Books on Medicine and the Medical Establishment by various authors

c.2024, various publishers, $27.99-$30, various page counts

Cough, cough, sneeze.

Tis the season, right? Time for sniffles, tissues, and chicken soup to ward off the chills. Staying indoors, sick on the sofa, maybe it’s a time to read these helpful and thought-provoking books about medicine...

Does climate change affect your health? Says author and pediatrician Debra Hendrickson, it does if you’re a child, and in her new book “The Air They Breathe” (Simon & Schuster), she explains.

You know how much you’re affected by wildfire smoke, heat, humidity, and events that are exacerbated by climate change, but imagine how those things affect little lungs and hearts. This book looks at how this issue is a danger now and what may happen as the planet warms even further, and it’s essential reading for anyone who’s thought about the environment, health, and the future.

So, on that bug you fight this fall: what can you do about it? Start by reading “The Living Medicine” by Lina Zeldovich (St. Martin’s Press), a book about a lifesaving medicine that science nearly forgot about.

You may have seen news about phages, which are viruses that eat bacteria. This book tells you more, including the history of this “living medicine.” Readers who reach for natural cures will want to read this.

When any kind of an outbreak happens, don’t you wonder about the people who save lives? In “Crisis Averted” by Caitlin Rivers, PhD (Viking), you’ll read about the scientists, researchers, doctors, and others who do their jobs under the radar. 

Keeping you hale and hearty takes more than just a doctor or two. Read this book to learn about the heroes who help, and how we can help them do their jobs better.

And finally, if you’re concerned with the medical establishment itself, or the cost of healthcare, or with keeping your local medical facility in your community, you’ll want to find “Blind Spots” by Marty Makary, MD (Bloomsbury).

Have you ever wondered what happens if a medical diagnosis is wrong? Or when a “cure” isn’t a cure at all, or when a medicine is worse than the disease? Makary writes that nationally, medical mistakes occur in nearly every facet of healthcare and sometimes, research doesn’t tell the whole story and needs to be taken further. But there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family, and things we, as a nation, can do to ensure that sometimes-deadly mistakes don’t happen again, now or in the future.

If you’ve ever taken extra supplements, avoided certain foods or activities, jumped on a fad bandwagon, gotten sick from a medicine, or if you’ve ever been to a doctor, this is a book you’ll want now.

And if these books for your health are not enough or don’t fill the bill, ask your favorite bookseller or librarian for more health-related books. They’ve got thousands to pick from, and they can help you find exactly what you need. But do check out these four books. When it comes to your health, they ain’t nothing to sneeze at.