Hype: A Doctor's Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims, and Bad Advice - How to Tell What's Real and What's Not

by Nina Shapiro MD, Kristin Loberg

Overview

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018

An engaging and informative look at the real science behind our most common beliefs and assumptions in the health sphere

There is a lot of misinformation thrown around these days, especially online. Headlines tell us to do this, not that---all in the name of living longer, better, thinner, younger. In Hype, Dr. Nina Shapiro distinguishes between the falsehoods and the evidence-backed truth. In her work at Harvard and UCLA, with more than twenty years of experience in both clinical and academic medicine, she helps patients make important health decisions everyday. She’s bringing those lessons to life here with a blend of science and personal stories to discuss her dramatic new definition of “a healthy life.”

Hype covers everything from exercise to supplements, diets to detoxes, alternative medicine to vaccines, and medical testing to media coverage. Shapiro tackles popular misconceptions such as toxic sugar and the importance of drinking eight glasses of water a day. She provides simple solutions anyone can implement, such as worrying less about buying products labeled organic or natural, and more about skipping vaccines, buying into weight-loss fads, and thinking you can treat cancer through diet alone. This book is as much for single individuals in the prime of their lives as it is for parents with young children and the elderly.

Hype provides answers to many of our most pressing questions, such as:

*Are online doctor ratings valuable and what conditions can you diagnose online?
*What’s the link between snoring and ADHD?
*What does “Doctor Recommended” and “Clinically Proven” mean?
*Do “superfoods” really exist?
*Which vitamins can increase your risk for cancer?
*Do vaccines introduce toxins into the body?
*What’s the best antiaging trick of the day that’s not hype?
*Can logging “ten thousand steps a day” really have an impact on your health?

Never has there been a greater need for this reassuring and scientifically backed reality check.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250209986
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	644,101
Product dimensions:	5.53(w) x 8.29(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

DR. NINA SHAPIRO is the award-winning Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and a Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at UCLA. She has been featured in many publications, and is a regular on CBS’s The Doctors.

KRISTIN LOBERG is the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling co-author of Grain Brain, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and others. She graduated from Cornell University and lives in L.A. with her husband and two sons.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Worrywarts and Fearmongers ix

The Dangers of Magical or Misinformed Thinking

1 A Site to Behold: The Wild West of Internet Medicine 1

How to Yelp Your Doctor, Check Your Symptoms, and Google If You're Dying

2 Risky Business: What Ebola and Your Car Have in Common 19

How to Put Risk into Perspective

3 Turf Wars: An Important Lesson in Correlations 46

How to Understand Cause, Link, and Association

4 Get Me Off Your F*cking Mailing List: A Study Worthy of Your Attention 66

How to Make Sense of Medical Research Jargon

5 Tipping the Scale on a Balanced Diet: You are not always What You Eat 82

How to Filter Out the Noise on juicing, Going Gluten-Free, Detoxing, and GMOs

6 Fat-Free Sugar, Organic Cookies, and "Fresh" Produce: a Walk Through the Supermarket 101

How to Read a Label

7 The True Cost of Being Fortified: Supplements, Powders, and Potions 117

How to Remain Vital Without Vitamins

8 Raise Your Glass: Water, Water, Everywhere

How to Be Smart Without Drinking Smart Water

9 Putting the C Back in CAM: Complementary Alternative Medicine 149

How to Stay Natural While Taking Your Medicine

10 Take a Shot: The Perils of Losing The Herd 167

How Vaccines Save the Community, the Home, and Your Health

11 Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three: From the Outside Looking in 192

How to Determine When to Get Checked, X-rayed, Swabbed, or Poked

12 When 50 is the New 40: Drinking From the Fountain of Youth 212

How to Age Gracefully, Without Really Trying

13 Hyped Exercise: Climb Every Mountain 232

When Walking Beats Running

Conclusion: Don't Believe the Hype 246

Is It All Hype?

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 255

Index 271

Editorial Reviews

"Written with a surgeon's incisiveness and clarity, Dr. Nina Shapiro 'cuts' through the clutter of confusion when it comes to the best advice for your health. In an age of information overload, it has become increasingly challenging to find trusted voices, which is why Hype could not come at a better time. As a top-doctor but also as a mom, wife and friend, Shapiro knows what matters most to her readers. She also knows how to skillfully blend knowledge with engaging and entertaining stories. Every home should have a copy of Hype."—Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent and New York Times bestselling author

"In Hype, Nina Shapiro leads us carefully along the frontier between medical knowledge and uncertainty. She is one of the best doctors I know, and now her wisdom and bedside manner are available to everyone, at book length. If you want to remain sane while facing some of life's greatest challenges—read this book."—Sam Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up

"If you’re tired of reading competing, confusing headlines in the health sphere or wondering if the latest 'clinically-proven' trend is worthy advice, then Hype is a must-read book. In this clear, concise, no-nonsense guide to understanding what’s truly good for you—and not—Dr. Nina Shapiro inoculates you with the data-driven truth. Filled with knowledge and engaging stories, this book reveals facts that will surprise you, all of which will empower you for total well-being." —David B. Agus, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Illness, Professor of Medicine and Engineering, University of Southern California, and
Founding Director and CEO, Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine

"Hype is an indispensable book packed with history, research, and personal anecdotes. It is the antidote to overwhelming internet searches, floods of health information, and endless tips from friends or family members who are not trained in health care. Nina Shapiro has become the expert at cutting through spin and guiding freaked out patients off the ledge. Since unsolicited advice isn’t going away, the best next step is to arm yourself with the information in this book. This should be mandatory reading."—Cara Natterson, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Care and Keeping of You Series

"In these times, the lines have blurred between real and fake news. Likewise, in healthcare, there are abundant false claims, fictions, and fabrications. In HYPE, Dr. Nina Shapiro, a medical truth–seeker and master explainer, takes us on a path of scrutiny and veracity."—Eric Topol MD, Professor, Scripps Research Institute, and author of The Patient Will See You Now

"In Hype, Nina Shapiro and Kristin Loberg guide us through the dense thicket of seductive medical advice offered by the media, celebrities, activists, and health hucksters. Unlike most skeptics, however, they aren’t simply naysayers, but instead willing to tell us what works and what doesn’t. Some of their advice, no doubt, will surprise you."—Paul A. Offit, MD, author of Pandora's Lab and Autism's False Prophets

"[A] feisty, fact-filled diatribe. [Shapiro's] skeptical, no-nonsense approach and probing assessment of fact versus fiction make for lively reading that is likely to help readers make better health and medical choices."—Publishers Weekly

"An extremely useful, easy-to-read handbook."—Booklist

From the Publisher

02/19/2018
Surgeon Shapiro (Take a Deep Breath) sets out to clear up medical misperceptions in this feisty, fact-filled diatribe (even the acknowledgment page complains that “hype abounds and needs to be bashed”). She tackles such questions as how to put risk into perspective (readers should worry more about eclairs than Ebola), how to understand the causation/correlation distinction, and how to make sense of medical jargon, with the overall aim of turning patients into savvy consumers and perceptive judges of information. Shapiro argues for accuracy on such topics as the efficacy of vaccinations (she comes down hard on the “antivaxx” movement) and shares research on the utility of vitamins (the main outcome of which, she claims, is “very expensive pee and poop”), drinking eight glasses of water per day (“follow the money” to the multibillion-dollar bottled-water industry), and juicing (skip the blender and just eat fruits and veggies). Her skeptical, no-nonsense approach and probing assessment of fact versus fiction make for lively reading that is likely to help readers make better health and medical choices. (May)

Publishers Weekly