This was a reread… I first discovered this book in I think 2012 or so. It confirmed what I already believed about the importance of our beliefs on our health, though I didn’t agree with a lot of the author’s specific spiritual conclusions.

There was one standout concept that made me reread the book now, and that was the concept that the “brain” of the cell is not the nucleus, as was so long believed, but rather, the cell membrane. This seemed so counterintuitive–the nucleus houses the DNA necessary for cellular replication, though, so it’s more akin to the gonads, while the cell membrane had previously been conceptualized as the skin… but really, it’s the gatekeeper that determines what gets in and what gets eliminated. Without a cell membrane, the cell dies, but without the nucleus, it simply cannot reproduce. I’d hoped he would go into this in greater detail than he actually did though (I’d just read Jerry Tennant’s “Healing is Voltage,” in which he contends that the cell membrane is actually a battery pack, and I was hoping Lipton would somehow comment on or corroborate this. He did not.) This book really doesn’t get into a lot of nitty gritty details; it’s more of a general read.

One study really stood out to me, though, and I’ve referenced it in conversation since the first time I read it, but didn’t remember that this is where I heard about it. In the chapter on aging, Lipton refers to the “rewind” study, in which elderly men with various physical ailments were invited to a retreat in which all of the media, decor, and the environment was designed to mimic that of the decade of their youth. At the beginning of the week, many arrived on walkers, with canes, etc. By the end of the week, they were playing touch football. The point was that so much of what we believe about aging is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The complete immersion in an environment that made these men remember their younger selves brought about remarkable physiologic changes in a short period of time.

My rating: ****

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