This is an interesting book but I found it hard to truly believe all that the author wrote. He comes from one "side" of things in terms of his health beliefs and he is scornful of traditional medical professionals. Fair enough -- I am too. That said, he didn't provide enough good evidence for me to just blindly follow all of his assertions. I would have appreciated more scientific backup and references. It's an interesting read and I do agree with quite a lot of what he says, though. I just need really solid convincing to completely buy in, and didn't quite get that.

I have dreaded reviewing this book. I say this up front so that any die-hard fans of Stephen Hussey can swiftly scroll along.

As much as I dreaded it, reviewing Understanding the Heart is also the only reason I finished reading it. I did not enjoy the writing style - the author’s arrogance is steeped in it - and the misrepresentation of science and evidence was frustrating (my nicest description). However, I felt compelled to get through it and identify whether there was anything truthful or insightful in the pages.

Barely one percent into Understanding the Heart, Hussey states, “I make my living as a chiropractor, so though I’m not an MD…” I immediately knew that this would be an us-vs-them book, and I was not wrong. The friction between allopathic medicine and chiropractic is well-known, and I will not delve into that here. I will say that my gripe is not with the author’s profession, but with specific errors evident in his text.

These errors are too many to name individually. I found myself thinking, many times, “Wait, that’s not how it works!” Then I’d go to my textbooks to confirm that my memory was correct. Afterwards, just to be certain I hadn’t missed something, I would do a literature search, which more often than not, confirmed my suspicion: Hussey’s hypotheses are not evidence-based - or at least, not GOOD-evidence based.

A simple example is where, early in the text, Hussey recounts his concerns about his newly prescribed medication after suffering a myocardial infarction. He questions a number of medications that have years of good research behind them, and then challenges his team about magnesium. Magnesium, mind you, is a wonderful element, with many new uses still being discovered (we are even using it for pain intra-operatively!). The author, however, claims that magnesium would be a good alternative for “blood thinners”. Actually, the evidence for that is lab-based, and in practice, the clinical benefit for this effect is minuscule - certainly not sufficient to be practice-changing.

It really is a pity that the author went this route, because participating in one's health decisions is a GOOD thing, which should be encouraged. Hussey could much rather help people to ask questions about their health in a collaborative approach, rather than an argumentative one.

He also builds the bulk of his arguments using the concept of a fourth phase of water - a widely disputed phenomenon, which, even if true, is yet so poorly studied that nobody would (or should) dare base medical advice on it.

This trend continues. Hussey fails to exercise good analysis of research. Many of his sources have small study populations, or are lab experiments on rats, or are poorly controlled for variables. But they are “cherry-picked” to prove a point (even where the points aren't always clear). He goes on to share anecdotes of his personal health, like walking around with an infected tooth for over a year (how lucky he is that it did not become an intracranial abscess, which is something that is well described in untreated cases such as these).

Near the end of the text, Hussey goes so far as to affirm that decisions cannot be made based on small amounts of research, nor anecdotes - the very things he has done in much of his book.

Many of Hussey’s “points” begin with some personal event: that time he went on vacation to one country or another, and something not vaguely medical happened, but he attaches medical value to it because of a moral lesson. One cannot extrapolate science from a small life event and attempt to use it to sway an entire discipline.

Hussey copiously uses the terms “when I think about it”, “I believe”, and other proclamations where he attempts to use half-formed reason to dispute evidence-based theories. One of my favourites is, “When I think about it, I don’t really feel like I am mostly water.” This statement alone clearly illustrates his lack of understanding of basic biology. As though the body can innately feel science, it’s makeup. As if humans did not die early deaths for centuries because of a lack of empiric science and actual investigations.

I actually hate long reviews, and I will not go on to mention every error, and every unprofessional remark. Understanding the Heart is a great example of a book that can sow dissent, while contributing very little to healthcare - but is written with just enough vigour to be a health risk.

It is also a study in how to do biased research, and I cannot recommend this book.