This interesting book is a compilation of recent stories from a regular column called “Science Monitor” in The Straits Times, Singapore's main English daily. They focus on exposing health and beauty fads and fallacies like purported breast enlargement methods, baldness treatment and skin renewal therapies which have begun plaguing consumers in Asia. Written by a well-known columnist, Andy Ho, PhD, this book provides a handy review of what cutting-edge research says about these scams. Readers can apply these valuable insights, which the author has backed up by poring over medical books and journals and by talking to the best physicians and scientists, and then decide for themselves if they want to part with their money, or worse, gamble with their health.
Contents:
- Shy About Sexy Matters?
- Forever Young and Trim?
- Is that Really a Cure?
- You're Sure, Doc?
- What's that in My Food?
Readership: General public interested in the real story behind beauty treatments and health matters.
“One of the challenges in effective communication is to explain complex information in a manner that is true in content, but understandable to the audience. Andy Ho has accomplished something that only a few journalist/writers of the likes of Thomas Friedman and Carl Sagan have achieved: the ability to transmit complex and often abstract concepts in a simple and straightforward manner that is interpretable to the lay public. In Ho's new book, ‘Real or Not?’, he walks the reader through a large number of controversial health topics informing us of the technical issues, and leading us to recognize the larger, human questions raised. Each essay is extensively researched and delightfully crafted. Equally important, Andy Ho exhibited an uncanny ability to teach us the substantive but technical facts about such focused topics as chelation therapy, caloric restriction, collagen injections, human anatomy so that we can navigate what is being marketed to us in obesity, cosmetics, anti-ageing, infectious diseases, and sex enhancements. The fact that Andy Ho is a medical doctor, a PhD in public policy, and a seasoned journalist, allowed him to weave medicine with policy, economics with science into short stories that inform a wide range of readers and that delight. To the guy on the street to the professor of medicine, Andy Ho's ‘Real or Not?’ is a book that should be read.”
Edison T Liu, MD
Executive Director
Genome Institute of Singapore
“This book is really a handy guide to insights from cutting-edge research that readers may find useful in forming an opinion.”
ezyhealth & beauty