Self-Defense – by Dr. Daniel Davis

The author, a professor of immunology, sets out to bust some immune health myths in a time when those myths are spreading even faster (and sometimes with more mutations along the way) than the latest flu or COVID variants.

Writing from a position of stable academia rather than the latest flashy platform, he covers many topics including the roles of vitamins (especially: what vitamins C and D can and can’t do for you), the gut microbiome, weight and adiposity, exercise (especially: the right kinds, and where the “sweet spot” is when it comes to amount, because yes, exercise is good in general, but too much of certain kinds can harm immune health), stress management, sleep, and aging (i.e. how immune health changes as we age).

You’ll notice that vaccines are conspicuous by their absence in that list; while these are touched on from time to time, the focus here is on immune health overall, which vaccines only meaningfully affect in one way: giving our immune systems advance knowledge of pathogens to come. So the position of this book on that is “yes, obviously get your vaccines, but that doesn’t take much explaining, and doesn’t merit an entire chapter just to say it”.

Dr. Davis does also indulge, at the end of the book, in something that a lot of other research scientists do too, which is: discussion of what’s in the pipeline in terms of research and development (in this case, in the field of immunology).

The style is polished pop-science in long-form prose; written for a lay audience, and/but with the steady tone of academia; no hype and little to nothing in the way of personal touches. So, we get very little jargon (which makes for easy reading), but it’s also a little dry (which makes it very put-downable, in the sense of being the opposite of a “couldn’t put it down” book). There is a respectable bibliography, plus