Book ~ "The Cure for Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness" (2012) Timothy Caulfield

From Goodreads ~ In "The Cure for Everything!" health-law expert Timothy Caulfield exposes the special interests that twist good science about health and fitness to sell us services and products that mostly don’t work. Want great abs? You won’t get them by using the latest Ab-Flex-Spinner-Thingy. Are you trying to lose ten pounds? Diet books are a waste of trees. Do you rely on healthcare practitioners - either mainstream or alternative - to provide the cure for what ails you? Then beware! Both Big Pharma and naturopathy are powerful twisting forces with products and services to sell.

Caulfield doesn’t just talk the talk. He signs up for circuit training with a Hollywood trainer who cultivates the abs of the stars. With his own Food Advisory Team (FAT) made up of specialists in nutrition and diet, he makes a lifestyle change that really works (mainly it involves eating less than he is used to eating ... much less) And when he embarks on a holiday cruise, dreading motion sickness, he takes along both a homeopathic and pharmaceutical remedy - with surprising results. 

This is a light-hearted book with a serious theme. Caulfield demonstrates that the truth about being healthy is easy to find (but often hard to do). 

Timothy Caulfield was the closing speaking at a pensions and benefits conference I attended in October.  I found him interesting and entertaining so thought I'd read some of his books.

Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His interdisciplinary research on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representations of science and health policy issues have allowed him to publish over 350 academic articles. He has won numerous academic and writing awards and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Trudeau Foundation and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

This book is about health and about the science associated with health.  There is a lot of information available to us about what to eat, whether to cleanse, whether to take supplements, how to exercise, whether you get your meridians centered, and more.  In this book, Caulfield seeks to answer the questions about these issues and other related questions.

He felt it was essential to experience the journey rather than just speak with the experts and read relevant research (his findings are listed in the large notes section of the book).  As such, there are four chapters in the book:

1. Fitness - he went to a personal trainer (he includes his recommended exercise routine)
2. Diet - he went on a diet (he includes his eating suggestions)
3. Genetics - he got his genes tested
4. Remedies - he tried different potions and procedures

Caulfield worked on the book for a year, interviewing experts and getting personally engaged in every topic he covered, before providing his conclusions.  In the process, he discovered some things about himself.

I like the writing style.  I'm not a science person and I understood for the most part what he was talking about.  If I wanted further information, I could check the notes section.  I found this to be an interesting read and I look forward to reading other books by this author.