BOOK REVIEW

By Katherine A. Carroll, NTP

Nutritional Medicine by Alan R. Gaby, M.D. (ISBN-10: 0982885008 | ISBN-13: 978-0982885000; 2011; Hardcover, 1358 pages; $303)

If you put your health under the care of only one brilliant, intuitive, and talented healer, buying his book to use as your guide will be a decision you’ll never regret. Dr. Alan Gaby brings over 30 years of intense, dedicated research, practical knowledge and experience to his monumental life’s work represented in Nutritional Medicine. As a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, this is a time-saving gold-mine but if I wasn’t in the health field, it would still be a necessity to understand nutritional therapy and to have his protocols at hand creating self-sufficiency where health is concerned.

Graduating from Yale University where he received his B.A., then his M.S. in biochemistry from Emory University, and his M.D. in 1980 from the University of Maryland Dr. Gaby has spent one-third of his time seeing patients and using the protocols and therapies he presents here and two-thirds collecting and analyzing tens of thousands of published studies. That’s scholarly dedication! His mentor, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, in his forward says, “Dr. Gaby spent more time in the medical library than anyone I’ve known before or since.” Dr. Gaby’s path of service is clear having served as past-president of the American Holistic Medical Association, contributing medical editor for the Townsend Letter for Doctors, a professor of nutrition at Bastyr University in Seattle, WA, and an author for numerous publications and speaker. This textbook (he calls it this but it’s really a powerfully effective way of life) reflects a successful, long, rich career, and his commitment to natural healing.

I’ve had the privilege of sitting under his instruction twice as he led, along with Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, the “Nutritional Therapy in Medical Practice” conferences which are so intense and packed with studies and healing solutions that it feels your brain will explode. That’s where Dr. Gaby’s massive book will come in handy with its 15,000 references and discussing over 400 health conditions and their treatment and prevention, detailing individual supplements, dietary modifications, and teaching his “clinical pearls” that we paid dearly to learn during his conferences.

Sometimes it’s as simple as following Dr. Gaby’s advice to employ an elimination diet which can make a huge difference in recovering from serious medical problems. He set the book up to include his foundational philosophies in an overview format: hypoglycemia, food allergy, hypothyroidism, candidiasis, and orthomolecular medicine. If you just read and implemented these chapters, your health would improve substantially. He then moves into the fundamentals of diet; so many don’t know how to eat so this is invaluable. He covers additives, sugars, and the cooking and storage of food before heading into supplement details: vitamins, minerals, and herbs then covering medical diagnosis and how to treat nutritionally. He even includes his famous “Myer’s Cocktail” which is a remarkably healing IV therapy and goes into radiation therapy as it’s become a fact of life for so many. Remember, he is a medical doctor who has specialized in nutritional therapies but he is inclusive of both paradigms.

Do you have any idea how much it would cost to be mentored from a true professional like Dr. Gaby at these depths? The empowerment of handling your and your family’s health problems for life is worth whatever it takes to attain this knowledge. Both extensive and quite expensive, Nutritional Medicine is a fraction of the cost of attending the conference in person so it’s actually a great bargain even at $303 saving you far more than this amount in medical bills or experimenting with therapies that aren’t proven and gives the confidence of knowing it reflects years of clinical successes with thousands of patients.

What impressed me so much about Dr. Gaby during the conferences he hosted was his amazing ability to cite hundreds of studies from memory; some so old we might deem them outdated but truth is truth and you’ll find it’s discovered only to be lost and often re-discovered again. For example, riboflavin was studied in 1946 and 1956 for use in migraine. Still riboflavin remains a largely unknown treatment for migraine even though it was studied again in 1997 with a double-blind trial and 2 uncontrolled trials published in 2004 and 1994 but here it is, in the book alongside other successful, inexpensive, and safe protocols.

            Dr. Gaby is literally one of the World’s foremost authorities on nutritional therapy. He never recommends a course of action without the support of at least one study. Dr. Wright says of Dr. Gaby’s work that it is “a landmark, a milestone in the history of 21st century medicine.”

While it was written for the health care professional, it is pragmatic and concise; anyone can understand it and put it to use the first day as a reference book. The only fault is that it’s extremely big and heavy which makes it less portable. But with glowing recommendations like these, it doesn’t matter that it weighs 9 pounds: “This is the single most valuable reference book on natural remedies I’ve ever come across.” – Julian Whitaker, M.D.

If you want a true tool to achieve and maintain superior health with a wealth of wisdom and the understanding to put it to use, this is your in-house Nutritional Therapy MD.