Accessories

Understanding Homocysteine
Tho this book is over 10 years old, it appears to be the only publication of its kind! Well written by the discoverer of the importance of Homcysteine and its application to heart disease.
I'm looking for more recent understanding of this complicated subject.

A landmark health marker long ignored.
This book is a revelation. Dr. McCully should have received a Nobel prize for this outstanding contribution to preventing one of the scourges of humanity.

good intro to homocysteine
Good book. I knew nothing about homocysteine when I started it, except that it was a marker for inflammation in the body, but I finished with a clear idea of its role in arteriosclerosis and general health. It's written from a historical point of view, both the more distant history of the first developments in understanding, and the last 30-35 years, when the author played a significant part. At first I did not like this indirect approach, wanting just the science, but it did turn out to be an interesting read and not a bad way to communicate the information. For a lay-reader, I found it stayed within the bounds of comprehensibility, but you do end up with maybe a dozen or so different biochemicals flitting in and out of the text, often with names that are slight variants on each other. But overall it's clear.

I'm surprised at the reviewer who thought there was no advice for personal health - that's the whole topic of chapter 5. I felt I got a clear picture about how to apply the information for personal health. Proponents of the paleolithic diet will find one of McCully's final conclusions about diet (to eat little meat and fish) indefensible. But that's a quibble in the book as a whole, and don't let it put you off the book if you want a good layman's introduction to homocysteine and how it relates to health.

Incomplete
For a 270 page book that focuses on only one subject, "The Homocysteine Revolution" should have included much more iformation on what a person should DO in order to have favorable Homocysteine levels -- especially when it comes to diet and other lifestyle habits.

I bought this book for my father, and he and I were very dissapointed that the book for the most part negelcted this important matter, other than advising people to take B-12, B-6, and Folic Acid supplememnts.

status quo is a death sentence
Excellent exposition of a revolution in medical science that will eventually save millions of lives. Besides, even if he is only half-rght, how tough can it be to take a few vitamins, eat your vegetables, cut down on donuts and doritos, and take a walk (preferably uphill) once in a while? Moreover, it is also an excellent and clear example of the entrenched members of a group suppressing an idea that would take away their income derived from maintaining current orthodoxy. This has always been true and always will be true. Why? After all, if you had attended college and graduate school and trained for 5 or more years beyond that, and accumulated $200k+ in debt to become qualified to perform open heart surgery (or pick whatever profession or skill you like), and to be elevated into a position of seeming god-like powers, and to be worshipped by the multitudes, and to hear the exalted "Doctor" pronounced before your name (egos please stand up!) and then someone came along with a new theory that said your patient could take 10 cents worth of vitamins every day and avoid your surgical specialty, don't you think you'd be a little resistant too? It is easy to say, well they have no integrity. But look at your own life, how many times do you resist a better idea or a change because it will mean a loss of income or prestige or might be a blow to your pride or ego? Keeping your expensive house and your porsche and your kids in private school and your wife out of divorce court is an extremely powerful incentive to maintain the status quo which is a 7-figure income for a heart surgeon. Sad but true and the most basic of human nature, preserving your own life and lifestyle. However, in this case, belief in the cholesterol theory of heart disease and that surgery is the only solution has lead to millions of deaths and untold billions in costs, money that could have been invested in many, many other worthwhile projects. So, a word to the wise: keep your eyes and minds open and look for this anti-growth phenomena behind every bit of resistance to a new idea, especially if it will impact somebodies income or fame or power or status, the pride and ego hooks that most of us hang our self-respect and self-worth on. Remember, the same powerful motivator that would keep silent a group of highly-educated, very intelligent, hard working and dedicated individuals, is the same motivator that will push a 14-year-old to murder to join a gang, simple human pride and eqo with the desire to be liked and accepted by his peers. Only a few courageous individuals in history, and Kilmer McCully can be counted among them, have been willing to throw away their careers and sometimes their lives for the sake of the highest human values - honesty and integrity and fierce dedication to truth. McCully should win the nobel prize for his work. We should also, every day, give thanks to him and that handful who have brought us this far in human history with their courageous, daring work and vision.