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"...Impressive! Any chance your 130-question quiz can be made mandatory as part of graduation exams for all M.D, D.O, and N.D. candadates?
Also thanks to your wife Brenda for helping you to start on your journey towards real medicine!"

--Jonathan V. Wright, M.D.

"A deceptively smart and thoughtful series of chapters about the complex endocrine research that illuminates how the diseases of aging occur as a result of life-style choices and how to reverse the slide into illness."

-- David S. Jones, M.D. (President, IFM)

"Dr. Ferril received his medical degree from the University of California at Davis and is married to a chiropractor. Ferril completed his postgraduate education at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, WA., and resides and practices in western Montana.

This book (406 pages, softbound) is divided into 5 main sections, Thinking Outside the Box, Nutrition Imbalance-caused Disease, Skinny on Fat, Medical Myths That Promote Suffering, and Methods for Dumbing Down Doctors. The book contains 16 chapters, as well as an introduction and extensive bibliography section.

This book is not what I expected from the title. I envisioned something light and entertaining. Wrong. My advice is this; put on your thinking cap ladies and gentlemen, this isn't what you'd expect based on the title. Very little time is spent doctor bashing, rather the focus is on answering the question of "what all doctors should know". The author introduces the main topics of the book by asking the reader to answer a series of 130 short questions. I grudgingly admit that initially I scored terribly. And while this is a somewhat technical body of work, at the same time it remained highly readable and understandable. My advice is to bring a yellow highlighter and plan on staying a while; this could be a life-changing and life-saving kind of experience.

The author begins by introducing the main components necessary for proper glucose metabolism and the role of insulin. He continues by expanding on the interplay of the adrenal glands, cortisol, glucagon, growth hormone, and epinephrine. He explains the lifestyle and dietary factors that lead to the eventual breakdown of cellular function and the necessary, but unhealthy compensations the body is forced to use to adapt to this breakdown. He emphasizes the necessity of proper nutrition and the importance of both vitamins and minerals to restore normal cellular and glandular function. He describes the role and actions of various hormones and neurotransmitters within the brain and bloodstream and their effect on day-to-day energy levels and their role in premature aging.

In section 5, Dumbing Doctors Down, he lists and discusses twenty-nine methods used by the government, pharmaceutical companies, food and agribusiness conglomerates, hospitals, insurance companies, the AMA, and mainstream medical schools to manipulate and control the information available to the general public in order to protect their vested interests. This makes for some very interesting and thought provoking reading.

My one and only complaint about this book is that there are several places where it seems to be repetitive. Many chapters contain duplicate information and some paragraphs seem to simple restate the information contained in the previous paragraph. Whether this is an editing issue or perhaps intentional for the purpose of learning I cannot say. It is a minor point in any case.

If you have even a minor interest in this subject, this book is worthy of your time and money. I give it an overall rating of 9.5 out of 10."

-- Jim Edwards D.C., DABCO, LAc   (reviewer, DC Journal)

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