Healthy Women, Healthy Lives: A Guide to Preventing Disease, from the Landmark Nurses' Health Study

In 1976, a team of physicians and researchers at Harvard Medical School heard from 120,000 registered nurses across the United States in response to a questionnaire. Twenty-five years later, the Nurses' Health Study is still going strong. Healthy Women, Healthy Lives provides women with information from this study — as well as data from other significant women's health research — so that they can achieve and maintain good health throughout their lives. Designed to help you easily find the information you are looking for, Healthy Women, Healthy Lives is divided into four distinct sections:

Part I: Getting Started, presents background information on the history and current state of women's health and discusses the issues women should consider when making their own personal health choices. It also describes the Nurses' Health Study and its contributions, and introduces important health research concepts, including how to understand "risk."

Part II: Lowering Risk of Diseases, covers coronary heart disease, breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, diabetes, colon cancer, osteoporosis, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer, and skin cancer, as well as other diseases such as arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. You'll learn about the factors that increase your chances of developing these illnesses and what you can do to lower those risks. Primary care practitioners from Harvard Medical School share recommendations and tips for a healthier lifestyle.

Part III: Changing Behaviors, answers your questions about how to drop unhealthy habits and ways to introduce healthy ones. You'll learn how to quit smoking, how much and what kind of exercise you need, how to control your weight and get all the nutrients you need, as well as whether certain medical strategies might be right for you (for example, postmenopausal hormones, birth control pills, and aspirin).

Part IV: Appendices and Glossary, which include a discussion of the different types of research studies mentioned throughout the book, tips for becoming a more well-informed consumer of health news, and a compilation of selected resources for further information on each disease and risk factor covered in the book.

No matter how many other health books you own, Healthy Women, Healthy Lives is a unique addition to your library. With clear graphics that illustrate complex information at a glance, easy-to-follow strategies for adopting a healthy lifestyle, tips and suggestions from Harvard physicians based on their clinical practice, and personal stories from the nurses who have contributed to the study, it is a valuable book for any woman.