The Duke Encyclo of New Medicine: Conventional and Alternative Medicine for All Ages

"Below I list links to two other "alternative" or natural medicine books, and above I post a slide that I created as I contemplate a new book on Health Intelligence.

Unlike the other two books, this book is an overview book that integrates both conventional and "alternative" or natural medicine as commonly developed by both the Chinese (more structured, easier to access and exploit) and the Indian (more verbal and not as documented).

For this book to come out of Duke University (the "Harvard" of the South, but a powerhouse in its own right) is easily worth a fifth star, as Duke appears to be, along with the University of Washington, one of a tiny handful of institutions that is committed to balancing a very unreliable, wasteful, and often deceptive "conventional" medicine program (big phrama and lots of elective surguries that are not evidence-based), with natural cures including lifestyle and behavior or preference patterns that have been proven over centuries in China and India, but deliberately repressed, censored, subverted and scorned by the American Medical Association, which exists largely to protect a very badly broken medical "practice" that is closer to witch doctoring than it is to evidence-based holistic health.

I am very pleased to see that the publisher and Amazon have made it possible to "look inside" this excellent book, so my normal remediation is not necessary. This book is a "class act" in every possible sense of the word, from content to organization to presentation to glosary and index. It is true that "encyclopedia" may not be completely appropriate, "overview" might be a better term, but I have to give all those associated with this book real credit for taking the giant leap forward in integrating Part I, a Catalog of Health Conditions with Part II, Complementary & Alternative Therapies.

The book earns one of its stars for its emphasis on Prevention. I fear that more critical reviewers are missing the paradigm-shift in the forest due to their micro-focus on a specific condition about which they have deep knowledge. I regard this book as a true pioneering endeavor, one with huge credibility, and one extremely meritorious and worthy of follow-up.

The volume I would really like to see next from Duke would examine the true costs to society, and the true costs to heal (with an emphasis on the cost of prevention and the cost of natural cures), for each of the diseases covered in volume one. If we can articulate, in cold hard proven numbers, the costs, the common sense of the public will take us to the next leve.

See also:
Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, Revised Second Edition
Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide (2nd Edition)
Professional's Handbook of Complementary & Alternative Medicines (PROFESSIONALS HANDBOOK OF COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE)
Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medicine: The New Approach to Using the Best of Natural Therapies and Conventional Medicine (Mayo Clinic, Book of Alternative Medicine)
Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Authoritative and Comprehensive Guide
Ancient Healing for Modern Women: Traditional Chinese Medicine for All Phases of a Woman's Life
"
~ Written on 2008-07-23

"This was a disappointing reference book for me. I will give you an example. I looked up gastritis, an illness that I am very familiar with. The author lightly covers possible causes, but never mentions that our eating habits over the years, affects how our organs perform. When you eat, you never want to eat dessert until two hours after you eat. The reason is, it takes different enzymes in your stomach to start breaking down the foods. Fruits take an enzyme that should never be mixed with meat which takes another enzyme. When we mix these foods, we are confusing our bodies. And sugar takes a totally different enzyme, that will mess with all of the other enzymes. This on going confusion of the stomach acids over the years will lead to malfunction of the enzymes. You will start developing food allergies, because your body can no longer break them down! Lactose intolerance is a prime example. But if you will avoid dairy foods for at least a year, it will clear up. Also, taking acidopholus when ingesting dairy foods will help break the dairy products down, so that your colon can absorb the nutrients! I do not recommend this book at all. It's a waste of money.

The only reason I gave it 2 stars, is it has a hard back cover, and for a novice, it will educate a tiny bit."
~ Written on 2007-12-15

"This is a big, nicely put-together hardcover. It is really an introduction to integrative medicine, and not for readers/practitioners who are looking for more specific information. I considered returning it, but it is quite inexpensive for a general overview of CAM, and I thought there might be some use for it. I already own a number of books on the specific treatment of a great number of conditions using alternative and integrative medicine, so this book was disappointing. In addition, I got the idea that Duke is the only traditional treatment center really using integrative medicine, and soon learned that this is not the case. This may be the only center that has published a book of this type, however. If you want to find out more than what is available in integrative medicine at allopathic hospitals, do a web search for CAM and/or integrative medicine; in addition, you can find hundreds, if not thousands of books and journals probing more deeply into current research, protocols, description and use of herbs, vitamins, supplements, nutrition and complementary medicine. The Duke Encyclopedia is an OK starting point, but you'll find yourself wanting to know more, and it's out there."
~ Written on 2007-07-04