The Eight-Week Program sets up a foundation for healthy living that is preventative in the broadest sense. Not only does Dr. Weil provide information with which you can keep your body's inherent healing system in peak working order as you encounter the challenges of day-to-day life; he also shows you how to construct a lifestyle that will protect you from premature illness and disability, and teaches practices and skills that will enable you to prepare for any eventual health crisis you may face. With clearly explained and authoritatively informed recommendations, Dr. Weil guides you in fine-tuning your current eating habits - to eat less fat and animal protein, more whole grains and other complex carbohydrates, and more fruits and vegetables - so that your diet becomes more nutritious and increasingly beneficial to general health (he also includes simple, flavorful recipes to help you make the dietary changes quickly and easily). He shows how walking and stretching will satisfy all your exercise requirements throughout your life, and provides a gradual plan by which you can make brisk forty-five-minute walks and some simple stretches part of your weekly regimen. Dr. Weil recommends the addition of four antioxidant supplements - vitamins C and E, selenium, and mixed carotenes - to further protect your healing system. He provides instruction in five basic breathing exercises that can impart both greater relaxation and energy. He discusses the benefits and techniques of visualization. He explains ways to overcome sleeping problems; to test and filter your water supply; to eliminate toxins from your diet; and to avoid environmental hazards such as the sun's ultraviolet rays. He suggestsways to make art, music, and the natural world more important parts of your life. For those who wish to experiment further, he outlines several projects and activities such as cleansing fasts. There are a dozen additional programs that concentrate on the specific needs of pregnant

A landmark book that shows us exactly how we have let health and medicine become a crisis in our society and what we can all do to resolve it Healthcare is no longer just a public issue; for millions of Americans it is now a crisis on their own doorstep. Costs of medical care today are a leading cause personal bankruptcy. Although policy makers have weighed in on all sides, in this book, bestselling author Andrew Weil, M.D. identifies the root of the problem. He shows us exactly how we have become embroiled in the present situation and provides a solution that will not only make healthcare affordable, but will also put each one of us on the road to optimum health. Dr. Weil states that we have a right to good healthcare that is effective, accessible, and affordable. Many Americans would be surprised to know that our national health is far from the best in the world, even though we spend more money on it than any other country. The World Health Organization recently rated America thirty-seventh in health outcomes, on par with Serbia. Tackling head-on The Three Major Myths of American Medicine, Dr. Weil shows how medical schools fail to give future doctors the education they need to care for patients, how insurance companies have destroyed our opportunity to get excellent care, and how pharmaceutical companies have come to rule our lives. The solution involves nothing less than the creation of a completely new culture of health and medicine in this country, one that we can each start building today.

People facing a new diagnosis of cancer are unsettled by their prognosis and treatment options, and they often seek to integrate complementary modalities into their conventional care plan, hoping to improve their chances of cure and decrease side effects. Many do so without informing their oncologist, for fear of alienating them or not convinced that their physician would be informed about complementary therapies. Integrative Oncology, the first volume in the Weil Integrative Medicine Library, provides a wealth of information for both practitioners and consumers on the emerging field of integrative oncology. Noted oncologist Donald Abrams and integrative medicine pioneer Andrew Weil and their international panel of experts present up-to-date and extensively referenced chapters on a wide spectrum of issues and challenges, bound in one comprehensive, reader-friendly text in a format featuring key points, sidebars, tables, and a two-color design for ease of use. It is destined to emerge as the definitive resource in this emerging field.