KIRKUS REVIEW
A short, accessible guide to common ailments, with quick explanations of their causes and possible remedies.
Cullen isn’t a doctor, nutritionist or health expert, but she has a natural curiosity toward healthy, holistic living and a knack for sharing her research. Her book looks at a wide range of everyday health problems that women face, from premenstrual syndrome to liver and kidney dysfunction, and attempts to delineate some easily fixable nutritional and environmental causes. Cullen shows how anyone can avoid these common ailments with medication and/or changes to diet and daily practices. For example, she posits that PMS symptoms can be completely avoided if one becomes more mindful of one’s consumption of xenoestrogens, chemicals in food that imitate estrogen and throw one’s hormonal balance out of whack. Avoiding xenoestrogens, she says, means eschewing animal products produced by factory farming, as such farming methods encourage the use of xenoestrogens in livestock to speed growth and production. The author also discusses natural herbal remedies that have been shown to improve kidney and liver function, among other topics. Although some passages aren’t backed up by statistical research or citations, most of the information presented is basic enough that readers could easily study the topics further with a quick Internet search. Cullen also clearly explains a variety of healthy habits, such as eating whole foods and various herbs while steering clear of chemical-laden convenience foods that contribute to poor nutrition. Most herbal remedies and nutritional fixes are successful on a case-by-case basis; one body may react negatively to gluten, for example, while another might have trouble digesting meat and dairy. But it would be hard to refute this book’s overall notion that most human bodies would benefit from a diet rich in natural, plant-based foods, and an absence of highly acidic, highly processed substances.
A conversational, persuasive guide to health problems that plague many women.
