Customer Reviews

The Secrets to Great Health: From Your Nine Liver Dwarves

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Matsen's second book was equally astonishing as his first book, Eating Alive, if not more so. In it, he delves far deeper then his first book into the intricacies of how the body works and what we can do to heal nearly anything that's not a major pathology. He goes about this by introducing us to 9 fictional characters who he calls the 9 liver dwarves, that represent different elements of ourselves. Each one guides us through a different part of ourselves; Burpy specializes us on digestion, Bloaty specializes on the portal vein, Gaspy guides us on our hearts, spacey guides us on our brains, Achy guides us on our immune systems, Itchy guides us on our kidneys, Bitchy guides us on our liver enzymes, Sluggy guides us on our mitochondria and Docque shows finishes up on what we can do to help ourselves out.

In terms of major pathologies, it's unclear how much even the best naturopath can deal with this, but he has given some hints that you can atleast partially ameliorate the problem. He recommends that anyone with a serious pathology see a registered naturopath instead of merely self administering remedies for themselves, however. His book is great, but I seriously recommend reading his first book before reading his second; I think that his first book provides a lot of basic concepts that his second book seems more to build on then anything else. Well, here's to hoping his methods will become the modus operandi of all good health practioners of the future.

If anyone would like to contact me concerning this book or Matsen's last one, my email address is shade2x@writeme.com

I would recommend reading Eating Alive first. I learned a great deal from John Matsen's first book and know that it made Secrets to Great Health much more valuable and readable to me. John gets a little silly but assigning personalities to the different organs and processes within us made it so easy to understand and remember why our bodies do as they do (or don't). I've radically changed how I eat, drastically reduced coffee (now it's a treat)and eliminated a lot of foods I used to think were so innocent. I've experienced better health, more energy and finally am able to put all the bits and pieces about nutrition and physiology I've learned over a lifetime into perspective. I've reread this book a few times (no small feat - it's huge)and found friends are appreciating it as much as I do. Well worth the investment of purchase and time. I highly recommend this author - by the way Mysterious Causes of Illness is the same book as Eating Alive just a different publisher. Mysterious Causes of Illness is a little less expensive!

I think Eating Alive is a great book, deserves rereading and makes a great gift (*****). His second Book, the Magnum Opus "Secrets" cannot be read. Only naturopaths should buy this book (for the wonderful bibliography).

The book is full of meaningless banter between childlike Liver Elves. This book is a farce (* for bibliography only). The introduction of Docque brings about a two page explanation of the fact that he isn't a medical doctor but a ship cook.

On the other hand, my girlfriend read Secrets and enjoyed herself. But I made no sense the book, despite a sincere desire to pull something out of it.

Don't bother with this book if you want to learn how to improve your health because it will irritate you so much in trying to read through it that you'll blow a gasket.
Tedious and silly. I can picture this writer giggling the entire time he wrote this complete silliness, thinking it was cute and clever. What, am I four years old?
If I wanted a bedtime story I'd read Anderson or Grimm's.