Anna Hepworth’s Reviews > The Germ Files: The Surprising Ways Microbes Can Improve Your Health and Life > Status Update

the next wtf moment "all mammals require the virally-encoded placenta". Ignoring 'virally-encoded' here, which is appropriate in context, pretty sure that at most that can apply to *placental* mammals.

and now we get to something I know enough about to go 'actually, no, that is not how it works'. Which means that the rest of the book becomes more suspect.

pretty sure this statement has been debunked: " Those wishing to lose weight simply need to increase their level of exertion and the pounds will come off". On top of the low level fat phobia in the sections I've read today, I'm downgrading my opinion of this book further.

Lack of citations is making me disbelieve some of the more hyperbolic statements, especially as there have been a few where I know enough to say 'well, technically, I suppose so, but actually, it doesn't work like that'. And I know it is pop-science, but I'm not feeling like I'm taking much away - I'm reading it, and the ideas are falling out the back of my head.