Autoimmune: The Cause and The Cure by Annesse Brockley and Kristin Urdiales, Nature Had it First LLC, 253pp, $27.95.
You’ll need a pretty high tolerance for research studies and medical lingo to get through Autoimmune: The Cause and The Cure.
But then if you or someone you love is suffering from an autoimmune disease such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus or even type 2 diabetes, then you’ve probably already learned to deal with jargon-filled medical research and advice.
And most of the advice, despite its complexity, can likely be boiled down to a simple choice, repeated in a hundred different ways but relentlessly predictable nonetheless: Take this drug . Or get this procedure. Or do both.
In many mainstream treatments for autoimmune diseases, changes in lifestyle or diet are lucky if they get mentioned as afterthoughts to drugs and surgery.
And that’s why many treatments fail, according to Autoimmune authors Annesse Brockley and Kristin Urdiales:
Every symptom of autoimmune disease can now be clearly explained and traced back to its origin. The evidence proves that these diseases share a common source, and that this source is nor viral, bacterial, or genetic, but originates with a fundamental lack of nutrients that are essential to the functioning of your body.
Brockley and Urdiales follow in the tradition of Weston A. Price, a pioneering dentist who traveled the globe before World War II seeking the answer to healthy teeth among the indigenous peoples of the world. What Price found was that good dental health was less about brushing, flossing and root canals and more about staying away from the harmful foods of modern society, from refined grains and sugar to pasteurized milk.
Price’s modern-day disciples such as Sally Fallon, author of the popular Nourishing Traditions cookbook, have gone on to finger the industrial diet as the primary culprit in hundreds of health conditions beyond the mouth, from acne to arthritis.
Typical of Price followers, authors Brockley and Urdiales may not be mainstream medical practitioners — lack of an obvious bio in the book for either author prevents the reader from knowing much about them at all — but they’re not slack in citing articles that sound pretty medical to an untrained eye like mine, adding credibility.
It’s mystifying that a book titled Autoimmune doesn’t seem to say much about the granddaddy of autoimmune conditions, AIDS. Also, the book would be more useful with an index.
Yet, I’d still recommend the book to anyone who wants to consider options for treating an autoimmune disorder beyond what they may hear from most physicians.
Despite the book’s standard legal disclaimer that the authors aren’t offering medical advice, even your doctor would have to agree that there’s little risk in prescribing yourself the book’s recipes for sourdough pancakes or honey hot chocolate.
Slideshow image via CoquiTheChef/Flickr.
