Natural Causes

Barbara Ehrenreich, who has bravely taken on minimum wage in her classic book, Nickel and Dimed, now takes on all the buzz-worries of my Baby Boomer generation in her book, Natural Causes. I was fascinated with her take on screenings and annual exams: unnecessary, all. This is not just her opinion, mind you; this is what science is telling us. Fascinating. And why haven't I read this before now?

Probably just me, but I loved this sentence: “Once I realized I was old enough to die, I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance, or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life.” Amen, sister.

I was intrigued by (but not entirely clear about, to be frank) the role of macrophages and inflammation and the body's own immune system in some of the biggest problems to our health. I would love to read more about these.

I was not as taken with chapters on mindfulness and cells. These felt like they were tossed into this book to beef it up, size-wise.

And, as much as I agree with her with her social system rants, they were rants, and I felt like these took away from her scientific approach to the book.

Overall, then, I liked it, but I didn't love it. I'd say to read the chapters you like and skip over the parts you don't.