Natural Causes : An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer (Hardcover)

from rivkat

This is a weird book. It's half about our obsession with controlling our own bodies—and the resulting mind/body dualism, which makes our newer obsession with controlling our own “selves” a bit hard to parse; who's doing the controlling? The other half is about our cells, like the macrophages that...

from Tytania

Some really great food for thought; sections where Ehrenreich shares her own perspective and personal experience are the best. She is well into her 70s, and has made the honorable and sane decision (IMHO) not to pursue any further medical tests or disease-related interventions. She also eats what...

from booklover915

In Barbara Ehrenreich's "Natural Causes," the author--who has a PhD in cellular immunology--discusses human biology; debunks conventional wisdom concerning health and aging; criticizes intrusive medical professionals who overprescribe and order unnecessary tests; and denounces our obsession with ...

from Devil_llama

This was a real mesh of good and awful, with some mediocre tying it all together. First, whenever someone starts using the phrase "Western medicine", the thing is not likely to end well. When she follows up her assessment that clinical medicine doesn't have strong enough evidence to support it by...

from writemoves

I enjoyed the perspectives and information presented within this book. The sections on the cellular basis of aging were a bit beyond me but I identified with the topics on medical tests, patient-doctor relationships and how to accept aging and dying. I have witnessed the slow decline of my parent...