Health Wars

A high-sodium diet is deadly; studies have linked it to high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attacks. It's been estimated that excess sodium in the American diet causes as many as 100,000 deaths per year. And yet salt is everywhere in our diets - in packaged food, fast food, and restaurant meals. Why hasn't salt received the sort of attention and regulatory action that sugar and fat have? In Salt Wars, Michael Jacobson explains how the American food industry has fought government efforts to reduce dangerous levels of sodium in our food.

Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous.

Making War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army's Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war's reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military communities where violence is as routine, boring, and normal as it is shocking and traumatic.

With 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the worst disease outbreak in modern history, the story of the Spanish flu is more relevant today than ever. This dramatic narrative, told through the stories and voices of the people caught in the deadly maelstrom, explores how this vast, global epidemic was intertwined with the horrors of World War I - and how it could happen again. Complete with modern research and firsthand reports by medical professionals and survivors, this audiobook provides captivating insight into a catastrophe that transformed America in the early 20th century.

Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone of civilization and a basis of American exceptionalism. Empire of Purity traces the history of these efforts, showing how the policing and penalization of sexuality was used to justify American interventions around the world.

I believe in miracles because my sobriety is one. For years, I was an addict, a slave to pornography. Every time I tried to quit, it just got worse. I was tired of trying to slay a dragon that was impossible to kill. So I gave up fighting. I lost hope. After years of losing the war, I finally saw that all the things I believed about pornography addiction were not true. Porn addiction is strong and derives its power by trapping its victims in thirteen lies.

Tony had mastered the art of hiding the frightened child, behind the mask of a fearless criminal. Years later, exhausted from holding up that same weary disguise, he headed for Peru in pursuit of freedom and truth in sheer desperation.

Formed at Camp Breckenridge, the 95th Evac arrived in Casablanca in April 1943, with 7,000 troops, 30 doctors, and 40 nurses. Hospital at War is the story of the 95th Evac Hospital as told by Zachary Friedenberg, a young surgeon at the time, fresh out of his internship. He tells the story of how the men and women of the 95th survived the war. He describes how they solved problems and learned to treat the war-wounded in the extreme heat of North Africa and during the frigid winters of the Rhineland.

Thirty years after serving in World War II, middle-aged Rob’s holiday plans see an unforeseen change that leads him on a coach tour of Italy. Struggling with post-war PTSD and depression, he reluctantly agrees to the journey - and sparks a dream that plunges him into long-stifled memories. Set in Europe, Sue Parritt’s Feed Thy Enemy is an account of courage and compassion in the face of trauma.

Permitted Fruit breaks down the pitfalls of dieting and diet culture, and offers a surprisingly simple path to heal your emotional and physical relationship with food. But if it’s not another diet, what is it? Just eat. Eat whatever you want. Celebrate your cravings and tune in to your hunger. There is no Forbidden Fruit, which is a scary idea at first, but you’ll learn to trust your body. Oh, and don’t forget to relax, take a deep breath, and love yourself in the process.

For more than fifty years, we have been waging, but not winning, the war on cancer. The astonishing news is that up to two-thirds of all cancer cases are linked to preventable environmental causes. If we can stop cancer before it begins, why don't we? That was the question that motivated Kristina Marusic's revelatory inquiry into cancer prevention. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease.

Barbara Child put her heart and soul into a letter to her partner, Alan Morris, while he was at the cottage they shared in Florida, and she was away at school in California. He was a Vietnam War veteran, and she was taking a seminary course on war - in particular, the Vietnam War. She turned in her letter as a term paper for the course, calling it “An Open Letter to a Vietnam Veteran.” That letter led to one thing, then another. She began writing more and more about Alan. From those writings came this audiobook.

Narrow escapes and bold decisions define the life of teenager Morris Schnitzer. Fleeing from Nazi Germany before the onset of World War II, Morris ends up in the Netherlands only to watch the country be invaded by the Nazis. With his father’s warning to never set foot in a concentration camp echoing in his mind, Morris resolves to fight—and survive.

Whether you have bipolar, know someone who does, or you're a mental health professional, this book will help you see that there is light, even when things feel hopeless, and give you the tools you need to win the war with bipolar.

On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life, seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich.

Science isn't exactly Maeve's favorite subject, but she’s still excited to be going to the Sally Ride Science Festival at MIT with her hunky tutor, Matt. Sure, the BSG and her annoyingly brilliant younger brother are going as well, but it’s still almost kind of a date, isn’t it? The festival gives the BSG a super idea - an environmental science fair at Abigail Adams Junior High. But plans for a bubble gum factory nearby put Avery and Katani on opposite sides of an environmental issue - and Avery finds herself in a bubble gum war with the Queens of Mean!

This favorite book for children, based on the author's own youthful experiences, describes the family life of the Marches in a small New England community. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother, Marmee, while their father serves as a chaplain during the Civil War. The story explores their domestic adventures, their attempts to increase the family's income, their friendship with the neighboring Laurence family, and their later love affairs and destinies as women.

My grandad was a hero. He was a fighter pilot in World War II. I loved hearing his stories about the war, and I even started to write them all down. He was really brave. But then I found out a secret I wish had stayed hidden forever. Things are never going to be the same. One question is hammering in my brain: can you do something awful and still be a hero?

Train your mind, and keep your brain young and healthy! Would you like to discover the secret to reshaping your brain to keep it young? Would you like to implement practical exercises and techniques to make your mind "young", and improve your performance? Would you like to increase and develop your mental skills? Build a Better Brain at Any Age was created to help you!

Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.