Miracle Pill

'This book is pretty life-changing – encouraging, optimistic, rich with information. It got me off the sofa.' Jeremy Vine 'This is such a lovely, ambitious, fascinating book. Essential lockdown reading. It allows us to reimagine our world and our bodies: we can move more.' Dr Xand van Tulleken, TV presenter 'Truly uplifting' Chris Boardman What is the 'miracle pill', the simple lifestyle change with such enormous health benefits that, if it was turned into a drug, would be the most valuable drug in the world? The answer is movement and the good news is that it's free, easy and available to everyone. Four in ten British adults, and 80% of children, are so sedentary they don’t meet even the minimum recommended levels for movement. What’s going on? The answer is simple: activity became exercise. What for centuries was universal and everyday has become the fetishised pursuit of a minority, whether the superhuman feats of elite athletes, or a chore slotted into busy schedules. Yes, most people know physical activity is good for us. And yet 1.5 billion people around the world are so inactive they are at greater risk of everything from heart disease to diabetes, cancer, arthritis and depression, even dementia. Sedentary living now kills more people than obesity, despite receiving much less attention, and is causing a pandemic of chronic ill health many experts predict could soon bankrupt the NHS. How did we get here? Daily, constant exertion was an integral part of humanity for millennia, but in just a few decades movement was virtually designed out of people’s lives through transformed workplaces, the dominance of the car, and a built environment which encourages people to be static. In a world now also infiltrated by ubiquitous screens, app-summoned taxis and shopping delivered to your door, it can be shocking to realise exactly how sedentary many of us are. A recent study found almost half of middle-aged English people don’t walk continuously for ten minutes or more in an average month. At current trends, scientists forecast, the average US adult will expend little more energy in an average week than someone who spent all their time in bed. This book is a chronicle of this very modern and largely unexplored catastrophe, and the story of the people trying to turn it around. Through interviews with experts in various fields - doctors, scientists, architects and politicians - Peter Walker explores how to bring more movement into the modern world and, most importantly, into your life. Forget the gym, introducing quick and easy lifestyle changes can slow down the ageing process and even reverse many illnesses and increase mental wellbeing.

An investigation into the global threat to health that modern, sedentary lifestyles pose today, and a blueprint for change.

A television and restaurant chef who lost 110 pounds without dieting shares what she learned during the process of changing herself from a person who constantly battled her weight to someone in harmony with her body.

Diarmuid Jeffreys traces the story of aspirin from the drug's origins in ancient Egypt, through its industrial development at the end of the nineteenth century and its key role in the great flu pandemic of 1918, to its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical conglomerates and the marvelous powers still being discovered today. Diarmuid Jeffreys is a British writer, journalist, and television producer who has made current affairs and documentary programs for BBC TV, Channel 4, and others. He is also the author of The Bureau: Inside the Modern FBI. He lives with his wife and children in East Sussex. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004 "Jeffreys is an extremely clever and accessible writer, and his book is comprehensible while still being smart. If it is possible to get giddy over aspirin, Jeffreys manages it. This enthusiasm injects his well-researched prose with a verve and drama that makes for something of a medical history page-turner."-Oregonian "A remarkable story...This is more than the story of aspirin: It is a history lesson."-San Diego Union-Tribune "Diarmuid Jeffreys seamlessly manages his complicated subject...Throughout, Jeffreys renders an absorbing account of the drug's ride from obscurity to celebrity and around about again to its rebirth as today's wonder drug."-San Francisco Chronicle "One of the most fascinating stories in the whole of medicine."-New Scientist Also available: HC 1-58234-386-1 ISBN 978-158234-386-0 $25.95

A simple approach to weight loss and better health, with an exhaustive (and exhausting) collection of fun, fat-torching, life-changing workouts that can be tailored to any fitness level “This is a must read for everyone who wants to live a long and active life.”—Robert Sallis, MD, former president, American College of Sports Medicine What if there were a drug to treat every illness, across all body systems, proven potent against heart disease, depression, arthritis, PMS and erectile dysfunction—even in chronic diseases such as asthma, dementia, and certain types of cancer? What if it had no side effects, was completely free, readily available, and worked for everyone? Every single person who took it decreased her risk of premature death and raised his quality of life. Would you want it? In a healthcare system that spends 17% of GDP, roughly $2.7 trillion, mostly on disease treatment, how do we save money and prevent illness? By increasing the use of the world's most effective preventive medicine: exercise. In The Exercise Cure, Dr. Jordan Metzl—nationally renowned sports medicine physician—offers malady-specific and well-researched exercise prescriptions to help readers stay healthy, heal disease, drop pounds, increase longevity, and transform their lives. Dr. Metzl knows that exercise is inexpensive, powerful medicine that has benefits in prevention and treatment of disease without disturbing side effects. Even in older adults, daily exercise has been found to prevent dementia by generating neuron development in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. Combining the latest data and his proven motivational skills, Dr. Metzl addresses the common maladies troubling millions. He discusses our cardiovascular, pulmonary, metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurologic, reproductive, and endocrinologic body systems, with special sections on sleep problems and cancer prevention, presenting the science behind the role of exercise as medicine. Then, he details workouts that can be tailored easily to any fitness level, beginner to advanced, and provides nutritional information, including meal plans for healthy eating and disease prevention.

A Chicago Tribune "Best Books of 2014" • A Slate "Best Books 2014: Staff Picks" • A St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Best Books of 2014" The fascinating story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid. Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.

History of the breakthrough of the cancer pill "Gleevec."

A pair of doctors team up to illuminate, through neuroscience and captivating stories from their clinical practice, how serving others—and pitching in to the world in general—is a secret superpower. If a doctor’s prescription could bring you: - Longer life - Better health - More energy and resilience - Less burnout, depression and anxiety - More happiness, fulfillment and well-being - More personal and professional success (including higher income) - And, no harmful side effects Would you take it? In Wonder Drug, physician scientists Stephen Trzeciak, M.D., and Anthony Mazzarelli, M.D., illuminate, through neuroscience and captivating stories from their clinical practices, how being a giving, other-focused person is a secret superpower. Serving others—and pitching in to the world in general—is the evidence-based way to live your life. Kinder people not only live longer, they also live better. Science shows that serving others is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do. Wonder Drug will make you rethink your notions of “self-care” and “me time,” and realize that focusing on others is a potent antidote to the weariness that so many of us feel in modern times. Getting outside of your own head, outside the swirl of self-concern that may dominate your mental chatter, is, ironically, one of the best things you can do for yourself. Building upon their earlier work showing that, in the context of healthcare, having more compassion for patients is a powerful way to not only achieve better patient outcomes, but also promote well-being, resilience and resistance to burnout among healthcare workers, Trzeciak and Mazzarelli now extend their research to uncover how the power of serving others reaches far beyond the medical world and can be a life-changing therapy for everyone. Wonder Drug relates to the varying meanings of giving in real people’s daily lives. The stories in this book will convince and inspire you to make simple prism changes. You don’t need a total life upheaval, just a purposeful shift in mindset. In fact, the crucial first piece of the evidence-based prescription is this: start small. Per science, the best way to well-being and finding your true fulfillment is this: scan your orbit for the people around you in need of help, and go fill that need, as often as you can.