The Wellness Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive Family Resource for Safeguarding Health and Preventing Illness

by University of California Berkeley (Corporate Author)

The first comprehensive health encyclopedia based on preventive medicine. Wellness is a concept whose time has come. This essential home reference covers hundreds of topics, including:

• Calculating health risk
• Obesity & weight control
• Nutritional fact & fiction
• Health skin & hair
• Strength & flexibility
• Preventing back trouble
• Using the health care system
• Accident prevention in the home
• Stress management
• Staying well while traveling
• Caring for your teeth
• Preventing memory loss
• Vitamins & minerals
• Sexuality & reproduction
• Building fitness efficiently & without pain
Answers to questions such as:

• Does vitamin A offer protection from cancer?
• Can walking really provide aerobic benefits?
• Why does my stomach growl?
• Are disposable contact lenses better than ordinary ones?
• Should I be concerned about ridges on my fingernails?
• Will napping renew energy?
• What are hot dogs really made of?
• Are tanning salons safe?
• Is barbecued food unhealthful?
• What is the best way to do sit-ups?
• Should children floss their teeth?
• How risky is postponing pregnancy?

Features include:

• Cross-referenced index with over 2,400 entries
• Fascinating facts that dispel health-care myths
• Highlighted tips that help teach, inspire & convince
• Stress-reduction techniques & step-by-step illustrations of exercises
• Buying guides for everything from cheeses to pain relievers

Genres: Reference

552 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Todd Hooper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not buy this worthless resource. It's almost thirty years old, admittedly, but it's aged poorly. It abounds with practically worthless information on stretches and minutiae about this and that, but then it brazenly embraces scientific conservative skepticism. The book proclaims loudly that moderate long term coffee usage is fine and "probably won't harm you" while offering an anecdote that suggests the opposite. Regular coffee drinkers given a dosage don't display noticable signs of elevation in blood pressure and metabolism, while a corresponding group of non coffee consumers do. This obviously demonstrates that coffee dependence or regular consumption promotes a general elevated state of physiological arousal, but in their minds as long as you're not moving into cardiac arrest, you're fine. However, anything that causes elevated and prolonged release and circulation of stress hormones as well as having a stimulative affect on blood pressure can be assumed to be doing some kind of damage on your circulatory system and tissues. This is where a smattering of physics application would be preferable to a clinical trial

There is a ton of mixed information and theories out there, and less supporting research one way or the other about coffees long term effects on the body, but the arguments and admonitions are credible and reasonable against it, and that being the case, it is irresponsible to advice people coffee usage "will not do harm" in the long run. It also demonizes coconut oil only because it is a saturated fat. Research has demonstrated that not all saturated fats are equally metabolized. There's some other junk floating around in this book too. It generally seems more like a tome of institutional scientismic snobbery than a useful resource. Of course the snobbery of academics is dangerous because it relies totally on clinical evidence even though the barriers to providing such evidence are enormous and problematic for particular reasons due to the weakness of the toolset to isolate cause from effect. Those who adopt this mindset always comport to the assumption that the status quo is fine until demonstrated otherwise.

[Marcus Devin]

$29.95