Healthy Women, Healthy Lives: A Guide to Preventing Disease, from the Landmark Nurses' Health Study - Hardcover

We knew it all along, but now here's proof--women are different! Healthy Women, Healthy Lives is the first book to be based on the now-famous 30-year study of thousands of nurses. Researchers from Harvard Medical School have assembled a straightforward medical guide focusing on the major preventable diseases that women are susceptible to, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis. The advice here is not particularly earthshattering. Eating grains and vegetables will make us healthier, as will exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking. It's the level of practical detail in each chapter on disease that stands out; after reading this, you'll have a full understanding of how to balance your behaviors and unpreventable risks to achieve optimum health. Best of all, every detail is woman-specific, from healthy weights to average age of first heart attack.

After providing ways for reading statistical charts and background on the study, the book is divided into two parts. The first 10 chapters are devoted to individual diseases, your possible risks, and ways to reduce those risks. Each chapter ends with a no-nonsense article written by a doctor, based on the study, that summarizes the advice that doctor gives to his or her own patients. The last chapters offer advice on changing behaviors. Here, you'll find suggestions on improving activity levels and diet modification, as well as the risks and benefits of aspirin, alcohol, and vitamins.

If you're tired of the daily news reports with their conflicting evidence and suggestions, treat yourself to a book that delivers practical information, useful statistics, and advice that actually makes sense. --Jill Lightner

Susan E. Hankinson, R.N., Sc.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and at Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital.