A personal list of book recommendations to support you along your health journey.
Here are just a few to get started. While I don’t subscribe to everything in these books, I have discovered many great lessons in them. Enough to recommend.
There are definitely more books to come to this list!
Content will be updated as it becomes available.
Six-Foot Tiger, Three-Foot Cage
by Felix Liao, DDS
I’ll admit it: I bought this book because of the title. Six-Foot Tiger, Three-Foot Cage. The imagery was enough to make my tongue explore its surroundings to feel how cramped it was in its own cage. And though I didn’t have any expectations when I purchased it, this book has had a most profound impact in my own life. Dr. Felix Liao writes in simple language, using plenty of analogies and images (as the title exemplifies) to describe a mouth that is impaired in its ability to function optimally and the disastrous (but ubiquitous) consequences. He presents interesting anecdotal evidences of the connection between the oral cavity from its immediately surrounding structures all the way down to the heels of the feet. This book reads very easily and I am convinced many of you will experience a number of “aha” moments as I did. And if you’re like me, you’ll want to learn more about the solutions to these problems of an impaired mouth. This book started me on a journey that is positively making a difference in the health of my own mouth and body. It’s a personal favorite because of the impact it’s had on me.
Blind Spots
by Marty Makary, MD
The subtitle reads: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health. In a time when there is an effort to encourage acceptance and inclusivity of all, it is alarming that there are some things that seem exempt from acceptance—like ideas that challenge the collective thinking. Such ideas are often dismissed and even vilified. In Blind Spots, Dr. Makary presents case after case (in chapter after chapter) of what can happen when medical recommendations are made with broad strokes for the general population with an attitude of absolutism. Thought-provoking, perception-testing, and eye-opening, this really is a must-read for anyone who values the veracity of the information we so readily consume. This book encourages us to carefully consider how we accept medical advice and the system (educational, research, commercial, and otherwise) from which it comes. It is entirely human to make mistakes; it is absolutely inhumane not to admit a mistake has been made when an errant recommendation can cost the health of a population. Again, a must-read for healthcare providers and healthcare consumers alike.
If you (or someone you know) are experiencing one of the following, here’s a cheat sheet for the chapters you may benefit from reading:
Chapter 1 - The Salem Peanut Trial: How Experts Created an Epidemic
If you: have a peanut allergy; have a child who starting to wean off nursing
Chapter 2 - OMG HRT: The Untold Story of Hormone Replacement Therapy
If you: have peri-menopausal symptoms; are within 10 years after menopause
Chapter 3 - “No Downsides to Antibiotics”: Except Carpet-Bombing the Microbiome
If you: were exposed to multiple courses of antibiotics as a young child; have a child under the age 3 who is recommended antibiotics; have been advised to take/have taken multiple courses of antibiotics
Chapter 4 - My Uncle Sam Loves Eggs: The Truth About Cholesterol
If you: this title is pretty self-explanatory
Chapter 6 - Bad Blood: How the Medical Establishment Actually Works
If you: lived through the AIDS/HIV crisis; lived through a blood transfusion during that time
Chapter 7 - A Warm Welcome: Rethinking How We Bring Babies Into the World
If you: have a baby on the way
Chapter 8 - Challenging Certainty: The True Origin of Ovarian Cancer
If you are considering: having your ovaries removed; having your fallopian tubes tied (tubal ligation), having your fallopian tubes removed
Chapter 9 - Breast Implants, Autoimmune Diseases, and the Opioid Crisis
This chapter covers a lot and is also pretty self-explanatory
Breath
by James Nestor
Although I don’t subscribe to everything in this book, it provides many powerful insights into how many of us (myself included) have found ourselves challenged to do something as seemingly simple as breathing. More importantly, rather than identifying a problem and leaving us to deal with the aftermath, Breath offers some possible solutions to the problem. Nestor has a gift for taking an abundance of research and boiling it down to an easy-to-digest narrative—even for the casual reader. This book opened my eyes, taught me a LOT, and got me started on a very exciting professional journey. I cannot recommend this book enough.
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
by Weston A. Price, DDS
In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, we are the beneficiaries of the curiosity of Dr. Weston Price, who asked the right questions at the right time. Armed with the technology of a camera and an appetite for knowledge, this dentist set out on a number of investigative travels in the 1930s and 40s to study the peoples of isolated cultures. The timing was perfect: he lived in a civilized western world while being able to experience the existence of people who were untouched by modern life.
What he found (and recorded through photographs) is astounding.
Price makes a convincing presentation of the link between a nutritious diet and oral health. And not just the “cavity-free” type of oral health. We’re talking about straight teeth, good facial development, and big vibrant smiles. Even beyond the mouth, he noted well-built physiques, emotional stability, resistance from diseases, ease of reproduction, and fine characters. Unfortunately, our western civilized diets are not providing the nutrition or exercise to develop the health these people exhibited. This book really made me evaluate how little I value the importance of food.
Even if you don’t like to read, it’s worth getting this book just to flip through pages to look at the photos and captions by themselves!
