#289 - AMA #56: Cancer screening: pros and cons, screening options, interpreting results, and more

Picture the end of your life. Do you want to die from heart disease? Cancer? Diabetes?

In How Not to Die, Michael Greger argues that a plant-based, whole-food diet has been scientifically shown to reduce the most common diseases leading to death. He then gives his recommendation for "The Daily Dozen" foods to eat to maximize health benefits.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is an overview and rough timeline of the fight against cancer. The book’s subtitle, A Biography of Cancer, reflects Mukherjee’s feeling that cancer is a living and evolving entity that fought modern medicine to a stalemate for centuries. Mukherjee, a doctor and biologist specializing in immunology (the study of the immune system) and oncology (the study of cancer), has spent much of his career on the front line of that fight. Though the book was first published in 2010, cancer remains a frightening disease that doctors are still working to understand and treat.

Our guide provides context and background information for Mukherjee’s book, helping you to understand the more technical aspects of cancer and cancer treatment, as well as the significance behind major events in the fight against cancer.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee is an overview and rough timeline of the fight against cancer. The book’s subtitle, A Biography of Cancer, reflects Mukherjee’s feeling that cancer is a living and evolving entity that fought modern medicine to a stalemate for centuries. Mukherjee, a doctor and biologist specializing in immunology (the study of the immune system) and oncology (the study of cancer), has spent much of his career on the front line of that fight. Though the book was first published in 2010, cancer remains a frightening disease that doctors are still working to understand and treat.

Our guide provides context and background information for Mukherjee’s book, helping you to understand the more technical aspects of cancer and cancer treatment, as well as the significance behind major events in the fight against cancer.

Statistics help us use data to make sense of the world, and statistical insights help guide modern society, informing medical practices, public and fiscal policy, education initiatives, business and marketing decisions, and so on. But statistics aren’t just for “experts.” Thanks to Charles Wheelan, statistics don’t need to be intimidating. Naked Statistics puts the math behind statistics into digestible terms and explains statistics concepts with relatable, relevant, and even humorous examples. Readers also benefit from additional socio-political insight from the book, as Wheelan uses real-world anecdotes to explore how statistics can inform collective decision-making.

As Wheelan does in Naked Statistics, this guide focuses on the meaning and context of commonly used statistics rather than on their calculations. After explaining the insight each statistics concept provides and how to interpret it, this guide uses real and fictional examples for added context.

From vaccine panics to fad diets, dubious medical information seems to be everywhere you look. Bad Science, by doctor, professor, and science journalist Ben Goldacre, details the strategies researchers, corporations, and journalists use to mislead the public, all while lining their own pockets. Goldacre gives you the tools you need to identify and call out shady science when you see it.

In our guide, we’ll shine a light on manipulative practices at every level, from individual poorly designed studies, to bogus claims from drug companies, and finally mass misinformation from media outlets. We’ll also include commentary that provides more strategies you can use to understand the scientific process and avoid being misled, as well as highlighting even more misleading practices in medical science.