A complete and detailed guide to integrative healing methods by a well-known doctor who specializes in alternative tactics...
Pai, a board-certified doctor in family and integrative medicine who has studied with Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra, offers this voluminous compendium of alternative health approaches.
This debut book reflects current and widespread dissatisfaction with Western medicine. Far from attacking standard medicine, however, the author credits it with providing heroic miracle cures in health crisis situations. But in the case of chronic conditions, Western medicine often treats symptoms with a retinue of drugs and surgery while leaving underlying causal conditions untouched. “Conventional medical treatment has classified over two hundred different ‘itis’ conditions, with over a dozen different types of medical specializations that treat these individually and symptomatically,” Pai writes in describing standardized medical care. The “itis” ending in the terms for many ailments refers to inflammation, which covers a wide swath of chronic medical conditions that plague Americans. The author describes in sometimes-sickening detail all the causes of inflammation that abound in what people eat, drink, and breathe. He mentions so-called “Moo Gloo,” a repellent food modifier that utilizes scrap meat in a binding formula to convert cheap cuts into more expensive-seeming meats. Almost nothing Americans encounter to eat or drink remains uncorrupted, according to the author, and that goes for many foods that bear organic labels. The author’s exceptionally detailed investigation leads to but one conclusion: a plant-based diet to avoid inflammatories, appropriate water filtration, and energizing and proper health supplementation all can go a long way to address common chronic health conditions that plague those who suffer from the many “itis” ailments. In this well-researched work, Pai attacks the purity and quality of many supplements on the market today. Through his clinic, House of Sanjevani, he has formulated his own supplements that meet his rigorous standards. The thorough volume provides lots of information, but the author writes in a simple, straightforward manner, engaging his subject with an enthusiasm and joy that make this book a pleasure to read.
A complete and detailed guide to integrative healing methods by a well-known doctor who specializes in alternative tactics to address the inflammation that underlies many chronic health issues.Pub Date: April 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-51487-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: RocDoc Publications
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.
Lavishly illustrated examination of the theory of biological self-organization—territory unfamiliar to most.
The theory of self-organization is an attempt to answer the continuing and ancient question of how the organism develops from a solitary fertilized egg to achieve its final form in maturity. Pivar believes that biology as a discipline has no overarching theoretical principle to explain the process of ontological development. He begins with a detailed description of the tensile strength of the toroidal sphere and how that funnel bi-layer shape is an ideal flexible vessel designed to facilitate the progression from single cell to full-fledged organism. He posits that the specific pattern of development of the species is already encoded at the cellular level and elaborated through physical and chemical dynamic processes. While the genome can specify certain traits of the animal, it cannot account for the process of the developmental sequence of the emerging biological form. In a similar vein, he rejects the principle of random mutation or natural selection precisely because these Darwinian concepts stress the crucial input of the environment in promoting adaptive evolutionary change along a continuum. He describes and illustrates the developmental sequence of flora and fauna from the basic toroidal sphere, stating that every life form grows from the same hypothesized point of origin as the inner layer undergoes continuous embryological transformation that is specific to each animal, flower or insect. The presentation of the biological self-organization theory, unorthodox at best since it minimizes accepted doctrines in biology, is highly disorganized. By immediately discussing and defining the mechanical properties of the torus and more specifically the toroidal sphere, Pivar is launching the reader into highly unfamiliar–and often disorienting–territory, a situation worsened by liberal use of terminology that is discipline-dependent. It is only in the concluding chapters that the relation of the torus principle to ontological and philological development is clarified.
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9749860-0-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
There are many universal, compelling issues left unexplored, but Aquan-Assee’s recovery and construction of the narrative...
A slightly out-of-focus, harrowing account of recovery from what a doctor called “horrific” injuries sustained in a 1997 Toronto motorcycle wreck.
Describing in the third person the days of his long coma, he notes the efforts of his family and friends to remain with him 24/7, attempting to keep him mentally and physically stimulated. Aquan-Assee then downshifts into a slow-motion first person account of his own frustrating efforts to regain physical and mental focus, fighting back memory loss and struggling to remember people’s names from one second to the next. Neither angle is entirely satisfactory to particularize what surely was a long and arduous battle by the 29-year-old to pull himself back, often by the fingernails, into a world in which he felt increasingly out of touch. For instance, he slides past crucial moments when doctors encouraged his family to “pull the plug,” and their subsequent refusal to do so, even when his life signs were little more than flickers. It would have been helpful to know the thoughts and emotions of his parents and siblings at those precious turning points, as well as the doctors’ reactions to his subsequent recovery–a feat admirably accomplished in spite of their negative proclamations regarding the prospects for his “quality of life.” These are the hot-button issues crying out for greater attention throughout. But Aquan-Assee’s focus remains narrow, limiting the potential audience.
There are many universal, compelling issues left unexplored, but Aquan-Assee’s recovery and construction of the narrative are triumph enough.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-973-2782-0-X
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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