Word: weil
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...first glance, Dr. Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health plan looks easy. Dr. Weil, reasonable fellow, says eat salmon, olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, ginger, broccoli. I like all that stuff. But Weil, dietary despot, also suggests eating tofu, which is organic styrofoam; drinking Japanese green tea, which tastes like water in which tadpoles have died; and popping 6,000 mg a day of vitamin C, which sours my giblets. I'll give these a miss. And, ouch, here it comes: "Moderate or eliminate intake of animal foods, booze, coffee and news...
Animal foods? Sure, I'll cut out those trashburgers. Booze? What, and risk a clear view of reality? O.K., O.K., I'll cut down, or maybe just switch to a better brand of gin. But coffee? Can't do it. I interviewed Weil a few years ago and found him bright, overflowing with ideas and not at all dogmatic. So when he suggested I might deal with my low-level migraine attacks by taking an herb called feverfew and by giving up coffee, I was willing to try. The feverfew worked--it dilates blood vessels--but the coffee thing didn...
...what's this about no news? In the second week, which is where I am, Weil says to try "a one-day news fast." What, no reading, watching or listening to the misery that makes the world go round? It gets worse each week, building to a seven-day fast in Week Eight. He couldn't mean sports news too, could he? Not when it's basketball-playoff time. Can I watch the games and just skip the halftime blather...
...joke ("Gimme a 20-year, fixed-rate mortgage, and one for my friend here"). But no; guy actually says, "Give me some money, or I'll kill this goose." So a lady gets money out of an atm and gives it to him. He gives her the goose. Would Weil, a decent, compassionate man, want me not to have read this mysterious parable? Not to have wondered what happened next? What did the lady do with the goose? Was she headed for work, and did she have the kind of boss who said, sure, sure, stick him in marketing...
...many doctors acknowledge, there is a solid core of good sense in Weil's preaching. He's trying to integrate the best of Western medicine with respected older medical traditions, such as those of China and India. Perhaps his wisest counsel is that we take greater responsibility for our own well-being. That's good advice, no matter who's dispensing...