Despite having read all of his prior books, I was pleased to find that Perricone covers a lot of new ground in 7 Secrets, while recapping his core principles (avoid inflammatory foods, for one) in a fresh, streamlined manner salted heavily with new information.
I found the info on pheromones and caralluma (for weight control) very interesting, and liked the Anti-Aging Kitchen chapter...good info on oils and cookware, etc.
If you want to get started on a personal makeover, this is a good place to start...you'll understand the way diet influences everything, and the information on nutrition supplements is very sound...I've been in the technical end of the supplement industry for more than 20 years, know the research on most nutraceuticals, and can smell hype a mile away.
Perricone has inspired many me-toos, but he still's the best at presenting the core info on diet, aging factors, skin health, and weight control in a clear way.
Dr. Perricone, you are welcome in my house anytime! Thanks to you, I have an "anti-aging kitchen" exactly as you advised in the book. This big change caused quite a stir in my house. You inspired me to go through the cabinets, pantry and refrigerator and throw out everything that was not good for me. It wasn't easy but all those cans, boxes and jars of food with horrendous ingredients are gone, gone, gone, and most of what I now eat is fresh, fresh, fresh! I am an active, high-achieving boomer who doesn't look my age and I would love to stay active, healthy and productive (I am never retiring!) into my 90s and beyond. (Well, why not!)
I have read and loved all your books, but this last one, "7 Secrets of Beauty, Health and Longevity," is the one that really took hold. I am following every suggestion of yours to the letter---foods, supplements and physical exercise included. Already, and it hasn't been all that long, I look and feel much better. I also feel more, well, peaceful. Joyful might be too strong, life being the roller coaster that it is. But, thank you for the warm, sage advice. By the way, my mitochondria are happier too -those "energizer bunnies" inside our cells. I love the way the book makes even the most complex medical, scientific and nutraceutical concepts accessible to a lay person like me.
My assessment is that this is the right book for anyone who reaches a certain age (anywhere over 40) and wants to hold onto his or her energy, health, spirit, and youthful looks. Those under 40 need to read the book too, I think, so they won't be a mess by time they reach my age, which too many people are these days. Wish I had had this book 20 years ago, but I am seriously grateful I have it now, to inspire me to take better care of myself for the rest of my life. PS I am loving my oat pilaf and all those other delicious foods in the book that I never even knew existed! Bravo Dr. P!
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Perricone's "secrets" amount to good nutrition, moderate exercise, and widely available and widely used anti-oxidant supplements. I see Perricone lecturing on PBS and people taking notes furiously as if it were some sort or revolutionary science he is promoting. It is not. It is a milidly intriguing Linus Pauling-esque theory that inflammation is the driving factor behind cellular aging and consequently that nutritional supplements can suppress the inflammation and stop the aging process. I don't fault him for promoting his theory, I just wonder why more people who should know better don't hear little warning bells going off when they read his very strong claims that could potentially be supported with real research but are not. They are not presented as theories in most of this work, they are presented as marketing claims for selling supplements.
The popularity of this material is not hard to explain. Perricone is not originally a vitamin peddler who was trying to build scientific credibility, he is a doctor who already had some credibility, presumably, then became a vitamin peddler. We are all impressed by a doctor who seems to be getting past drugs and surgery to look at health and wellness in a scientific way. Especially when he does a good job promoting a rosy vision of a future where aging is understood and life is prolonged. I give him credit for this just as so many others seem to do. But I am also not finding as much substance when I look more deeply at the details. I already knew a lot of the cellular chemistry about metabolism, so his discussions did not particulary hold me in awe as they seem to his PBS audiences. I was able to look more specifically at what what supposed to be his unique ideas.
Personally, when I examined his specific claims, I found this material to have very little technical depth, and that his use of biochemistry and cellular chemistry jargon throughout and constantly referring obscurely to this research or that study just clouds the fact that his most critical substantive claims are not directly supported anywhere.
There is no evidence that people live better orlonger lives when taking his expensive supplements, much less the more widely used versions of the same supplements, and yet there are a lot of veiled claims about him "doing research" and "reading research" and so on that supports his claims. None of it is actually presented in any of his work that I can find. He seems to have published two papers on topical glycolic acid which have nothing to do with nutrition or aging. The rest is all anecdote and speculation dressed in a slick lab coat manner.
There is a lot of advanced high school level cellular biology and biochemistry slanted slightly to make his inflammation theory of aging seem more plausible. That aspect of his writing is better than average for the self-help genre. I commend Dr. Perricone for not talking down to his audience as do most self-help authors.
On balance, there is a lot of good common sense advice here about nutrition that I can find little fault with. Most of his general recommendations about anti-oxidant supplements are not unreasonable from my perspective. There is a fair amount of reasonably good popular science writing about health. That much makes this a better self-help book than most.
But I also have to withold some favor for this book because it fails to ever connect the science writing with the claims it makes about aging and inflammation or empirical research regarding the specific claims being made in the book. The claims are made plausible not by supporting them with data but by trying to awe the audience with detailed technical explanations and the vague veneer of science through terms like "personal research" and "various studies" and so on that admit to no specifics that can be verified. Even if Perricone's ideas about inflammation being the cause of aging are true, nearly all of his suggestions are things that many people have already been doing for decades, and are still being refined through health, sports, and fitness research.
I admit that I like this guy's more subtle arguments and mostly reasonable way of presenting his "revolution" a lot more than Dr. Atkins' excesses and technical obfuscations. But then I have to put them in a similar category of people who have interesting things to say but then get a bit carried away to an annoying degree with their over-marketing of their own ideas seemingly mostly to prove the doubters wrong. In the final analysis, afterall, in spite of the impression he sometimes seems to give, Perricone isn't actually doing published research regarding inflammation and aging (at least hasn't so far), he is selling books and supplements and giving PBS fundraising lectures.
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I really enjoy the books of Dr. Perricone. I think that he knows what he's talking about. This book continues the philosophy of his other publications: chronic inflammation (or the love of pro-inflammatory foods) is the root of all physiological evil. This book focuses on cellular rejuvenation, in particular, the need to protect the mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell and site for ATP production, as we all learned years ago in high school biology) from extensive and lethal DNA damage.
Dr. Denham Harman's free-radical theory of aging is now universally accepted to the point that food marketers have picked up on the hype of "antioxidants" (molecules that lend an electron to an excited free oxygen radical, thus stabilizing it and preventing oxidative damage to cells). In all the years my family has purchased boxes of Lipton black tea, we had never been informed until recently that we are in fact drinking in 105mg of Protective Antioxidants per serving. Dr. Perricone worked with Dr. Harman's free-radical theory and related it to his hypothesis that inflammation is the underlying cause of disease and aging.
I think that Dr. Perricone and Dr. Harman are far-sighted scientists/physicians, and now the rest of the medical world is backpedaling and accepting the free-radical and inflammation-underlying-disease theories. Dr. Perricone says that Dr. Harman's work went unnoticed and unappreciated for decades. Fortunately, Dr. Perricone had the foresight to evaluate and later champion this free-radical theory before it became common knowledge.
Another theme that Dr. Perricone comes back to time and time again is the need to control blood sugar levels, even if you are not diabetic. A diet high in refined, simple sugars will upset insulin levels and cause glycation (AKA cross-linking, sugar molecules attach to protein molecules, especially collagen, which in turn causes the previously flexible collagen to become rigid). Dr. Perricone recommends supplementing with cinnamon and niacin-bound chromium to regulate blood sugar levels. He gives us a scientific overview as to why these two supplements, one a spice we all love and the other a trace mineral, help our bodies maintain proper insulin function and normal blood sugar levels.
I try to follow his dietary and supplemental guidelines as much as my budget will allow. I am hardly in an economic position to spend several hundred dollars on supplements every month and eat completely organic. Thankfully, organic food is becoming more available to the point that Meijers (a major supermarket/retailer in the Midwest) has its own organic food line that is reasonably priced. (I hope this in no way means that organic standards are being watered down.) Dr. Perricone's own line of supplements is way out of my budget, but other vitamin companies offer similar products at a third or so of the price. His skin products are for the wealthy and A-list celebrities only. Fortunately, Reviva Labs offers its skin care version of the Perricone Trio (alpha lipoic acid, Vitamin C Ester, and DMAE) and peptides. Jason Organic has some great products too--I love Jason's Vitamin E oil blend as a moisurizer for both my skin and hair (used sparingly). I've been using EMU oil after reading rave Internet reviews of the stuff (Thunder Ridge). It's great for dry skin, joints, and sore muscles. My point being--you can take the essence of Dr. Perricone's advice and guidelines, but shop around for comparable products if you can't afford a huge investment in the Perricone Store.
Dr. Perricone differentiates cookware in the 7 Secrets, recommending porcelain-enameled cast iron and stainless steel while eschewing nonstick synthetic coating, Teflon, and aluminum cookware. I don't remember a discussion of cookware in his previous books. He devotes the remaining pages of his 7 Secrets to delicious-sounding recipes; a comprehensive list of foods that comprise the "Anti-Aging Kitchen;" food, supplements, and skin care resources; and references.
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I originally bought this book for the reference to the T-Tapp exercise program, but have found that the insight provided into diet, exercise, stress management, cooking and environmental factors have made this book a true joy to read and one that I will recommend and share with everyone I know.
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