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Paul A. Offit

Do You Believe in Magic?: Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain Paperback – May 13, 2014

by Paul A. Offit M.D. (Author)

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In Do You Believe in Magic?, medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly.

Dr. Offit reveals how alternative medicine—an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks—can actually be harmful to our health.

Using dramatic real-life stories, Offit separates the sense from the nonsense, showing why any therapy—alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. He also shows how some nontraditional methods can do a great deal of good, in some cases exceeding therapies offered by conventional practitioners.

An outspoken advocate for science-based health advocacy who is not afraid to take on media celebrities who promote alternative practices, Dr. Offit advises, “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harper Paperbacks
Publication date

May 13, 2014
Dimensions

5.31 x 0.76 x 8 inches
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Convincing.” -- Forbes

“Do You Believe in Magic? is a briskly written, entertaining, and well-researched examination of those whom Offit considers ‘unclothed emperors’: purveyors of miracle cancer cures, fountains of youth, and the theory that vaccines cause autism.” -- Boston Globe

“Few scientists are willing to touch this third rail of science publicity; Offit grabs it with two hands.” -- Newsweek, on Autism's False Prophets

“Over the last decade [Offit] has become a leading debunker of mass misconceptions surrounding infections and vaccines, and now he is taking on the entire field of alternative medicine, from acupuncture to vitamins.” -- New York Times

“An invaluable chronicle that relates some of the many ways in which the vulnerabilities of anxious parents have been exploited.” -- Wall Street Journal, on Autism's False Prophets

“A fascinating history of hucksters, and a critical chronology of how supplements escaped regulation. . . . A bravely unsentimental and dutifully researched guide for consumers to distinguish between quacks and a cure.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lively. . . . Informative and well-written, the book deserves a wide audience among the general public, scientists, and health care professionals.” -- Science

“Offit is a rare combination of scientist, doctor, communicator and advocate. . . . What is needed is more people like [him] willing to engage the skeptics in a debate that just will not go away.” -- Financial Times, on Deadly Choices

“Offit is a wonderful storyteller who makes his message come alive. Each chapter is a story that grabs the reader’s interest and holds it.” -- Skeptical Inquirer

“This excellent, easy-to-read look at the alternative-medicine industry is highly recommended.” -- Library Journal (starred review)

From the Back Cover

A half century ago, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese herbs, Christian exorcisms, dietary supplements, chiropractic manipulations, and ayurvedic remedies were considered on the fringe of medicine. Now these practices—known variably as alternative, complementary, holistic, or integrative medicine—have become mainstream, used by half of all Americans today to treat a variety of conditions, from excess weight to cancer.

But alternative medicine is an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks, and many popular alternative therapies are ineffective, expensive, or even deadly. In Do You Believe in Magic? Dr. Offit debunks the treatments that don't work and tells us why, and takes on the media celebrities who promote alternative medicine. Using dramatic real-life stories, he separates the sense from the nonsense, explaining why any therapy—alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. As Dr. Offit explains, some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, but "there's no such thing as alternative medicine. There's only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't."

Start reading Do You Believe in Magic? on your Kindle in under a minute.

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Product details

ASIN : 0062222988
Publisher : Harper Paperbacks; 1st edition (May 13, 2014)
Language : English
Paperback : 336 pages
Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.76 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #427,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #711 in Public Health Administration
- #1,921 in Healing

Customer Reviews:
533 ratings

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5 star		72%
4 star		17%
3 star		4%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Melissa M.

I would rather put natural ingredients in my body anyday then chemicals!

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

Of course you can't just take an herbal supplement like Ginko Baloba and then ear KFC and McDonald's 5x a a week and expect to get better. Your food is your medicine. Second comes supplements...smh commom sense M.D.s don't like alternative medicine .

22 people found this helpful

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H. Britt

Snake oil past and present

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2018

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This is a well documented book. The bibliography is as long as the text of the book. It goes through the history of snake oil past and present, attempting to explain why and how human beings are tricked into giving away their money and their health. He rightly explains that complimentary and alternative medicine is nothing more than unproven and wishful medicine. As soon as scientific studies are done it becomes part of mainstream medicine if it works, or should be discarded as garbage if it does not work.

21 people found this helpful

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todd french

Great expose of supplement industry and examination of pseudo science

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2018

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Score another for science over superstition and pseudo science. This is a clearly written, well-researched book that gives us some straight talk on certain spurious health claims. It focuses mostly on the science behind supplements (which is not much science at all). People rail against the big pharmaceutical companies while unaware of how claims about supplements are often dead wrong, and in many cases criminally misleading. Your tap water is more highly regulated than the vitamins you buy. This book reveals a vast corporate empire-not around pharmaceuticals, which are, ironically, highly regulated and subjected to rigorous scientific testing, and describes the political machinations of the nutritional industry to keep us from learning that-in the case of most supplements-the emperor has NO clothes.
The truth is pretty clear but the supplement industry does not want you to know it. Read this book to find out how and why

17 people found this helpful

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JeneratorRN

I love it when people speak common sense as a first language.

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2017

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Dr. Offit spoke volumes and these few pages. I’ve long been frustrated by the alternative medicine movements for the very reasons he described in this book. A close relative of mine was obscenely bilked by naturopaths as she desperately fought terminal cancer, so I have trouble being objective with the alternative medicine community. This was an excellent read showing the research why some things work, why some don’t, and how to avoid being taken by a

17 people found this helpful

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C. sanford

Get the real scoop on supplements

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2017

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Great read if you've been confused about all the hype concerning taking multiple supplements. This comes from a doctor, who isn't selling snake oil and has no ax to grind but just wants to let the public know how much money is being flushed down the toilet in our quest to live forever in virtual youthfulness. Get educated and start saving your money. If some of these "natural" supplements really worked, don't you think Big Pharma would have jumped on it by now????

11 people found this helpful

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LJC

Wealth of Information!

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2020

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I am on page 32 and oh my...what a wonderful book...I'm underlining, asterisking, and commenting in the margins as there is so much I want to remember. Offit has a way with words but mostly he offers valuable information and insight in an easy to understand manner. This is a very intelligent doctor, and having viewed some of his videos on virology, I can attest to his brilliance I the field, but although he has allowed his brilliance to shine, he has made his work understandable to us lay folks. I have purchased several other books by Dr. Offit and I can't wait!!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Nelson Amaya

There is no such thing as alternative medicine

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2017

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Alternative medicine happens at the hinge of distrust and wishful thinking. There are good reasons to distrust parts of the scientific establishment; the corporate manipulation of research in tobacco, climate change and sugar, or the misrepresentation of clinical trials by the perennially enigmatic pharmaceutical industry, have made this even easier. Add to this how the aloof, impatient attitude of physicians contrasts with the charming and candid alternative healers, offering all forms of natural remedies that feel right, and you have a troubling brew.

Homeopaths, ayurvedic healers, TV doctors and even Nobel Prize winners often go the way of promoting alternative medicine. The problem is, as Offit remarks, "There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t" (p. 6).

The misplaced trust in alternative medicine is not difficult to understand, and it blossoms in an age of scientific malpractice and mass media. What is surprising is that the harms it causes, besides wasting resources, are as serious as they are unknown: acupuncture treatments that cause sepsis, expensive and unnecessary vitamin supplements that increase the risk of cancer, the delay of proper treatment until is too late, a narrow understanding of the placebo effect, and the decline of vaccination rates from fear-mongering are all tragedies with alternative medicine written all over. The measles outbreak in Minnesota in 2017, after anti-vaxxers targeted distrustful Somali-American families, or the drop in the uptake of the HPV vaccine in Japan from 70% to 0% are only two manifestations of this phenomenon.

Offit does a fantastic job explaining and describing alternative medicine -and the people who push it. He describes eloquently how a regulatory gap in the US, born from an unruly coincidence of interests between a Republican and a Democrat, pumped air into the lungs of so many charlatans. In telling the story of Linus Pauling, he shows how a brilliant mind can go awry and set the world on a crazy equilibrium intake of vitamin C, summarizing that the vitamin craze has a stark conclusion: "Of the 51,000 new supplements on the market, four might be of benefit for otherwise healthy people: omega-3 fatty acids to prevent heart disease, calcium and vitamin D in postmenopausal women to prevent bone thinning, and folic acid during pregnancy to prevent birth defects" (p. 103).

Also, Offit has no hope for departments of alternative medicine, which he sees as dangerous: "Encouragement of scientific illiteracy— or, beyond that, scientific denialism— can have a corrosive effect on patients’ perceptions of disease, leaving them susceptible to the worst kinds of quackery." (p. 252)

Dishonest, dangerous peddlers of alternative medicine will only scurry away with the arrival of informed consumers. Unfortunately, healthcare is the epitome asymmetric market, so this will never happen; there will always be room to fool some people all of the time. Offit's answer is an unrelenting demand for science: "[…] we need to focus on the quality of scientific studies. And where scientific studies don’t exist, we should insist that they be performed. If not, we’ll continue to be deceived by therapies whose claims are fanciful" (p. 256).

Informative book.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kate

Brilliant book

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is one of the best books I've ever read. Brilliantly written, well-researched, and heartbreaking. If I had the time, I would take a stack of these books and stand in front of the vitamin section at my local pharmacy, demanding people read this before they buy snake oil.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

daisycow

excellent take-down of the CAM myth

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

excellent review of alternative and complementary medicine. Humorous, honest and balanced account.
Demolishes so many of the myths and fantasies about CAM.
The author is knowledgeable and highly qualified.

One person found this helpful

Olga

Entertainging and informative reading!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 19, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very enjoyable reading with useful insights about how alternative medicine industry operates, as well as other health- and medicine-related things

One person found this helpful

J Reviewer

An Important Part of Your Decision Making Process

Reviewed in Canada on October 24, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is the first book I picked off of my big stack of books in my fall reading goal, it's a great start to my fall reading campaign.

Title: Do You Belive in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine.

Author: Dr. Paul A. Offit

I had a few surprises with this book. Firstly, I was not expecting this book to be as compelling a read as it turned out to be. I must admit I looked forward to my bedtime reading as I might a good novel. Admittedly, I am a nutrition geek and my reading preferences are a bit skewed from the normal reading public, but I was pleasantly surprised by its readability. I think this is largely due to the authors story-telling style. Hey, who doesn’t like a good story, even if it’s about the FDA versus rogue alternative medicine practitioners?

My second surprise with this book, was the rude awakening I received about the size and power of the alternative medicine industry. I knew it was big and I knew that over-the counter alternative and complementary medicines are unregulated (in Canada and the U.S.), but there was still some shock-value in the actual details for me.

Turns out it’s a $34 billion dollars industry in the U.S. I don’t think that necessary makes is bad, but neither does it make the pharmaceutical industry bad, which is how alternative practitioners tend to paint mainstream medicine – as being under the thumb of ‘big pharma’.

I have already mentioned this book to audiences. I tell them, it’s written by Dr. Paul Offit... “as in, if you are on a supplement, you should be off it”. That is definitely the message of this book.

My favourite quote from the book is from Dr. Joe Schwartz who asks, “Do you know what they call alternative medicines that work?”

Answer: “Medicine”

Dr. Offit is definitely a skeptic and relies on evidence-based science to determine if a product works or it doesn’t. He doesn’t shy away from naming offenders, even big media names like Dr. Oz, Dr. Weil, Dr. Mercola and Suzanne Somers.

You Should Read This Book If…

You are feeling pressured from well-meaning friends and family to take a particular complimentary or alternative therapy. Read this book and you will not be at a loss for words.

You yourself are curious and considering a complimentary therapy. This book would definitely provide everything you need for the “con” side of your decision making process.

You Must Read This Book if...

You are considering an alternative therapy in place of conventional cancer treatment recommended in hospital

My Opinion

While I am trained in evidence-based decision-making (I'm an RD with a B.A.Sc. in human nutrition), I do also believe in some unproven things, like prayer, affirmations, miracles and gut-feelings. I believe I have experienced benefits from complimentary therapies including meditation, massage, and acupuncture. Of course, I also believe in the benefits of good nutrition.

Having said that, I never once considered taking an alternative therapy instead of the chemotherapy and radiation offered to be at the cancer centre. Without it, I don’t believe I would have lived more than a few days from the time I arrived at the cancer centre.

I would recommend conventional cancer treatment.

I do think that though that there is room for complimentary therapies. Keep in mind – complimentary means you do this as a compliment to your conventional treatment. Alternative therapy – as the name implies, you would do instead of conventional. Because of this, alternatives are a much higher risk. Steve Jobbs, the founder of Apple computers is an excellent example of the level of risk involved in choosing an alternative therpy over a conventionsl one. I have never felt confident enough in any alternative therapy to recommend one.

As I say in my book ( The Essential Cancer Treatment Nutrition Guide and Cookbook: Includes 150 Healthy and Delicious Recipes ), there is no right way to go through cancer treatment. It’s everyone’s individual journey. It’s a difficult decision to determine, what if any complimentary therapies you will use and the decision can have many social pressures associated with it. I do believe though that this book can help you navigate your way through some of those decisions.

3 people found this helpful

Donald L. Combe

A Must Read

Reviewed in Canada on January 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

Everyone needs to read this and take a reality check about the way he deals with his own health. In spite of frustration and wishes for "quick fixes" we need to understand that scientifically proven methods are superior to "pie in the sky dreams."

Encio

Read this today......now!!!!

Reviewed in Canada on May 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very good reading for the even the most skeptical of us all

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