful to the other side, so there is no balance. Even worse, the producers never bother to get third-party statements.
Some things mentioned in this book include fad diets, Oprah's live on-air full-body scan, supplement advertising, government health campaigns (cholesterol), celebrity health campaigns (they may or may not be paid pharma. spokespeople), consumer activists (how high is the individual risk, and aren't there bigger risks that should be focused on), anti-aging, and giving too much weight on prevention (because some things can't be prevented entirely; there is no fail-safe way to 100% prevent, say, heart disease).
Also included at the end of each chapter were recommended resources that are listed as more objective. I plan to write them down for future reference.
Some things mentioned in this book include fad diets, Oprah's live on-air full-body scan, supplement advertising, government health campaigns (cholesterol), celebrity health campaigns (they may or may not be paid pharma. spokespeople), consumer activists (how high is the individual risk, and aren't there bigger risks that should be focused on), anti-aging, and giving too much weight on prevention (because some things can't be prevented entirely; there is no fail-safe way to 100% prevent, say, heart disease).
Also included at the end of each chapter were recommended resources that are listed as more objective. I plan to write them down for future reference.
June 15, 2009
Nice analysis of types of studies (case-control, cohort, randomized trials........) of risk or protective factors in physical health. I'm not sure how many people are sufficiently motivated to go get original sources and evaluate them according to methodology, funding sources, etc. Also, a good bit of what can be misleading about health-relevant studies is selective publication (e.g., we have a huge database from population study, analyze everything under the sun, by fluke find that variable X is associated with mortality or morbidity, and then publicize that finding in isolation, ignoring all the dead-end analyses), which the downstream reader has more or less no chance of detecting.
In any case, readable, clear-headed take-downs of some exaggerated claims and a reasonable list of high-priority health habits (don't smoke, don't drink too much, eat a balanced diet, wear a seatbelt....) that are a lot more important than knowing the ins and outs of most recent food fad etc.
On the other hand, a few of the chapters seemed like a bit of a stretch for the "hype" framework of the book. Sunscreen, for example, is helpful re some types of skin cancer but apparently not melanoma, and just because you're wearing sunscreen doesn't mean you're good to go no matter how long you stay out in the sun. Similarly, total and LDL cholesterol are bad but don't matter if you are already elderly, and they're no more important than hypertension, obesity, etc. as CHD risk factors.
These conclusions fit the theme of the book only if you believed previously that the issue in question (sunscreen, cholesterol) was THE important focus for preventing all skin cancers or heart disease.
In any case, readable, clear-headed take-downs of some exaggerated claims and a reasonable list of high-priority health habits (don't smoke, don't drink too much, eat a balanced diet, wear a seatbelt....) that are a lot more important than knowing the ins and outs of most recent food fad etc.
On the other hand, a few of the chapters seemed like a bit of a stretch for the "hype" framework of the book. Sunscreen, for example, is helpful re some types of skin cancer but apparently not melanoma, and just because you're wearing sunscreen doesn't mean you're good to go no matter how long you stay out in the sun. Similarly, total and LDL cholesterol are bad but don't matter if you are already elderly, and they're no more important than hypertension, obesity, etc. as CHD risk factors.
These conclusions fit the theme of the book only if you believed previously that the issue in question (sunscreen, cholesterol) was THE important focus for preventing all skin cancers or heart disease.
June 19, 2008
Robert Davis has a great no-nonsense approach to evaluating the abundance of health claims we hear in today's media. With chapters on a range of topics (chemicals to aging to cholesterol to dieting, etc) Robert evaluates the science (and the business interests) behind the claims. He is a health journalist with a master's and doctorate in public health. Robert is himself a member of the media, but he also has the discerning and skeptical eye of a scientist. My Psychology of Aging students really appreciated his chapter on "Anti-Aging Medicine" for the past two semesters. The issues in the book are nuanced, but Robert's writing is clear and easy to follow. Each chapter starts with a great cartoon (a la New Yorker). Robert is a good friend of ours and he's written a fantastic book!
December 22, 2013
I love this book!!! It's something I really needed to read. With the constant health information we are bombarded with every single day, it's very difficult to sieve through things.
This book covered a few specific topics like statins, sunscreen, supplements, etc. It also gives you a guide to use in the future. (Yes, it means you actually have to do some work!)
There is also resources after each chapter, and everything is sourced.
The overall book was interesting and very easy to read. I HIGHLY suggest everyone read it. Not only will you be surprised (and sometimes angry) at how dishonest some companies are, but it'll give you the knowledge/power to understand how some companies work and how to be the perfect health skeptic - no critic.
This book covered a few specific topics like statins, sunscreen, supplements, etc. It also gives you a guide to use in the future. (Yes, it means you actually have to do some work!)
There is also resources after each chapter, and everything is sourced.
The overall book was interesting and very easy to read. I HIGHLY suggest everyone read it. Not only will you be surprised (and sometimes angry) at how dishonest some companies are, but it'll give you the knowledge/power to understand how some companies work and how to be the perfect health skeptic - no critic.
January 2, 2009
When I had first read about this book in a health magazine, I felt intrigued by it and wanted to read it as soon as it was available at my public library.
After reading this book, all I have to say about it is that it was only okay. It was rather dry for me to read, considering a lot of it was scientific talk. Some of the insight was good and eye-opening, considering so much of the hype Davis talks about in the book is usually overlooked by people who don't know any better about what to believe.
Still, this book felt like it had something missing in it. I can't tell if I'm now more aware or more cynical.
After reading this book, all I have to say about it is that it was only okay. It was rather dry for me to read, considering a lot of it was scientific talk. Some of the insight was good and eye-opening, considering so much of the hype Davis talks about in the book is usually overlooked by people who don't know any better about what to believe.
Still, this book felt like it had something missing in it. I can't tell if I'm now more aware or more cynical.
February 1, 2010
Nonfiction 3
This was an informative book about how to assess health claims in a logical and rational way. He works through several different types of claims (has milk been shown to reduce osteoporosis?) and examines what the claims are. Although there is no conclusive evidence that milk does reduce osteoporosis, he does say that it doesn't automatically mean that it doesn't. The book discusses how to be a skeptic, not a cynic. I would recommend this book for anything that has unwittingly become a cynic and has begun to ignore all new health claims. This is a breath of fresh air in a hyped up media world. I also learned a lot about each of the cases he studies.
This was an informative book about how to assess health claims in a logical and rational way. He works through several different types of claims (has milk been shown to reduce osteoporosis?) and examines what the claims are. Although there is no conclusive evidence that milk does reduce osteoporosis, he does say that it doesn't automatically mean that it doesn't. The book discusses how to be a skeptic, not a cynic. I would recommend this book for anything that has unwittingly become a cynic and has begun to ignore all new health claims. This is a breath of fresh air in a hyped up media world. I also learned a lot about each of the cases he studies.
June 8, 2009
The Healthy Skeptic takes a clear eyed view of popular health fads from dietary supplements to screening tests. The topics are intriguing: Does sunscreen prevent cancer? Should you take statins to lower your cholesterol? Can human growth hormone retard ageing?
The premise of the book is that consumers should learn to think critically and make informed decisions about their health. The books is interesting and easy to read. Perhaps the best part is the section at the end of each chapter outlining books and on line sources of accurate information about the topics covered in each chapter.
The premise of the book is that consumers should learn to think critically and make informed decisions about their health. The books is interesting and easy to read. Perhaps the best part is the section at the end of each chapter outlining books and on line sources of accurate information about the topics covered in each chapter.
July 28, 2011
Quite good. Slow start, only because the topics weren't new to me - the questionable authority of "health experts" and diets, the fallability of the media, celebrities, and governments, the anti-aging contingent - but it got more interesting with the examples of sunscreen, chemicals in products, the sometimes poor science used by non-profits like EWG, and the Teflon example - all very interesting. Need to question all groups and their evidence behind their claims - everyone seems to exaggerate to serve their agenda. I liked how he qualified the arguments around issues. A good book!
January 18, 2009
I got the mail idea after the first chapter, which was basically that we shouldn't beleive all of the hype and should be well informed before making decisions realted to our health. The rest of the book seemed to just reiterate this point over and over. Furthermore, some of the points made by the author are not entirely convincing. One strong positive was the large amount of resources provided atthe end of eac chapter. I give it a 4.5 on a scale of 1-10.
October 30, 2010
I'm so used to health related nonsense, I figured this would be mostly fluff. Instead it's a fluff expose, and far more honest and rigorous than I expected. Reading it is a great exercise in learning how to think critically about what you see and read in the media; it also includes links to trustworthy sources for further medical information.
August 27, 2008
Offers alternative, rational thought on some major health-related issues -- sunscreen? cholesterol? supplements?
June 13, 2010
Encourages people to do a bit of research and realize that health claims are a marketing tool, making them prone to logical fallacies and factual omissions and inaccuracies. Highly recommended.
April 24, 2017
Mostly common sense.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews