Lies My Doctor Told Me Second Edition: Medical Myths That Can Harm Your Health

Great info for anyone skeptical of nutritional and pharmaceutical advice from today’s doctors. I made the decision to change my diet and lifestyle about 6 months ago based on what I heard from a friend and I began doing a TON of research on the inconsistencies between what we’ve been taught for the last 5 decades and what really works. So for me, a lot of the information Dr. Berry includes in his book was not new, though I did learn some new things on topics I had not yet researched. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book for what it is – a very well written, well-researched, easy-to-read tale of how we are being misled into believing that modern medicine (which is truly excellent when it comes to emergency care) has let us down when it comes to the most important factors in our overall health – diet and lifestyle. I have become a convert to the idea that modern “medicine” guidelines are less and less concerned with patients’ health and more and more promulgated by Big Food and Big Pharma, who are concerned solely with their bottom line and not at all with people’s health and well-being.That said, I do have two small quibbles with the book which made me give it 4 stars (I would have done 4.5 if possible) instead of 5. Number one, I do wish he would have included a few links to some of the research he quotes. I understand and agree with his recommendation that, as part of accepting that we must take most of the responsibility for our health into our own hands, we need to learn how to examine medical research with a thorough and skeptical eye. But including a few links (I only recall two), and perhaps a paragraph or two on useful places to search (and where to stay away from) and how to craft your searches would not have come amiss. He does list useful books and articles at the end of most chapters, though, and undoubtedly many of them have references to pursue so that could be helpful.Two, in many chapters he casts doubt upon some accepted medical practice guidelines by saying that the studies providing the “evidence” that went into setting many current standards of practice are flawed because they are epidemiological. This is absolutely true, but in Chapter 9 where he discusses the flawed idea that nuts, seeds, popcorn and corn cause flare-ups of diverticular disease, the “large, well-done research study” that he uses to refute this idea is itself largely an epidemiological study. This is one of the studies he does provide a direct link to (and if you want to read it and must type the link in, be sure to use the correct case for all the letters or the link will not work – the capital letters must be capitalized) so I read the study myself. It was indeed well-designed, and the researchers did examine medical records to ensure that those participants who reported incidents of diverticular disease were correctly diagnosed. But the dietary data was gathered from self-administrated food frequency questionnaires, and if Dr. Berry is going to cast doubt on the results of studies where the data is self-reported it’s a bit ironic to state that this study “showed, without doubt, that some foods do increase your risk of getting diverticulitis. However, seeds, nuts and popcorn are not on the list of problem foods.” I don’t doubt the results of the study, but you can’t really DO randomized controlled trials to track diet and nutrition since you can’t lock people up and monitor every bite they eat for long periods of time (except when studying small, controlled populations like the Inuit) so most studies on human diet and nutrition are going to have some self-reported components. In these cases, study design is critical and this one was definitely better than some of the so-called ‘studies’ used to prove how bad – or good – some component of diet or lifestyle is for humans. If you have an interest in learning how to tell a good study from a bad one, and how important it is to be skeptical about the latest medical headlines, I’d highly recommend “Doctoring Data: How to sort out medical advice from medical nonsense” by Malcolm Kendrick. It’s a fascinating and frightening read on how easily we are led astray by medical research and reporting trickery.All in all, this is a first-rate book. Dr. Berry also puts out excellent YouTube videos quite frequently and I’ve learned a great deal from those as well. You can tell that the man is dedicated to providing the most current, well-researched information possible – he is indeed the lifelong learner that he encourages us all to be.

Everyone should read this book. Dr. Berry writes in a way that is easy to understand. He not only covers the many myths we’ve been told over the years, but he explains why they are wrong. So many things make sense to me now. I will now ask why more often when told things related to my health. Love his honesty and hope others read his books and follow his podcasts.

Great book. Great book, author is right to the point.