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A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria
by Caroline CramptonPart cultural history, part literary criticism, and part memoir, A Body Made of Glass is a definitive biography of hypochondria.Caroline Crampton’s life was upended at the age of seventeen, when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a relatively rare blood cancer. After years of invasive treatment, she was finally given the all clear. But being cured of the cancer didn’t mean she felt well. Instead, the fear lingered, and she found herself always on the alert, braced for signs that the illness had reemerged. Now, in A Body Made of Glass, Crampton has drawn from her own experiences with health anxiety to write a revelatory exploration of hypochondria—a condition that, though often suffered silently, is widespread and rising. She deftly weaves together history, memoir, and literary criticism to make sense of this invisible and underexplored sickness. From the earliest medical case of Hippocrates to the literary accounts of sufferers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust to the modern perils of internet self-diagnosis, Crampton unspools this topic to reveal the far-reaching impact of health anxiety on our physical, mental, and emotional health.At its heart, Crampton explains, hypochondria is a yearning for knowledge. It is a never-ending attempt to replace the edgeless terror of uncertainty with the comforting solidity of a definitive explanation. Through intimate personal stories and compelling cultural perspectives, A Body Made of Glass brings this uniquely ephemeral condition into much-needed focus for the first time.
A Body Worth Defending: Immunity, Biopolitics, and the Apotheosis of the Modern Body
by Ed CohenBiological immunity as we know it does not exist until the late nineteenth century. Nor does the premise that organisms defend themselves at the cellular or molecular levels. For nearly two thousand years "immunity," a legal concept invented in ancient Rome, serves almost exclusively political and juridical ends. "Self-defense" also originates in a juridico-political context; it emerges in the mid-seventeenth century, during the English Civil War, when Thomas Hobbes defines it as the first "natural right. " In the 1880s and 1890s, biomedicine fuses these two political precepts into one, creating a new vital function, "immunity-as-defense. " In A Body Worth Defending, Ed Cohen reveals the unacknowledged political, economic, and philosophical assumptions about the human body that biomedicine incorporates when it recruits immunity to safeguard the vulnerable living organism. Inspired by Michel Foucault's writings about biopolitics and biopower, Cohen traces the migration of immunity from politics and law into the domains of medicine and science. Offering a genealogy of the concept, he illuminates a complex of thinking about modern bodies that percolates through European political, legal, philosophical, economic, governmental, scientific, and medical discourses from the mid-seventeenth century through the twentieth. He shows that by the late nineteenth century, "the body" literally incarnates modern notions of personhood. In this lively cultural rumination, Cohen argues that by embracing the idea of immunity-as-defense so exclusively, biomedicine naturalizes the individual as the privileged focus for identifying and treating illness, thereby devaluing or obscuring approaches to healing situated within communities or collectives.
A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain (Political Economy of the Austrian #8)
by Christina CrosbyA &“transformative&” memoir &“about a calamitous accident. . . . also about the accident of all our lives, and the . . . mortality that informs every one of our days&” (Los Angeles Review of Books). In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of one thousand miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before. As she crested a hill, she caught a branch in the spokes of her bicycle, which instantly pitched her to the pavement. Her chin took the full force of the blow, and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed. In A Body, Undone, Crosby writes about a body shot through with neurological pain, disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation. To address this foreign body, she calls upon the readerly pleasures of narrative, critical feminist and queer thinking, and the concentrated language of lyric poetry. She recalls her 1950s tomboy ways in small-town, rural Pennsylvania, and growing up during the 1970s through radical feminism and the affirmations of gay liberation. Deeply unsentimental, A Body, Undone is a compelling account of living on, as Crosby rebuilds her body and fashions a life through writing, memory, and desire. &“An extraordinary and luminous book.&” —Judith Butler, author of Precarious Life &“Tender, fierce, and eloquent.&” —Laura S. Levitt, author of American Jewish Loss after the Holocaust &“[Crosby] asks readers to recognize how messy, precarious, and queer, in every sense of the word, life in a body can be.&” —The NewYorker.com &“Elegant and harrowing.&” —The Washington Post
A Bone Of Contention: The third Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle (Chronicles Of Matthew Bartholomew Ser. #3)
by Susanna GregoryFor the twentieth anniversary of the Matthew Bartholomew series, Sphere reissued the books with beautiful new illustrated covers.-----------------------------Cambridge in 1352 is rife with terrible clashes between the fledgling University and the townspeople. Matthew Bartholomew, physician and teacher at Michaelhouse college, is trying to keep the peace when a student is murdered and the town plunges into chaos. At the same time a skeleton is discovered that is rumoured to belong to a local martyr, and Bartholomew has his hands full investigating both deaths while the rioting intensifies...
A Bone Of Contention: The third Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew #3)
by Susanna GregoryFor the twentieth anniversary of the Matthew Bartholomew series, Sphere reissued the books with beautiful new illustrated covers.-----------------------------Cambridge in 1352 is rife with terrible clashes between the fledgling University and the townspeople. Matthew Bartholomew, physician and teacher at Michaelhouse college, is trying to keep the peace when a student is murdered and the town plunges into chaos. At the same time a skeleton is discovered that is rumoured to belong to a local martyr, and Bartholomew has his hands full investigating both deaths while the rioting intensifies...
A Bone Of Contention: The third Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew #3)
by Susanna GregoryFor the twentieth anniversary of the Matthew Bartholomew series, Sphere reissued the books with beautiful new illustrated covers.-----------------------------Cambridge in 1352 is rife with terrible clashes between the fledgling University and the townspeople. Matthew Bartholomew, physician and teacher at Michaelhouse college, is trying to keep the peace when a student is murdered and the town plunges into chaos. At the same time a skeleton is discovered that is rumoured to belong to a local martyr, and Bartholomew has his hands full investigating both deaths while the rioting intensifies...
A Brain Wider Than the Sky: A Migraine Diary
by Andrew LevyWith more than one in ten Americans--and more than one in five families--affected, the phenomenon of migraine is widely prevalent yet often ignored or misdiagnosed. For Andrew Levy, his migraines were occasional reminders of a persistent illness that he'd wrestled with half his life. Then in 2006 Levy was struck almost daily by a series of debilitating migraines that kept him essentially bedridden for months, imprisoned by pain and nausea that retreated only briefly in gentler afternoon light. When possible, he kept careful track of what triggered an onset and in luminous prose recounts his struggle to live with migraines, his meticulous attempts at calibrating his lifestyle to combat and avoid them, and most tellingly, the personal relationship a migraineur develops--an almost Stockholm syndrome-like attachment--with the indescribable pain, delirium, and hallucinations. Levy researched how personalities and artists throughout history--Alexander Pope, Freud, Virginia Woolf, even Elvis--dealt with their migraines and candidly describes his rehabilitation with the aid of prescription drugs and his eventual reemergence into the world, back to work and writing. An enthralling blend of memoir and provocative analysis, A Brain Wider Than the Sky offers rich insights into an illness whose effects are too often discounted and whose sufferers are too often overlooked
A Brain for Speech: A View from Evolutionary Neuroanatomy
by Francisco AboitizThis book discusses evolution of the human brain, the origin of speech and language. It covers past and present perspectives on the contentious issue of the acquisition of the language capacity. Divided into two parts, this insightful work covers several characteristics of the human brain including the language-specific network, the size of the human brain, its lateralization of functions and interhemispheric integration, in particular the phonological loop. Aboitiz argues that it is the phonological loop that allowed us to increase our vocal memory capacity and to generate a shared semantic space that gave rise to modern language. The second part examines the neuroanatomy of the monkey brain, vocal learning birds like parrots, emergent evidence of vocal learning capacities in mammals, mirror neurons, and the ecological and social context in which speech evolved in our early ancestors. This book's interdisciplinary topic will appeal to scholars of psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, biology and history.
A Brain-Friendly Life: How to Manage Cognitive Overload and Reduce Glitching
by Marisa MencholaModern life is brain-unfriendly: We are flooded with information and excessive cognitive demands, when we are often already depleted from chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and health issues. Many of us experience frequent 'glitches' or memory lapses, despite tests showing there is nothing wrong with our brains. This book provides concrete strategies, derived from neuropsychological science and clinical practice, to help people improve how they function in daily life.Menchola draws on her experience as a clinical neuropsychologist who has worked with a widely diverse group of patients, to translate the findings from highly controlled research into concrete strategies that people can implement in their messy worlds to make their days more brain-friendly. The book also provides advice on how to address those factors that drain our brain resources, and gives guidance on when and how to seek a neuropsychological evaluation.It is valuable reading for anyone experiencing frustrating cognitive problems that are not due to brain disease. It is also essential for neuropsychologists, psychologists and physicians in primary care, psychiatry, and neurology, who need a resource to offer to patients to help their healthy brains function better.
A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For
by Marion LennoxTwo friends and one orphaned girl might not seem like the average family--but to Medical Director Charles Wetherby and Director of Nursing Jill Shaw it's everything. Yet if they are to keep little Lily they must adopt her--and that means marriage. Charles offers Jill a marriage of convenience--wanting more but always believing his injuries will stop him finding love. But Jill sees beneath his surface--how could she not want this caring, sexy, successful man? She just needs the courage to tell him. Charles and Jill's simmering emotions are unleashed when Lily suffers from a mystery illness. It could be their one opportunity to become the loving family they all need so much.
A Bride to Redeem Him: The Reunion Of A Lifetime / A Bride To Redeem Him (Mills And Boon Medical Ser.)
by Charlotte HawkesRedeeming his reputation……with a diamond ring!Louis Delaroche is world-renowned for both his surgical and seduction skills! He’s happy to let his lothario reputation precede him, until it threatens to cut him off from his family’s charity foundation. Now Louis has only one choice to redeem himself—get married! And warmhearted anesthetist Alex Vardy is the perfect bride. Until their fake kisses for the cameras start to feel sensationally real!
A Brief History of Bad Medicine (Brief Histories)
by Ian Schott Robert YoungstonA doctor removes the normal, healthy side of a patient's brain instead of the malignant tumor. A man whose leg is scheduled for amputation wakes up to find his healthy leg removed. These recent examples are part of a history of medical disasters and embarrassments as old as the profession itself.In Brief History of Bad Medicine, Robert M. Youngson and Ian Schott have written the definitive account of medical mishap in modern and not-so- modern times. From famous quacks to curious forms of sexual healing, from blunders with the brain to drugs worse than the diseases they are intended to treat, the book reveals shamefully dangerous doctors, human guinea pigs, and the legendary surgeon who was himself a craven morphine addict.Exploring the line between the comical and the tragic, the honest mistake and the intentional crime, Brief History of Bad Medicine illustrates once and for all that you can't always trust the people in white coats.
A Brief History of Blood and Lymphatic Vessels
by Andreas BikfalviThis book provides a comprehensive account of vascular biology and pathology and its significance for health and disease. It systematically and chronologically explains how we came to our current understanding of the vasculature and it´s function today, and describes in an entertaining way the diverse flaws and turns in science and medicine from the past. It thereby offers a complete and well-studied history on vascular biology and medicine. The book has an easy-to-read style and is written for students as well as scientists, physicians and lecturers in the field of biomedicine, human physiology, cardiology and hematology.
A Brief History of Florence Nightingale: and Her Real Legacy, a Revolution in Public Health (Brief Histories)
by Mr Hugh SmallPraise for Small's earlier work on Nightingale: 'Hugh Small, in a masterly piece of historical detective work, convincingly demonstrates what all previous historians and biographers have missed . . . This is a compelling psychological portrait of a very eminent (and complex) Victorian.' James Le Fanu, Daily TelegraphFlorence Nightingale (1820-1910) is best known as a reformer of hospital nursing during and after the Crimean War, but many feel that her nursing reputation has been overstated. A Brief History of Florence Nightingale tells the story of the sanitary disaster in her wartime hospital and why the government covered it up against her wishes. After the war she worked to put the lessons of the tragedy to good use to reduce the very high mortality from epidemic disease in the civilian population at home. She did this by persuading Parliament in 1872 to pass laws which required landlords to improve sanitation in working-class homes, and to give local authorities rather than central government the power to enforce the laws. Life expectancy increased dramatically as a result, and it was this peacetime civilian public health reform rather than her wartime hospital nursing record that established Nightingale's reputation in her lifetime. After her death the wartime image became popular again as a means of recruiting hospital nurses and her other achievements were almost forgotten. Today, with nursing's new emphasis on 'primary' care and prevention outside hospitals, Nightingale's focus on public health achievements makes her an increasingly relevant figure.
A Brief History of Pharmacy: Humanity's Search for Wellness
by Bob ZebroskiPharmacy has become an integral part of our lives. Nearly half of all 300 million Americans take at least one prescription drug daily, accounting for $250 billion per year in sales in the US alone. And this number doesn't even include the over-the-counter medications or health aids that are taken. How did this practice become such an essential part of our lives and our health? A Brief History of Pharmacy: Humanity's Search for Wellness aims to answer that question. As this short overview of the practice shows, the search for well-being through the ingestion or application of natural products and artificially derived compounds is as old as humanity itself. From the Mesopotamians to the corner drug store, Bob Zebroski describes how treatments were sought, highlights some of the main victories of each time period, and shows how we came to be people who rely on drugs to feel better, to live longer, and look younger. This accessible survey of pharmaceutical history is essential reading for all students of pharmacy.
A Brief Social History of Tuberculosis: Key Challenges to Global Health
by Arnab Chakraborty Janaka Jayawickrama Yong-An ZhangA Brief Social History of Tuberculosis delves into the history of tuberculosis and its impact on human populations.Drawing on research and expert experiences, the three research chapters (3–5) will explore how the disease has affected communities throughout history, and how society has responded to the threat of tuberculosis over time. Tuberculosis has been a persistent and devastating force from the crowded cities of the Industrial Revolution to the present day. However, this book will argue that there is much to be learned from the successes and failures of past efforts to control the disease from a social perspective. By examining the history of tuberculosis, researchers and policymakers can gain valuable insights into the challenges of infectious disease control, as well as the social and political factors that shape our response to such challenges.This volume will focus on generating critical discussions among scholars, researchers, and policymakers: it will be informative, engaging, and an essential read for anyone interested in the history of medicine, public health, and the ongoing struggle against infectious diseases worldwide.
A Brief Survey of Quantitative EEG (Series in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering)
by Kaushik MajumdarThis book presents a holistic approach to quantitative EEG from its neurological basis to simultaneous EEG and fMRI studies. Equal emphasis is given to major mathematical and statistical theories and computational techniques and their applications on clinical and laboratory experimental EEG.
A Bright Red Scream: Self-mutilation and the Language of Pain
by Marilee StrongSelf-mutilation is a behaviour so shocking that it is almost never discussed. Yet millions of people all over the world are chronic self-injurers. They are people who use knives, razor blades, or broken glass to cut themselves and their numbers include Johnny Depp and the late Princess Diana. In this groundbreaking work - an essential resource for victims, parents and therapists - Strong explores this hidden epidemic through case studies, research from psychologists, trauma experts, and the cutters themselves. It is a compelling tour of the trauma and science of self-injury.
A Brush With Darkness: Learning to Paint After Losing My Sight
by Lisa FittipaldiWhen Lisa Fittipaldi went blind at the age of forty-seven, she descended into a freefall of anger and denial that lasted for two years. In this moving memoir, she paints a vivid picture of the perceptual and emotional darkness that accompanied her vision loss, and her arduous journey back into the sighted world through mastery of the principles of art and color.
A Brush with Love: As seen on TikTok! The sparkling new rom-com sensation you won't want to miss!
by Mazey EddingsThe new TikTok-hit rom-com! Adored The Love Hypothesis? You won't want to miss A Brush with Love, the most sparkling rom-com of the year!Anxiously awaiting news from the residency program of her dreams, dental student Harper Horowitz is laser focused. So crashing (quite literally) into Dan Craige is exactly the sort of dreamy distraction that she is trying to avoid.First-year student Dan may not have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does, but he's instantly smitten. When Harper makes it clear that she's not interested in trading fillings for feelings anytime soon, they set out to be 'just friends' - a plan with the best of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs.Late nights in the dental lab (and the rather unsubtle match-making efforts of their friends), draw Dan and Harper closer. Still, Harper can't shake the worry that a romance with Dan might risk everything she's worked so hard to build.Harper may have no trouble acing her studies, but falling in love is a whole new challenge.Nine out of ten dentists agree, A Brush with Love makes your smile brighter!**not scientifically proven..............................................................................'Blends sweetness, breathless romance, and moments of striking vulnerability' HELEN HOANG'Prepare to smile, laugh, and cry your way through this witty, fast-paced rom-com starring a passionate heroine and a delicious cinnamon roll hero who knows how to love her just right' EVIE DUNMORE'Mazey Eddings stole my heart with this laugh-out-loud funny, almost unbearably cute debut (and she made me care about dentistry)' ROSIE DANAN'I'm obsessed with this book, and I fully intend to never stop yelling about it. With a shimmering voice and razor-sharp wit, Mazey Eddings has crafted a contemporary romance masterpiece that made me want to hug my dentist . . . The most intoxicating slow burn I've read in ages' RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON'Harper and Dan have my whole heart . . . A Brush with Love is funny and cute while also exploring serious topics, powerfully underscoring the truth that relationships require work, and that happy endings are for everyone' SARAH HOGLE'Tenderly written and oh-so-sexy, A Brush with Love brims with emotional depth, whip-smart banter, and sizzling chemistry' CHLOE LIESEMazey Eddings returns later this year with another unique and swoony rom-com, Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake!(P) 2022 Macmillan Audio
A Brush with Love: TikTok made me buy it! The sparkling new rom-com sensation you won't want to miss!
by Mazey EddingsThe new TikTok-hit rom-com! Adored The Love Hypothesis? You won't want to miss A Brush with Love, the most sparkling rom-com of the year!Readers are giving A Brush with Love FIVE SHINING STARS! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'A Brush with Love is going to be a TOP romance of 2022. Calling it. In January''Oh my TOOTH FAIRY!! This book was so much more than I expected and swept me off my feet' 'Swoony, steamy, adorable . . . Read. This. Book. You won't be disappointed. It's a keeper and Mazey Eddings is on my auto-read list forever''There was so much to love about this book . . . Thank you to Mazey Eddings for this romance with its messy, true, and painfully real representation of anxiety . . . We need more books like this in the world'..............................................................................Anxiously awaiting news from the residency program of her dreams, dental student Harper Horowitz is laser focused. So crashing (quite literally) into Dan Craige is exactly the sort of dreamy distraction that she is trying to avoid.First-year student Dan may not have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does, but he's instantly smitten. When Harper makes it clear that she's not interested in trading fillings for feelings anytime soon, they set out to be 'just friends' - a plan with the best of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs.Late nights in the dental lab (and the rather unsubtle match-making efforts of their friends), draw Dan and Harper closer. Still, Harper can't shake the worry that a romance with Dan might risk everything she's worked so hard to build.Harper may have no trouble acing her studies, but falling in love is a whole new challenge.Nine out of ten dentists agree, A Brush with Love makes your smile brighter!**not scientifically proven..............................................................................'Blends sweetness, breathless romance, and moments of striking vulnerability' HELEN HOANG'Prepare to smile, laugh, and cry your way through this witty, fast-paced rom-com starring a passionate heroine and a delicious cinnamon roll hero who knows how to love her just right' EVIE DUNMORE'Mazey Eddings stole my heart with this laugh-out-loud funny, almost unbearably cute debut (and she made me care about dentistry)' ROSIE DANAN'I'm obsessed with this book, and I fully intend to never stop yelling about it. With a shimmering voice and razor-sharp wit, Mazey Eddings has crafted a contemporary romance masterpiece that made me want to hug my dentist . . . The most intoxicating slow burn I've read in ages' RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON'Harper and Dan have my whole heart . . . A Brush with Love is funny and cute while also exploring serious topics, powerfully underscoring the truth that relationships require work, and that happy endings are for everyone' SARAH HOGLE'Tenderly written and oh-so-sexy, A Brush with Love brims with emotional depth, whip-smart banter, and sizzling chemistry' CHLOE LIESEMazey Eddings returns later this year with another unique and swoony rom-com, Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake!
A Burst of Light
by Audre LordeIn 1984, feminist poet Lorde learned that her breast cancer had metastasized to the liver. The moving title section comprises a series of journal excerpts that both frighten and inspire: choosing not to have a biopsy, she instead treats the disease with a stay at the homeopathic Lukas Klinik in Switzerland, consultations with more traditional medical specialists and alternatives like self-hypnosis. Her lifelong battle against racism, sexism and homophobia has armed her with the resilience to resist cancer, and thus "A Burst of Light" becomes not only a chronicle of Lorde's fight against disease, but a view of one woman's sparring with injustice, whether the oppressors are the South African police, the American government or malignant cells within her own body. Although it rings out with passion, anger and hope, the lengthy title piece is sometimes rambling and repetitive. In refreshing contrast, three outstanding essays on black lesbianism, the parallels between South Africa and the United States, and lesbian parenting are politically specific and pithy. -Publishers Weekly
A COVID Charter, A Better World
by Toby MillerWith unprecedented speed, scientists have raced to develop vaccines to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control and restore a sense of normalcy to our lives. Despite the havoc and disruption the pandemic has caused, it’s exposed exactly why we should not return to life as we once knew it. Our current profit-driven healthcare systems have exacerbated global inequality and endangered public health, and we must take this opportunity to construct a new social order that understands public health as a basic human right. A COVID Charter, A Better World outlines the steps needed to reform public policies and fix the structural vulnerabilities that the current pandemic has made so painfully clear. Leading scholar Toby Miller argues that we must resist neoliberalism’s tendency to view health in terms of individual choices and market-driven solutions, because that fails to preserve human rights. He addresses the imbalance of geopolitical power to explain how we arrived at this point and shows that the pandemic is more than just a virus—it’s a social disease. By examining how the U.S., Britain, Mexico, and Colombia have responded to the COVID-19 crisis, Miller investigates corporate, scientific, and governmental decision-making and the effects those decisions have had on disadvantaged local communities. Drawing from human rights charters ratified by various international organizations, he then proposes a COVID charter, calling for a new world that places human lives above corporate profits.
A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
by Jan BondesonIn this book of amazing oddities, Jan Bondeson explores unexpected, gruesome, and bizarre aspects of the history of medicine. He regales us with stories of spontaneous human combustion; vicious tribes of tailed men; the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal; Mary Toft, who allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits; and Julia Pastrana, exhibited around the world as the Ape Woman. Bondeson combines an historian's skill in showing us our timeless fascination with the grotesque with a physician's diagnostic abilities, as he examines the evidence and provides likely explanations for these peculiar events. "Fascinating. . . . Well-researched and extensively illustrated with items from [Bondeson's] personal collection, it covers a wide range of medical monstrosities, and there is something for everyone. " â " The Lancet "Entertaining in the simultaneously creepy and amusing way of a carnival sideshow. . . . Bondeson is quick to acknowledge absurdity, and his wry humor, along with his strong personal judgments, spice up the book. " â " Publishers Weekly "Bondeson . . . regards his exhibits with a careful scientist's eye, discovering misinterpreted evidence, tragic genetic mutations, and, occasionally, outright fraud. " â " Library Journal
A Calorie is a Calorie: The Inescapable Science that Controls Our Body Weight
by Keith FraynWe all know someone who seems to eat very little yet cannot avoid weight gain, or someone who eats everything they like while remaining slim. Why? Is it the kinds of food we eat, and when? Are our hormones to blame? Could it be chemicals in our environment? Even specialists are now questioning our understanding of the forces that shape body weight, and we are all more confused than ever.In this book, Keith Frayn, one of the world's leading experts on metabolism, argues that all these challenges are distracting us from tackling the obesity problem in the only way it can be addressed: by rebalancing the disregarded message of 'calories in - calories out'.Taking readers on a deep dive into the real science of energy balance, he reveals how nutrition research has been plagued by the difficulty of really knowing what people are eating and doing; why it is unlikely that some nutrients are intrinsically more fattening than others; how supposed differences between people in the speed of their metabolism vanish in the laboratory; how energy balance is altered in obese people and people who have managed to lose weight; and why these responses - honed over millennia of evolution - make dieting so hard. With clarity and insights from expert research, Frayn provides a clear-eyed perspective on current trends mired in controversy and confusion: time-restricted eating, intermittent fasting, low-carb versus low-fat meal plans, high-protein breakfasts and other dietary trickery. In a world where desirable, energy-rich food is increasingly plentiful, and labour-saving gadgets widespread, it becomes more and more difficult to stick to the simple message of energy balance. But, as Frayn shows, we can reshape our lives and improve our health by going back to what we know about calories, rediscovering the benefits of a more active life, and getting smart about what we eat.