Make Me Well: A Quest to Understand the Confusing World of Wellness

A rollicking first-person exposé of the wellness industry—from an acclaimed BBC broadcaster and Oxford-trained physician who's here to sort the reality from the sales pitch. There has never been a more bewildering time to try to be healthy. In the past decade, the healthcare sector has witnessed a remarkable surge in innovation: drug design, genomics and diagnostic technology have all changed almost beyond recognition.

Simultaneously, there has been a significant expansion in consumer health services, including the supplement industry, blood testing, consumer genomics and wearable technology, which claim to improve "wellness" (emphasizing physical and mental performance and longevity) rather than curing or preventing specific disease states. For a typical consumer this is both confusing, as the health and wellness industries are almost indistinguishable, and expensive, as these services emphasize personalized products, often sold on a subscription basis. In Make Me Well, Dr.

Xand van Tulleken sets out to wrangle the new Wild West of the wellness industry. In an investigation that combines history, science, and first-person reporting, Dr. Xand takes us on a global journey to understand the evolution of a new kind of “snake oil.” From Utah, the U.

S. hub of supplement production, to China, the ground zero of collagen industrialization, to Spain at the world’s largest gathering of Nutraceutical manufacturers, Dr. Xand brings his distinctive and personable voice along with a genuine sense of inquiry to examine how the “wellness” industry positioned itself to rival conventional medicine—and what it all means for our health. Both gripping reportage and a practical guide for twenty-first century living, Make Me Well empowers readers to separate evidence from illusion and offers simple, humane rules for true wellness.