Straight Talk From an Expert on Prostate Cancer

Dr. Patrick Walsh is world renowned as the developer of the nerve-sparing surgery that gave men facing prostate removal the first real hope of retaining their sexual potency and urinary control.

In this second book from Walsh and Worthington (their first collaboration was “The Prostate: A Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them”), they focus on all aspects of prostate cancer, which kills 31,500 American men each year.

Walsh makes a case for regular screenings by noting that prostate cancer is most curable when it’s still small and localized, and before symptoms are apparent. Once it has spread, it’s incurable but treatable. Although the majority of men will develop it if they live long enough into very old age, the good news is in most cases, they’ll die with it, not from it.

This extremely detailed and straightforward volume takes readers from basic anatomy and function of the walnut-sized gland through options if they’re diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Most important, the authors recognize the physical and psychological ramifications that accompany a possible cancer diagnosis, giving readers the option of avoiding information overload. Each chapter opens with an easy-to-digest “Read This First” summary, followed by elaboration. In addition to clear diagrams, the book offers excellent advice, in easy-to-read boxes, on such subjects as “Before and After the Biopsy: What to Do, and What to Expect.”

If a man receives a prostate cancer diagnosis, this book provides comprehensive analyses of treatment options, from watchful waiting to the latest in surgery, radiation and hormonal treatments, as well as straight talk about important considerations, complications and consequences.

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50 WAYS TO A HEALTHY HEART

By Dr. Christiaan Barnard

Thorsons, an imprint of HarperCollins Publisher Publishers

$24.95, 285 pages, publication date Sept. 17, 2001.

Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the world’s first heart-transplant surgeon, not to mention an international jet-setter and bon vivant, died of a fatal asthma attack eight days ago at 78. His daring and success are undisputed: His first transplant recipient, in 1967, lived 18 days with someone else’s heart; his longest-lived transplant patient made it 23 years. Barnard’s new book contains valuable advice about enjoying life while paying more attention to health and exercise (or “sport” as he calls it). Put down the cellular phone, eat reasonably, avoid cigarettes, think positively and learn to express emotions, he suggests.

But the book also has a certain louche quality. Perhaps it’s Barnard’s endorsement of regularly drinking red wine for reasons that include: “It relaxes you, helps you sleep and oils the wheels of socializing.” Or how he begins his section on relationship advice by mentioning his impending divorce and recommending that “it’s better not to tell your partner absolutely everything--this strengthens the relationship and your health.” Or maybe it’s the name-dropping digressions: Sophia Loren taking a jewelry theft in stride, Barnard’s lovely dinner with Princess Diana and his thought that she could have survived her fatal car accident had she received more prompt medical attention.

But perhaps I’m missing the point: Maybe Barnard’s heart stayed healthy because he kept his own counsel.