REVIEW: Hype

Hype: A Doctor's Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims and Bad Advice.
How To Tell What's Real and What's Not
Author: Nina Shapiro, MD

With daily doses of email, television, radio and the internet, we are all bombarded with information about medical studies, new medicines and supplements, herbal remedies, almost magical instant cures for everything from foot fungus to obesity, superfoods and dangerous carcinogens. How much of what pops up in our email inboxes, on television commercials and on websites is actually true? And how much is exaggerated, based on skewed data, and outright trickery? This morning alone I woke up to 10 emails about medical and health related subjects ranging from herbal supplements and weight loss to cancer prevention and hair loss. Most were trying to sell me something and others provided links to various websites. It's really hard to rake through all the muck and pick out the factual information, if any. And I get really concerned when I see television ads for new "breakthrough" medications that require almost a minute of disclaimers at the end about it may cause suicidal thoughts, seizures, cancer and a host of other horrible side effects. What is true....and what's BS or media hype?

Nina Shapiro is a surgeon. After working in the medical field for decades, Shapiro has concerns about medical misinformation that most people come across on a daily basis and the potentially dangerous consequences of self-diagnosing illnesses based on misleading, incomplete or exaggerated information. This book seeks to provide a common sense approach for the average person to learn to separate fact from fiction. Shapiro discusses what certain terms like clinical study and scientific study mean, how companies get survey information so they can say their products are "doctor recommended,'' the exaggerated benefits of supplements, how to tell bogus study data from scientific data, the dangers of self diagnosis using unreliable information, benefits and concerns about alternative medicine, and the origins of several myths largely touted as true (like vaccinations supposedly causing autism).

I enjoyed reading this book. Shapiro introduces herself and gives credibility to her opinions by talking about her experiences as a surgeon and her career. Then she gives common sense approaches to wading through all the information readily at our fingertips in today's modern, internet-centric society. She doesn't just point out fallacies believed by ordinary people, but also talks about myths and other beliefs that doctors held as true that had to be disproved by scientific evidence (like red haired people have more problems during and after surgery). We all have been duped by product advertisements, false or misleading information backed by skewed studies and read articles printed by bogus medical journals. I enjoyed reading a book that points out common sense ways to tell truth from fiction, and firm facts from weak correlations. The book is written in easy to understand language with a conversational tone. I found the information interesting and very informative.

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from St Martin's Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**