We hear a lot from doctors who work with dementia patients; sometimes we hear from carers too. In this case, the author spent 20 years working for the NHS, before being diagnosed with young-onset dementia, at the age of 58. Like many health industry workers who got a life-changing diagnosis, she quickly found it wasn’t fun being on the other side of things, and vowed to spend her time researching, and raising awareness about, dementia.

Many people assume that once a person has dementia, they’re basically “gone before they’re gone”, which can rapidly become a self-fulfilling prophecy as that person finds themself isolated and—though this word isn’t usually used—objectified. Talked over, viewed (and treated) more as a problem than a person. Cared for hopefully, but again, often more as a patient than a person. If doctors struggle to find the time for the human side of things with most patients most of the time, this is only accentuated when someone needs more time and patience than average.

Instead, Dr. Mitchell—an honorary doctorate, by the way, awarded for her research—writes about what it’s actually like to be a human with dementia. Everything from her senses, how she eats, the experience of eating in care homes, the process of boiling an egg… To relationships, how care changes them, to the challenges of living alone. And communication, confusion, criticism, the language used by professionals, or how things are misrepresented in popular media. She also talks about the shifting sense of self, and brings it all together with gritty optimism.

The style is deeply personal, yet lucid and clear. While dementia is most strongly associated with memory loss and communication problems, this hasn’t affected her ability to write well (7 years into her diagnosis, in case you were wondering).

Bottom line: if you’d like to read a first-person view of dementia, then this is an excellent opportunity to understand it from the view of, as the subtitle goes, someone who knows.

Click here to check out What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, and then know those things!

We don’t usually mention author credentials beyond their occupation/title. However, in this case it bears acknowledging at least the first line of the author bio:

❝Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, is the director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University and is one of the world’s leading experts on food allergy❞

We mention this, because there’s a lot of quack medicine out there [in general, but especially] when it comes to things such as food allergies. So let’s be clear up front that Dr. Nadeau is actually a world-class professional at the top of her field.

This book is, by the way, about true allergies—not intolerances or sensitivities. It does touch on those latter two, but it’s not the main meat of the book.

In particular, most of the research cited is around peanut allergies, though the usual other common allergens are all discussed too.

The authors’ writing style is that of a science educator (Dr. Nadeau’s co-author, Sloan Barnett, is lawyer and health journalist). We get a clear explanation of the science from real-world to clinic and back again, and are left with a strong understanding, not just a conclusion.

The titular “End of Food Allergy” is a bold implicit claim; does the book deliver? Yes, actually.

The book lays out guidelines for safely avoiding food allergies developing in infants, and yes, really, how to reverse them in adults. But…

Big caveat:

The solution for reversing severe food allergies (e.g. “someone nearby touched a peanut three hours ago and now I’m in anaphylactic shock”), drug-assisted oral immunotherapy, takes 6–24 months of weekly several-hour-long clinic visits, relies on having a nearby clinic offering the service, and absolutely 100% cannot be done at home (on pain of probable death).

Bottom line: it’s by no means a magic bullet, but yes, it does deliver.

Click here to check out The End of Food Allergy to learn more!