Ecological Medicine

I have reviewed a number of Sarah Myhill's previous books, and this one with mathematician Craig Robinson is her magnum opus, subtitled 'the antidote to Big Pharma and fast foods.' As such, it should be in every medical practice. The book pulls no punches in looking at the degeneration of our health overseen by doctors corrupted by Big Pharma 'with kindness, gentleness and great humanity' in spite of being locked into a pharmaceutical straitjacket. Myhill has been a courageous advocate of natural approaches and learned to her cost that most doctors 'do not want to know about such safe, simple and effective medical interventions', but rather treated her as a troublemaker challenging their 'intellectually easy, drug based, simple algorithms for health management'. Only recently, a colleague sent me a petition where she was once again being hauled up before the General Medical Council, and in this book we learn that she has had to deal with 30 separate GMC investigations between 2000 and 2012, conducting her own legal defence, and being suspended in 2010 for lacking respect for the regulatory body! The GMC lawyers stated that 'the problem with the Myhill cases is that all the patients are improved and refuse to give witness statements' (!)

The book is designed to 'empower people to heal themselves through addressing the root causes of their diseases', progressing from symptoms to underlying mechanisms rather than just treating the symptoms allopathically and proceeding to sustainable treatments. Readers of her earlier books will be familiar with her emphasis on chronic inflammation and the usefulness of the paleo-ketogenic diet as well as her Groundhog Basic protocol. The book proceeds from symptoms and clinical pictures to mechanisms, then to the basics of natural health and bolt-on extras such as vitamin C, iodine and vitamin B12. It then applies these insights to the various branches of medicine and contains a detailed series of chapters with illustrative case histories. Interspersed in the text are many apposite quotations that add spice to the whole, such as Sherlock Holmes saying that 'the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes', or Sir William Osler – 'just listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis'; 'the good physician treats the disease, the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.' Towards the end, there are detailed worked examples of current case histories, which will be of extraordinary interest to practitioners. If you only buy one book from this whole field, this should be it.