Guess What Came to Dinner?: Parasites and Your Health (Paperback)

~ Ph.D., CNS, Ann Louise Gittleman (Author) "Do you feel tired most of the time?..." (more)
Key Phrases: purged stool, dog heartworm, visceral larva migrans, United States, New York, South America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A nutrition director for the American Academy of Nutrition and the author of the bestseller Beyond Pritikin , Gittleman has exhaustively studied the parasite world, particularly its relation to human health and nutrition. Although she tackles the subject of parasitic illnesses and their diagnosis, treatment and prevention with knowledge and a credible background, her book offers in ten chapters what could have been done in a single long but concise one. In a hit-and-run style, the author touches on a specific subject, be it day care centers, household pets, or travel, only to drop it and repeat the information in another section of the book. This repetition, combined with constant footnotes, disrupts and clutters a reading of the book. Readers without some background in clinical parasitology may also have a hard time staying with Gittleman through the technical section that serves as a reference guide to the individual parasites. The chapter on prevention provides the most accessible information. There, the author gives clear and usable instructions on avoiding parasite-induced illnesses via good personal hygiene, proper infant and child care, sensible sexual practices, sanitary animal care, careful travel practices and safe water usage and food handling. The book wraps up with an easy-to-understand glossary, although it lacks necessary pronunciation symbols, and a thorough, but meant-for-health-professionals, appendix on drug treatment of parasitic infections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

With more than 60,000 copies sold, a newly revised and updated edition of an authoritative book on parasitic infections-their detection, treatment, and cure.

Once relegated to poor third-world countries, instances of parasitic infections are on a dramatic rise in the United States. In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of Guess What Came to Dinner?, health expert Ann Louise Gittleman informs readers about the role of parasites in many ailments, from allergies to chronic fatigue syndrome and bowel disorders. The book offers practical advice to parasite-proof your food and water and explains breakthrough methods of detection, anti-parasitic treatments, and herbal cures. Notes. Index.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Avery Trade; 2 edition (July 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583330968
• ISBN-13: 978-1583330968
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #226,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guess What Came to Dinner Saved My Life, July 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Guess What Came to Dinner: Parasites and Your Health (Paperback)

All I can say is God Bless Ann Louise Gittleman. If it were not for this book that I brought with me into my physician's office, I would have never discovered that I had a chronic case of giardia. My doctor was dismissing my symptoms for the longest time and finally when I found Ann Louise's books, I realized that a parasitic infection can be misdiagnosed as flu, IBS, or even gall bladder disease. Now that I have taken the prescribed medication and am using Ann Louise's suggested natural herbs from Uni Key as a follow up, I am a new person. This book should be Mandatory reading for every high school student, college student and health minded individual in America.

93 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Denial ain't just a river in Egypt!, March 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Guess What Came to Dinner: Parasites and Your Health (Paperback)

This topic, affecting so many millions without their knowledge, and without treatment, certainly has to be one of the few unexplored areas in the public media. Most public media will not "touch" this news. The effects on health are myriad. Gittleman has acknowledged the problem with parasites, both large and gross, and small and microbial. Everytime one comes in from outdoors, digging in the soil, cleaning up after pets, pulling weeds, etc., one must wash doubly, and clean under and around fingernails. The thought of pets kept indoors, being let outside, then going back in and climbing on the furniture, the beds, walking on the countertops, eating from human family dishes, etc., makes my skin "crawl". We are living in a parasitic nightmare, similar to the most abject, filthy slums, here in our arrogant, smug, current style. The image of classy, high-toned people being kissed and licked by their pets, immediately after the pet just licked and kissed its street friends is amusing, isn't it? What do we see in nearly every prime-time TV ad? A pet, licking a child, or "kissing" an adult. Everytime one pets pets of any kind, or grooms them, or cleans up after them, it is safest to assume parasites are there, ready to infect the human. Organic food of every kind may be full of nematodes and other parasites, especially if it has been fertilized with barnyard manure of any age, composted or not. Wash your food, or soak it in mild detergent in water, or even put it in water with a single drop of chlorine, then rinse very thoroughly. Did you know that many herbal treatments for cancer are the same ones used to treat parasitic infection? And you all want to cut down those precious and useful black walnut trees? Gittleman and others, unpopular messengers in a public wholly ignorant about this problem, are doing us a tremendous service with their research and their well-founded advice and simple, effective treatments. The least we can do is read their books, take the cures, and find out their truths by feeling better, and enjoying good health. Parasitic infection could be the background cause of many, many human ills. THANK YOU, Ann Louis and Anne L.Gittleman!

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What you don't know could make you sick - or worse, January 11, 2005

By	Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Ann Louise Gittleman is doing all she can to raise awareness of the danger of parasites in our lives; it is, she argues, a silent epidemic. We've all heard of outbreaks of E. coli and the like, but such disturbing stories quickly fade away from the public consciousness. Most people don't want to think about all the really nasty things that might be oozing their way throughout their bodies. Gittleman clearly makes the case, however, that parasites are a growing danger, and the fact that many medical professionals aren't especially knowledgeable about the subject only exacerbates the problem. Few medical students take a single course on parasitology, she says, because such courses are usually found under tropical diseases - and we in the United States still tend to think that parasites only affect the lives of those in impoverished and/or tropical nations. Gittleman's objective in writing this book (now available in this revised version) is to educate everyone, layman and medical professional alike, on the extent of the parasite threat. By doing so, she is able to offer advice and guidance on protecting yourself from the myriad of invisible threats parasites pose.

First, Gittleman lays out a strong case for the greatly increased prevalence of parasites in today's America, pointing to a number of factors such as the great increase in international travel, the contamination of water supplies, the increased use of antibiotics, the ever-growing use of day-care centers (which one expert dubbed the open sewers of the 20th century), and the dramatic number of household pets interacting with men, women, and especially children. She then describes some of the symptoms of the different kinds of parasitic conditions. In many cases, she says, these symptoms closely mirror the symptoms of other diseases and usually go undiscovered - thus, you have patients continuing to suffer with afflictions while being treated for conditions they may not even have. Gittleman's guide to parasites provides summary details (albeit somewhat technical ones) about all of the varying types of parasites - fluke worms, tapeworms, assorted amoebae, and a number of dastardly little critters I had never heard of. She provides information designed to help you determine whether you might have a parasite yourself (relying significantly on lifestyle history), discusses the most modern testing methods out there, and discusses treatment options. If you exhibit symptoms that do not go away and have your physician somewhat baffled, she encourages you to consider the possibility of a parasite and discuss it with your doctor. I was amazed to learn that parasites can basically settle in all over your body, not just in your gastrointestinal tract.

The most important part of the book, though, has to do with prevention and protection. With parasites so prevalent in our daily lives, it is important to build up our resistance to them. Gittleman goes into detail about the problems inherent in water and food preparation (especially undercooking), the risks posed by even the most beloved of pets (the next time your four-legged best friend gives you some sugar, you could possibly end up swallowing egg-carrying fleas), and the health risks surrounding young children. As you might suspect, activities such as eating dirt and moving your hands back and forth between your backside and your mouth are not conducive to good, pesticide-free health (it's amazing that so many of us actually survive long enough to grow up given the general nastiness that defines babyhood and early childhood).

The book does get slightly technical from time to time, and Gittleman does engage in the art of redundancy occasionally, but this is certainly a valuable and effective book. It makes you think about a danger you have probably never contemplated before, explodes the myth that parasites only cause problems in Third World countries, and helps you take steps to better protect you and your loved ones from the pain and suffering parasites are more than capable on inflicting upon you.